Extensively illustrated with photographs and drawings, Living Architecture highlights the most exciting green roof and living wall projects in Australia and New Zealand within an international context. Cities around the world are becoming denser, with greater built form resulting in more hard surfaces and less green space, leaving little room for vegetation or habitat. One way of creating more natural environments within cities is to incorporate green roofs and walls in new buildings or to retrofit them in existing structures. This practice has long been established in Europe and elsewhere, and now Australia and New Zealand have begun to embrace it. The installation of green roofs and walls has many benefits, including the management of stormwater and improved water quality by retaining and filtering rainwater through the plants’ soil and root uptake zone; reducing the ‘urban heat island effect’ in cities; increasing real estate values around green roofs and reducing energy consumption within the interior space by shading, insulation and reducing noise level from outside; and providing biodiversity opportunities via a vertical link between the roof and the ground. This book will appeal to a wide range of readers, from students and practitioners of architecture, landscape architecture, urban planning and ecology, through to members of the community interested in how they can more effectively use the rooftops and walls of their homes or workplaces to increase green open space in the urban environment.

Rudolf Steiner has given us a "biography of architecture"-- architecture as a living being from its birth at the beginning of history until today, and with indications for the future. We see it with its own rhythms and patterns as with a human life. In Steiner's cosmology, architecture has reached (in terms of a human lifespan) the age and energy of the early thirties--so it is a biography in progress. Here is a concise, richly illustrated introduction to the architectural ideas of Rudolf Steiner. He was an early exponent of what has come to be called organic design in architecture, and this little volume clearly shows Steiner's influence on architects and designers around the world.

Elegantly written and filled with lush, full-color photos, this is the first in-depth portrait of H.H. Richardson, the greatest American architect of the 19th century and a man whose magnetic, colorful personality was equal to his genius. 150 photos, 100 in full color.

Soft Living Architecture explores the invention of new architectures based on living processes. It crafts a unique intersection between two fast-developing disciplines: biomimicry and biodesign in architecture, and bioinformatics and natural computing in the natural sciences. This is the first book to examine both the theory and methodology of architecture and design working directly with the natural world. It explores a range of approaches from the use of life-like systems in building design to the employment of actual growing and living cell and tissue cultures as architectural materials - creating architecture that can change, learn and grow with us. The use of 'living architecture' is cutting-edge and speculative, yet it is also inspiring a growing number of designers worldwide to adopt alternative perspectives on sustainability and environmental design. The book examines the ethical and theoretical issues arising alongside case-studies of experimental practice, to explore what we mean by 'natural' in the Anthropocene, and raise deep questions about the nature of design and the design of nature. This provocative and at times controversial book shows why it will become ever more necessary to embrace living processes in architecture if we are to thrive in a sustainable future.

It’s widely accepted that our environment is in crisis. Less widely recognized is that three quarters of environmental damage is due to cities – the places where most of us live. As this powerful new book elucidates, global sustainability is therefore directly dependent on urban design. In Living Architecture, Living Cities Christopher Day and Julie Gwilliam move beyond the current emphasis on technological change. They argue that eco-technology allows us to continue broadly as before and only defers the impending disaster. In reality, most negative environmental impacts are due to how we live and the things we buy. Such personal choices often result from dissatisfaction with our surroundings. As perceived environment has a direct effect on attitudes and motivations, improving this can achieve more sustainable lifestyles more effectively than drastic building change – with its notorious performance-gap limitations. As it’s in places that our inner feelings and material reality interact, perceived environment is place-based. Ultimately, however, as the root cause of unsustainability is attitude, real change requires moving from the current focus on buildings and technology to an emphasis on the non-material. Featuring over 400 high quality illustrations, this is essential reading for anyone who believes in the value and power of good design. Christopher Day’s philosophy will continue to inspire students with an interest in sustainable architecture, urban planning and related fields.

A bold and unprecedented look at a cutting-edge movement in architecture Toward a Living Architecture? is the first book-length critique of the emerging field of generative architecture and its nexus with computation, biology, and complexity. Starting from the assertion that we should take generative architects’ rhetoric of biology and sustainability seriously, Christina Cogdell examines their claims from the standpoints of the sciences they draw on—complex systems theory, evolutionary theory, genetics and epigenetics, and synthetic biology. She reveals significant disconnects while also pointing to approaches and projects with significant potential for further development. Arguing that architectural design today often only masquerades as sustainable, Cogdell demonstrates how the language of some cutting-edge practitioners and educators can mislead students and clients into thinking they are getting something biological when they are not. In a narrative that moves from the computational toward the biological and from current practice to visionary futures, Cogdell uses life-cycle analysis as a baseline for parsing the material, energetic, and pollution differences between different digital and biological design and construction approaches. Contrary to green-tech sustainability advocates, she questions whether quartzite-based silicon technologies and their reliance on rare earth metals as currently designed are sustainable for much longer, challenging common projections of a computationally designed and manufactured future. Moreover, in critiquing contemporary architecture and science from a historical vantage point, she reveals the similarities between eugenic design of the 1930s and the aims of some generative architects and engineering synthetic biologists today. Each chapter addresses a current architectural school or program while also exploring a distinct aspect of the corresponding scientific language, theory, or practice. No other book critiques generative architecture by evaluating its scientific rhetoric and disjunction from actual scientific theory and practice. Based on the author’s years of field research in architecture studios and biological labs, this rare, field-building book does no less than definitively, unsparingly explain the role of the natural sciences within contemporary architecture.

"Gives voice to more than fifty extraordinary people who are currently engaged with this transformation. These individuals form a diverse community that cuts across professional disciplines, cultural, linguistic and gergraphical boundaries. They share a belief that they can make a difference through their varied efforts to expand living architectural approaches that result in biophilic, restorative buildings and healthier and more resilient communities."

Live Architecture explores the physical form of popular music performance space from 1960 to the present day. This book quantifies the factors that determine what makes a venue successful focusing on both famous and less well-known examples from the smallest barroom music space to the largest stadium-filling rock set. It draws on the author’s extensive research expertise in the field of temporary and portable architecture, in the development of general contemporary architectural design, and personal experience of music performance. Including a range of case studies, the book analyses some of the most significant popular music venues, events and landmarks in the world. The detail of how a venue is created, how it is constructed, and the acoustic and visual environmental factors that impact on its success are examined here. Highly illustrated throughout with design drawings, plans and full colour photographs, this book provides a comprehensive overview of the architecture of live popular music.

Universal Principles of Architecture is a concise, visual introduction to 100 of the most fundamental elements of architecture.