Green Architecture: The Art of Architecture in the Age of Ecology

This book is intended as a general exploration of how to construct a human habitat in harmony with nature. It is about opening up ideas and issues for investigation and identifying new directions in green design.When is a house ecological? Does the use of natural materials and solar cells on the roof make a building an example of "green" architecture? Perhaps even Antoni Gaudi and Frank Lloyd Wright designed "greener" buildings than most contemporary architects, whose low-energy houses scarcely differ outwardly from traditional ones. James Wines puts up the various - and often irreconcilable - concepts of environmentally-friendly architecture for discussion, making a case for an architecture that not only focuses on technological solutions, but also tries to reconcile man and nature in its formal idiom. Among the examples of contemporary ecological architecture presented are works by Emilio Ambasz, Gustav Peichl, Arthur Quarmby, Jean Nouvel, Sim Van der Ryn, Jourda and Perraudin, Log ID, James Cutler, Stanley Saitowitz, François Roche, Nigel Coates and Michael Sorkin. James Wines explores human habitats that function in harmony with the environment. The author reviews 20th-century green architecture, presents a history of shelter from Neolithic times to the present & identifies new architectural directions From an ecological perspective, mainstream architecture for the past two decades has sent out all the wrong messages. James Wines ; Edited By Philip Jodidio. Includes Bibliographical References (p. 238-240).