This is Kenneth Frampton's follow-up to his A Critical History of Modern Architecture.

    Ecological design intelligence -- effective adaptation to and integration with nature's processes -- can be applied at all levels of scale, creating revolutionary forms of buildings, landscapes, cities, and technologies.The authors weave together case studies, personal anecdotes, images, and theory to provide a thorough treatment of the concept of ecological design. In the process, they present and explain a series of design principles that can help build a sustainable world with increased efficiency, fewer toxics, less pollution, and healthier natural systems.

    It presents practical, clinically-oriented content across a range of topics: quick find features, portability, functionality, and more of the commonly-used clinical information.

    In the next ten years, change will happen even faster. As Hillary Clinton's Senior Advisor for Innovation, Alec Ross travelled nearly a million miles to forty-one countries, the equivalent of two round-trips to the moon. From refugee camps in the Congo and Syrian war zones, to visiting the world's most powerful people in business and government, Ross's travels amounted to a four-year masterclass in the changing nature of innovation. In The Industries of the Future, Ross distils his observations on the forces that are changing the world. He highlights the best opportunities for progress and explains how countries thrive or sputter. Ross examines the specific fields that will most shape our economic future over the next ten years, including robotics, artificial intelligence, the commercialization of genomics, cybercrime and the impact of digital technology. Blending storytelling and economic analysis, he answers questions on how we will need to adapt. Ross gives readers a vivid and informed perspective on how sweeping global trends are affecting the ways we live, now and tomorrow.

    Architecture, Jeremy Till argues with conviction in this engaging, sometimes pugnacious book, cannot help itself; it is dependent for its very existence on things outside itself. Despite the claims of autonomy, purity, and control that architects like to make about their practice, architecture is buffeted by uncertainty and contingency. Circumstances invariably intervene to upset the architect's best-laid plans--at every stage in the process, from design through construction to occupancy. Architects, however, tend to deny this, fearing contingency and preferring to pursue perfection. With Architecture Depends, architect and critic Jeremy Till offers a proposal for rescuing architects from themselves: a way to bridge the gap between what architecture actually is and what architects want it to be. Mixing anecdote, design, social theory, and personal experience, Till's writing is always accessible, moving freely between high and low registers, much like his suggestions for architecture itself.

    At once pragmatic and philosophical, Simple Matters is a nod to the growing consensus that living simply and purposefully is more sustainable not only for the environment, but for our own happiness and well-being, too. Boyle embraces the notion that “living small” is beneficial and accessible to us all—whether we’re renting a tiny apartment or purchasing a three-story house.   Filled with personal essays, projects, and helpful advice on how to be inventive and resourceful in a tight space, Simple Matters shows that living simply is about making do with less and ending up with more: more free time, more time with loved ones, more savings, and more things of beauty.

    Picking up where the celebrated Alabama Stitch Book left off, Alabama Studio Style is a craft and lifestyle book all in one.   Here Chanin shares many more of her stitching, stenciling, and beading methods and applies them to twenty extraordinary clothing and home décor projects, each made with organic or recycled materials and designed with “haute homespun” flair. Along with the company’s celebrated camisole and tank dresses, the featured projects include skirts, scarves, pillows, woven chair seats, and a stenciled scrap-wood table. Rounding out the book are recipes for three delicious party menus. Alabama Studio Style shows us that true style encompasses not only what we wear, how we decorate, and what we eat, but also how we care for our environment. Praise for Alabama Studio Style “Transform organic or recycled materials into clothing or home décor items with haute homespun flair.” —Better Homes and Gardens Quilts and More magazine

    This book shows how everyone, from those at the forefront of design to the consumers, can contribute to the well-being of the planet through an awareness of design and technology.

    In prose of outstanding immediacy, Jane Jacobs writes about what makes streets safe or unsafe; about what constitutes a neighborhood, and what function it serves within the larger organism of the city; about why some neighborhoods remain impoverished while others regenerate themselves. She writes about the salutary role of funeral parlors and tenement windows, the dangers of too much development money and too little diversity. Compassionate, bracingly indignant, and always keenly detailed, Jane Jacobs's monumental work provides an essential framework for assessing the vitality of all cities.

    It is for everyone wishing to live sustainable and tread more lightly on the Earth. Permaculture is an ecologically sound approach to providing for our needs, including our food, shelter and financial and social structures. It is based on co-operating with nature and caring for the Earth and its people. Permaculture in a Nutshell is a concise and accessible introduction to the principles and practice of permaculture in temperate climates. It covers how permaculture works in the city, the country and on the farm and explores ways in which people can work together to recreate real communities. This inspiring book clearly describes how we can live fruitfully and sustainably and is essential reading for anyone wishing to reduce their environmental impact.

    For the DIY enthusiast, here are photos, elevation drawings, and door/window schedules for six Tumbleweed box bungalows, plus an extensive how-to set of instructions that can be applied to any backyard building project. What they are not is home-center garden sheds. Though conventionally built, these handsome little buildings have real doors, windows, and skylights with interesting and practical details throughout. Paint them and finish them to suit your tastes and needs.The term "Box Bungalow" is a trademark of Tumbleweek Tiny House Corp. It refers to their idea of packaging these backyard buildings on a flat skid, for weekend DIY assembly. They'll also sell a prefab building for delivery to your prepared site. They'll also sell complete sets of plans for any of the houses shown in this book.

     We are living in a time of deep divisions. Americans are sorting themselves along racial, religious, and cultural lines, leading to a level of polarization that the country hasn't seen since the Civil War. Pundits and politicians are calling for us to come together, to find common purpose. But how, exactly, can this be done?In Palaces for the People, Eric Klinenberg suggests a way forward. He believes that the future of democratic societies rests not simply on shared values but on shared spaces: the libraries, childcare centers, bookstores, churches, synagogues, and parks where crucial, sometimes life-saving connections, are formed. These are places where people gather and linger, making friends across group lines and strengthening the entire community. Klinenberg calls this the "social infrastructure" When it is strong, neighborhoods flourish; when it is neglected, as it has been in recent years, families and individuals must fend for themselves.Klinenberg takes us around the globe--from a floating school in Bangladesh to an arts incubator in Chicago, from a soccer pitch in Queens to an evangelical church in Houston--to show how social infrastructure is helping to solve some of our most pressing challenges: isolation, crime, education, addiction, political polarization, and even climate change.Richly reported, elegantly written, and ultimately uplifting, Palaces for the People urges us to acknowledge the crucial role these spaces play in civic life. Our social infrastructure could be the key to bridging our seemingly unbridgeable divides--and safeguarding democracy.

    

    Each chapter will offer practical answers to important questions, such as: Why does buying locally produced food make sense? What steps can we take to influence our workplace toward sustainability? How do we volunteer and advocate more effectively? How can we travel, live, work and learn in world changing ways? How, in short, can every human being help build a better future locally and globally? Illustrated with photographs and designed by Stefan Sagmeister, one of the most influential graphic designers working today, Worldchanging will prove that a life that is sustainably prosperous, just and democratic, dynamic and peaceful, is not just possible, it's here.

     America is an urban nation. More than two thirds of us live on the 3 percent of land that contains our cities. Yet cities get a bad rap: they're dirty, poor, unhealthy, crime ridden, expensive, environmentally unfriendly... Or are they? As Edward Glaeser proves in this myth-shattering book, cities are actually the healthiest, greenest, and richest (in cultural and economic terms) places to live. New Yorkers, for instance, live longer than other Americans; heart disease and cancer rates are lower in Gotham than in the nation as a whole. More than half of America's income is earned in twenty-two metropolitan areas. And city dwellers use, on average, 40 percent less energy than suburbanites. Glaeser travels through history and around the globe to reveal the hidden workings of cities and how they bring out the best in humankind. Even the worst cities-Kinshasa, Kolkata, Lagos- confer surprising benefits on the people who flock to them, including better health and more jobs than the rural areas that surround them. Glaeser visits Bangalore and Silicon Valley, whose strangely similar histories prove how essential education is to urban success and how new technology actually encourages people to gather together physically. He discovers why Detroit is dying while other old industrial cities-Chicago, Boston, New York-thrive. He investigates why a new house costs 350 percent more in Los Angeles than in Houston, even though building costs are only 25 percent higher in L.A. He pinpoints the single factor that most influences urban growth-January temperatures-and explains how certain chilly cities manage to defy that link. He explains how West Coast environmentalists have harmed the environment, and how struggling cities from Youngstown to New Orleans can "shrink to greatness." And he exposes the dangerous anti-urban political bias that is harming both cities and the entire country. Using intrepid reportage, keen analysis, and eloquent argument, Glaeser makes an impassioned case for the city's import and splendor. He reminds us forcefully why we should nurture our cities or suffer consequences that will hurt us all, no matter where we live.