The Eco-Home Design Guide: Principles and Practice for New-Build and Retrofit (Sustainable Building #8)

The Eco-Home Design Guide: Principles and Practice for New-Build and Retrofit (Sustainable Building #8)

Christopher Day, HRH The Prince of Wales (Foreword by)
$60.00
Publication Date: October 29th, 2015
Publisher:
Green Books
ISBN:
9780857843043
Pages:
256

Description

Designing an eco home is much more about working with your house's place and situation than relying on intrusive technology and hi-tech materials. In this book, Christopher Day draws on his extensive experience to explain the key principles of eco-home design, using common-sense methods to create a pleasant, comfortable and healthy home.

With beautifully simple hand-drawn illustrations, Christopher takes you through:

- Using the local topography, combined with landscaping, to improve your home's microclimate
- Designing to keep your home dry and warm in the winter, and cool in the summer
- Minimizing hidden environmental impacts
- Making the house safe and healthy, both emotionally and physically

The book includes several case studies of eco hoomes, reviewing (with hindsight) what worked well and what could have been better.

About the Author

Christopher Day has studied architecture and sculpture and has been committed to eco-architecture and an ecological lifestyle since the 1970s. He has received four design awards, including a Prince of Wales Award, for his work on eco-houses and Steiner schools. He pioneered a consensus design method, which has now been used in over 60 projects.

As a designer, consultant, lecturer or teacher, Christopher has worked in 20 different countries from California, USA to New Zealand, managing the construction of 150+ eco-homes across many income-levels cultures and climates. Continuing to work despite being disabled for the last fifteen years, Christopher has developed a further specialism in adapting environmentally friendly buildings for disabled residents.

Praise for The Eco-Home Design Guide: Principles and Practice for New-Build and Retrofit (Sustainable Building #8)

“This gentle book offers a route out of the nightmare of so much callous modern construction. I was inspired.”  —Colin Amery, Financial Times, on Places of the Soul

“Presents ideas not only for a healthy planet but a healthy spirit—ultimately two conditions that are irrevocably linked. Day addresses the costs of building, from environmental pollution to social consequences such as crime and ill health. He looks at place and the unseen influences the environment imposes upon us, and he considers the past, both as a means to understanding the current condition of the planet and as a source for the wisdom we’ll need to design this new spiritually healthy earth.”  —Natural Homes Magazine on Spirit and Place

"Christopher Day makes the technical simple even for non-scientific readers. He shares his vision of a living architecture, demonstrating that eco-design CAN be supremely nourishing for the soul." —Susan Swire, author, Secrets of the Feel-Good Home

"You could hardly find a better man to lead you through the challenging process of creating an eco home from scratch, or of renovating an existing building to meet eco criteria." —Angela Neustatter, journalist and author, A Home for the Heart

“Christopher Day is one of Britain’s most outstanding holistic and ecological architects and this book is a timely gift when freeing ourselves from the dependence on fossil fuel has become an urgent imperative." —Satish Kumar, Editor-in-Chief, Resurgence & Ecologist magazine

“This book is an ideal guide for those who wish to explore to the greatest depth the possibilities for designing their own eco-homes.” —Chris Tweed, professor, Welsh School of Architecture

“Christopher is the UK’s foremost practitioner of soulful architecture and place-making. I would urge anyone considering building a new house to read his latest gem, The Eco-Home Design Guide.” —Peter Stirling, Managing Director, Stirling Developments Ltd

“The generous use of illustrations and side notes makes this an easy to use guide, and it is a must-have reference for every architect and developer in the construction of homes, retail, and office buildings." —Richard Erganian, Developer

“A delightfully accessible reach-for book. I find so many people blundering and wandering in circles on their eco house creation journey, this is just the thing they were missing.” —Vicky Moller, Welsh Assembly election candidate, Plaid Cymru, Party of Wales

“A unique text in the study of the elements which constitutes effective, sustainable architectural de-sign for healthy living.” —Lino Bianco, Senior Lecturer, Faculty for the Built Environment, University of Malta

Other Books in Series