Ken Yeang

Donlyn Lyndon

Victor Olgyay

John Reynolds

Architects today incorporate principles of sustainable design as a matter of necessity. But the challenge of unifying climate control and building functionality, of securing a managed environment within a natural setting--and combating the harsh forces of wind, water, and sun--presented a new set of obstacles to architects and engineers in the mid-twentieth century. First published in 1963, Design with Climate was one of the most pioneering books in the field and remains an important reference for practitioners, teachers, and students, over fifty years later. In this book, Victor Olgyay explores the impact of climate on shelter design, identifying four distinct climatic regions and explaining the effect of each on orientation, air movement, site, and materials. He derives principles from biology, engineering, meteorology, and physics, and demonstrates how an analytical approach to climate management can merge into a harmonious and aesthetically sound design concept. This updated edition contains four new essays that provide unique insights on issues of climate design, showing how Olgyay's concepts work in contemporary practice. Ken Yeang, John Reynolds, Victor W. Olgyay, and Donlyn Lyndon explore bioclimatic design, eco design, and rational regionalism, while paying homage to Olgyay's impressive groundwork and contributions to the field of architecture.

Bioclimatic Approach to Architectural Regionalism

Design with Climate

This work considers how to make architecture compatible with the environment. It presents a framework in which the architect, building contractor and owner can understand how building construction affects the natural site and its resources. It also explains the real, pragmatic steps that can be taken to mitigate the all-too-common damage that man-made structures inflict on the natural environment, including low-energy design, bioclimatic design, recycling and disposal of building materials and waste and ecological landuse planning. The text contains case studies of low-environmental impact building designs from around the world and demonstrates the new emphasis on using building materials with long life-span and low maintenance costs.

The Ecological Basis for Architectural Design

Designing with Nature

Ecomimicry, like biomimicry, uses nature as its template, but its scope is focused on the ecosystems in nature. Ecomimesis is designing our built environment, architecture and engineering systems as artificial ecosystems to emulate the properties, structure, functions and processes of ecosystems in nature. This book describes and illustrates the use of ecological models and processes as potential design solutions and analogies for the built environment. Its secondary purpose is to outline the need for the seamless and benign integration of our human manufactured and built structures into the biosphere with minimal pollution, despoilation, and exploitation of non renewable resources. Providing scientific explanations of the complex functions of ecosystems, this book sets out how anthropogenic structures can emulate the various components of mature ecosystems. With this knowledge and understanding of the components of an ecosystem, an ecomimetic designer can use those principles to create a more ecologically sensitive built environment.

Ecological Design by Imitating Ecosystems

Ecomimicry

Can we ‘save the Planet’? For a resilient, durable and sustainable future for human society, we need to repurpose, reinvent, redesign, remake and recover our human-made world so that our built environment is benignly and seamlessly biointegrated with Nature to function synergistically with it. These are the multiple tasks that humanity must carry out imminently if there is to be a future for human society and all lifeforms and their environments on the Planet. Addressing this is the most compelling question for those whose daily work impacts on Nature, such as architects, engineers, landscape architects, town planners, environmental policy makers, builders and others, but it is a question that all of humanity needs to urgently address. Presented here are two key principles as the means to carry out these tasks – ‘ecocentricity’ being guided by the science of ecology, and ‘ecomimesis’ as designing and making the built environment including all artefacts based on the emulation and replication of the ‘ecosystem’ concept. Designing with ecology is contended here as the authentic approach to green design from which the next generation of green design will emerge, going beyond current use of accreditation systems. For those who subscribe to this principle, this is articulated here, showing how it can be implemented by design. Adopting these principles is fundamental in our endeavour to save our Planet Earth, and changes profoundly and in entirety the way we design, make, manage and operate our built environment.

Reinventing Our World Through Ecomimesis

Saving The Planet By Design

It's Not Easy Being Green, literally tells the reader that the idea of 'Green architecture' is not as simple as many expected. It's not solely about energy efficiency or putting out different levels of vegetation, but it is an extensive dedication and cautious action towards natural and built environment. Ken's work has demonstrated a comprehensive set of strategies making Green Architecture feasible and practical for architects and professionals from other fields to understand the importance of saving the world from environmental devastation. The book intends to raise awareness and concern on environmental issues, and suggests ways of how architecture can be design now in favor of a benign living environment.

Ken Yeang

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