Design for Sustainability signals the crucial paradigm shift of the 21st Century: the transition from environmental management to systems design - eco-solutions that integrate social, political, and economic factors and radically reduce resource use, while increasing health, equity and life quality.By using radical and innovative design solutions, everyone could be living in buildings and settlements that are more like gardens than cargo containers, and that purify air and water, generate energy, treat sewage and produce food - at lower cost. This sourcebook presents inspiring and detailed examples of integrated systems design thinking by many of the foremost designers in the field. They cover applications in industrial design, materials, housing design, urban planning and transport, landscape and agriculture, and energy and resource use. They cut across traditional academic and professional boundaries to demonstrate a new transdisciplinary approach to environmental problem solving.The volume makes a very valuable reference and teaching resource in areas from environmental sciences to design and planning. Each of the 14 topics within the field of environmental management and social change have pairs of short readings providing diverse perspectives to compare, contrast and debate. Informational boxes, sets of questions and exercises are also provided.

Birkeland (science and design, U. of Canberra), a former San Francisco city planner and environmental attorney, provides for education in alternative systems design for the built environment. She treats such concepts as the sustainable landscape, pollution prevention by design, values-imbued permaculture, and low impact housing with bamboo, strawbale, even hemp. Includes chapter questions, projects, progress indicator checklists, and a glossary. Distributed in the US by Stylus.
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With radical design solutions, everyone could be living in environments that are more like gardens than cargo containers, and that purify air and water, generate energy and produce food - at lower cost. Birkeland introduces an innovative approach to environmental and social problem- solving.