Synopses & Reviews
Saving the environment from continued devastation by our built environment is the single most important issue for our tomorrow, feeding into our post-millennial fears that this third millennium will indeed be our last.
Ken Yeang reconstructs and revisions how and why our current design approach and perception of architecture must radically change if we are to ensure a sustainable future. He argues forcefully that this can only be achieved by adopting the environmentalist’s view that, aesthetics apart, regards our environment simply as an assembly of materials (mostly transported over long distances), that are transciently concentrated on to a single locality and used for living, working and leisure whose footprints affect that locality’s ecology and whose eventual disposal has to be accommodated somewhere in the biosphere.
The manual offers clear instructions to designers on how to design, build and use a green sustainable architecture. The aim is to produce and maintain ecosystem-like structures and systems whose content and outputs not only integrate benignly with the natural environment, but whose built form and systems function with sensitivity to the locality’s ecology as well in relation to global biospheric processes, and contribute positively to biodiversity (as opposed to reducing it). The goal is structures and systems that are low consumers of non-renewable resources, built with materials that have low ecological consequences and are designed to facilitate disassembly, continuous reuse and recycling a (a cyclic process that mimics the way ecosystems recycle materials), and that at the end of their useful lives can be reintegrated seamlessly back into the natural environment. Each of these aspects (and other attendant ones) is examined in detail with regards to how they influence design and planning.
The manual provides designers with a comprehensive set of Strategies for approaching ecological design and planning combined with in-depth analysis and research material not found elsewhere. The book is not intended solely for design professionals but should also be of considerable interest and use to all those whose work impinges in one way or an other on the natural environment.
The book consolidates and advances the theoretical and technical work of Ken Yeang in a text illustrated with over 300 diagrams, drawings and design examples.
Review
"Probably no individual is more important in the development of ecodesign's theory and practice than the London and Kuala-Lumpur-based architect Ken Yeang. Ecodesign is of great value as a manual for use in the design studio of both the practitioner and the student." (
Architectural Record; 1/08)
"…incredibly useful for more persistent academics and all those people who seriously want to incorporate green ideas into ... working practices." (iDFX, September 2006)
"…a resource both theoretical and practical…" (Architectural Technology, October 2006)
"… lots of good information.... The chapter on building form is arguably the best and most in-depth and reflects Yeang’s passion…" (Building Design, October 2006)
"…would provide a useful reference resource for ... designers of contemporary buildings and products ... in the initial concept stages of design…" (Architecture Today, November 2006)
"... provides everyone with a guiding framework for changing society’s present profligate, high-energy, environmentally destructive economy into ... sustainable and eco-based."(Environment UK, November 2006)
"A highly informative and comprehensive manual on ecological design…" (Buildiing Engineer, December 2006)
"…a comprehensive design primer for students…" (The Architectural Review, March 07)
Synopsis
Saving the environment from continued devastation by our built environment is the single most important issue for our tomorrow, feeding into our post-millennial fears that this third millennium will indeed be our last.
Ken Yeang reconstructs and revisions how and why our current design approach and perception of architecture must radically change if we are to ensure a sustainable future. He argues forcefully that this can only be achieved by adopting the environmentalist’s view that, aesthetics apart, regards our environment simply as an assembly of materials (mostly transported over long distances), that are transciently concentrated on to a single locality and used for living, working and leisure whose footprints affect that locality’s ecology and whose eventual disposal has to be accommodated somewhere in the biosphere.
This manual offers clear instructions to designers on how to design, build and use a green sustainable architecture. The aim is to produce and maintain ecosystem-like structures and systems whose content and outputs not only integrate benignly with the natural environment, but whose built form and systems function with sensitivity to the locality’s ecology as well in relation to global biospheric processes, and contribute positively to biodiversity (as opposed to reducing it). The goal is structures and systems that are low consumers of non-renewable resources, built with materials that have low ecological consequences and are designed to facilitate disassembly, continuous reuse and recycling a (a cyclic process that mimics the way ecosystems recycle materials), and that at the end of their useful lives can be reintegrated seamlessly back into the natural environment. Each of these aspects (and other attendant ones) is examined in detail with regards to how they influence design and planning.
Ecodesign provides designers with a comprehensive set of strategies for approaching ecological design and planning combined with in-depth analysis and research material not found elsewhere.
About the Author
Ken Yeang is an architect-planner, and one of the foremost ecodesigners, theoreticians and thinkers in the field of green design. After having studied architecture at the Architectural Association in London, his work on the green agenda started in the 70s with his doctoral dissertation for the University of Cambridge on ecological design and planning. Yeang is the author of several books on ecological design, including the Skyscraper, Bioclimatically Considered: A Design Primer (1996) published by Wiley-Academy, and The green Skyscraper: the basis for Designing Sustainable Intensive Buildings (1999) published by Prestel (Germany). He is the distinguished Plym Professor at the University of Illinois and Adjunct Professor at the University of Malaya and University of Hawaii (at Manoa) and recently received a D. Lit. (Hon) from the University of Sheffield. he is an Honorary FAIA and has served on the RIBA Council. A principal of Llewlleyn Davies Yeang (UK) and its sister firm, Hamzah & Yeang (Malaysia), Ken Yeang is well known for designing signature green high-performance buildings and master plans, and for his pursuit of an ecological aesthetic in his designs.
Table of Contents
Preface.Chapter A: General Premises and Strategies.
A1. What is ecodesign? Designing the biointegration of artificial-systems-to-natural-systems A2 The objective of ecodesign.
Design for benign and seamless environmental integration A3 The basis for ecodesign The ecosystem concept A4 Ecomimicry.
Designing based on the ecosystem analogy A5 The general law and theoretical basis for ecodesign The system-to-environment Interactions Matrix.
Chapter B: Design Instructions B1 Interrogate the premises for the design Deciding to build, to manufacture or not.
B2. Differentiate whether the design is for a product (with no fixed abode or with a temporary abode) or for a structure or an infrastructure (both abode or site specific) Determining the strategy towards the useful life span and the site specificity and fixation of the designed system.
B3. Determine the level of environmental integration that can be achieved in the design Establishing specific practical limitations.
B4. Evaluate the ecological history of the site (for the designed system) Site selection and establishing the overall site strategy.
B5. Inventory the designed system’s ecosystem (site-specific design)
Establishing the ecological baseline and context for planning and design to protect the ecosystems and to restore disturbed or degraded ecosystems.
B6. Delineate the designed system’s boundary as a human-made or composite ecosystem in relation to the site’s ecosystem Establishing the general extent for ecosystem and biodiversity enhancement.
B7. Design to balance the biotic and abiotic components of the designed system Integrating the designed system’s inorganic mass vertically and horizontally with biomass and designing for the rehabilitation of degraded ecosystems.
B8. Design to improve existing, and to create new ecological linkages Enhancing the biodiversity of the designed system, conserving existent continuities of ecosystems and creating new ecological corridors and links (eg using ecological land-bridges, hedgerows and enhancing horizontal integration).
B9. Design to reduce the heat-island effect of the built environment on the ecology of the locality Reducing and improving urban micro-climate impacts.
B10. Design to reduce the consequences of the various modes of transportation and of the provision of access and vehicular parking for the designed system.
B11. Design to integrate with the wider planning context and urban infrastructure of the designed system.
B12. Design for improved internal comfort conditions (of the designed system as an enclosure) Designing the built system based on the progressive optimisation of modes (B13 to B17).
B13. Design to optimise all passive-mode (or bioclimatic design) options in the designed system Configuring the built form, its layout and plan, and designing for improved internal comfort conditions without the use of renewable sources of energy and as low-energy design in relation to the climate of the locality.
B14. Design to optimise all mixed-mode options in the designed system Designing for improved internal comfort conditions with partial use of renewable sources of energy and as low-energy design in relation to the climate of the locality.
B15. Design to optimise all full-mode options in the designed system Designing for improved internal comfort conditions with minimal full use of renewable sources of energy and as low-energy design in relation to the climate of the locality.
B16. Design to optimise productive-mode options in the designed system Designing for improved comfort conditions by the independent production of energy andas low-energy design in relation to the climate of the locality.
B17. Design to optimise composite-mode options in the designed system Designing for improved internal comfort conditions by composite means with low use ofrenewable sources of energy and as low-energy design in relation to the climate of the locality.
B18. Design to internally integrate biomass with the designed system’s inorganic mass (eg by means of internal landscaping, improved indoor air quality (IAQ) t.b. considerations, etc).
B19. Design for water conservation, recycling, harvesting, etc Conserving water resources.
B20. Design for wastewater and sewage treatment and recycling systems Controlling and integrating human waste and other emissions.
B21. Design for food production and independence Designing to promote urban agriculture and permaculture.
B22. Design the built system’s use of materials to minimise waste based on the analogy with the recycling properties of the ecosystem Designing for continuous reuse, recycling and eventual biointegration.
B23. Design for vertical integration Designing for multilateral integration of the designed system with the ecosystems.
B24. Design to reduce light and noise pollution of the ecosystems.
B25. Designing the built environment as the transient management of
materials and energy input flows Assessing inputs and outputs through the designed system and their consequences.
B26. Designing to conserve the use of non-renewable energy and material resources.
B27. Design for the management of outputs from the built environment and their integration with the natural environment Designing to eliminate pollution and for benign biointegration.
B28. Design the built system over its life cycle from source to reintegration Designing to enable and facilitate disassembly for continuous reuse, recycling and reintegration.
B29. Design using environmentally benign materials, furniture, fittings, equipment (FF&E) and products that can be continuously reused, recycled and reintegrated Assessing the environmental consequences of materials, etc, used in the designed system.
B30. Design to reduce the use of ecosystem and biospheric services and impacts on the shared global environment (systemic integration).
B31. Reassess the overall design (ie product, structure or infrastructure) in its totality for the level of environmental integration over its life cycle.
Chapter C Other Considerations.
C1. What is the green aesthetic?
C2. Issues of practice.
C3. The future of ecodesign Prosthetics design as the parallel basis for designing biointegration of artificial-to-natural systems.
C4 Appendix 1: Timeline of key international developments relating to the global environment.
C5 Appendix 2: Sustainable development.
Glossary.
Bibliography.
Index.