Visions For a New American Dream: Process, Principles, and an Ordinance to Plan and Design Small Communities

Author(s): Anton C. Nelessen

Publisher: Planners Press

ISBN: 1884829007

ISBN-13: 978-1884829000

374 pages

Order From:

This book shows you how to combine the best design principles of the past with the technological advances of the present to achieve a more satisfying community environment. Nelessen advocates design by democracy: involving citizens and public officals in planning and designing their own communities. He describes techniques planners can use to help residents create a common vision. Nelessen has successfully used these techniques-the Visual Preference Survey and Hands-on Model Building Workshop-in seminars and workshops for more than 25 years. ?Visions for a New American Dream ? outlines a seven step planning and design process for creating three basic types of traditional small communities: hamlets, villages, and neighborhoods. Nelessen presents 10 design principles-ranging from humanism and ecological responsibility to open space design and community focus-to help planners and designers turn a community’s common vision into reality. ?Visions for a New American Dream ? is extensively illustrated with photographs, diagrams, and maps. This is must reading for all planners, designers, public officals, and citizens who want to envision and direct the future of their communities.

Home from Nowhere: Remaking Our Everyday World for the 21st Century

Author(s): James Howard Kunstler

Publisher: Simon & Schuster

ISBN: 0684811960

Order From: Amazon.com (Hardcover)
Amazon.com (Paperback)
(links will open in a new window)

Home from Nowhere : Remaking Our Everyday World for the Twenty-First Century

Hardcover
320 pages
October 1996

Amazon.com:
Deep down, many Americans are dissatisfied with suburbia — though they have trouble understanding what’s missing, writes James Howard Kunstler in this semi-sequel to his critically-acclaimed Geography of Nowhere. Much of this engaging book tries to fill in the holes. Modernist architecture and inhumane zoning laws have made suburbanites prisoners to a car culture that is overly friendly to ugly strip malls and actively hostile to the development of healthy, vibrant communities, says Kunstler. We must return to the idea of Main Street America, where people live, work and shop among neighbors they know and trust. Here’s how.

The New York Times Book Review, Alexander Garvin
Kunstler’s is the latest in a long line of polemics that employ colorful writing and vivid illustrations to decry the ugliness that pervades the American landscape.

From Booklist , October 15, 1996
In The Geography of Nowhere (1993), Kunstler, a novelist, ardent and perceptive citizen-observer, and masterful rhetorician, began his study of why suburbs, neglected Main Streets, and squandered cities are so bereft of beauty. Here, he continues his critique of American architecture, culture, and values and, in the process, identifies the source of the malaise people experience in and around the hideous structures that make every suburb resemble every other suburb. This degradation of the public realm is, Kunstler vehemently declares, nothing less than the degradation of the common good. Leaving aside architectural issues for the moment, Kunstler launches into a provocative discussion of the consequences of becoming consumers rather than citizens, of abandoning the community for an addiction to television, and of the corporate colonization of cities and the countryside. After both riling and delighting the reader with his ire, brilliance, and candor, Kunstler returns to the subject of buildings and chronicles the quiet growth of New Urbanism, a smart and hopeful trend toward improving American life. Donna Seaman Copyright© 1996, American Library Association. All rights reserved

Reinventing Fire

Author: Amory Lovins
Hardcover: 352 pages
Publisher: Chelsea Green Publishing (October 15, 2011)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1603583718
ISBN-13: 978-1603583718

Order from:
Chelsea Green
Amazon.com

How U.S. businesses can lead the nation from oil and coal to efficiency and renewables by 2050, and profit in the process

Oil and coal have built our civilization, created our wealth, and enriched the lives of billions. Yet their rising costs to our security, economy, health, and environment now outweigh their benefits. Moreover, that long-awaited energy tipping point—where alternatives work better than oil and coal and compete purely on cost—is no longer decades in the future. It is here and now. And it is the fulcrum of economic transformation.

A global clean energy race has emerged with astounding speed. The ability to operate without fossil fuels will define winners and losers in business—and among nations.

Now, in Reinventing Fire, Amory Lovins and Rocky Mountain Institute offer a new vision to revitalize business models, end-run Washington gridlock, and win the clean energy race—not forced by public policy but led by business for enduring profit. Grounded in 30 years’ practical experience, this ground-breaking, peer-reviewed analysis integrates market-based solutions across transportation, buildings, industry, and electricity. It maps pathways and competitive strategies for a 158%-bigger 2050 U.S. economy that needs no oil, no coal, no nuclear energy, one-third less natural gas, and no new inventions. This transition would cost $5 trillion less than business-as-usual—without counting fossil fuels’ huge hidden costs. It requires no new federal taxes, subsidies, mandates, or laws. The policy innovations needed to unlock and speed it need no Act of Congress.

Whether you care most about profits and jobs, national security, health, or environmental stewardship, Reinventing Fire charts a pragmatic course that makes sense and makes money. With clarity and mastery, Lovins and RMI reveal the astounding opportunities for enterprise to create the new energy era.

The Architecture of Affordable Housing

Author(s): Sam Davis

Publisher: Univ California Press

ISBN: 0520208854

Order From: Amazon.com
(links will open in a new window)

The Architecture of Affordable Housing

Paperback, 220 pages
Publication date: June 1997

From Booklist , 04/15/95:
The architecture of affordable housing has assumed as many forms as the very nomenclature. Davis presents a history of poor, low-income, social, and subsidized housing using examples of Frank Lloyd Wright, the WPA, and contemporary case studies in the most expensive state in the union, California. These examples illustrate that while the beliefs surrounding affordable housing have changed, the need has been steady, if not growing. They also illustrate many myths, one being that affordable housing most often isn’t any cheaper to build than market-rate housing. The in-depth documentation of the community planning process shows just how passionate the contesting parties are and how complex the issues have become. While not offering Wright’s technical secrets on cost cutting, the California case studies lend the book a credibility from which both laypeople and architects can benefit. But, ultimately, the 10 award-winning projects the author presents as evidence of good architecture fulfilling a social need skirt the real issue: Why is it that award-winning projects can turn into unlivable places and that less attractive ones can be wonderful places to live? While the book is valuable, Davis does not address the issue of place-making and community, which many believe is the heart of the affordable housing crisis. Copyright© 1995, American Library Association. All rights reserved

Synopsis:
Architect Sam Davis contends that a country of wealth that cannot provide sound housing for those in need is a national embarrassment. Here Davis explores the design possibilities of dignified affordable housing for those not served by the private sector and how that housing could fit comfortably into our communities. 108 illus.

Table of Contents
Introduction
1. The Architect and Affordable Housing
2. The Process: The Long and Winding Road
3. Why Affordable Housing Isn’t
4. Design: Things Big and Small, Far and Near
5. Is Affordable Housing Significant Architecture?
Afterword
Notes
Illustration Credits
Index

From Eco-Cities to Living Machines : Principles of Ecological Design

Author(s): Nancy Jack Todd, John Todd

Publisher: North Atlantic Books

ISBN: 1556431503

Order From: Amazon.com
(links will open in a new window)

From Eco-cities to Living Machines presents the ecologically-based working designs and prototypes of biologist John Todd and writer and environmental activist Nancy Todd. Since 1969 with the founding of New Alchemy Institute on Cape Cod, the Todds have become known world-wide for their leadership in the restoration of pure water, bioremediation of wild aquatic environments, food production, and urban design. In this new book, the Todds further develop the idea of Eco-cities, designs for integrating agriculture and flowing pure water into green urban settings and introduce Living Machines, a family of technologies for purifying wastewaters to tertiary quality effluent without chemicals. Provocative and grounded firmly in the principles of biodiversity, the Todds’ work encompasses site-specific technological interventions and systems-wide ecological planners and designers, environmental economists, and systems-based engineers working to change the way we utilize production, technology, water and energy.

2nd Edition
Paperback, 185 pages
Publication date: April 1994

Table of Contents
Preface: The Years Between
Ch. 1. New Alchemy: Where It All Began
Ch. 2. From Bioshelters to Solar Villages to Future Human Settlements
Ch. 3. Emerging Precepts of Biological Design
Ch. 4. Redesigning Communities
Ch. 5. The Surrounding Landscape
Ch. 6. The Transforming Energy
Epilogue: Living Machines and the Years Ahead
Notes and References
Index

New Technologies for Energy Efficiency

Author(s): Michael F. Hordeski

Publisher: Fairmont Press

Hardcover: 376 pages

ISBN: 0881733695

ISBN-13: 978-0881733693

Order From:
Fairmont Press
Amazon.com
(links will open in a new window)

The needs of the new economy have had the effect of stressing the existing energy infrastructure to the point of crisis. The current regulatory system tends to encourage the building of large power plants with long lead times. This important book examines the full scope of new technologies available to address this crisis of electricity supply now by reducing dependency on the power grid. The author details the tools and technologies available for incorporating smaller, clean, more efficient energy-generating technologies such as small-scale cogeneration, fuel cells, and natural gas distributed generation into your energy management plan. He thoroughly examines the role of new technologies in reducing operating costs and developing more innovative and practical approaches to energy management, including implementing alternative energy programs, monitoring rates and policy, managing power quality, exploring cost-effective power generation solutions, utilizing cost-effective energy services, benefitting from information monitoring and diagnostic systems, assessing energy storage options, integrating lighting and cooling systems, and more.

Solutions for Energy Security & Facility Management Challenges

Author(s): The Association of Energy Engineers

Publisher: Fairmont Press

Paperback: 606 pages

ISBN: 0-88173-411-X

ISBN-13: 978-0881734119

Order From:
Amazon.com
Fairmont Press

(links will open in a new window)

Here’s your comprehensive, up-to-the-minute source for the very latest developments in applications and strategies for managing energy costs, assuring a secure and affordable energy supply, and achieving optimum overall facility operational performance. More than 100 authorities in the fields of energy engineering and management, CHP and on-site generation, alternative and renewable energy, and facilities security and management have contributed to this truly extensive work. You’ll learn about new tools for reducing energy costs in buildings, developing distribution generation strategies, and employing the latest security measures for any type of facility. You’ll find a thorough examination of such topics as integrated combined heat and power systems for buildings; high performance buildings for sustainable design; new power quality solutions; new tools for federal energy managers; measurement and verification systems and continuous commissioning; securing facilities for bio-terrorism protection and disaster preparedness; realtime risk management in the energy market; the rapidly approaching market for fuel cell technologies; and much more including detailed case studies.

8½ x 11, 624 pp., Illus., Softcover

Community Energy Workbook: A Guide to Building a Sustainable Economy

Author(s): Alice Hubbard

Publisher: Rocky Mountain Institute

ISBN: 1881071049

ISBN-13: 978-1881071044

Order From: Amazon.com
(links will open in a new window)

Publication date: March 1995
Community Energy Workbook : A Guide to Building a Sustainable Economy
Reduce your community’s energy consumption and improve the local economy. Drawing on the experiences of citizens around the country, The Community Energy Workbook outlines a comprehensive, step-by-step process for achieving sustainable, community-wide energy savings. This companion to The Economic Renewal Guide will help you calculate your community’s total energy bill, examine its economic and environmental implications, organize an energy town meeting, and involve the entire community in creating and implementing an energy action plan. We could forge no better energy policy than to put copies of The Community Energy Workbook on the desk of every local official and active citizen in the country.
–David Orr, author of Ecological Literacy.

1st edition (1995).
Softcover, 270 pages

Energy Conscious Design: A Primer for Architects

Author(s): John R. Goulding, J. Owen Lewis, Theo C. Steemers (Editor)

Publisher: B T Batsford Ltd

Paperback: 160 pages

ISBN: 0713469196

ISBN-13: 978-0713469196

Order From: Amazon.com
(links will open in a new window)

This book, being prepared for the Commission of the European Communities, is concerned with the idea of the urban energy efficiency as a means to provide better environmental performance. Its simplified way of presenting fundamental concepts is very convenient. What I really liked the best is that it is filled with very nice and clear figures that are self-explanatory. However, these figures are not numbered!!!, which makes it hard to link them with the text. The book is very useful for architects and architectural students.

Energy Economics and Building Design

Author(s): William T. Meyer

Publisher: McGraw Hill

Hardcover: 340 pages

ISBN: 0070417512

ISBN-13: 978-0070417519

Order From: Amazon.com
(links will open in a new window)

Energy Economics and Building Design Hardcover Publication date: October 1982

Order From:

Order from: Chelsea Green Amazon.com

Author(s): William T. Meyer

Order from:
Chelsea Green
Amazon.com