The Oregon Experiment (Center for Environmental Structure Series)

The Oregon Experiment (Center for Environmental Structure Series)

The Oregon Experiment (Center for Environmental Structure Series)

Author(s): Christopher Alexander

Publisher: Oxford Univ Pr (Trade)

ISBN: 0195018249

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The Oregon Experiment

Hardcover, 190 pages

Focusing on a plan for an extension to the University of Oregon, this book shows how any community the size of a university or small town might go about designing its own future environment with all members of the community participating personally or by representation. It is a brilliant companion volume to A Pattern Language.

About the Author

Christopher Alexander, winner of the first medal for research ever awarded by the American Institute of Architects, is an architect and builder who has built in many countries. He is also Professor of Architecture at the University of California, Berkeley, and Director of the Center for Environmental Structure.

A New Theory of Urban Design (Center for Environmental Structure Series, Vol 6)

A New Theory of Urban Design (Center for Environmental Structure Series, Vol 6)

A New Theory of Urban Design (Center for Environmental Structure Series, Vol 6)

Author(s): Christopher Alexander (Contributor), Hajo Neis, Artemis Anninou, ingr King

Publisher: Oxford Univ Pr (Trade)

ISBN: 0195037537

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A New Theory of Urban Design (Center for Environmental Structure Series, Vol 6)

Hardcover, 251 pages
Publication date: November 1987

The venerable cities of the past, such as Venice or Amsterdam, convey a feeling of wholeness, an organic unity that surfaces in every detail, large and small, in restaurants, shops, public gardens, even in balconies and ornaments. But this sense of wholeness is lacking in modern urban design, with architects absorbed in problems of individual structures, and city planners preoccupied with local ordinances, it is almost impossible to achieve.

In this groundbreaking volume, the newest in a highly-acclaimed series by the Center for Environmental Structure, architect and planner Christopher Alexander presents a new theory of urban design which attempts to recapture the process by which cities develop organically. To discover the kinds of laws needed to create a growing whole in a city, Alexander proposes here a preliminary set of seven rules which embody the process at a practical level and which are consistent with the day-to-day demands of urban development.

He then puts these rules to the test, setting out with a number of his graduate students to simulate the urban redesign of a high-density part of San Francisco, initiating a project that encompassed some ninety different design problems, including warehouses, hotels, fishing piers, a music hall, and a public square. This extensive experiment is documented project by project, with detailed discussion of how each project satisfied the seven rules, accompanied by floorplans, elevations, street grids, axonometric diagrams and photographs of the scaled-down model which clearly illustrate the discussion.

A New Theory of Urban Design provides an entirely new theoretical framework for the discussion of urban problems, one that goes far to remedy the defects which cities have today.

About the Author:

Christopher Alexander, winner of the first medal for research ever awarded by the American Institute of Architects, is a practicing architect and contractor, Professor of Architecture at the University of California, Berkeley, and Director of the Center for Environmental Structure.

A Pattern Language: Towns, Buildings, Construction

A Pattern Language: Towns, Buildings, Construction

A Pattern Language: Towns, Buildings, Construction

Author(s): Christopher Alexander, Sara Ishikawa, Murray Silverstein

Publisher: Oxford Univ Press

ISBN: 0195019199

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Hardcover, 1171 pages

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The second of three books published by the Center for Environmental Structure to provide a “working alternative to our present ideas about architecture, building, and planning,” A Pattern Language offers a practical language for building and planning based on natural considerations. The reader is given an overview of some 250 patterns that are the units of this language, each consisting of a design problem, discussion, illustration, and solution. By understanding recurrent design problems in our environment, readers can identify extant patterns in their own design projects and use these patterns to create a language of their own. Extraordinarily thorough, coherent, and accessible, this book has become a bible for homebuilders, contractors, and developers who care about creating healthy, high-level design.

Customer Comments 11/07/97, rating=9:
A Pattern Language presents a compelling case for the influence of space, buildings, and landscape on human endeavors. We often overlook this force, accustomed as we are to accommodating spatial limitations and design flaws. But try entering any room and ignoring the cues of memory and social constraints – you will doubtless be drawn to the window in the room.

Alexander and his contributing editors present a series of patterns that operate universally on the mood and activities of people using spaces. “Light on Two Sides,” for example, is a pattern describing the impact of light entering a room from two directions. Functionally, this arrangement softens light by cancelling the harsh shadows that arise from a single light direction. Emotionally, this makes a room more pleasant to live and work in, and may of its own accord encourage certain activities.

Alexander’s huge study of over 200 patterns is at once modest and sweeping. He details patterns with care, and offers sketches and photographs to illustrate them, along with an unassuming voice. Above all, he demystifies architecture itself, calling upon any reader to assume a role in the design process. Despite this humility, the significance of Alexander’s vision is always present. In the end, he is constructing a formula for social utopiaÐan architectural prescription for living well and wisely. From integrating children and senior citizens into the daily life of a community to revealing the advantages of mixed use commercial and residential zoning, Alexander proposes ideas that can successfully animate any town’s master planning efforts.

Read this book if you’re designing house, working with an architect, looking for a new house, or contributing to your city’s planning commission. You will doubtless come away with a heightened appreciation for the influence of space on your choices and activities.

The Permaculture Book of Ferment and Human Nutrition

The Permaculture Book of Ferment and Human Nutrition

The Permaculture Book of Ferment and Human Nutrition

Author(s): Bill Mollison

Publisher: Ten Speed Press

Paperback: 288 pages

ISBN: 0908228066

ISBN-13: 978-0908228065

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Emphasizing the enhancement of nutrition, this is one of the most comprehensive books available today on the subject of storing and preserving foods. Recipes and processing methods have been collected from indigenous people worldwide. These practical and traditional techniques , many of which were nearly lost forever, have been collated and set out in a well-defined and easy to follow manual which is of value to anyone interested in processing and storing food. Chapters are set out under the following headings:

Storing – Preserving – Cooking Foods

The Fungi – Yeasts – Mushrooms, Lichens

The Grains

The Legumes

Roots – Bulbs – Rhizomes

Fruits – Flowers – Nuts – Oils – Olives

Leaf and Stem – Aguamiels

Marine and Freshwater Products

Fish – Molluscs – Algae Meats – Birds – Insects

Dairy Products

Beers – Wines – Beverages

Condiments – Spices – Sauces

Agricultural Composts – Silages – Liquid Manures

Nutrition and Environmental Health

“A truly fabulous book, a quirky gem, a classic. Mollison has written a comprehensive monograph on the international use of microbial fermentation in food and beverage production, from a cross-cultural, anthropological, and biological perspective.” Dr. Marion Nestle, Dept, of Nutrition and Food Studies, New York University

 

Tree Crops: A Permanent Agriculture (Conservation Classics)

Tree Crops: A Permanent Agriculture (Conservation Classics)

Tree Crops: A Permanent Agriculture (Conservation Classics)

Author(s): J. Russell Smith

Publisher: Devin-Adair Pub

Paperback: 422 pages

ISBN: 0933280440

ISBN-13: 978-0933280441

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Tree Crops: A Permanent Agriculture (Conservation Classics)

This is an amazing book! Published in 1950, it is the second, enlarged edition of a book originally written in, I think, 1939. It reflects a lifetime of research around the world and personal trials on the author’s farm in Virginia on the uses of tree crops for animal and human food. It anticipates the permaculture literature in advocating a “two-storey” agriculture, with tree crops (primarily nuts) as the primary source of animal fodder on sloping and hilly land. It documents the incredible productivity of tree crops and their traditional uses as fodder for pigs, goats, cattle, and poultry. I was particularly struck by the evidence from southern Europe, where extensive chestnut forests produce(d) some of the finest pork in the region. But there is evidence from around the globe, attesting to not only the uses of tree crops but their potential for breeding to build on that potential.

Following up on Smith’s advice, I went to my local garden shop recently to inquire about honey locusts. Oh yes, I was told, we sold quite a few to the city as shade trees. No, no, I said, I want a messy variety, one that drops bushels of pods. She looked it up. Apparently the breeders have indeed been at work since Smith wrote — eliminating the seeds from a tree that could provide nutritious feed to replace the corn and soy beans whose production has been ravishing the planet for decades! The book should be in every permaculturalist’s library but in every rural public library, as well, and regularly taught in our terrible agricultural colleges.

–Michael Foley

Creating the Not So Big House: Insights and Ideas for the New American Home

Creating the Not So Big House: Insights and Ideas for the New American Home

Creating the Not So Big House: Insights and Ideas for the New American HomeAuthor(s): Sarah Susanka

Publisher: Taunton; First Edition edition (October 1, 2000)

ISBN: 1561583774

ISBN-13: 978-1561583775

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Sarah Susanka’s first book, The Not So Big House, created a movement that is changing the way people think about the American home. That groundbreaking book proposed a new blueprint for the American home: a house that values quality over quantity, with an emphasis on comfort and beauty, a high level of detail and a floor plan designed for today’s informal lifestyle.

Creating the Not So Big House is this blueprint in action. Focusing on key design strategies such as visual weight, layering and framed openings, Sarah Susanka takes an up-close look at 25 houses designed according to Not So Big principles. The houses are from all over North America in a rich variety of styles — from a tiny New York apartment to a southwestern adobe, a traditional Minnesota farmhouse to a cottage community in the Pacific Northwest. The description of each house is accompanied by a floor plan and several beautiful color photographs by Grey Crawford. Informative sidebars sprinkled throughout the book show how specific house features and clever design details illustrate “Not So Big” principles. Whether new or remodeled, these one-of-a-kind homes provide all the inspiration you need to create your own Not So Big House.

As an advocate of “less is more” in residential architecture and interior design, Sarah Susanka has emerged as one of America’s favorite home architects. As a result of the success of the Not So Big House and the new vision it holds for the American home, she was featured by U.S. News and World Report as one of 18 innovators in American culture. Susanka has appeared on the Oprah Winfrey Show, the Charlie Rose Show, and numerous radio programs around the country. She is a former principal and founding partner of the firm chosen by LIFE magazine to design its 1999 dream home. Plans are available for all the houses featured in Creating the Not So Big House.

258 pages, 2000

“Sarah Susanka shows how to downsize the dream house without diminishing the dream.” –Washington Post

“Sarah Susanka offers us a more hopeful strategy for sustaining human development–just make life richer, not bigger….Improve your life and everyone else’s. Use the ideas in this book–not more square feet!” –William McDonough, FAIA, architect, educator, and winner of the Presidential Award for Sustainable Development

“In The Not So Big House, Sarah Susanka offered so much sound advice for those seeking comfort and beauty with a sense of proportion. Now, she has a new book with additional solutions to that all-important question–how do we want to live?” –Barbara Mayer, author of In The Arts and Crafts Style

“Susanka’s book, Creating the Not So Big House, shows how space can be small but beautiful and visually expansive….She has tapped into those principles that Frank Lloyd Wright used in his ‘Usonian’ Houses and has presented them in a very clear and beautifully illustrated format.” –Eric Lloyd Wright, architect

Introduction to Permaculture

Introduction to Permaculture

Introduction to Permaculture

Author(s): Bill Mollison, Reny Mia Slay

Publisher: Ten Speed

ISBN: 0908228082

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Revised Paperback, 224 pages

This is a great introduction and overview of permaculture concepts. The book covers a lot of material for initiates to permaculture. It’s sets the foundation for further reading and studies for those who want to get serious though one could take the principles learned just from this book alone and be quite successful in my opinion. You learn how the sun, wind and rain, all play an important role in siting structures like homes, sheds, barns, green and shade houses and also in garden and plant selection and placement. The book also covers designing for temperate, tropical and dry-land environments. It explains how interconnected relationships between the land, climate, soils, water, structures, flora and fauna can be fostered to the benefit of all. There are just so many creative ideas and diagrams in this book that it is worth it for those alone. The book is 8 1/4 X 11 inches with small print that fills the pages with valuable information. I want to live in the sub-tropics of Hawaii and enjoyed the coverage in this regard but, the book also left me day dreaming about living the permaculture lifestyle in other areas like the High Desert of New Mexico and the Pacific Northwest of Oregon. This book touches on all the possibilities, from the home garden with a few animals to commercial orchards, forests, animal farms, aquaculture, urban gardens and more. But don’t get me wrong, it does not cover these topics in depth, it gives a thorough introduction to these topics and an understanding that one would likely not gain by reading just one book. Also each chapter ends with a list of references for further reading. In addition there are appendices listing useful permaculture plants, such as nitrogen fixing plants. One appendix even breaks it down into useful categories, such as fruit plants and trees for temperate, topical/sub-tropical and dry areas,pest control plants and finally appendices which list hundreds of the plants mentioned in the text by common, Latin, and by species names. The book ends with a glossary of key terms used in the book and few pages about Bill Mollison (One of the founders of permaculture) and the permaculture institute including info on their 72 hour PC Design Certificate Course.

The One-Straw Revolution: An Introduction to Natural Farming

The One-Straw Revolution: An Introduction to Natural Farming

The One-Straw Revolution: An Introduction to Natural Farming

Author: Masanobu Fukuoka

Paperback: 200 pages

Publisher: NYRB Classics (June 2, 2009)

ISBN-10: 1590173139

ISBN-13: 978-1590173138

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“The One-Straw Revolution is one of the founding documents of the alternative food movement, and indispensable to anyone hoping to understand the future of food and agriculture.”—Michael Pollan
“Only the ignorant could write off Fukuoka, who died two years ago at the age of 95, as a deluded or nostalgic dreamer…Fukuoka developed ideas that went against the conventional grain….Long before the American Michael Pollan, he was making the connections between intensive agriculture, unhealthy eating habits and a whole destructive economy based on oil.” –Harry Eyres, The Financial Times

“Fukuoka’s do-nothing approach to farming is not only revolutionary in terms of growing food, but it is also applicable to other aspects of living, (creativity, child-rearing, activism, career, etc.) His holistic message is needed now more than ever as we search for new ways of approaching the environment, our community and life. It is time for us all to join his ‘non-movement.'”—Keri Smith author of How to be an Explorer of the World

 

“Japan’s most celebrated alternative farmer…Fukuoka’s vision offers a beacon, a goal, an ideal to strive for.” —Tom Philpott, Grist

 

“The One-Straw Revolution shows the critical role of locally based agroecological knowledge in developing sustainable farming systems.” —Sustainable Architecture

 

“With no ploughing, weeding, fertilizers, external compost, pruning or chemicals, his minimalist approach reduces labour time to a fifth of more conventional practices. Yet his success in yields is comparable to more resource-intensive methods…The method is now being widely adopted to vegetate arid areas. His books, such as The One-Straw Revolution, have been inspirational to cultivators the world over.” —New Internationalist

Product Description

Call it “Zen and the Art of Farming” or a “Little Green Book,” Masanobu Fukuoka’s manifesto about farming, eating, and the limits of human knowledge presents a radical challenge to the global systems we rely on for our food. At the same time, it is a spiritual memoir of a man whose innovative system of cultivating the earth reflects a deep faith in the wholeness and balance of the natural world. As Wendell Berry writes in his preface, the book “is valuable to us because it is at once practical and philosophical. It is an inspiring, necessary book about agriculture because it is not just about agriculture.”

Trained as a scientist, Fukuoka rejected both modern agribusiness and centuries of agricultural practice, deciding instead that the best forms of cultivation mirror nature’s own laws. Over the next three decades he perfected his so-called “do-nothing” technique: commonsense, sustainable practices that all but eliminate the use of pesticides, fertilizer, tillage, and perhaps most significantly, wasteful effort.

Whether you’re a guerrilla gardener or a kitchen gardener, dedicated to slow food or simply looking to live a healthier life, you will find something here—you may even be moved to start a revolution of your own.

Permaculture: A Designers' Manual

Permaculture: A Designers’ Manual

Permaculture: A Designers' Manual

Author(s): Bill Mollison

Publisher: Ten Speed

ISBN: 0908228015

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For those of us searching for an ecologically responsible lifestyle amid urban and suburban insanity, Bill Mollison has a real and exciting answer. This book is full of helpful advice presented in a very readable way. (The only problem might be getting stuck in the chapters on climates that don’t concern you; just skip them until later!) The groundwork philosophy of permaculture is laid first, and the book moves from there to the practical business of actually designing one. The emphasis is on letting various plant and animal species work together as much as possible, to form a basically self-sustaining system from which people can reap a continual harvest, not only of food, but of interest and self-respect. What a prospect! It is certainly a very different one from what we young people have been taught to expect from life! This volume is much more complete in both the philosophy and the practice than were the original “Permaculture One” and “Permaculture Two.” It is also much less focused on the Southern Hemisphere, which is helpful for North Americans trying to visualize their own permaculture. I can only hope that more people happen upon this book as I did and are themselves inspired to create a fulfilling life for themselves and their children.

— Wendell Berry

This is the permaculture bible, written by the great guru of permaculture. Site design issues are interwoven throughout the text.