Climate change is not distant. It is underway. We are in the midst of a climate emergency. Architects can – and must be – part of the radical change needed, and we must understand the impact of local decisions on the global scale.
This book guides you as an architecture student to create truly sustainable designs, reflecting the urgent need for action. It tackles the quadruple challenges of the climate emergency:
- Adapting to a changing climate
- Climate change mitigation
- Creating a positive and restorative design
- Improving climate justice locally and globally.
Focussing on holistic design approaches through 10 key themes, it will help you integrate into your design projects consistently high values from all areas of sustainable architecture.
Structured around the different stages of the design process through five illustrated chapters, it highlights what you need to consider when developing a project and when to think about it. Reflecting what is required by years of study, it outlines what a year 1 or year 3 student should be aiming for. This provides step-by-step guidance, preparing you for architecture practice.
Unique features include: key recommendation checklists, measurements against the UN Sustainable Development Goals, readings, case studies, student examples, notes and an extensive glossary.
Become inspired and more
confident to build a sustainable tomorrow.
Table of Contents:
Introduction
Chapter 0: Climate Emergency Fundamentals
Chapter 1: Exploring Your Context: Researching and Analysing Your Site (Step 1)
Chapter 2: Defining a Design Concept, Creating Values and Goals (Step 2)
Chapter 3: Imagining Climate Emergency Design Strategies (Step 3)
Chapter 4: Testing and Developing Climate Emergency Design Strategies (Step 4)
Chapter 5: Validating and Communicating Your Approach (Step 4 & 5)
Afterword
Annex I: Technical insulation data table
Annex II: Worked Example of U-Value Calculation
Glossary
Further Reading
About the Author :
Sofie Pelsmakers is an environmental architect, educator and researcher. She is author of The Environmental Design Pocketbook, co-author of Energy | People | Buildings and co-guest editor of Design Studio Volume 1 Everything Needs to Change. She is currently Associate Professor at Tampere University, Finland, where she teaches sustainable architecture.
Elizabeth Donovan (she/her) is an educator, researcher and architect with a focus in holistic sustainable architecture, specialising on the plethora of design approaches, history and theory, lexicon, and bridging discourse and practice. She is currently an Assistant Professor in sustainable architecture at Aarhus School of Architecture in Denmark.
Aidan Hoggard is an architect and educator with a focus on holistic sustainable design and architectural education in a climate emergency. He is currently Director of Learning and Teaching and co-leader of the MSc in Sustainable Architecture at the School of Architecture at Sheffield University in the UK.
Ula Kozminska is an architect, researcher and educator with a focus on circular architecture, materials and structures, designing with reused materials and for the future reuse, and implications of circular design for urban planning. She is currently Assistant Professor in Sustainable Architecture in Aarhus School of Architecture, Denmark.
