reviews
If you’re going to invest in just one book on sustainable, low carbon building I’d strongly suggest that you make it The Environmental Design Pocketbook. Now in its second edition, this useful volume by Sofie Pelsmakers should be essential reading for architects, designers, developers, planners, students, clients and anyone else involved in the construction and operation of buildings.…
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by Jan Corey Arnett, Shire Publications The barn is an icon of rural America but how many of us who have driven by these structures and remarked at their bold colour, diversity of style and often ramshackle appearance have any understanding of their origins? Jan Corey Arnett was raised on a Michigan dairy farm and…
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Retrofit requires an understanding of the building coupled with an holistic approach. This may sound simple but it isn’t, buildings – especially old buildings – are many layered entities and it’s not only the structure that has to be considered, it’s the behaviour of the building’s occupants. When planning retrofit strategies, heritage, technical and energy…
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As we seek to make our buildings more energy efficient, the relationship between architecture and climate has never been more relevant than today; or so we may think. Dean Hawkes begins the eight essay narrative, that forms the core of Architecture and Climate, An environmental history of British architecture 1600-2000, (Routledge) by describing the period when…
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My last visit to the once revolutionary Pompidou Centre in Paris was a long time ago; other buildings associated with Richard Rogers have featured more recently in my life: Lloyds of London, Heathrow Terminal 5, the Millennium Dome, The Leadenhall Building or ‘Cheese Grater’ now rising above the City of London as its tallest building.…
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Yesterday I nearly missed my stop on the tube. Why? I was engrossed in Pevsner’s Architectural Glossary app that I’d just downloaded from iTunes. This simple but amazingly comprehensive app guides one through the architectural lexicon from abacus to zigzag, taking in terms as diverse as hagioscope and Quattrocento along the way, while enhancing the experience…
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Each time I write a book I say to myself “never again”. This is all very well but when a good idea comes along it’s hard to resist. Towards the end of 2010 I watched as the ink dried on my signature at the bottom of a contract for “a book provisionally entitled ‘The Old…
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Type the words ‘eco’ or ‘sustainable’ into Amazon and you’ll be greeted by a mind blowing number of books so I though I’d share just four from the shelves of my office which might prove useful or even thought provoking. Simply Sustainable Homes is, as the strapline says, a no-nonsense guide to green building. It’s…
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by Lucy Worsley, Faber and Faber Buildings are about more than the materials they’re made of and the architectural styles they embrace, they’re about the people that live in them and the way they use them. This is something Lucy Worsley understands and, in her book If Walls Could Talk, An Intimate History of the…
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published by The Stationery Office for the The Prince’s Regeneration Trust With retrofit now high on the agenda there’s a desperate thirst for knowledge but a huge lack of reliable information, especially when it comes to listed and historic buildings. Addressing the energy efficiency and environmental issues relating to old buildings of all types and…
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