Eco Towers

Eco-Towers introduces readers to groundbreaking designs, most progressive projects, and innovative ways of thinking about a new generation of green skyscrapers that could provide solutions to crises the world faces today including climate change, depleting resources, deteriorating ecology, population increase, decreasing food supply, urban heat island effect, pollution, deforestation, and more. The book suggests that the eco-tower culminates the cultural and technological evolutions of the 21st century by building and improving on the experiences of earlier designs of skyscrapers and philosophies particularly green, sustainable, and ecological. It argues that the true green skyscraper is the one that engages successfully with its larger urban context by establishing symbiotic relationships with the social, economic, and environmental aspects. Since tall buildings are becoming larger and taller, serving greater number of people, and exerting higher demand on the environment and existing infrastructure, any improvements in their design and construction will significantly enhance urban conditions. The book elucidates how green skyscrapers better serve tenants, mitigate environmental impacts, and improve integration with the city infrastructure. It explains how skyscrapers’ long life cycle offers the greatest justifications for recycling precious resources, and makes it a worthwhile to employ green features in constructing new skyscrapers and retrofitting existing ones. Subsequently, the book explores new designs that are employing cutting-edge green technologies at a grand scale including water-saving technologies, solar panels, helical wind turbines, sunlight-sensing LED lights, rainwater catchment systems, graywater and blackwater recycling systems, seawater-powered air conditioning, and the like. In the future, new building materials and smart technologies will continue to offer innovative design approaches to sustainable tall buildings with new aesthetics, referred to as “eco-iconic” skyscrapers.

The Language of Disenchantment explores how Protestant ideas about language influenced British colonial attitudes toward Hinduism and proposals for the reform of that tradition. Protestant literalism, mediated by a new textual economy of the printed book, inspired colonial critiques of Indian mythological, ritual, linguistic, and legal traditions. Central to these developments was the transposition of the Christian opposition between monotheism and polytheism or idolatry into the domain of language. Polemics against verbal idolatry - including the elevation of a scriptural canon over heathenish custom, the attack on the personifications of mythological language, and the critique of "vain repetitions" in prayers and magic spells - previously applied to Catholic and sectarian practices in Britain were now applied by colonialists to Indian linguistic practices. As a remedy for these diseases of language, the British attempted to standardize and codify Hindu traditions as a step toward both Anglicization and Christianization. The colonial understanding of a perfect language as the fulfillment of the monotheistic ideal echoed earlier Christian myths according to which the Gospel had replaced the obscure discourses of pagan oracles and Jewish ritual. By recovering the historical roots of the British re-ordering of South Asian discourses in Protestantism, Yelle challenges representations of colonialism, and of the modernity that it ushered in, as simply rational or secular.

Comprising of the proceedings of the Sixth International Conference on Harmonisation between Architecture and Nature, the papers deal with topics such as building technologies, design by passive systems, design with nature, cultural sensitivity, life cycle assessment, resources and rehabilitation as well as many others. This book follows five successful meetings which started in the New Forest, UK in 2006, then followed in the Algarve (2008), A Coruna (2010), Kos (2012) and Siena, Italy (2014). Eco-Architecture signifies a new approach to the design process intended to harmonise its products with nature. This involves concepts such as minimum use of energy at each stage of the building process, taking into account the amount required during the extraction and transportation of materials, their fabrication, assembly, building formation, maintenance and eventual future recycling. The adaptation of the architectural design to the natural environment, is another important issue. The book will be of interest to architects, engineers, planners, physical scientists, sociologists and economists and contained within these proceedings are case studies from many different places around the world. Topics covered consist of: Design with nature; Energy efficiency; Tall buildings and environment; Ecological impacts of materials; Biomaterials; Bioclimatic design; Water quality; Green facades; Ecological; Education and training; Adapted reuse; Transformative design; Sustainability indices in architecture; Bioclimatic design and passive systems; Recycle, reuse, reduce and recovery; Mixing it up and building flexibility; Architectural visualisation and New techniques: building information modelling.

This book presents Ken Yeang's work on the design of ecologically responsive skyscrapers, and includes his essay on applying green-design principles to the skyscraper typology, as well as a preface by Steve Featherstone, an introduction by David Scott (Chairman of The Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat) and a critique by Professor Ivor Richards.

.Tall buildings represent a way of the future which is perceived as necessary despite being environmentally unfriendly .This book demonstrates methods to make these energy-consuming buildings as efficient as possible until a time when the world finds economically viable alternatives Ken Yeang remains one of the world's foremost experts on sustainability and the modern skyscraper. Acknowledging that the skyscraper is possibly one of the most ecologically unfriendly of all building types, he states that until an economically viable alternative is identified, it is necessary to make them as humane and as sustainable as possible. Each project is presented together with data on its climatic location, the local vegetation, plot ratio, net and gross areas."

Understanding Cities is richly textured, complex and challenging. It creates the vital link between urban design theory and praxis and opens the required methodological gateway to a new and unified field of urban design. Using spatial political economy as his most important reference point, Alexander Cuthbert both interrogates and challenges mainstream urban design and provides an alternative and viable comprehensive framework for a new synthesis. He rejects the idea of yet another theory in urban design, and chooses instead to construct the necessary intellectual and conceptual scaffolding for what he terms 'The New Urban Design'. Building both on Michel de Certeau's concept of heterology - 'thinking about thinking' - and on the framework of his previous books Designing Cities and The Form of Cities, Cuthbert uses his prior adopted framework - history, philosophy, politics, culture, gender, environment, aesthetics, typologies and pragmatics - to create three integrated texts. Overall, the trilogy allows a new field of urban design to emerge. Pre-existing and new knowledge are integrated across all three volumes, of which Understanding Cities is the culminating text.

Covering the proceedings of the 11th International Conference on Urban Regeneration and Sustainability held in Alicante, Spain, this volume addresses the multidisciplinary aspects of urban planning; a result of the increasing size of cities, the amount of resources and services required and the complexity of modern society. Most of the earth’s population live in cities and the process of urbanisation still continues to generate problems originating from the drift of the population towards them. These problems can be resolved by cities becoming efficient habitats, saving resources in a way that improves the standard of living. The process faces a number of challenges related to reducing pollution amd improving main transportation and infrastructure systems. These challenges can contribute to the development of social and economic imbalances and require the development of new solutions. Large cities are probably the most complex mechanisms to manage, nevertheless they represent a productive ground for architects, engineers, city planners, and social and political scientists able to conceive new ideas and time them according to technological advances and human requirements. The Sustainable City XI follows a succession of very successful international conferences and covers the following fields: Urban planning and design; Urban development and management; Urban conservation and regeneration; The community and the city; Eco-town planning; Landscape planning and design; Environmental management; Sustainable energy and the city; Transportation Quality of life; Socio-economic and political considerations; Cultural quarters and interventions; Waterfront development; Case studies – sustainable practices; Architectural issues; Cultural heritage issues; Appropriate technologies for smart cities; Planning for resilience; Disaster and emergency response; Urban safety and security; Waste management; Urban infrastructure and Urban metabolism.

This title deals with the many advantages associated to the use of natural light, comparing architectural experiences, technological devices and calculation methods. It provides an introduction to the problems and solutions of enhancing and conveying the right dose of daylight inside buildings, giving attention to energy savings and visual comfort