Living Buildings

Celebrates the 50th Anniversary of Donald Insall Associates, the Practice founded by distinguished British architect Donald Insall, a leading exponent in the field of Architectural Conservation. This book presents an examination of architectural conservation, comprehensively illustrated by case-studies, drawings, plans and descriptions.

'A remarkable book; surprisingly gripping and often very moving ... at once disorientating and illuminating.' - Robert Macfarlane We shape ourselves, and are shaped in return, by the walls that contain us. Buildings affect how we sleep, work, socialise and even breathe. They can isolate and endanger us but they can also heal us. We project our hopes and fears onto buildings, while they absorb our histories. In Living With Buildings, Iain Sinclair embarks on a series of expeditions - through London, Marseille, Mexico and the Outer Hebrides. A father and his daughter, who has a rare syndrome, visit the estate where they once lived. Developers clink champagne glasses as residents are 'decanted' from their homes. A box sculpted from whalebone, thought to contain healing properties, is returned to its origins with unexpected consequences. Part investigation, part travelogue, Living With Buildings brings the spaces we inhabit to life as never before.

Nature and architecture have never been more intertwined. As more of the earth's surface is swallowed up by the built environment, architects are increasingly up to the task of integrating flora and greenery into their creations. There are many ways to express this: green roofs, living walls, indoor courtyards and entire facades filled with plants. But where these are posed as solutions there are yet more questions. How does a skyscraper uphold the weight of hundreds of trees? How do residents keep moss-covered walls alive? Jungle Architecture explores this, and much more.

One of the more exciting realities of 21st-century life is that objects are now able with the help of embedded technology to sense, think, act and communicate. Very soon, every building, city and landscape component will be equipped with communicative and computational capacities: we shall be surrounded by sentient architecture. This book documents the role of architecture in shaping this new reality in multiple research trajectories launched and guided by the authors at The University of Toronto, MIT, Harvard Graduate School of Design and the University of Hong Kong. The projects establish an interdisciplinary platform involving artists, designers, scientists and engineers spanning different institutions and continents in a technological approach to spatial problems that is attuned to the dynamics of living systems.

A building's entire life cycle aooOCU1/4oOe1/4o from construction through occupation, cycles of renovation and repairs, up to demolition and disposal, impacts the flow of materials thereby created. The decisive path of a building's environmental impact is however usually set early in the planning phase, at a time when planners often still lack knowledge about the sustainability characteristics of different building materials and constructions."

First Published in 2009. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

The second edition of Sustainable Buildings and Infrastructure continues to provide students with an introduction to the principles and practices of sustainability as they apply to the construction sector, including both buildings and infrastructure systems. As a textbook, it is aimed at students taking courses in construction management and the built environment, but it is also designed to be a useful reference for practitioners involved in implementing sustainability in their projects or firms. Case studies, best practices and highlights of cutting edge research are included throughout, making the book both a core reference and a practical guide.