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Adapting Buildings and Cities for Climate Change: A 21st Century Survival Guide
 
 

Adapting Buildings and Cities for Climate Change: A 21st Century Survival Guide [Kindle Edition]

Sue Roaf PhD , David Crichton , Fergus Nicol
5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)

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Editorial Reviews

Review

'A timely and fascinating book on the crucial issue of energy use in buildings which accounts for half of our total energy use.'
Stephen Tindale, Executive Director, Greenpeace, UK

'We are at the crossroads of the most significant crisis of modern times. Two profound, life changing events are converging to create this crisis - the warming of the earth's atmosphere by burning fossil fuels, and the rapid depletion of global petroleum and natural gas reserves. As these events intensify over the coming years, they will dramatically change how we live and how we relate to the natural world. These changes can cause the human race great pain and suffering or they can inspire a historic transition to a kinder and gentler world.
Sue Roaf, David Crichton and Fergus Nicol in their new book Adapting Buildings and Cities for Climate Change, dissect these events and rightly conclude that at the center of this crisis stands the architecture and building community. They clearly illustrate that this community, unknowingly, is chiefly responsible for precipitating this crisis and argue for nothing less than a building design revolution to address the problem.
What makes this book so important is that it not only outlines the issues and science behind climate change, but details the steps necessary to alleviate future large scale dislocations and hardship. Ms. Roaf identifies the key players in this struggle, their roles, and the actions needed to spark this revolution. She makes it crystal clear that there is no technological fix looming on the horizon, and that if the architecture and building community do not step forward and lead, there is little hope for meaningful change to take place. This book contains the framework for beginning the critical dialogue necessary to confront humanity's greatest challenge.'
SBSE journal

Book Description

Provides an insight into the real changes that are necessary to give our modern day built environment both 'sustainability' and 'survivability'

Product Details

  • Format: Kindle Edition
  • File Size: 6469 KB
  • Publisher: Architectural Press (December 30, 2004)
  • Sold by: Amazon Digital Services
  • Language: English
  • ASIN: B000QEE394
  • Text-to-Speech: Enabled
  • Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #307,346 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store)
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Average Customer Review
5.0 out of 5 stars (3 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars Essential read, December 19, 2010
This is the 2nd edition of a volume first published in 2005, which itself was one of the early books on an all important 21st century topic. The 2nd edition provides important updates in a rapidly emerging set of studies and recommendations to respond to and prepare for climate change. The risks of climate change are presented in a series of chapters, with full citation and references, with titles such as "How Hot Will It Get" and "How Wet Will It Get," each presenting summaries and citations from the science literature. The authors are wise enough to not only describe risk, but also to describe practical and realizable actions that can be taken to reduce climate risks, particularly related to buildings, communities and city building. There is a critique of "modern buildings" and description of proven techniques to use renewable energies in building and urban design. Concluding Chapters focus upon strategies and targets for action, in which all of us should be engaged. The book's broad brush makes the case for comprehensive approaches to design for mitigation and adaption realizable through the built environment. The emphasis on the physical environment makes this especially valuable as a text for teaching and practicing architecture and related physical planning professionals.
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5.0 out of 5 stars Planners and architects see the heat turned up and respond, April 4, 2007
Every American planning professional or aspiring city planner should include this book in their personal library. Besides the fight against standard American-style sprawl, planners are going to have to take the long view (it's why they're hired!) when designing buildings, cities, energy supplies, and transport systems in a much warmer world. This book is a start. In my opinion, any school that fails to include plannning aspects of climate change in its curriculum is derelict.
As you can see from my other book reviews I harp on the need to examine nuclear energy as an option for our quickly urbanizing world. Besides good coverage of alternative energy for buildings and cities, the authors mention the aging UK nuke plants, the problem of relying on French nuclear power during the last heat wave, and other issues, including Sweden's policy reversal on shutting down its nuclear program. But this assessment on p 278 stood out for me:
"However with the approaching oil crisis the UK govt may well have to review this (nuclear) policy. It is difficult to see how we will cope without nuclear power."
Whether the UK will modernize its nuclear infrastructure is another matter.
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5.0 out of 5 stars A vitally important subject comprehensively introduced., April 2, 2005
By 
Ann Cameron (Panajachel, Guatemala) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   
How will we live when the oil runs out? How will we live when the climate is even hotter, with more floods, high winds, droughts? What kinds of buildings will be livable? How can we change what we build now to better serve humankind? Sue Roaf and co-authors argue that we won't be able to do it in "thin-skinned", windowless twentieth century buildings of glass and steel that keep out neither cold nor heat and require tremendous energy resources just to be usable. This is a great book about the many ways in which we need to and can change our thinking--particularly in architecture, in which a slavish adulation of "maestro-built," difficult-to-use buildings must be abandoned for a commitment to buildings and communities that will protect, preserve and comfort us in the resource-scarce times ahead.
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