Review
"Probably no individual is more important in the development of ecodesign's theory and practice than the London and Kuala-Lumpur-based architect Ken Yeang. Ecodesign is of great value as a manual for use in the design studio of both the practitioner and the student." (
Architectural Record; 1/08)
"…incredibly useful for more persistent academics and all those people who seriously want to incorporate green ideas into ... working practices." (iDFX, September 2006)
"…a resource both theoretical and practical…" (Architectural Technology, October 2006)
"… lots of good information.... The chapter on building form is arguably the best and most in-depth and reflects Yeang’s passion…" (Building Design, October 2006)
"…would provide a useful reference resource for ... designers of contemporary buildings and products ... in the initial concept stages of design…" (Architecture Today, November 2006)
"... provides everyone with a guiding framework for changing society’s present profligate, high-energy, environmentally destructive economy into ... sustainable and eco-based."(Environment UK, November 2006)
"A highly informative and comprehensive manual on ecological design…" (Buildiing Engineer, December 2006)
"…a comprehensive design primer for students…" (The Architectural Review, March 07)
From the Back Cover
Saving the environment from continued devastation by our built environment is the single most important issue for our tomorrow, feeding into our post-millennial fears that this third millennium will indeed be our last.
Ken Yeang reconstructs and revisions how and why our current design approach and perception of architecture must radically change if we are to ensure a sustainable future. He argues forcefully that this can only be achieved by adopting the environmentalist’s view that, aesthetics apart, regards our environment simply as an assembly of materials (mostly transported over long distances), that are transciently concentrated on to a single locality and used for living, working and leisure whose footprints affect that locality’s ecology and whose eventual disposal has to be accommodated somewhere in the biosphere.
The manual offers clear instructions to designers on how to design, build and use a green sustainable architecture. The aim is to produce and maintain ecosystem-like structures and systems whose content and outputs not only integrate benignly with the natural environment, but whose built form and systems function with sensitivity to the locality’s ecology as well in relation to global biospheric processes, and contribute positively to biodiversity (as opposed to reducing it). The goal is structures and systems that are low consumers of non-renewable resources, built with materials that have low ecological consequences and are designed to facilitate disassembly, continuous reuse and recycling a (a cyclic process that mimics the way ecosystems recycle materials), and that at the end of their useful lives can be reintegrated seamlessly back into the natural environment. Each of these aspects (and other attendant ones) is examined in detail with regards to how they influence design and planning.
The manual provides designers with a comprehensive set of Strategies for approaching ecological design and planning combined with in-depth analysis and research material not found elsewhere. The book is not intended solely for design professionals but should also be of considerable interest and use to all those whose work impinges in one way or an other on the natural environment.
The book consolidates and advances the theoretical and technical work of Ken Yeang in a text illustrated with over 300 diagrams, drawings and design examples.
