Ecological Design

Experimental Green Strategies: Redefining Ecological Design Research Guest-edited by Terri Peters
Sustainable design and ecological building are the most significant global challenges for the design profession. To meet new building regulations and national targets for carbon emissions, all future buildings will be judged on their ‘green’ merits.

This third AD by the guest-editors of the highly successful Emergence and techniques and technologies in Morphogenetic Design titles shifts the morpho-ecological design project into the realm of performance. Whereas the dictionary definition of performance -to 'carry out an action' or 'to fulfill a task' - invokes a tired utilitarian debate, Hensel and Menges inject the meaning of the word 'performance' with an entirely new life. In this context, form is redefined not as the shape of a material object alone, but as the multitude of effects, a milieu of conditions, modulations and microclimates that emanate from an object's exchange with its specific environment, a dynamic relationship that is perceived and interacted with by a subject.

Buildings are for People: Human Ecological Design offers a new approach to the process of conceiving architectural design, one that considers the interactions of the built environment with people and the natural environment.

This 10th anniversary edition makes the work available to a new generation of practitioners and thinkers concerned with moving our society onto a more sustainable path.