High-Performance Building

What really makes a high-performance, energy-efficient building?
"Sustainable design is about developing buildings and urban spaces that are tuned to their context. . . . Any building that carries claims to be recognized as 'great architecture' should also qualify as a high-performance building."
-From High-Performance Building
How do we judge the success of a sustainable building? We shouldn't just reward good intentions based on the building design, argues Vidar Lerum in High- Performance Building; we must look at the evidence of the actual performance of architectural objects "as built."
High-Performance Building gives architects a practical guide to excellent, sustainable design, showing how to analyze and evaluate the buildings "as built." Taking a hands-on view of sustainability, the author provides designers with specific benchmarks for high performance and energy efficiency. Utilizing the latest methods for analysis of climate responsive design, he asks:
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Where does a building that claims to be "green" or "sustainable" check in on a scale relative to benchmark buildings of the same type?
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How does the building contribute to a sustainable development in its demand for energy and natural materials?
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Does the building provide a high level of thermal comfort to its users?
To illustrate, Lerum takes the reader on an on-site tour of seven buildings around the world that exemplify these standards. Ranging from the west coast of Greenland to the Sonoran Desert, the buildings are examined as physical, built objects. For additional perspectives, the author interviews the architects and speaks with engineers, owners, and users. At the sites, something unexpected often shows up. The author's work reveals unknown or hidden features, characteristics, or details.
By understanding what works and what does not in notable buildings around the world, High-Performance Building enables architects to discover the challenges and opportunities in their own designs, whether simple residences or large commercial structures.
1101229
430,00
Theories and Manifestoes of Contemporary Architecture, 2nd Edition
Charles Jencks (Editor), Karl Kropf (Editor)
ISBN: 978-0-470-01469-1
Paperback
384 pages
December 2005
The second half of the 20th Century witnessed an outburst of theories and manifestoes that explored the possibilities of architecture: it's language, evolution and social relevance. The many 'crises in architecture' and emerging urban and ecological problems questioned the current orthodoxy: Modernism was criticised, questioned and overthrown, only to be extended, subverted and revivified. The result was a cascade of new theories, justifications and recipes for building. This anthology, first edited in 1997, brought together a coherent collection of texts that tracked these important shifts from all the major architectural thinkers and practitioners.
In this new edition of the book, over twenty additional extracts are published that present an entirely new axis for architectural thinking. Whereas much of the 20th-Century thought was dominated by the 'perceived crisis' in Modernity, 'the new paradigm' or 'complexity paradigm' has been excited by the possibilities of Emergence in the Science of Complexity and Chaos theory. The reach of complexity is expressed through the primacy of Benoit Mandelbrot's theories on geometry, with an extract from his manifesto on fractals; and furthered through an outline of Emergence by Steven Johnson. It is also handled through texts that focus on the diagram and are demonstrated in its more applied form through passages dealing with the global city and culture.
Essential for the student and practitioner alike, Theories and Manifestoes since its first edition has established itself as the touchstone book for architectural thought. It features seminal texts by Reyner Banham, Peter Eisenman, Frank Gehry, Rem Koolhaas, Colin Rowe and Robert Venturi. This is now ejected with greater currency with extracts from: Cecil Balmond, Foreign Office Architects, Daniel Libeskind, MVRDV, Lars Spuybroek, UN Studio and West 8.