Sustainable Homes: 26 Designs that Respect the Earth | James Grayson Trulove

Sustainable Homes: 26 Designs that Respect the Earth | James Grayson Trulove | Beautiful pictures, information lacking

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Sustainable Homes:...

	Sustainable Homes: 26 Designs that Respect the Earth James Grayson Trulove Collins Design, 2004 - 208 pages average customer review:based on 4 reviews view larger image
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Sustainable Homes puts to rest the stigma that "green architecture" is unattractive and unsuitable for residential architecture.For the houses shown in this volume represent design equal to or superior to most conventional houses. Each of these "eco" houses is unique. Some tread lightly on the site by nestling into the land. Others are designed to be extremely well suited to the climactic zones in which they are built. Many use materials that do no harm to the environment?materials that are recycled, salvaged, or harvested.

The houses featured in Sustainable Homes are designed by today's top architects such as Obie Bowman, Fernau and Hartman, Hanrahan and Meyers, and Lake/Flato. They reveal how much the parameters of ecological design have expanded in just a few short years. Over two dozen individual houses are featured -- from locations as diverse as a Canadian cove to the Arizona desert, from Kansas plains to the Norwegian coast, from California bluffs to South Carolina wetlands -- each described through descriptions, photographs, plans, drawings, and schematics.

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Interesting ideas from questionable designs

Sustainability is something that seems to defy definition at this time. Personally, I believe that part of it has to do with lifestyle. I think it is terrific that when pallacial homes are built they bring efficiencies into play. There are many good ideas in this book. Some of them have already been incorporated into projects I am building. That does not make them "Designs that Respect the Earth". Most of these structures are not what I would call sustainable. I would, however say that they are more effecient than they could have been.

Dont get me wrong, I am glad that these are being built the way they are. It is just that the title makes a bold claim I call to question.

They are, in some cases beautiful and as I said, some of the ideas are being incorporated into current projects of Eco-Con Building Systems, Inc.

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Beautiful pictures, information lacking

I love to collect books of house plans and blueprints and I especially like those that are environmentally friendly. Some day my family wants to afford to build such a nice house so these give us ideas. However, that only really works if we have full information -- like what types of materials are used, layouts of the floors that we can read, etc. Several, about 40% of the designs in this book lacked understandable or complete basic blueprints for the structure. Only a page or two about the building and the philosophy behind it were included. Primarily this is a pretty picture book and for $30 it should be more.

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I wouldn't buy this as my main reference

This is a book of sumptuous photos and graceful, though scant, commentary. Featured are sophisticated homes in beautiful, sometimes dramatic settings. Yet contrasting with the title, the brief description of each house seems more to emphasize aesthetics than "sustainability." Dennis Wedlick's forward succinctly lists a few elements like super-insulation, and non-toxic materials; but too little along these lines is discussed in Trulove's text in relation to the specific houses. Occasional fundamental or innovative details of construction, siting, or materials do show up, but more often the discussion is about traditional architectural concerns (like interior space and extensive windows) and stylistic considerations (like exterior cladding, and interior paneling). Besides the photos, the floor plans and roof-line illustrations are informative (though small). And occasionally the text and the photos come together nicely to reveal an interesting design feature - as when an extensive overhanging roof used in an especially sunny climate provides shade for windows (presumably reducing air-conditioning needs). But this book is nowhere near as intensive in its investigation of its featured homes, nor of sustainabile-home concepts or tech, as numerous other available books on the same topic (such as David Pearson's The Natural House).

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