This book was first published ten years ago and I provided a foreword then. In the intervening years, during which environmental design has more and more been seen as sustainable design (for good earth preserving reasons), two things have happened.
Most buildings have more or less reluctantly taken on board ever increasing legal requirements for greater insulation (heat and sound), reduced glazing, improved orientation, the use of less wasteful materials and more natural ventilation; while all these things are not seen as having any implications for the architectural language that is used. This is the eternal no change school of behaviour.
But a minority have struggled to find a new or revised architectural expression to allow for sustainable environmental conditions. Architects, engineers and designers have searched for a new aesthetic for such things as solar shading, load bearing masonry, green wood building, natural (chimney effect) ventilation, wind and photovoltaic power generation, passive solar gain, and so on.
For it is hard to see how such considerations might be incorporated without a change in the way that we think about architecture. It is hard to see how to make that change without thinking about the composition of architecture in a more expressive way than is common today. If we are to make this move towards responsive expressionism we will need all the help we can get from clear thinking, cool headed environmental designers. It is here that this book Environmental Design has a most important part to play. It is clear, logical, well illustrated and good to read; and it has the great quality of all profound work – it is easy to understand. Now let us use it to help us with our architecture.
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