Reading material
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Books that influence our work...
A - Z Encyclopedia of Garden Plants by Christopher Brickell.
The Death and Life of Great American Cities by Jane Jacobs. From Wikipedia: A greatly influential book on the subject of urban planning in the 20th century. First published in 1961, the book is a critique of modernist planning policies claimed by Jacobs to be destroying many existing inner-city communities.
Dirr's Hardy Trees and Shrubs by Michael A. Dirr.
- The Great Work by Thomas Berry. Berry asks us to move from being a disruptive force on the earth to a benign presence. He calls this our great work - the most necessary and most ennobling work we will ever undertake.
- Home Safe Home by Debra Lynn Dadd. Dadd takes a hard look at just how safe we really are in our own homes. Toxic cleaning products, pesticides, processed foods, synthetic fibers and fabrics, are just a few of the things that can affect the health of our families. She offers solutions, often simple and inexpensive, to help eliminate the toxins in our home environment and to turn our homes into the safe havens they should be.
- How Buildings Learn by Stewart Brand. From Wikipedia: An illustrated book on the evolution of buildings and how buildings adapt to changing requirements over long periods.
- Landscaping with Native Plants of Michigan by Lynn M. Steiner.
- A Pattern Language by Christopher Alexander. From Amazon: The second of three books published by the Center for Environmental Structure to provide a "working alternative to our present ideas about architecture, building, and planning," A Pattern Language offers a practical language for building and planning based on natural considerations. The reader is given an overview of some 250 patterns that are the units of this language, each consisting of a design problem, discussion, illustration, and solution. By understanding recurrent design problems in our environment, readers can identify extant patterns in their own design projects and use these patterns to create a language of their own. Extraordinarily thorough, coherent, and accessible, this book has become a bible for homebuilders, contractors, and developers who care about creating healthy, high-level design.
Plan B 2.0: Rescuing a Planet Under Stress and a Civilization in Trouble by Lester Brown. President of the Earth Policy Institute, Lester Brown begins by describing the devastation to our planet wrought by years of industrialization and a "throw-away" economy. In the second part of the book, he details many sustainable solutions and even how they might be funded.
- Small Is Beautiful: Economics As If People Mattered by E. F. Schumacher. Argues that bigger is not always better. Contends that the workplace should be dignified and meaningful first, efficient second, and that nature (and the world's natural resources) is priceless.
- Sun, Wind and Light: Architectural Design Strategies by Mark DeKay. From Amazon: How to design buildings that heat with the sun, cool with the wind, light with the sky, and move into the future using on-site renewable resources.
- Super Insulated Houses and Air-to-Air Heat Exchangers by William Shurcliff.
- Thermal Shutters and Shades by William Shurcliff.
- The Timeless Way of Building by Christopher Alexander. The first volume of Alexander's seminal trilogy on architecture. The philosophical underpinnings of 'A Pattern Language.'
