The Epic of Sustainable Architecture: Reconciling Humanity with the Earth

Sustainable architecture begins when people realized the earth was not infinite, as towers rose higher and roads spread like arteries without end. Its principles say a building is not separate from the earth, the sun is a design partner, the wind an architect without a pencil, rain a resource, materials carry the memory of where they came from and daylight is a building material. Gardens by the Bay, the Bullitt Center in Seattle, Bosco Verticale in Milan, The Edge in Amsterdam, Oasia Hotel Downtown and Apple Park show the ideas at work, before harder questions about cost, the city beyond the green building, carbon, the circular economy and the old building that may already be the most sustainable. The book ends by asking whom we build for, the child not yet born included.