Sustainable Houses with Small Footprints

A presentation of contemporary houses that demonstrates how domesticity can be beautiful and still help the planet. Have we passed a tipping point beyond which we can no longer reverse a course of action that was charted several decades ago Sustainable: Houses with Small Footprints argues that we can indeed detach our dwellings from a dependence on many external systems and resources and adopt other building practices. What is known as living off the grid is possible, and Sustainable presents forty-five houses that demonstrate how architects have implemented sustainable design concepts around the world. These projects show us what time-tested vernacular design principles—including local materials, natural ventilation strategies, and earth shelter construction—can teach us, as well as how the latest cutting-edge technologies—such as indoor farming and "living walls" made of plant material—can make truly sustainable design possible. The variety and ingenuity of the projects featured here make Sustainable a uniquely coherent and authoritative volume on sustainable residential design.

Avi Friedman is a cofounder of the Affordable Homes Program at the McGill School of Architecture in Quebec, where he teaches. He is the author of twelve books and was a syndicated columnist for the CanWest chain of daily newspapers.