Sustainable Architecture: Principles, Paradigms, and Case Studies

by James Steele. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1997. Hardcover, 285 pages, $49.95.

Sustainable Architecture consists of a series of essays and case studies addressing various aspects of environmentally responsible design. The strength of this material is in the perspective offered by Steele, an Associate Professor of Architecture at the University of Southern California, placing environmental awareness in the context of architectural movements. While the book falls far short of the comprehensive overview suggested by its title, it does offer some valuable insights.

Three chapters address sustainability in much broader terms than just architecture, discussing the origins of the concept as it is currently used, global development issues, and ecological economics. Each of these cursory discussions concludes with thoughtful commentary about the relevance of the topic to architects.

The collection of case studies, comprising half the book, does not follow any explicit rationale. Many of them are examples of energy-efficient design for desert climates that are modeled on traditional arabic designs. Several are larger-scale projects with an emphasis on aspects of land-use planning such as natural habitat restoration or reduced automobile dependence. The dozens of illustrations used with the case studies are, on the whole, not carefully selected or well explained, as if quantity can make up for the lack of quality. The lack of any color images is unfortunate for some of the projects illustrated.

A chapter on building materials goes into quite a bit of detail about a very limited number of materials: aluminum, concrete, plywood, and steel. As examples of how one might assess the life-cycle environmental impacts of materials, these discussions are reasonably useful. We noticed a few errors, however, such as the confusion of flyash-concrete with autoclaved cellular concrete (which can also be made using flyash); and the unfortunate republication of an error from

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Vol. 2, No. 2, in which we inadvertantly calculated the embodied energy of a ton of concrete as if it contained a ton of cement (this error was corrected in the following issue—our estimated embodied energy for one ton of concrete is 817,600 Btus). Steele’s strength in this area, as in the others, comes in his discussion of how the material might best be used.

Sustainable Architecture offers some useful insights into topics relating to global development and the environment, and it makes these topics relevant to contemporary architects. As a supplement, it could contribute to a course on sustainable design, but we wouldn’t suggest relying on it as the primary text.