Resource Salvation

Book excerpt: A valuable source of information, insight, and fresh ideas about a crucial aspect of the growing sustainable design movement Mounting resource shortages worldwide coupled with skyrocketing extraction costs for new materials have made the prospect of materials reuse and recycling an issue of paramount importance. A fundamental goal of the sustainable design movement is to derive utmost use from construction materials and components, including energy, water, materials, building components, whole structures, and even entire infrastructures. Written by an expert with many years of experience in both industry and academe, this book explores a wide range of sustainable design strategies which designers around the globe are using to create efficient and aesthetically pleasing buildings from waste streams and discarded items. Emphasizing performance issues, design considerations and process constraints, it describes numerous fully realized projects, and explores theoretical applications still on the drawing board. There is a growing awareness worldwide of the need for cyclical systems of materials reuse. Pioneering efforts at “closed-loop” design date as far back as 1960s, but only recently have architects and designers begun to focus on the opportunities which discarded materials can provide for creating high performance structures. A source of insight and fresh ideas for architects, engineers, and designers, Resource Salvation: Reviews the theory and practice of building material and waste reuse and describes best practices in that area worldwide Describes projects that use closed-loop thinking to influence and inspire the design of components, interiors, whole buildings, or urban landscapes Illustrates how using discarded materials and focusing on closed loops can lead to new concepts in architecture, building science, and urban design Demonstrates how designers have developed aesthetically compelling solutions to the demands of rigorous performance standards Resource Salvation is a source of information and inspiration for architects, civil engineers, green building professionals, building materials suppliers, landscape designers, urban designers, and government policymakers. It is certain to become required reading in university courses in sustainable architecture, as well as materials engineering and environmental engineering curricula with a sustainable design component.