New Directions in Sustainable Design

Recently there has been a plethora of work published on the topic of sustainability, much of which is purely theoretical or technical in its approach. More often than not these books fail to introduce readers to the larger challenge of what thinking sustainably might entail.

Combining a series of well know authors in contemporary philosophy with established practitioners of sustainable design, this book develops a coherent theoretical framework for how theories of sustainability might engage with the growing practice of design. This book:

• brings together new and emerging perspectives on sustainability
• provides cohesive and jargon-free reading
• articulates the specificity of both theory and practice, to develop a symbiotic relationship which allows the reader to understand what thinking sustainably entails

This volume describes a variety of new ways to approach sustainable design and it equips the next generation of designers with necessary conceptual tools for thinking sustainably.

Adrian Parr is an Associate Professor in the Department of Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies and the School of Architecture and Interior Design at the University of Cincinnati, and a Distinguished Fellow of iCinema at the University of New South Wales. She is the author of Hijacking Sustainability (MIT Press, 2009), Deleuze and Memorial Culture (Edinburgh University Press, 2008), and editor of The Deleuze Dictionary (Columbia University Press, 2005) and the co-editor with Ian Buchanan of Deleuze and the Contemporary World (Edinburgh University Press, 2006).

Michael Zaretsky is an Architect, LEED AP and Assistant Professor at the University of Cincinnati School of Architecture and Interior Design. His practice, research, and teaching engage with issues of public-interest design, humanitarian design, and a holistic approach to sustainable design. He is the author of Precedents in Zero-Energy Design: Architecture and Passive Design in the 2007 Solar Decathlon (Routledge, 2009). He is Chair of the Roche Health Center Design Committee and is presently leading the design of a zero-energy health center for Roche Village in rural Tanzania.