Environment Design Guide

Quarterly Notes from Down Under

Environment Design Guide, The Royal Australian Institute of Architects. Australian$126 for four quarterly installments (approximately US$100). Order from RAIA-Environment; The Royal Australian Institute of Architects, P.O. Box 3373, Manuka ACT 263, Australia; +61 6 273 1953 (fax). Full set of 24 previously published notes is available for AUS$85 (US$63).

Since February of 1995, RAIA has been publishing high-quality reports, case studies, and news updates on ecological design issues. These eight-page reports, or

Notes, are written by authorities in the respective fields, and

EBN found them technically accurate and remarkably comprehensive.

The

Notes are categorized by types of content: General Issues, Design Strategies, and Products/Materials (a fourth category, Technology, has yet to receive its first installment). The General Issues Notes discuss broad environmental issues and all the ways that architects can effect positive change in relation to them. For example, the report entitled “Biodiversity” suggests wide-ranging strategies such as making building surfaces friendly to wildlife and landscaping with a wide range of native species.

Notes in the Design Strategies category discuss different aspects of energy-efficient design, natural lighting, and site design issues; while Notes in the Products/Materials section cover methods for assessing the environmental impact of materials, their embodied energy, and toxicity.

The Case Studies are also impressive. Without using color or fancy artwork, they provide a good sense for the nature of each project, its constraints, strengths, and weaknesses. The case studies are particularly strong on technical aspects such as energy use and ecological impact, but they don’t ignore the aesthetics. Each quarterly installment includes five

Notes, a Case Study, and a newsletter. Although these documents pertain specifically to the Australian context, they include plenty of information that designers everywhere will find valuable.