A Green Vitruvius: Principles and Practice of Sustainable Architectural Design

by Architects’ Council of Europe (Brussels): Eoin O’Cofaigh; Energy Research Group, University College (Dublin): Eileen Fitzgerald, Robert Alcock, Ann McNicholl, J. Owen Lewis; Suomen Arkkiteillitto (Helsinki): Vesa Peltonen; and Softech (Turin): Antonella Marucco. James & James (Science Publishers) Ltd., London, 1999. Paperback, 145 pages, $40.

A Green Vitruvius is a wonderful resource that certainly lives up to its subtitle, if not its title (which alludes to the classic text

The Ten Books on Architecture by Marcus Vitruvius Pollio). It offers a comprehensive overview of the issues and enough specific details to be useful in practice, yet it is not overly long or cluttered. Checklists, full-color illustrations and photographs, and little sidebars flesh out the main text effectively without distracting from the flow.

The book is structured in five parts: Process, Issues, Strategies, Elements, and Evaluation. Process consists of an annotated checklist of green design issues organized by design process stage, while Issues and Strategies introduce the basic principles of green design, first at a general level and then in more specifics. Elements is about building systems and materials, and Evaluation—the book’s weakest part—outlines various methods for assessing building performance.

While the book is positive about green design in general, it is appropriately skeptical of systems that might be questionable. For example, in a section on wall construction, the authors report on a study showing that so-called “breathing walls” such as those used at Findhorn do not actually allow airflow, though they do accommodate some exchange of humidity.

If there is a drawback for North American audiences, it is that some of the terminology and units of measurement are not familiar. Aside from the obvious issues with metric units, there are issues such as how one labels the different phases in the design process. For lack of an American book of this scope and quality, it’s definitely worth the effort to understand the language and use this book.