Eco House Book

As a compilation of ecologically sound, sustainable options and practices regarding housing, this is fantastic. A great summary of your options with just enough information to let you figure out which ones you want to research further, with great resources listed in the back.My one criticism is that the author writes with the assumption that everyone agrees with him that Global Warming is THE problem in the world today, and that focusing on carbon emissions are the way to fix it. I happen to disagree with him that global warming is man made and that we face far bigger problems in the form of pollution and landfills and endangered species etc. I believe that the solutions to these problems are made on a much more personal and active level than waiting on tax breaks and government recommendations to do our work for us. This sadly made a beautiful (many of the photographs are simply stunning and very inspiring) book that should have been very enjoyable to read into something that I grit my teeth through.Nevertheless, it is a good book, and Mr. Conran's expertise in actually designing these houses shines through.

A lot of helpful details. Great book to go to for inspiration and ideas on building a house or trying to make your current home more environmentally friendly. Pictures are superb. I will definitely pick this up multiple times and page through it, I always enjoy it. Great coffee table book also, the cover is dimensional with the words cut out of the top layer and the darker bottom layer showing through. It looks very stylish.

What can I say? its not a book you read in one go, but a book you keep coming back to and understanding more and more of. It has helped me in some pretty big decisions when building my new house which is now much more eco friendly than I had initially planned and budgeted for!

You can judge a book by it's cover!!Excellent effort and it look great on your coffee table to boot.

Great book

Too often, books on green building hector their readers, or at best, pay a little lip service to environmental issues while pushing products. Not so " Eco House Book ," by Terence Conran, who has written yet another sensible work that should help homeowners to think carefully about their living spaces.Conran identifies and explains what we're seeing, moving from a house built to survive the wind on a desert mesa in New Mexico, to a home in Chicago designed to capture natural light to an off-the-grid home in Oregon and to a home in Sweden that is entirely unpainted but still well-insulated and warm, and plenty of other structures along the way.Each of the 17 homes illustrates a point in a given category: services (energy and heating, for example), basic fabric, meaning windows, floors, etc., design, outdoor spaces and maintenance. Photos and text flow together, taking readers on an architectural and design tour of the many possibilities, given the landscape and weather of where the home is located and the preferences of their owners.Though many of the homes shown here are in the United States, this is very much a British book, but that shouldn't get in the way of Americans looking to build a green life. The terms may differ; the cause and value do not.Intelligence, not preaching, reigns in this pages, and readers are left with a sense of empowerment, knowing that they too, with some thought, can live healthier lives and yet not sacrifice beauty or practicality in the process.

The government boys need to read this book as this is the way housing should be built for sustainability.This country is way behind in re cycling and mass transportation. Need I go on ? OKAY here ends the lesson. Sorry.

Brought this as a gift for an architect. Loved it.

very good

nice photo's but no information about how to go about building or planning your project. nothing that you haven't all ready heard about elsewhere. A book for the coffee table but nothing else. the 2 stars are for the photo's

This shows flash new homes. I expected home built eco houses in natural materialt. Inspiration to built for myself - but this is all clean lines and no soul