Definitive green building books

May 8, 2006 4:44 AM

What are the definitive books on green building?

I'm getting started on a project to build an environmentally friendly house. Do any MeFi-ers have experience of this sort of thing? In particular, what are the best books for a beginner, especially one who has no background in building or construction?

posted by Grinder to home & garden (12 comments total)

I've helped build a few of these.
They're not everyone's cup of tea, but they're environmentally friendly and any idiot that can work a shovel, level and string can build one.
posted by buggzzee23 at 5:18 AM on May 8, 2006

The definitive book has not been written (as far as I'm aware). My greatest source of inspiration is The Owner Builder magazine (Australasian), which I just learnt has been going since 1982. It is full of information every issue.

You'll have to start refining what you want from your house before you get too overwhelmed by choices. Me personally, I'm all for a straw-bale house, and/or stone. There are lots of good books, manyfrom the US, on strawbale building, ranging from the vogue living inspiration books through to the hardcore construction manuals. They're available in my bookstore so presumably, if you're north american, you'll be spoilt for choice, particularly in any specialty stores.

Although you've got no background, presumably you must feel comfortable working with your hands and figuring stuff out. A bit of advice offered by many people is to get some real-world experience by volunteering on someone elses project for a few weeks or something. Or hands-on workshops. That's one thing that magazines can offer that books cant.
posted by wilful at 5:43 AM on May 8, 2006

buggzzee, what are those star wars type constructions? Sandbags? Filled with cement? That was a surprisingly uninformative website.
posted by wilful at 5:47 AM on May 8, 2006

The ones I've worked on were built using Nader Khalili's rolls of tubing that you cut to length for each course. We mixed one part Portland cement to 10 parts native Mojave Desert soil with just a pinch of water when filling the tubes.

If you didn't find enough info on CalEarth's home page, a Google search for earthbag or superadobe will provide more info. More images.
posted by buggzzee23 at 6:27 AM on May 8, 2006

If you're actually building a house: What kind of house are you envisioning? Where do you live? Building a straw bale or rammed earth house will probably be tough to permit if you want to build in a suburb or incorporated area. A traditional house that incorporates green features such as passive solar, superinsulation and a ground source heat pump can be just as green as the hippie igloos linked to above.
posted by electroboy at 6:46 AM on May 8, 2006

Although it won't give you the broad overview of a good book on the subject, the Inhabitat blog has lots of information on new projects, equipment and trends in eco-friendly building.
posted by caddis at 7:06 AM on May 8, 2006

electroboy, at the moment I have no idea. I'm really just trying to get a grasp on the options and their advantages and disadvantages.
posted by Grinder at 7:07 AM on May 8, 2006

These titles aren't construction specific, and probably deal with larger buildings, but they'll give you an idea of the technologies out there.

Remember that a lot of 'green' building has to do not just with the building itself, but also the community which surrounds it--a small house in the middle of the countryside uses much more energy in heating and transportation than a larger, multi-family home in a more dense community.

big and green (catalogue of national building museum's show of 10 or so years ago)

several of ken yeang's titles, including ecodesign: a manual for ecological design

Ten Shades of Green

The Green House: New Directions for Sustainable Architecture


Also, check out the USGBC's LEED guidelines for sustainable design. As far as standards go, there is a 100-some odd page document with sustainable design guidelines for building on ground zero as well as green policy standards for nyc's battery park city, which are mandated by the state.

Finally, and to fully disclose, I work for the Skyscraper Museum, where we currently have a show called Green Towers. There's a lot of information about the green skyscrapers currently under construction or recently completed on the current exhibits section of our website (which I designed, so be nice).
posted by pinto at 7:14 AM on May 8, 2006

Green House: The Energy Efficient Home

I've been to the author's home and it is beautiful. They live very near a busy highway and you can't hear a thing. The house is not air-conditioned; I was there in the summer and I couldn't tell.
posted by elle.jeezy at 12:33 PM on May 8, 2006

Grinder -

Having just built a house, let me STRONGLY encourage you to try building something small, like a toolshed, or a wood-drying shed, or something like that, before you tackle something big. Building a house is a huge investment of time, money, and energy, and if you go into it cold, you might be in for a number of nasty surprises. Good luck with it. E-mail me if I can be of any help.

In terms of green building, the books produced by Chelsea Green are the best I've seen. They have a number on strawbale, log, cob, and more. There are some PDFs at their website that might give you some insight as to what their books offer.

Also, since you're at the dreamy stages of the house-building process, check out Christopher Alexander's book A Pattern Language. It's terrific, and will help you frame important decisions about architecture, light, room layout, etc. See if your library has a copy.
posted by Alt F4 at 1:41 PM on May 8, 2006

I've been meaning to read Alexander's book for years. Good idea.
posted by Grinder at 2:23 PM on May 8, 2006

I can recommend:
Building Green

The Hand Sculpted House
posted by roofus at 2:18 AM on May 9, 2006