As the environmental impact of buildings become increasingly recognized, the role of building designers and the initial decision making process that determines materials, systems, and construction processes becomes more critical. This timely book addresses sustainability in building design through a series of examples presented as three dimensional models of well integrated building systems. The book organizes buildings into three sections – structure, envelope, and mechanical systems – based on the integration of paired building systems. The book demonstrates the performance of each systems pair in terms of interaction and contribution of each individual system and the synergetic benefits resulting from the unique pairing. The last section of the book is devoted to buildings that have a higher degree of integration and cannot be studied as paired systems. Each building is illustrated with full graphical display, text and analytical drawing to demonstrate its performance in a particular environment. 

Key Features: 

--Demonstrates the best practices and principles of designing and constructing buildings that are both environmentally responsible and architecturally expressive 

--Incorporates an innovative and unique approach for introducing and organizing building systems into categories based on pairing systems interaction and their performance rather than the traditional typological organization based on building systems 

--Presents the content as a catalogue of illustrated building systems, diagrams and details 

--Utilizes easy-to-understand axonometrics, concise narrative and graphics to illustrate building systems integration 

--Exposes the complex layers of the building components revealing the interworking of systems integration typically hidden in photographs