Essential Sustainable Home Design: A Complete Guide to Goals, Options, and the Design Process (Sustainable Building Essentials Series, 5)

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Design Your Dream Sustainable Home with Confidence
Part of the Sustainable Building Essentials series, Essential Sustainable Home Design is the complete guide to envisioning, planning, and designing a high-performance, environmentally friendly home. Learn how to turn your ideas into a practical, buildable plan while maximizing energy efficiency, durability, and comfort.

What You’ll Learn

Clarify Your Vision: Define goals, priorities, and pathways to bring your sustainable home project to life. Smart Decision-making: Use a criteria matrix to compare materials, systems, and design options for optimal performance and environmental impact. Integrated Team Approach: Work effectively with architects, designers, engineers, and code officials to keep your project on track. High-performance Building Science: Understand the fundamentals of thermal comfort, energy efficiency, moisture management, and durability to inform design choices. Practical Planning Tools: Streamline logistics, material sourcing, budgeting, and construction protocols to turn vision into reality. Material and System Guidance: One-page summaries and ratings of popular sustainable building materials and systems help you make informed, confident decisions.

Written by Chris Magwood, a leading sustainable building expert, this guide blends practical methods, design strategies, and building science for both DIY homebuilders and professionals. Whether designing from scratch or improving existing plans, this handbook gives you the confidence and tools to create a truly sustainable home.

Explore the full Sustainable Building Essentials series for practical, illustrated guidance on natural building techniques, high-performance walls, and sustainable construction systems.

From the Publisher

Wondering what sustainable home design looks like in practice? Take a look at these real-life examples.

Sage Design Build

Set on the Sierra’s eastern slope overlooking Carson Valley, this home embraces the rugged site and climate with smart orientation and design.

Zabludofsky residence

Locally sourced materials and a focus on indoor air quality define this off-grid Ontario home—the first in the province to use earthen plasters inside and out.

Canada’s Greenest Home

Endeavour Centre’s first Zero House in Peterborough targets zero carbon, toxins, and fossil fuels using natural materials in an urban setting.

Evolve Builders Group & Harvest Homes

This unmistakably modern home echoes the neighborhood’s traditional 2+1-story form, with low-maintenance, air-quality-focused materials.

Understanding your objectives

Clarify and Improve Objectives

A good building means different things to different people.

Learning to Think Sustainably

What makes it onto the scales during the decision-making process

Illustration, homeowner compares familiar building materials with alternative sustainable solutions.

Both accepted and alternative solutions must be held to the same standards.

New ideas versus established solutions

Micro vs. macro views

We must weigh not just function, form, and cost, but also the hidden impact of our choices – for our health, our children, and the planet.

Ecosystem Impacts

Most maintenance-free materials, like vinyl siding, are typically difficult or impossible to repair and often end up as waste after use.

Making Good Choices

Unlike vinyl, clay plaster is less water-resistant but easily repairable, offering a radical alternative.

Sustainable Construction

Though it needs upkeep every 5–10 years, this finish can last centuries with minimal cost and no waste.

ASIN ‏ : ‎ 0865718504
Publisher ‏ : ‎ New Society Publishers
Publication date ‏ : ‎ July 31, 2017
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Print length ‏ : ‎ 224 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 9780865718500
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0865718500
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 14.7 ounces
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 8.5 x 0.28 x 10.98 inches
Part of series ‏ : ‎ Sustainable Building Essentials
Best Sellers Rank: #314,117 in Books (See Top 100 in Books) #36 in Sustainability & Green Design #79 in Architectural Drafting & Presentation #235 in Home Design & Construction (Books)
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