Sustainable Building Design ─ Learning from Nineteenth-Century Innovations

A new renaissance of the twenty-first century is emerging in architecture. After living with air conditioning and oversized mechanical systems in buildings characterized by high energy demand, low quality lighting and poor thermal comfort, it is again time to learn from the past while seeking solutions for the future.

This book explores the artistry of architectural masters of design who came before.

By dissecting and analysing great public buildings of the nineteenth and twenty-first centuries, materials, techniques, and methods are discovered. This book presents the reader with clues and suggestions that will reveal the secrets of these buildings and by doing so provide the reader with a thorough understanding of how these architectural masterpieces work.

Using photographs, drawings, sections, plans and diagrams which are painstakingly redrawn for consistency and clarity by the author based on a wide range of documentation, the author compares works from the nineteenth and twenty-first centuries.

Vidar Lerum is an Associate Professor at the Illinois School of Architecture at the University of Illinois, Urbana Champaign. He teaches design studios and design seminars at the undergraduate and graduate levels. His teaching experience includes design studios exploring the path to net zero energy building design, design seminars addressing minimalism in the age of conspicuous consumption, and environmental control systems courses. Lerum's research focuses on energy performance, human comfort, and user satisfaction in buildings. He is a licensed architect in Norway and a member of the Norwegian Society of Architects (NAL). He is also a Co-opted Committee Member of the CIBSE Heritage Group and an International Associate member of the American Institute of Architects (AIA).