Book Description Review Quotes Contents Blogs

Book Description

Sustainable design has made great strides in recent years; unfortunately, it still falls short of fully integrating nature into our built environment. Through a groundbreaking new paradigm of "restorative environmental design," award-winning author Stephen R. Kellert proposes a new architectural model of sustainability.

In Building For Life, Kellert examines the fundamental interconnectedness of people and nature, and how the loss of this connection results in a diminished quality of life.

This thoughtful new work illustrates how architects and designers can use simple methods to address our innate needs for contact with nature. Through the use of natural lighting, ventilation, and materials, as well as more unexpected methodologies-the use of metaphor, perspective, enticement, and symbol-architects can greatly enhance our daily lives. These design techniques foster intellectual development, relaxation, and physical and emotional well-being. In the works of architects like Frank Lloyd Wright, Eero Saarinen, Cesar Pelli, Norman Foster, and Michael Hopkins, Kellert sees the success of these strategies and presents models for moving forward. Ultimately, Kellert views our fractured relationship with nature as a design problem rather than an unavoidable aspect of modern life, and he proposes many practical and creative solutions for cultivating a more rewarding experience of nature in our built environment.

Review Quotes

"Kellert shows how to ignite a love of the wild in architecture. He even dares to suggest that architectural ornament, conspicuously absent in schools of architecture and the bland walls of modern buildings, ought to be reconsidered as a festive and seamless articulation of natural cycles and flourishing geometries. Artists and architects take note!
Kent Bloomer, Professor of Yale School of Architecture

"In a time of unprecedented disconnection between the young and the natural world, Stephen Kellert offers us a design for hope. This brilliant work provides that nature isn't the problem; it's the solution.
Richard Louv, author of "Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children from Nature-Deficit Disorder"

Contents

Acknowledgments
Introduction

Chapter 1. Science and Theory of Connecting Human and Natural Systems
Chapter 2. 0Nature and Childhood Development
Chapter 3. Harmonizing the Natural and Human Built Environments
Chapter 4. Biophilic Design
Chapter 5. Ethics of Sustainability

Narrative Epilogue:
-One: Of Forests and the Sea?1955: Middle Childhood
-Two: From Apple Orchards to Shopping Malls?1972: Late Adolescence
-Three: Geographic Sketches Here and There?1985: Early Adulthood
-Four: Seals in the Neighborhood?2004: Middle Age
-Five: Reminiscence of Childhood and the City?Later Generations: 2030 and 2055

Notes
Index

Blogs

Farewell, Stephen

Farewell Stephen

From the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies

Stephen R. Kellert ’71 Ph.D., a revered professor of social ecology at the Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies (F&ES) whose research and writing advanced the understanding of the connection between humans and the natural world, died on Nov. 27 after a long illness.

Kellert, the Tweedy Ordway Professor Emeritus of Social Ecology, who came to F&ES in 1977 and continued to teach following his retirement in 2010, also mentored generations of doctoral, masters, and undergraduate students at Yale.

In recent years he helped pioneer the field of biophilic design, an emerging discipline that aims to improve health and well-being by promoting connections between people and nature in the built environment.

Those principles would inspire Kellert to propose a new F&ES headquarters that achieved less environmental impact but also made occupants feel more in touch with nature. His vision was fulfilled with the opening, in 2009, of Kroon Hall, a building that boasts, among other things, wide access to natural light and wood harvested by Yale foresters. Throughout the planning and construction of Kroon Stephen Kellert was involved. Read more.

In remembrance, we offer the prologue to Stephen's book, The Value of Life.

ecology