Francesc Zamora

Beware this attractive, but shallow book about so-called "sustainable houses".

The book is essentially a house-by-house look at 50 constructions that the author claims to be "sustainable". Attractive colour photographs dominate the book, with text being very sparse and brief.

My problems with this book are twofold:

1) the author has a very sketchy criteria for what can be considered a "sustainable" house. A large number of houses in this book are, essentially sprawling mansions! It is a strange logic that forgives a person for building an enormously oversized house because the owner is also rich enough to be able to afford some solar panels or a rain garden.

Many of these houses have sustainable features, but are a far cry from holistically being considered truly green.

Indeed, the oversized house on the front cover of the book is entirely clad in aluminium. Nowhere in the book is it acknowledged that aluminium is one of the most energy-intensive building materials available. To make matters worse, this oversized aluminium-clad house is only used as a holiday house for its owners!

Certainly, aluminium has attributes that endears itself for use in certain situations: it is recylable, durable and doesn't need painting. But this Life Cycle trade-off is not discussed anywhere in the book.

2) The author's tips and advice are inappropriately explained.

The author intersperses 150 tips for building a sustainable house throughout the photos that dominate this book. Unfortunately, the caveats of these tips are not fully explained.

The author overgeneralises principles like "orient your house towards the south, to maximise passive solar access" (tips 084 and 121). He fails to state that this advice is only appropriate for houses built in the Northern Hemisphere. This is a confusing omission, given that there are many houses featured in the book from Southern Hemisphere countries like Australia, New Zealand, Brazil, South Africa and Chile.

Another example of overgeneralisation is his advice to build a house that is has its slab dug into the thermal mass of the Earth's crust. He fails to mention that this advice is not appropriate for buildings constructed in locations that are either very hot or very cold. (In these cases, it is generally better to insulate the slab so that it is independent of the environment). The author fails to note this caveat.

Elsewhere, the same tips about LED light bulbs, and courtyards are repeated multiple times, making you worker how quickly this book was churned out.

In short, this book has limited value for people wanting to build a truly "sustainable house". Look elsewhere, and choose a book that is specific to the country and climate in which you will build your house.… (mer)