image: This is the cover of Moving to Sustainable Buildings: Paths to Adopt Green Innovations in Developed Countries by Umberto Berardi. view more
Credit: VERSITA
With Green being the new black, it is no wonder that architects, investors and industry policymakers followed the suit to develop new benchmarks of eco-friendly design. In fact, in the last years we have seen a growing interest in looking at buildings not only from an energy-efficiency point of view, but increasingly also from a whole life-cycle perspective. The discussion on what kinds of buildings societies live and work in is shifting, with experts and legislators moving away from focusing simply on energy efficiency – say, by adding new "greener" components, (i.e. more efficient mechanical systems, renewable energy or high levels of insulation) to a broader appreciation of sustainable buildings, taking into account their environmental, social and economic impact.
20 years after the First Conference on Sustainable Construction took place in Florida in 1993 –academic publisher – Versita has published Moving to Sustainable Buildings. Paths to Adopt Green Innovations in Developed Countries by Umberto Berardi. This first study of green innovation diffusion, sheds light, and provides a wide perspective, on the worldwide situation of the construction industry sector. It offers a detailed analysis of the U.S. green buildings while analogously investigating Italian case studies.
Umberto Berardi, himself a foremost researcher in the area of sustainable building innovation – and arguably one of the most significant contemporary contributors in the field – is aware of the multidisciplinary nature of this subject. In this well-researched publication he shares his impressive knowledge of the assessment, rating and improvement of buildings' sustainable qualities, the innovation processes that drive change in the building industry toward more sustainability. Berardi appreciates the complex struggle between the stakeholders in the project-driven and fragmented building industry, but all the same, he presents the organizational methods and strategies that can be deployed to understand and improve eco-innovative building. As a result, his monograph offers a thoroughly integrated approach to architecture, which streamlines natural systems and technology. The book examines case studies of positive contribution of buildings to communities, which improve comfort for the users and reduce environmental impacts through strategies such as reuse of existing structures, connection to transit systems, low-impact and regenerative site development, energy and water conservation, use of sustainable or renewable construction materials, but above all – design that is fully livable and functional.
The book is a highly recommended reading for the academia and the practitioners. Prof. Bart Bossink – Professor of Technology and Innovation at VU University Amsterdam and author of "Managing Environmentally Sustainable Innovation: Insights from the Construction Industry" welcomed the new title as "a gift to the readers". The book is organized at undergraduate level and will be of interest to engineers, architects, environment researchers and policy makers.