The Shape of Green: Aesthetics, Ecology, and Design

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Lance Hosey

Island Press, Washington, D.C., 2012, English

Nonfiction, Architecture

8 x 9 inches, 216 pages

ISBN: 9781610910316

Suggested Retail Price: $60.00

From the Publisher. Does going green change the face of design or only its content? The first book to outline principles for the aesthetics of sustainable design, The Shape of Green argues that beauty is inherent to sustainability, for how things look and feel is as important as how they’re made.

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John Hill

On John Hill’s Notable Books of 2012 list

Architect and author Lance Hosey mines the history of ideas—Aldo Leopold, Christopher Alexander, Diane Ackerman, E.O. Wilson, among many others—to shape an argument about the aesthetics of sustainability. It’s a convincing argument that moves from the small scale to the large, from forks and cars to landscapes and cities. Architecture makes up the bulk of the book, but the whole undertaking works well in bringing form and appearance into discussions that tend to focus solely on performance as an indicator of sustainability.

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