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Green Architecture - by James Wines
When is a house ecological? Does the use of natural materials & solar cells on the roof make a building an example of green architecture? Perhaps even Antoni Gaudí & Frank Lloyd Wright designed "greener" buildings than most contemporary architects, whose low-energy houses scarcely differ outwardly from traditional ones.
James Wines puts up various - & often irreconcilable - concepts of environmentally-friendly architecture for discussion, making a case for an architecture that not only focuses on technological solutions, but also tries to reconcile man & nature in its formal idiom. Among examples of contemporary ecological architecture presented are works by Emilio Ambasz, Gustav Peichl, Arthur Quarmby, Jean Nouvel, Sim Van der Ryn, Jourda and Perraudin, Log ID, James Cutler, Stanley Saitowitz, François Roche, Nigel Coates & Michael Sorkin.

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Sustainable Architecture: Hi-Tech Housing / Low Tech Housing by Arian Mostaedi - Non-renewable & increasingly scarce natural resources have necessitated a new approach to the use of building materials. This book looks at enterprising contemporary architects who have realized this, & are creating innovative designs that take into account the use of alternative energies, adaptation to climatic factors, vegetation & recycling. This book argues that these designs represent a return to nature & a respect for the balance of the ecosystem. Each proposal is accompanied by a large number of photographs, construction details & plans.

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The HOK Guidebook to Sustainable Design - by Sandra F. Mendler, William Odell - A real-world DESIGN tool for sustainable design
In this comprehensive guide, the world's largest architectural/engineering design firm helps architects, engineers, planners, interior designers, and landscape architects integrate sustainable design strategies into their work. Featuring twenty-four case studies of a variety of international HOK projects, it shows how, far from being an all-or-nothing proposition, sustainable design thinking can improve projects within the conventional constraints of budget, schedule, and market demand. It provides practical guidelines that enhance real projects, including urban planning, site design, buildings, interiors, and renovations. This book:
• Demonstrates how real, completed, sustainable design projects are economically viable and increase client satisfaction
• Provides a clear road map for the integrated multidisciplinary design process that is critical to the successful development of sustainable design projects
• Captures the key principles of sustainable design in a list of "Ten Simple Things You Can Do"
• Provides concise checklists of issues to consider at each stage of the design process,followed by detailed how-to guidance
• Contains a detailed glossary of terms and a list of top print and Internet resources
• Covers issues and design strategies related to site planning and design, energy and water conservation, materials selection and specification, and interior environmental quality.

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Eco-Tech: Sustainable Architecture & Hi Tech - by Catherine Slessor, John Linden The high-tech architecture movement embodied by seminal buildings such as Paris's Centre Pompidou (1977) and London's Lloyd's Building (1986) has undergone a subtle but palpable transformation. While daring feats of structural engineering still mark recent projects by the architects who forged the earliest examples, a new generation has expanded the vocabulary of this architectonic language, and evolved an architecture with different aims. The most significant of these objectives is to create a sustainable architecture. This international survey presents projects completed in the 1990s that use high-tech forms and materials for environmentally intelligent means. It brings together innovative approaches by established practitioners—Richard Rogers, Norman Foster, Nicholas Grimshaw, and Michael Hopkins—with a new generation—Thomas Herzog, Von Gerkan Marg, Design Antenna, and Itsuko Hasegawa. The introduction charts the evolution of high-tech architecture and its progression toward more ecological concerns, and the movement as a whole is considered in a broader architectural context. At the book's heart is a selection of forty of the world's most sophisticated projects, each with a thorough description of its unique architectural and technological features, as well as extensive plans.

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Energy Efficient Buildings: Architecture, Engineering, & Environment by Dean Hawkes - An examination of how energy efficiency can be enhanced by integrating advances in architecture and engineering. Exploring the evolving relationship between architecture and engineering, this book examines the environmental function and performance of buildings in the twenty-first century. Critical studies of outstanding recent building projects around the world reveal the many innovative ways designers can integrate architecture and engineering to produce buildings that are both attractive and energy efficient. 180 color and 120 black-and-white illustrations

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Prefab Modern by Jill Herbers - For many, the idea of prefab may bring to mind trailers and other less desirable images of housing.Instead, the new prefab is becoming the inevitable next step to "cool" housing as home buyers look for distinctive yet reasonably priced first and second homes. One in six new houses today is a prefab and 400,000 units are now produced in the U.S. each year. More than 50% of all homes are constructed in whole or in part by using building systems -- modular, panelized components produced in quality controlled environments. This exploration of the best prefabricated houses on the market today, from all over the world, along with a resource directory on how you can purchase them, is an invaluable reference for those interested in this alternative.

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Sun, Wind & Light: Architectural Design Strategies - by G. Z. Brown, Mark DeKay - How to design buildings that heat with the sun, cool with the wind, light with the sky, and move into the future using on-site renewable resources
Developed for rapid use during schematic design, this book clarifies relationships between form and energy and gives designers tools for designing sustainably. It also:
• Applies the latest passive energy and lighting design research
• Organizes information by architectural elements at three scales:
• building groups, individual buildings, and building parts
• Brings design strategies to life with examples and practical design tools

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Green Building Materials: A Guide to Product Selection and Specification -by Ross Spiegel
User's manual to green building materials —for building design that reuses our past and reimagines our future
When it comes to selecting and specifying green building materials, architects need more than innate design sense. They need real-world advice on how to select and use nontoxic, recycled, and recyclable products, and how to integrate them into the design process to capitalize on the many practical and economic advantages of "going green"—from reducing waste.

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Green By Design: Creating a Home for Sustainable Living by Angela Dean, Angela M. Dean -

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Alternative Construction: Contemporary Natural Building Methods
by Lynne Elizabeth -

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Art of Natural Building by Joseph F. Kennedy Get more Info

Good Green Homes: Creating Better Homes for a Healthier Planet by Jennifer Roberts Get More Info

The Solar House: Passive Heating & Cooling by Daniel Chiras Ph.D.

Sustainable Resource Real Estate Development Books

Simply Build Green: A Technical Guide to the Ecological Houses at the Findhorn Foundation -by John Talbott
Simply Build Green is a detailed description of the theory, practice, and products used in the Ecological Village Project at Findhorn. It is a combination of standard building techniques and methods, such as foundations and framing necessary to good quality housing, and the basic philosophy of ecological building and its application.
This book is in answer to hundreds of requests for information about our buildings and ecological work. It is an invaluable resource for professionals in the building trade, including architects, engineers and builders as well as individuals of all levels of experience including do-it-yourself enthusiasts who want to convert their loft in an environmentally friendly way. -

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Designing Sustainable Communities: Corbett, Judy & Corbett, Michael. 2000. Learning from Village Homes.