Up with the Lark

::XS: Small Structures, Green Architecture

This review was written by Lloyd Alter for Treehugger.com

In 2001 XS:  Big Ideas, Small Buildings by Phyllis Richardson created a sensation. Small, light prefab buildings were so 21st century and it was an inspired collection. Now, She has written a followup: XS: Small Spaces, Green Architecture and we wish we could say we are as excited as we were with the first volume but alas, we are not.

Perhaps the biggest problem is that whoever wrote the dust jacket description does not appear to have read the book. "The design goals of the 40 houses included here are to build as small as possible, to harmonize with the site, to use natural heating and cooling techniques, and, above all, to combine aesthetic beauty with ecological sensitivity. The houses are striking in appearance, inexpensive to build, and totally functional, and will serve as inspiration for architects and potential owners."

The book has garden pavilions, sculptures, cameras obscura and treehouses but there is nary a totally functional and inexpensive to build house to be found. That is fine, there are some lovely, innovative and inspiring structures that are worth the price of admission. There are also some of questionable green credentials and others that have been around the block a few too many times.

But while it may be true that "a new generation of architects and builders is creating warm, inviting homes that cause only a fraction of the ecological impact of conventional building methods," they aren't here. The author might have been better served if the blurb said what her introduction does: " almost none of the projects here is an end in itself. Rather, each suggests inroads in a journey to a host of answers."  Buy at Amazon

 

The Library at Night

The Library at Night is for anyone who has ever said "Yes, actually, I do need all of these books."  Alberto Manguel has written an inspiring book about keeping books.  He explores all aspects of libraries dropping little facts and bits of wisdom that he has gleaned over the years from collecting and living with printed material. He has so many books that when he lived in Toronto he was forced to shelve them on his front porch.  His children complained that they felt the need of a library card in order to enter their home. There is plenty of information here regarding the history of libraries, great collections, famous library buildings, great librarians and certainly Manguel's own library.  A charming and erudite writer, Manguel is no book snob.  Detective fiction, poetry, history, fiction, non-fiction all have a place in his book room.  One of my favourite chapters was about organizing libraries - do you organize them by language (Manguel reads in 5 or 6 languages)?, by country of origin?, alphabetically by author?, by category?, do you separate works by best friends because they don't write in the same category?  These are weighty issues for anyone with more than a handful of books.  I have a library and I have a lot of books, although not nearly as many as Manguel, so I was interested in his response to the ever popular question "Have you actually read all of these books?".  His simple reply is "Well, I've certainly opened them all".Buy at Amazon

Little House on a Small Planet

This review was written by Lloyd Alter for Treehugger.com   

Just as hunger isn’t caused by scarcity of food, homelessness and our “housing crisis” aren’t caused by a lack of houses.

So says Frances Moore Lappe in the foreword to Little House on a Small Planet- a wonderful book by Shay Salomon with photographs by Nigel Valdez. Shay asks the question "How much space does it take to be happy?" and then proceeds to answer the question: not very much. She then proceeds to ask why there are big houses (Keeping up with the joneses, easy financing, "because we can") and instructs us to find new Joneses or forget the Joneses.

It is not just about how you design, but how you live. Chapters with titles like "Choose what you need" and "build a glove, not a warehouse" and "make a room of your own." It is a lovely book that teaches you how to "live in less space and have more room to enjoy it. Dozens of tiny houses are beautifully photographed with what must be a very wide angle lens- one of my favourites was a 180 square foot "cob cottage where a couple lived for ten years, and apparently still talk to each other.

                           

                              

I must point out that with a few exceptions these houses would fall into the crunchy granola school of design built by free spirits who believe that (we quote out of context) "architect designed" is synonymous with "don't ask how much it cost" and that there is a bias towards warm climates where one can always go outside.

Nonetheless it is the spirit and conviction of the people in this book, who not only believe as I do that we should all live with less, but actually make the decision to go out and do it and explain how. It is an informative and inspiring addition to the canon. Buy at Amazon

                              

I must point out that with a few exceptions these houses would fall into the crunchy granola school of design built by free spirits who believe that (we quote out of context) "architect designed" is synonymous with "don't ask how much it cost" and that there is a bias towards warm climates where one can always go outside.

Nonetheless it is the spirit and conviction of the people in this book, who not only believe as I do that we should all live with less, but actually make the decision to go out and do it and explain how. It is an informative and inspiring addition to the canon. Buy at Amazon

A Good Life

This review was written by Lloyd Alter for Treehugger.com

Every week we turn to the Guardian for the latest missive on ethical living, a subject introduced by Leo Hickman and carried on by Lucy Siegle. Many of these have been collected and published in A Good Life. The book attempts to "explain in detail some of the problems and injustices our habits and lifestyles are causing and them presenting practical solutions to reducing their impact, from eating less meat and lowering car emissions to domestic cleaning advice."- it is not just about global warming, it is about the state of the globe and what we can do to make it, and our lives, better.

Graphically, it is more of a magazine format, with lots of sidebars asking questions like "should I eat the New Zealand organic apple, the Kent non-organic apple or the Fairtrade apple from South Africa?" or dotted with windows with tidbits like "driving a 13 MPG SUV instead of the average 22 MPG care for one year wastes more energy than if you left a fridge door open for six years or left a TV on for 28 years"

Strange Piece of Paradise

Strange Piece of Paradise is the true story of Terri Jentz and her girlfriend who undertake a cross country cycling trip at the age of 19.  Only days into the trip while sleeping in their tent they are run over by a pickup truck and then attacked with an axe.  The perpetrator was never caught.  The attack leaves the friend with serious head wounds resulting in blindness and complete amensia regarding the attack.  It leaves Jentz with rib and shoulder injuries where she was run over and axe scars where her arm was almost severed.  But for Jenzt it also left deep psychological scars.  After years of denial, rage and phobias that keep her from accomplishing anything Jentz decides to face her demons straight on and see if she can discover who it was who changed her life so dramatically.  She returns to Oregon and begins a search that reunites her with the teenage couple found them, the nurses who saved them, the police who maybe did, or maybe didn't look very hard for the man who did this to them.  It's a long journey that takes a number of years and Jenzt is incredibly thorough.  The book has many aspects to it - a coming of age story, a travel book, a mystery, a thriller.  Jentz is a wonderful writer and a great story teller. The tale is harrowing and macabre but it is also filled with a sense of purpose and a coming of wisdom.  The book is long and there is a certain amount of repetition within the last 100 pages, but this is a minor quibble.  This is a book that keeps you thinking about it long after you've put it down. Buy at Amazon

The Architecture of Happiness

After tackling such diverse topics as Proust, status and love, Alain de Botton has turned his erudite eye to architecture in his new book The Architecture of Happiness.  Using a bit of history, a bit of pop psychology and a lot of his own opinions, this book talks about how and why buildings make us feel the way we do.  This is a charming little book filled with photographs of the buildings and paintings he discusses.  This book isn't as funny as some of his previous writing, but it is an interesting diversion. Buy at Amazon

The Wal-Mart Effect

Lloyd Alter first published this review in Treehugger.com.

When this TreeHugger was a kid, salmon was a rare expensive treat, usually smoked on a bagel. Fresh salmon was almost unheard of outside of the seasonal catch. Now salmon is everywhere, all year round- at a Wal-Mart superstore, right across America, it is big, fresh farmed Chilean Salmon and $ 4.84 per pound- a price so cheap it is hard to understand- you couldn’t mail it home for that price. We learn all this from the Wal-Mart Effect, written by Charles Fishman late last year before Wal-Mart Prez Lee Scott’s latest pronouncements that we have been so happy to promote at TreeHugger here and in John’s post today. The book tries to study the very opaque, inaccessible largest company in the world to see how it works, how it affects us whether we shop there or not, and how it is changing the economy of America and its suppliers all over the world. Although the book does not address the new initiatives that are receiving so much copy, it does lay out good reasons for us to question Wal-Mart’s ability to carry through with them.

The Omnivore's Dilemma

This review by Lloyd Alter was originally published in Treehugger.com

A joy of writing for TreeHugger is that one learns so much, about things we never thought much about before. This may make us a lousy book reviewer, because we are certainly not experts in the subjects of the books we are reading and tend to gush. We learned about peak oil from James Howard Kunstler; about global warming from Tim Flannery, and now about food from Michael Pollan, and true to form we gush again.

The Ghost Map

This review by Lloyd Alter was originally published in Treehugger.com

A local reviewer said about Steven Johnson's new book: "if you can only read one book about cholera this season, this is it!"

TreeHugger often talks about the benefits of density, about the virtues of cities, about the lessons from Jane Jacobs. We also talk of the need for clean water and sanitation in so much of the world, how the death of millions of children is completely preventable. If one wants to understand how density became safe and how cities became answers instead of problems, there is no better place to start than Steven Johnson's The Ghost Map, "The story of London's most terrifying epidemic- and how it changed science, cities and the modern world".