Culture & Celebrity (books)

by David Macaulay and Jason McLennan. If you are into it hardcore, this could be the beginning of a beautiful series of books on ecological engineers. Historically, mechanical engineers seemed to be the last to get green design, forbidding opening windows and just throwing hardware for heating and cooling at the building until it was comfortable. Their stuff was best left hidden above suspended ceilings because it was ugly and they just would keep saying "we have to do this because of ASHRAE", their secret code, and we would just have to shut up and accept it. Then the Body Shop opened its new headquarters in the early nineties and we all took notice of what was probably the first green office building in Canada, complete with recycled materials, energy efficient light fixtures, waste heat recovery systems and a "Living Machine"- a greenhouse with a closed-cycle treatment system that handled wastewater and sewage. To handle the complexity of the decision making, KEEN developed a "green decision making matrix" to help make choices. Now KEEN is a leader worldwide, and mechanical engineers are a key component of green design. What a great idea for a series and what a great choice for the first in it. ::The Ecological Engineer, Vol. 1: KEEN Engineering available at ::Ballenfords and ::Amazon