Design-Tech: Building Science for Architects

The third edition of Design-Tech provides an indispensable, holistic resource for integrating building technologies into critically designed, performance-based architectural projects. The book’s format follows the developmental stages of a typical architectural project; it provides a step-by-step process for addressing and integrating building sciences from first principles of human comfort, materials, structures, and environmental systems to advanced construction systems and measures of building performance. Short chapters incorporate easy-to-understand information with hundreds of useful illustrations, tables, and references that explain the why as well as the how of building science. The content focuses on what designers need to know in the studio to create sustainably designed, integrated buildings, and it prepares them for future discussions with engineers, contractors, and consultants.

The updated format builds a coherent framework for integrated project design studio development, necessary for all contemporary accredited schools of architecture. Chapters build upon critical project information from schematics toward technical integration. New chapters emphasize performance-based design strategies including sustainable design values, critical schematic planning, enhanced building envelope design strategies, and advanced performance systems. Enhanced visualization of schematic design strategies helps explain sustainable design standards, code compliance, and structural schematics, and throughout, the third edition focuses on contemporary issues such as embodied carbon, heavy timber construction, life cycle costs, and long-term performance.

This will be a must-read for all architecture students looking for an accessible guide to building science.