Looking beyond usual energy efficiency criteria, Moe uses a solid scientific base to uphold a paradoxical proposal, but which ultimately rests on the evidence that works of architecture are anything but sustainable. - Arquitectura Viva

Autorentext
Kiel Moe is a registered architect and Assistant Professor of Architectural Technology at Harvard Graduate School of Design. At the GSD, he is co-director of the MDesS program and director of the Energy, Environments, & Design Lab.

Klappentext

Convergence is based on a seemingly simple and straightforward notion: doing more with less. In our current context of increasing demand for diminishing resources, architects have inevitably begun looking beyond the operation of buildings themselves as the site of sustainability. But how do we achieve doing more with less? And how do we start to understand the full range of ecological issues and principles which need to be engaged with in order to achieve this? Kiel Moe explicates three factors: materials, energy systems and amortization. When these three factors converge through design, the resulting buildings begin to perform in complex, if not subtle, ways. By drawing on a range of architectural, thermodynamic, and ecological sources as well as illustrated and well-designed case studies, the author shows what architects stand to gain through more convergent theories and practices of energy in architecture.

Zusammenfassung
Analyses a wide range of well-designed and illustrated case studies to demonstrate what architecture has to gain from understand how design and energy intersect.

Inhalt

1. Introduction 2. Energy Hierarchies and Architecture 3. The Complicated and The Complex 4. The Specifically Generic Architecture 5. Conclusion