In advance of the publication next week of Chris Bird’s Transition Book ‘Local Sustainable Homes’, I spoke to Chris about the book, and about what he set out to achieve in writing it. The book will be available to order here at Transition Culture from next Thursday (the 9th).
So Chris, how does ‘Local Sustainable Homes’ differ from all the other green building books out there?
You could fill a bookshop with volumes on green building. There are so many works on sustainable design and construction and green materials that choosing what to read has become almost as difficult as deciding which spectacle frames to wear! But this book is different because it concentrates on how individuals, groups and communities are making it happen. Okay, I admit that in places the book does drift into looking at materials and construction methods but the bread and butter of the text deals with examples from around the country of how people are making sustainable homes a concrete reality – but without the concrete!
Open Eco-Home days are a great way of promoting the idea of green building in all its many manifestations. I have no idea whether the two events were planned to coincide, but two Transition initiatives, Totnes and Stroud, are holding Open Eco-Homes weekends at the same time, the weekend of the 11th-12th September. The Totnes weekend (see poster left) provides access to 13 houses which have taken steps to reduce their energy use, ranging from a new cob house with a thatched roof (absolutely gorgeous) to some of the houses that have participated in Transition Streets and have made a range of energy efficiency improvements. You can download the flyer for the weekend in 2 parts, here and here. The Stroud event visits over 20 homes, and has become an established part of the local calendar. They also produce an excellent leaflet for the event, which you can download here. You can find out more about the Stroud events here. Transition Town Lewes also did one last year, but I haven’t been able to find any links to their doing it this year. Perhaps they, or any other Transition initiative doing one, might let us know in the comments thread below? Do try and get along to support one of these excellent events…
Next week sees the publication of the next book in the Transition Books series, ‘Local Sustainable Homes: how to make them happen in your community’ by Chris Bird. More details to follow (including how to order your copy), but as a taster, here is my foreword to the book:
In The Pattern of English Building, his seminal review of vernacular English construction techniques and the wide range of building materials that have defined English architecture – from flint and chalk to clay, oak and straw – Alec Clifton-Taylor wrote:
Recently I mentioned the Prince’s Foundation event ‘Building: a new green economy’ held in early February at St. James’s Palace, which looked at the role of green building, particularly focusing on the role local building materials might play, and the benefits they would bring. I mentioned that the talks were filmed, and they have now been posted online. So here they are, starting with my one (with thanks to Jeff Rubin for the ‘afford to burn’ line I used….), and followed by all the other speakers too….
A while ago now I was in London for the launch of the Prince’s Foundation for the Built Environment’s ‘Building a New Green Economy’ conference, where I was a speaker alongside Tim Jackson, David Orr and Stewart Brand. You can read about the event here, and films of our talks will be posted soon. I mention it today because I want to draw your attention to the report launched at the conference, Sustainable Supply Chains that Support Local Economic Development, available to download here. As someone who has, for many years, been fascinated by local, natural building materials, this is a fascinating piece of research, one of the first things I have seen which starts trying to calculate the financial benefits to an area of moving towards more locally-sourced building materials.
How might our response to peak oil and climate change look more like a party than a protest march? This site explores the emerging transition model in its many manifestations
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In advance of the publication next week of Chris Bird’s Transition Book ‘Local Sustainable Homes’, I spoke to Chris about the book, and about what he set out to achieve in writing it. The book will be available to order here at Transition Culture from next Thursday (the 9th).
