Materials for a Healthy, Ecological and Sustainable Built Environment

Dr Emina Kristina Petrović is recognised for her expertise on toxicity, sustainability, and healthiness of building materials. Petrović emphasises the importance of informed building material selection for both the built and natural environment, calling for a more detailed consideration of building materials for the totality of their impacts, from ecosystem health to ethics of production. By asserting the relevance of the interrelatedness of these issues, Petrović is providing a critical leadership in a transition to less impactful construction. Because knowledge itself is not enough for the needed change, Petrović has also contributed a new sustainable transition framework, and examines aspects of behaviour change in building industry. Brenda Vale is an architect and Professorial Research Fellow, at the School of Architecture, Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand. Working with Robert Vale, she wrote her first book on sustainable design in 1975. Following their award winning and energy saving commercial buildings in the UK for which they were both the architects, by 1998 they had designed and built the award winning first autonomous house and the first zero-emissions settlement there. After coming to New Zealand in 1996 they converted an existing house to be zero energy. They also developed the Australian Government’s National Australian Built Environment Rating System (NABERS), now in operation. Their current research is in the field of ecological footprints and behaviour, which has led to two published books (Time to eat the dog? the real guide to sustainable living and Living within a fair share ecological footprint). Maibritt Pedersen Zari is a Senior Lecturer in Sustainable Architecture at the School of Architecture, Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand. She teaches both undergraduate and graduate programmes in Architecture, Interior Architecture, Building Science and Sustainable Engineering. Her areas of expertise are biomimicry and regenerative design and the practical intersection of ecology and ecosystem services research within urban and architectural design. She has published extensively in these areas as well as on the relationship between climate change, biodiversity loss and the built environment and responses to these issues. Her publications seek to redefine sustainable architecture and urban design through mimicking ecosystems, changing the goals from sustainable to regenerative development, and integrating complex social wellbeing factors into sustainable architectural design.

• Part I: Selecting Building Materials for Reduced Impacts on Ecosystem Services: Ecosystem Services Analysis1. Utilizing relationships between ecosystem services, built environments, and building materials2. Ecosystem services analysis: Incorporating an understanding of ecosystem services into built environment design and materials selectionPart II: Choosing Sustainable Materials3. Building materials4. Materials and buildingsPart III: Indoor Toxicity from Building Materials5. A lack of recognition of potential health risks from building materials6. Persisting issues with the most recognized building material health risks: Lead and asbestos7. How substances get regulated against in the building industry: Formaldehyde, phthalate plasticizers in polyvinyl chloride/vinyl8. New and less recognized risks with building materials: Volatile organic compounds, replacement chemicals, and nanoparticles9. An overview of health hazards from materials: Application of principlesPart IV: Case Studies10. Sustainability and the material aspect of traditional residential buildings in Serbia11. Palm thatched building in Mexico12. The effect of global trade on the New Zealand house13. Thurgoona Campus: A living laboratory of healthy and sustainable materials14. The Hockerton Housing Project: A case study of the use of concrete15. Lambie House: Deconstruction and eco-refurbishment16. Meridian: New Zealand’s first Green Star-rated building17. Sustainable and healthy building practice in Germany18. The Bullitt Center: A “Living Building”

"A specific technical background is not necessary to understand the content. This book focuses on the ontological considerations of building materials and is relevant for all those interested in sustainable building, including professionals in the construction industry." --MRS Bulletin