Buildings, Energy and the Environment

This collective work aims at two levels. First, to help make easily understood the problems that the increasing needs of humanity have created –and continue to create– both with the man-made environment and with the extreme consumption of energy resources. Second, to propose ideas, approaches, facets, methods and possible solutions from several disciplines and specialties, all of them aiming at not only the prevention but also the cure of the problems that regard the relationship between Man and the Environment, and in particular the man-made environment, whether it refers to a sole building or to a larger urban scale. The subjects cover the Periurban, Urban and Building Sectors, in matters of resource needs, of energy saving, of alternative energy production and of litter exploitation. The common denominator in all the chapters is the minimization of the planet’s pollution and aiming at viable conditions for humanity.