Drawing from the unique context and climate of the Himalaya, this book highlights several innovative design interventions, shaped by a myriad of social, cultural, environmental, and political factors that have been employed in villages to combat climate change. Climate-Adaptive Design in High Mountain Villages focuses on Ladakh, an outpost on the front lines of climate change, and the region’s creative responses to the pressing issues of food security, water management, energy efficiency, design aid, and material resources in the Anthropocene. These strategies – from artificial glaciers to tree armor – showcase the breadth of creative solutions already underway. In doing so, the research addresses the broader concept of climate-adaptive design and how it informs the disciplines of architecture, landscape architecture, and urban planning. An ideal read for academics, researchers, and students in these fields, this book presents a focused investigation into climate-adaptive strategies that could provide transferable solutions for the rest of the world.

For landscape architects, architects, planners, developers, and contractors who build in the mountains. Thoughtful coverage of the natural features of these environments such as topography, terrain, climate, and ecosystems, with detailed analysis of their design implications. Illustrated with many bandw photographs (poorly reproduced), good, clear line drawings. Case studies are drawn from North and South America, Europe, and Asia. Includes useful appendices and a substantial number of references. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

Rocky Mountain Modern is a collection of the most inspiring modern residences in the Rockies, a region with a surprising but deep history of modernist design Rocky Mountain Modern presents the most inspiring modern residences set within the stunning landscapes of the Rockies. Perched on cliffsides or nestled into verdant valleys, with expansive picture windows framing breathtaking vistas and natural materials such as wood and stone interpreted in new ways, these striking homes reveal modern living at its best in the mountains. Indeed, modern design has a deep connection to the region: in the 1940s, Aspen, a former mining town in the Colorado Rockies, became an unlikely bastion of modernism, hosting some of the world’s leading designers, including Herbert Bayer, Eero Saarinen, Buckminster Fuller, and Victor Lundy. Over the ensuing decades, a regional modernism developed that blended clean lines, open volumes, and glass walls with the natural features of the rocky landscape and a vernacular that had adapted to the extreme environmental conditions. Rocky Mountain Modern celebrates this enduring tradition of modernism through the most remarkable residences in the region, designed by such architecture studios as Selldorf Architects, Olson Kundig, and Allied Works in Aspen, Telluride, Vail, Sun Valley, Jackson Hole, and other picturesque locales across the Rocky Mountains, from New Mexico to British Columbia.

Extreme weather events, droughts, floods, shifts in precipitation and temperature patterns, melting glaciers, sea-level rise, water salinization, and more generally, changes in the water cycle remind us that the climate crisis is mostly a water crisis. Perhaps even more serious is a crisis of imagination connected with thought and with creative, far-sighted action able to combine the visionary and the pragmatic. A response to these two crises can be provided by the disciplines of landscape architecture: these have always featured a plural, collective approach that comprises or originates from living systems and natural forces, on the involvement of human and nonhuman communities in the design process, and the inclusion of the time variable in future plans—without neglecting the necessary flexibility of creative and pragmatic thinking. How can landscape design and different forms of collaboration open new doors to face climate and water challenges? What hopes can spring from collective design in its broader meaning? This book sets out notions and ideas on water landscapes and (co)designed practices, identifying what hopeful routes might be taken for the three states of aqueous landscapes in transition—liquid, solid, and gas. The chapters show different scales and levels of design and collaborative practices: from large and governmental projects to small bottom-up interventions; from creative collaboration among designers to traditional community design; from participatory processes to nature as a co-designer for tackling the climate crisis. People, animals, plants, water, ice, fog, clouds, wind, sand, and rocks—all contribute to the cosmos’ landscape symphony, and designing together can become a seed of hope to listen and embrace the Earth’s climate changes.

This book is about mountainurbanology grounded in Southwest China, where mountain is a typical landform for many towns and cities. From the multi-disciplinary perspective in a dynamic changing context, it presents a comprehensive framework including the location of mountain city, planning, design, building, transportation, disaster, aesthetics and governance in building up mountain cities based on investigation of natural, social and economic studies. The book also emphasizes ecological planning method based on topography in mountainous area through the lens of teaching and practice on urban planning for over half a century in Southwest China. It is a highly informative book providing academic insight for senior undergraduates, graduate students, lecturers, research professionals and decision makers with an interest in urban planning, ecology, planning and design in mountainous region development. Prof. Guangyu Huang is regarded as Founding Pioneer of mountainurbanology in China, a sub-discipline of urban planning.