While solar technology for individual buildings has become an accepted part of architectural design, Knowles takes the next innovative step. In this book, he proposes solar access in urban environments with a novel design method called the "solar envelope."Ralph L. Knowles is Professor of Architecture, University of Southern California, Los Angeles.

With this Eighth Edition, The Musical Classroom celebrates thirty years as a leading resource for future and in-service teachers as they engage children in the exciting world of music! Teachers, with the help of this user-friendly text, can develop the understandings and skills needed to teach elementary school music. The forty-four model lessons are the centerpiece to the book's long-lasting success. A collection of over 170 children's songs from around the world; instructional information for learning to play the recorder, keyboard, guitar, and Autoharp(TM); and the theoretical, pedagogical, and practical backgrounds needed for reaching all learners complete the comprehensive resource of The Musical Classroom. Note: This is the standalone book. If you want the accompanying audio CD, order the ISBN 9781138656703, which is available for separate sale.

How a centuries-old architectural tradition reemerged as a potential solution to the political and environmental crises of the 1970s Against the backdrop of a global energy crisis, a widespread movement embracing the use of raw earth materials for building construction emerged in the 1970s. Solar Adobe examines this new wave of architectural experimentation taking place in the United States, detailing how an ancient tradition became a point of convergence for issues of environmentalism, architecture, technology, and Indigenous resistance. Utilized for centuries by the Pueblo people of the American Southwest and by Spanish colonialists, adobe construction found renewed interest as various groups contended with the troubled legacies of modern architecture and an increasingly urgent need for sustainable design practices. In this period of critical experimentation, design networks that included architects, historians, counterculture communities, government weapons labs, and Indigenous activists all looked to adobe as a means to address pressing environmental and political issues. Albert Narath charts the unique capacities of adobe construction across a wide range of contexts, consistently troubling simple distinctions between traditional and modern technologies, high design and vernacular architecture. Drawing insightful parallels between architecture, environmentalism, and movements for Indigenous sovereignty, Solar Adobe stresses the importance of considering the history of the built environment in conjunction with architecture’s larger impact on the natural world.

The Natural Forces Laboratory: Ralph Knowles and the Instrumentalized Studio is part of Studies in the Design Laboratory, a series of digital publications produced by the Canadian Centre for Architecture and the Harvard University Graduate School of Design that investigates case studies of the laboratory environment as an incubator for the integration of digital tools into design practice in the second half of the twentieth century.