Designing Your Natural Home

by David Pearson

One of the pioneers of incorporating the green movement into home design, David Pearson now offers a complete guide for creating an eco-home. Informative, clear, and with factual advice, tips, and beautiful color photos, Designing Your Natural Home takes readers through each step of the process, from defining the scope of the project to choosing materials and building methods to decorating the new abode. Along with practical, how-to information, photo essays present inspiring and stylish examples of natural design. The ten innovative homes featured in this book exemplify different solutions for every situation and budget, from apartments to sprawling dwellings. Readers will learn how to make the most of small spaces, find a builder, draw up plans, purchase low energy appliances, and much more. Whether they're renovating an existing space, expanding a house, or starting from scratch, readers will be inspired to create the natural home of their dreams with this indispensable guide and source for fresh ideas.

Genres: Architecture

160 pages, Paperback

First published December 1, 2005

About the author

David Pearson is an architect-planner who has been actively involved in inner city and new town housing for most of his working life, and with the Gaia movement (inspired by the view of the Earth as a living planet) for several years. Widely travelled, and with degrees from both University of London and University of California, he is Director of the eco and health consultancy Gaia Environments, a founder member of the Institute of Building Biology, England, and in touch with a network of "green" architects worldwide.

Reviews

[Sara · Rating 3 out of 5]

As far as books about building green with the help of a fancy architect go, this one wasn't bad. At least the author comes at the topic admitting that an architect, builder, and project manager aren't strictly necessary for building with natural materials. A lot of the ideas are applicable whether or not you're building a several-thousand square foot retreat on the top of a mountain. The pages discussing "What to discuss with your architect before you begin" or "How to make sure workers get stuff done on time", etc., are still important for a DIY-er, because if you don't have an architect and crew of craftsmen on your payroll, you're going to have to do all those same things by yourself.
The different homes that were featured offered up lots of new design concepts that started some wheels spinning in my mind, and the layout of the book was gorgeous. I'd say this definitely falls more into the realm of house porn than how-to. Coming at it from that direction, it was an enjoyable read and a decent overview. This book also addressed the landscaping of the different sites, which is (I'd say) an important part of making a place habitable, but which other natural building books don't really cover.
My big complaint is that, while three (or more?) of the houses were built using some form of straw bale, the author never touches earthbag or rammed earth (etc.). He barely mentions cob as a substance with which to decorate a fireplace mantel.

[Jeanette Johnson · Rating 2 out of 5]

I snapped a few design element photos from these texts to save in my "Housing" file in Evernote. My general impression of this text is 'Green Architecture for Yuppies'. Normally, I perceive natural building techniques as not only eco-responsible, but also incredibly affordable for the middle to lower classes. This text approached the building process with an architect and a lot of disposable funds. The ideas set forth for being "green" were not as informative or thorough as other texts I have read.