Chris Magwood

Design your own sustainable home Many people dream of building a beautiful, environmentally friendly home. But until now there has been no systematic guide to help potential builders work through the complete process of imagining, planning, designing, and building their ideal, sustainable home. Essential Sustainable Home Design walks potential homebuilders through the process starting with key concepts, principles, and a...

"Net Zero" has been an effective rallying cry for the green building movement, signalling a goal of having every building generate at least as much energy as it uses. Enormous strides have been made in improving the performance of every type of new building, and even more importantly, renovating the vast and energy-inefficient collection of existing buildings in every country....

Prefabricated straw bale wall panels combine the performance and low environmental impact of traditional straw bale with reduced labour and more consistent results. These structural insulated panels (SIPs) are built offsite and transported to the job site, or built onsite and "tipped up" into position. Essential Prefabricated Straw Bale Construction is a fully illustrated practical guide to this affordable, scalable...

Hempcrete is a versatile, energy-efficient natural insulation material, useful for walls, roofs, and floors. Made from the inner stem of the hemp plant mixed with a lime-based binder, it is a very strong, lightweight, and breathable alternative to manufactured insulations. Essential Hempcrete Construction is a fully-illustrated practical guide to this affordable, renewable method, from procurement to finishing. This indispensable manual...