Integrated Design in Contemporary Architecture
Kiel Moe

Listen in on any conversation about architecture these days and you will almost certainly hear the buzzword of early-twenty-first century building—sustainability. But just how sustainable must a building be to earn that sought-after designation? How must architects reconsider the entire design process to achieve this important goal? Taking sustainability to the next level, the emerging practice of integrated design provides the strategies to achieve high performance, low energy, and cost-effectiveness, through careful ground-up consideration of how the program, siting, design, materials, systems, and products of a building connect, interact, and affect one another. This approach eschews specialists working in isolation in favor of solutions that are greater than the sum of their parts.

Integrated Design in Contemporary Architecture takes a comprehensive look at projects that exemplify current approaches to this exciting new field. From museums to residences, from office buildings to universities and yoga centers, this book showcases twenty-eight examples of integrated design that cut across building types, budgets, climates, and locales. Drawings, diagrams, and photographs illustrate how the many disciplines involved in the building process work together to create sustainable spaces that acknowledge architecture's critical role in our shared global community, economy, and ecosystem.


Kiel Moe is assistant professor at the School of Architecture, Northeastern University.
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Editorial Reviews

Choice Magazine:
""In a densely written four-page preface, Moe (Northeastern Univ.) distinguishes between the now ubiquitous term 'sustainable architecture' and the more current 'integrated design.' The latter, he writes, is 'what architects ... do when they incorporate the energy, site, and climactic, formal, construction, programmatic, regulatory, economic, and social aspects of a project as primary parameters of design.' Moe expands on these categories as a way of introducing readers to a catalogue of 28 current North American buildings representing aspects of the complexity of contemporary architecture, i.e., its entwined spatial, structural, social, energy, and systems concerns. Each building entry is represented by a substantial page of explanatory text plus plans, elevations (many in color), exploded diagrams, and other visual means to convey creative solutions to the new complexity from a wide variety of firms, high-profile (Steven Holl and Thom Mayne) and otherwise. The book is beautifully produced but for lay readers might require an even greater depth of explanatory text. Summing up: Recommended. Upper-level undergraduates through professionals/practitioners."" (February, 2009)

Architectural Record:
"Integrated Design in Contemporary Architecture, by Kiel Moe, is a beautifully illustrated collection of 28 case studies, well documented with coffee-table-quality photographs and useful, detailed diagrams. Moe, an assistant professor of architecture at Northeastern University, conveys a sense of complexity that derives from both the visible and nonvisible drivers of design. Visible, for instance, are the dynamic and articulated building envelopes that selectively capture and channel various forms of energy between the interior and exterior. Not necessarily visible in the final form, he points out, is the social integration required within the design team. Thus, the role of the architect has clearly shifted from individual master to strategic organizer of manifold, often disparate forms of knowledge and processes. Moe argues that complexity in integrated architecture is not manifested in complex form so much as in an idiosyncratic assemblage of theoretical, practical, ecological, economical, political, social, and cultural parameters that presuppose the design and performance of architecture." — B.J. Novitski (April, 2009)

www.dexigner.com blog:
"Integrated Design in Contemporary Architecture takes a comprehensive look at projects that exemplify current approaches to this exciting new field.From museums to residences, from office buildings to universities and yoga centers, this book showcases twenty-eight examples of integrated design that cut across building types, budgets, climates, and locales.Drawings, diagrams, and photographs illustrate how the many disciplines involved in the building process work together to create sustainable spaces that acknowledge architecture's critical role in our shared global community, economy, and ecosystem." (October 27, 2008 )

The Modern Modular House:
"The book argues that the result of integrated design is better building design and performance through direct engagement with these multiple, often complex, contexts that condition contemporary architecture. Integrated design further lends itself to collaborative structures of practice in contrast to the model of the singular architect. In this book there is an explicit recognition that any building is a product of the social and technical contingencies that presuppose it." — GARRISON ARCHITECTS (THURSDAY, OCTOBER 30, 2008)

William Stout Architectural Books:
"Takes a comprehensive look at projects that exemplify current approaches to this exciting new field. From museums to residences, from office buildings to universities and yoga centers, this book showcases twenty-eight examples of integrated design that cut across building types, budgets, climates, and locales." (2008)

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