With radical and innovative design solutions, everyone could be living in buildings and settlements that are more like gardens than cargo containers, and that purify air and water, generate energy, treat sewage and produce food - at lower cost. Birkeland introduces systems design thinking that cuts across academic and professional boundaries and the divide between social and physical sciences to move towards a transdiciplinary approach to environmental and social problem-solving.;This sourcebook is useful for teaching, as each topic within the field of environmental management and social change has pairs of short readings providing diverse perspectives to compare, contrast and debate. Contents: Section 1 Designing Eco-solutions: 1.1 Education for Eco-innovation • 1.2 The Centrality of Design • 1.3 Green Philosophy • 1.4 Responsible Design Section 2 The Concepts of Growth and Waste: 2.1 Limits to Growth and Design of Settlements • 2.2 Redefining Progress • 2.3 Designing Waste • 2.4 Designing for Durability Section. Part 3 Industrial, Urban and Construction Ecology • 3.1 Industrial Ecology 3.2 Urban Ecology • 3.3 Construction Ecology • 3.4 Pollution Prevention by Design. Section 4 Design within Complex Social Systems: 4.1 Complexity and the Urban Environment • 4.2 Unified Human Community Ecology • 4.3 The Bionic Method in Industrial Design • 4.4 Green Theory in the Construction Fields. Section 5 Permaculture and Landscape Design: 5.1 Permaculture and Design Education • 5.2 The Sustainable Landscape • 5.3 Place, Community Values and Planning • 5.4 Playgardens and Community Development. Section 6 Values Embodied in and Reinforced by Design: 6.1 Urban Forms and the Dominant Paradigm • 6.2 Models of Ecological Housing • 6.3 Marketing-led Design • 6.4 Gender and Product Semantics. Section 7 Design for Community Building and Health: 7.1 ESD and 'Sense of Community' • 7.2 Sustainability and Aboriginal Housing • 7.3 Indoor Air Quality in Housing • 7.4 Beyond the Chemical Barrier. Section 8 Productivity, Land and Transport Efficiency: 8.1 Greening the Workplace • 8.2 Sustainable Personal Urban Transport • 8.3 From Sub-urbanism to Eco-cities • 8.4 Density, Environment and the City. Section 9 Design with Less Energy Materials and Waste: 9.1 Living Technologies • 9.2 Housing Wastewater Solutions • 9.3 Autonomous Servicing • 9.4 Timber Waste Minimisation by Design. Section 10 Low-impact Housing Design and Materials: 10.1 Earth Building • 10.2 Strawbale Construction • 10.3 Bamboo as a Building Resource • 10.4 Hemp Architecture. Section 11 Construction and Environmental Regulation • 11.1 Legislative Environmental Controls • 11.2 Economic Instruments • 11.3 Building Codes and Sustainability • 11.4 Assessing Building Materials. Section 12 Planning and Project Assessment: 12.1 Planning for Ecological Sustainability • 12.2 Bioregional Planning • 12.3 Environmental Management Tools • 12.4 Limits of Environmental Impact Assessment.