Representing an international collaboration between academics and architects in the United States and Europe, Carbon: A Field Manual for Designers and Builders offers professionals in the field an approach to sustainable design that embraces building science principles, life-cycle analysis, and design strategies in carbon neutral construction. The book also contains background information on carbon in construction materials and in the building design process.
No building is a closed system. Whether viewed from a cultural, social, economic, or thermodynamic perspective, any building exists because of a set of conditions external to its enclosure or the boundaries of its site. In the same way, we can understand and appreciate that the flow of carbon in building and buildings is part of an extended, trans-scalar system of material consumption and energy use and waste expenditure.