This book is an approach to environmentally responsive architectural design that seeks to make connections between technical preoccupations of architectural science, and the necessity to sustain cultural identity.

The complex art of architecture embraces all of the concerns of the world's cultures. It meets the fundamental needs for shelter from the elements, but, almost from its origins, has acquired other purposes and meanings. The Selective Environment is an approach to environmentally responsive architectural design that seeks to make connections between the technical preoccupations of architectural science, and the necessity, never more urgent than today, to sustain cultural identity at a time of rapid global, technological change.

'As a primer for students, the book is a success. It puts the subject into a historical context and an intellectual framework, it illustrates its thesis with case studies which form a good starting-point for further research, and in its checklist it offers a tool which can be implemented in the design of projects.' - Adam Voelcker, Architectural Review