Resources for ecological architecture. Volume 3, Intelligences of the Existing

Les Presses des Mines, the École Nationale Supérieure d’Architecture de Normandie, the ATE laboratory, and the Chair in Renewable Natural Resources, Climate, and Architecture have published the book Resources for Ecological Architecture. Volume 3, Intelligences of the Existing. This collective work is the result of the seminar "The Existing, Architecture as a Resource," held in October 2024 atENSA Normandie. It concludes the cycle that began in 2022.
The book is edited by Noura Arab and François Fleury, professors and researchers at the ATE laboratory.

Summary of the book

Existing buildings are valuable for many reasons. In constructing them, men and women have invested their intelligence, their labor and their values. Their construction has polluted and consumed resources taken from nature. By inhabiting them, we have charged them with emotions, memory and landmarks. So is it still necessary to demolish in order to rebuild? How can we make the most of this exceptional resource?

This book, the third and final volume devoted to resources for ecological architecture, explores the way in which intervention on existing buildings is now the reference situation for thinking about the architecture of tomorrow. It shows the challenges and opportunities of a relationship with the existing that attributes new values to it, while being more attentive to its intrinsic qualities.

Researchers, educators, architects and engineers examine the implications of this posture for teaching, professional practice, territorial and regulatory strategy. The aim of this book is to bring together different viewpoints in order to question our models, provide inspiration and lay the foundations for an architecture that reappropriates its past creations as an essentially ecological posture.

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The link to the publisher's website for the purchase of the book (printed version or digital version)

More information on the Renewable Natural Resources, Climate and Architecture Chair

visual: cover of Ressources pour l'architecture écologique. Tome 3, Intelligences de l'existant, Presses des Mines, 2025