The Return of Nature asks you to critique your conception of nature and your approach to architectural sustainability and green design. What do the terms mean? Are they de facto design requirements? Or are they unintended design replacements? The book is divided into five parts giving you multiple viewpoints on the role of the relations between architecture, nature, technology, and culture. A detailed case study of a built project concludes each part to help you translate theory into practice. This holistic approach will allow you to formulate your own theory and to adjust your practice based on your findings. Will you provoke change, design architecture that responds to change, or both?

Acknowledgments; Notes on Contributors; Introduction; Part 1: Organic Conceits; 1. Design's New Catechism, Robert Levit; 2. Faculty of Omnipotence, Catherine Ingraham; 3. The Raw and the Cooked, Sylvia Lavin; Case Study: MOS Architects, afterparty, Winner, MoMA/P.S. 1 Young Architects Program (2009); Part 2: The Sublime Past; 4. The Nature Parallel, Barry Bergdoll; 5. Next to Nothing, K. Michael Hays; 6. Nature After Mies, Diane Lewis; Case Study: Michael Bell Design, Gefter-Press House, Ghent, NY (2007); Part 3: Sustaining Nature; 7. On Limits, Andrew Payne; 8. Eco-Pop, Mark Jarzombek; 9. Nature, Model of Complexity, Jean-François Chevrier; Case Study: Steven Holl Architects, Sliced Porosity Block/Chengdu project; Part 4: The Nature of Infrastructure; 10. Agri-tecture, Elizabeth Diller; 11. Nature, Infrastructure and Cities, Antoine Picon; Case Study: George L. Legendre, Henderson Waves, Singapore (2008); Part 5: Nature, Unnaturally; 12. Block That Metaphor, Jorge Silvetti; Case Study: Prescott Scott Cohen, Inc., Chevron House, Los Gatos CA (2011); Index.