Building Within Nature: A Guide for Home Owners, Contractors, and Architects

Every year, many thousands of acres of woodlands, deserts, meadowlands, and coastal scrub are turned into home or commercial sites. Ironically, by the time these structures are complete, bulldozers have scraped the land clean of its natural vegetation and character, the very features that attracted buyers in the first place. In Building within Nature, Andy and Sally Wasowski introduce new and exciting techniques for preserving the natural land on which we build new homes, offices, or even shopping centers.

Building within Nature stresses that the unnatural landscapes so common in America literally exist on artificial life support. A natural landscape, on the other hand, is filled with native flora and can exist on rainfall alone. A structure built within nature looks as if it has been gently set down into a mature and established landscape—the easiest kind of landscape to maintain.

The Wasowskis illustrate this new concept in construction through profiles of sites in California, Arizona, South Carolina, Minnesota, and other locations in North America. They also highlight useful techniques for revegetation, discuss the importance of soils, and argue for the preservation and maintenance of natural habitats.