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• DAISY (Digital Accessible Information System) - A digital book file format. DAISY books from Bookshare are DAISY 3.0 text files that work with just about every type of access technology that reads text. Books that contain images will have the download option of ‘DAISY Text with Images’.
• BRF (Braille Refreshable Format) - Digital Braille for use with refreshable Braille devices and Braille embossers.
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• DAISY Audio - Similar to the DAISY option above; however, this option uses MP3 files created with our text-to-speech engine that utilizes Ivonas Kendra voice. This format will work with Daisy Audio compatible players such as Victor Reader Stream and Read2Go.
• EPUB - A standard e-book format that can be read on many tools, such as iBooks, Readium or others.
• Word - Accessible Word output, which can be unzipped and opened in any tool that allows .docx files

The Twilight Garden: A Guide To Enjoying Your Garden In The Evening Hours

Some say that the twilight hours are the best time to enjoy a garden; a time when the spirit of the place really comes alive. It is also the time when many people pass front gardens on their return home, have a few spare minutes for garden maintenance, or want to enjoy the garden for entertaining. Full of easy maintenance advice, planting ideas for evening fragrance, colour, lighting, design, and attracting wildlife, this is a book for how people garden now. Front gardens, terraces, larger plots and containers will all be covered in an attempt to inspire everyone to transform their outdoor space into a twilight paradise.

Two Degrees: The Built Environment And Our Changing Climate

The Earth’s temperature has been rising. To limit catastrophic outcomes, the international scientific community has set a challenging goal of no more than two degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) average temperature rise. Economists agree we will save trillions of dollars by acting early. But how do we act successfully? And what’s the backup plan if we fall short? Setting politics aside, Two Degrees reviews the current science and explains how we can set practical steps to reduce the extent of warming and to adapt to the inevitable changes, all while improving the bottom line, beautifying our communities, and increasing human health. The book is a practical guide intended for a broad audience of those who occupy and shape our built environment. The authors provide a clear framework for communities, policy makers, planners, designers, developers, builders, and operators to help manage the impacts and capture the opportunities of our changing climate. Two Degrees is divided into three sections—Fundamentals, Mitigation, and Adaptation—covering a diverse array of topics ranging from climate-positive communities and low-carbon buildings to the psychology of choice and the cost of a low-carbon economy. After a foreword by Amory Lovins, more than 10 contributing authors share knowledge based on direct experience in all aspects of built environment practice. This book clarifies the misconceptions, provides new and unique insights, and shows how a better approach to the built environment can increase resilience and positively shape our future.

Two Degrees: The Built Environment And Our Changing Climate

The Earth’s temperature has been rising. To limit catastrophic outcomes, the international scientific community has set a challenging goal of no more than two degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) average temperature rise. Economists agree we will save trillions of dollars by acting early. But how do we act successfully? And what’s the backup plan if we fall short? Setting politics aside, Two Degrees reviews the current science and explains how we can set practical steps to reduce the extent of warming and to adapt to the inevitable changes, all while improving the bottom line, beautifying our communities, and increasing human health. The book is a practical guide intended for a broad audience of those who occupy and shape our built environment. The authors provide a clear framework for communities, policy makers, planners, designers, developers, builders, and operators to help manage the impacts and capture the opportunities of our changing climate. Two Degrees is divided into three sections—Fundamentals, Mitigation, and Adaptation—covering a diverse array of topics ranging from climate-positive communities and low-carbon buildings to the psychology of choice and the cost of a low-carbon economy. After a foreword by Amory Lovins, more than 10 contributing authors share knowledge based on direct experience in all aspects of built environment practice. This book clarifies the misconceptions, provides new and unique insights, and shows how a better approach to the built environment can increase resilience and positively shape our future.

U.S. Traffic Calming Manual

A comprehensive how-to manual for traffic calming in the United States. Planners and engineers can look to this manual for guidance on the appropriate use, design, and signing and marking of traffic-calming measures. For local officials, developers, and community associations, it is an introduction to the goals and tactics of traffic calming. Based in part on the first traffic-calming manual taken through a formal rule-making process and adopted by a state department of transportation as a supplement to its roadway design manual, this book catalogs principles that have been modified by many local jurisdictions to match local priorities and preferences. Standardization is key to the success of traffic-calming initiatives, and this book explains the processes, tools, and design needed to create a standard traffic-calming program. It also shows how municipalities can build needed flexibility into such programs. Signage and markings are also key, and a chapter is devoted to these issues. This is the book that states and municipalities need to create effective traffic-calming programs.

U.S. Traffic Calming Manual

A comprehensive how-to manual for traffic calming in the United States. Planners and engineers can look to this manual for guidance on the appropriate use, design, and signing and marking of traffic-calming measures. For local officials, developers, and community associations, it is an introduction to the goals and tactics of traffic calming. Based in part on the first traffic-calming manual taken through a formal rule-making process and adopted by a state department of transportation as a supplement to its roadway design manual, this book catalogs principles that have been modified by many local jurisdictions to match local priorities and preferences. Standardization is key to the success of traffic-calming initiatives, and this book explains the processes, tools, and design needed to create a standard traffic-calming program. It also shows how municipalities can build needed flexibility into such programs. Signage and markings are also key, and a chapter is devoted to these issues. This is the book that states and municipalities need to create effective traffic-calming programs.

The Ultimate Accidental Housewife: Your Guide To A Clean-enough House

The Ultimate Flower Gardener's Guide: How to Combine Shape, Color, and Texture to Create the Garden of Your Dreams

&“Full of practical insights, ideas, and inspiration to help you grow the flower-packed garden of your dreams.&”—Greg Loades, author of The Modern Cottage Garden The colors, shapes, and scents of flowers are as ravishing to the senses as to the soul. But it&’s all too easy get things wrong: colors that clash, flowers that bloom at the wrong time, plants that fail to thrive. Enter The Ultimate Flower Gardener&’s Guide by expert gardener Jenny Rose Carey. She tells you exactly how to get started, how to combine plants for the most spectacular effects, and how to keep your garden going from year to year. Whether you&’re interested in dramatic color combinations, how best to use a favorite flower, or how to create a garden for a specific purpose, such as nourishing pollinators, you&’ll find the answers in this friendly, information-packed book. As Jenny herself says, &“Don&’t be afraid—just have a go!&”

The Ultimate Wildlife Habitat Garden: Attract and Support Birds, Bees, and Butterflies

This beginner-friendly handbook helps homeowners create a beautiful garden that attracts birds, bees, butterflies, and more. In The Ultimate Wildlife Habitat Garden, Stacy Tornio makes it easy to attract birds, bees, and butterflies to your home garden by sharing details about which plants attract specific creatures. Entice birds with black-eyed susans, attract bumblebees by planting bee balm, and more. Choose from ten garden plans, including a hummingbird garden, a birdseed garden, and options that are low-maintenance and drought-resistant. You&’ll also get advice on finding the right feeder, avoiding pesticides, and choosing native plants. This beautiful, photo-filled guide will enable you to create the earth-friendly garden of your dreams.

Umbrella Tree showing it's Aerial roots (large print)

On this page there is an image of a branch of an Umbrella Tree (Schefflera arbicola) with three aerial roots growing down to the soil. There is a locator dot shown, which will be at the top left of the page when the image is the correct way up. There are two groups of leaves at the top of the page, each with seven green, pointed oval leaves in a circular umbrella arrangement. These are attached to the plans pale brown branch by delicate stems leading down the page. Follow the branch to the right and you will find three aerial roots. Two of them fork into two before going down to the red earth at the bottom of the page. Many other plants have aerial roots including Ivy, many orchids, mangroves trees and the fantastical Banyan tree.

Umbrella Tree showing it's Aerial roots (UEB contracted)

On this page there is an image of a branch of an Umbrella Tree (Schefflera arbicola) with three aerial roots growing down to the soil. There is a locator dot shown, which will be at the top left of the page when the image is the correct way up. There are two groups of leaves at the top of the page, each with seven green, pointed oval leaves in a circular umbrella arrangement. These are attached to the plans pale brown branch by delicate stems leading down the page. Follow the branch to the right and you will find three aerial roots. Two of them fork into two before going down to the red earth at the bottom of the page. Many other plants have aerial roots including Ivy, many orchids, mangroves trees and the fantastical Banyan tree.

Umbrella Tree showing it's Aerial roots (UEB uncontracted)

On this page there is an image of a branch of an Umbrella Tree (Schefflera arbicola) with three aerial roots growing down to the soil. There is a locator dot shown, which will be at the top left of the page when the image is the correct way up. There are two groups of leaves at the top of the page, each with seven green, pointed oval leaves in a circular umbrella arrangement. These are attached to the plans pale brown branch by delicate stems leading down the page. Follow the branch to the right and you will find three aerial roots. Two of them fork into two before going down to the red earth at the bottom of the page. Many other plants have aerial roots including Ivy, many orchids, mangroves trees and the fantastical Banyan tree.

Unclutter Your Home: 7 Simple Steps, 700 Tips & Ideas

Organizing expert Donna Smallin gives you a simple 7-step plan for conquering clutter forever. Using a friendly tips-based format, she walks you through hundreds of small strategies that add up to big successes. She explains how to assess your situation (beginning with a great little quiz that helps you identify some of your core clutter issues), and then she helps you set your intentions and find profound, personal motivations for creating a more ordered life for yourself. You'll then move on to painlessly letting go of what you no longer need, creating a place for each of the things you decide to keep, and implementing simple systems that will KEEP your home clutter-free with a minimum of effort. The print edition of Unclutter Your Home has more than 100,000 copies in print, and this ebook has been thoroughly revised and updated to reflect the way we live today.

Uncultivated: Wild Apples, Real Cider, and the Complicated Art of Making a Living

Today, food is being reconsidered. It’s a front-and-center topic in everything from politics to art, from science to economics. We know now that leaving food to government and industry specialists was one of the twentieth century’s greatest mistakes. The question is where do we go from here. Author Andy Brennan describes uncultivation as a process: It involves exploring the wild; recognizing that much of nature is omitted from our conventional ways of seeing and doing things (our cultivations); and realizing the advantages to embracing what we’ve somehow forgotten or ignored. For most of us this process can be difficult, like swimming against the strong current of our modern culture. The hero of this book is the wild apple. Uncultivated follows Brennan’s twenty-four-year history with naturalized trees and shows how they have guided him toward successes in agriculture, in the art of cider making, and in creating a small-farm business. The book contains useful information relevant to those particular fields, but is designed to connect the wild to a far greater audience, skillfully blending cultural criticism with a food activist’s agenda. Apples rank among the most manipulated crops in the world, because not only do farmers want perfect fruit, they also assume the health of the tree depends on human intervention. Yet wild trees live all around us, and left to their own devices, they achieve different forms of success that modernity fails to apprehend. Andy Brennan learned of the health and taste advantages of such trees, and by emulating nature in his orchard (and in his cider) he has also enjoyed environmental and financial benefits. None of this would be possible by following today’s prevailing winds of apple cultivation. In all fields, our cultural perspective is limited by a parallel proclivity. It’s not just agriculture: we all must fight tendencies toward specialization, efficiency, linear thought, and predetermined growth. We have cultivated those tendencies at the exclusion of nature’s full range. If Uncultivated is about faith in nature, and the power it has to deliver us from our own mistakes, then wild apple trees have already shown us the way.

Under Pressure: Essays on Urban Housing

Under Pressure is about instigation and design in urban housing. Urban housing is a bellwether for economic, social, and political change. It varies widely in quality, typology, and audience and lies between the formal systems of urban infrastructure and the informal systems of daily life. Housing’s complexity offers unique and exciting opportunities to architects. Its entwinement with private equity and public agencies presents important challenges amplified by urbanization. This book gathers and contextualizes relevant conversations in urban housing unfolding today across architecture through four topics: Learning from History, Changing Domesticities, Housing Finance and Policy, and Design and Material Innovation. The result is a multi-disciplinary amalgam of research and design intelligence from thought leaders in the fields of architecture, real estate, economics, policy, material design, and finance.

Underground Urbanism

Have you ever wondered what lies beneath the streets of your city? Do you picture, in isolation, a series of train tunnels and pipes? Or perhaps the foundations of tall buildings that lie scattered, like icebergs, beneath the surface? As our cities grow up, out, and down, it is time we better understood how the different layers of these complex urban environments relate to one another. Underground Urbanism seeks to provide a new perspective on our cities, and consider how this might be used to engage more positively with them. So, tip your cities upside down to have a closer look, and let us rethink them from (below) the ground, up.

Underground Urbanism

Have you ever wondered what lies beneath the streets of your city? Do you picture, in isolation, a series of train tunnels and pipes? Or perhaps the foundations of tall buildings that lie scattered, like icebergs, beneath the surface? As our cities grow up, out, and down, it is time we better understood how the different layers of these complex urban environments relate to one another. Underground Urbanism seeks to provide a new perspective on our cities, and consider how this might be used to engage more positively with them. So, tip your cities upside down to have a closer look, and let us rethink them from (below) the ground, up.

Understanding Metropolitan Landscapes

Understanding Metropolitan Landscapes considers and reflects on the fundamental relationships between metropolitan regions and their landscapes. It investigates how planning and policy help to protect, manage and enhance the landscapes that sustain our urban settlements. As global populations become more metropolitan, landscapes evolve to become increasingly dynamic and entropic; and the distinction between urban and non-urban is further fragmented and yet these spaces play an increasingly important role in sustainable development. This book opens a key critical discussion into the relational aspects of city and landscape and how each element shapes the boundaries of the other, covering topics such as material natures, governance systems, processes and policy. It presents a compendium of concepts and ideas that have emerged from landscape architecture, planning, and environmental policy and landscape management. Using a range of illustrated case studies, it provokes discussions on the major themes driving the growth of cities by exploring the underlying tensions around notions of sustainable settlement, climate change adaption, urban migration, new modes of governance and the role of landscape in policy and decision making at national, provincial and municipal levels.

Understanding Metropolitan Landscapes

Understanding Metropolitan Landscapes considers and reflects on the fundamental relationships between metropolitan regions and their landscapes. It investigates how planning and policy help to protect, manage and enhance the landscapes that sustain our urban settlements. As global populations become more metropolitan, landscapes evolve to become increasingly dynamic and entropic; and the distinction between urban and non-urban is further fragmented and yet these spaces play an increasingly important role in sustainable development. This book opens a key critical discussion into the relational aspects of city and landscape and how each element shapes the boundaries of the other, covering topics such as material natures, governance systems, processes and policy. It presents a compendium of concepts and ideas that have emerged from landscape architecture, planning, and environmental policy and landscape management. Using a range of illustrated case studies, it provokes discussions on the major themes driving the growth of cities by exploring the underlying tensions around notions of sustainable settlement, climate change adaption, urban migration, new modes of governance and the role of landscape in policy and decision making at national, provincial and municipal levels.

Understanding Site in Design Pedagogy (Routledge Focus on Design Pedagogy)

This book examines diverse ways of questioning, critiquing, and communicating site in the creative process of architecture, interior design, urban planning, and historical and cultural studies. The authors use the term site to connote a series of complex, established, or pre-existing conditions – a setting, an atmosphere, an area – to read, to interpret, to relate to, and to engage with, to redefine, or to create in relation to a design prompt. By acknowledging, accommodating, and empowering the physical, intellectual, and cultural characteristics of a site, students question its history, boundaries, posture, and situational aspects. Such inquiries promote a deeper appreciation of a site and thus help students to acknowledge its capacity to influence design throughout the iterative creative process. Understanding Site in Design Pedagogy adds to the body of literature on design studio pedagogy by presenting a collection of essays that challenge normative assumptions about what defines a site and its distinctive qualities. It poses a series of pedagogical questions for how sites might be diversely interpreted and introduced to design students. This study offers chapters that speak to site, memory, and lived experience; multi-scalar thinking about site; connecting to site through sensory phenomenon in interior design; alternate ways of engaging site for learning sustainable principles; and introducing unorthodox forms of site as the impetus to creative endeavours. It offers innovative approaches to scholarship of teaching and learning with respect to diverse readings of site within design education.

Understanding Site in Design Pedagogy (Routledge Focus on Design Pedagogy)

This book examines diverse ways of questioning, critiquing, and communicating site in the creative process of architecture, interior design, urban planning, and historical and cultural studies. The authors use the term site to connote a series of complex, established, or pre-existing conditions – a setting, an atmosphere, an area – to read, to interpret, to relate to, and to engage with, to redefine, or to create in relation to a design prompt. By acknowledging, accommodating, and empowering the physical, intellectual, and cultural characteristics of a site, students question its history, boundaries, posture, and situational aspects. Such inquiries promote a deeper appreciation of a site and thus help students to acknowledge its capacity to influence design throughout the iterative creative process. Understanding Site in Design Pedagogy adds to the body of literature on design studio pedagogy by presenting a collection of essays that challenge normative assumptions about what defines a site and its distinctive qualities. It poses a series of pedagogical questions for how sites might be diversely interpreted and introduced to design students. This study offers chapters that speak to site, memory, and lived experience; multi-scalar thinking about site; connecting to site through sensory phenomenon in interior design; alternate ways of engaging site for learning sustainable principles; and introducing unorthodox forms of site as the impetus to creative endeavours. It offers innovative approaches to scholarship of teaching and learning with respect to diverse readings of site within design education.

Understanding Tall Buildings: A Theory of Placemaking

In recent years, the rapid pace of tall building construction has fostered a certain kind of placelessness, with many new tall buildings being built out of scale, context and place. By analyzing hundreds of tall buildings and by providing hundreds of visuals that inspire, stimulate and engage, Understanding Tall Buildings contends that well-designed tall buildings can rejuvenate cities, ignite economic activity, support social life and boost city pride. Although this book does not claim to possess all the solutions, it does propose specific tall building design guidelines that may help to promote placemaking. Through this work, it is the author’s hope that ill-conceived developments will become less common in the future and that good placemaking will become the norm, not the exception. This book is a must-read for students and practitioners working to create better tall buildings and better urban environments.

Understanding Tall Buildings: A Theory of Placemaking

In recent years, the rapid pace of tall building construction has fostered a certain kind of placelessness, with many new tall buildings being built out of scale, context and place. By analyzing hundreds of tall buildings and by providing hundreds of visuals that inspire, stimulate and engage, Understanding Tall Buildings contends that well-designed tall buildings can rejuvenate cities, ignite economic activity, support social life and boost city pride. Although this book does not claim to possess all the solutions, it does propose specific tall building design guidelines that may help to promote placemaking. Through this work, it is the author’s hope that ill-conceived developments will become less common in the future and that good placemaking will become the norm, not the exception. This book is a must-read for students and practitioners working to create better tall buildings and better urban environments.

Undesign: Critical Practices at the Intersection of Art and Design

Undesign brings together leading artists, designers and theorists working at the intersection of art and design. The text focuses on design practices, and conceptual approaches, which challenge the traditional notion that design should emphasise its utility over aesthetic or other non-functional considerations. This publication brings to light emerging practices that consider the social, political and aesthetic potential of "undesigning" our complex designed world. In documenting these new developments, the book highlights the overlaps with science, engineering, biotechnology and hacktivism, which operate at the intersection of art and design.

Undesign: Critical Practices at the Intersection of Art and Design

Undesign brings together leading artists, designers and theorists working at the intersection of art and design. The text focuses on design practices, and conceptual approaches, which challenge the traditional notion that design should emphasise its utility over aesthetic or other non-functional considerations. This publication brings to light emerging practices that consider the social, political and aesthetic potential of "undesigning" our complex designed world. In documenting these new developments, the book highlights the overlaps with science, engineering, biotechnology and hacktivism, which operate at the intersection of art and design.

Unearthed: On race and roots, and how the soil taught me I belong

'A beautiful book about nature...I recommend it' Afua HirschA beautiful work of nature-writing, memoir and storytelling that will change the way we think about the natural worldUnearthed is the story of how, after years of a troubled relationship with the land of her birth, Claire Ratinon found belonging through falling in love with growing plants and reconnecting with nature. Like many diasporic people of colour, Claire grew up feeling cut off from the natural world. She lived in cities, reluctant to be outdoors and stuck with the belief that success and status could fill the space where belonging was absent. Through learning the practice of growing food, she unpicked her beliefs about who she ought to be. Over her first year living in the English countryside and with the first vegetable patch of her own, she finds a pathway back to nature's embrace. And through growing the food of Mauritius, recording her parents' stories and exploring the history of the island, she also strengthens her connection to her homeland.A beautiful work of nature-writing, memoir and storytelling, Unearthed urges us to look to the world outside for the belonging and home we seek. It is a heartfelt call to reconsider our history, the way we think about nature and the complex relationships we all have with the land.