From the foreword of Design for Sustainability:

"Over almost two decades from the 1980s to the end of the 1990s, our country has experienced a period of rapid construction with a focus on economic development. Since we crossed the threshold of the 21st century, the new concept of sustainable development, or the scientific development approach, is rapidly shaping the dominant way of thinking in China's development and construction for the future. In view of architecture, the state has formulated macro policies on architectural energy saving, based on which various cities and sectors have made regulations on thinking, beginning with new attempts on the design of architecture featuring environmental protection and energy saving. …Based on the above mentioned circumstances and contemplation, Yan Ji and Dr. Stellios Plainiotis have compiled this book of recently important cases by famous international design institutes."

The book explains some basic principles and methods of introducing sustainable design into architectural design. The editors use images and narrative about 21 case studies on sustainable development to give innovative examples.

The HOK case studies are:

• Darwin Centre at the Natural History Museum, London
  
• Franchise Tax Board Phase III Office and Warehouse Facilities, Sacramento, California
  
• Southeast Regional Treatment Center, Madison, Indiana
  
• IBM Tivoli Systems Headquarters, Austin, Texas

Three lessons the authors derived from the book's case studies are:

1. 1. "Sustainable design has high technological contents, but this doesn't mean 'the more and higher technologies to use the better,' rather, appropriate utilization is the key."

2. 2. "Attention should be paid to the reasonable integration of technology with traditional design aesthetics and logic, avoiding the unilateral emphasis on technology, which would result in the so-called sustainable architecture at the expense of the architectural design quality."

3. 3."Finally, sustainable design is not the attachment or supplement of architectural design, but an integrated design process with the architectural design."

Source: Ji Yan and Plainiotis Stellios (2006): Design for Sustainability. Beijing: China Architecture and Building Press.