Limestone is a highly successful and widely used building material, found in many important historic buildings and new monuments around the world. Whilst its success reflects its durability under a wide range of environmental conditions, there are still important questions surrounding the selection, use and conservation of build-ing limestones. In order to make best use of new limestone today, and to conserve old limestone most effectively, we need to bring modern research methods to bear on understanding the characteris-tics of different limestones, what mortars to use, and how key lime-stones have responded to polluted atmospheres. This volume brings together recent inter-disciplinary research on these issues, illustrating the diversity of innovative techniques that are now be-ing applied to furthering our understanding of building limestones.

Visual Culture in the Built Environment: A Global Perspective provides an integrated survey of global interior environments and architecture, explaining significant design styles and movements from the mid-19th century to the present day. In addition to learning the characteristics and designers of a particular style or movement, students will learn how and why interior environments and architecture develop, including the impact of cultural and political events. In reflecting the emerging field of Visual Culture studies, this textbook expands upon traditional approaches to studying the history of interior environments and architecture by presenting content within the global interdisciplinary context of the arts, politics, technology, business, and economics.

Viruses, Bacteria and Fungi in the Built Environment: Designing Healthy Indoor Environments opens with a brief introduction to viruses, bacteria and fungi in the built environment and discusses their impact on human health. Sections discuss the microbiology of building materials, the airborne transmission of viruses and bacteria in the built environment, and plumbing-associated microbiome. As the first book on this important area to be written in light of the COVID-19 pandemic, this work will be a valuable reference resource for researchers, civil engineers, architects, postgraduate students, contractors and other professionals working and interested in the field of the built environment. Elements of building design, including choice of materials, ventilation and plumbing can have important implications for the microbiology of a building, and consequently, the health of the building's occupants. This important new reference work explains the microbiology of buildings and disease control in the built environment to those who design and implement new construction and renovate. Provides an essential guide on the microbiology of buildings, covering bacteria, fungi and viruses on surfaces, in air and in water Comprehensively examines how humidity influences fungal growth in several building materials Includes important information about the airborne transmission of infectious agents Addresses ventilation design to improve human health Presents the first book on disease control in buildings since the COVID-19 pandemic

This volume brings together outstanding contributions to the Gulf Conference on Sustainable Built Environment, held at the Marina Hotel Kuwait, near Kuwait City. The Proceedings collects 29 papers on a range of engineering and materials challenges, and best practices, addressing development of new sustainable building materials, performance improvement of structures and tall buildings, developing monitoring and analysis techniques and frameworks for existing infrastructure under environmental effects, development of long-term sustainability plans for building stock, and development of energy efficient buildings in the gulf region. The Conference was organized by the Kuwait Foundation for the Advancement of Sciences (KFAS), the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the Kuwait Institute for Scientific Research, and Kuwait University.

This new volume in the AVISTA series focuses on the study of medieval limestone. As the principal building material in the Middle Ages and a prized medium for architectural sculpture, limestone played a significant role in medieval artistic manufacture. The choice of material inherently informed the final product, thus understanding the material and its uses gives insight into the medieval creative process and the production-driven choices that were made by masons and sculptors. Quality limestone was a highly sought-after commodity that was often shipped across great distances; yet in other instances, masons made do with locally available resources. Through an intensive study of medium, many broader topics can be addressed, for instance the economics of medieval construction, the artistic process, or the application of modern technology in understanding and preserving medieval buildings and sculpture. The papers collected in this volume present the depth and scope of recent scholarship in the field, through a wide-ranging overview of the state of the discipline of medieval stone studies. They address such methodological approaches to the study of limestone as the use of neutron activation analysis to determine quarries of origin, issues of labor and transportation, as well as issues faced in the cleaning and conservation of limestone. This volume is the first comprehensive study in English that investigates limestone as an essential component of large-scale medieval artistic production, and as such, it is a valuable resource for both students and scholars in the field.