About the Author

Since the 1960’s, Sim Van der Ryn’s architecture, planning, teaching, writing, and public leadership have advanced the viability, public and professional adoption of ecological principles and green design in architecture and community planning.

 

Appointed California State Architect in the 1970’s he created programs of energy efficient design and renewable energy for the mainstream, making California the leader in initiating programs that shaped the rise of the green building movement.

His thirty years as Professor of Architecture and Founder of the University of California’s Ecological Design program were marked by leaps in connecting design with natural processes and a series of ground breaking projects and buildings.

 

His work has been widely recognized through national awards and honors. Fine Home Building magazine selected the Integral Urban House as one of 25 most important houses in America, citing it as the “Birth Of Green.” Residential Architecture Magazine honored him as 2005 Architect of the Year. He is one of few architects ever selected as a Rockefeller Scholar.

 

He is the founder of the Eco-Design Collaborative, the non-profit Ecologic Design Institute, and the Center for Regenerative Design at the College of Marin. He is a frequent public speaker and the author of seven books, including his latest, Design For Life.

 

Van der Ryn is retired, but was the principal of VanderyRyn architects and taught at UC Berkeley School in the school of architecture.

 

“Long before the Prius hit the road and sustainability became the buzzword du Jour, there was Sim Van der Ryn the intrepid pioneer on the eco-frontier” -- Patricia Leigh Brown, New York Times profile, November 17, 2005