Book excerpt: .Tall buildings represent a way of the future which is perceived as necessary despite being environmentally unfriendly .This book demonstrates methods to make these energy-consuming buildings as efficient as possible until a time when the world finds economically viable alternatives Ken Yeang remains one of the world's foremost experts on sustainability and the modern skyscraper. Acknowledging that the skyscraper is possibly one of the most ecologically unfriendly of all building types, he states that until an economically viable alternative is identified, it is necessary to make them as humane and as sustainable as possible. Each project is presented together with data on its climatic location, the local vegetation, plot ratio, net and gross areas."