The seed of the idea for the writing of this book was planted in an Innovative Housing seminar that I taught at McGill University; many thanks to the students who inspired my ideas. Those ideas were also the outcome of work with colleagues and graduate students with whom I authored papers and designed prototypes. I thank them all.
The book could not have been written without the help of a highly dedicated team of assistants: Ji (Cayte) Yeon Kim helped put together the proposal. Jack Bian and Dave Cameron contributed to the background research, the writing of the text, finding the projects and describing them. Their work was made possible through the Summer Undergraduate Research in Engineering (SURE) programme of the Faculty of Engineering at McGill University.
Special thanks go to Nyd Garavito-Bruhn, my assistant, who assembled and formatted the text and the images, coordinated the assembly of the projects, and processed the graphic material. His dedication is much appreciated.
Gratitude is also given to the team at Laurence King Publishing for their care and, in particular, to Editorial Director Philip Cooper, for ushering in the project, and to Project Editor Gaynor Sermon for guiding it through the different production stages.
Finally, to my wife Sorel Friedman and children Paloma, who edited the text, and Ben, for their love and support.