principle of design based only on economic self-interest and technical feasibility. That is, the values behind the design are wrong-headed, partial and destructive. For this reason, I begin my examination of building in Chapter II with the value revolution taking place in construction and how it relates to appropriate patterns of economic design summarized in this chapter. Throughout this work, I will be concerned equally with the amount and the composition of materials. We are currently using too many of the earths resources and we are using them to produce too many toxic substances. In particular, there are new synthetic toxins and classes of materials (e.g. organochlorines) that are intrinsically destructive to human beings and ecosystems which can not break down these persistent and accumulative substances. A green vision, therefore, geared to transforming both the quantity and quality of materials, involves the twin tasks of dematerializing and detoxifying the economy. We must do more with much less, and produce much safer environmentally-benign materials. The key principles of green economic design, dealt with in my earlier book and summarized here, will be invoked to show how this dematerialization and detoxification actually takes place for different circumstances, sectors, and materials. Essential to a transformation of materials use is a radical redefinition of economic development. Even a superficial assessment of materials-use signals real danger and the need to reassess long-held notions of progress and growth. Open-ended economic growth has always been held to be an unqualified good, providing the possibility of higher living standards for all without having to redistribute wealth and power. But the finiteness of the biosphere has begun to dramatize the inherent limits of material