TThe book focuses on key issues for present and future practice and research needs related to advancing the environmental performance of buildings and addresses the role regional culture plays in the successful (or otherwise) process of exchanging and adapting environmental practices and standards in the built environment.

This volume focuses on the mathematical sciences in mediaeval Islam - astronomical instruments, the geometry of the sphere and the translation of texts (from Greek into Arabic and from Arabic into Latin). Four of the articles contain texts in Arabic or Latin, with commentary.