The lecturer at UIC Barcelona School of Architecture, Alberto T. Estevez, advocates the use, in the field of architecture, of the new digital and biological techniques to achieve a more sustainable built environment and help mitigate, in this way, the environmental crisis facing our planet. His work forms the chapter The fifth element: biodigital & genetics, which forms part of the book Environmental Management of Air, Water, Agriculture, and Energy, recently published by CRC Press/Taylor & Francis Group. 

Alberto T. Estévez stresses the need for architects to start to work based on the idea of integral ecology, which addresses the social, economic and environmental factors simultaneously. He underlines the importance of seeking answers to the environmental crisis in nature. In this sense, he explains the ability of trees and plants to offer biolight and bioheat in a natural way for streets and homes. "The closer the processes of architectural creation are to nature, the less obsolete and more 'eternal' the result will be.” He concludes "the idea is to harness nature's capacity for self-organisation, growth and reproducibility.”

The volume Environmental Management of Air, Water, Agriculture, and Energy examines, based on the latest knowhow, how green technology helps to mitigate the water, energy and climate change crises. 

Air, Water, Agriculture, and Energy examines, based on current knowledge, how green technology helps to mitigate water, energy and climate change crises.