I first came across his work around ten years ago on a BBC series based on his book called “How Buildings Learn”- at the time he was making valid points about ways in which we can adapt buildings, not to reduce their environment impact by reducing their energy consumption per the current thinking, but by simply avoiding the need for new ones.  His way – adapting buildings to accommodate many uses – places the least demand on our resources.  Much of my doctorate was built off his “layers of change” principle which was in this work.

Everything that he has done has challenged the convention of the time and has, by and large, turned out to be true.

So, please take 15 minutes to watch this, his very latest presentation: http://www.ted.com/talks/stewart_brand_proclaims_4_environmental_heresies.html The points it makes should shake you to your very core.  He is a true “big picture” man.

Other links:

The whole “How Buildings Learn” tv series: http://video.google.com/videosearch?q=stewart+brand+how+buildings+learn&emb=0&aq=0&oq=stewart+brand#

The Long Now Foundation (we can see a model of their clock in the National Science Museum): http://www.longnow.org/

His wikipedia entry: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stewart_Brand