Exploring the findings of the conference entitled 'System-based Vision for Strategic and Creative Design', this text focuses around the following key themes:

· systemic framework - the capacity to survey all aspects and connections of any problem and its solution
· creative work - the challenge to develop something new
· design - a method to improve the world and make it better

With the main objective of the conference being to define the knowledge and technologies needed in the design and development of project processes able to produce competitive, 'green' and consumer-friendly structures, the text also clearly relates to the development and use of quality materials, as well as to excellence in construction management, and to reliable measurement and testing methods.

Dr. Raymond N. Yong is the William Scott Professor Emeritus at McGill University, Canada, and Emeritus Professor at the University of Wales Cardiff (Cardiff University), UK. He has authored and co-authored eleven other textbooks, over five hundred refereed papers in the various journals in the disciplines of Geoenvironmental Engineering and Earth Science, and holds 52 patents. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society (Canada), and a Chevalier de l’Ordre National du Québec. He and his students were amongst the early researchers in Geoenvironmental Engineering engaged in research on the physico-chemical properties and behaviour of soils, their use in buffer/barriers for HLW (high-level radioactive waste) and HSW (hazardous solid waste) containment and isolation, and restoration/remediation of contaminated sites. He and his colleagues are currently engaged in research on Geoenvironmental sustainability.

Dr. Catherine N. Mulligan holds a Concordia Research Chair in Geoenvironmental Sustainability (Tier I) and is Full Professor and Associate Dean, Research and Graduate Studies of the Faculty of Engineering and Computer Science of Concordia University, Canada. She has authored more than 80 refereed papers in various journals, authored, co-edited or co-authored five other books, holds three patents and has supervised to completion more than 40 graduate students. She is the Director of the new Concordia Institute of Water, Energy and Sustainable Systems. The new Institute trains students in sustainable development practices and performs research into new systems, technologies and solutions for environmental sustainability.

Dr. Masaharu Fukue is a Full Professor at Tokai University, Japan. He has studied and taught geoenvironmental engineering and geotechnical engineering for 36 years, since 1978, in Marine Science and Technology, Tokai University. He has co-authored two other textbooks, over one hundred refereed papers in various journals, and holds 6 patents. He has recently established the Japanese Geotechnical Association for Housing Disaster Prevention to apply the theory and practice of innovative microbial cementing process (one of his patented process). In addition, another of his Japanese patents (re-suspension technique for sediment rehabilitation) is currently being applied in Fukushima, Japan, in the aftermath of the March, 2011 East-Japan great earthquake and accompanying tsunami. Both projects demonstrate the interdependencies between geoenvironmental engineering and geotechnical engineering, and the need to apply sustainability principles in the practice of both disciplines.