If leading a sustainable life is the mantra of many Bay Area residents - underscored by daily reminders of global warming and diminishing natural resources - how to put the ideal into practice is not always clear.

Fortunately, history offers guidance. Some 200 years ago, a community in Japan faced many of the same problems that confront us today - shortages of energy, water, materials and food along with overpopulation. And the thoughtful solutions devised by the 30 million people who lived in what is now the city of Tokyo during the late Edo period (1603-1868) provide practical inspiration for what might be achieved today.

"There should be nothing stopping families and individuals living more sustainably," says Azby Brown, director of the KIT Future Design Institute in Harajuku, who, in his newly published book "Just Enough" (Kodansha International; $24.95), chronicles the model lifestyle devised by the Edo people to stave off societal collapse due to environmental degradation. Brown, in San Francisco recently to give a talk at the American Institute of Architects, sat down to talk with The Chronicle.

Many of the solutions the Edo culture came up with are familiar to us: sustainable agriculture and architecture, recycling and energy-efficient homes. Some may surprise us: a tendency to buy prepared food rather than cook at home (the logic being that restaurants and food vendors use fuel more efficiently than the single household). And some of their ways may prove a stretch even for the most eco responsible among us: a return to bathing in public or outdoor toilets to facilitate the collection of human waste to be used as fertilizer.

But mostly it's about a mind-set, says Brown. As the title of his book implies, the people of Edo Japan valued conservation and humility. They understood the inherent limits of natural systems, considered waste taboo and prized cooperative solutions. "The mentality of the time found meaning and satisfaction in a life in which the individual took just enough from the world, and no more," Brown writes.

Tales of everyday life

Illustrated with his own, engaging sketches, Brown's book tells of the daily life of the farmer living in his thatched-roof farmhouse, the carpenter in his efficient one-room home, the city dweller in a townhouse tenement complex built to encourage sharing and sociability, and the samurai whose pitched-roof home is on an avenue in a leafy, out-of-town district with an uncanny resemblance to the modern suburb.

The common bond is a commitment to sustainability underpinned by good and enduring design. Even the samurai, who lived in the equivalent of a gated community and employed a servant, maintained a substantial edible garden, used minimal heating, recycled paper and considered cushions for his tatami floors a needless extravagance.

Embracing restraint

This willingness to embrace restraint is the most likely aspect to be lost in translation for Americans hoping to learn from the Edo lifestyle, says Brown, who was born in New Orleans and has applied some of the practices he describes in his book to his own home in Japan.

"It has many compact design features, particularly in terms of storage, and I designed it to feel much more spacious than it actually is," he says. "Our neighborhood as a whole has a lot of 'Edo' aspects, such as compact farm plots, well-placed trees and greenery, and primarily pedestrian access.

"In America, we assume growth is a priority value," he says. The average size of a home in the United States may be decreasing slightly, and there's an emerging "small house" movement, but there's a long way to go before we universally look down on conspicuous consumption.

The late-Edo-era Japanese were all about innovation, inventiveness and creativity, but it was directed toward sustainability not growth. Of course, choice was not always an option. For example, communities ran an efficient fuel provision system in which wood could be taken from forests only if it was fallen. It also had to be hauled out on back-frames, in effect placing a limit on deforestation. However, another effective restriction was the threat of execution: In some areas, villagers were forbidden to enter the deep forest - which was controlled by the government as a source of building timber and essential watershed - under pain of death.

While Brown concedes that it can be tough to persuade people to change their ways, he does see signs that are cause for optimism.

"It's still an uphill struggle against inertia and easy consumption, and against extremely irresponsible and damaging disinformation," he says. "But one thing that makes me hopeful is that there's so much information available, and so many people experimenting with more environmentally sound lifestyles, that it's very easy to learn about everything from growing vegetables, to composting toilets, to gray-water usage. If someone wants to live more sustainably, they can find lots of resources and support."