City and town planning: architectural aspects Books

Book SynopsisIn a positive departure from modernism, the work of the art critic and urbanist Ludwig Hilberseimer offers schemata towards the design for the city itself: its mereological composition. The resonance of parts unfolds to an alternative of a purely contrasting equation of form and content. It reminds us, that when the ground (gr.: logos) of the city is defined by its parts (gr.: meros), its architecture, the city in turn always also is part of the architecture as its desire. "The Mereological City" introduces a mereological methodology and contributes to an ongoing discussion about an ecological form of urban design.

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Book SynopsisIn the writing of urban design history of the twentieth century, functionalist and avant-garde models of the dissolution of the city are dominating. In contrast this book presents projects whose goal is the ideal of a dense and urbane city. Drawing on plans, built examples and theories of dense and urban cities and city districts in the twentieth century, modern examples of urban design are analysed and highlighted, which until now have been evaluated more as fringe phenomena. These include examples characterized by functional mixture, social openness, spatially defined public spaces, urban architecture, historical reference and a cultural understanding of the city. The book's new evaluation of modern urban design history creates opportunities for current planning by offering best-practice models, which better reflect the striving for urbanity and density.

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Book SynopsisIn the first half of the twentieth century, urban elevated highways were much more than utilitarian infrastructure, lifting traffic above the streets; they were statements of civic pride, asserting boldly modern visions for a city's architecture, economy, and transportation network. Yet three of the most ambitious projects, launched in Chicago, New York, and Boston in the spirit of utopian models by architects such as Le Corbusier and Hugh Ferriss, ultimately fell short of their ideals. Modern Mobility Aloft is the first study to focus on pre-Interstate urban elevated highways within American architectural and urban history. Amy Finstein traces the idealistic roots of these superstructures, their contrasting realities once built, their impacts on successive development patterns, and the recent challenges they have posed to contemporary urban designers. Filled with more than 100 historic photographs and illustrations of beaux arts and art deco architecture, Modern Mobility Aloft provides a critical understanding of urban landscapes, transportation, and technological change as cities moved into the modern era.Trade Review“Like the elevated railroads before them, elevated highways have generally been viewed in negative terms by urban dwellers. Yet the elevated highway represents an important, if not altogether welcome, phase in the daunting challenges to reconcile the demands of accommodating motor vehicles to city fabric on a large scale. Amy Finstein’s beautifully researched and written book examines the seminal early stages of implementing this complex and costly infrastructure in Chicago, New York, and Boston during the first half of the twentieth century. Modern Mobility Aloft is an important analysis of the visionary schemes first devised to address the issue and the myriad factors involved in conceiving and implementing actual projects. Economic considerations, local politics, architectural design values, and changes in building and transportation technology are all addressed in a seamless, engaging narrative.”—Richard Longstreth, Professor of American Studies Emeritus, George Washington University“In Modern Mobility Aloft, Finstein looks deeply at the historical intersection of civil engineering, technology, and urbanism and comes up with a major topic that no one has seen before. She is exactly right in her assertion that the elevated highway as a specific mode of technological response to the problem of automobile congestion has not been treated systematically. More importantly, she sees the connection between the elevated highway and elements of modernist urbanism and culture. Her extensive, original archival work and case studies of downtown congestion and early highway design point to a new integration of the history of technology and urban history.”—Robert Fishman, Professor of Architecture and Urban Planning, Taubman College, University of Michigan"This handsomely produced, well-written book is about how three cities—New York, Chicago, and Boston—used elevated roadways well into the 20th century to alleviate the growing crush of traffic on surface roadways. Finstein chronicles the reconciliation of competing interests of political, engineering, and architectural remedies in the solutions offered and in what was either not built, built and later rebuilt, or demolished. Notable is Finstein's attention to issues of architectural style in projects thought of as mere engineering.... Well-illustrated with charts, plans, and photos, and supported by lots of endnotes and bibliographic information, this is an important scholarly resource. Summing Up: Recommended."—Choice"Modern Mobility Aloft focuses on the aesthetics of the structures, the design decisions that went into these highways, and their legacies.... [It is a] strong design-oriented history of elevated highways."—Technology and Culture"Finstein develops a clear and detailed narrative of the history and design of the three elevated highway projects, and presents an impressive amount of information, including numerous images, collected through extensive archival research. This makes the book an enjoyable read…. [T]he book offers important and relevant insights for urban planning and design professionals."—Journal of Planning History"[A] timely book.... Finstein offers an important addition to our understanding of the roots of America’s current transportation systems and of modern American cities.... One of the greatest strengths of Finstein’s work is the effective job she does of showing how a diffuse group of proponents viewed the elevated highways as the perfect solution to a range of issues faced in inter-war cities.... This book firmly and convincingly asserts that the period, the projects and the people who made them a reality influenced a great deal of the post-war world." —Urban History"A welcome addition to the growing body of literature on the impact of automobiles on the American built environment that includes suburbanization and large-scale highway systems.... Modern Mobility Aloft effectively broadens and deepens our understanding of highways as built form."—Buildings & Landscapes

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Book SynopsisThe title of this book is taken from Ebenezer Howard's visionary tract To-morrow: A Peaceful Path to Real Reform. Published in 1898 as a manifesto for social reform via the creation of Garden Cities, it proposed a new way of providing cheap and healthy homes, workplaces and green spaces in balance in cohesive new communities, underpinned by radical ideas about collective land ownership. While Howard's vision had international impact, in this book planning historian Stephen Ward largely honors the special place that Hertfordshire occupies on the peaceful path, beginning with the development of Letchworth and Welwyn Garden Cities.Table of Contents1. Ebenezer Howard2. Letchworth Garden City3. Welwyn Garden City4. Finding other paths5. Stevenage6. Hertfordshire's other New Towns7. Wider Perspectives8. Where the path led

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Book SynopsisTemporary and Tactical Urbanism examines a key set of urban design strategies that have emerged in the twenty-first century. Such projects range from guerrilla gardens and bike lanes to more formalised temporary beaches and swimming pools, parklets, pop-up plazas and buildings and container towns. These practices enable diverse forms of economic, social and artistic life that are usually repressed by the fixities of urban form and its management. This book takes a thematic approach to explore what the scope of this practice is, and understand why it has risen to prominence, how it works, who is involved, and what its implications are for the future of city design and planning. It critically examines the material, social, economic and political complexities that surround and enable these small, ephemeral urban interventions. It identifies their short-term and long-term implications for urban intensity, diversity, creativity and adaptability. The book''s insightTable of ContentsIntroduction, 1. Definitions, 2. Interests, 3. Practice, 4. Assemblage, 5. Creativity, 6. Temporality, 7. Capacities, 8. Futures

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Book Synopsis'Counterintuitive, funny and provocative . Along the way, he reveals the deep-lying and often controversial roots of today's green city movement, and offers an argument for celebrating our cities as they are - in all their raucous, constructed and artificial glory.

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Book SynopsisClimate change is having an immediate and sometimes life-threatening impact, especially for older adults – generally speaking, people 65 or older. Older adults often face mobility, cognitive, and resource challenges, which contribute to a disproportionate number of deaths in the face of major disasters. But some challenges are less visible. Consider the grandparent who no longer can stand and wait at the bus stop because of the heat, or the retiree who lives in a home with black mould due to chronic flooding that she can’t afford to remediate or leave because of her limited fixed income. Our population is aging—by 2034, the US will have more people over 65 than under 18. Despite the evidence that climate change is severely impacting older adults, and the reality that communities will be confronted with more frequent and more severe disasters, we’re not prepared to address the needs of older adults and other vulnerable populations in the face of a changing climate. In Climate Resilience for an Aging Nation, community resilience and housing expert Danielle Arigoni argues that we cannot achieve true resilience until communities adopt interventions that work to meet the needs of their oldest residents. She explains that when we plan for those most impacted by climate, and for those with the greatest obstacles to opportunity and well-being, we improve conditions for all. Arigoni explores how to integrate age-friendly resilience into community planning and disaster preparedness efforts through new planning approaches—including an age-friendly process, and a planning framework dedicated to inclusive disaster recovery—to create communities that serve the needs of older adults better, not only during disasters but for all the days in between. Examples are woven throughout the book, including case studies of age-friendly resilience in action from New York State; Portland, Oregon and Multnomah County; and New Orleans. Climate Resilience for an Aging Nation will help professionals and concerned citizens understand how to best plan for both the aging of our population and the climate changes underway so that we can create safer, more liveable communities for all.

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Book SynopsisHow do we provide for and nurture millions of people without destroying the planet in the process?Author Doug Kent, an environmental specialist, believes a vital element in the solution is recognizing that urban landscapes are an essential partner in everyone's wellbeing. He argues that urban landscapes can and must work harder.Urban landscapes can provide part of our energy needs, help cool our buildings and public spaces, help us make the most of our precious water. They can also help combat air pollution and reduce the likelihood of allergies and asthma. They can provide landscape materials and even contribute to our timber supply. Doug also advocates turning landscapes into a food source, and/or a perfumery, pharmacy, soap shop, or craft store.Doug has over 12 years of research in this book. He has spent years doing literature reviews, and many more years concocting, consuming, crafting, distilling, propagating, retting, sawing, sowing, and weaving i

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Book SynopsisHotel Plans contains more than 300 floor and elevations plans, as well as constructive details of 35 hotels projects from around the world, selected for being singular and unique hotels, both by their architecture and their interior design, that run away from the typical concept of standard hotel and are conceived for travellers looking for a different and unforgettable place to lodge.

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Book SynopsisNew in the architectural series (previous published in this series: The Fast Guide to Architectural Form) is The Fast Guide to Accessibility Design. Written by Baires Raffaelli, this book explores ways to create a project that focuses on accessibility. It is a reminder that serves as a checklist for those who design everyday spaces we live in. It is a random (but not too random) collection of indications to make cities more accessible. This book wants to remind us that we are not alone and as long as we take this into consideration, we will design welcoming, inclusive and functional spaces.

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Book SynopsisEarthquake Children is the first book to examine the origins of modern Japan's infrastructure of resilience. Janet Borland vividly demonstrates that Japan's contemporary culture of disaster preparednessand its people's ability to respond calmly in times of emergencyare the results of learned and practiced behaviors inspired by earlier tragedies.Trade ReviewAn absorbing book…Narrates the vivid and emotional stories of how children experienced and made sense of the earthquake, how teachers and other adults interpreted the children’s experience, and the subsequent initiatives to develop disaster-preparedness in the public…Succeeds in illuminating the contemporary relevance of this historical study. -- Kaori H. Okano * Journal of Japanese Studies *This fascinating and well-researched volume makes a clear case for the important roles played by children and those thinking about children in the aftermath of the Great Kantō Earthquake…This book will be a worthwhile addition to libraries and useful for scholars of disasters and childhood. -- Alex Bates * Pacific Affairs *Earthquake Children is essential reading for historians of childhood and of disaster, but it has much to inform other histories as well. Women and men (and other adults somewhere in between) are not the only movers and shakers of scientific advances, technological innovations, and social change; generation and childhood contribute as well, and we should consider them much more often. -- Sabine Frühstück * Contemporary Japan *[Borland’s] research is thorough, her writing is often vivid, and the book is very well illustrated. Whether using her own words or those of Japan’s children, the author is able to convey a vivid sense of the horror of an event like the Great Kanto Earthquake and the difficulties faced by many survivors…Earthquake Children will appeal to anyone interested in social responses to earthquakes and other disasters in urban areas, to those interested in the history of children, and to anyone interested in the modern history of Tokyo. -- Gregory Smits * Monumenta Nipponica *Borland’s work is as intellectually rigorous as it is inspiring…This groundbreaking book explains how Japan came to be positioned at the forefront of disaster preparedness globally and highlights the role that children, schools, and education played in that dramatic transformation…I absolutely loved this book and have continued to think about it long after I finished reading the last page. It stands as an unforgettable reminder of how important it is to listen to what children have to say and to invest in their futures. -- Lori Peek * International Journal of Mass Emergencies and Disasters *

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Book SynopsisMargaret Birney Vickery is a lecturer in the History of Art and Architecture Department and the Department of Architecture at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. She is the author of Buildings for Bluestockings: The Architecture and Social History of Women's Colleges in Late Victorian England, and (Translations) Architecture/Art Works of Sigrid Miller Pollin.Trade ReviewIn this original and timely book, Vickery establishes the continued and vital importance of art history in contemporary landscape and architectural design. Landscape and Infrastructure traces the roots and uncovers the significance of the productive activities and elements of pastoral traditions in art and designed landscapes, clearly documenting the persistent and sometimes difficult relationship of aesthetics and production in Western art. Art history is rarely as engaging for the general public to read, or as important for designers to understand. -- Ethan Carr * Professor of Landscape Architecture, University of Massachusetts Amherst *Table of ContentsIntroduction: Infrastructure, Landscape and the Pastoral Paradigm: A Tale of Two Projects 1. Landscape Painting and the Productive Pastoral Tradition 2. The Eighteenth-Century English Landscape: The Classic Pastoral and its Productivity 3. The Industrial Revolution and its Intrusion on the Landscape 4. A Growing Divide: Landscape and Infrastructure in Victorian Britain 5. Progress and Nature in the American Landscape 6. Infrastructure and Landscape in Early-Twentieth-Century England and America 7. Questioning the Infrastructural Paradigm in the late Twentieth Century 8. Twenty-First-Century Power Generation: An Invitation to the Public 9. Clean Water and Recreation: New Approaches to Water Treatment Plants 10. Food, Community, and the Productive Landscape Conclusion: Reimagining the Pastoral Paradigm for the Twenty-First Century Bibliography Index

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Book SynopsisExtrastatecraft is the operating system of the modern world: the skyline of Dubai, the subterranean pipes and cables sustaining urban life, free-trade zones, the standardized dimensions of credit cards, and hyper-consumerist shopping malls. It is all this and more. Infrastructure sets the invisible rules that govern the spaces of our everyday lives, making the city the key site of power and resistance in the twenty-first century.Keller Easterling reveals the nexus of emerging governmental and corporate forces buried within the concrete and fiber-optics of our modern habitat. Extrastatecraftwill change how we think about cities-and, perhaps, how we live in them.Trade ReviewExtrastatecraft is an essential text for anyone with a stake in the built environment, architect and citizen alike, in articulating the forces that shape our nation-states, and cataloguing-in a precise and readable style-the strategies of an otherwise unaccountable global order. -- Jack Self * Architectural Review *I have long admired Keller Easterling's talent for extracting a space, a shape, a marking, from mixes of elements rarely brought together-whether materially or conceptually. In Extrastatecraft she does it at a grand scale, cutting across fields of meaning and of practice. A must read. -- Saskia Sassen, author of Expulsions: Brutality and Complexity in the Global EconomyAn extraordinary guidebook to the politics of infrastructure in the contemporary world, Extrastatecraft is a pivotal and beautifully written excavation of the hidden geographies of globalisation. 'Free' trade zones, optic fibre networks, credit cards, mobile phones, economic and financial rules . all emerge as charged elements within an often invisible geography that could not be more important. Extrastatecraft works to politicise and expose the prosaic and taken-for-granted hardware of our world. -- Stephen Graham, author of Cities Under SiegeA breathtaking journey along the material and immaterial infrastructures that continuously shape contemporary global space. Information flows of financial, legal or military nature congeal into wide arrays of strange 'spatial products,' extraterritorial 'zones' and building nodes. From within the logic of these pervasive systems, Easterling poses the most urgent political challenge facing spatial activists today, and shows how the search for justice must retool to outsmart the immanent violence of Extrastatescraft. -- Eyal Weizman (author of Hollow Land) and Ines WeizmanExtrastatecraft establishes Keller Easterling's growing reputation as the savviest student of postnational spatial and infrastructural forms. Bringing together architecture, coding, digitalization and logistics, she exposes the nervous system of the new logics of domination through information and proposes a cunning counter-politics of humor, discommunication and disguise. A must read for all varieties of critical students of space and sovereignty in this emerging century. -- Arjun Appadurai, author of The Future as Cultural FactA provocative study of infrastructure, the operating system governing everyday life. -- Jay Owens * Icon *

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Book SynopsisIn this picturesque exploration of Britain’s constructed landscape, an array of medieval lanes, Georgian crescents and Victorian squares make an appearance, together with the people – famous, infamous and unfamiliar – who designed, built and lived in them. From Bedford Square and Portobello Road in London, through to Grey Street in Newcastle and Charlotte Square in Edinburgh, Historic Streets and Squares takes you over the doorstep of some of the country’s most familiar addresses.Melanie Backe-Hansen takes us beyond the facades, delving into the evolution of ancient streets, the aspirations of builders and architects, and the extraordinary lives of past residents. She also reveals the fascinating stories of how some of our oldest and most valued crescents, lanes and avenues have survived into the twenty-first century, and the twists and turns of their journey along the way.Taken together, these fifty examples tell us much about Britain’s urban development over the centuries, while also highlighting more recent attempts to preserve our architectural heritage. The history of our streets, avenues, lanes and squares reveals more than just changes to architectural style, but offers a doorway into the heritage of our nation.

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Book SynopsisTools for navigating today's hyper-connected, rapidly changing, and radically contingent white water world.Design Unbound presents a new tool set for having agency in the twenty-first century, in what the authors characterize as a white water world—rapidly changing, hyperconnected, and radically contingent. These are the tools of a new kind of practice that is the offspring of complexity science, which gives us a new lens through which to view the world as entangled and emerging, and architecture, which is about designing contexts. In such a practice, design, unbound from its material thingness, is set free to design contexts as complex systems.In a world where causality is systemic, entangled, in flux, and often elusive, we cannot design for absolute outcomes. Instead, we need to design for emergence. Design Unbound not only makes this case through theory but also presents a set of tools to do so. With case studies that range from a new kind of uni

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Book SynopsisAutoCAD continues to dominate the two-dimensional drafting marketplace for architects and interior designers. Digital Drawing for Designers: A Visual Guide to AutoCAD 2021 is designed to help this community by using visual methods to lead to understanding. Starting with the building blocks of drawing (lines, circles, and arcs), the book progresses through architectural graphic standards, enabling students to create presentation and construction drawings that effectively communicate their design ideas. Advanced features such as annotative dimensions, annotative blocks, express tools, and linking drawings (XREFs) are also covered. Instructions are illustrated using language and concepts from manual drafting, facilitating a smooth transition to the digital environment for all designers, and showing just how your paper idea becomes a digital reality. Clear, concise, and above all visual, this AutoCAD guide gives you exactly what you need to become a pro at this program.New to this ETable of ContentsHand Drawing and Digital Drawing 1. Digital Drawing Tools 2. Drawing Lines and Shapes 3. Modifying Lines and Shapes 4. Drawing with Accuracy and Speed Design Drawings 5. Floor Plans, Furniture Plans, and Reflected Ceiling Plans 6. Sections and Elevations 7. Drawing and Printing to Scale 8. Text Styles and Sizes 9. Stencils and Blocks Construction Drawings 10. Dimensioning Your Drawing 11. Text Leaders 12. Construction Detailing 13. Drawing Symbols and Attributed Text Advanced Drawing Tools 14. Advanced Editing Tools 15. Linking Drawings/External References 17. AutoCAD Web & Mobile Index Basic Metric Conversion Table Layer Name Reference Guide Quick Command Reference Guide

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Book SynopsisAre the criteria by which to judge the validity of new interventions in the urban planning and the urban design of our cities, open spaces, and squares to be based on the historical morphological development of the place? Or is history just a tool by which we justify our interventions so that we may regulate the pace of the inevitable change of the form of our urban places to conserve the urban identity of the place and thereby the social and cultural identity of its inhabitants? The book traces the urban morphological development of Square Victoria in Montreal since its inception as a market-square and assesses the recent reconstruction of Square Victoria considering its historical evolution. The book follows a socio-economic approach for the study of the downtown urban square. The urban morphological development of Square Victoria is divided into three major phases: the pre-industrial, the industrial, and the post-industrial. The development of Square Victoria is examined in relation to the larger context of socio-economic transformations of the city of Montreal. The market-square undergoes a double mutation. The first mutation was due to the Industrial Revolution during which the square was renamed Square Victoria and the hay market was transferred to another location in the city (in St. Ann's Ward). It was during the Industrial Age that Square Victoria attains its mature form in the years 1930s in two steps; first Square Victoria becomes the commercial downtown city-center and then becomes part of the business city-center. The second mutation of Square Victoria was due to the Informational Technology Revolution and the new principles of modern urbanism. The urban development of the square suffered from this mutation with the direct result of the loss of the quality of enclosure and character of the square. Architects Daouste Lestage and Provencher Roy judiciously decided to retrieve the identity of the square by designing their interventions in conformity with the historical evolution of the square, especially retrieving its outstanding qualities characterizing it at its maturity in the 1930s.Table of ContentsDedication; List of Figures; Preface; Acknowledgements; Introduction; A Hay Market: The Pre-Industrial Square (1810-1850); The Industrial Square (1850-1930); The Mature Square Victoria; Square Victorias Development Through the Post-Industrial Period; Historical Conformity of the Squares Reconstruction; Conclusion; Epilogue; References; About the Author; Index.

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Book SynopsisUrban Design Practice gives a fascinating account of the state of urban design practice across the world today. Packed with invaluable local knowledge from on-the-spot contributors, its global scope offers an armoury of background facts and figures to professionals interested in exporting their skills internationally. Along the way it reveals how urban design is practiced, identifies a multitude of key concerns and refines our understanding of what urban design (so often a nebulous concept) means. Aimed broadly at practitioners – masterplanners, architects, landscape architects, planners, civil engineers – and students and academics of these disciplines, twenty chapters analyse a different country’s urban design context. Fully illustrated and structured in a similar way, each chapter features a case study, general background economic statistics, and a handy ‘quick guide’ to the types of work available, the underlying legislation and tips for securing work. Features chapters of the following countries: Argentina, Australia, Brazil, China, the Czech Republic, Dubai, Egypt, England, France, Germany, India, Italy, Morocco, Netherlands, New Zealand, South Africa, Spain, Sweden and the USA.

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Book SynopsisThe King’s Cross scheme is one of the largest and most complex developments taking place in Britain today. Through documenting this seminal case-study, this book sheds light on the complex process through which public realm development proposals are planned and approved: through complex negotiation and deal making, involving many different stakeholders. Unique, insider’s account: draws on first-hand interviews and full access to previously confidential material from primary sources. Comprehensive look at urban planning relevant to both students and practitioners. Currently very little available on the process through which public realm schemes are planned and approved. Kings Cross is now a standing event in the teaching calendars of many planning schools. Huge international market: KX visitor centre receives delegations on study tours from Japan, Taiwan, China, USA, India, Korea, Australia, Malaysia, UAE, Russia, South Africa, Mexico and most the EU. Table of ContentsAbout the authorsAcknowledgements and list of intervieweesTimeline of eventsPolitical timeline 1. Introduction2. The Planning and Development Process3. History and Development Context4. Establishing the Framework for Negotiations5. The Masterplan6. The Middle Game7. Community Consultation8. The Decision9. Building King’s Cross Central10. Conclusions Appendix 1: Summary of the Section 106 AgreementAppendix 2: Development Data and Comparisons Financial InformationNotesFurther readingList of AcronymsIndex Credits

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Book SynopsisAll over the world, cities are facing growing pressure to develop upwards with tall buildings that have a direct impact upon their visual character. In reaction, systems of view protection have been developed to conserve the familiar visual experience of cities. Such developments, and the effectiveness of systems of view protection, continue to be both politically and financially risky for developers, architects, planners and politicians alike. Controversy highlights the lack of both a scholarly and practical understanding of the ideas that underpin view protection policy – where did they originate? What do they mean? How do they work? And what are their consequences? Value in the View: Conserving Historic Urban Views presents readers with a comprehensive study of the ideas and philosophies at work in policies of view protection. The power of UNESCO’s policy of view protection is investigated through six studies of contemporary cities (London, Dresden, St Petersburg, Istanbul and Vancouver). With the idea of ‘the view’ at its core, this book examines how dominant international ideas of heritage are constructed, maintained and reinforced, and explores how they exert power over the urban and architectural form of contemporary cities. It’s a highly engaging guide that will aid practitioners in the implementation of policy and design of development within historic urban contexts, as well as contributing to scholarly debate on the protection of views in architecture and planning.Table of Contents1. The Elevated View 2. Vedute di Roma 3. Britain's First Protected Vista: The View from Richmond Hill 4. Indignation: Preserving The View 5. Contmporary Policies - London 6. Dresden 7. St. Petersburg 8. Istanbul 9. Vancouver 10. Towards an International Methodology

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Book SynopsisCommunity involvement in planning and placemaking through early, inclusive participatory Charrette processes can build consensus, speed up planning and add social, economic and environmental value to projects, leading to healthier, happier and more sustainable places. 20/20 Visions is an inspiring and visually stimulating introduction to the practice of Charrette based planning (and placemaking). 20 worldwide case studies, spanning 1990's projects in USA to present day UK, explore the context, implementation and follow up of the co-design process to illustrate its effectiveness in engaging all stakeholders/communities and tackling multi-layered and often tackling difficult development and planning issues. Table of ContentsChapter 1: A historyChapter 2: Why is it needed? Chapter 3: What is it? Chapter 4: The way forward Chapter 5: 20/20 Case Studies Chapter 6: Lessons from the Case Studies

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Book SynopsisNew Life in Public Squares investigates the evolution of the public square within the urban form and its meaning to a city’s image. It explores what is driving investment in the creation of new or re-designed existing squares: the economic and social benefits, city image to attract tourism, investment and attracting major events. Taking a design practitioners perspective, a series of in-depth case studies, including discussions with clients and designers, on an international array of public squares will analyse and the use of public spaces and the impact they have on their immediate surroundings. It shows readers how quality design of public squares can be achieved and, importantly, how they can be delivered to enable positive changes in the way public spaces are used and experienced.Table of Contents1. The Historic Development of the Square 2. A New Agenda for Public Squares 3. Re-design of Historic Squares 4. New Squares within Existing Urban Fabric 5. Squares Within New City Quarters 6. Extending the Experience of Cities 7. Squares that Reconfigure a City’s Structure 8. What We Have Learnt

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Book SynopsisPart story, part atlas - this is a study of a city’s complexity. The most successful cities, the most interesting and sought-after ones, are those with an intrinsic and distinctive character that remain dynamic and relevant. They are complex and contradictory. And that is worth embracing. This is a visual, geographic and narrative journey that explains why London is the way it is today. Using stunning maps and artful imagery, it makes a compelling case for a finer grain understanding of density through a character-based approach to planning. Each character area is broken down, exploring the characteristics and character-based development potential. For those planning and designing projects, this is a reference book for the early stages of a design project and can help to inform site analyses which form the part of most architectural commissions and urban design studies. For lovers of maps and London, it is a must-read.Table of ContentsIntroductionPart 1: Layers of London1. What is Character and why is it Important?2. Natural Landscapes3. The Square Mile4. Ancient Routes5. Georgian Planning6. Victorian Enterprise7. 20th Century Modernity8. London's Centres9. Artificial LandscapesPart 2: A Way of Seeing10. What Does it Mean for London?11. From the Generic City to the Complex City

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Book SynopsisIn Looking for the Voids, Hong Kong-based Swiss architect Géraldine Borio presents findings from 15 years of experimental urban research in Asia, proposing new ways to interpret and design urban space. Borio’s focus is on the interstitial spaces of the built environment, the back and in-between alleys and the sidewalks that are in constant flux and move between the poles of inside – outside, public – private, or legal – illegal. This lavishly and attractively designed book offers a survey of the lessons Borio has learned from analysing urban typologies in Bangkok, Hong Kong, and Seoul, and from engaging with residents and their informal appropriation of such semi-private urban spaces. The concrete design principles that Borio has derived from her fieldwork offer assistance to researchers and urban designers in their own investigations and in translating their findings into new projects for the further development of urban and metropolitan spaces.

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Book SynopsisBy drawing together widely dispersed yet central writings, the Berlin Reader is an essential resource for everyone interested in urban development in one of the most interesting and important metropolises in Europe. It provides scholars as well as students, journalists and visitors with an overview of the most central discussions on the tremendous changes Berlin experienced since the fall of the wall. It covers a wide range of issues, including inner city renewal, housing and the local economy, gentrification and other urban conflicts. The book breaks ground in two dimensions: first, by offering also non-German speakers an insight into the very controversial debates after reunification, and, second, by highlighting the ambivalent consequences of Berlin's urban transformation in the past decades.Trade Review"As a profound introduction, the 'Berlin Reader' [provides] a critical overview of urban development, its accompanying debates, and activism in Berlin since the 1990s." Elke Krasny, dérive [Austrian quarterly academic journal for urbanism], 55 (2014)

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Book SynopsisWhen talking about monuments, size undeniably matters - or does it? But how else can we measure monumentality? Bringing together researchers from various fields such as archaeology, museology, history, sociology, Mesoamerican studies, and art history, this book discusses terminological and methodological approaches in both theoretical contributions and various case studies. While focusing on architectural aspects, this volume also discusses the social meaning of monuments, the role of forced and free labour, as well as textual monumentality. The result is a modern interdisciplinary take on an important concept which is notoriously difficult to define.

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Book SynopsisWhat consequences does the design of the virtual yield for architecture and to what extent can the nature of architecture be used productively to turn game-worlds into sustainable places - over here, in "reality"? This pioneering collection gives an overview of contemporary developments in designing video games and of the relationships such practices have established with the design of architecture. Due to their often simulatory nature, games reveal constructions of reality while positively impacting spatial ability and allowing for alternative avenues to complex topics and processes of negotiation. Granting insight into the merging of the design of real and virtual environments, this volume offers an invaluable platform for further debate.Table of ContentsIntroduction; Invisible (Game) Cities; In-World Realism; Video/Game; Games as Provinces of Meaning; Free your Imagination!; A Fascination for Empty Rooms; Towards an Architecture of Desire; The Architectonics of Game Spaces; Virtual World Weariness; The Lived Space of Computer Games; The Architectural Continuum; From Asteroids to Architectoids; Piercing all Layers of the Anthroposphere; Creating Fascinating Spaces; Augmented Play, Art, and Space; Play the City; Democracy, Video Games, and Urban Design; Video Game Urbanism; Bibliography/Ludography; Image Copyrights; Authors.

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Book SynopsisDynamic processes and conflicts are at the core of the urban condition. Against the background of continuous change in cities, concepts and assumptions about spatial transformations have to be constantly re-examined and revised. Norbert Kling explores the rich body of narrative knowledge in architecture and urbanism and confronts this knowledge with an empirically grounded situational analysis of a large housing estate. The outcome of this twofold research approach is the sensitising concept of the Redundant City. It describes a specific form of collectively negotiated urban change.Table of ContentsIntroduction; Research as Situated and Critical Project; Domain-Specific Narratives of Conflict; Domain-Specific Narratives of Change; Intersecting Conflict and Change; Constructing a New Concept of Change; Connecting and Releasing; Appendix.

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Book SynopsisIn contrast to buildings divided by walls, monospace buildings are determined far less by its shell than by a reciprocal relationship between space and practices, objects, materials, and human bodies. Using the example of such one-room-architectures, this book explores the potential of an actor-network-theory (ANT) approach to space in the field of architecture. Sabine Hansmann focuses on the Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts in Norwich, England by Foster Associates (1978) to investigate the mutual entanglement of people, objects and building. She traces the work that is necessary in "doing" space and thus suggests a re-conceptualisation of space in architectural theory.

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Book SynopsisHow were the concepts of the observer and user in architecture and urban planning transformed throughout the 20th and 21st centuries? Marianna Charitonidou explores how the mutations of the means of representation in architecture and urban planning relate to the significance of city's inhabitants. She investigates Le Corbusier and Ludwig Mies van der Rohe's fascination with perspective, Team Ten's interest in the humanisation of architecture and urbanism, Constantinos Doxiadis and Adriano Olivetti's role in reshaping the relationship between politics and urban planning during the postwar years, Giancarlo De Carlo's architecture of participation, Aldo Rossi's design methods, Denise Scott Brown's active socioplactics and Bernard Tschumi's conception praxis.

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Book SynopsisPublic and private, traffic and open space, planned and spontaneous - our idea of a city is characterised by opposites. However, the contributors to this bilingual book show that these poles can also be consciously connected. The urban building blocks from São Paolo present surprisingly idiosyncratic city scenes: People dancing along the motorway, strolling through the stone archipelago, splashing around in front of the city skylineMany of the case studies are linked to the ideas of the Brazilian urban planner Francisco Prestes Maia. As early as in the 1930s, he developed concepts that combine traffic, open space and architecture - a surprisingly contemporary approach.?–ffentliches und Privates, Verkehr und Freiraum, Geplantes und Spontanes - unsere Stadtvorstellung ist geprägt durch Gegensätze. Dagegen zeigen die Beitragenden in dem zweisprachigen Band, dass sich diese Pole auch bewusst verknüpfen lassen. Die Stadtbausteine aus São Paolo präsentieren unerwartet eigenwillige Stadtszenen: Tanzende entlang der Schnellstra??e, Flanierende durch das Steinarchipel, Planschende vor der StadtsilhouetteViele der vorgestellten Projekte sind verknüpft mit den Ideen des brasilianischen Stadtplaners Francisco Prestes Maia. Schon in den 1930er Jahren entwickelte er Konzepte, die Verkehr, Freiraum und Architektur zusammendenken - ein überraschend aktueller Ansatz.

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