Description
Book SynopsisIn Built Design and the Rhetoric of Cities, Kathleen M. Vandenberg explores how cities are imagined, designed, and constructed and analyzes the impact of built design on the movement, behavior, and experience of people in urban areas. Vandenberg argues that becoming attuned to the built environments of cities is critical to understanding and planning for how they might be reshaped to confront the challenges of this century, which include rapid urbanization, the global rise in slums, climate change, and increasing urban air pollution. With a focus on London, Copenhagen, Amsterdam, and Washington, DC, this book invites readers to consider how the built environment influences mobility, the availability of green space, placemaking, and public memory. Street-level analysis is merged with a humanistic perspective that considers the impact of such urban elements as facades, cycle paths, sidewalks, lighting, trees, seating, parks, monuments on the human experience of cities. By design, cities speak—this book offers an understanding of their rhetoric.
Table of ContentsIntroduction: Reading the Urban Built Environment
Part I: Imagining the City/ London
Chapter 1: Public Spaces, Private Places/London
Chapter 2: Urban Green Space/London
Part II: Moved by Design
Chapter 3: Mobility/Copenhagen
Chapter 4: Placemaking/Amsterdam
Chapter 5: Monuments and Memory/Washington, D.C.
Conclusion: Designing for Change
