Description
Book SynopsisThe city, according to urban design scholar Gideon Golany, isthe largest and most complicated project ever produced byhumankind. In Ethics and Urban Design, he challenges designprofessionals to reexamine their basic assumptions about the urbanenvironment and offers design strategies based on enduring humanvalues.
In search of answers to the paradoxical problems of the moderncity, Golany takes the reader through the sweep of humansettlements from the dawn of civilization to the present. Hisauthoritative examination of the genesis of the city is illuminatedby instructive examples of early urban centers. Mesopotamia, theIndus River Valley, the Egyptian cities of the Nile, and thecapital cities of ancient China--all are examined in the light ofwhat made them work as major centers of human activity.
What Golany finds in the success stories of the past are cohesivesociocultural values that shaped the design of homes,neighborhoods, and cities. These ethical values helped to
Table of ContentsEthics of Environmental Design.
LESSONS FROM THE INDIGENOUS PAST.
Genesis of the City.
Early Urban Centers: Mesopotamia, Indus Valley, Egypt, andChina.
PRESENT PRACTICE.
Comprehensive Design.
Contemporary Comprehensive Design: The Case of Holland.
FUTURE FRONTIERS FOR URBAN DESIGN.
Urban Design Morphology and Thermal Performance.
Soil Thermal Performance and Geospace Design.
Geospace City Concept: A Renewal of Ancient Tradition.
Conclusion.
Index.
