Welcome to Loot.co.za!
Sign in / Register |Wishlists & Gift Vouchers |Help | Advanced search
|
Your cart is empty |
|||
Books > Arts & Architecture > Architecture > Landscape art & architecture > City & town planning - architectural aspects
Space Place Life is the first in a series of books drawing on the expertise of the Academy of Urbanism. This book examines the concepts that are core to the academy; the way that urban space is designed, the quality place created by the buildings that enclose this space and the life that animates it. All great towns and cities across the world depend on these three fundamental aspects of urban life. The Academy of Urbanism brings together architects, urban designers planners, surveyors, economists academics and developers to better understand what makes successful urban places. This first book in, what is to become a series, includes contributions from some of the leading thinkers in the field including the television documentary maker Jonathan Meades, and the Irish architectural journalist Frank MacDonald. This is combined with essays by leading urban practitioners in the UK inspired by the places shortlisted for the Academy s first ever awards. The surveyor Chris Balch writes about three capital cities; Dublin, Edinburgh and London. The urban designer David Rudlin is fascinated by the sense of belonging and community found in the shortlisted towns while the public realm designer Brian Evans takes a walk through three great neighbourhoods. The highway engineer David Taylor becomes an urbanist to explore the life of three great streets while the academic Sarah Chaplin responds to three very different urban places. The book is a fascinating take on urban places and the force that animates them, written by some of the most experienced urban practitioners in the UK and illustrated beautifully with drawings by David (Harry) Harrison and poems by Ian MacMillan.
Heat islands are urban and suburban areas that are significantly warmer than their surroundings. Traditional, highly absorptive construction materials and a lack of effective landscaping are their main causes. Heat island problems, in terms of increased energy consumption, reduced air quality and effects on human health and mortality, are becoming more pressing as cities continue to grow and sprawl. This comprehensive book brings together the latest information about heat islands and their mitigation. The book describes how heat islands are formed, what problems they cause, which technologies mitigate heat island effects and what policies and actions can be taken to cool communities. Internationally renowned expert Lisa Gartland offers a comprehensive source of information for turning heat islands into cool communities. The author includes sections on cool roofing and cool paving, explains their benefits in detail and provides practical guidelines for their selection and installation. The book also reviews how and why to incorporate trees and vegetation around buildings, in parking lots and on green roofs.
This book was first published in 1986.
Since the end of Apartheid, there has been a new orientation in South African art and design, turning away from the colonial aesthetics to new types of African expression. This book examines some of the fascinating and impressive works of contemporary public architecture that 'concretise' imaginative dialogues with African landscapes, craft and indigenous traditions. Referring to Frantz Fanon's classic study of colonised subjectivity, 'Black Skin, White Masks', Noble contends that Fanon's metaphors of mask and skin are suggestive for architectural criticism, in the context of post-Apartheid public design. Taking South Africa's first democratic election of 1994 as its starting point, the book focuses on projects that were won in architectural competitions. Such competitions are conceived within ideological debates and studying them allows for an examination of the interrelationships between architecture, politics and culture. The book offers insights into these debates through interviews with key parties concerned - architects, competition jurors, politicians, council and city officials, artists and crafters, as well as people who are involved in the day-to-day life of the buildings in question.
Originally published in 1992, this book discusses a contemporary growth in environmental awareness, reflected in an increasing concern about the pollution caused by motor cars.The author considers the problem of congestion bringing traffic to a halt in the major cities and the increasingly controversial nature of contemporary transport planning. Professor Dimitriou provides a thorough and incisive contemporary analysis and suggests some appropriate solutions for the future.
Since its publication, the four-year study on the globalized city conducted by the philosopher Wolfgang Scheppe at the Universita Iuav de Venizia has achieved the status of being a standard reference. The intricately structured two-volume book, in which the movement patterns of migration and tourism intersect, looks at Venice as an exemplary case of urbanity under the control of globalization. By means of the documentation of Situationist derives, critical tools for data visualization and multilayered maps, the broadly conceived work permits immersing oneself in the city almost down to a microscopic layer. Thousands of photographs alternate with individual case studies on illegal immigrants as well as people on pleasure trips. One focus is on the conflicts of exclusion, which are brought about by Europe's border regimes or by the shadow economy both compelled and criminalized by European legislation. The reasons for the break-up of the metropolitan context into a split "dual city" lie in such contradictions. The publication provides a unique and comprehensive basis for the current debate on the refugee movement from the battlefields of Western alliances and the zones of the world that have been pauperized by the globalized economy.
Today the practice of urban design has forged a distinctive identity with applications at many different scales - ranging from the block or street scale to the scale of metropolitan and regional landscapes. Urban design interfaces many aspects of contemporary public policy - multiculturalism, healthy cities, environmental justice, economic development, climate change, energy conservations, protection of natural environments, sustainable development, community liveability, and the like. The field now comprises a core body of knowledge that enfolds a right history of ideas, paradigms, principles, tools, research and applications, enriched by electric influences from the humanities, and social and natural sciences. Companion to Urban Design includes more than fifty original contributions from internationally recognized authorities in the field. These contributions address the following questions: What are the important ideas that have shaped the field and the current practice of urban design? What are the major methods and processes that have influenced the practice of urban design at various scales? What are the current innovations relevant to the pedagogy of urban design? What are the lingering debates, conflicts ad contradictions in the theory and practice of urban design? How could urban design respond to the contemporary challenges of climate change, sustainability, active living initiatives, globalization, and the like? What are the significant disciplinary influences on the theory, research and practice of urban design in recent times? There has never before been a more authoritative and comprehensive companion that includes core, foundational and pioneering ideas and concepts of urban design. This book serves as an invaluable guide for undergraduate and postgraduate students, future professionals, and practitioners interested in architecture, landscape architecture, and urban planning, but also in urban studies, urban affairs, geography, and related fields.
In recent years there has been a growing focus on urban and environmental studies, and the skills and techniques needed to address the wider challenges of how to create sustainable communities. Central to that demand is the increasing urgency of addressing the issue of urban decline, and the response has almost always been to pursue growth policies to attempt to reverse that decline. The track record of growth policies has been mixed at best. Until the first decade of the twenty-first century decline was assumed to be an issue only for former industrial cities the so-called Rust Belt. But the sudden reversal in growth in the major cities of the American Sunbelt has shown that urban decline can be a much wider issue. Justin Hollander s research into urban decline in both the Sun and Rust Belts draws lessons planners and policy makers that can be applied universally. Hollander addresses the reasons and statistics behind these "shrinking cities" with a positive outlook, arguing that growth for growth s sake is not beneficial for communities, suggesting instead that urban development could be achieved through shrinkage. Case studies on Phoenix, Flint, Orlando and Fresno support the argument, and Hollander delves into the numbers, literature and individual lives affected and how they have changed in response to the declining regions. Written for urban scholars and to suit a wide range of courses focused on contemporary urban studies, this text forms a base for all study on shrinking cities for professionals, academics and students in urban design, planning, public administration and sociology."
The much-praised "Cultural Quarters" returns in a revised edition, offering new case studies and new chapters on the economics of cultural quarters and the importance of historical buildings. This definitive text provides a conceptual context for cultural quarters through a detailed discussion of urban design and planning. Drawing on several case studies (from Bolton, Birmingham, Ireland and Vienna), "Cultural Quarters" positions the emergence of specific cultural areas within a historical and social context and explores the economics of maintaining the respective districts. The book offers a concise illustration of how cultural practice is maintained and expanded within an urban environment.
This book poses spatial violence as a constitutive dimension of architecture and its epistemologies, as well as a method for theoretical and historical inquiry intrinsic to architecture; and thereby offers an alternative to predominant readings of spatial violence as a topic, event, fact, or other empirical form that may be illustrated by architecture. Exploring histories of and through architecture at sites across the globe, the chapters in the book blur the purportedly distinctive borders between war and peace, framing violence as a form of social, political, and economic order rather than its exceptional interruption. Regarding space and violence as co-constitutive, the book's collected essays critique modernization and capitalist accumulation as naturalized modes for the extraction of violence from everyday life. Focusing on the mediation of violence through architectural registers of construction, destruction, design, use, representation, theory, and history, the book suggests that violence is not only something inflicted upon architecture, but also something that architecture inflicts. In keeping with Walter Benjamin's formulation that there is no document of civilization that is not also a document of barbarism, the book offers "spatial violence" as another name for "architecture" itself. This book was previously published as a special issue of Architectural Theory Review.
Some thirty years ago the small Metropolitan County of Grotton found itself bathed in the bright glare of publicity as The Grotton Papers lifted the lid on the inner workings of the six planning departments of this hitherto little remarked corner of England. The intervening years have seen Grotton's County Council aim at the admirable and mostly achievable target of becoming "average with moderate prospects of remaining average" in the Government rankings, and the struggles of the District Councils to come to terms with planning in the late twentieth let alone twenty-first century are once again under the spotlight. The original authors of The Grotton Papers have come together once more to offer an experienced and surprisingly unjaundiced look at the way the British planning system works. Their comprehensive survey allows real lessons to be learnt from what Grotton has and just as importantly hasn't done since they were last in town. Grotton Revisited is without doubt the finest (and indeed the only) satirical book on this vitally important subject. It is suitable for planners of all ages and abilities, and will be essential reading for anyone who has ever had contact with the planning system, or thinks they may know someone who has. First class entertainment and education for professionals and general readers alike. Published in association with the RTPI."
It is clear that the climate is changing and ecosystems are becoming severely degraded. Humans must mitigate the causes of, and adapt to, climate change and the loss of biodiversity, as the impacts of these changes become more apparent and demand urgent responses. These pressures, combined with rapid global urbanisation and population growth mean that new ways of designing, retrofitting and living in cities are critically needed. Incorporating an understanding of how the living world works and what ecosystems do into architectural and urban design is a step towards the creation and evolution of cities that are radically more sustainable and potentially regenerative. Can cities produce their own food, energy, and water? Can they be designed to regulate climate, provide habitat, cycle nutrients, and purify water, air and soil? This book examines and defines the field of biomimicry for sustainable built environment design and goes on to translate ecological knowledge into practical methodologies for architectural and urban design that can proactively respond to climate change and biodiversity loss. These methods are tested and exemplified through a series of case studies of existing cities in a variety of climates. Regenerative Urban Design and Ecosystem Biomimicry will be of great interest to students, professionals and researchers of architecture, urban design, ecology, and environmental studies, as well as those interested in the interdisciplinary study of sustainability, ecology and urbanism.
This book engages with a policy agenda that is of increasing importance - the production and use of urban knowledge. How cities function and what counts as a 'good city' have become important elements in politics at all scales. At local level, efforts have long concentrated on replacing and improving problematic and low quality environments with ones that provide high quality living conditions and enhance the general image of localities. Nationally, urban issues have gained in importance over the last half century as not only key factors in production, consumption and welfare, but also, more recently, in the enhancement of culture and creativity which are seen as essential elements in the creation of a knowledge economy. Finally, the European Union has recognised the urban scale as a strategic level in which to intervene in order to improve Europe's competitiveness. Urban places have changed from being primarily localities of problems to places for future growth and improvements in the quality of life. Consequently, urban politics/policies addressing urban problems and opportunities have become of increasing importance. Thus, to maintain efficiency and increase value for money, key actors in this policy field have demanded more and more policy relevant research and development. Despite this the selection of knowledge seems somewhat biased towards institutional traditions, ideologies and political discourses rooted in the so-called scientific approaches to knowledge Our contention is that the recognition and accreditation of relevant knowledge is not a neutral or simple process. It inevitably entails, often unacknowledged, assumptions about what constitutes knowledge that also relate to issues of power concerning the recognition and use of knowledge.
In Rhythmanalysis, Henri Lefebvre put forward his ideas on the relationship between time and space, particularly how rhythms characterize space. Here, leading geographers advance and expand on Lefebvre's theories, examining how they intersect with current theoretical and political concerns within the social sciences. In terms of geography, rhythmanalysis highlights tensions between repetition and innovation, between the need for consistency and the need for disruption. These tensions reveal the ways in which social time is managed to ensure a measure of stability through the instantiation of temporal norms, whilst at the same time showing how this is often challenged. In looking at the rhythms of geographies, and drawing upon a wide range of geographical contexts, this book explores the ordering of different rhythms according to four main themes: rhythms of nature, rhythms of everyday life, rhythms of mobility, and the official and routine rhythms which superimpose themselves on the multiple rhythms of the body.
This book explores the link between the Food-Water-Energy nexus and sustainability, and the extraordinary value that small tweaks to this nexus can achieve for more resilient cities and communities. Using data from Urban Living Labs in six participating cities (Eindhoven, Gdansk, Miami, Southend-on-Sea, Taipei, and Uppsala) to co-define context-specific challenges, the results from each city are collated into an Integrated Decision Support System to guide and improve robust decision-making on future urban development. The book presents contributions from CRUNCH, a transdisciplinary team of scholars and practitioners whose expertise spans urban climate modelling; food, water, and energy management; the design of resilient public space; collecting better urban data; and the development of smart city technology. Whilst previous works on the Food-Water-Energy nexus have focused on large, transnational cases, this book explores local ways to use the Food-Water-Energy nexus to improve urban resilience. It suggests tangible ways in which the cities and communities around us can become both more efficient and more climate resilient through small changes to their existing infrastructure. Over half of the world's population lives in urban areas, and this is expected to increase to 68% by 2050. We urgently need to make our cities more resilient. This book provides a planning tool for decision-making and concludes with policy recommendations, making it relevant to a range of audiences including urbanists, environmentalists, architects, urban designers, and city planners, as well as students and scholars interested in alternative approaches to sustainability and resilience.
In the years prior to the fall of the Berlin Wall, the leaders of the German Democratic Republic planned to construct a city center that was simultaneously modern and historical, consisting of both redesign of old buildings and new architectural developments. Drawing from recently released archival sources and interviews with former key government officials, decision-makers and architects, this book sheds light not only on this unique programme in postmodern design, but also on the debates which were taking place with the Socialist government.
Ebenezer Howard's To-Morrow is deservedly the most famous publication in the history of town planning. Originally published in 1898 and repeatedly thereafter, it sparked the garden city movement across the world, and fundamentally changed the terms of debate in urban planning. This new paperback facsimile of the original version of Howard's work includes a detailed commentary by three leading commentators and reproduces in full colour all the material subsequently left out and lost to posterity. This is an invaluable insight into the originality and breadth of Howard's vision, and demonstrates the full extent of his inspiration of future generations of town planners.
Why should the public participate in planning? And who are the stakeholders who are required to participate in the planning process? This guide assesses public and stakeholder participation in the planning process, which is a statutory requirement across the entire scope and scale of planning activities in many global contexts. It provides a historical overview of participation and outlines how this has evolved over time. It then outlines a series of key issues for the contemporary planning professional in terms of their approach to public and stakeholder participation, particularly in light of alterations in landscapes of governance and recent social, political and technological developments. Illustrated with mostly UK and European case studies, but also drawing insights from further afield, the book also provides a framework for critiquing contemporary participation, including an assessment of the pitfalls, obstacles and unintended consequences of participation efforts. As such, it identifies key principles for participation and asks critical questions for its assessment.
This is a book about the power of the arts to enhance city images, urban economies and communities. Anchored in academic discussion of the Cultural Industries - what they are, how they have emerged, why they matter and how they should be theorized - the book offers a series of case studies drawn from five countries: Australia, Singapore, Spain, the UK and the US to examine how the arts contribute to sustainable urban regeneration.
During the nineteenth century many of Europe's capital cities were
subject to major expansion and improvement schemes - from Vienna's
Ringstrasse to the boulevards of Paris.
How did Chicago, a city known for commerce, come to have such a splendid public waterfront-its most treasured asset? Lakefront reveals a story of social, political, and legal conflict in which private and public rights have clashed repeatedly over time, only to produce, as a kind of miracle, a generally happy ending. Joseph D. Kearney and Thomas W. Merrill study the lakefront's evolution from the middle of the nineteenth century to the twenty-first. Their findings have significance for understanding not only Chicago's history but also the law's part in determining the future of significant urban resources such as waterfronts. The Chicago lakefront is where the American public trust doctrine, holding certain public resources off limits to private development, was born. This book describes the circumstances that gave rise to the doctrine and its fluctuating importance over time, and reveals how it was resurrected in the later twentieth century to become the primary principle for mediating clashes between public and private lakefront rights. Lakefront compares the effectiveness of the public trust idea to other property doctrines, and assesses the role of the law as compared with more institutional developments, such as the emergence of sanitary commissions and park districts, in securing the protection of the lakefront for public uses. By charting its history, Kearney and Merrill demonstrate that the lakefront's current status is in part a product of individuals and events unique to Chicago. But technological changes, and a transformation in social values in favor of recreational and preservationist uses, also have been critical. Throughout, the law, while also in a state of continual change, has played at least a supporting role.
An illustrated, essential guide to engaging children and youth in the process of urban design From a history of children's rights to case studies discussing international initiatives that aim to create child-friendly cities, Placemaking with Children and Youth offers comprehensive guidance in how to engage children and youth in the planning and design of local environments. It explains the importance of children's active participation in their societies and presents ways to bring all generations together to plan cities with a high quality of life for people of all ages. Not only does it delineate best practices in establishing programs and partnerships, it also provides principles for working ethically with children, youth, and families, paying particular attention to the inclusion of marginalized populations. Drawing on case studies from around the world-in Australia, New Zealand, Canada, India, Puerto Rico, the Netherlands, South Africa, and the United States-Placemaking with Children and Youth showcases children's global participation in community design and illustrates how a variety of methods can be combined in initiatives to achieve meaningful change. The book features more than 200 visuals and detailed, thoughtful guidelines for facilitating a multiplicity of participatory processes that include drawing, photography, interviews, surveys, discussion groups, role playing, mapping, murals, model making, city tours, and much more. Whether seeking information on individual methods and project planning, interpreting and analyzing results, or establishing and evaluating a sustained program, readers can find practical ideas and inspiration from six continents to connect learning to the realities of students' lives and to create better cities for all ages.
Vieira focuses on the relationship between environmental pollution and socioeconomic underdevelopment and emphasizes the role information can play in the protection of the Third World environment. She identifies the main governmental and nongovernmental institutions related to important aspects of the Third World environment--pollution control, sanitation, public health, and development and alternative technologies. The Brazilian institutional panorama is analyzed and then compared with Mexican, Indian, and Egyptian systems in an effort to identify common points that might be applied to the Third World as a whole. Finally, she recommends the establishment of an informal international network of both nongovernmental institutions and individuals for the exchange of information considered important to the developing countries or pertinent to the environmental realities of the Third World. Providing the core for such a network is an appendix listing organizations interested in the environment and development of the Third World.
This is an introduction to the secrets of Urban Design Management (UDM). The book examines the roles of the players involved in land-use projects and describes good collaborative methods of practice in project-based urban design and planning, putting emphasis on the creative co-operative skills and the wide knowledge of the participants in a working group. The role of the architect is examined in relation to design, planning and project management with particular emphasis on collaboration and negotiation skills. Specific issues considered include:
Urban Design Management contains international examples and many diagrams and photographs, making it a useful and accessible guide for all built environment professionals working in the public realm and those studying architecture, urban design and planning at a graduate level. |
You may like...
The Marvel Cinematic Universe - An…
Anthony Breznican, Amy Ratcliffe, …
Hardcover
Every Day Is An Opening Night - Our…
Des & Dawn Lindberg
Paperback
(1)
|