![]() |
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
Cognition and the Built Environment argues that interacting with our built environment, as users and as architects, is a cognitive process. It claims that architecture, in its form and meaning, is a basic, embodied level of human cognition. The assumption is that we and our built environment together form an intelligent system, a cognitive feedback loop between us and the world of which we are part. With this as a vantage point, the book discusses the meaning and intelligence of concrete architectural environments as well as the agency of the architect, of his client and of the user. The inquiry oscillates between abstract thought, topological models and cognitive semiotics, between pragmatist philosophy and the professional practice of planning cities, developing projects and using objects. Architecture serves more complex purposes than our caves, paths and landmarks did. Written for students and academics of urban design, urban planning and architectural theory, Cognition and the Built Environment argues that human cognition feeds on the interaction between thought, agency and built environment, and that architecture is the spatial form of this interaction.
Bringing together ten utopian works that mark important points in the history and an evolution in social and political philosophies, this book not only reflects on the texts and their political philosophy and implications, but also, their architecture and how that architecture informs the political philosophy or social agenda that the author intended. Each of the ten authors expressed their theory through concepts of community and utopian architecture, but each featured an architectural solution at the centre of their social and political philosophy, as none of the cities were ever built, they have remained as utopian literature. Some of the works examined are very well-known, such as Tommaso Campanella's Civitas Solis, while others such as Joseph Michael Gandy's Designs for Cottages, are relatively obscure. However, even with the best known works, this volume offers new insights by focusing on the architecture of the cities and how that architecture represents the author's political philosophy. It reconstructs the cities through a 3-D computer program, ArchiCAD, using Artlantis to render. Plans, sections, elevations and perspectives are presented for each of the cities. The ten cities are: Filarete - Sforzina; Albrecht DA1/4rer - Fortified Utopia; Tommaso Campanella - The City of the Sun; Johann Valentin Andreae - Christianopolis; Joseph Michael Gandy - An Agricultural Village; Robert Owen - Villages of Unity and Cooperation; James Silk Buckingham - Victoria; Robert Pemberton - Queen Victoria Town; King Camp Gillette - Metropolis; and Bradford Peck - The World a Department Store. Each chapter considers the work in conjunction with contemporary thought, the political philosophy and the reconstruction of the city. Although these ten cities represent over 500 years of utopian and political thought, they are an interlinked thread that had been drawn from literature of the past and informed by contemporary thought and society. The book is structured in two parts:
During the 1960s, building sites in Paris became spaces that expressed preoccupations about urban transformation, labour immigration and national identity. As new buildings and infrastructure changed the city, building sites revealed the substandard living and working conditions of migrant construction workers in France. Moreover, construction was the touchstone in debates about the dangers of urban life, and triggered action in communities whose districts faced demolition. Paris Under Construction explores the social, political and cultural responses to construction work and urban transformation in the Paris metropolitan region during the 1960s. This examination of a decade of intensive building work considers the ways in which the experience of construction was mediated, produced and reproduced through a range of complex and sometimes contradictory representations. The building sites that produced the new Paris are no longer visible, and were perhaps never intended to be seen, yet different groups closely observed and recorded construction, giving it meanings that went beyond specific building activities. The research draws extensively on French newspaper, television and radio archives, and delves into rarely examined trade union material. Paris Under Construction gives voice to the witnesses of-and participants in-urban transformation who are usually excluded from architectural and urban history.
The Japanese urban alleyway, which was once part of people's personal spatial sphere and everyday life has been transformed by diverse and competing interests. Marginalised through the emergence of new forms of housing and public spaces, re-appropriated by different fields, and re-invented by the contemporary urban design discourse, the social meaning attached to the roji is being re-interpreted by individuals, subcultures and new social movements. The book will introduce and discuss examples of urban practices which take place within the dynamic urban landscape of contemporary Tokyo to portray the life cycle of an urban form being rediscovered, commodified and lost as physical space.
Urban planning, regeneration and design is an essentially cultural practice with the outcomes often depending upon an understanding of and engagement with the past. As cities in China strive to be competitive and attractive on the world stage, their decaying historical urban fabrics are being transformed into vibrant places through historical-cultural led urban regeneration, however, the impact of their rapid development has escaped serious scrutiny. Heritage-led Urban Regeneration in China presents the detailed evolution of three well-known historic streets in China: the Southern Song Imperial Street in Hangzhou; the residential Pingjiang Street in Suzhou; and the commercial Tunxi Old Street in Huangshan. From their original formation to their more recent regeneration, this book offers a critical evaluation of historical-cultural led urban regeneration projects in China and provides theoretical guidelines for contemporary practice in relation to its tangible and intangible urban heritage. Using interdisciplinary research in architecture, urban design, history and cultural studies, Jing Xie and Tim Heath provide a detailed analysis of the conservation and regeneration efforts of China as an emerging and pivotal world power. An invaluable resource for urban designers, urban planners and architects interested in and working in China, Heritage-led Urban Regeneration in China helps its readers to engage with the essential and invisible factors that produce these revitalised places while forming a critical view towards these projects.
Observation and analysis are types of invention. They make things apparent which perhaps were invisible. By noticing, drawing and naming something we bring it into being. On the other hand, building and making can be thought of as analytical observations, pointing out what had not been so clear before and revealing the potential for other actions yet to occur. This book is a collection of urban research and architectural projects by award-winning architects Nigel Bertram / NMBW Architecture Studio, using observation as a design tool and design as an observational method. Through this process, a position on the making of architecture and on the role of architecture within the wider urban environment is established; embracing the full messy reality of the present, finding delight in the everyday and developing sensitivity to a range of found environments. By taking pre-existing conditions seriously, each project, architectural or analytical, large or small, becomes understood as the strategic renovation of a continuing state. This method of working operates by thinking simultaneously at different scales, from furniture to structure and infrastructure, searching for combinations of what might normally be separated into different categories, moving between the many small and ad-hoc actions of individuals to wider systems of collective organisation. Thinking about the effects of small moves on the larger urban field (and vice-versa), the role of unplanned or uncontrolled events in relation to the inward focus of design; thinking about the combinatory effect of what is newly made with what is already there, for example, enables architecture and the city to be understood in relative terms - in terms of relationships. Between people, groups of people, things, and parts of things, actions and groups of actions: urban architecture is the social arrangement of activity with the physical arrangement of large and small parts of its environment. But what people do also change
Latin American cities have always been characterized by a strong tension between what is vaguely described as their formal and informal dimensions. However, the terms formal and informal refer not only to the physical aspect of cities but also to their entire socio-political fabric. Informal cities and settlements exceed the structures of order, control and homogeneity that one expects to find in a formal city; therefore the contributors to this volume - from such disciplines as architecture, urban planning, anthropology, urban design, cultural and urban studies and sociology - focus on alternative methods of analysis in order to study the phenomenon of urban informality. This book provides a thorough review of the work that is currently being carried out by scholars, practitioners and governmental institutions, in and outside Latin America, on the question of informal cities.
What is "urban"? How can it be described and contextualised? How is it used in theory and practice? Urban processes feature in key international policy and practice discourses. They are at the core of research agendas across traditional academic disciplines and emerging interdisciplinary fields. However, the concept of "the urban" remains highly contested, both as material reality and imaginary construct. The urban remains imprecisely defined. Defining the Urban is an indispensable guide for the urban transdisciplinary thinker and practitioner. Parts I and II focus on how "Academic Disciplines" and "Professional Practices," respectively, understand and engage with the urban. Included, among others, are Architecture, Ecology, Governance and Sociology. Part III, "Emerging Approaches," outlines how elements from theory and practice combine to form transdisciplinary tools and perspectives. Written by eminent experts in their respective fields, Defining the Urban provides a stepping stone for the development of a common language-a shared ontology-in the disjointed fields of urban research and practice. It is a comprehensive and accessible resource for anyone with an interest in understanding how urban scholars and practitioners can work together on this complex theme.
Design education in architecture and allied disciplines is the cornerstone of design professions that contribute to shaping the built environment of the future. In this book, design education is dealt with as a paradigm whose evolutionary processes, underpinning theories, contents, methods, tools, are questioned and critically examined. It features a comprehensive discussion on design education with a focus on the design studio as the backbone of that education and the main forum for creative exploration and interaction, and for knowledge acquisition, assimilation, and reproduction. Through international and regional surveys, the striking qualities of design pedagogy, contemporary professional challenges and the associated sociocultural and environmental needs are identified. Building on twenty-five years of research and explorations into design pedagogy in architecture and urban design, this book authoritatively offers a critical analysis of a continuously evolving profession, its associated societal processes and the way in which design education reacts to their demands. Matters that pertain to traditional pedagogy, its characteristics and the reactions developed against it in the form of pioneering alternative studio teaching practices. Advances in design approaches and methods are debated including critical inquiry, empirical making, process-based learning, and Community Design, Design-Build, and Live Project Studios. Innovative teaching practices in lecture-based and introductory design courses are identified and characterized including inquiry-based, active and experiential learning. These investigations are all interwoven to elucidate a comprehensive understanding of contemporary design education in architecture and allied disciplines. A wide spectrum of teaching approaches and methods is utilized to reveal a theory of a 'trans-critical' pedagogy that is conceptualized to shape a futuristic thinking about design teaching. Lessons learned from techniques and mechanisms for accommodation, adaptation, and implementation of a 'trans-critical' pedagogy in education are conceived to invigorate a new student-centered, evidence-based design culture sheltered in a wide variety of learning settings in architecture and beyond.
Digital and Smart Cities presents an overview of how technologies shape our cities. There is a growing awareness in the fields of design and architecture of the need to address the way that technology affects the urban condition. This book aims to give an informative and definitive overview of the topic of digital and smart cities. It explores the topic from a range of different perspectives, both theoretical and historical, and through a range of case studies of digital cities around the world. The approach taken by the authors is to view the city as a socially constructed set of activities, practices and organisations. This enables the discussion to open up a more holistic and citizen- centred understanding of how technology shapes urban change through the way it is imagined, used, implemented and developed in a societal context. By drawing together a range of currently quite disparate discussions, the aim is to enable the reader to take their own critical position within the topic. The book starts out with definitions and sets out the various interpretations and aspects of what constitutes and defines digital cities. The text then investigates and considers the range of factors that shape the characteristics of digital cities and draws together different disciplinary perspectives into a coherent discussion. The consideration of the different dimensions of the digital city is backed up with a series of relevant case studies of global city contexts in order to frame the discussion with real world examples.
This book provides students and professionals with practical answers to important career and communication questions, helping them to communicate successfully in a business setting. Communication expert, Deirdre Breakenridge, examines the ways in which professionals can make the most of their careers in a fast-changing media landscape, offering advice on how new and seasoned executives can utilize and adapt to the latest modes of communication. The author breaks down the eight most critical areas for professionals seeking to develop their communication skills, opening with essentials that will prove useful in any setting. She then details the ways in which organizations can adapt to changes in technology and consumer behavior to improve relationships, social media presence, and brand recognition. The easy to follow question-answer format walks readers through the most pressing, confusing, and frequently asked questions about successful communication with plenty of advice and examples for a better learning experience. Covering traditional business communication topics like partnerships and storytelling, the book also includes material on digital and social media channels as well as a chapter on giving back as a mentor. "Experts Weigh In" boxes feature advice from other top professionals, exposing the reader to multiple perspectives from the field. Grounded in decades of experience, Answers for Modern Communicators will benefit all students getting ready to enter the workforce as well as professionals looking to enhance their communication skills.
Marco Frascari believed that architects should design thoughtful buildings capable of inspiring their inhabitants to have pleasurable and happy lives. A visionary Italian architect, academic and theorist, Frascari is best-known for his extraordinary texts, which explore the intellectual, theoretical and practical substance of the architectural discipline. As a student in Venice during the late 1960s, Frascari was taught and mentored by Carlo Scarpa. Later he moved to North America with his family, where he became a fulltime academic. Throughout his academic career, he continued to work on numerous architectural projects, including exhibitions, competition entries, and designs for approximately 35 buildings, a small number of which were built. As a means of (re)constructing the theatre of imaginative theory within which these buildings were created, Sam Ridgway draws on a wide selection of Frascari's texts, including his richly poetic book Monsters of Architecture, to explore the themes of representation, demonstration, and anthropomorphism. Three of Frascari's delightful buildings are then brought to light and interpreted, revealing a sophisticated and interwoven relationship between texts and buildings.
**Selected in the top eight short-list for the Thought and Criticism category of the FAD Awards 2019** Le Corbusier is well-known for his architectural accomplishments, which have been extensively discussed in literature. Towards a Public Space instead offers a unique analysis of Le Corbusier's contributions to urban planning. The public spaces in Le Corbusier's plans are usually considered to break with the past and to have nothing whatsoever in common with the public spaces created before modernism. This view is fostered by both the innovative character of his proposals and by the proliferation in his manifestos of watchwords that mask any evocation of the past, like l'esprit nouveau ("new spirit") and l'architecture de demain ("architecture of tomorrow"). However, if we manage to rid ourselves of certain preconceived ideas, which underpin a somewhat less-than-objective idea of modernity, we find that Le Corbusier's public spaces not only didn't break with the historical past in any abrupt way but actually testified to the continuity of human creation over time. Aimed at academics and students in architecture, architectural history and urban planning, this book fills a gap in the systematic analysis of Le Corbusier's city scale plans and, specifically, Corbusian public spaces following the Second World War.
This series of essays outlines a number of case studies from Europe, North America, Australia and Asia and provides first hand accounts of the experiences that planners, architects and politicians have had in reshaping cities. These insights provide a pragmatic assessment of the challenges and constraints posed by changing patterns of urban growth in a broad spectrum of urban environments. The reader will discover, through these multiple voices and views, the diverse forms of global cities, and will have a grasp of where the debate on urban design stands today, and where it may be going in the future.
This volume argues that the city cannot be captured by any one mode of analysis but instead is composed of the mobile, relational, efficient, sentient, and the phenomenological with all of them cast in new theoretical configurations and combined into one methodological entity. Rather than focusing on any one city or abstract analytical model, this book instead takes a multipronged theoretical and methodological approach to present the city as an intelligent affective organism - a sentient being. It proposes that cities operate on a relational, mobile, and phenomenological basis through the mode of efficiency, calibrated by a profoundly complicated division of labor. Its starting point is that the city is a mobile unit of analysis, from its economic status to its demographic makeup, from its cultural configuration to its environmental conditions, and therefore easily evades our quantitative and qualitative methods of computation and comprehension. Twenty-First Century Urbanism provides planning and urban design academics and students with a multifaceted approach to understanding the development of cities, encouraging the examination of cities through a myriad, non-linear approach.
For well over a decade, there has been a drive towards sustainability in planning throughout the Nordic countries. But are these countries experiencing a paradigm shift in planning research and practice with regards to sustainability? Or is the sustainability discourse leading them into an impasse in planning? This book includes overviews of the planning systems in the five Nordic countries, drawing attention to their increasing focus on sustainability. A leading team of scholars from the fields of planning, urban design, architecture, landscape, economics, real estate and tourism explore how the notion of sustainability has shaped planning research in the Nordic countries. Case studies from Iceland, Sweden, Finland, Norway and Denmark shed light on what lessons can be learned and some possible future developments. By focusing on the actual settings and practices of local and regional planning activities, it enables a discussion on the current state of planning for a more sustainable future. This book will be valuable reading for students and academics interested in planning policy, environmental policy, architecture and urban design work.
Public art is produced and 'lived' within multiple, interlaced and contested political, economic, social and cultural-symbolic spheres. This lively collection is a mix of academic and practice-based writings that scrutinise conventional claims on the inclusiveness of public art practice. Contributions examine how various social differences, across class, ethnicity, age, gender, religion, ability and literacy, shape encounters with public art within the ambits of the design, regeneration and everyday experiences of public spaces. The chapters richly draw on case studies from the Global North and South, providing comprehensive insights into the experiences of encountering public art via a variety of scales and realms. This book advances critical insights of how socially practised public arts articulate and cultivate geographies of social difference through the themes of power (the politics of encountering), affect (the embodied ways of encountering), and diversity (the inclusiveness of encountering). It will appeal to scholars, students and practitioners of cultural geography, the visual arts, urban studies, political studies and anthropology.
With increasing population and its associated demand on our limited resources, we need to rethink our current strategies for construction of multifamily buildings in urban areas. Reinventing an Urban Vernacular addresses these new demands for smaller and more efficient housing units adapted to local climate. In order to find solutions and to promote better urban communities with an overall environmentally responsible lifestyle, this book examines a wide variety of vernacular building precedents, as they relate to the unique characteristics and demands of six distinctly different regions of the United States. Terry Moor addresses the unique landscape, climate, physical, and social development by analyzing vernacular precedents, and proposing new suggestions for modern needs and expectations. Written for students and architects, planners, and urban designers, Reinventing an Urban Vernacular marries the urban vernacular with ongoing sustainability efforts to produce a unique solution to the housing needs of the changing urban environment.
As suburban expansion declines, cities have become essential economic, cultural and social hubs of global connectivity. This book is about urban revitalization across North America, in cities including San Francisco, Toronto, Boston, Vancouver, New York and Seattle. Infrastructure projects including the High Line and Big Dig are explored alongside urban neighborhood creation and regeneration projects such as Hunters Point in San Francisco and Regent Park in Toronto. Today, these urban regeneration projects have evolved in the context of unprecedented neoliberal public policy and soaring real estate prices. Consequently, they make a complex contribution to urban inequality and poverty trends in many of these cities, including the suburbanization of immigrant settlement and rising inequality. (Re)Generating Inclusive Cities wrestles with challenging but important questions of urban planning, including who benefits and who loses with these urban regeneration schemes, and what policy tools can be used to mitigate harm? We propose a new way forward for understanding and promoting better urban design practices in order to build more socially just and inclusive cities and to ultimately improve the quality of urban life for all.
Drawing on detailed design, construction and financial histories of six prominent Performing Arts buildings with budgets ranging from AGBP3.4 million to over AGBP100 million, Geometry and Atmosphere presents unique and valuable insights into the complex process of building for the arts. Each theatre project, from tailor-made spaces for avant-garde companies to iconic and innovative receiving houses, yields surprising and counter-intuitive findings. For each of the six projects, the authors have interviewed all those involved. Combining these interviews with exhaustive archival research, the authors then provide cross-case analysis which is distilled into guidance for all stakeholders as they transform their initial vision into built reality. In particular, the book challenges the technical focus of existing design guides for the Performing Arts by suggesting that current practice in briefing and design does not serve the Arts community especially well. It shows that there is a need for an approach in which the focus is firmly rooted in the delivery of the driving artistic vision. As well as being of interest to architects, urban designers and those involved in theatre studies, this book will be useful to other sectors where public money is spent on major building projects.
Most architectural books written by practising architects fall into two categories: theoretical texts, or monographs that describe and illustrate the author's projects. This book combines both, as it explores and illustrates the methodological journey required to translate a concept to a drawing and a drawing to a building. While the term 'methodological' might imply an Aristotelian logic, there is no attempt here to rationalise the process of conception, but instead an acknowledgement of an experimental approach that presupposes a subtle knowledge of the projects. It shows the architect's fascination with the 'opaque' and the 'not said' and illustrates how architecture works through agreement and contradiction (e.g. the built and the un-built, material and immaterial). Organised into three essays Urban Collage, Ground Surface, Shadows and Lines, the book examines how conceptual threads begin to compose a specific architectural design 'language' and how they interweave from one direction to another. Importantly, the projects that illustrate the text also demonstrate how imperative or marginal the original ideas become and, to an extent they demonstrate the design process: its successes, illogicality and failures. The essays also discuss the importance of iteration through time where ideas may occasionally be developed as a linear process, but more often emerge through a series of creative digressions. Although the essays and the projects have dominant themes, these should not be regarded as autonomous, as throughout the development of both drawings and buildings, ideas inevitably segue from one domain to another. Ideas have both fluidity and the ability to transform.
Housing Solutions through Design explores housing design with a special focus on affordability. It gives the perspectives of academics who research and teach on housing; professionals who design and build, and students who are learning. The book foregrounds innovative approaches of the designers of today and tomorrow. This book is the second in the Housing the Future Series, one of the aims of which is to collate a broad sample of the work being done from a design perspective in universities across the world on the issue of affordable housing. This very 'real' engagement with the issues of housing affordability is a key component of this series and is why the series invites practitioners to discuss their work. In Housing Solutions through Design, those practitioners include an award-winning commercial practice from the UK, Shed KM, and two of the most important reference points in the area of housing affordability and community development internationally - the world-renowned Herman Hertzberger, from the Netherlands, and the US-based but internationally active Habitat for Humanity. The inclusion of the work of such practices is not simply important because of their undoubted international status: it is important because of the work they do and the role models they represent for a generation of architects and designers who, in the coming years, will be faced with the need - and the opportunity - to develop new approaches to housing design.
This book explores how the concept or urban experimentation is being used to reshape practices of knowledge production in urban debates about resilience, climate change governance, and socio-technical transitions. With contributions from leading scholars, and case studies from the Global North and South, from small- to large-scale cities, this book suggests that urban experiments offer novel modes of engagement, governance, and politics that both challenge and complement conventional strategies. The book is organized around three cross-cutting themes. Part I explores the logics of urban experimentation, different approaches, and how and why they are deployed. Part II considers how experiments are being staged within cities, by whom, and with what effects. Part III examines how entire cities or groups of cities are constructed as experiments. This book develops a deeper and more socially and politically nuanced understanding of how urban experiments shape cities and drive wider changes in society, providing a framework to examine the phenomenon of urban experimentation in conceptual and empirical detail.
Immigrant Pastoral examines the growth of new Mexican heritage communities in the Midwest through the physical form of their cities and neighborhoods. The landscapes of these New Communities contrast with nearby small cities that are home to longstanding Mexican-American communities, where different landscapes reveal a history of inequality of opportunity. Together these two landscape types illustrate how inequality can persist or abate through comprehensive descriptions of the three main types of Midwestern Mexican-American landscapes: Established Communities, New Communities, and Mixed Communities. Each is described in spatial and non-spatial terms, with a focus on one example city. Specific directives about design and planning work in each landscape type follow these descriptions, presented in case studies of hypothetical landscape architectural projects. Subsequent chapters discuss less common Midwestern Mexican-American landscape types and their opportunities for design and planning, and implications for other immigrant communities in other places. This story of places shaped by immigrants new and old and the reactions of other residents to their arrival is critical to the future of all cities, towns, and neighborhoods striving to weather the economic transformations and demographic shifts of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. The challenges facing these cities demand the recognition and appreciation of their multicultural assets, in order to craft a bright and inclusive future.
The East and Southeast Asia region constitutes the world's most compelling theatre of accelerated globalization and industrial restructuring. Following a spectacular realization of the 'industrialization paradigm' and a period of services-led growth, the early twenty-first century economic landscape among leading Asian states now comprises a burgeoning 'New Economy' spectrum of the most advanced industrial trajectories, including finance, the knowledge economy and the 'new cultural economy'. In an agenda-setting volume, New Economic Spaces in Asian Cities draws on stimulating research conducted by a new generation of urban scholars to generate critical analysis and theoretical insights on the New Economy phenomenon within Asia. New industry formation and the transformation of older economic practices constitute instruments of development, as well as signifiers of larger processes of change, expressed in the reproduction of space in the city. Asia's major cities become the key staging areas for the New Economy, driven by the growing wealth of an urban middle and professional class, higher education institutions, city-based inter-regional movements and urban mega-projects. New Economic Spaces in Asian Cites animates this New Economy discourse by means of vibrant storylines of instructive cities and sites, including cases studies situated in cities such as Tokyo, Seoul, Shanghai, Beijing, Shenzhen, and Singapore. Theoretical and normative issues associated with the emergence of the new cultural economy are the subject of the book's context-setting chapters, and each case study presents an evocative narrative of development interdependencies and exemplary outcomes on the ground. New Economic Spaces in Asian Cities offers a vivid contribution to our understanding of the ongoing transformation of Asia's urban system, including the critical intersections of global and local-regional dynamics in processes of new industry formation and the relayering of space in the Asian metropolis. The synthesis of empirical profiles, normative insights, and theoretical reference points enhances the book's interest for scholars and students in fields of Asian studies, urban and cultural studies, and urban and economic geography, as well as for policy specialists and urban/community planners. |
You may like...
|