Presenting diverse case studies of contemporary sustainable urban practice from Europe, Africa, India, South America, the USA and Australia, this book offers the reader a fantastic wealth of practical material from a range of internationally renowned authors.

Each practical case study has addressed issues and then offered solutions to implement sustainable cities across a range of urban scales and cultures. Urgent design challenges explored include population density, recreating infrastructure that supports carbon neutral or low carbon (emission) intensive urban activities, and retrofitting for sustainability.

Highly illustrated, thematically focused and with superb global coverage, this book presents a multi-voiced and yet highly cohesive reference for anyone interested in green issues in urban design and architecture.

Art and Gentrification in the Changing Neoliberal Landscape brings together various disciplinary perspectives and diverse theories on art's dialectical and evolving relationship with urban regeneration processes. It engages in the accumulated discussions on art's role in gentrification, yet changes the focus to the growing phenomenon of artistic protests and resistance in the gentrified neighborhoods. Since the 1980s, art and artists' role s in gentrification ha ve been at the forefront of urban geography research in the subjects of housing, regeneration, displacement and new urban planning. In these accounts the artists have been noted to contribute at all stages of gentrification, from triggering it to eventually being displaced by it themselves. The current presence of art in our neoliberal urban space s illustrates the constant negotiation between power and resistance . And there is a growing need to recognize art's shifting and conflicting relationship with gentrification. The chapters presented here share a common thesis that the aesthetic reconfiguration of the neoliberal city does not only allow uneven and exclusionary urban redevelopment strategies but also facilitates the growth of anti-gentrification resistance. The book will be of interest to scholars working in art history, urban cultures, cultural geography and urban studies as well as contemporary art practitioners and policymakers.

Urban Transformations through Exceptional Architecture focusses on the nexus between architecturally exceptional projects and the city. It addresses the following questions: How can the complexity of these projects be comprehended? What roles do the political contexts play in the commissioning of such projects and what audiences do these projects serve? How has the granting of professional recognition for architects changed and what will this change mean to measures of exceptionality in architectural design? What roles do the architectural competitions play in the process of commissioning the design of architecturally exceptional projects, and do design competitions as an urban planning tool grant high value designs? Architecturally exceptional projects are situated in physical urban fabrics. How can this situatedness be analysed and what different values does the urban design dimension of these projects add? By considering diverse aspects of architecturally exceptional projects, the chapters in this book utilise a variety of research methods. They bring into dialogue a range of themes regarding the architectural, urban design and political aspects of these projects. This volume illustrates that multidisciplinarity might well be the best strategy to balance the risks of over simplification and the challenges of complexity in analysing these exceptional projects and the city in its ever-transformative process. The chapters in this book were originally published as a special issue of the Journal of Urban Design.

This book highlights radical urban transformation in eight cities spread across continental Europe. The point of departure, and the foundation of European urbanisation, is the Roman colonial town. In every case social dynamics guided the urban transitions in a traceable way, such that it has been possible to deduce the intellectual underpinnings of the contemporary built environments, as featured in these pages. Differing contexts of time and place show the overarching march of European history and related themes at the urban level. Fundamental changes are brought to light. Each story demonstrates a separate and fundamental transition, ranging from earlier collective configurations to the more institutionalised structures of later periods.

Strategic Spatial Projects presents four years of case study research and theoretical discussions on strategic spatial projects in Europe and North America. It takes the position that planning is not well equipped to take on its current challenges if it is considered as only a regulatory and administrative activity. There is an urgent need to develop a mode of planning that aims to innovate in spatial as well as social terms. This timely, important book is for spatial planning, urban design and community development and policy studies courses. For academics, researchers and students in planning, urban design, urban studies, human and economic geography, public administration and policy studies.

The quality of life of millions of people living in cities could be improved if the form of the city were to evolve in a manner appropriate to its climatic context. Climatically responsive urban design is vital to any notion of sustainability: it enables individual buildings to make use of renewable energy sources for passive heating and cooling, it enhances pedestrian comfort and activity in outdoor spaces, and it may even encourage city dwellers to moderate their dependence on private vehicles. Urban Microclimate bridges the gap between climatology research and applied urban design. It provides architects and urban design professionals with an understanding of how the structure of the built environment at all scales affects microclimatic conditions in the space between buildings, and analyzes the interaction between microclimate and each of the elements of the urban landscape. In the first two sections of the book, the extensive body of work on this subject by climatologists and geographers is presented in the language of architecture and planning professionals. The third section follows each step in the design process, and in part four a critical analysis of selected case study projects provides a demonstration of the complexity of applied urban design. Practitioners will find in this book a useful guide to consult, as they address these key environmental issues in their own work.

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.

Every 20 years since 1920, Madrid has undergone an urban planning cycle in which a city plan was prepared, adopted by law, and implemented by a new institution. This preparation-adoption-institutionalization sequence, along with the institution's structures and procedures, have persisted - with some exceptions - despite frequent upheavals in society. The planning institution itself played a lead role in maintaining continuity, traumatic history notwithstanding. Why and how was this the case? Madrid's planners, who had mostly trained as architects, invented new images for the city and metro region: images of urban space that were social constructs, the products of planning processes. These images were tools that coordinated planning and urban policy. In a complex, fragmented institutional milieu in which scores of organized interests competed in overlapping policy arenas, images were a cohesive force around which plans, policies, and investments were shaped. Planners in Madrid also used their images to build new institutions. Images began as city or metropolitan designs or as a metaphor capturing a new vision. New political regimes injected their principles and beliefs into the governing institution via images and metaphors. These images went a long way in constituting the new institution, and in helping realize each regime's goals. This empirically-based life cycle theory of institutional evolution suggests that the constitutional image sustaining the institution undergoes a change or is replaced by a new image, leading to a new or reformed institution. A life cycle typology of institutional transformation is formulated with four variables: type of change, stimulus for change, type of constitutional image, and outcome of the transformation. By linking the life cycle hypothesis with cognitive theories of image formation, and then situating their synthesis within a frame of cognition as a means of structuring the institution, this book arrives at a new theory

Concerning architecture and the city, built, imagined and narrated, this book focuses on Manhattan and Venice, but considers architecture as an intellectual and spatial process rather than a product. A critical look at the making of Manhattan and Venice provides a background to addressing the dynamic redefinition and making of space today. The gradual processes of adjustment, the making of a constantly changing dense space, the emphasis on forming rather than on figure, the incorporation of new forms and languages through their adaptation and transformation, make both Manhattan and Venice, in different ways, the ideal places to contextualize and address the issue of an architecture of the dynamic.

Examining spatial transformations in Bangalore, one of India's fastest growing cities, this book highlights the influence of information and communications technology (ICT) development on the city. Focusing on the production of urban space and the processes that inform such production, the author proposes that Silicon Valley, California has become a globalized model for the production of ICT urban development. The book presents a history of Bangalore's urban development and the emergence of the ICT industry there. Using this historical analysis and the geography of ICT development, the author identifies several case study areas where ICT development is transforming the built environment. Building on this analysis, the author goes on to suggest that the development in Bangalore over the last 20 years represents a type of informational cascade, and that the case studies illustrate that local information alters the course of ICT development and has the potential to overturn this cascade. This in turn could lead to a more sustainable urban future, one that profits from the city's regional advantages. The transformations taking place in Bangalore are occurring in many cities that are competing in the new informational economy. This book makes an important contribution to studies on South Asia as well as Architecture and Urban Studies.

Foregrounding an innovative and radical perspective on food planning, this book makes the case for an agroecological urbanism in which food is a key component in the reinvention of new and just social arrangements and ecological practices. Building on state-of-the-art and participatory research on farming, urbanism, food policy and advocacy in the field of food system transformation, this book changes the way food planning has been conceptualised to date and invites the reader to fully embrace the transformative potential of an agroecological perspective. Bringing in dialogue from both the rural and urban, the producer and consumer, this book challenges conventional approaches that see them as separate spheres, whose problems can only be solved by a reconnection. Instead, it argues for moving away from a 'food-in-the-city' approach towards an 'urbanism' perspective, in which the economic and spatial processes that currently drive urbanisation will be unpacked and dissected, and new strategies for changing those processes into more equal and just ones are put forward. Drawing on the nascent field of urban political agroecology, this text brings together: i) theoretical re-conceptualisations of urbanism in relation to food planning and the emergence of new agrarian questions, ii) critical analysis of experimental methodologies and performing arts for public dialogue, reflexivity and food sovereignty research, iii) experiences of resourceful land management, including urban land use and land tenure change, and iv) theoretical and practical exploration of post-capitalist economics that bring consumers and producers together to make the case for an agroecological urbanism. Aimed at advanced students and academics in agroecology, sustainable food planning, urban geography, urban planning and critical food studies, this book will also be of interest to professionals and activists working with food systems in both the Global North and the Global South.

Architecture is a Verb outlines an approach that shifts the fundamental premises of architectural design and practice in several important ways. First, it acknowledges the centrality of the human organism as an active participant interdependent in its environment. Second, it understands human action in terms of radical embodiment-grounding the range of human activities traditionally attributed to mind and cognition: imagining, thinking, remembering-in the body. Third, it asks what a building does-that is, extends the performative functional interpretation of design to interrogate how buildings move and in turn move us, how they shape thought and action. Finally, it is committed to articulating concrete situations by developing a taxonomy of human/building interactions. Written in engaging prose for students of architecture, interiors and urban design, as well as practicing professionals, Sarah Robinson offers richly illustrated practical examples for a new generation of designers.

As a vital human need, water has been absolutely critical to decisions as to where cities originate, how much they grow and the standard of living of the inhabitants. The relationship is complex however; we need both continual availability and protection from its potential impacts. Over recent decades flooding and scarcity episodes have become commonplace in even the most advanced countries - and these events cannot be disassociated from the socio-economic context within which they occur; being directly related to how we live, where we live and how we govern.

This book draws together information on a host of connected subjects from population growth to water scarcity to the relationship between humanity and nature, then demonstrates how utilizing notions of risk and resilience could help improve the relationship between the city and its most precious resource. Combining discussions of risk, water and spatial planning it provides an invaluable text for planning, geography and urban studies students on how to address urban water problems within a rapidly changing world.

As a vital human need, water has been absolutely critical to decisions as to where cities originate, how much they grow and the standard of living of the inhabitants. The relationship is complex however; we need both continual availability and protection from its potential impacts. Over recent decades flooding and scarcity episodes have become commonplace in even the most advanced countries and these events cannot be disassociated from the socio-economic context within which they occur; being directly related to how we live, where we live and how we govern.

This book draws together information on a host of connected subjects from population growth to water scarcity to the relationship between humanity and nature, then demonstrates how utilizing notions of risk and resilience could help improve the relationship between the city and its most precious resource. Combining discussions of risk, water and spatial planning it provides an invaluable text for planning, geography and urban studies students on how to address urban water problems within a rapidly changing world.

After years of being regarded as a regulatory tool, spatial planning is now a key agent in delivering better places for the future. Dealing with the role of spatial planning in major change such as urban extensions or redevelopment, this book asks how it can deliver at the local level.

Setting out the new local governance within which spatial planning now operates and identifying the requirements of successful delivery, this book also provides an introduction to project management approaches to spatial planning. It details what the rules are for spatial planning, the role of evidence and public involvement in delivering the local vision and how this works as part of coherent and consistent sub-regional approach. The conclusion is a forward look at what is likely to follow the effective creation of inspiring and successful places using spatial planning as a key tool.

The spread of newly 'invented' places, such as theme parks, shopping malls and revamped historic areas, necessitates a redefinition of the concept of 'place' from an architectural perspective. In this interdisciplinary work, these invented places are categorized according to the different phenomenological experiences they are able to provide. The book explores how such 'cloning spaces' use placemaking and placemarketing in attempt to replicate the characteristics found in urban spaces traditionally viewed as successful, and how these places can affect society's environmental perception. A range of international empirical studies illustrates how such invented places can be perceived as legitimate urban spaces, and contribute towards the quality of life in today's cities.

After years of being regarded as a regulatory tool, spatial planning is now a key agent in delivering better places for the future. Dealing with the role of spatial planning in major change such as urban extensions or redevelopment, this book asks how it can deliver at the local level.

Setting out the new local governance within which spatial planning now operates and identifying the requirements of successful delivery, this book also provides an introduction to project management approaches to spatial planning. It details what the rules are for spatial planning, the role of evidence and public involvement in delivering the local vision and how this works as part of coherent and consistent sub-regional approach. The conclusion is a forward look at what is likely to follow the effective creation of inspiring and successful places using spatial planning as a key tool.

The built environment influences health and well-being in a myriad of ways. Some neighbourhoods are plagued by busy roads that are a constant source of danger, noise, and air pollution. In some cities there is inadequate green space for children to play and socialise safely. Yet, this book argues, it does not have to be this way. With focus on human health, well-being, and flourishing, this book explores the ways in which people's lives are impacted by the built environment and how we can create, adapt, and design healthy and inclusive places. The volume explores the relationship between urban design and human flourishing and initiates broad discussions around relevant questions such as 'What is a healthy place?', 'What influences our perceptions of built environment more? Is it our age or our cultural background?'. The book includes six chapters from internationally renowned authors who attempt to unpack some of the key aspects that urban designers need to consider in order to create places that enable - rather than constrain - individuals and communities to live rich fulfilling lives. This book will be of great value to students, scholars, and researchers interested in urban design, planning, and in exploring how built environment impacts health and happiness. The chapters in this book were originally published as a special issue of the Journal of Urban Design.

Winner of the EDRA book prize for 2012. In cities around the world, individuals and groups are reclaiming and creating urban sites, temporary spaces and informal gathering places. These 'insurgent public spaces' challenge conventional views of how urban areas are defined and used, and how they can transform the city environment. No longer confined to traditional public areas like neighbourhood parks and public plazas, these guerrilla spaces express the alternative social and spatial relationships in our changing cities. With nearly twenty illustrated case studies, this volume shows how instances of insurgent public space occur across the world. Examples range from community gardening in Seattle and Los Angeles, street dancing in Beijing, to the transformation of parking spaces into temporary parks in San Francisco. Drawing on the experiences and knowledge of individuals extensively engaged in the actual implementation of these spaces, Insurgent Public Space is a unique cross-disciplinary approach to the study of public space use, and how it is utilized in the contemporary, urban world. Appealing to professionals and students in both urban studies and more social courses, Hou has brought together valuable commentaries on an area of urbanism which has, up until now, been largely ignored.

The industrialization of the nineteenth-century European city facilitated developing conceptions of the model city, and allowed for large scale urban transformations. The urban discourse in the latter half of the nineteenth century was consequently dominated by a dialectic exchange between the ideal and the practical, a debate played out in the formation of the modern metropolis. Manifestoes and Transformations is the first work to deal with urban utopias and their relationship with actual urban interventions. Bringing together a carefully chosen, wide-ranging team of experts, the book provides a broad, contextual exploration of the ideas and urban practices which are the foundations of our conception of the contemporary city. As such, it is a valuable resource for students interested in the formation of the modernist city.

The industrialization of the nineteenth-century European city facilitated developing conceptions of the model city, and allowed for large scale urban transformations. The urban discourse in the latter half of the nineteenth century was consequently dominated by a dialectic exchange between the ideal and the practical, a debate played out in the formation of the modern metropolis. Manifestoes and Transformations is the first work to deal with urban utopias and their relationship with actual urban interventions. Bringing together a carefully chosen, wide-ranging team of experts, the book provides a broad, contextual exploration of the ideas and urban practices which are the foundations of our conception of the contemporary city. As such, it is a valuable resource for students interested in the formation of the modernist city.

How can young children play an active role in developing the design of learning environments?

What methods can be used to bring together children's and practitioners' views about their environment?

What insights can young children offer into good designs for these children's spaces?

With the expansion of early childhood education and the move to 'extended schools', more young children will spend more time than ever before in institutions. Based on two actual building projects, this book is the first of its kind to demonstrate the possibilities of including young children's perspectives in the design and review of children's spaces.

Situated at the heart of the debate about the relationship between the built environment and its impact on children's learning and wellbeing, Transforming Children's Spaces

• provides insights into how young children see their environment
• discusses children's aspirations for future spaces
• develops the 'Mosaic approach', pioneered by the author, as a method for listening to young children and adults

Emphasising the importance of visual and verbal methods of communication, this fascinating book demonstrates how practitioners and young children can articulate their perspectives, and shows how participatory methods can support new relationships between children, practitioners and architects.

This book is essential reading for those who work in children's spaces and for those who design them as well as being of general interest to those studying education and childhood studies.

Spatial Implications and Planning Criteria for High-speed Rail Cities and Regions evaluates the varied experiences that HSR systems have brought about to different station-cities and their regional territories around the world, with an eye towards better future planning and policy of such systems. This edited volume draws from examples of high-speed rail operations in different cities in Europe and Asia to depict the various impacts of this major transportation infrastructure. It attempts to distinguish the short- and long-term impacts described in the literature, classifying them into regional and inter-urban effects, urban effects, and wider economic impacts. Planning challenges appear at two major points: 1) during the initial planning stage that includes the route and location of stations; and 2) during the development process that follows. The case studies in the book concentrate on a variety of topics from the impact of high-speed rail on population growth in some station-cities, to the regional economic impacts that an HSR system can bring about to the larger territories it passes through, to the potential of station-cities to better attract firms, or to experience increases in tourism and commerce. They also assess planning strategies and experiences from station-cities to draw lessons for future HSR planning policies. The Chapters in this book were originally published in a special issue of European Planning Studies.

Winner of the EDRA book prize for 2012.

In cities around the world, individuals and groups are reclaiming and creating urban sites, temporary spaces and informal gathering places. These insurgent public spaces challenge conventional views of how urban areas are defined and used, and how they can transform the city environment. No longer confined to traditional public areas like neighbourhood parks and public plazas, these guerrilla spaces express the alternative social and spatial relationships in our changing cities.

With nearly twenty illustrated case studies, this volume shows how instances of insurgent public space occur across the world. Examples range from community gardening in Seattle and Los Angeles, street dancing in Beijing, to the transformation of parking spaces into temporary parks in San Francisco.

Drawing on the experiences and knowledge of individuals extensively engaged in the actual implementation of these spaces, Insurgent Public Space is a unique cross-disciplinary approach to the study of public space use, and how it is utilized in the contemporary, urban world. Appealing to professionals and students in both urban studies and more social courses, Hou has brought together valuable commentaries on an area of urbanism which has, up until now, been largely ignored. "

When designing, planning and building urban spaces, many contradictory and conflicting actors, practices and agendas coexist. This book propounds that, at present, this process is conducted in an artificial reality, 'Concept City', characterized by a simplified and outdated conception of space. It provides a constructive critique of the concepts, underlying the practices of planning and architecture and, in order to facilitate more dynamic, inclusive and subtle practices, it formulates a new theory about space in general and public urban space in particular. The central notions in this theory are temporality, experiment and conflict, which are grounded on empirical observations in Helsinki, Manchester and Berlin. While the book contextualizes Lefebvre's ideas on urban planning and architecture, it is in no way limited to Lefebvrean discourse, but allows insights to new theoretical work, including that of Finnish and Swedish authors. In doing so, it suggests and develops exciting new approaches and tools leading to 'experiential urbanism'.