In twenty essays, this book covers aspects of planning, architecture, urban design, landscape architecture, park and garden design. Their approach, described as post-postmodern, is a challenge to the 'anything goes' eclecticism of the merely postmodern.

Telecommunications and the City provides the first critical and state-of-the-art review of the relations between telecommunications and all aspects of city development and management.
Drawing on a range of theoretical approaches and a wide body of recent research, the book addresses key academic and policy debates about technological change and the future of cities with a fresh perspective. Through this approach, the complex and crucial transformations underway in cities in which telecommunications have central importance are mapped out and illustrated. Key areas where telecommunications impinge on the economic, social, physical, enviromental and institutional development of cities are illustrated by using boxed extracts and wide range of case study examples from Europe, Japan and North America.
Rejecting the extremes of optimism and pessimism in current hype about cities and telecommunications, Telecommunications and the City offers a sophisticated new perspective through which city-telecommunications relations can be understood.

This is the extraordinary saga of the eight year campaign to prevent the destruction of Twyford Down, then the undistributed landscape backcloth to the ancient City of Winchester. The story is told by Barbara Bryant who was at the forefront of the campaign from its modest beginnings in 1985 to its infamous culmination seven years later. Twyford Down is a compelling record of every step of the campaign. It examines the UK government's role in the destruction of the Down, firstly by proposing to complete the 'missing' link in the M3 via the cutting in Twyford Down and subsequently by its intransigence in rejecting alternative solutions. It also looks at the part the campaign has subsequently played in the evolution of environmental campaigning. European legislation, which failed to protect this precious piece of English countryside, is examined, as is the political background to the campaign. The campaign for Twyford Down was lost with the construction of the final section of the M3 motorway through Twyford Down. The campaign, and the issues it raised, are not likely to be forgotten - the gaping wound in the landscape will remain as a monument to the great car economy of the second half of the 20th century.

This text explores the relationship between the planned or built environment and the occurrence of mental ill-health. It begins by providing a broad overview of what is known about the causes of psychopathic behaviour. It then goes on to discuss the issues that arise when attempting to identify: the impact of the environment as a source of stress; the effects that the environment can have on the quality of relationships between people; and the relationship between symbolic aspects of the environment, the planning process and mental health. The book uses analysis and case studies drawn from the UK and US and contains example illustrations of the built environment.

This text draws on research undertaken for the Joseph Rowntree Foundation on Development Impacts and Development Obligations to provide an account of the developing role of agreements in dealing with the impact of development. The first part reviews the policy, legal, planning and development context. The second part reviews contemporary practice. The third part reviews future developments. The authors bring their experience of both planning theory, practice and law and their empirical work to this major statement on an important area of planning practice. The focus is primarily on England, but the British experience is set in the wider context of experience elsewhere.

Designing the Compassionate City outlines an approach to urban design that is centred on an explicit recognition of the inherent dignity of all people. It suggests that whether we thrive or decline-as individuals or as a community-is dependent on our ability to fulfil the full spectrum of our needs. This book considers how our surroundings help or hinder us from meeting these needs by influencing both what we can do and what we want to do; either inspiring us to lead healthy, fulfilled lives or consigning us to diminished lives tainted by ill health and unfulfilled potential. Designing the Compassionate City looks at how those who participate in designing towns and cities can collaborate with those who live in them to create places that help people to accumulate the life lessons, experiences and achievements, as well as forge the connections to meet their needs, to thrive and to fulfil their potential. The book explores a number of inspiring case studies that have sought to meet this challenge and examines what has worked and what hasn't. From this, some conclusions are drawn about how we can all participate in creating places that leave a lasting legacy of empowerment and commitment to nurturing one another. It is essential reading for students and practitioners designing happier, healthier places.

Much of what constitutes our experience of our immediate environment is quite ordinary and familiar, in particular, where we live. While policymakers and academics are constantly seeking transformations in housing, what we seek from our own housing is stability and lack of change. We seek secure roots to our lives rather than step-changes and radical reform. This book considers this ordinary experience of housing and how we come to depend upon it. The notion of the ordinary is used to argue against the conceits of policymaking and the fetish for domestic design. Using a variety of methods such as critical analysis and film criticism (looking at the work of film-makers as diverse as Bergman, Dreyer, Shyamalan, Tarkovsky, Tati and the Wachowski Brothers), it provides an original, impressionistic view of the role housing plays in our lives.

The book considers urban mobilities and immobilities in the Global South through an exploration of the theoretical and methodological entry points that can be used to further the agenda of transport planning. Transport system improvements can (and do) have complex and unequal impacts on different sectors of society. Conventional approaches to analysing travel demand and transport system performance developed in the 'Global North' are typically ill-equipped to identify and understand the complexities and inequities in urban areas of the Global South. Using case studies from urban Africa and Asia, the book addresses the need to understand the 'lived world' of mobilities and use this knowledge to address issues that are central to our urban existence in the 21st century.

By focusing on the skyscraping transnational building, this book bridges two key debates on the transformation and emerging problems besetting major cities - globalization and ecological and sustainable building design. While such structures tend to be constructed and/or used by transnational companies and are generally viewed as emblems of a 'global city', they nevertheless impact seriously on their local environment, posing numerous environmental burdens on it. By examining office blocks held by multinational firms in Amsterdam, Sao Paolo and Beijing, the book analyses how transnational buildings might be made sustainable. It compares and contrasts the different social mechanisms that are, or may be, in place and how sustainable building practices that are being activated in certain locations could be adopted elsewhere.

First published in 1992, this book collects together the papers presented at the International Symposium on Design Review which was held to address the growing tendency of local governments to institute programs of aesthetic control. The editor argues that the widespread adoption of design review processes in the years preceding the conference necessitated thoroughgoing professional criticism and a number of areas of debate are identified and addressed in the subsequent papers. Are the difficulties experienced by planners, community activists and architects with the process due to its relative youth or inherent flaws in the entire concept? How should mechanical problems like time and expense, the ease with which the process can be manipulated, and general inefficiencies in the system be resolved? More intricate problems are also addressed, such as: who has the power to judge the aesthetic quality of a building, whether design review infringes on the rights of the individual especially under the First Amendment, whether the design review process is "fair", and the difficulty for the reviewer of deciding what is right and what is wrong having taken into account factors that can be highly subjective or contradict more practical concerns.

Urban landscapes are an important part of the daily lives of most of the population of the western world. Buildings, streets, gardens and parks are a fundamental means by which we orientate ourselves within cities, and contribute significantly to our daily levels of efficiency and well-being (or lack of them). The creation and maintenance of the urban environment accounts for a sizeable proportion of public and private expenditure. Yet despite the controversy surrounding a few special places, the people and forces responsible for shaping ordinary town and city landscapes have rarely been systematically investigated and are poorly understood.
By viewing urban landscapes in relation to the individuals and organizations responsible for their creation, this book supplies a crucial missing dimension to urban landscape history and a sharp insight into the dynamics of contemporary urban change.

Based on cases and interviews in Britain, Europe and the United States, this book explains the recurrence of regional planning and of initiatives in regional governance, in a wide range of advanced industrial countries. Providing an analysis of the nature of regional planning and governance, the book traces the development of regional planning and the institutions associated with it. It also looks at the way that regions have been changing their form under pressure from economic and political developments and examines how regional planning and governance has responded, comparing experience in the UK, the rest of Europe and the US.
In concluding that regionalism is an imperative feature of politics in most countries, associated with almost any of the variety of forms of governance, the author offers a major appraisal of the significance of regional planning in an intemational context

The Heart of the City concept, which was introduced at CIAM 8 in 1951, has played an important role in architectural and urban debates. The Heart became the most important of the organic references used in the 1950s for defining a theory of urban form. This book focuses on both the historical and theoretical reinterpretation of this seminal concept. Divided into two main sections, both looking at differing ways in which the Heart has influenced more recent urban thinking, it illustrates the continuity and the complexities of the Heart of the City. In doing so, this book offers a new perspective on the significance of public space and shows how The Heart of the City still resonates closely with contemporary debates about centrality, identity and the design of public space. It would be of interest to architects, academics and students of urban design and planning.

First published in 1987, this book provides a wide-ranging account of how modern cities have come to look as they do - differing radically from their predecessors in their scale, style, details and meanings. It uses many illustrations and examples to explore the origins and development of specific landscape features. More generally it traces the interconnected changes which have occurred in architecture and aesthetic fashions, in planning, in economic and social conditions, and which together have created the landscape that now prevails in most of the cities of the world. This book will be of interest to students of architecture, urban studies and geography.

In the rapidly expanding public space debate of the past few years, a recurring theme is the 'loss of publicness' of contemporary urban public places. This book takes up the challenge to find an objective way to prove or disprove this phenomenon. By taking the reader through a systematic and multi-disciplinary literature review it asks the deceptively simple question: 'What is publicness?' It answers this by first developing a new theoretical approach - 'The dual nature of public space', and secondly a new analytical tool for measuring it - 'The Star Model of Publicness'. This pragmatic approach to analysing public space is tested then on three new public places recently created on the post-industrial waterfront of the River Clyde, in the city of Glasgow, UK. By seeing where and why certain public places fail, direct and informed interventions can be made to improve them, and through this contribute to the building of more attractive and sustainable cities. By adopting a multi-disciplinary approach to shed light on this 'slippery' concept, this book shows how urban design can complement other disciplines when tackling the complex task of understanding and improving the built environment's public realm. It also bridges the gap between theory and practice as it draws from empirical research to suggest more quantitative approaches towards auditing and improving public places.

Phenomenologies of the City: Studies in the History and Philosophy of Architecture brings architecture and urbanism into dialogue with phenomenology. Phenomenology has informed debate about the city from social sciences to cultural studies. Within architecture, however, phenomenological inquiry has been neglecting the question of the city. Addressing this lacuna, this book suggests that the city presents not only the richest, but also the politically most urgent horizon of reference for philosophical reflection on the cultural and ethical dimensions of architecture. The contributors to this volume are architects and scholars of urbanism. Some have backgrounds in literature, history, religious studies, and art history. The book features 16 chapters by younger scholars as well as established thinkers including Peter Carl, David Leatherbarrow, Alberto Perez-Gomez, Wendy Pullan and Dalibor Vesely. Rather than developing a single theoretical statement, the book addresses architecture's relationship with the city in a wide range of historical and contemporary contexts. The chapters trace hidden genealogies, and explore the ruptures as much as the persistence of recurrent cultural motifs. Together, these interconnected phenomenologies of the city raise simple but fundamental questions: What is the city for, how is it ordered, and how can it be understood? The book does not advocate a return to a naive sense of 'unity' or 'order'. Rather, it investigates how architecture can generate meaning and forge as well as contest social and cultural representations.

This title was first published in 2002.Employing a range of case studies from three northern European countries - England, Sweden and The Netherlands - this captivating book explores the process of heritage conservation from theoretical initiation to practical expression. It traces the threads from the origination of conservation ideas by innovative individuals, their adoption by voluntary groups identified with particular conservation aims, to the inclusion of conservation policies in national legislation and international convention. A common cultural heritage underpins the diffusion of ideas across different systems within a similar time-scale. The ideas have been assimilated and adopted to differing degrees, providing the opportunity for questioning both the strength and purpose in heritage conservation, and the influence of the social and political context. This will be a stimulating read for an international audience of conservationists, heritage policy makers, conservation architects, planners and developers, urban design and planning scholars, and European and cultural studies academics.

This book investigates the development of multi-unit housing typologies that were predominant in a particular city from the 1800s to present day. It emphasises the importance of understanding the direct connection between housing and dwelling in the context of a city, and the manner in which the city is an instructional indication of how a housing typology is embodied. The case studies presented offer an insight into why a certain housing type flourished in a specific city and the variety span across cities in the world where distinct housing types have prevailed. It also pursues how housing types developed, evolved, and helped define the city, looks into how dwellers inhabited their dwellings, and analyses how the housing typologies correlates in a contemporary context. The typologies studied are back-to-backs in Birmingham; tenements in London; Haussmann Apartment in Paris; tenements in New York; tong lau in Hong Kong; perimeter block, linear block, and block-edge in Berlin; perimeter block and solitaire in Amsterdam; space-enclosing structure in Beijing; micro house in Tokyo, and high-rise in Toronto.

It is increasingly important to define what constitutes the unique character of our neighbourhoods, in order to identify what we value and should protect, to pinpoint areas for improvement and places which could be enhanced through sensitive change. But how do we define 'character' or a 'sense of place'? How do we appraise the setting and site of a development area, in order that the essential character is retained and reflected in the design of new development? How can these qualities be communicated to decision makers and involve communities? Characterising Neighbourhoods provides an accessible and richly illustrated guide to the practical methods of appraising neighbourhoods which are precise, well informed and engaging. It demonstrates how characterisation is used as an evidence base for the planning and management of neighbourhoods and urban areas. The core focus is on a proven characterisation method developed and used by the authors and used by community groups, schools, planning and urban design students and professionals. It creates a common language used by these groups in evaluating places. This guide provides a wealth of supporting information, including; briefing on the recognition of local architectural styles, periods and materials, detecting the influence of historic street layouts and property boundaries, townscape concepts such as scale and enclosure, and topographical characteristics. Characterising Neighbourhoods is a valuable resource for practicing planners, urban designers and environmental professionals as well as students in these subjects.

Health and happiness are fundamental to human quality of life. The United Nations World Happiness Report 2012 reflects a new worldwide call for governments to include happiness as a criterion to their policies. The Healthy Cities or Happy Cities movement has been endorsed by the WHO since 1986, and a Healthy House or Happy Home is a critical constituent of a healthy city or a happy city. Nevertheless, the concept has not been fully explored. Existing literature on the healthy house has often focused on the technical, economic, environmental, or biochemical aspects, while current scholarship on the happy home commonly centers on interior decoration. Few studies have addressed the importance of social and cultural factors that affect the health and happiness of the occupants. Identifying four key themes in Chinese philosophy to promote health and happiness at home, this book links architecture with Chinese philosophy, social sciences, and the humanities, and in doing so, argues that Architectural Multiculturalism is a vital ideology to guide housing design in North America. Using both qualitative and quantitative evidence gathered from ethnic Chinese and non-Chinese living in the USA and Canada, the study proposes that the Courtyard is a central component to promote social and cultural health and happiness of residents. It further details courtyard garden house design strategies that combine a sense of privacy with a feeling of community as represented in courtyard housing. The schemes may have universal implications.

Bringing together an international range of contributors from the fields of practice, theory and history, this book takes a fresh look at occupation. It argues that occupation is a prospect that begins with ruin--a residue from the past, an implied or even a resounding presence of something previous that holds the potential for transformation. This prospect invites us to repudiate, re-imagine and re-define lived space, thereby asserting occupation as an act of revolution. Authors drawn from the fields of architecture, urbanism, interior architecture, dance dramaturgy, art history, design and visual arts, cultural studies and media studies provide a unique, holistic view of occupation, examining topics such as: the authority of architecture; architecture as an act of revolution; women in hypersexual space; occupation as a serialized act of ruin; and the definition of space as repudiation. They discuss how acts that re-invent territory and/or shift boundaries--psychological, social and physical--affect identity and demonstrate possession. This theme of occupation is significant and topical at a time of radical flux, generated by the proliferation of hypermedia, and also by the dramatically shifting environmental, political and economic context of this era. The book concludes by asserting that it is through occupation (private and public: real, virtual, remembered, re-invented) that we appear or disappear as the individual or collective self, because the spaces we construct assert particular agendas which we may either contest or live in accord with.

A common theme running through both the market economies of Western Europe and the old command economies of Eastern Europe is the desire to combine local economic development objectives with those of the international investor. It is in this context that the interaction between planning systems and property markets is of paramount importance.

eBook available with sample pages: EB:0203362241

As a textbook for students in planning, geography and urban studies, this work provides both an introduction to the problems and practices of planning in general and an illustration of them using the London region in particular. The authors look at the decrepit public transport, congestion, noise, dirt, crime, poverty, begging, homelessness and addresses these issues in terms of history, jobs, housing, transport and the quality of the environment. Future options are considered. The book is divided into four major parts. Part One provides an introduction. Part Two addresses some major problems confronting anyone seeking to plan for London: unemployment, housing and transport. These issues are dealt with both individually and in terms of their inter-relationships, with emphasis placed on the need to relate employment and housing to each other in terms of both their individual land-use requirements and the transportation and communication links between them. Part Three deals with the past and present politics and practices of planning London. Part Four looks at both the future, focusing on the special characteristics of London as a world city, and the recent past in terms of changes i

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.

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.