Interdisciplinary in approach, this volume explores and deciphers the symbolic value and iconicity of the built environment in the Arab Gulf Region, its aesthetics, language and performative characteristics. Bringing together a range of studies by artists, curators and scholars, it demonstrates how Dubai appeared - at least until the financial crisis - to be leading the construction race and has already completed a large number of its landmark architecture and strategic facilities. In contrast, cities like the Qatari capital Doha still appear to be heavily 'under construction' and in countries like the Sultanate of Oman, ultra-luxury tourism projects were started only recently. While the construction of artificial islands, theme parks and prestige sport facilities has attracted considerable attention, much less is known about the region's widespread implementation of innovative infrastructure such as global container ports, free zones, inter-island causeways and metro lines. This volume argues that these endeavours are not simply part of a strategy to prepare for the post-oil era for future economic survival and prosperity in the Lower Gulf region, but that they are also aiming to strengthen identitarian patterns and specific national brands. In doing so, they exhibit similar, yet remarkably diverse modes of engaging with certain global trends and present - questionably - distinct ideas for putting themselves on the global map. Each country aims to grab attention with regard to the world-wide flow of goods and capital and thus provide its own citizens with a socially acceptable trajectory for the future. By doing that, the countries in the Gulf are articulating a new semiotic and paradigm of urban development. For the first time, this volume maps these trends in their relation to architecture and infrastructure, in particular by treating them as semiotics in their own right. It suggests that recent developments in this region of the world not only represen

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.

The focus of this book is on understanding and explaining the way that our increasingly networked world impacts on the legibility of cities; that is how we experience and inhabit urban space. It reflects on the nature of the spatial effects of the networked and mediated world; from mobile phones and satnavs to data centres and wifi nodes and discusses how these change the very nature of urban space. It proposes that netspaces are the spaces that emerge at the interchange between the built world and the space of the network. It aims to be a timely volume for both architectural, urban design and media practitioners in understanding and working with the fundamental changes in built space due to the ubiquity of networks and media. This book argues that there needs to be a much better understanding of how networks affect the way we inhabit urban space. The volume defines five characteristics of netspaces and defines in detail the way that the spatial form of the city is affected by changing practices of networked world. It draws on theoretical approaches and contextualises the discussion with empirical case studies to illustrate the changes taking place in urban space. This readable and engaging text will be a valuable resource for architects, urban designers, planners and sociologists for understanding how of networks and media are creating significant changes to urban space and the resulting implications for the design of cities.

Planning is currently a male-dominated profession, but an analysis of a century of town planning reveals this to be a new development; women have been central to the planning movement since it began. "Women and Planning" is a comprehensive history and analysis of women and the planning movement, covering the philosophical, practical and policy dimensions of "planning for women". Beyond the marginalization of women, modern, scientific planning hides a story of past links with eugenics, colonialism, artistic, utopian and religious movements and the occult. Central to the discussion is how male planners have created planning in their own image, projecting patriarchal assumptions in their creation of "urban realities". Issues of class, sexuality, ethnicity and disability are raised by the fundamental question of "Who is being planned for?". Clara H. Greed has also written "Introducing Town Planning" and "Surveying Sisters".

This book investigates architecture as a form of diplomacy in the context of the Second World War at six major European international and national expositions that took place between 1937 and 1959. The volume gives a fascinating account of architecture assuming the role of the carrier of war-related messages, some of them camouflaged while others quite frank. The famous standoffs between the Stalinist Russia and the Nazi Germany in Paris 1937, or the juxtaposition of the USSR and USA pavilions in Brussels 1958, are examples of very explicit shows of force. The book also discusses some less known - and more subtle - messages, revealed through an examination of several additional pavilions in both Paris and Brussels; of a series of expositions in Moscow; of the Universal Exhibition in Rome that was planned to open in 1942; and of London's South Bank Exposition of 1951: all of them related, in one way or another, to either an anticipation of the global war or to its horrific aftermaths. A brief discussion of three pre-World War II American expositions that are reviewed in the Epilogue supports this point. It indicates a significant difference in the attitude of American exposition commissioners, who were less attuned to the looming war than their European counterparts. The book provides a novel assessment of modern architecture's involvement with national representation. Whether in the service of Fascist Italy or of Imperial Japan, of Republican Spain or of the post-war Franquista regime, of the French Popular Front or of socialist Yugoslavia, of the arising FRG or of capitalist USA, of Stalinist Russia or of post-colonial Britain, exposition architecture during the period in question was driven by a deep faith in its ability to represent ideology. The book argues that this widespread confidence in architecture's ability to act as a propaganda tool was one of the reasons why Modernist architecture lent itself to the service of such different masters.

Profound transformations in residential practices are emerging in Europe as well as throughout the urban world. They can be observed in the unfolding diversity of residential architecture and spatially restructured cities. The complexity of urban and societal processes behind these changes requires new research approaches in order to fully grasp the significant changes in citizens lifestyles, their residential preferences, capacities and future opportunities for implementing resilient residential practices. The international case studies in this book examine why ways of residing have changed as well as the meaning and the significance of the social, economic, political, cultural and symbolic contexts. The volume brings together an interdisciplinary range of perspectives to reflect specifically upon the dynamic exchange between evolving ways of residing and professional practices in the fields of architecture and design, planning, policy-making, facilities management, property and market. In doing so, it provides a resourceful basis for further inquiries seeking an understanding of ways of residing in transformation as a reflection of diversifying residential cultures. This book will offer insights of interest to academics, policy-makers and professionals as well as students of urban studies, sociology, architecture, housing, planning, business and economics, engineering and facilities management.

In recent years architectural discourse has witnessed a renewed interest in materiality under the guise of such familiar tropes as 'material honesty,' 'form finding,' or 'digital materiality.' Motivated in part by the development of new materials and an increasing integration of designers in fabricating architecture, a proliferation of recent publications from both practice and academia explore the pragmatics of materiality and its role as a protagonist of architectural form. Yet, as the ethos of material pragmatism gains more popularity, theorizations about the poetic imagination of architecture continue to recede. Compared to an emphasis on the design of visual form in architectural practice, the material imagination is employed when the architect 'thinks matter, dreams in it, lives in it, or, in other words, materializes the imaginary.' As an alternative to a formal approach in architectural design, this book challenges readers to rethink the reverie of materials in architecture through an examination of historical precedent, architectural practice, literary sources, philosophical analyses and everyday experience. Focusing on matter as the premise of an architect's imagination, each chapter identifies and graphically illustrates how material imagination defines the conceptual premises for making architecture.

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

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

What is the capacity of mapping to reveal the forces at play in shaping urban form and space? How can mapping extend the urban imagination and therefore the possibilities for urban transformation? With a focus on urban scales, Mapping Urbanities explores the potency of mapping as a research method that opens new horizons in our exploration of complex urban environments. A primary focus is on investigating urban morphologies and flows within a framework of assemblage thinking - an understanding of cities that is focused on relations between places rather than on places in themselves; on transformations more than fixed forms; and on multi-scale relations from 10m to 100km. With cases drawn from 30 cities across the global north and south, Mapping Urbanities analyses the mapping of place identities, political conflict, transport flows, streetlife, functional mix and informal settlements. Mapping is presented as a production of spatial knowledge embodying a diagrammatic logic that cannot be reduced to words and numbers. Urban mapping constructs interconnections between the ways the city is perceived, conceived and lived, revealing capacities for urban transformation - the city as a space of possibility.

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.

The purpose of this study, first published in 1985, was to investigate the management practices of the Kuwait City Park System and the relationship of these practices to user satisfaction. The decision making process affecting the parks had been fragmented between three agencies, and this created conflicts in different goals, responsibilities and objectives. The study shows how much impact the uncoordinated and fragmented decisions had on user satisfaction in the parks.

A New Way of Living tells the broad story of the development of new towns in the Scottish Highlands and Islands post-1750. It pulls together the various strands that influenced the development of the North West Highlands after the disastrous risings and charts the government-backed attempts at establishing fishing villages from Argyll to Sutherland, as well as private initiatives to do likewise along the shores of the Moray Firth. Roads and later railways were built to connect these new settlements to their markets which were tens or hundreds of miles away across mountain ranges, presenting monumental challenges for the designers and workforce. In the farming country of Morayshire, north Aberdeenshire and the old counties of Banffshire and Buchan, landowners led these improvements, often bestowing their names on their villages and towns such as Archiestown and Macduff. In many cases the plan succeeded although there were some notable failures. This was a period when a new way of living was imposed upon a population that had no alternative but to accept it or leave for the colonies. The book demonstrates how the planners borrowed concepts from history and how the more successful layouts were developed with some degree of building regulation applied to a sensibly zoned plan. Many of the places studied, particularly those on the coast, are now sought-after as holiday home locations, thus proving the enduring appeal of picturesque settings of terraced cottages clustered around a harbour or bay. The rationale for their existence may have changed but the constant appeal of the plan and building fabric of many of the new towns illustrates the enduring worth of this Georgian legacy.

Planning is currently a male-dominated profession, but an analysis of a century of town planning reveals this to be a new development; women have been central to the planning movement since it began. "Women and Planning" is a comprehensive history and analysis of women and the planning movement, covering the philosophical, practical and policy dimensions of "planning for women". Beyond the marginalization of women, modern, scientific planning hides a story of past links with eugenics, colonialism, artistic, utopian and religious movements and the occult. Central to the discussion is how male planners have created planning in their own image, projecting patriarchal assumptions in their creation of "urban realities". Issues of class, sexuality, ethnicity and disability are raised by the fundamental question of "Who is being planned for?". Clara H. Greed has also written "Introducing Town Planning" and "Surveying Sisters".

The introduction of iron - and later steel - construction and decoration transformed architecture in the nineteenth century. While the structural employment of iron has been a frequent subject of study, this book re-directs scholarly scrutiny on its place in the aesthetics of architecture in the long nineteenth century. Together, its eleven unique and original chapters chart - for the first time - the global reach of iron's architectural reception, from the first debates on how iron could be incorporated into architecture's traditional aesthetics to the modernist cleaving of its structural and ornamental roles. The book is divided into three sections. Formations considers the rising tension between the desire to translate traditional architectural motifs into iron and the nascent feeling that iron buildings were themselves creating an entirely new field of aesthetic expression. Exchanges charts the commercial and cultural interactions that took place between British iron foundries and clients in far-flung locations such as Argentina, Jamaica, Nigeria and Australia. Expressing colonial control as well as local agency, iron buildings struck a balance between pre-fabricated functionalism and a desire to convey beauty, value and often exoticism through ornament. Transformations looks at the place of the aesthetics of iron architecture in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, a period in which iron ornament sought to harmonize wide social ambitions while offering the tantalizing possibility that iron architecture as a whole could transform the fundamental meanings of ornament. Taken together, these chapters call for a re-evaluation of modernism's supposedly rationalist interest in nineteenth-century iron structures, one that has potentially radical implications for the recent ornamental turn in contemporary architecture.

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.

Despite extensive efforts to understand the overall effect of urban structure on the current patterns of urban mobility, we are still far from a consensual perspective on this complex matter. To help build agreement on the factors influencing travel behaviour, this book discusses the influence of alternative urban structures on sustainable mobility. Bringing together two existing and complementary methods to study the relationship between urban structure and mobility, the authors compare two case studies with distinct urban structures and travel behaviour (Copenhagen and Oporto). Of particular concern is the influence of urban structure factors, namely land use and transport system factors, and motivational factors related to the social, economic and cultural characteristics of the individual traveller. The research presented in this book highlights the relevance of centrality in travel behaviour and in more sustainable travel choices. Different operational forms of the centrality concept are revealed as important: it is shown that more sustainable travel can be influenced by several urban structure factors and that no particular combination is required as long as a certain level of centrality is provided. Finally, the book concludes that urban structure can, on the one hand, constrain and, on the other hand, influence travel choice.

The second edition of this much-admired book offers an accessible and coherent selection of readings illustrating for students the depth and contours of how American politics has developed over time. Grounded in foundational debates, classic political science scholarship, and the best contemporary analysis of American political development, this reader invites students to probe the historical dynamics that brought the United States to where it is today and how those dynamics are likely to affect its future course. This well-designed and up-to-date reader is an invitation to instructors to draw your students into a deeper conversation on the key themes and topics in each section of your course. The second edition features: Revised introductions and selections 33 new readings Expanded sections on civil rights and civil liberties. Jillson and Robertson have carefully edited each selection to ensure readability and fidelity to the original arguments. Their insightful editorial introductions frame the context in which these topics are studied and understood. Several key pedagogical tools help students along the way: An introductory essay provides an overview of American political development and current examples of why history matters Chapter introductions to provide necessary context situating the readings in broader debates Head notes at the start of each reading to contextualize that selection Questions for Discussion at the end of each chapter, prompting students to draw out the implications and connections across readings Further Reading lists at the end of each chapter to guide student research The broad readings in this volume take seriously the effort to present materials that help students

Drawn from a lifetime's experience of shared city-making from the bottom up, within rapidly expanding urban metabolisms in Delhi, Mumbai, Agra, Kathmandu, West Africa and London, Loose Fit City is about the ways in which city residents can learn through making to engage with the dynamic process of creating their own city. It looks at the nature and processes involved in loosely fitting together elements made by different people at different scales and times, with different intentions, into a civic entity which is greater than the sum of its parts. It shows how bottom-up learning through making can create a more vibrant and democratic city than the more flattened, top-down, centrally planned, factory made version. Loose Fit City provides a new take on the subject of architecture, defined as the study and practice of fitting together physical and cultural topography. It provides a comprehensive view of how the fourth dimension of time fits loosely together with the three spatial dimensions at different scales within the human horizon, so as to layer meaning and depth within the places and metabolism of the city fabric.

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.

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.

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.

The hawari of Cairo - narrow non-straight alleyways - are the basic urban units that have formed the medieval city since its foundation back in 969 AD. Until early in the C20th, they made up the primary urban divisions of the city and were residential in nature. Contemporary hawari, by contrast, are increasingly dominated by commercial and industrial activity. This medieval urban maze of extremely short, broken, zigzag streets and dead ends are defensible territories, powerful institutions, and important social systems. While the hawari have been studied as an exemplar for urban structure of medieval Islamic urbanism, and as individual building typologies, this book is the first to examine in detail the socio-spatial practice of the architecture of home in the city. It investigates how people live, communicate and relate to each other within their houses or shared spaces of the alleys, and in doing so, to uncover several new socio-spatial dimensions and meanings in this architectural form. In an attempt to re-establish the link between architecture past and present, and to understand the changing social needs of communities, this book uncovers the notion of home as central to understand architecture in such a city with long history as Cairo. It firstly describes the historical development of the domestic spaces (indoor and outdoor), and provides an inclusive analysis of spaces of everyday activities in the hawari of old Cairo. It then broadens its analysis to other parts of the city, highlighting different customs and representations of home in the city at large. Cairo, in the context of this book, is represented as the most sophisticated urban centre in the Middle East with different and sometimes contrasting approaches to the architecture of home, as a practice and spatial system. In order to analyse the complexity and interconnectedness of the components and elements of the hawari as a 'collective home', it layers its narratives of architectural and social developments as a domestic environment over the past two hundred years, and in doing so, explores the in-depth social meaning and performance of spaces, both private and public.

This book is the first English translation of the German architect Bruno Taut's early twentieth-century anthology Die Stadtkrone (The City Crown). Written under the influence of World War I, Taut developed The City Crown to promote a utopian urban concept where people would live in a garden city of 'apolitical socialism' and peaceful collaboration around a single purpose-free crystalline structure. Taut's proposal sought to advance the garden city idea of Ebenezer Howard and rural aesthetic of Camillo Sitte's urban planning schemes by merging them with his own 'city crown' concept. The book also contains contributions by the Expressionist poet Paul Scheerbart, the writer and politician Erich Baron and the architectural critic Adolf Behne. Although the original German text was republished in 2002, only the title essay of The City Crown has previously been translated into English. This English translation of Taut's full anthology, complete with all illustrations and supplementary texts, fills a significant gap in the literature on early modern architecture in Germany and the history of urban design. It includes a translators' preface, introduction and afterword to accompany the original composition of essays, poems, designs and images. These original texts are accompanied by illustrations of Taut's own designs for a utopian garden city of 300,000 inhabitants and over 40 additional historic and contemporary examples. The new preface to The City Crown explains the premise for the English translation of Taut's anthology, its organization and the approaches taken by the translators to maintain the four different voices included in the original work. Matthew Mindrup's introduction critically examines the professional and intellectual developments leading up to and supporting Bruno Taut's proposal to advance the English garden city concept with a centralized communal structure of glass, the city crown. Through the careful examination of original

What makes a city? What makes architecture? And, what is to be included in the discussions of architecture and the city? Attempting to answer such ambitious questions, this book starts from a city's specificity and complexity. In response to recent debates in architectural theory around the agency and locus of critical action, this book tests the potential of criticality through-practice. Rather than through conceptual and ideological categorisations, it studies how architecture and criticality work within specific circumstances. Brussels, a complex city with a turbulent architectural and urban past, forms a compelling case for examining the tensions between urban politics, architectural imaginations, society's needs and desires, and the city's history and fabric. Inspired by pragmatist-relational philosophies, this book tests the potential of criticality through-practice. It studies a series of critical actions and tools, which occurred in Brussels' architectural and urban culture after 1968. Weaved together, Brussels architectural production emerges from a variety of actors, including architects, urban policy makers, activists, social workers, and citizens, but also architectural movements and ideologies, urban renewal programs, urban traumas, plans and projects, and mundane everyday practices and constructions. This book contributes to the study of Brussels and offers a timely contribution to recent scholarship on the critical reappraisal of architectural debates from the 1960s through to the 1990s. In addition, by showing how pragmatist-relational philosophies can be made relevant for architectural theory, the book opens hopeful potentials for how architectural theory can better contribute to the formulation of a critical agenda for architecture.