Gardens have exerted a deep influence on the culture of cities. Considering each city as a whole, this book presents the profoundly different roles of gardens in cultural development and social life. Private and princely gardens, from Roman antiquity to approximately 1850, are considered, whether in China, India, the Ottoman Empire, Europe, or the United States. Turning to the subject of planning, the dire lack of a municipal garden policy is examined in contemporary Marrakech. In-depth evaluations of parks and garden planning reveal the successes and limitations of different policies in Stockholm, Tokyo, Kerala (India), historic Suzhou (China), and the U.S. New Towns of the 1960s. This book unveils an exciting domain of interplay between public and private action that is little known by citizen groups, city planners, and managers.

A new facsimile edition of a classic work on New York’s architectural masterpiece—Central Park Central Park receives millions of visitors every year, tourists and locals alike. A Description of the New York Central Park, published in 1869, is recognized today as the most important book about the park to appear during its early years. The lively, often wry, text was written by Clarence C. Cook, a distinguished Victorian art critic, while the illustrations were drawn by the popular Albert Fitch Bellows. The author and artist examine many sites in the park that survive to this day as well as features that have vanished over time. In a new Introduction, Maureen Meister reveals how the book came about. In the mid-1860s, the park’s designers, Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux, were battling to defend their plan. Of greatest concern was a proposal to build ornate entrances, suggestive of French imperialism. If realized, the gates would have undermined the park’s natural and democratic image. At the same time, the park was threatened by a proliferation of monuments. Meister tells how Olmsted and Vaux advised Cook on what he wrote, and she has found evidence to suggest that they initiated the book’s publication. This book is their book. While the original volume offers much to delight the modern reader, Meister’s Introduction sheds light on how the book served a greater purpose. It was published to champion Olmsted and Vaux and to advocate for their vision—a dream for a magnificent public park that has come to be regarded as New York City’s achievement and a model for the nation.

This book brings together ecological-conservation theory and heritage-preservation theory and shows how these two realms have common purpose. Through theoretical discussion and illustrative examples, Sustainable Heritage reframes the history of multiple movements within preservation and sustainable-design strategies into cross-disciplinary themes. Through topics such as Cultural Relationships with Nature, Ecology, Biodiversity, Energy, and Resource Systems; Integrating Biodiversity into the Built Environment Rehabilitation Practice; Fixing the Shortcomings Within Community Design, Planning, and Policy; Strategies for Adapting Buildings and Structures for Rising Sea Levels; and Vehicles as a Microcosm of Approaching Built Environment Rehabilitation, the book explores contemporary ecological and heritage ethics as a strategy for improving the livability of the built environment. The authors provide a holistic critique of the challenges we face in light of climate and cultural changes occurring from the local to the global level. It synthesizes the best practices offered by separate disciplines as one cohesive way forward toward sustainable design. The authors consider strategies for increasing the physical and cultural longevity of the built environment, why these two are so closely paired, and the potential their overlap offers for sustained and meaningful inhabitation. Sustainable Heritage unites students and professionals in a wide range of disciplines with one common language and more closely aligned sets of objectives for preservation and sustainable design.

The thirty-eight urban gems covered here range from newly created linear spaces along the water's edge, such as Brooklyn Bridge Park and the East River Waterfront Esplanade, to revitalized squares and circles, such as those at Gansevoort Plaza in the Meatpacking District and Columbus Circle, to repurposed open spaces like the freight tracks, now the High Line, and Concrete Plant Park in the Bronx. Readers can discover midtown atriums, mingle with the crowds in Union Square, travel offshore to nearby Governors Island, and enjoy the vistas of historic Green-Wood Cemetery. Pete Hamill writes in his foreword, "I've . . . made a list of new places I must visit while there is time. With any luck at all, I'll see all of them. I hope you, the reader, can find the time too." Concise descriptions, helpful maps, and vivid photographs capture the New York urban scene.

This is the first book to address future informal settlements at the global scale. It argues that to foster favourable conditions for the sustainable evolution of future informal cities, planners must consider the same issues that are paramount in formal urban developments, such as provision of: balanced land uses energy efficiency and mobility water management and food sufficiency governance and community participation productivity and competitiveness identity and sense of place Planning and Design for Future Informal Settlements makes a call for responsible action to address the urban challenges of the developing world, suggesting that the vitality of informality, coupled with spatial design and good management, can support the efficient use of resources in better places to live. The book analyses the strengths and weaknesses of informal urbanism and the challenges faced by the fast growing cities of the developing world. Through case studies, it demonstrates the contributions and limitations of different attempts to plan ahead for urban growth, from the creation of formal housing and urban infrastructures for self-built dwellings to the improvement of existing informal settlements. It provides a robust framework for planners and designers, policy-makers, NGOs and local governments working to improve living conditions in developing cities.

In this multi-authored book, senior practitioners and researchers offer an international overview of landscape character approaches for those working in research, policy and practice relating to landscape. Over the last three decades, European practice in landscape has moved from a narrow, if relatively straightforward, focus on natural beauty or scenery to a much broader concept of landscape character constructed through human perception, and transcending any of its individual elements. Methods, tools and techniques have been developed to give practical meaning to this idea of landscape character. The two main methods, Landscape Character Assessment (LCA) and Historic Landscape Characterisation (HLC) were applied first in the United Kingdom, but other methods are in use elsewhere in Europe, and beyond, to achieve similar ends. This book explores why different approaches exist, the extent to which disciplinary or cultural specificities in different countries affect approaches to land management and landscape planning, and highlights areas for reciprocal learning and knowledge transfer. Contributors to the book focus on examples of European countries - such as Sweden, Turkey and Portugal - that have adopted and extended UK-style landscape characterisation, but also on countries with their own distinctive approaches that have developed from different conceptual roots, as in Germany, France and the Netherlands. The collection is completed by chapters looking at landscape approaches based on non-European concepts of landscape in North America, Australia and New Zealand. This book has an introductory price of GBP125/$205 which will last until 3 months after publication - after this time it will revert to GBP140/$225.

Pete Nelson, the world's best-known treehouse designer and builder, wants to put readers in trees-his motto is, "get 'er done, so you can BE in a TREE." His new book is a comprehensive source of inspiration and practical information about treehouse design and construction. To that end, he explains the basics of treehouse construction with his own recent projects as case studies. Using photographs taken especially for this project along with diagrams, he covers the selection and care of trees and the design, style and construction of treehouses. To ignite the imagination, Nelson presents twenty-four previously unpublished treehouses in the United States, Europe, Africa, Asia and Australia.

"New York City looks nothing - nothing - like it did just a decade and a half ago. It's a place of newly gorgeous waterfront promenades, of trees, tall grasses and blooming flowers on patches of land and peninsulas of concrete and even stretches of rail tracks that were blighted or blank before." - Frank Bruni, The New York Times "Betsy Pinover Schiff's unerring eye and spectacular photographs tell the story of a city, and how its pre-Dorothy and Oz, colorless and downtrodden existence has been redone as if by wizardry in glorious Technicolor." - Adrian Benepe, former Parks Commissioner of New York City Betsy Pinover Schiff has been photographing urban plantings and chronicling the "greening" of the city for more than two decades. Once limited to private spaces and elite neighborhoods, these plantings now proliferate throughout the five boroughs. Sidewalk Gardens of New York reveals the transformation of the "city of concrete and glass" into one of the greenest and most richly planted urban centers in America. Nature and architecture combine in ways that will surprise even the most seasoned New Yorkers. Featured are tree beds, planters, hanging baskets, and medians that mitigate the frenzy of the street; plazas and pocket parks that offer respite to pedestrians, building plantings that create a welcoming transition between public and private; community gardens; and parks, both the iconic and the newly planted along the waterfront in Brooklyn, Queens, and Lower Manhattan.

Everything that anybody (whether they are citizen activists, or public officials, or professional landscape architects, architects, and planners) needs to know about the critical role public parks play in creating livable communities. Millions of dollars are being spent on restoring parks and creating new ones. Planner Alexander Garvin explains the rationales for their existence, the forms they take, their value, ways to pay for and govern them, and the ingredients that make successful parks, providing the first single definitive source of wisdom about them.

For decades Frederick Law Olmsted (1822-1903) designed parks and park systems across the United States, leaving an enduring legacy of designed public space that is enjoyed, studied, and protected today. His plans and professional correspondence offer a rich source for understanding his remarkable contribution to the quality of urban life in this country and the development of the profession of landscape architecture. Olmsted's writings also provide a unique record of society and politics in post-Civil War America. Historians, landscape architects, conservationists, city planners, and citizens' groups continue to turn to Olmsted for inspiration in their planning and protection of public open space in our cities.

This latest and seventh volume of the "Papers of Frederick Law Olmsted" presents the record of his last years of residence in New York City. It includes reports on the design of Riverside and Morningside parks and Tompkins Square in Manhattan, as well as his comprehensive plan for the street system and rapid transit routes of the Bronx. It records his continuing work on Central Park and presents his final retrospective statement, "The Spoils of the Park." In addition, volume seven contains an annotated version of the journal in which Olmsted recorded instances of political maneuvering and patronage politics in the years before his dismissal from the New York parks department in 1878. Later documents chronicle the early stages of his planning of the Boston park system--the Back Bay Fens, Arnold Arboretum, and Riverway. Other major commissions, each with its own political complications, were the grounds of the U.S. Capitol, the completion of the new state capitol in Albany, the designing of a park on Mount Royal in Montreal, and construction of the park system of Buffalo, New York. The volume also presents Olmsted's commentary on issues of the times including federal Reconstruction policy and civil-service reform.

"The Olmsted Papers project is supported by the National Endowment for the Humanities, the National Historical Publications and Records Commission, the National Trust for the Humanities, the National Association for Olmsted Parks, as well as private foundations and individuals."

The question "Do black landscapes matter?" cuts deep to the core of American history. From the plantations of slavery to contemporary segregated cities, from freedman villages to northern migrations for freedom, the nation's landscape bears the detritus of diverse origins. Black landscapes matter because they tell the truth. In this vital new collection, acclaimed landscape designer and public artist Walter Hood assembles a group of notable landscape architecture and planning professionals and scholars to probe how race, memory, and meaning intersect in the American landscape.Essayists examine a variety of U.S. places - ranging from New Orleans and Charlotte to Milwaukee and DetroitaEURO"exposing racism endemic in the built environment and acknowledging the widespread erasure of black geographies and cultural landscapes. Through a combination of case studies, critiques, and calls to action, contributors reveal the deficient, normative portrayals of landscape that affect communities of color and question how public design and preservation efforts can support people in these places. In a culture where historical omissions and specious narratives routinely provoke disinvestment in minority communities, creative solutions by designers, planners, artists, and residents are necessary to activate them in novel ways. Black people have built and shaped the American landscape in ways that can never be fully known. Black Landscapes Matter is a timely and necessary reminder that without recognizing and reconciling these histories and spaces, America's past and future cannot be understood.

Designing gardens, parks and landscapes requires a holistic approach. It also requires extensive specialist knowledge. In courses and manuals the generalist or in-depth levels are frequently under-represented, or the attempted comprehensive view becomes too complex. "Landscape for Architects" now offers a fundamental reference work which is as comprehensive as it is practical and as holistic as it is detailed. Created in cooperation with the Architecture Department of Braunschweig Technical University, Landscape for Architects addresses the aspects of landscape architecture: "questions" are raised with abstract schematic drawings, and possible "answers" are illustrated with analytical drawings of case studies from the 20th and 21st centuries in order to inspire the reader's own creativity and to support the design process. The entire field of landscape design is dealt with in individual thematic volumes. The numbers of pages in the volumes differ, adding up to a total of more than 1,000 pages in five volumes, published with clear color marking as the "green block". Each volume fully covers the respective subject and can be used on its own-compact and user-friendly. The illustrations are uniformly structured, with the guiding idea on the left-hand side and the associated drawing on the right-hand side. The drawings demonstrate how design concepts can be illustrated, and the three-language format provides an international vocabulary of design.

This book summarizes the latest studies regarding innovation in urban design and planning. It shares many tips and insights about sustainable solutions for the issues facing transport systems, innovative digital technologies, and ICT trends. The book touches upon the need to integrate the three fields of Architecture, Engineering, and Technology that have become indispensable. This is intended to respond to the increasing human needs and population growth in cities on one hand and to develop a holistic approach that helps overcome challenges to sustainability and environment management on the other hand. With the power of engineering in practice, problems of design and development once considered too complex to be dealt with other than empirically, intuitively, or by trial and error, are now becoming more solvable and applicable. This book offers strategies and solutions that enable designers to bring together knowledge in the fields of architecture, engineering, and technology to overcome challenges facing in modern times.

Here, for students and practitioners of landscape architecture, architecture, and planning, is a single resource for seminal theoretical texts in the field. Essential for understanding the specific connections that have been made between landscape and social, cultural, and political structures, "Theory in Landscape Architecture" reminds readers that the discipline of landscape architecture can be both practical and formally challenging. Covering the past fifty years of theory, this primer makes an important contribution to a student's emerging professional ethics.

In the last quarter century, a new form of iconic architecture has appeared throughout the world's major cities. Typically designed by globe-trotting "starchitects" or by a few large transnational architectural firms, these projects are almost always funded by the private sector in the service of private interests. Whereas in the past monumental architecture often had a strong public component, the urban ziggurats of today are emblems and conduits of capitalist globalization. In The Icon Project, Leslie Sklair focuses on ways in which capitalist globalization is produced and represented all over the world, especially in globalizing cities. Sklair traces how the iconic buildings of our era - elaborate shopping malls, spectacular museums, and vast urban megaprojects - constitute the triumphal "Icon Project" of contemporary global capitalism, promoting increasing inequality and hyperconsumerism. Two of the most significant strains of iconic architecture - unique icons recognized as works of art, designed by the likes of Gehry, Foster, Koolhaas, and Hadid, as well as successful, derivative icons that copy elements of the starchitects' work - speak to the centrality of hyperconsumerism within contemporary capitalism. Along with explaining how the architecture industry organizes the social production and marketing of iconic structures, he also shows how corporations increasingly dominate the built environment and promote the trend towards globalizing, consumerist cities. The Icon Project, Sklair argues, is a weapon in the struggle to solidify capitalist hegemony as well as reinforce transnational capitalist control of where we live, what we consume, and how we think.

Laurie Olin shares his insights into seemingly ordinary elements of these places, and how they intersect with our individual lives and experiences. An expert treatise on a niche topic, Olin's analysis of the importance of public seating goes beyond their aesthetic or comfort value. He explores how public seating influences our social conduct, our role as citizens, and our establishment of place and community.

Warren H. Manning's (1860-1938) national practice comprised more than sixteen hundred landscape design and planning projects throughout North America, from small home grounds to estates, cemeteries, college campuses, parks and park systems, and new industrial towns. Manning approached his design and planning projects from an environmental perspective, conceptualising projects as components of larger regional (in some cases, national) systems, a method that contrasted sharply with those of his stylistically oriented colleagues. In this regard, as in many others, Manning had been influenced by his years with the Olmsted rm, where the foundations of his resource-based approach to design were forged. Manning's overlay map methods, later adopted by the renowned landscape architect Ian McHarg, provided the basis for computer mapping software in widespread use today. One of the eleven founders of the American Society of Landscape Architects, Manning also ran one of the nation's largest offices, where he trained several influential designers, including Fletcher Steele, A. D. Taylor, Charles Gillette, and Dan Kiley. After Manning's death, his reputation slipped into obscurity. Contributors to the Warren H. Manning Research Project have worked more than a decade to assess current conditions of his built projects and to compile a richly illustrated compendium of site essays that illuminate the range, scope, and significance of Manning's notable career with specially commissioned photographs by Carol Betsch.

Have you ever dreamed of starting your own landscaping business? Have you been hesitant to put your plans into action? This comprehensive guide contains all the necessary tools and strategies you need to successfully launch and grow your business. Using a friendly, entertaining approach, Owen E. Dell shares his experiences and down-to-earth advice on every aspect of setting up and running a thriving home-based landscaping business. He shows you how to purchase the right tools, estimate start-up costs, price services, and stay profitable once in business. From painless recordkeeping to cost-efficient management techniques, Dell's step-by-step methods are practical, innovative, and easy to understand. Special features and workbook pages include: - Business Plan Worksheet - Material and Labor Records - Cost Worksheets - Tips on social media, SEO, and making the Internet work for you - Profit-and-Loss Worksheet

As you crest the ridge, the green valley below and the ocean beyond come into view. This is Shobac, a seaside village featuring an ensemble of buildings that, at first glance, looks like a monumental work of Land Art. What is this place? A fishing village from the future? A monastery teleported here from another planet? A utopian colony with a message for the world? Shobac is recognised internationally as the masterwork of famed Canadian architect Brian Mackay-Lyons. In partnership with his wife Marilyn Mackay-Lyons and their family, he has built a unique community over the granite ruins of a historic settlement on the fogbound coast of Nova Scotia, an area identified on Champlain's first map of North America from 1604. Among the structures at Shobac are homes, barns, studios, cottages, fishing shacks, a boathouse, even a schoolhouse, all designed in Mackay-Lyons's compelling architectural language that fuses contemporary Modernism with Nova Scotia building traditions. It's a sublime accomplishment that feels equally part of the past and the future, a living manifesto that expresses how landscape, climate, culture and architecture can ideally come together in elevating the human experience.

Energy Overlays provides a glimpse into our post - carbon future where energy infrastructure is seamlessly woven into the fabric of our cities as works of public art. Fifty designs use a variety of renewable energy technologies to arrive at innovative site - specific solutions. Power plants of the future will be the perfect place to have a picnic! On the foreshore of St Kilda with the skyline of Melbourne as a backdrop rises a new kind of power plant - one that merges renewable energy production with leisure , recreation, and education. Energy Overlays provides a roadmap to our sustainable future with essays about the energy transition and beautiful renderings and diagrams of more than fifty designs. The result is a city where the infrastructures that power our world are designed to be reflections of culture, where public parks provide clean electricity to the city grid, and where the art that makes our lives more vibrant and interesting is also part of the solution to climate change.

`Identity is tied to place. The environment is not the backdrop; it is woven through our identity.’ So writes Chris Rose in her introduction to this insightful collection on the mutually enriching relationship possible between psychogeography and psychotherapy. The book invites an interdisciplinary, reflective and at times poetic exploration of place as an integral feature of personhood, from the sauntering of the 19th century flâneur to today’s urban activism. Chapters range across diverse topics – gendered and embodied response to place and space, home and attachment, map-making, mindfulness in the city, outdoor group analytic therapy, the interplay between our internal and external landscapes, displacement from one country and cityscape to another, and the role of the urban therapist. These ground-breaking chapters offer new insights into our deep-rooted resonance with the landscapes we inhabit and contexts we construct. The book is illustrated throughout with original artwork by urban sketchers.

"Sustainable Landscaping For Dummies" provides hands-on, how-to instruction for realizing the benefits of a sustainable landscape from selecting sustainable hardscape materials to installing a rainwater catchment system to choosing native plants.