These days human beings have a profound influence on aspects of the planetary ecosystem, e.g. on climate change and biodiversity, to name only two. This manual is intended to help practitioners, who are dealing with human-based rural and urban settlement-ecosystems, in the key steps towards their realization (design, implementation, and operation) and helpful for all, who are concerned about ensuring their practical sustainability. The ecosystem-approach is holistic and integrative, encompassing various disciplines like architecture, landscape architecture, environmental engineering, social sciences, life sciences, ecology, and management. It also considers issues such as energy-savings, ecological cycles, reuse, natural resources, socio-cultural background, real participation, and holistic quality management. Thus it not only explains the general concept, the steps of realization and the respective involved stakeholders, but also gives hints and tools for practitioners. The information, recommendations and tools are directed to the following target groups, among others: * Local planning authorities (giving hints for the procedure and the involved stakeholders) * Designers (holistic approach, procedures, tools) * Regulatory bodies, licensing and financing authorities (requirements for approach and procedures) * Construction and implementing firms and institutions (recommendations, tools) * Operating bodies (hints for operation, tools) The experiences are based on a joint German-Ghanaian program at Valley View University, the biggest private university in Ghana, intended to help realize the vision of a truly holistic ecological university. It was financed originally by the German Ministry of Education and Research and recently by the German Ministry for the Environment in the frame of the Climate Change Initiative of the Federal Government of Germany.

This study examines how nineteenth-century industrial Lancashire became a leading national and international art centre. By the end of the century almost every major town possessed an art gallery, while Lancashire art schools and artists were recognised at home and abroad. The book documents the remarkable rise of visual art across the county, along with the rise of the commercial and professional classes who supported it. It examines how Lancashire looked to great civilisations of the past for inspiration while also embracing new industrial technologies and distinctively modern art movements. This volume will be essential reading for all those with an interest in the new industrial society of the nineteenth century, from art lovers and collectors to urban and social historians. -- .

In the wake of the Occupy Wall Street movement, leading planers and social scientists examine public space today and freedom of assembly. The Occupy Wall Street movement has challenged the physical manifestation of the First Amendment rights to freedom of assembly. Where and how can people congregate today? Forty social scientists, planners, architects, and civil liberties experts explore the definition, use, role, and importance of public space for the exercise of our democratic rights to free expression. The book also discusses whose voice is heard and what factors limit the participation of minorities in Occupy activities. This foundational work puts issues of democracy and civic engagement back into the center of dialogue about the built environment. Beyond Zuccotti Park is a collaborative effort of Pratt Graduate Center for Planning and the Environment, City College of New York School of Architecture, New Village Press and its parent organization, Architects/Designers/Planners for Social Responsibility. The book is part of an open civic inquiry on the part of these organizations. The project was seeded by a series of free public forums, Freedom of Assembly: Public Space Today, held at the Center for Architecture in response to the forced clearance of Occupy activities from Zuccotti Park and public plazas throughout the country. The first two recorded programs took place on December 17, 2011 and February 4, 2012.

Mindy Thompson Fullilove presents ways to strengthen neighborhood connectivity and empower marginalized communities through investigation of urban segregation from a social heath perspective. "Fullilove passionately demonstrates how, through an urbanity of inclusion, we can heal our fractured cities to make them whole again. What if divided neighborhoods were causing public health problems? What if a new approach to planning and design could tackle both the built environment and collective well-being at the same time? What if cities could help each other? Dr. Mindy Thompson Fullilove, the acclaimed author of Root Shock, uses her unique perspective as a public health psychiatrist to explore and identify ways of healing social and spatial fractures simultaneously. Using the work of French urbanist Michel Cantal-Dupart and the American urban design firm Rothschild Doyno Collaborative as guides as well as urban restoration projects from France and the US as exemplary cases, Fullilove identifies nine tools that can mend our broken cities and reconnect our communities to make them whole.

The Middle Ages was a time of great upheaval - the period between the seventh and fourteenth centuries saw great social, political and economic change. The radically distinct cultures of the Christian West, Byzantium, Persian-influenced Islam, and al-Andalus resulted in different responses to the garden arts of antiquity and different attitudes to the natural world and its artful manipulation. Yet these cultures interacted and communicated, trading plants, myths and texts. By the fifteenth century the garden as a cultural phenomenon was immensely sophisticated and a vital element in the way society saw itself and its relation to nature. A Cultural History of Gardens in the Medieval Age presents an overview of the period with essays on issues of design, types of gardens, planting, use and reception, issues of meaning, verbal and visual representation of gardens, and the relationship of gardens to the larger landscape.

When Seon (Zen) Buddhism was first introduced to Korea around Korea's late Silla and early Goryeo eras, the function of the "beopdang" (Dharma hall) was transfused to the lecture hall found in ancient Buddhist temples, establishing a pivotal area within the temple compound called the "upper monastic area." By exploring the structural formation and dissolution of the upper monastic area, the author shows how Korea established its own distinctive Seon temples, unlike those of China and Japan, in the course of assimilating a newly-introduced foreign culture as its own. To accomplish this, the author analyzed the inscriptions on stone monuments which recorded the lives of eminent monks and also numerous excavated temple ruins. These analyses give us a new perspective on the evolution of the upper monastic area, which had the beopdang as its center, at a time when early Seon temples were being established under very adverse and unstable circumstances. The exploration of the spatial organization and layout of Korean Seon temple architecture has illuminated the continuity between Korean Buddhist temples of both the ancient and medieval eras.

This book shows that the problem of climate adaptation, which is described in social planning terms as 'wicked,' is at odds with the contemporary practice of spatial planning. The author proposes a new adjusted framework which is more adaptable to unpredictable, wicked, dynamic and non-linear processes. The inspiration for this new method is the behaviour of swarms: bees, ants, birds and fish are capable of self-organization, which enables the system to become less vulnerable to sudden environmental changes. The framework proposed in Swarm Planning consists of these four elements: Two levels of complexity, the first being the whole system and the second its individual components. Each of these has different attributes for adapting to change. Five layers, consisting of networks, focal points, unplanned space, natural resources and emerging occupation patterns. Each layer has its own spatial dynamic, and each is connected to a spatial scale. Non-linear processes, which emerge in different parts of the framework and include emerging patterns, connectedness and tipping points among others. Two planning processes; the first, 'from small to large' works upward from the slowest changing elements to more rapidly-changing ones. The second, 'on the list of partners' addresses each layer from networks through emerging occupation patterns. Swarm Planning applies this framework to a series of pilot studies, and appraises its performance using criteria for an adaptive landscape. The results show that the use of the Swarm Planning Framework reduces the vulnerability of landscapes as well as the impact of climate hazards and disasters, improves response to unexpected hazards and contains adaptation strategies. "This book is a must for planners in government and the private sector as it outlines the concept, strategies and techniques for swarm planning. It is also an important guide for policymakers looking to engage communities in a dialogue about the adaptation planning process." Professor John Martin, La Trobe University "The ultimate value of the book lies in encouraging the planning community to consider options that go far beyond those offered by business-as-usual planning methodologies developed for a set of operating conditions that are fast becoming obsolete. As such it makes an important and much needed contribution to the field." Assistant Professor Dr. Chrisna du Plessis, University of Pretoria

This collection of case studies by design educators critically explores the current practice of service-learning in architecture, landscape design, and urban planning, radically revising the standard protocol for university-initiated design and planning projects in the community. The authors' lively examination of real-life community collaborations forms a pedagogical framework for educators, professionals, and students alike, offering guidelines for a generative and inclusive collaborative design process.

This timely book introduces architects, engineers, builders, and urban planners to a range of contemporary community design concepts and illustrates them with outstanding case studies from around the world. Drawing on successful projects from London, New Mexico, Austria, and the Netherlands, "Innovative Sustainable Communities" presents planning concepts that minimize developments' carbon footprint through compact communities, adaptable and expandable dwellings, edible landscape, and smaller-sized yet quality designed housing.

Soft City Culture and Technology: The Betaville Project discusses the complete cycle of conception, development, and deployment of the Betaville platform.

Betaville is a massively participatory online environment for distributed 3D design and development of proposals for changes to the built environment an experimental integration of art, design, and software development for the public realm. Through a detailed account of Betaville from a Big Crazy Idea to a working "deep social medium," the author examines the current conditions of performance and accessibility of hardware, software, networks, and skills that can be brought together into a new form of open public design and deliberation space, for and spanning and integrating the disparate spheres of art, architecture, social media, and engineering.

Betaville is an ambitious enterprise, of building compelling and constructive working relationships in situations where roles and disciplinary boundaries must be as agile as the development process of the software itself. Through a considered account and analysis of the interdependencies between Betaville's project design, development methods, and deployment, the reader can gain a deeper understanding of the potential socio-technical forms of New Soft Cities: blended virtual-physical worlds, whose "public works" must ultimately serve and succeed as massively collaborative works of art and infrastructure."

This book explores the moving qualities of mountains by utilising theories, ideas and processes which contribute to a larger understanding of these geological forms. In highlighting the fluid attributes of mountains the authors offer an alternative to the traditional approach of the sciences and the humanities, which address mountains as static geological or geographical features. The essays in this collection posit that movement impacts the relationship between society and mountains - travelling landscape objects, constructing design and artistic translations, climbing and experiencing changing atmospheres and the different ways of seeing from mountain peaks - and that physical, intellectual and spiritual motion is integral to their understanding. This innovative collection will be of great interest to scholars of geography, art, architecture, history, theology and philosophy.

In recent years, many countries all over Europe have witnessed a demand for a more direct form of democracy, ranging from improved clarity of information to being directly involved in decision-making procedures. Increasingly, governments are putting citizen participation at the centre of their policy objectives, striving for more transparency, to engage and empower local individuals and communities to collaborate on public projects and to encourage self-organization. This book explores the role of participatory design in keeping these participatory processes public. It addresses four specific lines of enquiry: how can the use and/or development of technologies and social media help to diversify, to coproduce, to interrupt and to document democratic design experiments? Aimed at researchers and academics in the fields of urban planning and participatory design, this book includes contributions from a range of experts across Europe including the UK, Belgium, the Netherlands, Italy, Denmark, Austria, Spain, France, Romania, Hungary and Finland.

This book explores how Malaysia, as a multicultural modern nation, has approached issues of nationalism and regionalism in terms of physical expression of the built environment. Ever since the nation's post-Colonial era, architects and policy makers have grappled with the theoretical and practical outcomes of creating public architecture that effectively responds to traditions, nationhood and modernity. The authors compile and analyse prevailing ideas and strategies, present case studies in architectural language and form, and introduce the reader to tensions arising between a nationalist agenda and local 'regionalist' architectural language. These dichotomies represent the very nature of multicultural societies and issues with identity; a challenge that various nations across the globe face in a changing environment. This topical and pertinent volume will appeal to students and scholars of urban planning, architecture and the modern city.

This book makes a significant contribution to the history of placemaking, presenting grassroots to top-down practices and socially engaged, situated artistic practices and artsled spatial inquiry that go beyond instrumentalising the arts for development. The book brings together a range of scholars to critique and deconstruct the notion of creative placemaking, presenting diverse case studies from researcher, practitioner, funder and policymaker perspectives from across the globe. It opens with the creators of the 2010 White Paper that named and defined creative placemaking, Ann Markusen and Anne Gadwa Nicodemus, who offer a cortically reflexive narrative on the founding of the sector and its development. This book looks at vernacular creativity in place, a topic continued through the book with its focus on the practitioner and community-placed projects. It closes with a consideration of aesthetics, metrics and, from the editors, a consideration of the next ten years for the sector. If creative placemaking is to contribute to places-in-the-making and encourage citizenled agency, new conceptual frameworks and practical methodologies are required. This book joins theorists and practitioners in dialogue, advocating for transdisciplinary, resilient processes.

It is clear that the climate is changing and ecosystems are becoming severely degraded. Humans must mitigate the causes of, and adapt to, climate change and the loss of biodiversity, as the impacts of these changes become more apparent and demand urgent responses. These pressures, combined with rapid global urbanisation and population growth mean that new ways of designing, retrofitting and living in cities are critically needed. Incorporating an understanding of how the living world works and what ecosystems do into architectural and urban design is a step towards the creation and evolution of cities that are radically more sustainable and potentially regenerative. Can cities produce their own food, energy, and water? Can they be designed to regulate climate, provide habitat, cycle nutrients, and purify water, air and soil? This book examines and defines the field of biomimicry for sustainable built environment design and goes on to translate ecological knowledge into practical methodologies for architectural and urban design that can proactively respond to climate change and biodiversity loss. These methods are tested and exemplified through a series of case studies of existing cities in a variety of climates. Regenerative Urban Design and Ecosystem Biomimicry will be of great interest to students, professionals and researchers of architecture, urban design, ecology, and environmental studies, as well as those interested in the interdisciplinary study of sustainability, ecology and urbanism.

PUMIAO 1. The Subject Matter: Urban Public Places 2. The Location: Asia Pacific Region 3. The Purpose of the'"Book: For the Makers of Public Places 4. The Three Perspectives of the Book: Description, Criticism, and Intervention 5. Perspective One: Characteristics of Asia Pacific Cities and Their Public Places (1) High Population Density (2) Large Cities (3) Mixed Uses (4) Government-Centered and Pro-Development Culture (5) The East-versus-West Bipolarity (6) Small Amount of Public Space (7) Absence of Large Nodes and Overall Structure in Public Space (8) Intensive Use of Public Space (9) Ambiguous Boundary between the Public and the Private Summaries of Chapters 1-5 6. Perspective Two: Current Issues and Debates (1) Identity Formal Identity Functional Identity (2) Sustainability High-Tech versus Low-Tech High-Density versus Low-Density (3) Equality Equal Participation Equal Accessibility Summaries of Chapters 6-9 7. Perspective Three: Major Trends in Design and Theory (1) The "Grey" Relationship between the Public and the Private (2) The Transformation of Traditional Typology (3) Indigenous Decoration, Color and Material in New Applications (4) The Tropical Public Place Summaries of Chapters 10-17 8. Conclusion Pu Miao (ed. ), Public Places in Asia Pacific Cities, 1-45. (c) 2001 Kluwer Academic Publishers. 2 P. MIAO 1. The Subject Matter: Urban Public Places A visitor to Kuala Lumpur will hardly forget the experience of strolling among the fragrant fruits sold under the overhang of the five-foot walkway during a tropical downfall.

Business Principles for Landscape Contracting, fully revised and updated in its third edition, is an introduction to the application of business principles of financial management involved in setting up your own landscape contracting business and beginning your professional career. Appealing to students and professionals alike, it will build your knowledge of financial management tools and enable you to relate their applications to real-life business scenarios. Focusing on the importance of proactive financial management, the book serves as a primer for students in landscape architecture, contracting, and management courses and entrepreneurs within the landscape industry preparing to use business principles in practice. Topics covered include: Financial management and accountability Budget development Profitable pricing and estimating Project management Creating a lean culture Personnel management and employee productivity Professional development Economic sustainability.

The book proposes a set of original contributions in research areas shared by planning theory, architectural research, design and ethical inquiry. The contributors gathered in 2010 at the Ethics of the Built Environment seminar organized by the editors at Delft University of Technology. Both prominent and emerging scholars presented their researches in the areas of aesthetics, technological risks, planning theory and architecture. The scope of the seminar was highlighting shared lines of ethical inquiry among the themes discussed, in order to identify perspectives of innovative interdisciplinary research. After the seminar all seminar participants have elaborated their proposed contributions. Some of the most prominent international authors in the field were subsequently invited to join in with this inquiry.

Claudia Basta teaches "Network Infrastructures and Mobility" at Wageningen University. Between 2009 and 2011 she worked as Coordinator of the 3TU Centre of Excellence for Ethics and Technology of Delft University, where she completed her post-doc research on the shared areas of investigation between risk theories, planning theories and ethical inquiry. Her main research interests concern the matter of assessing and governing technological risks in relation to sustainable land use planning. She wrote a number of journal articles and contributions to collective books on these themes.

Stefano Moroni teaches Land use ethics and the law at Milan Politecnico. His main research interests concern planning theory and ethics. He is the author of a number of books and journal articles. Recent publications (as co-author): "Contractual Communities in the Self-Organizing City" (Springer 2012).

This book is an ideal complement to studies showing the potentially devastating ecological effects of climate change, studies trying to calculate the costs of climate change, and studies trying to identify the most pressing needs in preparing for the new climate.