"The city," according to urban design scholar Gideon Golany, is "the largest and most complicated project ever produced by humankind." In Ethics and Urban Design, he challenges design professionals to reexamine their basic assumptions about the urban environment and offers design strategies based on enduring human values.

In search of answers to the paradoxical problems of the modern city, Golany takes the reader through the sweep of human settlements from the dawn of civilization to the present. His authoritative examination of the genesis of the city is illuminated by instructive examples of early urban centers. Mesopotamia, the Indus River Valley, the Egyptian cities of the Nile, and the capital cities of ancient China—all are examined in the light of what made them work as major centers of human activity.

What Golany finds in the success stories of the past are cohesive sociocultural values that shaped the design of homes, neighborhoods, and cities. These ethical values helped to maintain an equilibrium within the society that permeated its natural, social, and human-made environments. In the present era, conversely, he finds a major disconnection between human values and the ethics of technology, which has resulted in confusion, imbalance, and dehumanization.

To help designers gain a perspective on possible solutions, Golany explains leading comprehensive design strategies, including the valley theory, the urban border zone concept, and the regional concept of Patrick Geddes. In the case study of contemporary Holland, he details what a small, densely populated country has been able to achieve through design planning rooted in environmental ethics.

"Future Frontiers for Urban Design," the culminating section of this groundbreaking book, opens with Golany's vision of the future city. He examines the issues of thermal performance and climate as they relate to urban design and offers the concept of "geospace"—the earth-enveloped habitat. Buttressing his presentation with detailed information on the mechanics of geospace, Golany describes case studies of the successful use of earth-enveloped habitats in China and Tunisia. He makes a powerful argument for the geospace city as a renewal of ancient traditions that can restore the vital equilibrium between nature and human settlements that we seem to have lost.

Ethics and Urban Design is a distinguished scholar's analysis and prescription for the city; it offers an abundance of stimulating ideas for the architects, designers, and planners who have assumed responsibility for its future.

Ethics & Urban Design draws on historical examples and contemporary case studies from around the world to illustrate urban design strategies that can help restore equilibrium to the natural, social, and built environments of the city. In this stimulating book, urban design scholar Gideon Golany offers architects, designers, and planners both an in-depth analysis of the fundamental issues of urban design and practical options for the design of the future city.

• Examines the genesis and development of the city from the earliest presettlements to the rise of urban society
• Presents urban design strategies based on historical examples of early urban centers, including Mesopotamia, the Indus River Valley, Egypt, and China
• Offers case studies of environmental success stories from Europe, Asia, and Africa
• Details geospace design options—the use of underground space for diversified land use, housing, and transportation
• Fully illustrated, with over 80 photographs, drawings, and diagrams

Japan has led the world in urban innovation, design and planning, successfully combining high population with functionality, cleanliness and low levels of crime.

The Japanese Urban Environment sets out to explain the reasons for this success, showing how both natural and human-made factors influence urban life. Interdisciplinary, comprehensive and up-to-date, this major new book shows how the physical cityscape of climate, buildings and infrastructure interacts with social and cultural factors to produce a unique environment.

Divided into four parts, the volume addresses

- the social, cultural and physical determinants of the Japanese urban environment, showing how cultural values have influenced the historical evolution of cities
- the climate, energy use and leisure provision in the city from an environmental perspective
- the infrastructure of the Japanese city and its growth since the Second World War, illustrating how technical 'hardware', such as the subway systems, operates effectively because of the social, economic and cultural 'software'.
- the future of urban design in Japan, indicating the impact of national and local planning, the uses of advanced technology and methods for urban redevelopment

With contributions by a wide range of Japanese specialists, this work addresses the full complexity of the urban environment. The authors show how a dynamic synthesis of traditional Eastern socio-cultural influences with Western building and engineering techniques led to the modern Japanese city.

Edited with extensive introductions to each section by Gideon Golany, the Japanese Urban Environment makes existing Japanese scholarship available toa wider audience. Scholars and policy makers will discover remarkable insights into successful urban design which can be applied to the cities across the industrialised and newly industrialising world.

Visit any large metropolitan area in the world, and you'll feel the urgent need for innovative solutions to the many problems that face the modern urban center.
Geo-Space Urban Design offers a revolutionary proposal that will lead future urban growth quite literally in a different direction--down. Gideon Golany and Toshio Ojima clearly demonstrate that subsurface urban expansion is not only practical and feasible, but also that it can reverse many of the negative effects normally associated with urban expansion. They present a comprehensive and systematic plan for developing underground spaces for transportation, delivery systems, infrastructure, residences, shopping and commercial spaces, and social and cultural activities. The authors focus on integrating geo-space with existing above-ground structures and offer well-illustrated examples of specific design theories and methods. They also anticipate a variety of contingent issues, such as land ownership, legal rights, and psychological adjustment to underground living and working.
Three case studies of Japanese projects that use underground space for shopping, transportation, and infrastructure explore the entire spectrum of issues surrounding the design, construction, and ongoing operation of the facility, including form, function, and efficiency; health, safety, and comfort; legal issues; and special management and security considerations. Geo-space projects in Montreal and Paris are also examined.
Geo-Space Urban Design appeals to a broad range of professionals, all of whom have important roles to play in the creation and operation of the cities of the future. For urban designers, architects, and civil and architectural engineers, this book offers both an eye-opening vision and a challenge to create viable spaces that will revolutionize urban life; landscape architects, geographers, and environmentalists will find opportunities to redefine the relationship between society and the natural world; and psychologists, social scientists, and government officials will discover new levels of human adaptability, interaction, and cooperation.
In this revolutionary book, two leading figures explain how geo-space design and construction will enable urban planners to cope with the most difficult challenges posed by the continued expansion of metropolitan areas, including
* Land preservation--conserving precious agricultural land in the face of rapid urban expansion
* High urban land prices--making economical use of limited space in urban centers with soaring property values
* Efficient urban scale--shrinking overextended and inefficient utility networks
* Response to stressful climate--reducing energy consumption in regions subject to extremes of hot or cold weather

The authors explore every facet of geo-space and point out the challenges and opportunities these projects will hold for urban designers, architects, civil engineers, architectural engineers, landscape architects, geographers, environmentalists, psychologists, social scientists, and government officials.