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This book is about the relation between scientific research and professional practice on the built environment. The physical form of cities is structured in different elements of urban form. Each of these elements, and the way they are combined into distinct patterns, is shaped by various agents and processes of change. Planning, urban design and architecture are practice-oriented activities that have a significant impact on these elements. Yet, this ‘action’ on the physical form if cities tends to be separated from scientific ‘knowledge’ on this complex object. In fact, none of these activities is strongly related to urban morphology, the science of urban form. There are many reason...
Wednesday 12th June 1940. The Times reported 'thousands upon thousands of Parisians leaving the capital by every possible means, preferring to abandon home and property rather than risk even temporary Nazi domination'. As Hitler's victorious armies approached Paris, the French government abandoned the city and its people, leaving behind them an atmosphere of panic. Roads heading south filled with ordinary people fleeing for their lives with whatever personal possessions they could carry, often with no particular destination in mind. During the long, hard journey, this mass exodus of predominantly women, children, and the elderly, would face constant bombings, machine gun attacks, and even st...
EcoResponsive Environments integrates our current knowledge of designing for human needs, with a deeper understanding of natural systems. The book offers both a call to action and a comprehensive yet pragmatic framework for practising the art and science of settlement design, called EcoResponsive Design. Bridging the gap between theory and generic policy on the one hand, and design for specific places and sites on the other, the book is aimed not only at the professionals involved in planning, designing and developing these places, but also the wider range of communities interested in creating better spaces for our everyday lives. EcoResponsive Design encompasses all scales, ranging from the...
Ebenezer Howard, an Englishman, and Jane Jacobs, a naturalized Canadian, personify the twentieth century's opposing outlooks on cities. Howard had envisaged small towns, newly built from scratch, fashioned on single family homes with small gardens. Jacobs embraced existing inner-city neighbourhoods emphasizing the verve of the living street. From Howard's idea, the American Dream of garden suburbs had emerged, yet his conceptualization of a modern city received criticism for being uniform and alienated from the rest of the city. Similarly, at the turn of the new century, Jacobs' inner-city neighbourhoods came to be recognized as the result of commodification, vacillating between poverty and ...
This book is a visual guide to the territorial dynamics operating within a territory. The reading of such dynamics is fundamental in understanding the role of food in cities. This atlas provides a refreshing approach to the study of the city and of its territory, expanded from the perspective of the food system. This book illustrates the impacts of urban planning options on the function of the contemporary Food System of the Lisbon Region, while disclosing its associated urban form solutions. It provides a possible methodology for the reading of the food system based on an analysis of planning instruments and their morphological outcomes, both in the territory but also on the various built f...
'This is a textbook about cities or, more precisely, about the physical form of cities. It provides an overview of the main elements of urban form—streets, street blocks, plots and buildings—structuring our cities and the fundamental agents and processes of transformation shaping these elements. It applies this analytical framework to describe the evolution of cities over history as well as to explain the functioning of contemporary cities. After the initial focus on the 'object' (cities), the book introduces how different schools of thought have been dealing with this object since the emergence of Urban Morphology, as the science of urban form, in the turning to the twentieth century. F...
This is a book about cities or, more precisely, about the physical form of cities. It starts presenting the main elements of urban form – streets, urban blocks, plots and buildings – structuring our cities and the fundamental actors and processes of transformation shaping these elements. It then applies this analytical framework to describe the evolution of cities over history as well as to explain the functioning of contemporary cities. After the initial focus on the ‘object’ (cities) the book describes how different researchers and different schools of thought have been dealing with this object since the emergence of Urban Morphology, as the science of urban form, in the turning to the twentieth century. Finally, the book tries to identify what are the most important (and specific) contributions that Urban Morphology has to offer to contemporary cities, societies and economies.
Clearly demonstrates the specific characteristics that make for comprehensible, friendly and controllable places; 'Responsive Environments' - as opposed to the alienating environments often imposed today. By means of sketches and diagrams, it shows how they may be designed in to places or buildings. This is a practical book about architecture and urban design. It is most concerned with the areas of design which most frequently go wrong and impresses the idea that ideals alone are not enough. Ideals must be linked through appropriate design ideas to the fabric of the built environemnt itself. This book is a practical attempt to show how this can be done.
The last two centuries have been the scene of dramatic change throughout Europe. And one of the main causes of these tremendous and spectacular changes was the economy. These transformations were achieved by people: scientists and political thinkers, inventors and entrepreneurs, educators, skilled and educated workers. Who not only invented machines and computers, but were able to renew economic and political systems. This volume, therefore, presents a new approach to the period by looking at case studies to understand how these changes came about and the impact they had on modern Europe. Ivan Berend presents the spectacular history of modern European economy as a chain of "small" events, ac...