Category: Urban Theory

The Social Life of Small Urban Spaces, William H. Whyte, 2001(reprint of 1980)

http://www.amazon.com/Social-Life-Small-Urban-Spaces/dp/097063241X/ref=pd_sim_b_4

Chapter 1: The Life of Plazas

Chapter 2: Sitting Space

Chapter 3: Sun, Wind, Trees, Water

Chapter 4: Food

Chapter 5: The Street

Chapter 6: The “Undesirables”

Chapter 7: Effective Capacity

Chapter 8: Indoor Spaces

Chapter 9: Concourses and Megastructures

Chapter 10: Smaller Cities and Places

Chapter 11: Triangulation

Appendix A: Time-Lapse Filming

Appendix B: Digest of Open-Space Zoning Provisions, New York City

 

 

Product Description

In 1980, William H. Whyte published the findings from his revolutionary Street Life Project in The Social Life of Small Urban Spaces. Both the book and the accompanying film were instantly labeled classics, and launched a mini-revolution in the planning and study of public spaces. They have since become standard texts, and appear on syllabi and reading lists in urban planning, sociology, environmental design, and architecture departments around the world.Project for Public Spaces, which grew out of Holly’s Street Life Project and continues his work around the world, has acquired the reprint rights to Social Life, with the intent of making it available to the widest possible audience and ensuring that the Whyte family receive their fair share of Holly’s legacy.

About the Author

William H. Whyte was born in West Chester, Pennsylvania in 1917. He joined the staff of Fortune in 1946, after graduating from Princeton University and serving in the Marine Corps. His book The Organization Man (1956), based on his articles about corporate culture and the suburban middle class, sold more than two million copies. Whyte then turned to the topics of sprawl and urban revitalization, and began a distinguished career as a sage of sane development and an advocate of cities. Along with numerous articles and studies, Whyte edited and co-wrote The Exploding Metropolis (1957), and authored Cluster Development (1964), The Last Landscape (1968), The Social Life of Small Urban Spaces (1980), City: Rediscovering the Center (1988), and A Time of War: Remembering Guadalcanal, a Battle Without Maps (2000). He died in 1999.

The Death and Life of Great American Cities, Jane Jacobs, (first published in 1961)

http://www.amazon.com/Death-Life-Great-American-Cities/dp/067974195X/ref=pd_bxgy_b_text_b

From Wikipedia

The Death and Life of Great American Cities, by Jane Jacobs, is a greatly influential book on the subject of urban planning in the 20th century. First published in 1961, the book is a critique of modernist planning policies claimed by Jacobs to be destroying many existing inner-city communities. Reserving her most vitriolic criticism for the “rationalist” planners (specifically Robert Moses) of the 1950s and 1960s, Jacobs argued that modernist urban planning rejects the city, because it rejects human beings living in a community characterized by layered complexity and seeming chaos. The modernist planners used deductive reasoning to find principles by which to plan cities. Among these policies the most violent was urban renewal; the most prevalent was and is the separation of uses (i.e. residential, industrial, commercial). These policies, she claimed, destroy communities and innovative economies by creating isolated, unnatural urban spaces. Read more – Shopping-Enabled Wikipedia on Amazon

In the article: Bibliography

Review

“The most refreshing, provacative, stimulating and exciting study of this [great problem] which I have seen. It fairly crackles with bright honesty and common sense.”—Harrison Salisbury, The New York Times”One of the most remarkable books ever written about the city… a primary work. The research apparatus is not pretentious—it is the eye and the heart—but it has given us a magnificent study of what gives life and spirit to the city.”—William H. Whyte, author of The Organization Man

The image of the city, Kevin Lynch, 1960

about Kevin Lynch

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kevin_A._Lynch

Review by UCSB

http://www.csiss.org/classics/content/62

Short film

http://youtu.be/iuWPCNIj_rA

Contents

  • I: The Image of the Environment
    • Legibility
    • Building the image
    • Structure and Identity
    • Imageability
  • II: Three Cities
    • Boston
    • Jersey City
    • Los Angeles
    • Common Themes
  • III: The City Image and Its Elements
    • Paths
    • Edges
    • Districts
    • Nodes
    • Landmarks
    • Element Interrelations
    • The Shifting Image
    • Image Quality
  • IV: City Form
    • Designing the Paths
    • Design of Other Elements
    • From Qualities
    • The Sense of the Whole
    • Metropolitan Form
    • The Process of Design
  • V: A New Scale

Appendices

  • A: Some References to Orientation
    • Types of Reference Systems
    • Formation of the Image
    • The Role of Form
    • Disadvantages of Imageability
  • B: The Use of the Method
    • The Method as the Basis for Design
    • Directions for Future Research
  • C: Two Examples of Analysis
    • Beacon Hill
    • Scollay Square
  • Bibliography

What’s a city, Lewis Mumford, Architectural Record, 1937

Lewis Mumford, “What is a City?”, from

Richard T. LeGates and  Frederic Stout, The City Reader. London:Routledge, 1996.

5th paragraph

The physical organization of the city may deflate this drama or make it frustrate; or it may, through the deliberate efforts of art, politics, and education, make the drama more richly significant, as a stage-set, well-designed, intensifıes and underlines the gestures of the actors and the action ofthe play.

Lewis Mumford, 1895-1990

Mumford, The Culture of Cities, 1938

The City in History: Its Origins, Its Transformations, and Its Prospects, 1961

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_City_in_History

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lewis_Mumford

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lewis_Mumford#Urban_civilization

In his influential book The City in History, which won the National Book Award, Mumford explores the development of urban civilizations. Harshly critical of urban sprawl, Mumford argues that the structure of modern cities is partially responsible for many social problems seen in western society. While pessimistic in tone, Mumford argues that urban planning should emphasize an organic relationship between people and their living spaces.

Mumford uses the example of the medieval city as the basis for the “ideal city,” and claims that the modern city is too close to the Roman city (the sprawling megalopolis) which ended in collapse; if the modern city carries on in the same vein, Mumford argues, then it will meet the same fate as the Roman city.

Mumford wrote critically of urban culture believing the city is “a product of earth … a fact of nature … man’s method of expression.”[6] Further Mumford recognized the crises facing urban culture, distrusting of the growing finance industry, political structures, fearful that a local community culture was not being fostered by these institutions. Mumford feared “metropolitan finance,” urbanisation, politics, and alienation.

“The physical design of cities and their economic functions are secondary to their relationship to the natural environment and to the spiritual values of human community.”

Celebrating the Third Place: Inspiring Stories About the “Great Good Places” at the Heart of Our Communities, Ray Oldenburg, 2002

http://www.amazon.com/Celebrating-Third-Place-Inspiring-Communities/dp/1569246122/ref=pd_sim_b_1

From Publishers Weekly

Sociologist Oldenburg (The Great, Good Place) offers a compilation of essays on those places in America “where everybody knows your name.” What Oldenburg calls “the third place” is different from home and work (the first and second places respectively) it’s somewhere people can relax in good company on a regular basis. In this collection of 19 essays, proprietors and patrons of those third places describe how their establishments came into being and what exactly gives them their appeal. These third places aren’t just diners and coffeehouses: there are establishments as disparate as Annie’s Gift and Garden Shop, in Amherst, Mass., whose witty and provocative billboards provide a jumping-off point for conversation within the community, and Old St. George, an espresso bar located within a church’s sacristy in Cleveland, Ohio. There’s also the “great good gym” and, perhaps most surprising, an essay claiming prison to be the third place for many disadvantaged in American society. These charming and often thought-provoking essays, each written in a voice distinct as the place discussed, provide food for thought into the isolation our modern conveniences bring and people’s need to come together as a community. This book will strike a comforting chord for those questioning the status quo and desiring to live a more authentic and connected way of life. 

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

 

Product Description

Nationwide, more and more entrepreneurs are committing themselves to creating and running “third places,” also known as “great good places.” In his landmark work, The Great Good Place, Ray Oldenburg identified, portrayed, and promoted those third places. Now, more than ten years after the original publication of that book, the time has come to celebrate the many third places that dot the American landscape and foster civic life. With 20 black-and-white photographs, Celebrating the Third Place brings together fifteen firsthand accounts by proprietors of third places, as well as appreciations by fans who have made spending time at these hangouts a regular part of their lives. Among the establishments profiled are a shopping center in Seattle, a three-hundred-year-old tavern in Washington, D.C., a garden shop in Amherst, Massachusetts, a coffeehouse in Raleigh, North Carolina, a bookstore in Traverse City, Michigan, and a restaurant in San Francisco.

Urban Open Space: Designing For User Needs, Marc Francis, 2003

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1559631139

Product Description

Research has shown that successful public spaces are ones that are responsive to the needs of their users, are democratic in their accessibility, and are meaningful for the larger community and society. While considerable research has been done on needs and conflicts in open space, no one document integrates all this knowledge and makes it available to professionals, students, and researchers.

  • Foreword
  • Urban open space: Case study in land and community design
  • Introduction: Designing for user needs
    • P4
      • Parks, plazas, streets, community gardens, and greenways (Carr et al. 1992; Lynch 1972)
      • The life between buildings(1987;Gehl and Gemoze 1996)
      • Third places(Ray Oldenburg 1989)
    • P6 A Typology of Urban Open Spaces
  • The LAF case study method
  • Urban open spaces: Why some work and others don’t
      • P14 Why Public Spaces Fail
      • P15 Principles of Creating Great Public Spaces
    • The research on urban parks and open space
      • P19 Case Studies of User Needs in Open Space
        • Issue based case studies
        • Place-based case studies
        • Case studies of types of open space
      • User Needs
      • Comfort
      • Relaxation
      • Passive Engagement
      • Active Engagement
      • Discovery
      • Fun
      • User Conflicts
      • Safety / Security
      • Abuse
      • Conflicts Between User Groups
      • Cultural Differences
      • Gender Conflicts
      • Ability
      • Privatization of Public Space
      • Conflicts Between Use and Ecology
  • Design, development, and decision making.
  • Bryant park: a case study of designing of public spaces
  • Community Participation
    • The landscape architect’s role
    • Approaches to maintenance and management
  • Evaluating the needs and limitations of public spaces
    • The literature on user needs in urban open space
    • Critical reviews
      • ..for example, Project for Public Spaces in New York City (2000) states that places should be created, “not just designed”. Three of their ‘Eleven Steps to Transforming Public Spaces into Great Community Places’ emphasize programming over design and the evolving nature of good open spaces.
    • Why design urban spaces?
    • Limitations and problems
    • Principles of public places
    • Design and Management recommendations for public open space
      • source: Project for Public Spaces, How to Turn a Place Around, 2000, p86-93
    • Issues and Research for the Future

  • Conclusions and recommendations
  • Bibliography
  • Websites and Listservs
  • Photo Credits
  • Sources of Information
  • Index
  • About the author

 

 

 

Product Description

Research has shown that successful public spaces are ones that are responsive to the needs of their users, are democratic in their accessibility, and are meaningful for the larger community and society. While considerable research has been done on needs and conflicts in open space, no one document integrates all this knowledge and makes it available to professionals, students, and researchers.

Based on archival research; published case studies; site visits; and interviews with researchers, open space designers, managers, and users, Urban Open Space looks across several seminal studies to glean significant findings and design implications related to user needs and conflicts. It reviews and identifies those critical user needs that must be considered in the planning, design, and management of outdoor spaces, and synthesizes that knowledge into an accessible and useful document.

 

About the Author

Mark Francis, a Fellow of the American Society of Landscape Architects, is professor of landscape architecture at the University of California, Davis, and senior design consultant with MIG in Berkeley and Davis. Trained in landscape architecture and urban design at Berkeley and Harvard, he is author of more than sixty articles and book chapters translated into a dozen languages. His books include Community Open Spaces (Island Press, 1984), The Meaning of Gardens (MIT, 1990), Public Space (Cambridge, 1992), and The California Landscape Garden Ecology, Culture and Design (California, 1999). His work has focused on the use and meaning of the built and natural landscape. Much of this research has utilized a case study approach to study parks, gardens, public spaces, streets, nearby nature, and urban public life.

Public Places Urban Spaces,2nd Ed: The Dimentions of Urban Design, Matthew Caroma,et al, 2010

http://www.amazon.com/Public-Places-Urban-Spaces-Second/dp/1856178277/ref=dp_ob_title_bk

Review

…a thorough and workman-like reference for anyone seeking a deeper understanding of urban design.
Architect’s Journal‘This will become the standard textbook on its subject, and deservedly so.’
Robert Cowan, Director, Urban Design Group, UK. –This text refers to the Kindle Edition edition.

 

Product Description

Public Places Urban Spaces 2e is a thorough introduction to the principles of urban design theory and practice. Authored by experts in the fields of urban design and planning, it is designed specifically for the 2500 postgraduate students on Urban Design courses in the UK, and 1500 students on undergraduate courses in the same subject.The second edition of this tried and trusted textbook has been updated with relevant case studies to show students how principles have been put into practice. The book is now in full colour and a larger format, so students and lecturers get a much stronger visual package and easy to use layout, enabling them to more easily practically apply principles of urban design to their projects.

Sustainability is the driving factor in urban regeneration and new urban development, and the new edition is focused on best sustainable design and practice. Public Places Urban Spaces is a must-have purchase for those on urban design courses and for professionals who want to update and refresh their knowledge.

. Tried and tested textbook in urban design, giving a comprehensive introduction to the principles and theory of urban design
. New and key focus on trends in sustainable design
. Now full colour to better visually demonstrate to students the application of design principles

Space and Place: The Perspective of Experience, Yi-Fu Tuan, 1977

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yi-Fu_Tuan

Space/Place Definitions

In Space and Place : The Perspective of Experience, Tuan contends that a space requires a movement from a place to another place. Similarly, a place requires a space to be a place. Hence, the two notions are co-dependent.


Geography

On the 25th anniversary of its publication, a new edition of this foundational work on human geography.

In the twenty years since its original publication, Space and Place has not only established the discipline of human geography, but it has proven influential in such diverse fields as theatre, literature, anthropology, psychology, and theology. Eminent geographer Yi-Fu Tuan considers the ways in which people feel and think about space, how they form attachments to home, neighborhood, and nation, and how feelings about space and place are affected by the sense of time. He suggests that place is security and space is freedom: we are attached to the one and long for the other. Whether he is considering sacred versus “biased” space, mythical space and place, time in experiential space, or cultural attachments to space, Tuan’s analysis is thoughtful and insightful throughout.

Until retiring in 1998, Yi-Fu Tuan was a professor of geography at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He is ranked among the country’s most distinguished cultural geographers and has earned numerous honors, among them a Guggenheim Fellowship, the Bracken Award for landscape architecture, and an award for meritorious contribution to geography from the Association of American Geographers. He was recently named the Lauréat d’Honneur 2000 of the International Geographers Union. He is the author of many essays and books, including Escapism (1998) and Cosmos and Hearth (Minnesota, 1999).

Sentient City, Mark Shepard(ed), 2011

Definition of Sentient City by Mark Shepard

“dataclouds of 21st century urban space” that shape the experience of those in it.

Book

  • Introduction: Mark Shepard
  • Toward the sentient city: Mark Shepard
  • Systems, Objectified: Hadas Steiner
  • Case Studies
    • New Interaction Partners for environmental governance:
      • Amphibious Architecture:
        • David Benjamin and Soo-in Yang (The Living) and Natalie Jaremijenko (xDesign Environmental Health Clinic)
    • Structuring Participation for an Energy Commons
      • Natural Fuse:
        • Usman Haque, Nitipak ‘Dot’ Samsen, Ai Hasegawa (Haque Design+Research)
    • Urban Digestive Systems
      • Trash Track:
        • MIT SENSEable City Lab
    • An International Failure for the Near Future
      • Too Smart City:
        • David Jimison and JooYoun Paek
    • Situating Knowledge Work in Contemporary Public Spaces
      • Breakout!: Escape from the Office:
        • Anthony Townsend, Antonina Simeti, Dana Spiegal, Laura Forlano, and Tony Bacigalupo
  • Essays
    • The Action is the Form: Keller Eastering
    • Interaction Anxieties: Omar Kahn
    • New Spatial Intelligence, or the Tree allowed to grow freely, but to man’s pattern: Dan Hill
    • Boxes Towards Bananas: Dispersal, Intelligence and Animal Structures: Matthew Fuller
    • Unsettling Topographic Representation: Saskia Sassen
    • The Urban Culture of Sentient Cities: From an Internet of Things to a Public Sphere of Things: Martijn de Waal
      • http://www.smartplanet.com/blog/smart-takes/in-a-sentient-city-what-is-public-or-private/16343
    • Space, Finance, and New Technologies: Kazys Varnelis
    • Your Mobility for Sale: Trebor Scholz
    • Comforts, Crisis, and the Rise of DIY Urbanism: Mimi Zeiger
    • Toward the Sentient City: Expecting the Extensible and Transmissible City: Anne Galloway
    • Postscript: Notes on Survival in the Sentient City: Mark Shepard

Exhibition

 

Blog article

http://www.cityofsound.com/blog/2009/10/toward-the-sentient-city.html