Urban Design

by Alex Krieger, William S. Saunders

Publisher: Univ Of Minnesota Press | Number Of Pages: 320 | Publication Date: 2009-02-17 | ISBN-10: 081665638X | PDF | 4 Mb

Fifty years ago a landmark conference at Harvard University established urban design as a distinct architectural and planning practice. Today, with the world’s urban population surpassing three billion people, urban design has become more crucial than ever. Indeed, the concerns that initially brought leading architects and city planners together—including concerns over sprawl, pollution, and aging infrastructure—have only intensified over the past half century.
In Urban Design, Alex Krieger and William S. Saunders have assembled prominent figures in architecture, planning, and landscape design to look back on the evolution of the discipline of urban design; assess the current state of the field; and anticipate the challenges posed by the unprecedented rate of urbanization, particularly in the developing world, and how the profession will need to adapt in order to confront them. The volume opens with excerpts from transcripts of the 1956 Harvard conference followed by essays that contextualize and critique its assumptions and ambitions. Subsequent essays address such topics as the social conscience of urban design and stake out the competing sensibilities in the field, from New Urbanism to avant-garde.