During his three terms as mayor of Curitiba, Brazil in the 1970s and '80s, architect and urbanist Jaime Lerner transformed his city into a global model of the sustainable and livable community. From the pioneering Bus Rapid Transit system to parks designed to catch runoff and reduce flooding, and the creation of pedestrian-only zones, Lerner ......
The first Danish language version of this book, published in 1971, was very much a protest against the functionalistic principles for planning cities and residential areas that prevailed during that period. The book carried an appeal to show concern for the people who were to move about between buildings, and it urged an understanding of the ......
Modern city dwellers are largely detached from the environmental effects of their daily lives. The sources of the water they drink, the food they eat, and the energy they consume are all but invisible, often coming from other continents, and their waste ends up in places beyond their city boundaries.
In the early nineteenth century, Edinburgh (known as Auld Reekie) came to be regarded as the Athens of the North. Why was this? How was the notion invented? What were its consequences? Topography, architectural development, literary and social history are all examined in a quest to give meaning to an epithet known by many but understood by few.
Race, Class, and the Silent Epidemic of Pedestrian Deaths in America
The face of the pedestrian safety crisis looks a lot like Ignacio Duarte-Rodriguez. The 77-year old grandfather was struck in a hit-and-run crash while trying to cross a high-speed, six-lane road without crosswalks near his son's home in Phoenix, Arizona. He was one of the more than 6,000 people killed while walking in America in 2018. In just the ......
Landscape ecology has emerged in the past decade as an important and useful tool for land-use planners and landscape architects. While professionals and scholars have begun to incorporate aspects of this new field into their work, there remains a need for a summary of key principles and how they might be applied in design and planning.This volume ......
A Call to Action on the Housing and Climate Crises
US cities are faced with the joint challenge of our climate crisis and the lack of housing that is affordable and healthy. Our housing stock contributes significantly to the changing climate, with residential buildings accounting for 20 percent of greenhouse gas emissions. US housing is not only unhealthy for the planet, it is putting the physical ......
Stormwater management as art? Absolutely. Rain is a resource that should be valued and celebrated, not merely treated as an urban design problem'and yet, traditional stormwater treatment methods often range from ugly to forgettable. Artful Rainwater Design shows that it's possible to effectively manage runoff while also creating ......
In 2012, Hurricane Sandy floods devastated coastal areas in New York and New Jersey. In 2017, Harvey flooded Houston. Today in Miami, even on sunny days, king tides bring fish swimming through the streets in low-lying areas. These types of events are typically called natural disasters. But overwhelming scientific consensus says they ......