Walter Hood: Urban Diaries

by Walter Hood

This book presents a new approach to the issues of urban landscape design. Improvisation is a clear departure from the typical institutional or economically-driven approaches to design in the inner city. It allows sociocultural patterns and everyday activities to shape space.
This study explores scenes of life in the community of West Oakland, California. It focuses on activities in and around several Model Cities parks, reveals limitations in their intention and use, and builds on observations of life in the parks to develop theoretical designs inspired by improvisation.

Genres: Urban Planning

70 pages, Paperback

First published April 1, 1997

Reviews

[molly · Rating 5 out of 5]

i would rate this book 1,000 stars if i could. this artist/architect takes you through his creative process in rethinking urban spaces. his aim is to explore the possibility of 'design without judgement', and his ideas are so inspired and so outside-of-the-box. i sensed from his words and drawings in this book that he sees a world like the one i see, that is somehow perfect and playful just the way it is, if we could just orient the objects around us and the attitudes inside to let it be so.