Urban Design

Urban design is an approach to the design of buildings and the spaces between them that focuses on specific design processes and outcomes. In addition to designing and shaping the physical features of towns, cities, and regional spaces, urban design considers 'bigger picture' issues of economic, social and environmental value and social design. The scope of a project can range from a local street or public space to an entire city and surrounding areas. Urban designers connect the fields of architecture, landscape architecture and urban planning to better organize physical space and community e ...more

The Death and Life of Great American Cities
Happy City: Transforming Our Lives Through Urban Design
Walkable City: How Downtown Can Save America, One Step at a Time
The Image of the City
A Pattern Language: Towns, Buildings, Construction (Center for Environmental Structure Series)
Cities for People
Soft City: Building Density for Everyday Life
The High Cost of Free Parking
Strong Towns: A Bottom-Up Revolution to Rebuild American Prosperity
The Social Life of Small Urban Spaces
Streetfight: Handbook for an Urban Revolution
Suburban Nation: The Rise of Sprawl and the Decline of the American Dream
Walkable City Rules: 101 Steps to Making Better Places
The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America
Great Streets (Mit Press)

“ Modern interest in environmentalism is driven by a yearning to protect what we haven't ruined already, to conserve what we haven't used up, to restore as much as possible of what we're destroyed, and to devise ways of reconfiguring our lives so that civilization as we know it can be sustained through our children's lifetimes and beyond. ...more ”
― David Owen, Green Metropolis: Why Living Smaller, Living Closer, and Driving Less are the Keys to Sustainability

“ Much as participatory design and placemaking was a reaction to the lack of citizen involvement in the planning process, the history of incremental city design was a reaction to the utopian master plan that dictated whole scale redevelopment in favor of an incremental approach that gradually affected the status quo. As a theory of policymaking, incrementalism was first introduced by Charles Lindblom in the 1950s. ”
― Tania Allen, Solving Critical Design Problems: Theory and Practice

More quotes...
The Global Grid Reads Reading group of The Global Grid. Here we will share the books we review on The Global Grid, the…more
38 members, last active 8 years ago
ThreadATL Books Books about urbanism (urban design, housing affordability, streets) with an Atlanta focus. Compi…more
26 members, last active 2 years ago