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
Suburban Nation: The Rise of Sprawl and the Decline of the American Dream
Streetfight: Handbook for an Urban Revolution
The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America
The Geography of Nowhere: The Rise and Decline of America's Man-Made Landscape
Walkable City Rules: 101 Steps to Making Better Places
Building and Dwelling by Richard SennettLa Grande Arche by Laurence CosséBuilding Atlanta by Herman J. RussellConcrete Vaulted Construction in Imperial Rome-FTPB for Pre-S... by Lynne LancasterGenius of Common Sense by Glenna Lang
Best Books about Building Cities
39 books — 2 voters
Dark Age Ahead by Jane JacobsThe Death and Life of Great American Cities by Jane JacobsVital Little Plans by Jane Jacobs101 Things I Learned in Urban Design School by Matthew FrederickWrestling with Moses by Anthony Flint
Jane Jacobs
17 books — 4 voters

Where We Want to Live by Ryan GravelMaynard Jackson by Robert A. HolmesThe Everyday Practice of Public Art by Cameron CartiereStreetfight by Janette Sadik-KhanThe Art of Placemaking by Ronald Lee Fleming
ATL City Studio Reads
37 books — 3 voters

Never Go With Your Gut by Gleb TsipurskyDoor to Door by Edward HumesHappy City by Charles MontgomeryStart-Up City by Gabe KleinSmart Citizens, Smarter State by Beth Simone Noveck
CitizenLab's Book Selection
17 books — 9 voters


But when a plethora of stimuli begins to divert us from receptive consciousness, the city renders us insensible. Then, in our inability to order experience, we merely suffer the city and long for some adequate means to comprehend it as a product of human creation--a product of intelligent, ordering forces. Just as the scientist is frustrated when the order or pattern of phenomena is too fleeting to observe or too complex to recognize with existing tools, so is the city-dweller frustrated when hu ...more
Fumihiko Maki, Nurturing Dreams: Collected Essays on Architecture and the City

Andy Singer
Q: Why We Drive is a unique book, combining cartoons, text-form journalism, and photographs. How did it come about? After I did the book CARtoons in 2001, I got invitations to speak at various venues including The Village Building Convergence, bookstores and a few universities. Being a visual artist, I gradually developed a slide talk about the social, environmental, economic and political problems of transportation design in America. I used a mixture of cartoons, photographs and maps because I ...more
Andy Singer

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ThreadATL Books Books about urbanism (urban design, housing affordability, streets) with an Atlanta focus. Compi…more
25 members, last active one year ago
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 7 years ago