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Good city building is not created by complex statistics, functional problem solving, or any particular decision-making process. Successful cities instead come from people advocating easily understood human values and principles that take into account the sensory, tactile, and sustainable qualities of environment and design in relation to what is the best of human endeavor.
--From the introduction to City Building

Cities are often viewed as the least-healthy environments for humans because they are centers of pollution, overcrowdedness, and waste. But the opposite can be true. A well-planned city can be a model of sustainable living. Good city building counters the sprawl of suburbia with concentrated land use, replaces globalized design with regionally appropriate building types, and allows for livable, desirable neighborhoods. John Lund Kriken and Philip Enquist, both longtime partners in the preeminent and award-winning planning firm Skidmore, Owings & Merrill(SOM) have collaborated with writer Richard Rapaport to create City Building .

This proactive, green-focused, user-friendly guide to city building is organized into three parts: Part one examines the past and defines the current practice of city building, addressing its shortcomings and proposing a comprehensive framework for rethinking the approach to cities in the future. Part two translates this framework into nine best-practice principles that are common to successful, livable, urban environments: sustainability, accessibility, diversity, open space, compatibility, incentives, adaptability, density, and identity. These principles are illustrated in a global portfolio of city building projects, designed by SOM, that show how best practices have been applied successfully. Part three makes the case that, far from being the problem, cities, properly organized, can be a mechanism for sensible, sustainable uses of increasingly scarce resources. The book concludes with a call for a national planning process and a comprehensive framework for settlement.

Tabla de contenidos provista por Syndetics

• Foreword(p. ix)
• Preface(p. xi)
• Part I An Introduction to City Building
• The Millennial City(p. 1)
• The Missing Elements of City Design(p. 4)
• A Brief (and Personal) History of Urban Design Theory and Practice(p. 9)
• The Role of Design in Today's City Building(p. 14)
• Part II Nine Principles for Twenty-First-Century City Building
• Introduction(p. 27)
• Principle 1 Sustainability(p. 28)
• Committing to an Environmental Ethic
• 1.1 Creating a Framework for Sustainable Settlement(p. 32)
• 1.2 Choosing the Right Future(p. 37)
• 1.3 Expanding a City/Sustaining Green(p. 44)
• 1.4 Guiding a Nation to a Post-Petroleum Future(p. 50)
• Principle 2 Accessibility(p. 56)
• Facilitating Ease of Movement
• 2.1 Locating Corridors to Preserve a Downtown(p. 63)
• 2.2 Creating Essential Access to Major Development(p. 66)
• 2.3 Planning for Ferry Transit(p. 71)
• 2.4 Learning from Mistakes: Mixed-Access Streets versus Transit Malls(p. 76)
• 2.5 Unblocking Movement(p. 80)
• 2.6 Restoring Access, Reversing Vacancy and Decline(p. 83)
• Principle 3 Diversity(p. 88)
• Maintaining Variety and Choice
• 3.1 Bringing Diversity to the Capitol(p. 93)
• 3.2 Designing Diversity into City Expansion(p. 96)
• 3.3 Creating Variety within Uniform Residential Regulations(p. 101)
• 3.4 Identifying the Special Qualities of a Place(p. 104)
• 3.5 Building-in Diversity(p. 108)
• Principle 4 Open Space(p. 112)
• Regenerating Natural Systems to Make Cities Green
• 4.1 Greening the World's Densest City(p. 118)
• 4.2 Unpaving a River(p. 121)
• 4.3 Topping Off the Burnham Plan with a Green Roof(p. 125)
• 4.4 Developing a Public Greenbelt and Shoreline(p. 130)
• Principle 5 Compatibility(p. 134)
• Maintaining Harmony and Balance
• 5.1 Protecting Heritage While Creating Identity(p. 140)
• 5.2 Protecting Heritage While Managing Density(p. 144)
• 5.3 Retaining a Rural Landscape(p. 147)
• 5.4 Reviving Block Patterns and Building Types(p. 149)
• Principle 6 Incentives(p. 152)
• Renewing Declining Cities/Rebuilding Brownfields
• 6.1 Restoring a River (and Regenerating a City)(p. 156)
• 6.2 Rebuilding Downtowns in a Suburban Context: Good Intentions Get Snagged(p. 161)
• 6.3 Incentivizing a Brownfield(p. 164)
• Principle 7 Adaptability(p. 168)
• Facilitating "Wholeness" and Positive Change
• 7.1 Planning for Continuous Change(p. 175)
• 7.2 Guiding and Anticipating Growth with Principles(p. 178)
• 7.3 Recovering a Diamond in the Rust (Belt)(p. 183)
• 7.4 Fitting Inside with Outside(p. 187)
• 7.5 Working toward a Flexible Campus(p. 190)
• Principle 8 Density(p. 192)
• Designing Compact Cities with Appropriate Transit
• 8.1 Using Brown, Saving Green: Urban Density for Regional Renewal(p. 195)
• 8.2 Accepting Density and Height(p. 202)
• 8.3 Taking Advantage of Existing Infrastructure(p. 206)
• Principle 9 Identity(p. 210)
• Creating/Preserving a Unique and Memorable Sense of Place
• 9.1 Developing Identity in Response to Climate(p. 219)
• 9.2 Responding to Climate and Culture(p. 225)
• 9.3 Creating a New Downtown Identity(p. 230)
• 9.4 Harnessing the Potential of the Waterfront(p. 234)
• Part III The City of the Future/The Future of the City
• The City Is the Solution (Not the Problem)(p. 239)
• A New Urban Model(p. 239)
• A Developmental Moore's Law(p. 240)
• Learning from Asia(p. 240)
• The Need for a Framework for Settlement(p. 241)
• Refocusing Planning Theory and Practice(p. 245)
• Rethinking Single-Purpose Design Education and Problem Solving(p. 245)
• A Call for National Plans(p. 246)
• Conclusion(p. 246)
• Project Credits(p. 247)
• Index(p. 254)

Notas de autor provistas por Syndetics

John Lund Kriken and Philip Enquist, both longtime partners in the preeminent and award-winning architecture and planning firm Skidmore, Owings Merrill (SOM), have collaborated with writer Richard Rapaport to create City Building. This proactive, green-focused, user-friendly guide to urban planning is organized into three parts. Part one examines the past and defines the current practice of city building, addressing its shortcomings and proposing a comprehensive framework for rethinking the approach to cities in the future. Part two translates this framework into nine best-practice principles that are common to successful, livable, urban environments: sustainability, accessibility, diversity, open space, compatibility, incentives, adaptability, density, and identity. These concepts are illustrated in a global portfolio of urban projects, designed by SOM, that show how these best practices have been applied successfully. Part three makes the case that, far from being the problem, cities can encourage the sensible, sustainable use of increasingly scarce resources. The book concludes with a call for a national planning process and a comprehensive framework for settlement.