URBAN DESIGN FOR AN URBAN CENTURY: PLACEMAKING FOR PEOPLE

"The wisest, clearest introduction I know to the art and science of designing cities."-- Robert Campbell, Pulitzer Prize-winning Boston Globe architecture critic
Featuring projects that have won The American Institute of Architects' (AIA) National Honor Awards for Urban Design in recent years, this is a comprehensive book of tools and information on urban design. Endorsed by the AIA and written by the 2005 and 2006 chairs, respectively, of the AIA's Regional and Urban Design Committee, this unique guide provides urban designers, architects, and students with contemporary urban design paradigms and principles, processes, and design tools for various project types and scales, such as downtowns, neighborhoods, Main Street revitalization, waterfronts, and college campuses.

Lance Jay Brown, FAIA, a New York-based architect, urban designer, and educator, is principal of Lance Jay Brown Architecture + Urban Design. The recipient of the 2007 AIA/ACSA Topaz Medallion for Excellence in Architectural Education, Brown was chair and director of the School of Architecture, Urban Design and Landscape Architecture at City College of New York, where he is now the Coordinator of Thesis Studies. He was 2005 chair of the AIA's Regional and Urban Design Knowledge Community, and is currently program advisor to the Institute for Urban Design. He has worked on urban design projects internationally, and he was a professional advisor for the 9/11 Memorial Competition for Ground Zero.
David Dixon, FAIA, a principal of Goody, Clancy & Associates, Inc. in Boston, was the 2006 chair of the AIA's Regional and Urban Design Knowledge Community. An urban designer who writes and speaks frequently, his recent work extends from revitalizing urban neighborhoods to creating regional smart growth guidelines for places such as Asheville, North Carolina, Baltimore, Boston, Cambridge, Massachusetts, Chicago, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Miami, New Haven, Connecticut, and Norfolk, Virginia. Dixon helped shape the AIA's response following Hurricane Katrina and he subsequently led recovery planning for approximately one-quarter of New Orleans. In 2008, the city selected Dixon and his firm to create a master plan for New Orleans's future.
The late Oliver Gillham, AIA, was an architect and city planner with more than thirty years of experience in dealing with the issues of urbanization. A former senior designer and director of urban design for Skidmore, Owings & Merrill in Boston, he also had worked for the Massachusetts Port Authority and had established the firm Gillham & Gander Associates. He was the coauthor of The Limitless City: A Primer on the Urban Sprawl Debate.

"This is an ambitious book that combines a history of urban form and the evolution of modern urban design. This book is packed with information and insight. It is an important addition to the key texts on urban design and urbanism." (Oculus Magazine, Fall 2009)
"Urban Design sets itself the task of clarifying the role of urban design in shaping urban places. The authors begin the book by acknowledging the ambiguity of the urban designer's job, determining that a shared emphasis on "finding the right fit between people and place" predominates. Preceding the case studies and principles are an excellent, concise history of urban morphology and the decentralization of cities and a call for recentralization." (The Architect's Newspaper, Sept 23, 2009)
"Urban Design for an Urban Century offers a very thoughtful and worthwhile and simplified overview of the history of the key paradigms, principles, and process of urban design. It breezes by a reader in the first 100 pages. To the credit of the erudite authors, their sketch of urban design brings levels of political, sociological, and architectural analysis together in a readable synthesis." (Norman Weinstein, ArchNewsNow.com, September 2009)
"...its content does engage the history and chabges in attitude towards cities that will take forward in this century." (Perspective, July 2009)
"The first part is superb. Bits and pieces of it will be old news to many new urbanists, but on the whole, the initial five chapters are tremendously illuminating. It is rigorously organized." (New Urban News, March 2009)

Preface.
PART I: PARADIGMS, PRINCIPLES AND PROCESS.
Chapter 1: Urban Design--A Social and Public Art.
Fitting People and Place.
The Evolution of a "Social and Public Art".
Integrating Diverse Perspectives and Skills.
Giving Form to a Rapidly Changing Society.
Shaping the Response to a Changing World.
Chapter 2: Roots of Urban Form.
1. Early Cities.
2. European Cities in the Middle Ages.
3. Renaissance Forms Reshape Cities.
4. The New World Turns Toward the Grid.
5. The Industrial Revolution and Reaction.
6. Imagining the Postindustrial City.
Chapter 3: Decentralization: The Growth of the Modern City.
Europe and Modernism.
CIAM and the Birth of "Urban Design".
Opportunities and Challenges.
Chapter 4: Recentralization: The City as the Future.
Rise of the Suburbs.
Changes that Favor Cities.
Issues of the Common Realm.
Cities on the Rebound.
New Trends in Urban Design.
Conclusion.
Chapter 5: Principles for an Urban Century.
Process Should Support the Principles.
PART II: PUTTING URBAN DESIGN INTO PRACTICE.
Case Studies in Urban Design.
Background: AIA's Regional and Urban Design Committee (RUDC).
The Regional and Urban Design Honor Awards program.
Chapter 6: Guiding Regional Growth and Change.
Roots.
Approaches Today.
Case Studies.
How the Projects Illustrate the Principles.
Chapter 7: Rediscovering Downtown and Main Street.
Roots.
Approaches Today.
Case Studies.
How The Projects Illustrate the Principles.
Chapter 8: Reinventing Older Neighborhoods.
Roots.
Approaches Today.
Case Studies.
How The Projects Relate to the Principles.
Chapter 9: Inventing New Neighborhoods.
Roots.
Approaches Today.
Case Studies.
How The Projects Relate to the Principles.
Chapter 10: Reclaiming the Waterfront.
Roots.
Approaches Today.
Case Studies.
How the Projects Illustrate the Principles.
Chapter 11: Creating the Public Realm.
Roots.
Approaches today.
Case studies.
How the Projects Illustrate the Principles.
Chapter 12: Transforming Campus into Community.
Roots.
Approaches today.
Case studies.
How these Projects Illustrate the Principles.
Conclusion.