Urban Composition: Developing Community through Design (Architecture Briefs) - Softcover

Childs, Mark C.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1616890525 ISBN 13: 9781616890520

Publisher: Princeton Architectural Press, 2012

Synopsis

Cities and towns are among humanity's largest and most complex achievements. The buildings, public works, plazas and parks of even a small town embody substantial amounts of capital, energy, natural resources, history, and aspirations. Cities are among our greatest creations, yet typically no single individual creates them. Rather they arise from the dialog between multiple designers, clients, regulators, citizens, critics and users. Sometimes the cities and towns that emerge are glorious places. Too frequently they have only fragments of greatness or are soul-deadening and environmentally unhealthy. Just as private doctors have responsibilities to their individual patients and for public health, project designers are accountable to their clients and for a set of public goods such as environmental stewardship, fostering civil society, and inspiring joy. In Urban Composition, I introduce essential ways in which the architects, planners, artists and engineers of individual projects can fulfill their public trust to help make great urban places.

About this title

About the Author

Mark C. Childs is an associate dean and a professor at the School of Architecture and Planning at the University of New Mexico. He is the author of Urban Composition: Developing Community through Design, Squares: A Public Place Design Guide for Urbanists, and Parking Spaces: A Design, Implementation, and Use Manual for Architects, Planners, and Engineers. He is a Fulbright Scholar and has won awards for community engagement, teaching, public art, heritage preservation, and poetry.

Review

The Environmental Design Research Association 2013 Place Book Award Recipient: "Urban Composition" by Mark C. Childs begins with and aims to answer the question: "How can civil designers - architects, landscape architects, civil engineers, public artists, city council members, and others - collaborate in the collective work of creating environmentally sound, socially resilient, and soul-enlivening settlements?" Urban Composition addresses designers, but also serves as a teach tool for emergent design.

Edition details

• Publisher: Princeton Architectural Press
• Publication date: 2012
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1616890525
• ISBN 13: 9781616890520
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 144