Temporal Urban Design

Temporal Urban Design: Temporality, Rhythm and Place examines an alternative design approach, focusing on the temporal aesthetics of urban places and the importance of the sense of time and rhythm in the urban environment.

The book departs from concerns on the acceleration of cities, its impact on the urban quality of life and the liveability of urban spaces, and questions on what influences the sense of time, and how it expresses itself in the urban environment. From here, it poses the questions: what time is this place and how do we design for it? It offers a new aesthetic perspective akin to music, brings forward the methodological framework of urban place-rhythmanalysis, and explores principles and modes of practice towards better temporal design quality in our cities. The book demonstrates that notions of time have long been intrinsic to planning and urban design research agendas and, whilst learning from philosophy, urban critical theory, and both the natural and social sciences debate on time, it argues for a shift in perspective towards the design of everyday urban time and place timescapes. Overall, the book explores the value of the everyday sense of time and rhythmicity in the urban environment, and discusses how urban designers can understand, analyse and ultimately play a role in the creation of temporally unique, both sensorial and affective, places in the city.

The book will be of interest to urban planners, designers, landscape architects and architects, as well as urban geographers, and all those researching within these disciplines. It will also interest students of planning, urban design, architecture, urban studies, and of urban planning and design theory.

Filipa Matos Wunderlich is an Associate Professor in Urban Design at the Bartlett School of Planning, at University College London (UCL) in the UK. Her research interests are on the temporal dimension of urban place design, sensory urbanism, the interface between urban and musical aesthetics, urban design theory and research by design methodologies. Filipa is the Director of the Master in Research (MRes) in Interdisciplinary Urban Design at the Bartlett School of Planning. She also coordinates ‘Research By Design’ components for both the Sustainable Urbanism and Urban Design and City Planning MSc Programmes. She is an architect, urban designer and musician.