Synopsis
This trailblazing book outlines an interdisciplinary "process model" for urban design that has been developed and tested over time. Its goal is not to explain how to design a specific city precinct or public space, but to describe useful steps to approach the transformation of urban spaces. Urban Ecological Design illustrates the different stages in which the process is organized, using theories, techniques, images, and case studies. In essence, it presents a "how-to" method to transform the urban landscape that is thoroughly informed by theory and practice.
The authors note that urban design is viewed as an interface between different disciplines. They describe the field as "peacefully overrun, invaded, and occupied" by city planners, architects, engineers, and landscape architects (with developers and politicians frequently joining in). They suggest that environmental concerns demand the consideration of ecology and sustainability issues in urban design. It is, after all, the urban designer who helps to orchestrate human relationships with other living organisms in the built environment.
The overall objective of the book is to reinforce the role of the urban designer as an honest broker and promoter of design processes and as an active agent of social creativity in the production of the public realm.
About the Author
Frederick Steiner is Dean and Paley Professor at the University of Pennsylvania School of Design. Previously, he was Dean of the School of Architecture at the University of Texas–Austin for 15 years. He has also taught planning, landscape architecture, and environmental science at Arizona State University, where he was Director of the School of Planning and Landscape Architecture, College of Architecture and Environmental Design; Washington State University; and the University of Colorado–Denver.
Steiner is a Fellow of the American Society of Landscape Architects and Council of Educators in Landscape Architecture and a presidential appointee to the national board of the American Institute of Architects. As a Fulbright-Hays Scholar in 1980, he conducted research on ecological planning at the Wageningen Agricultural and Environmental Science University, The Netherlands. In 1998 he was the National Endowment for the Arts Rome Prize Fellow in Historic Preservation and Conservation at the American Academy in Rome. Steiner has written, edited, or co-edited 17 books.
"About this title" may belong to another edition of this title.
