Urban Design for an Urban Century : Shaping More Livable, Equitable, and Resilient Cities

"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.