Urban Design for an Urban Century

This book offers a comprehensive introduction to urban design, from a historical overview and basic principles to practical design concepts and strategies. It discusses the demographic, environmental, economic, and social issues that influence the decision-making and implementation processes of urban design. The Second Edition has been fully revised to include thorough coverage of sustainability issues and to integrate new case studies into the core concepts discussed.

Acknowledgments vii

Introduction ix

Urban Design: A Social and Civic Art ix

Chapter 1 Roots of Western Urban Form: Centralization 1

First Cities 1

Rebirth of European Cities: “Organic” Cities of the Late Middle Ages 3

Reintroduction of Classical Learning: “Geometric” Cities of the Renaissance 5

The Emergence of Merchant Cities: Integrating Renaissance Ideas and the Marketplace 9

The Grid Reaches the New World 10

The Industrial Revolution 15

Chapter 2 Decentralization: The Rise and Decline of Industrial Cities 31

Proto-Urban Design: Rejecting a Classical Past to Shape an Industrial Future 31

Chapter 3 Recentralization: The Forces Shaping Twenty-First-Century Urbanism 69

New York Stock Exchange Financial District Streetscapes and Security (New York, New York) 71

District of Columbia Streetcar Land Use Study (Washington, D.C.) 75

Chicago Decarbonization Plan (Chicago) 79

Fayetteville 2030: Transit City Scenario (Fayetteville, Arkansas) 81

South Coast Rail Economic and Land Use Plan (Massachusetts) 88

Citygarden (St. Louis, Missouri) 90

UrbanRiver Visions (Massachusetts) 93

Campus Martius Park (Detroit, Michigan) 95

The Future of Pittsburgh Hillsides (Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania) 98

Emscher Landscape Park (Ruhr Valley, Germany) 108

SW Ecodistrict (Washington, D.C.) 111

Lloyd Crossing Sustainable Urban Design Plan (Portland, Oregon) 113

East Baltimore Comprehensive Physical Redevelopment Plan (Baltimore, Maryland) 120

Torre David Informal Settlement (Caracas, Venezuela) 124

Chapter 4 Recentralization: Twenty-First-Century Urbanism Takes Shape 131

Eastward Ho! (Southeast Florida) 134

Charlottesville Commercial Corridor Study (Charlottesville, Virginia) 136

Crystal City Vision Plan 2050 (Arlington, Virginia) 142

Sandy Springs City Center Master Plan (Sandy Springs, Georgia) 145

Portland Streetcar (Portland, Oregon) 159

Belmar (Lakewood, Colorado) 169

Bryant Park (New York, New York) 176

Parc André Citröen (Paris, France) 178

Barclays Center (Brooklyn, New York) 181

Discovery Green (Houston, Texas) 185

Cheonggyecheon Stream Daylighting (Seoul, South Korea) 197

LA Live (Los Angeles, California) 200

Marina Barrage (Singapore) 202

Masdar City (Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates) 204

HafenCity (Hamburg, Germany) 208

Fairmount Line Smart-Growth Corridor (Boston, Massachusetts) 214

Ellen Wilson Neighborhood Redevelopment (Washington, D.C.) 216

North Wharf Promenade/Jellicoe Street/Silo Park (Auckland, New Zealand) 219

Millennium Park (Chicago, Illinois) 223

The High Line (New York, New York) 225

Parco San Giuliano (Venice, Italy) 227

Swiss Government Plaza (Bern, Switzerland) 230

Tanner Springs Park (Portland, Oregon) 232

Railroad Park (Birmingham, Alabama) 234

Superkilen Park, Nørrebro (Copenhagen, Denmark) 237

Santa Monica Boulevard Master Plan (West Hollywood, California) 240

Broadway Boulevard (New York, New York) 243

POPOS: Privately Owned Public Open Spaces (San Francisco, California) 248

Chapter 5 Theories of Urbanism 255

Seaside Town Square and Beachfront Master Plan (Seaside, Florida) 259

Madrid Río (Madrid, Spain) 262

Chapter 6 Urban Design for an Urban Century: Principles, Strategies, and Process 271

Bridge Street Corridor Plan (Dublin, Ohio) 273

National 9/11 Memorial (New York, New York) 289

Afterword 299

Index 301

Lance Jay Brown, FAIA, DPACSA, is the principal of Lance Jay Brown Architecture + Urban Design in NYC, Fellow of the Institute for Urban Design, and ACSA Distinguished Professor at the Spitzer School of Architecture, CCNY. He was elected 2014 President of the AIA New York Chapter, is co-founder of its Design for Risk and Reconstruction Committee, and a founding Board Member of the Consortium for Sustainable Urbanization. He contributed to and co-edited Beyond Zuccotti Park: Freedom of Assembly and the Occupation of Public Space (2012) and co-authored The Legacy Project: New Housing New York/Via Verde (2013). In 2007 he was awarded the AIA/ACSA Topaz Medallion for Excellence in Architectural Education. He has served as director of the School of Architecture at CCNY, director of the City College Architectural Center, and assistant director for programs at the National Endowment for the Arts.

David Dixon, FAIA, is an urban designer who lives and works in Boston. In 2003, as President of the Boston Society of Architects, he organized Myth and Reality, the First National Conference on Density to challenge widely-held negative associations about the concept of urban density. In 2008 he received the American Institute of Architects’ Thomas Jefferson Medal for “a lifetime of... significant achievement in creating...livable neighborhoods, vibrant civic spaces, and vital downtowns”. For more than 20 years he led Goody Clancy’s planning and urban design practice, which earned the American Planning Association’s 2013 Firm Award for Excellence in Planning. In 2014, David joined Stantec to initiate a broadly interdisciplinary practice to support communities in meeting the unprecedented opportunities and challenges of this rapidly evolving urban era.

The late Oliver Gillham, AIA, was an architect and city planner, as well as the founder of Gillham & Gander Associates. He was also the coauthor of The Limitless City: A Primer on the Urban Sprawl Debate.

A comprehensive, completely up-to-date guide to the latest best practices in urban design

This entirely updated new Second Edition of Urban Design for an Urban Century offers a complete and thorough introduction to urban design, covering the demographic, environmental, economic, and social issues that shape urbanism today.

The book begins with an historical survey of trends and practices in Western urban design—from the earliest organic cities to the rise and subsequent decline of industrialized cities—as a foundation and context for the state of modern practice. It then moves on to discuss emerging forces shaping urban design such as the recentralization of populations as people move back into cities from suburbs, the emergence of “smart growth” in urban environments, the growing social impacts of economic disparities, the pressure to balance individual and community needs and rights in the public realm, and similar dynamics. Additionally, the book features new discussions of decision-making processes and implementation strategies, resiliency, and expanded coverage of sustainability issues, both local and global. Finally, the book describes current theories of urbanism, including new urbanism and landscape urbanism, before finishing with a discussion of principles, strategies, and process and how these three elements shape urban design for everything from ecodistricts and retrofitted suburban downtowns to New York City’s National 9/11 Memorial.

This new Second Edition integrates new case studies throughout the text exploring urban projects from Singapore to Caracas to Chicago that illuminate the opportunities and challenges in an unprecedented era of urban design.