Readings

WEEK # TOPICS READINGS

Part 1: Urban Design Now

1

Designing Places and Policies

 

2

Assessing the Current State of Urban Design

Buy at Amazon Lang, Jon. "The Nature of Urban Design Today," and "Basic Attitudes in Urban Design." In Urban Design: The American Experience. New York, NY: Van Nostrand Reinhold, 1994, pp. 68-123. ISBN: 0471285420.

3

Urban Design Competitions and How to Judge Them

Goldberger, Paul. "Urban Warriors." The New Yorker, September 15, 2003.

The Municipal Art Society. "Imagine NYII: The People's Response Summary Report," January 2003.

———. "Imagine New York: Toward the People's Memorial Summary Report," December 2003.

Lower Manhattan Development Corporation Web site to view nine initial World Trade Center designs, memorial proposals and finalist information.

NY Times and NY Times Magazine selected articles.

ULI Gerald Hines Urban Design Competition Documentary.

4

Evaluating Urban Design

View the 2003 Rudy Bruner Award for Urban Excellence and previous awards at the Foundation Web site.

5

Discussion of Assignment 1

 

Part 2: Assessing Urban Design Futures

6

Past Futures

Buy at Amazon Corn, Joseph, and Brian Horrigan. "The Community of Tomorrow." In Yesterday's Tomorrows. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution, 1984, pp. 34-53. ISBN: 0671541331.

Buy at Amazon Jencks, Charles. "Philosophies of the Future," and "Inexorable Trends." In Architecture 2000: Predictions and Methods. London, UK: Studio Vista, 1971, pp. 9-48. ISBN: 027549280X.

Buy at Amazon Cook, Peter, ed. "Instant City." In Archigram. New York, NY: Princeton Architectural Press, 1999, pp. 86-101. ISBN: 1568981945.

Buy at Amazon Ross, Michael. "Megastructuring," and "Architechnology." In Beyond Metabolism: The New Japanese Architecture. New York, NY: McGraw Hill, 1978, pp. 22-36, and 55-70. ISBN: 007053893X.

Lubow, Arthur. "How Architecture Rediscovered The Future." New York Times Magazine, May 18, 2003.

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Topic 1: Inventing New Ways of Living: Homes and Neighborhoods

Larson, Kent. "A Machine Crafted Home of the Future." Architecture and Urbanism 361 (October 2000).

———. "Changing Places and House_n Research Topics (PDF)," and "MIT Open Source Building Alliance (PDF)."

———. "PlaceLab: A House_n + TIAX Initiative." (PDF)

Buy at Amazon Blank, Thomas. "Future of Housing for Older Persons." In Older Persons and Their Housing: Today and Tomorrow. Springfield, IL: Charles C Thomas Pub. Ltd., 1988, pp. 175-224. ISBN: 0398053774.

Jenkins, Susan. "Housing That Works." Builder Magazine, September 1998.

"Live/Work 2001." Builder Magazine, February 4, 2001.

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Topic 2: Distributing Work: The New Workplace

Buy at Amazon Russell, James S. "Introduction," and "Form Follows Fad." In On the Job: Design and the American Office. Edited by Donald Albrecht and Broikos Chrysanthe. New York, NY: Princeton Architectural Press, 2000, pp. 17-29 and 49-73. ISBN: 1568982410.

Buy at Amazon Duffy, Francis. "Two Traditions," and "New Ways of Working." The New Office. London, UK: Conrad Octopus, 1997, pp. 12-67. ISBN: 1850298912.

Buy at Amazon Architekten, Henn. Die Glaeserne Manufactur. Hamburg, Germany: Junius Verlag, 2003. ISBN: 3885065436.

———. Stahl und Form. Dusseldorf: Stahl-Informations-Zentrum, 2001, pp. 1-18 and 30-31. (This resource may not render correctly in a screen reader.PDF - 2.7 MB)

Gladwell, Malcolm. "Designs for Working." The New Yorker, December 11, 2000, 60-70.

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Topic 3: The Advent of "Mediated" Space: Public Places and Technology

Buy at Amazon Castells, Manuel. "The Culture of Cities in the Information Age." In The Castells Reader on Cities and Social Theory. Oxford, UK: Blackwell, 2002, pp. 367-389. ISBN: 0631219331.

Buy at Amazon Horan, Thomas. "The Recombinant Landscape," and "Building Our City of Bits." In Digital Places. Washington, DC: Urban Land Institute, 2000, pp. 3-27 and 115-135. ISBN: 0874208459.

Frenchman, Dennis. "Media Street Elements, Guidelines, and Illustrations." Working Paper (MIT), January 27, 2003.

Joroff, Michael, and Dennis Frenchman, et. al. DMC: Digital Media Street. Seoul, South Korea: Seoul Metropolitan Government, 2003.

Buy at MIT Press This resource may not render correctly in a screen reader.Buy at Amazon Mitchell, William J. "Software: New Genius of the Place." In E-topia. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1999. ISBN: 0262133555.

City Design and Development Group, CRE, Media Lab. New Century Cities: Real Estate Value in a Digital World. (PDF) Cambridge, MA: MIT, January, 2005.

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Topic 4: Creating a City of Learning: Schools and Stories in the City

Strickland, Roy. "Neighborhoods for Learning." Places 13, no. 1 (Winter 2000): 58-65.

Buy at Amazon Frenchman, Dennis. "Narrative Places and the New Practice of Urban Design." In Imaging the City. Edited by Larry Vale and Sam Bass Warner. New Brunswick, NJ: Center for Urban Policy Researh, 2001, pp 257-282. ISBN: 0882851705.

Wansborough, Matthew, and Andrea Mageean. "The Role of Urban Design in Cultural Regeneration." Journal of Urban Design 5, no. 2 (2000): 181-197.

Recommended

Community Partners Consultants. Arts District Master Plan. Worcester, MA, June 2002.

Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Department of Architecture. New American School Design Project. "Pre-programming PreK and Related Facilities for the Union City Board of Education." September 1998.

Icon Architecture and Roy Strickland with Urban Partner Isles, Inc. "Trenton Community-Based Schools Master Plan." May 2002.

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Topic 5: Reclaiming the industrial landscape: Land and Water Infrastructure

Campbell, Robert. "A Paris Match?" Boston Globe, March 12, 2002.

Pieprz, Dennis. "Regenerating the Recovered Waterfront." Aquapolis (2002): 34-41.

Buy at Amazon Breen, Ann, and Dick Rigsby. The New Waterfront: A Worldwide Urban Success Story. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill, 1996, pp. 11-23. ISBN: 0070074542.

Song, Kimberly. "In Seoul, a Splash of the Past," Wall Street Journal, January 7, 2004.

For additional project information: skim case studies.

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Topic 6: Rediscovering Nature: Natural Systems in the City

Buy at Amazon Spirn, Anne Whiston. "Reclaiming Common Ground, Water, Neighborhoods and Public Spaces." In The American Planning Tradition. Edited by Robert Fishman. Washington, DC: Woodrow Wilson Center Press, 1999, pp. 297-313. ISBN: 094387596X.

Buy at Amazon ———. "Epilog, Visions of the Future." In The Granite Garden: Urban Nature and Human Design. New York, NY: Basic Books, 1984, pp. 263-275. ISBN: 0465026990.

Buy at Amazon Callenbach, Ernest. "William Weston on His Journey to Ecotopis." In Ecotopia: The Notebooks and Reports of William Weston. New York, NY: Bantam, 1990, pp. 3-37. ISBN: 0553348477.

Buy at Amazon Van der Ryn, Sim, and Peter Calthorp. "The New Suburban Fabric." In Sustainable Communities. San Francisco, CA: Sierra Club Books, 1991. ISBN: 087156629X.

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What Have We Missed?

 

14

Redesigning Urban Design

Buy at Amazon Lang, Jon. "Redesigning Urban Design." In Urban Design: The American Experience. New York, NY: Van Nostrand Reinhold, 1994, pp. 124-134. ISBN: 0442013604.

Buy at MIT Press Buy at Amazon Lynch, Kevin. "City Design: What It is and How It Might Be Taught." In City Sense and City Design: Writings and Projects of Kevin Lynch. Edited by Tridib Banerjee and Michael Southworth. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1990, pp. 652-59. ISBN: 0262121433.