Public Places Urban Spaces, Second Edition: The Dimensions of Urban Design

1115 Pages·2010·17.7 MB·English

by  Matthew Carmona

Table of Contents

Cover Image
Front Matter
Copyright
Preface
Chapter 1. Urban Design Today
Chapter 2. Urban Change
Chapter 3. Contexts for Urban Design
Chapter 4. The Morphological Dimension
Chapter 5. The Perceptual Dimension
Chapter 6. The Social Dimension
Chapter 7. The Visual Dimension
Chapter 8. The Functional Dimension
Chapter 9. The Temporal Dimension
Chapter 10. The Development Process
Chapter 11. The Control Process
Chapter 12. The Communication Process
Chapter 13. Holistic Urban Design
Bibliography
Index
Front Matter
Public Places - Urban Spaces
The Dimensions of Urban Design
Second Edition
Mathew Carmona

Steven Tiesdell

Tim Heath

Tanner Oc

AMSTERDAM • BOSTOn • hEIDELBERG • LONDON • NEW YORK •
OXFORD PARIS • SAN DIEGO • SAN FRANCISCO • SINGAPORE •
SYDNEY • TOKYO

Architectural Press is an Imprint of Elsevier
Copyright © 2010 Matthew Carmona, Steve Tiesdell, Tim Heath & Taner Oc. All rights reserved.

Copyright
Architectural Press is an imprint of Elsevier
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First edition 2003

Second edition 2010

Copyright © 2010, Matthew Carmona, Steve Tiesdell, Tim Heath & Taner Oc.
Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved
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Preface
An exposition of the different, but intimately related, dimensions of urban
design, this book is an updated and revised version of a book originally
published in 2003. Focusing neither on a limited checklist of urban design
qualities nor, it is hoped, excluding important areas, it takes a holistic approach
to urban design and place-making and thus provides a comprehensive overview
of the subject both for those new to the subject and for those requiring a general
guide. To facilitate this, it has an easily accessible structure, with self-contained
and cross-referenced sections and chapters, enabling readers to dip in for specific
information. The incremental layering of concepts aids those reading the book
cover to cover.

Urban design is also seen as a design process, in which, as in any design process,
there are no ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ answers, only ‘better’ and ‘worse’ answers, the
quality of which may only be known in time. It is, thus, necessary to have a
continually questioning and inquisitive approach to urban design rather than a
dogmatic view. The book does not seek to produce a ‘new’ theory of urban
design in a prescriptive fashion. Instead it expounds a broad belief in – and
attitude to – urban design and place-making as important parts of urban
development, renewal, management, planning and conservation processes.

Synthesising and integrating ideas and theories from a wide range of sources, the
book derives from a comprehensive review and reading of existing literature and
research. It also draws on the authors' experience teaching, researching and
writing about urban design in schools of urban studies, planning, architecture
and surveying.

Motivation
This book comes from two distinct sources. First, from a period during the 1990s
when the authors worked together at the University of Nottingham on an
innovative undergraduate urban planning programme. Its primary motivation
was a belief that teaching urban design at the core of an interdisciplinary,