Foundations of Urban Design

Hardback

Main Details

Title Foundations of Urban Design
Authors and Contributors      By (author) Marcel Smets
Physical Properties
Format:Hardback
Pages:144
Dimensions(mm): Height 218,Width 150
Category/GenreTheory of art
Landscape art and architecture
ISBN/Barcode 9781638400332
ClassificationsDewey:711.4
Audience
General

Publishing Details

Publisher Actar Publishers
Imprint Actar Publishers
NZ Release Date 1 May 2023
Publication Country United States

Description

The book is structured into twenty-nine essays, each dedicated to a pair of urbanistic concepts. Discussing historical and contemporary, interpretive and designerly approaches to urbanity, the notions composing the 29 pairs relate dialectically, as theses-and-antitheses. Still, we are warned, 'the presented antagonisms are not a priori in opposition, but rather complementary.

Author Biography

Marcel SMETS has been engaged in all sides of urbanism. He taught urban design at the KU. Leuven in Belgium and Harvard's GSD, he is a respected author and a distinguished urban designer. His books explore the origin of ideas and development of concepts in urbanism and infrastructure design. His projects investigate the urban reappropriation of former industrial sites and infrastructural amenities, notably in Leuven, Brussels and Antwerp (B), Rouen and Nantes (F), Genua and Conegliano (I).

Reviews

"With this book, Marcel Smets not only offers an inspiring vocabulary to describe the spatial features of the city but, above all, a unique dictionnaire raisonne to discuss past and future interventions in our largest man-made artefact." -- Tom Avermaete, Chair for the History and Theory of Urban Design, ETH Zurich.