Handbooks

ILLUSTRATED HANDBOOK OFUrban Planning & Design

ILLUSTRATED HANDBOOK OFUrban Planning & Design

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    This illustrated handbook brings together the imaginative and generative strength of design to structure, visualize and communicate urban proposals with the analytic rigor of urban planning methodologies, tools and the policy role. It develops competence in urban planning and design grounded in a solid knowledge base, while advancing professional skills through task-based learning and tools for experimentation and innovation. Urban design is the process by which cities, towns, and villages are shaped, with the goal of making urban areas functional, attractive, and sustainable. It unites all the built environment professions, including urban planning, landscape architecture, architecture, civil and municipal engineering, and focuses on the design, quality, character and appearance of places. Urban planning is the process concerned with the use of land and design of the urban environment, including air, water, and infrastructure networks. It guides and ensures the orderly development of communities, and concerns itself with research and analysis, strategic thinking, policy recommendations, implementation, and management.

Urban planning is a technical and political process concerned with the development and use of land, planning permission, protection and use of the environment, public welfare, and the design of the urban environment, including air, water, and the infrastructure passing into and out of urban areas, such as transportation, communications, and distribution networks. Urban planning is also referred to as urban and regional planning, regional planning, town planning, city planning, rural planning or some combination in various areas worldwide. Urban design is the art of creating and shaping cities and towns. While the two fields are closely related, ?urban design? differs from ?urban planning? in its focus on the physical improvement of the public environment, whereas the latter tends, in practice, to focus on the management of private development through established planning methods and programs, and other statutory development controls.

Illustrated Handbook of Urban Planning & Design provides a comprehensive and state-of-the-art overview, philosophy of building and managing cities. Recent years have seen a development in the use of design, as well as in design philosophy and design research. Design has come to mean more than shaping and aesthetics; it has increasingly become a strategic element in business innovation processes as well as in a number of societal development processes. A designer?s ability to combine, for instance, designing with user understanding and overall solutions is increasingly becoming a competitive parameter when companies develop new products and services. An increasing number of countries have invested in design to promote their image internationally, to raise awareness among local consumers of the value of design and product quality, and to increase interest from local industry in the benefits of design for business performance. Therefore the city space is a goal in itself, a worthwhile asset in its own right, including evenings and weekends when the shops are often closed. All in all, this is a dramatic and remarkable development that offers lessons for other cities that want to improve their public spaces as a way to enliven and enrich the experience of urban life.

The Illustrated Handbook of Urban Planning & Design will serve as a useful introduction to students and researchers involved in Urban Planning and Urban Design Standards. The importance of the urban planner is increasing throughout the 21st century, as modern society begins to face issues of increased population growth, climate change and unsustainable development. An urban planner could be considered a green collar professional.