Recombinant Urbanism: Conceptual Modeling in Architecture, Urban Design and City Theory

This book provides a simple but comprehensive framework for the emerging academic discipline of urban design, from its origins in Europe and America, to contemporary issues of imagery, finance and marketing in an age of globalisation There is currently no contemporary textbook for urban design that includes a general history and theory of the subject.Internationally, urban design is more and more becoming a core subject taught in architecture schools. The AIA (US) and the RIBA (UK) both require undergraduates and graduates to study the urban dimension of architectural design. On a wider scale, in Europe, the EU is developing a common architectural curriculum, which includes an urban component for under-graduates. The situation is similar in schools across Asia and Australia.Aimed at both students and teachers, this book provides a simple and accessible framework, from the origins of urban design and the main techniques developed to deal with the design of fragments of cities, to participatory planning processes, codes, imagery, finance and marketing. Finally, it proposes an innovative vision of contemporary practice based on the work of leading actors and projects in the field.This book is set to become the key textbook at undergraduate and graduate levels It is written in an accessible and direct tone, and highly illustrated with many colour and black and white diagrams It includes a general history and theory of urban design and provides an up-to-date account of contemporary urban conditions Praise for Recombinant Urbanism"Documents a major intellectual advance...eagerly awaited by academics and practitioners all around the world... should become a standard text for schools of architecture and urbanism." Leon Van Schaik, Innovation Professor of Architecture,