Urban Design and Human Flourishing
Urban Design and Human Flourishing

Author: Tim G. Townshend

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2021-04-13

Total Pages: 110

ISBN-13: 1000374939

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The built environment influences health and well-being in a myriad of ways. Some neighbourhoods are plagued by busy roads that are a constant source of danger, noise, and air pollution. In some cities there is inadequate green space for children to play and socialise safely. Yet, this book argues, it does not have to be this way. With focus on human health, well-being, and flourishing, this book explores the ways in which people’s lives are impacted by the built environment and how we can create, adapt, and design healthy and inclusive places. The volume explores the relationship between urban design and human flourishing and initiates broad discussions around relevant questions such as ‘What is a healthy place?’, ‘What influences our perceptions of built environment more? Is it our age or our cultural background?’. The book includes six chapters from internationally renowned authors who attempt to unpack some of the key aspects that urban designers need to consider in order to create places that enable – rather than constrain – individuals and communities to live rich fulfilling lives. This book will be of great value to students, scholars, and researchers interested in urban design, planning, and in exploring how built environment impacts health and happiness. The chapters in this book were originally published as a special issue of the Journal of Urban Design.

Biophilic Cities
Biophilic Cities

Author: Timothy Beatley

Publisher: Island Press

Published: 2011

Total Pages: 209

ISBN-13: 1597267155

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Tim Beatley has long been a leader in advocating for the "greening" of cities. But too often, he notes, urban greening efforts focus on everything except nature, emphasizing such elements as public transit, renewable energy production, and energy efficient building systems. While these are important aspects of reimagining urban living, they are not enough, says Beatley. We must remember that human beings have an innate need to connect with the natural world (the biophilia hypothesis). And any vision of a sustainable urban future must place its focus squarely on nature, on the presence, conservation, and celebration of the actual green features and natural life forms. A biophilic city is more than simply a biodiverse city, says Beatley. It is a place that learns from nature and emulates natural systems, incorporates natural forms and images into its buildings and cityscapes, and designs and plans in conjunction with nature. A biophilic city cherishes the natural features that already exist but also works to restore and repair what has been lost or degraded. In Biophilic Cities Beatley not only outlines the essential elements of a biophilic city, but provides examples and stories about cities that have successfully integrated biophilic elements--from the building to the regional level--around the world. From urban ecological networks and connected systems of urban greenspace, to green rooftops and green walls and sidewalk gardens, Beatley reviews the emerging practice of biophilic urban design and planning, and tells many compelling stories of individuals and groups working hard to transform cities from grey and lifeless to green and biodiverse.

Urban Design and Human Flourishing
Urban Design and Human Flourishing

Author: Tim G. Townshend

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2021-04-12

Total Pages: 118

ISBN-13: 1000374904

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The built environment influences health and well-being in a myriad of ways. Some neighbourhoods are plagued by busy roads that are a constant source of danger, noise, and air pollution. In some cities there is inadequate green space for children to play and socialise safely. Yet, this book argues, it does not have to be this way. With focus on human health, well-being, and flourishing, this book explores the ways in which people’s lives are impacted by the built environment and how we can create, adapt, and design healthy and inclusive places. The volume explores the relationship between urban design and human flourishing and initiates broad discussions around relevant questions such as ‘What is a healthy place?’, ‘What influences our perceptions of built environment more? Is it our age or our cultural background?’. The book includes six chapters from internationally renowned authors who attempt to unpack some of the key aspects that urban designers need to consider in order to create places that enable – rather than constrain – individuals and communities to live rich fulfilling lives. This book will be of great value to students, scholars, and researchers interested in urban design, planning, and in exploring how built environment impacts health and happiness. The chapters in this book were originally published as a special issue of the Journal of Urban Design.

Restorative Cities
Restorative Cities

Author: Jenny Roe

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

Published: 2021-07-15

Total Pages: 273

ISBN-13: 1350112895

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Overcrowding, noise and air pollution, long commutes and lack of daylight can take a huge toll on the mental well-being of city-dwellers. With mental healthcare services under increasing pressure, could a better approach to urban design and planning provide a solution? The restrictions faced by city residents around the world during the COVID-19 pandemic has brought home just how much urban design can affect our mental health – and created an imperative to seize this opportunity. Restorative Cities explores a new way of designing cities, one which places mental health and wellness at the forefront. Establishing a blueprint for urban design for mental health, it examines a range of strategies – from sensory architecture to place-making for creativity and community – and brings a genuinely evidence-based approach that will appeal to designers and planners, health practitioners and researchers alike - and provide compelling insights for anyone who cares about how our surroundings affect us. Written by a psychiatrist and public health specialist, and an environmental psychologist with extensive experience of architectural practice, this much-needed work will prompt debate and inspire built environment students and professionals to think more about the positive potential of their designs for mental well-being.

Soft City
Soft City

Author: David Sim

Publisher: Island Press

Published: 2019-08-20

Total Pages: 257

ISBN-13: 1642830186

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Imagine waking up to the gentle noises of the city, and moving through your day with complete confidence that you will get where you need to go quickly and efficiently. Soft City is about ease and comfort, where density has a human dimension, adapting to our ever-changing needs, nurturing relationships, and accommodating the pleasures of everyday life. How do we move from the current reality in most cites—separated uses and lengthy commutes in single-occupancy vehicles that drain human, environmental, and community resources—to support a soft city approach? In Soft City David Sim, partner and creative director at Gehl, shows how this is possible, presenting ideas and graphic examples from around the globe. He draws from his vast design experience to make a case for a dense and diverse built environment at a human scale, which he presents through a series of observations of older and newer places, and a range of simple built phenomena, some traditional and some totally new inventions. Sim shows that increasing density is not enough. The soft city must consider the organization and layout of the built environment for more fluid movement and comfort, a diversity of building types, and thoughtful design to ensure a sustainable urban environment and society. Soft City begins with the big ideas of happiness and quality of life, and then shows how they are tied to the way we live. The heart of the book is highly visual and shows the building blocks for neighborhoods: building types and their organization and orientation; how we can get along as we get around a city; and living with the weather. As every citizen deals with the reality of a changing climate, Soft City explores how the built environment can adapt and respond. Soft City offers inspiration, ideas, and guidance for anyone interested in city building. Sim shows how to make any city more efficient, more livable, and better connected to the environment.

Beyond the City
Beyond the City

Author: Felipe Correa

Publisher: University of Texas Press

Published: 2016-06-07

Total Pages: 179

ISBN-13: 1477309411

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During the last decade, the South American continent has seen a strong push for transnational integration, initiated by the former Brazilian president Fernando Henrique Cardoso, who (with the endorsement of eleven other nations) spearheaded the Initiative for the Integration of Regional Infrastructure in South America (IIRSA), a comprehensive energy, transport, and communications network. The most aggressive transcontinental integration project ever planned for South America, the initiative systematically deploys ten east-west infrastructural corridors, enhancing economic development but raising important questions about the polarizing effect of pitting regional needs against the colossal processes of resource extraction. Providing much-needed historical contextualization to IIRSA’s agenda, Beyond the City ties together a series of spatial models and offers a survey of regional strategies in five case studies of often overlooked sites built outside the traditional South American urban constructs. Implementing the term “resource extraction urbanism,” the architect and urbanist Felipe Correa takes us from Brazil’s nineteenth-century regional capital city of Belo Horizonte to the experimental, circular, “temporary” city of Vila Piloto in Três Lagoas. In Chile, he surveys the mining town of María Elena. In Venezuela, he explores petrochemical encampments at Judibana and El Tablazo, as well as new industrial frontiers at Ciudad Guayana. The result is both a cautionary tale, bringing to light a history of societies that were “inscribed” and administered, and a perceptive examination of the agency of architecture and urban planning in shaping South American lives.

Creating Healthy Neighborhoods
Creating Healthy Neighborhoods

Author: Ann Forsyth

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2017-10-24

Total Pages: 345

ISBN-13: 1351177575

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Good housing. Easy transit. Food access. Green spaces. Gathering places. Everybody wants to live in a healthy neighborhood. Bridging the gap between research and practice, it maps out ways for cities and towns to help their residents thrive in placed designed for living well, approaching health from every side – physical mental, and social.

Shaping American Democracy
Shaping American Democracy

Author: Scott M. Roulier

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2017-12-06

Total Pages: 240

ISBN-13: 3319688103

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This book argues that the design of built spaces influences civic attitudes, including prospects for social equality and integration, in America. Key American architects and planners—including Frederick Law Olmsted, Frank Lloyd Wright, Robert Moses, and the New Urbanists—not only articulated unique visions of democracy in their extensive writings, but also instantiated those ideas in physical form. Using criteria such as the formation of social capital, support for human capabilities, and environmental sustainability, the book argues that the designs most closely associated with a communally-inflected version of democracy, such as Olmsted's public parks or various New Urbanist projects, create conditions more favorable to human flourishing and more consistent with a democratic society than those that are individualistic in their orientation, such as urban modernism or most suburban forms.

Flourish
Flourish

Author: Michael Pawlyn

Publisher:

Published: 2021-09-07

Total Pages: 144

ISBN-13: 9781913743260

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Healthy Cities? Urban Planning Design
Healthy Cities? Urban Planning Design

Author: TOWNSHEND

Publisher: Concise Guides to Planning

Published: 2021-04-19

Total Pages: 144

ISBN-13: 9781848223301

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The ways in which urban areas have evolved over the past 100 years have deeply influenced the lives of the communities that live in them. Some influences have been positive and, in the UK, people are healthier and live longer than ever before. However, other influences have contributed to non-communicable health inequalities and poorer well-being for some in society. Today many people suffer as a consequence of 'lifestyle diseases', such as those associated with growing obesity rates and harmful consumption of alcohol. The threat of these health issues is so acute that life expectancy of future generations may begin to decline. Healthy Cities? explores the ways in which the development of the built environment has contributed to health and well-being problems and how the physical design of the places we live may support, or constrain, healthy lifestyle choices. It sets out how understanding these relationships more fully may lead to policy and practice that reduces health inequalities, increases well-being and allows people to live more flourishing, fulfilling lives. Illustrated by case studies from the UK and elsewhere, it examines the consequences 'car orientated' design; the 'to