Cover image for Touching the City : Thoughts on Urban Scale.
Touching the City : Thoughts on Urban Scale.
Title:
Touching the City : Thoughts on Urban Scale.
Author:
Makower, Timothy.
ISBN:
9781118737583
Personal Author:
Edition:
1st ed.
Physical Description:
1 online resource (221 pages)
Series:
Architectural Design Primer
Contents:
Cover -- Title Page -- Copyright Page -- Acknowledgements -- Contents -- Foreword -- Introduction -- Zooming In -- Under the Table -- Intermediary Scale -- To Connect or Dis-connect -- References -- Chapter 1 On Scale and Size -- Detroit -- Centredness -- Motor City -- Definitions -- The American Dream -- After the Boom -- Moving Out -- Today and Tomorrow -- References -- Chapter 2 On Scale and Movement -- Paris 1925 -- Absolutes and Relativities -- The Car: A Deceptive Measure -- The Train: Recalibrating the City -- Bikes and Neighbourhoods -- Walkable City - Msheireb, Doha -- Air and Ether -- References -- Chapter 3 On Scale and Edges -- Far Too Far -- City Carved -- Liquid Space -- Stitching the City -- At Home in the City -- Outdoor Rooms -- References -- Chapter 4 On Scale and Grain -- Jigsaws and Patchworks -- New Order and the Dangers of Repetition -- On Fine and Coarse Grain -- Urban Jazz -- On Grain and Directionality -- History Speeded Up -- On Patina -- References -- Chapter 5 On Scale and Form -- On Footprint -- Responsive Form -- Grandeur and Intimacy -- Blow Up -- Two Big Domes -- On Drawing -- References -- Chapter 6 On Scale, Skeletons and Surface -- Skin and Bones -- The Unité d'Habitation -- Le Modulor -- Geometry and Proportion -- The Grand Order -- Micro-Order -- References -- Chapter 7 On Scale and Detail -- Within the Thickness of the Wall -- Montepulciano and Todi: Muscle or Frill -- Venice, Rome and Doha -- Like Nature -- References -- Conclusion -- From Nature -- All Change -- Reprise -- Epilogue -- References -- Select Bibliography -- Index -- Picture Credits -- EULA.
Abstract:
Scale in cities is relative and absolute. It has the ability to make us feel at home in the world or alien from it; connected or disconnected. Both large and small scale in cities can be beautiful; both are right, neither is wrong. Whilst accepting that prescription is no answer, 'getting the scale right' - at an intuitive and sensual level - is a fundamental part of the magic of architecture and urban design. Touching the City explores how scale is manifested in cities, exploring scale in buildings, in the space between them and in their details. It asks how scale makes a difference. Travelling from Detroit to Chandigarh, via New York, London, Paris, Rome and Doha, Tim Makower explores cities with the analytical eye of a designer and with the experiential eye of the urban dweller. Looking at historic cities, he asks what is good about them: what can we learn from the old to inform the new? The book zooms in from the macro scale of surfing Google Earth to micro moments such as finding fossils in a weathered wall. It examines the dynamics and movement patterns of cities, the making of streets and skylines, the formation of thresholds and facades, and it also touches on the process of design and the importance of drawing. As the book's title, Touching the City, suggests, it also emphasises the tactile - that the city is indeed something physical, something we can touch and be touched by, alive and ever changing.
Local Note:
Electronic reproduction. Ann Arbor, Michigan : ProQuest Ebook Central, 2017. Available via World Wide Web. Access may be limited to ProQuest Ebook Central affiliated libraries.
Electronic Access:
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