Ethics And Urban Design

"The city," according to urban design scholar Gideon Golany, is"the largest and most complicated project ever produced byhumankind." In Ethics and Urban Design, he challenges designprofessionals to reexamine their basic assumptions about the urbanenvironment and offers design strategies based on enduring humanvalues. In search of answers to the paradoxical problems of the moderncity, Golany takes the reader through the sweep of humansettlements from the dawn of civilization to the present. Hisauthoritative examination of the genesis of the city is illuminatedby instructive examples of early urban centers. Mesopotamia, theIndus River Valley, the Egyptian cities of the Nile, and thecapital cities of ancient China--all are examined in the light ofwhat made them work as major centers of human activity. What Golany finds in the success stories of the past are cohesivesociocultural values that shaped the design of homes,neighborhoods, and cities. These ethical values helped to maintainan equilibrium within the society that permeated its natural,social, and human-made environments. In the present era,conversely, he finds a major disconnection between human values andthe ethics of technology, which has resulted in confusion,imbalance, and dehumanization. To help designers gain a perspective on possible solutions, Golanyexplains leading comprehensive design strategies, including thevalley theory, the urban border zone concept, and the regionalconcept of Patrick Geddes. In the case study of contemporaryHolland, he details what a small, densely populated country hasbeen able to achieve through design planning rooted inenvironmental ethics. "Future Frontiers for Urban Design," the culminating section ofthis groundbreaking book, opens with Golany's vision of the futurecity. He examines the issues of thermal performance and climate asthey relate to urban design and offers the concept of"geospace"--the earth-enveloped habitat. Buttressing hispresentation with detailed information on the mechanics ofgeospace, Golany describes case studies of the successful use ofearth-enveloped habitats in China and Tunisia. He makes a powerfulargument for the geospace city as a renewal of ancient traditionsthat can restore the vital equilibrium between nature and humansettlements that we seem to have lost. Ethics and Urban Design is a distinguished scholar's analysis andprescription for the city; it offers an abundance of stimulatingideas for the architects, designers, and planners who have assumedresponsibility for its future. Ethics & Urban Design draws on historical examples andcontemporary case studies from around the world to illustrate urbandesign strategies that can help restore equilibrium to the natural,social, and built environments of the city. In this stimulatingbook, urban design scholar Gideon Golany offers architects,designers, and planners both an in-depth analysis of thefundamental issues of urban design and practical options for thedesign of the future city. * Examines the genesis and development of the city from theearliest presettlements to the rise of urban society * Presents urban design strategies based on historical examples ofearly urban centers, including Mesopotamia, the Indus River Valley,Egypt, and China * Offers case studies of environmental success stories from Europe,Asia, and Africa * Details geospace design options--the use of underground space fordiversified land use, housing, and transportation * Fully illustrated, with over 80 photographs, drawings, anddiagrams

Increasingly, we live in an environment of our own making: a ‘world as design’ over the natural world. For more than half of the global population, this environment is also thoroughly urban. But what does a global urban condition mean for the human condition? How does the design of the city and the urban process, in response to the issues and challenges of the Anthropocene, produce new ethical categories, shape new moral identities and relations, and bring about consequences that are also morally significant? In other words, how does the urban shape the ethical—and in what ways? Conversely, how can ethics reveal relations and realities of the urban that often go unnoticed? This book marks the first systematic study of the city through the ethical perspective in the context of the Anthropocene. Six emergent urban conditions are examined, namely, precarity, propinquity, conflict, serendipity, fear and the urban commons.

The value of design for contributing to environmental solutions and a sustainable future is increasingly recognised. It spans many spheres of everyday life, and the ethical dimension of design practice that considers environmental, social and economic sustainability is compelling. Approaches to design recognise design as a practice that can transform human experience and understanding, expanding its role beyond stylistic enhancement. The traditional roles of design, designer and designed object are therefore redefined through new understanding of the relationship between the material and immaterial aspects of design where the design product and the design process are embodiments of ideas, values and beliefs. This multi-disciplinary approach considers how to create design which is at once aesthetically pleasing and also ethically considered, with contributions from fields as diverse as architecture, fashion, urban design and philosophy. The authors also address how to teach design based subjects while instilling a desire in the student to develop ethical work practices, both inside and outside the studio.

A reflection on the past and present of city life, and a bold proposal for its future “Constantly stimulating ideas from a veteran of urban thinking.”—Jonathan Meades, The Guardian In this sweeping work, the preeminent sociologist Richard Sennett traces the anguished relation between how cities are built and how people live in them, from ancient Athens to twenty-first-century Shanghai. He shows how Paris, Barcelona, and New York City assumed their modern forms; rethinks the reputations of Jane Jacobs, Lewis Mumford, and others; and takes us on a tour of emblematic contemporary locations, from the backstreets of Medellín, Colombia, to Google headquarters in Manhattan. Through it all, Sennett laments that the “closed city”—segregated, regimented, and controlled—has spread from the Global North to the exploding urban centers of the Global South. He argues instead for a flexible and dynamic “open city,” one that provides a better quality of life, that can adapt to climate change and challenge economic stagnation and racial separation. With arguments that speak directly to our moment—a time when more humans live in urban spaces than ever before—Sennett forms a bold and original vision for the future of cities.

In this important contribution to urban studies, Juliet Davis makes the case for a more ethical and humane approach to city development and management. With a range of illustrative case studies, the book challenges the conventional and neoliberal thinking of urban planners and academics, and explores new ways to correct problems of inequality and exclusion. It shows how a philosophy of caring can improve both city environments and communities. This is an original and powerful theory of urban care that can promote the wellbeing of our cities’ many inhabitants.

The book proposes a set of original contributions in research areas shared by planning theory, architectural research, design and ethical inquiry. The contributors gathered in 2010 at the Ethics of the Built Environment seminar organized by the editors at Delft University of Technology. Both prominent and emerging scholars presented their researches in the areas of aesthetics, technological risks, planning theory and architecture. The scope of the seminar was highlighting shared lines of ethical inquiry among the themes discussed, in order to identify perspectives of innovative interdisciplinary research. After the seminar all seminar participants have elaborated their proposed contributions. Some of the most prominent international authors in the field were subsequently invited to join in with this inquiry. Claudia Basta teaches "Network Infrastructures and Mobility" at Wageningen University. Between 2009 and 2011 she worked as Coordinator of the 3TU Centre of Excellence for Ethics and Technology of Delft University, where she completed her post-doc research on the shared areas of investigation between risk theories, planning theories and ethical inquiry. Her main research interests concern the matter of assessing and governing technological risks in relation to sustainable land use planning. She wrote a number of journal articles and contributions to collective books on these themes. Stefano Moroni teaches “Land use ethics and the law” at Milan Politecnico. His main research interests concern planning theory and ethics. He is the author of a number of books and journal articles. Recent publications (as co-author): Contractual Communities in the Self-Organizing City (Springer 2012).

Urban Ethics under Conditions of Crisis investigates the states of urban planning, architectural design, sustainability, landscape architecture, and engineering, and examines their correlation with social attitudes and dispositions that can impact on socio-cultural and political engagement internationally in conditions of crisis. The theme of the book emphasizes the need to acknowledge the controversial character of contemporary social life under critical social conditions, in correlation with urban space. It concerns the evaluation of critical issues such as:

The Ethics of a Potential Urbanism explores the possible and potential relevance of Giorgio Agamben’s political thoughts and writings for the theory and the practice of architecture and urban design. It sketches out the potentiality of Agamben’s politics, which can affect change in current architectural and design discourses. The book investigates the possibility of an inoperative architecture, as an ethical shift for a different practice, just a little bit different, but able to deactivate the sociospatial dispositive and mobilize a new theory and a new project for the urban now to come. This particular reading from Agamben’s oeuvre suggests a destituent mode of both thinking and practicing of architecture and urbanism that could possibly redeem them from their social emptiness, cultural irrelevance, economic reductionism and proto-avant-garde extravagance, contributing to a renewed critical ‘encounter’ with architecture’s aesthetic-political function.