Bibliography
This is not intended to be a comprehensive bibliography of books about urban design. Rather it is a compilation of source material and a number of other works which have been influential in the preparation of this book.
The Ascent of Man by J. Bronowski; British Broadcasting Corporation, 1973. The book of the outstanding television documentary, which charted in a most expansive manner the rise of mankind as shapers of our environment and future.
Beazley’s Design and Detail of the Space between Buildings by Angi Pinder and Alan Pinder; E. & F.N. Spon, 1990. A new edition of a book which has, for many years, been an invaluable guide to hard landscape design.
City Centre Design Strategy by Tibbalds Colbourne Karski Williams Monro; City of Birmingham, 1990. Part of a series of urban design studies commissioned by the city, taking a robust, coherent, apolitical vision over a thirty/forty year time span, of ways of improving the central area of Birmingham as opportunities for change occur.
A City is not a Tree by Christopher Alexander; Architectural Forum, 1965 and Design 1966. This article, which was selected for one of the 1965 Kaufmann International Design Awards, is one of the most influential ever written about city planning. In a mere nine pages, Dr Alexander - a mathematician as well as an architectural scholar - cogently argues that a natural city has the organization of a ‘semi-lattice’, but when we organize a city artificially, we make the mistake of doing it in a hierarchical fashion, like a tree.
The Death and Life of Great American Cities by Jane Jacobs; Random House Inc., 1961. The book that cogently challenged hitherto fashionable theories of urban planning and land use zoning.
Green Paper on the Urban Environment. Commission of the European Communities; Brussels, June 1990. A welcome synoptic overview of problems of the urban environment in their widest sense, demonstrating that to reach solutions, traditional sectoral boundaries need to be crossed.
How Do You Want to Live? A Report on the Human Habitat for the Department of the Environment; HMSO, 1972. A study of public opinion, undertaken at the request of the then Secretary of State for the Environment, The Rt Hon. Peter Walker MP, in connection with the United Nations Conference on the Human Environment, Stockholm, June 1972.
Living over the Shop - A Guide to the Provision of Housing above Shops in Town Centres; NHTPC, June 1990. A first Report of a two-year Project set up by Ann Petherick and sponsored by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation.
Marvellous Melbourne 2000 - An Overview of Planning Opportunities with International Comparisons by Francis Tibbalds/Tibbalds Colbourne Karski Williams Monro; Department of Planning and Urban Growth, State of Victoria, Australia; July 1990. A Study for the Minister of Planning and Urban Growth aimed at identifying, considering and recommending, against a wide international perspective, opportunities for the enhancement of Central Melbourne as an international city.
Our Approach to Making User-Friendly Environments: 14 Principles of Good Practice by Tibbalds Colbourne Karski Williams Monro, London 1990. A set of principles, continually being refined, which is being used to guide projects and design work and as a management tool for staff training.
Planning for Beauty - The Case for Design Guidelines by Judy Hillman; Royal Fine Art Commission, HMSO, April 1990. A useful guide through what has become a real minefield - the relationship between design control and planning control.
The Public vs The Private Realm - the Implications for Urban Design of the Decline of the Public Realm by Francis Tibbalds; AJ Urban Design series; The Architects Journal, 7.11.90. A contribution to a series of three issues of the AJ on urban design, running from October 24 1990.
Responsive Environments - A Manual for Designers by Bentley Alcock Murrain McGlynn Smith; The Architectural Press, 1985. One of the first really comprehensive books to look at making places more ‘user friendly’ in terms of how they are used, understood and personalized.
Shahestan Pahlavi - A New City Centre for Tehran - Book Two: The Urban Design; Llewelyn-Davies International, 1976. The author was Principal Architect Planner on the team and wrote the majority of the text of this volume, dealing with urban design proposals for the new centre.
Townscape by Gordon Cullen; The Architectural Press 1961. Gordon Cullen’s robust concepts of serial vision, place and content are still directly relevant today. The sketches remain wonderful too.
Traffic in Towns - A Study of the Long Term Problems of Traffic in Urban Areas; Report of the Steering Group and Working Group appointed by the Minister of Transport; HMSO 1963. Commonly known as The Buchanan Report, this was the first real analysis of the relationship between accessibility, environmental quality and investment. It coined the now widely accepted notions of defining for each street an ‘environmental capacity’ and the definition of ‘environmental areas’ from which ‘extraneous traffic’ should be strictly excluded. It was, and still is, a landmark study.
Traffic Calming - Through Integrated Urban Planning by H.G. Vahl and J. Gisks; Editions Amarcande, December 1989. A useful primer, available in four languages, by two Dutch municipal engineers, funded by the Volvo Traffic Safety Award 1986, sharing considerable technical know-how and illustrating this with examples from the Netherlands and France.
Transport in Cities by Brian Richards; Architecture Design and Technology Press, 1990. This book succeeds New Movement in Cities [1966] and Moving in Cities [1976] by the same author and cogently demonstrates that there are viable and proven alternatives to the present nightmare of traffic congestion and pollution.
Urban Design - a special issue of The Planner; Journal of the Royal Town Planning Institute; March 1988. This issue helped reveal a strong latent interest in the subject of urban design amongst the British planning profession.
A Vision of Britain - a Personal View of Architecture by His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales; Doubleday, 1989. The book of the landmark television documentary in which Prince Charles not only dramatically raised public interest in the design of the built environment, but also cogently challenged ‘the fashionable theories of a professional establishment which has made the layman feel he has no legitimate opinions’.
