New Theory of Urban Design

Author: Alexander
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2002-05-01
Features: This series is divided into five volumes, and New Theories of Urban Design is the fifth volume of this series that describes a brand-new series of architectural and planning ideas. The purpose of publishing this series is to provide a complete and feasible new approach beyond our current architectural, construction, and planning concepts, and to hope that this new approach can gradually replace the current ideas and practices. In the past, some sacred and solemn cities like Venice or Amsterdam gave a holistic impression. In these cities, whether it was large hotels, shops, and public gardens or small balconies and decorations, all aspects of the appearance showed organic unity. However, modern cities often lack this sense of wholeness. Clearly, for architects busy solving individual structures and urban planners solely focused on executing local regulations, achieving a sense of wholeness is almost impossible. In the highly praised latest book of this series by the Environmental Structure Center, architect and planner C. Alexander (Christopher Alexander) and his colleagues propose a new theory of urban design aimed at reproducing the organic development process of cities. To find the regulations needed to create the increasing wholeness of urban development, the authors propose a set of preliminary laws, totaling seven, which reflect the actual development process and align with the growing demands of cities. Subsequently, the authors tested these laws and, together with many graduate students, simulated urban redesign in the high-density area of San Francisco. They initiated a project involving approximately 90 different design problems, including warehouses, hotels, fishing docks, concert halls, and public squares. This large-scale experiment was recorded and archived in the order of engineering, and detailed explanations were provided on how each project meets the seven laws, using floor plans, elevations, street networks, stereoscopic projections, and photos of scaled-down models. New Theories of Urban Design offers a completely new theoretical framework for discussing urban issues, greatly addressing the shortcomings of today's cities.