great introduction to urban design
932858
I am a graduate student in planning and I had heard a lot about urban design but still had a ahrd time defining and describing it for myself-let alone someone else. I approached a professor who recommended this book and I found it really helpful. Good examples, lots of research from other urban designers, and I liked the way the book is divided into easy to grasp "dimensions."
4971294
"But density without community just sucks. Thousands and thousands of people jammed into faceless little boxes, trying to pay off exorbitant mortgages is not much of a city." (54)

Written with the same kind of candor, Common Ground for a Liquid City: Essays in Defense of an Urban Future by Matt Hern is truly a thought-provoking and stimulating book. As I read through the pages it was a unique blend of writing about urban issues from an academic angle (Matt has a PhD in urban studies) mixed in with a gritty East Vancouver snarkiness. Matt, who lives in East Vancouver, writes with the colour and bluntness of an Anne Lamott. When I first picked up the book it was hard to put it down. Although the occasional F-bomb and rants would keep this off the shelves and required reading list in some academic circles, I was thoroughly challenged not only to look at urban issues with a fresh sets of lenses but more importantly the city of Vancouver.

Throughout the book Matt takes the reader on a journey as he travels the world talking about the various cities he's encountered. He then brings the issues back home and holds them up as various lenses in which to view cities in general and Vancouver in particular. I have learned to see beyond the gorgeous facade of Vancouver's urbanism to see some of the blindspots that city officials, builders, and developers have missed in over-planning. Matt does a remarkable job of raising questions, "The real question I want to ask here sits near the intersection where aesthetic and political arguments meet: How can Vancouver develop some funk, some flavor? How can we densify without being sterile and choreographed?" (67)

Matt is in search of what makes a city livable. He does so in a refreshing way. I've read numerous books on the topic of sustainable cities, livable cities, urban planning, and the like but Common Ground in a Liquid City stands out because Matt continuously steps away from pure academic speculation and asks the tough questions from a practitioner's perspective. He lives in the city, is involved in making Vancouver livable, and behind numerous initiatives whether educational or things like car-free days. Urban renewal is advocated on many fronts and I believe he raises important issues for consideration. For those who love the city and desire to see it sustainable (especially Vancouverites) I'd highly recommend this fun and thought-provoking book. Kudos.
1214270
You've got a nice mix of interesting buildings here - including at least one with three stories. These would be great for urban locales that are visited multiple times. Highly recommended.
2631167
Great book about transit that teaches first principles of how to design a transit system. A perfect intro to anyone new to the field.
4778259
This book is full of beautiful projects, from easy to really complex that will really catch your eye. The explanations are not very wide, but each chapter shows you the basics by means of the construction of a different kind of box.

Perhaps, like most of urban crafters, I don't have a workshop jigsaw and a router table right on my bedroom, but this book helped me to do my first little projects thanks to the ideas and concepts one can extract.

I wish this book had more pages!!!
1884202
I loved Universal Principles of Design so I was confident this book would be good too, and it certainly delivered on it. It's great for a reference and prompt but I even learned some new techniques as well. Beautifully designed and illustrated. Recommended for designers, design researchers and anyone working in business or public sector who cares about people.
1869748
It's true, those from cities with rowhouses will find this book most interesting, but so will all interested in the history and geography of urban development and how land development, new building technologies, and individuals' working and family lives are interwoven with this development.  By referring back to a single family and its trajectory within the city throughout the book, the author makes some of these larger-scale trends much more personal, and by following the paths of a few major developers within the city, you get a sense both of how the city and its hot neighborhoods shift over time, and of how literally a very small group of people can shape the physical space in which thousands live and work.  Students of rowhouses or of Baltimore will be better able to see the continuities and the changes in rowhouses-- such as how the technology to make larger panes of glass changed the front facade, and how a simple setback from the sidewalk of 10 feet or so alters the feel of the buildings and the neighborhood by adding a little green.  Formstone is also explained (to the extent that's possible...).  Specialized, yes, but exceptionally well crafted.  Architectural, urban, and social history and their intermingled best.
3360841
A beautiful handout, a primer maybe on urban interventions in Brazil during the past two decades that could enlighten and enrich the smart growth movement here in the United States. Indeed, I find it amazing when I get the chance to compare how different cities cope under cultural and urban circumstances that are dissimilar but often alike.

In this book one will find examples of planning strategies, new city design, downtown revitalizations, shopping mall integration, waterfront redevelopment, traffic and transportation coping mechanisms, segregated neighborhood effective interventions, and above all the new focus of urbanism, what Jane Jacobs and new urbanists have been clamoring during the past decades, the importance of community in decision making and the revitalizing of streets and open spaces.

The importance of community participation as a way to invest in the self-esteem of the communities and produce more effective and lasting urban processes, the importance of strengthening the identity of neighborhoods, and the abandonment of `clean slate' attempts to urban solutions loom paramount throughout the book. So, yes, we are not the only ones attempting to improve our cities, they are doing it in Brazil also and this book offers many insightful lessons.

Finally, what I also enjoyed about the book was the addition of a theoretical base of modern versus post-modern that is offered throughout the book along with the case studies. It is truly amazing to see the way of thinking of a period percolate down to street life. Devastating in the modern era and attempting to regenerate the street in our times.

Phrases such as, `urban acupuncture,' `creative urbanism' and `symbiosis of a waterfront with the urban network,' are some additional gifts I extracted from the book.
1370950
This book provided a fun design exercise for my cartography students. I had them split a page into three sections and come up with their own color schemes to create a visual hierarchy. I also required them to duplicate a color scheme from a popular online map such as Google Maps, Bing Maps, or OpenStreetMap. Coloring the pages manually helped them think more about their choices, and I think some students considered it a welcome break from the computer-based exercises we'd been doing.

This book offers a nice variety of city maps from around the world, not just the US and Europe. It gives you a feel for the different types of city plans that develop across regions. The author included a variety of geographic features such as parks, gardens, harbors, rivers, paths, etc. at different scales.

A few things could be improved in future editions of the book: In some situations, the buildings are so small and the lines so thick that coloring would prove difficult. Additionally, because the pages are made from crowdsourced OpenStreetMap data, there are some strange situations where entities such as buildings are present in one part of the map and absent in another, even though it's apparent that buildings should exist across the page.  In general, the book is a creative use of OpenStreetMap that I support and hope to see more of.
2291721
A really beautiful book. I was hoping for more understanding of the program design details, but it's still very inspiring to see an entire city band together and begin to make buildings more comfortable, healthy, durable, and efficient.
1268574
Beautiful colors ,architecture and design make this a great book worth having.
614042
A great collection of different planning straegies. Provides unique and refreshing solutions for designing different urban hardscapes, mostly in the U.S. and Europe. It is also well put together and well thought out.
3289691
I really love Sarah Susanka's design philosophy.  It just makes sense.  Here in Australia, there are so many fringe suburbs which are filled to the hilt with McMansions.  These houses are built to within centimetres of their boundaries and are generic and worse, shockingly ugly and devoid of character. I loved this book which illustrates the way seemingly small details and good quality workmanship can make such a difference to the feel of a house.  If more people embraced these ideals, our cities would improve drastically - more green space has to be a good thing, doesn't it?
3410959
Packt Publishing has offered this an interesting book to me for review. It's about using Sketchup for game design. I like using Sketchup but I didn't know that it is good enough to be used for game design. This book shows that it can, and how you can do it.

This is a beginner's guide that's made up of step-by-step tutorials that build on one another. The goal is to construct a small town on uneven terrain at the outskirts of a city. It's the setting for a first person shooter game, and it's going to be used as demo where you can walk around the town.

To get up to speed, you need basic Sketchup knowledge like modeling and moving things around. The tutorials only cover the essential steps which focuses on finding textures, creating them, and mapping them onto the models.

Specifically for game design, it covers how textures are to be manipulated to get them looking good and still not be a drain on computing resources. The guided exercises are all easy to follow along.

In addition to Sketchup, the book introduces many free software that are to be downloaded and used for the tutorials. They are Meshlab, GIMP and Unity 3D. Unity 3D is a huge file so you'll want to download it first while reading the first few chapters.

The tutorials use GIMP, the Photoshop alternative, to edit pictures. You can still use Photoshop but you'll have to be proficient enough to understand how you can workaround, for example on how you can create seamless textures, because all the steps are written for GIMP.

There are many things new to me in this book. One of them is on creating undulating terrain inside Sketchup. I didn't know that was possible, and it's not difficult. There's also a chapter on modeling a car. The result is semi-realistic because the lesson involves building the general shape and mapping the car texture.

There are a lot of useful tips and tricks in this book. I learned a lot especially on texturing. It's a great book on prototype game design with Sketchup. Fun to read and easy to follow.
627458
I LOVE THIS BOOK!!!
Even if you are not into architecture and only into design or your an artist, this is a great book to have.
It's got some amazing illustrations that are so beautiful to look at.
I purchased not only the digital copy of this book but also the book copy of this.
In an aritst perspective this is great to look at to see the basic structures of a building.
The illustrations are in sketch form and often describe each structure as well as location this is an awesome book to have.
288198
This book is a delightful stroll through a great mind for design.  It's a walk through musings, reflections and personal experience about a life lived with design at the center.  LOVED IT and it will occupy a permanent home in my design library.  A great book for anyone who wants to see what passion for a domain looks like.
4067145
This book is not meant for those who are well versed in rain gardens looking to learn more about them, however it does provide many good references and precedents to expand some basic knowledge and styles in design.

Studied stormwater management in Berlin for several months visiting and using a few sites that were listed in the book in my study.

Highly recommended if you are interested in stormwater management on any level in my opinion though.