Arguing that humanity has lost its symbiotic relationship with nature regarding housing, a cultural evaluation of architecture considers the evolution of structure development and the possibility of combining the expertise of environmentalists and builders to promote indigenous architecture. UP.

Over the course of this century, nature has increasingly been relegated to the province of environmentalists while cities and towns have been turned over to developers and planners. Norman Crowe seeks to overcome this division into the respective realms of specialists by recognizing the independence of both the natural and the manmade through an understanding of the often hidden roots of the world we contrive for ourselves. Crowe argues that we have lost a vital balance by neglecting our traditional motives for building in the first place. He argues for a symbiotic theory of man's making and nature's activity that views the built environment as a form of nature, one that nourishes the generative power as well as other enduring qualities of nature. In this sweeping view of architecture and urbanism across cultural boundaries, Crowe evaluates the connections between the natural and manmade in our towns and cities, farms and gardens, architecture and works of civil engineering. He draws on the lessons to be learned from the buildings and cities of the past in restoring critical traditional values that have been lost to modernism which tends to see the built world almost exclusively through the abstractions of postenlightenment science. Crowe's starting point is indigenous architecture, the origins of our cities and towns where the first geometries were imposed on nature. He traces our separation from nature over time, from the long period of human history when nature served as a paradigm for creation. The first chapter considers the psychological and practical origins for the practice of what amounts to building an "alternative" nature. Crowe then explores the likely historical roots of this world and investigates our intrinsic quest for unity, the ancient idea that we are responsible for maintaining a harmony between ourselves, what we make, and nature. He traces the effect of our responses to the passing of time and the inevitability of change in the built world and then considers its opposite, the quest for timelessness in response to the inevitability of time passing. Crowe concludes by looking at the idea of the city as the culminating expression of all of these characteristic responses to nature that manifest themselves in what we build.

A penetrating take on how our planet would respond without the relentless pressure of the human presence

Updated for 2020, Intermediate readers distinguish between natural and man-made objects.

Landscape Urbanism and New Urbanism - negotiating the relationship between cities and the natural world In contemporary Western society, urban development is regarded as an unfortunate blight from which nature provides a much-needed respite. This apparent dichotomy ignores the interdependence between human settlement and the natural world. In fact, one of the most pressing problems facing urban theorists today is determining how to resolve the tension between the built and natural environments, in the process creating truly sustainable cities. Landscape Urbanism and its Discontents is a collection of essays exploring the debate over urban reform, now polarized around the two competing paradigms of Landscape Urbanism and the New Urbanism. Landscape Urbanism is conceived as a more ecologically based approach, while New Urbanism is more concerned with the built form. Well-known and influential urban theorists such as Andrés Duany and James Howard Kunstler delve into the impact of the tension between the two perspectives on: Smart growth Neighborhood design Sustainable development Creating cities that are in balance with nature While there is significant overlap between Landscape Urbanism and the New Urbanism, the former has assumed prominence amongst most critical theorists, whereas the latter's proponents are more practically oriented. Given that these two sets of ideas are at the forefront of sustainable urban design, the analysis– and potential reconciliation—offered by Landscape Urbanism and its Discontents is long overdue. Andrés Duany is a leading proponent of the New Urbanism and is a founding principal at Duany Plater-Zyberk & Company. Emily Talen is a professor at Arizona State University and the author of four previous books on urban design.