Performative Urban Design identifies emerging trends in urban design as they are reflected in a city's architecture and spatial design. A 'cultural grafting' of the inner city is taking place, and urban development is pursuing an intense city life in which architecture and art are playing a catalytic role. On the one hand, this development has focused on massive investments in 'corporate architecture.' On the other hand, cities have invested heavily in new cultural centers and performative urban spaces that can fulfill a growing desire for entertainment and culture. This anthology addresses these issues through the three lenses of: Sense Architecture, Place Making, and Urban Catalyst. The articles identify the relevant theoretical positions within architecture, art, and urban strategies, and they demonstrate the concepts and methodological approaches drawn from practical experience.

The concept of relational space in urbanism'understanding the space of the city as produced by society'is connected with an understanding of architecture unfolding in situations. Urban space is induced by architecture, space is produced while experiencing architecture within a situation. There is a dialectical interplay between architectonic material (intra-architectonic reality) and usage and action (urban reality). Thus, an architectonic situation can be interpreted as performative in the sense of performativity as it has emerged in the discourse over the last decade. The everyday urban life of the city, with all its potential and conflicts, is taken into consideration. Analyzing the urban is not enough. This discourse is about Urban Design. Is architectural design one part, and the actualization of architecture in a performative incident another? Does Urban Design need different practices?

The Routledge Companion to Paradigms of Performativity in Design and Architecture focuses on a non-linear, multilateral, ethical way of design thinking, positioning the design process as a journey. It expands on the multiple facets and paradigms of performative design thinking as an emerging trend in design methodology. This edited collection explores the meaning of performativity by examining its relevance in conjunction with three fundamental principles: firmness, commodity and delight. The scope and broader meaning of performativity, performative architecture and performance-based building design are discussed in terms of how they influence today’s design thinking. With contributions from 44 expert practitioners, educators and researchers, this volume engages theory, history, technology and the human aspects of performative design thinking and its implications for the future of design.

"The essays collected in this book adopt different disciplinary approaches to point out the forms of citizens' participation developed in the field of contemporary public art and urban design"--Page 2 of cover.

How can performance create and transform places of urban renewal and regeneration? What does performance contribute to the creation of community? These are some of the questions addressed in this study of the relationship of performance to urban space. Marrying theory with a series of international case studies of performance practice and interviews with practitioners, this interdisciplinary study examines how space is performatively produced to create a sense of 'placeness'. Offering multiple perspectives on space and place, this book investigates the connections between space and the construction of social and cultural narratives. It focuses on the multiple ways performative actions produce space, including theatre, installations, site-specific work, visual arts and digital performance. Combining interdisciplinary approaches to contemporary performance, architecture and digital media studies, this study builds on a clear theoretical framework that draws on the work of Walter Benjamin, Michel Foucault, Henri Lefevre, Richard Schechner, Hans-Thies Lehmann, Lev Manovich and Slavoj Žižek. It offers themed sections comprising theory, studies of practice and interviews with practitioners. Case studies include site-specific work by Catalan collective La Fura Dels Baus, Barcelona, Spain, the Prague Quadrennial, community engagement in Praça Roosevelt in Sao Paulo, Brazil, the Portland Inn Project in Stoke-on-Trent, UK, Campo de la Cebada in Madrid, Spain, and digital spaces created by artists in India and Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Temporal Urban Design: Temporality, Rhythm and Place examines an alternative design approach, focusing on the temporal aesthetics of urban places and the importance of the sense of time and rhythm in the urban environment. The book departs from concerns on the acceleration of cities, its impact on the urban quality of life and the liveability of urban spaces, and questions on what influences the sense of time, and how it expresses itself in the urban environment. From here, it poses the questions: what time is this place and how do we design for it? It offers a new aesthetic perspective akin to music, brings forward the methodological framework of urban place-rhythmanalysis, and explores principles and modes of practice towards better temporal design quality in our cities. The book demonstrates that notions of time have long been intrinsic to planning and urban design research agendas and, whilst learning from philosophy, urban critical theory, and both the natural and social sciences debate on time, it argues for a shift in perspective towards the design of everyday urban time and place timescapes. Overall, the book explores the value of the everyday sense of time and rhythmicity in the urban environment, and discusses how urban designers can understand, analyse and ultimately play a role in the creation of temporally unique, both sensorial and affective, places in the city. The book will be of interest to urban planners, designers, landscape architects and architects, as well as urban geographers, and all those researching within these disciplines. It will also interest students of planning, urban design, architecture, urban studies, and of urban planning and design theory.

This book explores ‘spatial practices’, a loose and expandable set of approaches that embrace the political and the activist, the performative and the curatorial, the architectural and the urban. Acting upon and engaging with the public realm, the field of spatial practices allows people to reconnect with their own sense of agency through engagement in space and place, exploring and prototyping alternative futures in the here and now. The 24 chapters contain essays, visual essays and interviews, featuring contributions from an international set of experimental practitioners including Jeanne van Heeswijk (Netherlands), Teddy Cruz (Estudio Teddy Cruz + Fonna Forman, San Diego), Hector (USA), The Decorators (London) and OOZE (Netherlands). Beautifully designed with full colour illustrations, Spatial Practices advances dialogue and collaboration between academics and practitioners and is essential reading for students, researchers and professionals in architecture, urban planning and urban policy.