The City at Eye Level
Title | The City at Eye Level PDF eBook |
Author | Meredith Glaser |
Publisher | Eburon Uitgeverij B.V. |
Pages | 226 |
Release | 2012 |
Genre | Architecture |
ISBN | 9059727142 |
Although rarely explored in academic literature, most inhabitants and visitors interact with an urban landscape on a day-to-day basis is on the street level. Storefronts, first floor apartments, and sidewalks are the most immediate and common experience of a city. These "plinths" are the ground floors that negotiate between inside and outside, the public and private spheres. The City at Eye Level qualitatively evaluates plinths by exploring specific examples from all over the world. Over twenty-five experts investigate the design, land use, and road and foot traffic in rigorously researched essays, case studies, and interviews. These pieces are supplemented by over two hundred beautiful color images and engage not only with issues in design, but also the concerns of urban communities. The editors have put together a comprehensive guide for anyone concerned with improving or building plinths, including planners, building owners, property and shop managers, designers, and architects.
The City at Eye Level in the Netherlands
Title | The City at Eye Level in the Netherlands PDF eBook |
Author | |
Publisher | |
Pages | 256 |
Release | 2017 |
Genre | |
ISBN | 9789492474124 |
'The City at Eye Level' is an open source learning network and a programme for improving cities, streets, and places worldwide that aims to create human-scale interaction between buildings and streets, good placemaking, and a people-centric approach based on user experience. The latest instalment of its book series focuses on recent examples in the Netherlands. Through roughly 40 narratives, written in cooperation with cities, developers, and various practitioners, the book gathers examples from medium-sized and large cities to examine how challenges and strategies are changing, as well as how many new, small-scale initiatives have emerged in recent years.
Soft City
Title | Soft City PDF eBook |
Author | David Sim |
Publisher | Island Press |
Pages | 257 |
Release | 2019-08-20 |
Genre | Architecture |
ISBN | 1642830186 |
Imagine waking up to the gentle noises of the city, and moving through your day with complete confidence that you will get where you need to go quickly and efficiently. Soft City is about ease and comfort, where density has a human dimension, adapting to our ever-changing needs, nurturing relationships, and accommodating the pleasures of everyday life. How do we move from the current reality in most cites—separated uses and lengthy commutes in single-occupancy vehicles that drain human, environmental, and community resources—to support a soft city approach? In Soft City David Sim, partner and creative director at Gehl, shows how this is possible, presenting ideas and graphic examples from around the globe. He draws from his vast design experience to make a case for a dense and diverse built environment at a human scale, which he presents through a series of observations of older and newer places, and a range of simple built phenomena, some traditional and some totally new inventions. Sim shows that increasing density is not enough. The soft city must consider the organization and layout of the built environment for more fluid movement and comfort, a diversity of building types, and thoughtful design to ensure a sustainable urban environment and society. Soft City begins with the big ideas of happiness and quality of life, and then shows how they are tied to the way we live. The heart of the book is highly visual and shows the building blocks for neighborhoods: building types and their organization and orientation; how we can get along as we get around a city; and living with the weather. As every citizen deals with the reality of a changing climate, Soft City explores how the built environment can adapt and respond. Soft City offers inspiration, ideas, and guidance for anyone interested in city building. Sim shows how to make any city more efficient, more livable, and better connected to the environment.
Building the Cycling City
Title | Building the Cycling City PDF eBook |
Author | Melissa Bruntlett |
Publisher | Island Press |
Pages | 242 |
Release | 2018-08-28 |
Genre | Architecture |
ISBN | 1610918797 |
The world is rediscovering the bicycle as a multi-pronged solution to acute, 21st-century problems, including affordability, obesity, congestion, climate change, inequity, and social isolation. The Netherlands has built an accessible cycling culture that cities around the world can learn from. Chris and Melissa Bruntlett share the incredible success of the Netherlands through engaging interviews with local experts and stories of their own delightful experiences riding in five Dutch cities. Building the Cycling City examines the triumphs and challenges of the Dutch while also presenting stories of North American cities already implementing lessons from across the Atlantic. Discover how Dutch cities inspired Atlanta to look at its transit-bike connection in a new way and showed Seattle how to teach its residents to realize the freedom of biking, along with other encouraging examples.
City of Dreams
Title | City of Dreams PDF eBook |
Author | Beverly Swerling |
Publisher | Simon and Schuster |
Pages | 594 |
Release | 2011-05-31 |
Genre | Fiction |
ISBN | 0743218450 |
A sweeping epic of two families—one Dutch, one English—from the time when New Amsterdam was a raw and rowdy settlement, to the triumph of the Revolution, when New York became a new nation’s city of dreams. In 1661, Lucas Turner, a barber surgeon, and his sister, Sally, an apothecary, stagger off a small wooden ship after eleven weeks at sea. Bound to each other by blood and necessity, they aim to make a fresh start in the rough and rowdy Dutch settlement of Nieuw Amsterdam; but soon lust, betrayal, and murder will make them mortal enemies. In their struggle to survive in the New World, Lucas and Sally make choices that will burden their descendants with a legacy of secrets and retribution, and create a heritage that sets cousin against cousin, physician against surgeon, and, ultimately, patriot against Tory. In what will be the greatest city in the New World, the fortunes of these two families are inextricably entwined by blood and fire in an unforgettable American saga of pride and ambition, love and hate, and the becoming of the dream that is New York City.
Amsterdam
Title | Amsterdam PDF eBook |
Author | Russell Shorto |
Publisher | Vintage |
Pages | 378 |
Release | 2013-10-22 |
Genre | History |
ISBN | 0385534582 |
An endlessly entertaining portrait of the city of Amsterdam and the ideas that make it unique, by the author of the acclaimed Island at the Center of the World Tourists know Amsterdam as a picturesque city of low-slung brick houses lining tidy canals; student travelers know it for its legal brothels and hash bars; art lovers know it for Rembrandt's glorious portraits. But the deeper history of Amsterdam, what makes it one of the most fascinating places on earth, is bound up in its unique geography-the constant battle of its citizens to keep the sea at bay and the democratic philosophy that this enduring struggle fostered. Amsterdam is the font of liberalism, in both its senses. Tolerance for free thinking and free love make it a place where, in the words of one of its mayors, "craziness is a value." But the city also fostered the deeper meaning of liberalism, one that profoundly influenced America: political and economic freedom. Amsterdam was home not only to religious dissidents and radical thinkers but to the world's first great global corporation. In this effortlessly erudite account, Russell Shorto traces the idiosyncratic evolution of Amsterdam, showing how such disparate elements as herring anatomy, naked Anabaptists parading through the streets, and an intimate gathering in a sixteenth-century wine-tasting room had a profound effect on Dutch-and world-history. Weaving in his own experiences of his adopted home, Shorto provides an ever-surprising, intellectually engaging story of Amsterdam.
A Concise History of the Netherlands
Title | A Concise History of the Netherlands PDF eBook |
Author | James C. Kennedy |
Publisher | Cambridge University Press |
Pages | 505 |
Release | 2017-07-13 |
Genre | History |
ISBN | 0521875889 |
This book offers a comprehensive yet compact history of this surprisingly little-known but fascinating country, from pre-history to the present.