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The Ideal City: Exploring Urban Futures
The city is an always changing human experiment. But in the last half century, it has changed more than ever before - with little sign of slowing down. As this phenomenon takes place, an increasing number of architects, innovators and policy-makers are rethinking the city to make the most of space and resources. This book chronicles the design of urban futures. From apps designed to curb food waste to inventive fresh water infrastructure, Designing Urban Futures explores the many initiatives and experiments, all with the shared goal of making the cities of tomorrow a happier, healthier and more inclusive place to be. What to expect: - A progressive, global view of the future of cities by one of Europe's leading research and design labs - Expert profiles and an introduction to the doers and thinkers at the forefront of urbanism - First-hand insight from essays written by urbanist thought leaders - A multi-disciplinary approach that takes ideas from architecture, technology, infrastructure and sustainability
256 pages, Hardcover
Published April 13, 2021
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
March 26, 2021
I hardly ever give 5 stars to a book so doing so is somewhat of a big deal. I loved this book! It inspired me with architectural designs thought up by visionary individuals. However I did find the title misleading "The Ideal City" as if multiplying these designs would lead to the perfect place to be. I missed the participation of a community in this but maybe that's an idea for another book;)
March 4, 2024
enjoyable read! Only downside is that it doesn’t get very deep on any of the concepts, only a cursory view at a variety of urban design solutions. Which, to be fair, is the point of the book - it’s a nice coffee table read, not a thesis. At times just felt a little too glossy and had me asking “what are the compromises here?” Maybe that says more about my own jaded personality than the book. In any case, I’d recommend this to anyone interested in sustainability and humanist living through design. One thing that really resonated with me was the “desirable” section - cities need to be beautiful and enjoyable and special, not just functional; this isn’t something that can be quantified, and it’s easy to cut out those things to achieve other measurable elements (speed, cost, scale, etc). this can be controversial at times! e.g., ugly housing is better than no housing… can’t we push ourselves as a society to have both sufficient and architecturally pleasing housing?
January 28, 2023
The premise of the book is quite straightforward: gathering some of the most interesting design city projects happening recently across the world. However, behind this simple exposition a really promising conclusion is hidden: the utopy, which is always thought of as something unachievable, could be real; in fact, it is happening already but in a distributed form, that is to say, in different cities. But it is there, it is just a matter of gathering all these projects in one place and we would have the utopia, there, in the present. Brilliant.
That being said, I missed some futures thinking at the end of the book, because the topic lent a lot to it. Moreover, the reading turns at some point a bit monotonous once you catch the book structure because it is repeated exactly in the 5 topics it touches. I also detected some bias toward projects of certain regions and, in contrast, I missed projects of others. That is the case of my city, Barcelona, which is carrying out several interesting projects in the topics the book is interested in (e.g. The "superilles").
The layout of the book is marvellous, both in design and materials.
That being said, I missed some futures thinking at the end of the book, because the topic lent a lot to it. Moreover, the reading turns at some point a bit monotonous once you catch the book structure because it is repeated exactly in the 5 topics it touches. I also detected some bias toward projects of certain regions and, in contrast, I missed projects of others. That is the case of my city, Barcelona, which is carrying out several interesting projects in the topics the book is interested in (e.g. The "superilles").
The layout of the book is marvellous, both in design and materials.
January 28, 2022
I really found this book inspiring. It always gives a concept that the authors believe an ideal city should embody and then gives exmples of projects that embody this principle. The examples are fascinating and really show how we could rethink our cities. However, I share one other reviewer’s opinion that the book doesn’t really give the idea of how an ideal city itself would look like as a whole. Instead it gives bits and pieces of how certain characteristics cam be realized in a city. Overall, I do recommend the book, but I agree that the title is somewhat misleading.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews