GRAND URBAN RULES

Description

Grand Urban Rules offers a compilation and discussion of significant urban rules that have been invented and implemented by European, North American, and Asian cities. Not only does the reader get an overview of the functionality and repercussions of these rule sets, but also gains insight into the context and situation of specific cities through the lens of rule-based governance. Based on a database of approximately 100 relevant urban rules that have been created and researched at the ETH in Zurich, these rules describe built form with regard to physical characteristics, qualities and consequences as well as the distribution of program, density, urban performance and aesthetics.

CONTENTS

The City of Averuni and its Code

• General Declarations, Motive
• Superordinate Land Use Rules
• District-related Land Use Rules
• Streetscape Rules
• Neighborhood Rules
• Plot/Block Rules
• Building Rules

I. Rules as Tools—A Token of Affection

II. The Tightrope Walk of Exercising Control over Private Property

III. Power is Nothing Without Control

• The Difficult Act of Setting Thresholds
• Attempts and Realizations of Control

IV. Codified Aesthetics

• Control and (Visual) Order …
• Downtown’s Will to Form

V. Connected Isolation—Neighborhood

• Prologue: Loss of Autonomy—A Neighborhood Paradigm
• Immaterial Intruder—The Right to Light
• How Big Is your Neighborhood

VI. Codes, Conventions and Maxims: Official and Informal Regimes, Rules of Place in 1960s New York

VII. Within or Without

• Automatic Inclusion: Externalities
• Artificial Conclusion: Plans and Special Districts

VIII. Difference and Consistency

IX. Designed Variation

X. Synthesis—A Designed Conclusion

• Kees Christiaanse: Remote Control
• Ludger Hovestadt: The Climatic Aspect of Architecture

272 pages, b&w ills / 17,5 x 24,5 cm / English