A number of years ago I discovered a book on medieval new towns titled, “Florentine New Towns: Urban Design in … More
Category: Shaker Heights
The Use of Typologies in Designing Architecture and Urban Design
“What … is type? It can most simply be defined as a concept which describes a group of objects characterized … More
Subminiature Cameras
In this entry I plan to deviate from my normal writings on urban settings and will be covering my small … More
The Legacy of Colin Rowe and the Figure/Ground Drawing
The following is a paper presented at a conference titled, “Urban Design and the Legacy of Colin Rowe,” and appears … More
Giuseppe Zocchi: Choice XXV views of the main districts, squares, churches and palaces of the city of Florence
In the latter part of the 1700’s engravings of important cities became fashionable. Probably the most well-known engraver of this … More
The Urban Genome: Circulation
Circulation Highways, streets, roads, boulevards, avenues, alleys, the names and function may vary but their primary concern is to allow … More
The Urban Genome: Fields
• Fields In 1979 Steven K. Peterson published the seminal article titled “URBAN DESIGN TACTICS.” In this article Peterson describes … More
The Urban Genome: City Gates or Points of Entrance
• City Gates or Points of Entrance City gates, in one form or another, can be found across the world … More
The Genealogy of Cities (PDF’s from the CD)
In 2009 my book, The Genealogy of Cities, was published. The book displayed around 600 city plans in figure ground … More
The Urban Genome: Approach
In the previous posting, The Urban Genome: The Rural Zone, I began a new series discussing what I call The Urban … More
The Urban Genome: Rural Zone
“Urban design is a synthetic, inventive mapping of physical conditions which establishes whole areas of the city. In other words, … More
Looking @ Shaker Heights
Cities are fascinating places to study. What we see at face value is actually built typically over time. A number … More