The Urban Design Review is now an online journal, available at urbandesignreview.org.

When we launched the journal five years ago, our mission was to wade through the flood of new publications to highlight the most provocative and worthwhile literature. As we meditated on new directions for the journal, we were determined to take advantage of the insights of our fellows to critically explore the most defining issues we face in our cities.

To that end, we have repurposed the Review to provide a platform for eminent urbanists to present new policy ideas and evaluate interventions that merit further scrutiny. In addition to reviews of recent literature, films and exhibitions, the Review will now feature project updates, op-eds, and debates written by our distinguished body of fellows and invited experts.

If you would like to be involved or wish to contribute, contact us at [email protected]. The Review is an evolving project—we welcome your input!

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Reacting to weak demand for design services and doomsday attitudes about sprawling urbanization, a number of books have emerged to re-assess the worldwide impact of architecture, like Blair Kamin’s Terror and Wonder, a catalog of awe-inspiring and catastrophic architectural incidents in the last decade. Other authors have tackled the enormous influence of small interventions, like Small Scale, Big Change, a recent MoMA exhibition tackling smaller architectural projects. This installment concludes with the proceedings of a recent Director’s Luncheon about two parks that have captured the world’s attention, the High Line and Hudson River Park.

Topics reviewed in this installment:
Terror and Wonder by Blair Kamin
Small Scale, Big Change by Andres Lepik
The Power of Pro Bono by John Cary and Public Architecture
Architecture at the Edge of Everything Else by Esther Choi and Marikka Trotter
Trophy Parks: A Director’s Luncheon on the High Line & Hudson River Park

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UrbanDesignReview_Installment-1_cover-for-web-2 After a brief hiatus, the Urban Design Review is back! In this installment, we have reviewed Urbanisms: Working with Doubt by Steven Holl, Green Metropolis by David Owen, and Hijacking Sustainability by Adrian Parr. We have also included a conversation between Steven Holl and Sanford Kwinter as well as proceedings from our recent Forum: America 2050.

Texts reviewed in this installment:
Urbanisms: Working with Doubt by Steven Holl
Green Metropolis: Why Living Smaller, Living Closer, and Driving Less Are the Keys to Sustainability by David Owen
Hijacking Sustainability by Adrian Parr

As well as proceedings from
America 2050: What Will We Build?: A debate between Joel Kotkin & Chris Leinberger

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UDR2009

From a survey of experiments in mobile architecture to a reaction to the sillier Why Do Architects Wear Black?, our contributors take on a series of texts that poke at the playfulness of architectural design. Besides our reviews are a interview with architectural sculptor Karlis Rekevics as well as a new feature with short reviews of books by Forum members. Contributors include David S. Morton, Tim Murphy, Alec Appelbaum, Shin-pei Tsay, and Lisa Chamberlain.

Some of the texts reviewed in this issue:
I Am a Monument: On ‘Learning from Las Vegas’ by Aron Vinegar
More Mobile: Portable Architecture for Today by Jennifer Siegal
Architecture Oriented Otherwise by David Leatherbarrow
Wayfinding by David Gibson

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udr-cover-summer-2008In this installment of the Urban Design Review, we reviewed ten texts with content ranging from the urban creative economy to likely suburban futures. We also interviewed one of winners of the Architectural League of New York’s Young Architect Prize, Ivan Hernandez Quintela, about his uniquely innovative public space designs. Contributors to this installment include David Morton, Fred Dust, Adam Yarinsky, Patrick Seeb, Alec Appelbaum, Alex Marshall, and Lisa Chamberlain.

A few of the books reviewed in this issue:
Architecture of the Absurd by John Silber, Reviewed by David S. Morton
Brandscapes by Anna Klingmann, Reviewed by Fred Dust
The Option of Urbanism by Christopher B. Leinberger, Reviewed by Lisa Chamberlain
The Geography of Bliss by Eric Weiner, Reviewed by Alec Appelbaum

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udr-cover-Fall-Winter-2008From Traffic: Why We Drive the Way We Do to The Not So Big House, this issue of the Urban Design Review focuses on how the built environment shapes urban lifestyles. We also sat down for an interview with the man who coined the term “vertical farming” over ten years ago. Contributors include Alec Appelbaum, David S. Morton, Shin-pei Tsay, Tim Murphy, Chris Carmody, Lisa Chamberlain, Marya Spence, and Loreal Monroe.

A few of the books reviewed in this issue:
Blubberland by Elizabeth Farrelly, Reviewed by Tim Murphy
Who’s Your City? by Richard Florida, Reviewed by Chris Carmody
The Concrete Dragon by Thomas Campanella, Reviewed by Shin-pei Tsay

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udr-cover-spring-2007Might “mapping” replace “designing” as our default term for how objects and space are created and organized? So suggests Janet Abrams in a conversation with David Benjamin on page 25. Abrams, together with Peter Hall, co-edited a vertiginous book on the subject of contemporary projects in mapping. As Javier Arbona’s review makes clear, Else/Where: Mapping is worth reading for its own merits. It’s even more fascinating when paired with Steven Johnson’s The Ghost Map, reviewed by Steve Silberman on page 4. Johnson’s adventurous narrative of London’s cholera outbreak explores how one man’s mapping of the London sewers led to a revolution in scientific thought. Before the city could be redesigned to meet the threat of waterborne disease, it had to be remapped.

The way that artists, architects, planners and developers meet the challenges of climate change and energy conservation is undoubtedly the question of the moment, and it surfaces throughout this issue of the Urban Design Review. To an obvious extent, this will require rethinking how we design. Houses will need retrofitting; urban infrastructure will need modernizing. But perhaps our most urgent task for urban designers is to become urban mappers—to visualize information differently, to re-articulate the landscape of our urban forms and their challenges. Indeed, Johnson’s observation of the nineteenth-century still holds true of today: There’s a hero to be made of the one who shows us how to see our cities with fresh eyes. —David Haskell
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