Common Place: Toward Neighborhood and Regional Design

by Douglas S. Kelbaugh

Overview

Common Place is about how we can develop community and create convivial and sustainable places in the face of disjointed and fast-paced growth. It offers strategies for reclaiming and repairing our neighborhoods and cities, which today are increasingly dominated by fear and disintegration and the automobile. Kelbaugh looks at New Urbanism, Urban Villages, Pedestrian Pockets, and Transit-Oriented Development — concepts which he helped pioneer. Bridging academic theory and on-the-ground practice, Common Place is an indispensable book for designers, planners, city officials, developers, environmentalists, and citizens interested in understanding and shaping the American metropolis.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780295975900
Publisher:	University of Washington Press
Publication date:	06/01/1997
Series:	Samuel and Althea Stroum Books Series
Edition description:	2nd ed.
Pages:	344
Product dimensions:	8.50(w) x 10.00(h) x (d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Douglas Kelbaugh, is Dean of the College of Architecture and Urban Planning at the University of Michigan. He is former principal in Kelbaugh, Calthorpe & Associates of Seattle and Kelbaugh & Lee of Princeton, New Jersey. His design work has won more than two dozen design awards and has been published in over 100 books and periodicals.

What People are Saying About This

Don Prowler

Common Place is written with such exquisite clarity and confidence, it is easy to overlook that Doug Kelbaugh is arguing for nothing less than a fundamental reconsideration of contemporary American planning.

Donald Leslie Johnson

With an aim at interactive, creative physical designs for neighborhood, city, and region, this is a book every politician, citizen in an urban action group, and corporate manager should possess. For environmental design courses at academic institutions, it provides proactive and universal design methodologies using the great Seattle region as a laboratory.

Andres Duany

This is two books in one. One is the most sophisticated presentation of the New Urbanism to be found anywhere. The other describes the most remarkable series of charrettes ever applied to a city. There isn’t much more that a modern planner needs to know.

From the Publisher

"Common Place is written with such exquisite clarity and confidence, it is easy to overlook that Doug Kelbaugh is arguing for nothing less than a fundamental reconsideration of contemporary American planning."— Don Prowler, Princeton University

"This is two books in one. One is the most sophisticated presentation of the New Urbanism to be found anywhere. The other describes the most remarkable series of charrettes ever applied to a city. There isn’t much more that a modern planner needs to know."— Andres Duany, co—founder, Congress for the New Urbanism

"Doug Kelbaugh has a sparkle in his eye and a vision in his heart, but dirt under his fingernails. He is a scholar and a dreamer, but also a builder. Common Place defines the cutting edge of urban design in the real world."— Denis Hayes, President and CEO, Bullitt Foundation, and founder of Earth Day

"With an aim at interactive, creative physical designs for neighborhood, city, and region, this is a book every politician, citizen in an urban action group, and corporate manager should possess. For environmental design courses at academic institutions, it provides proactive and universal design methodologies using the great Seattle region as a laboratory."— Donald Leslie Johnson, University of South Australia

"There are, unfortunately, very few architects around who can touch as many bases as Doug Kelbaugh, with such authority. When you add to that his commitment to, and knowledge of, his local venue, you have a rare and potent mixture."— Alan J. Plattus, Yale University, coeditor of Architecture and Urbanism

Alan J. Plattus

There are, unfortunately, very few architects around who can touch as many bases as Doug Kelbaugh, with such authority. When you add to that his commitment to, and knowledge of, his local venue, you have a rare and potent mixture.

Denis Hayes

Doug Kelbaugh has a sparkle in his eye and a vision in his heart, but dirt under his fingernails. He is a scholar and a dreamer, but also a builder. Common Place defines the cutting edge of urban design in the real world.

Editorial Reviews

"Many of the book’s ideas have already been influential in the Seattle area. For designers and planners elsewhere, Common Place represents a valuable contribution towards development of a sustainable design vision."

The Urban Ecologist - Stephen Wheeler

"A welcome addition to the literature on the creation of sustainable, diverse, and coherent communities. . . . [the book] deserves a much wider audience of planners, architects, landscape architects, engineers, public officials, developers, and citizens concerned with growth management, regional planning, transportation, and neighborhood revitlization."

Journal of the American Planning Association

There are, unfortunately, very few architects around who can touch as many bases as Doug Kelbaugh, with such authority. When you add to that his commitment to, and knowledge of, his local venue, you have a rare and potent mixture.

Alan J. Plattus

"A welcome addition to the literature on the creation of sustainable, diverse, and coherent communities. . . . [the book] deserves a much wider audience of planners, architects, landscape architects, engineers, public officials, developers, and citizens concerned with growth management, regional planning, transportation, and neighborhood revitlization."—Journal of the American Planning Association

"Many of the book’s ideas have already been influential in the Seattle area. For designers and planners elsewhere, Common Place represents a valuable contribution towards development of a sustainable design vision."— Stephen Wheeler, The Urban Ecologist

From the Publisher