Another year has passed and it’s time for the third annual list of our favourite reads from the past year.
By the re:place team
One of the most popular sections here at re:place is our book reviews. We do a lot of work choosing relevant books – new and old – and getting peices from a diversity of contributors who we think can speak thoughtfully to the content of each read. As regular readers know, we do review about one book per week and despite the difficulty of narrowing down the field, we’ve managed to compile a handful – fifteen to be exact – of our favorite books of 2010.
Speaking to the breadth of books we review, the topics range from those looking at local culture local and other focusing cities, architecture and larger urban issues. All of these are recommended reads for any urban enthusiast.
A special thanks for goes out to all the publishers who have graciously sent us their great books, as well as the many contributors who had shared their voices with our readers. As usual, re:place welcomes review copies of books published in 2010 – or old titles one believes should be “rediscovered” – for consideration for next year’s Top 10 Books List.
We’ve listed our picks below in alphabetical order. Please click on the title of any of the books to read the full review:
Above the Pavement – the Farm! Architecture & Agriculture at PF1
Author: Amale Andraos & Dan Wood (Princeton Architectural Press, 2010)
At a time when the convergence of architecture, urbanism and agriculture is becoming increasingly important, Above the Pavement takes a detailed look at WORKac’s P.F.1 (Public Farm 1) installation that took shape in MoMa’s P.S.1 courtyard.
Carjacked: The Culture of the Automobile & its Effect on our Lives
Catherine Lutz and Anne Lutz Fernandez (Palgrave MacMillan, 2010)
Reading Carjacked brings into gory detail the incredible cost of this one piece of machinery on American society. While some car owners may see it as an attack on their right to drive, the arguments and statistics are overwhelmingly persuasive.
Common Ground in a Liquid City
Author: Matt Hern (AK Press, 2009)
Local activist and author Matt Hern’s new book, Common Ground in a Liquid City: Essays in Defense of an Urban Future brings together a diverse cast of urban thinkers and wise Vancouverites, providing useful insights, stern warnings and gems of optimism for Vancouver and cities in general.
Convivial Urban Spaces: Creating Affective Public Places
Author: Henry Shaftoe (EarthScan, 2008)
Good urban public spaces – such as squares, plazas and pocket-parks – are critical to overall health, and quality of life for urban dwellers. Yet, too often, designers and planners get them wrong and, as a result, they exist underused, misused or even worse abandoned. Convivial Urban Spaces lays out the framework to prevent this from happening.
Designing Small Parks: A Manual for Addressing Social and Ecological Concerns
By Ann Forsyth and Laura R. Musacchio (Wiley, 2005)
With small parks often deemed the least important of municipal and regional open-space system, Design Small Parks is a important contribution to the potential of engaging social and ecological issues through the thoughtful design to small parks.
Green Cities Growing Communities: Learning from Seattle’s Urban Community Gardens
Authors: Jeffrey Hou, Julie Johnson, and Laura Lawson (University of Washington Press, 2009)
As interest in urban agriculture within cities continues to increase, books such as this topic are going to become more and more important. By sharing a diversity of case studies and lessons, Green Cities Growing Communities is a significant contribution to the practice of creating urban community gardens.
Inventing Niagara
Author: Ginger Strand (Simon & Schuster, 2009)
Erick Villagomez takes a look at Ginger Strand’s witty and entertaining book that explores the myths and meaning behind America’s natural wonder, Niagara Falls.
Learning From Japan: Single Story Urbanism
Edited by Florian Idenburg (Lars Müller Publishers – 2010)
“SANAA’s work does not introduce order as do those mid-century architectures to which it is routinely compared; rather it imposes a fine disorder and instability, at times even an agitation, into the surround. The work of SANAA seeks to operate with the invisible potency of weather.”
– From Sanford Kwinter’s essay ‘Koan’
Small Scale: Creative Solutions for Better City Living
Keith Moskow and Robert Linn (Princeton Architectural Press, 2010)
‘Think big, design small.’ This is the maxim employed by the architects and designers of the fifty urban interventions presented in Keith Moskow and Robert Linn’s new book Small Scale: Creative Solutions for Better City Living, out this year from Princeton Architectural Press.
Subnature: Architecture’s Other Environments
Author: David Glissen (Princeton Architectural Press, 2009)
Certain natural elements – such as trees, sun and wind – are commonly associated with the contemporary built environment. These, however, represent a small fraction – the most passive and socially accepted – of the nature’s wonders. David Glissen explores the filthy, uncontrollable, and fearsome side of nature in Subnature: Architecture’s Other Environments.
The Architecture of Happiness
Author: Alain de Botton (Pantheon, 2006)
Why is beauty in the built environment important? Alain de Botton eloquently discusses this theme and the ways in which architecture affects us in The Architecture of Happiness.
The Ethical Architect: The Dilemma of Contemporary Practice
Author: Tom Spector (Princeton Architectural Press, 2001)
“Architects live and work today in a functioning but weakened profession that lacks a dominant design ethic. An opportunity to examine unquestioned assumptions regarding the morality of professional practice and the value of design has emerged. The past can be mined both for its good ideas and for its bad examples, and a future of possible convergence upon a durable, substantial, and robust design ethic can be imagined.” – from the introduction
What We See: Advancing the Observations of Jane Jacobs
Edited by Lynne Elizabeth and Stephen Goldsmith (New Village Press, 2010)
Jane Jacobs’ teachings on urban planning and civic wisdom spurred a drastic change in the way we understand urban landscapes. A new book by Lynne Elizabeth and Stephen Goldsmith revisits her observations and – through the voices of a diversity of writers – discusses how how far they’ve come and where they might lead.
Why Your World is About to Get a Whole Lot Smaller
Author: Jeff Rubin (Random House, 2009)
The end of cheap oil is upon us, predicts Canadian economist Jeff Rubin. And with it say goodbye to globalization.
Vancouver Special
Author: Charles Demers (Arsenal Pulp Press, 2009)
Can one really describe the culture of Vancouver? Comedian, activist and lifelong Vancouverite Charles Demers gives it a shot in his new book Vancouver Special.
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