Urban Intensities

Book excerpt: Diversity and density in housing today Accomodation of diversity and the creation of urban density are a focus of world-wide building and planning activities today. This book combines the architectural and urban scales to demonstrate that it is a specific quality, urban intensity, which determines the success of housing. The authors provide a typology of housing according to the ways in which diversity and density are created. Comparisons with historical models and critical appraisals based on the authors’ unique standing give ample information on the pros and cons of major types of housing, their pitfalls and successful examples. Newly created sets of drawings, from floor plans to spectacular 3D aerial views of the buildings in their urban contexts, accompany each of the more than twenty case studies that are described and analyzed in detail. The approach taken here relates to many pressing issues in contemporary housing, including the avoidance of urban sprawl, the revival of city centers and the ongoing search for innovative housing types. A qualitative approach to diversity and density in housing A concept that unites architectural and urban design A wide range of original drawings of benchmark case studies