The City as a Tangled Bank

Here Sir Terry Farrell, who has built an international career asan architect-planner, encourages other planners and architects tofollow the biologists?look at, learn from, and, indeed,admire the nature of the forces that drive the change, and thenwith humility and respect work with them to nudge, anticipate andprepare for where it takes us. Searching for patterns within theapparent turbulence and complexity, he analyses the notions ofurban design and urban evolution and examines...
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Here Sir Terry Farrell, who has built an international career asan architect-planner, encourages other planners and architects tofollow the biologists?look at, learn from, and, indeed,admire the nature of the forces that drive the change, and thenwith humility and respect work with them to nudge, anticipate andprepare for where it takes us. Searching for patterns within theapparent turbulence and complexity, he analyses the notions ofurban design and urban evolution and examines whether or not theyneed necessarily be seen as opposing one another. The first twochapters discuss emergence as an idea in a biological andarchitectural context, as well as the distinction between urbandesign and planning in both education and practice, and the impactof other fields such as landscape design. Seven further chaptersexamine a range of themes embracing the importance of chainreactions in the progress of urban engineering; the character ofhabitation; layering; taste and context; adaptation and conversion;the advocacy of the architect-planner; and the effects of digitaltechnology on city evolution. Farrell brings his considerableexperience in practice to bear, elucidating his thoughts withexamples from cities across the world, including Beijing, HongKong, London, New York, and Paris.