Abstract: This paper summarizes the theoretical insights drawn from a study of thirteen large–scale urban development projects (UDPs) in twelve European Union countries. The project focused on the way in which globalization and liberalization articulate with the emergence of new forms of governance, on the formation of a new scalar gestalt of governing and on the relationship between large–scale urban development and political, social and economic power relations in the city. Among the most important conclusions, we found that: •Large–scale UDPs have increasingly been used as a vehicle to establish exceptionality measures in planning and policy procedures. This is part of a neoliberal “New Urban Policy” approach and its selective “middle — and upper–class” democracy. It is associated with new forms of “governing” urban interventions, characterized by less democratic and more elite–driven priorities. •Local democratic participation mechanisms are not respected or are applied in a very “formalist” way, resulting in a new choreography of elite power. However, grassroots movements occasionally manage to turn the course of events in favor of local participation and of modest social returns for deprived social groups. •The UDPs are poorly integrated at best into the wider urban process and planning system. As a consequence, their impact on a city as a whole and on the areas where the projects are located remains ambiguous. •Most UDPs accentuate socioeconomic polarization through the working of real–estate markets (price rises and displacement of social or low–income housing), changes in the priorities of public budgets that are increasingly redirected from social objectives to investments in the built environment and the restructuring of the labor market. •The UDPs reflect and embody a series of processes that are associated with changing spatial scales of governance; these changes, in turn, reflect a shifting geometry of power in the governing of urbanization.

Abstract: Built environment research consists of cognitive and affective, as well as behavioural, components. Existing built environment research utilises either strong qualitative or, more often, strong quantitative methodologies. Aims to discuss some of the philosophical issues that would be considered when undertaking academic research into the built environment. Considers the available research options or paradigms and suggests ways in which a researcher can make an informed and sensible decision as to how to proceed. The main dimensions of the debate about the relative characteristics and merits of quantitative and qualitative methodology are outlined, developing the argument that the use of a single methodology often fails to explore all of these components. The use of a mixed methods approach is suggested to counteract this weakness and to enhance research into the built environment.

Abstract: I examine the conflict over the community gardens in New York City. I argue that this contest was an example of Lefebvre's "trial by space," and that ultimately, the struggles concerned the right to space, or "the right to the city." The city, operating from the perspective of entrepreneurial governance, claimed that the gardens represented a loss of exchange value and potential housing. I contend that more was at stake: the gardens and gardeners represented a threat to the hegemonic project of the government to maximize exchange values and to beautify and sanitize the city. I also argue that the issues of commensurability and narrative were critical to the conflict. The city used the rhetoric of a market economy paradigm to dismiss incommensurable use values, thus restricting rights to the city within a demonstration of power and "reason." In response, the garden advocates resorted to "tactics" and other persuasive arguments.

Abstract: This is the first text to focus on virtual reality applications for design of the built environment. This guide explores the use of virtual reality at the practical level. It provides an overview of industrial applications of virtual reality and explores relevant scientific research.Virtual Reality in the Built Environment is a guide to the practical uses of virtual design, construction, and management. Providing an overview of industrial applications for virtual reality and exploring relevant research, this book is an accessible and innovative resource for architects, designers and built environment professionals--bridging the gap between technological vision and current practice.Author Jennifer Whyte shows how interactive, spatial, real-time technologies can radically improve modelling and communication of ideas, enable partcipation in the design process, and facilitated planning and management at the urban scale. The experience of lead users of virtual reality is used as the basis for understanding its promise and problems. Explanations of the underlying principles of this exciting interactive medium, a discussion of the cognitive, technical and organizational issues it raises, and international case studies illustrating practical applications are all included in this guide. The author also provides a companion web site which provides online learning materials, including test-yourself questions, virtual reality models, and links to relevant sites, making it a valuable design resource and a stimulus for innovation.

Abstract: In hot dry or warm humid climates, more than half of the urban peak load of energy consumption is used to satisfy air-conditioning demands alone. Since the urbanization rate in developing countries is extreme, the pressure placed on energy resources to satisfy the future requirements of the built environment will be great, unless new, more cost-effective measures can be introduced. Stay Cool is an essential guide for planning and design using active design principles and passive means to satisfy human comfort requirements specifically in these climate zones, based on examples of traditional and modern constructions. The book demonstrates how a design strategy for urban environments and individual buildings, incorporating naturally occurring resources and specific energy-efficient technologies, can create a location, form and structure that promote significant energy-savings. Such strategies can be applied to low cost housing, or indeed to any other buildings, in order to improve comfort with passive means and low energy budgets. Following an outline of climatic issues, characteristics and thermal comfort requirements, the book details the available techniques and technologies that can be used to shape both built and external environments, the building envelope, material selections and natural ventilation and cooling methods to satisfy both human requirements and the need for energy efficiency. It also includes an active design checklist and summary of available design checking tools, a rehabilitation guide for existing urban, building and external environments, and solar charts. Planners, architects, engineers, technicians and building designers will find Stay Cool an inspirational guide and an essential reference when working with planning and design of the built environment in hot dry and warm humid climate zones. It will also be of benefit to students, academics and researchers with an interest in sustainable and energy-efficient architecture techniques and practice.

Abstract: This paper describes how Buenos Aires has been affected by changes in political structures and economic orientations that are linked to globalization, including the removal of trade barriers, privatization and “reduced” government. In the absence of any democratic decision making at the metropolitan level, key decisions are left to market forces, especially to the powerful economic actors, including developers and private companies now controlling privatized “public” services. The only true “planning” occurs within large private developments, including the gated communities in which half a million people now live. A growing spatial fragmentation accompanies growing levels of inequality. The metropolitan area fails to provide an arena for its citizens, which means that any general public interest is lost as the built environment is reshaped and constructed in response to private demands.

Abstract: Market-oriented economic reform has led to an increase in social stratification in urban China. The reform of state-owned enterprises has meant that millions of workers have been 'laid-off', while the emergence of a private sector is creating thousands of 'new rich'. Little is known about the spatial implications of the reform. The huge contrast between commercially developed housing estates and dilapidated inner-city areas is easily seen. However, there is a lack of systematic understanding of the extent to which urban space is differentiated in postreform China. The main obstacle to this understanding is the lack of small-area demographic data. Moreover, spatial data at a high resolution often remain confidential and hence underutilised. The author uses data from Shanghai's real estate market to examine the spatial differentiation of housing prices, so as to shed light on the transformation of urban space. The pattern identified by the analysis of price distribution and the contribution of the environment to property price is remarkably similar to the mental images of 'upper end' and 'lower end' that are commonly used in Shanghai dialect. Based on this research, three implications are suggested. First, the foremost impact of housing commodification is the revitalisation of the presocialist spatial division, because the socialist transformation of the built environment is never complete. Second, further sociospatial differentiation brought about by commercial development will be built upon the continuation of urban fabric. Third, privatisation of real estate itself becomes a source of sociospatial differentiation, because through the real estate market households are able to capitalise properties that were not distributed equally during the socialist period.

Abstract: In this 2002 book, Tim Gorringe reflects theologically on the built environment as a whole. Drawing on a wide range of both theological and social-scientific sources, Professor Gorringe explores Christianity in its urban settings, focussing on the use of space, design, architecture, and town planning to make a theological critique. After considering the divine grounding of constructed space, he looks at the ownership of land, the issues of housing, town and country, and the city, and then considers the built environment in terms of community and art. The book concludes with two chapters that set the whole within the framework of the environmental crisis and asks what directions the Church should be looking for in building for the future. This interesting book will challenge not only theologians, ethicists and sociologists of religion but also church teachers and professionals.

Abstract: One of the ongoing challenges in the quest to make our built environment more sustainable is defining what sustainability means in terms understandable to and measurable by built environment decision makers. This paper illustrates one approach to developing a comprehensive and exhaustive definition of sustainability for the built environment: deriving domain-specific variables from fundamental principles and constraints that govern how earth systems work. The paper uses the concept of systems to define characteristics and critical constraints of both the earth as a whole and built facilities in particular. These constraints provide a basis for identifying conditions which must be met in order for a built facility system to be sustainable. The contribution of the paper is a decision space based on required sustainability conditions that can be used to evaluate facility alternatives in terms of their relative sustainability.

Abstract: Materiality has proved one of the most difficult "objects" for social science to theorize. In the early British social science movement, represented most clearly by the National Association for the Promotion of Social Science (1857),1 materiality was a broad explanatory category, encompassing all aspects of both the natural and built environment. Informed by a seventeenthand eighteenth-century discourse that linked material conditions to moral and intellectual standards, many members of the early social science movement viewed material "improvement" as an important "agent" for advancing "civilization."2 In Marxist theory, however, the material increasingly became confined to and made coterminous with "the economic," a concept made so abstract that it became more a matter of theoretical "relations" than actual practices and conditions.3 Culture, by definition, was not material. In the 1930s, Marcel Mauss sought to advance a research agenda that would view the body as a form of material culture, but the post-war period brought instead increasingly abstract models of "systems" and "action." Culture, in this context, was fundamentally psychological and, therefore, immaterial (descriptively rather than normatively). The abstractions of structural functionalism (now called the "old institutionalism") were countered by American micro sociology, especially the symbolic interactionist school. In this context, however, theorization of the material was muted by an overarching concern with issues of "meaning," culture being symbolic rather than material. While these literatures were in many respects fundamentally at odds, all implicitly agreed that "material culture" was a contradiction in terms. In more recent years, numerous "turns" linguistic, discursive, interpretive, cognitive, historical, social, and cultural have largely left the categorical distinction intact: the cultural and material are mutually exclusive.

Abstract: This paper is a prelude to a theme issue in 2003 on Australasian city and regional problems and policies. It considers the impact of economic restructuring on the level of inequality and disadvantage within Australian cities. Evidence is presented that Australian cities have become more unequal over the past two decades and this greater level of inequality has found concrete expression within the built environment. These patterns of inequality are distinct to Australia. It is argued that the Australian Government's reliance on tightly targeted income support policies and market-based solutions to economic disadvantage has contributed greatly to the concentration of low income and vulnerable households within certain sections of Australian cities.

Abstract: A prototype decision support system for making informed decisions on urban development has been produced by the pan-European BEQUEST network. The overall aim is to enhance urban sustainability, the process of developing a built environment that meets peoples' needs whilst avoiding unacceptable social or environmental impacts. The system, called the BEQUEST toolkit, consists of modules that present advice on how to make urban development projects more sustainable, how to assess their sustainability and whom to contact for further advice. A glossary of terms related to sustainable urban development (SUD) as well as links to best practice examples and other additional information are also included in the toolkit. The system addresses the issues in a holistic manner and aims to bridge the various scales of urban development from whole urban regions down to buildings and their components and materials. The toolkit has been developed in collaboration with the project's Extranet, an advisory body of more than 10...

Abstract: Study objective: To develop a cross disciplinary literature search methodology for conducting systematic reviews of all types of research investigating aspects of the built environment and the health of the public. Design: The method was developed following a comprehensive search of literature in the area of housing and injuries, using 30 databases covering many disciplines including medicine, social science, architecture, science, engineering, environment, planning and psychology. The results of the database searches, including the type (or evidence) of research papers identified, were analysed to identify the most productive databases and improve the efficiency of the strategy. The revised strategy for literature searching was then applied to the area of neighbourhoods and mental health, and an analysis of the evidence type of references was carried out. In recognition of the large number and variety of observational studies, an expanded evidence type classification was developed for this purpose. Main results: From an analysis of 722 citations obtained by a housing and injuries search, an overlap of only 9% was found between medical and social science databases and only 1% between medical and built environment databases. A preliminary evidence type classification of those citations that could be assessed (from information in the abstracts and titles) suggested that the majority of intervention studies on housing and injuries are likely to be found in the medical and social science databases. A number of relevant observational studies (10% of all research studies) would have been missed, however, by excluding built environment and grey literature databases. In an area lacking in interventional research (housing/neighbourhoods and mental health) as many as 25% of all research studies would have been missed by ignoring the built environment and grey literature. Conclusions: When planning a systematic review of all types of evidence in a topic relating to the built environment and the health of the public, a range of bibliographical databases from various disciplines should be considered.

Abstract: The North American population is approximately 80% urbanized and spends almost 90% of the time indoors Accordingly, the built environment is the most important--one might almost say "natural"--human environment Urban settlements incorporate within their boundaries natural ecosystems of plant and animal life (often highly adapted to the urban environment), and are in turn incorporated within wider bioregions and global ecosystems But urban settlements are not just built and natural physical environments, they are social, economic, cultural and political environments; the whole constitutes an urban ecosystem These ecosystems have profound implications for the physical, mental, social, emotional and spiritual well-being of their human inhabitants, as well as for human beings remote from these urban ecosystems Therefore, this paper discusses urban ecosystems and human health and presents a framework for indicators of environmental health in the urban setting based on such an understanding The concepts of environmental viability, ecological sustainability, urban livability, community conviviality, social equity, and economic adequacy are discussed in relation to human health and are used to organize proposed candidate indicators for urban ecosystems and public health

Abstract: This article analyses the evolution of the built environment in Israel's ‘mixed cities’ in Israel; sites shaped by the logic of ethno–nationalism, and characterized by patterns of segregation betwe...

Abstract: Since the end of World War II, American cities have attracted ever greater numbers of new residents in search of diverse employment opportunities and amenity-rich environments. (1) Since the early 1980s, Atlanta, Denver, Houston, Las Vegas, Salt Lake City, and Phoenix have consistently topped the list of the fastest-growing urban centers in the United States. With surrounding lands being gobbled up at a rate of more than an acre an hour, rapid urbanization is coming at a heavy environmental and social price (Stoel 1999; Theobald 2001). As recent news headlines assert, for many people cities have become a stress-inducing, inhospitable, and impersonal environment with polluted air, rampant road rage, heinous hate crimes, sprawl, and traffic congestion (Muir 1999). Cities are popularly perceived as the root of many a social ill. Conversely, rural areas are regarded as warm and friendly places where one can escape the urban jungle and find peace, solace, and comfort (de Wit 1997; Jakle 1999). As sanctuaries that possess restorative powers, rural places have become an idyllic retreat from the "increasingly urbanized and fast-paced world beyond" (Wyckoff and Dilsaver 1995, 4). One way urbanites deal with the "evils" of living in urban centers is by incorporating nonurban practices into their daily lives. Just as the romanticized country life centers on reclaiming the purported serenity of nature, rural small-town places can offer a nurturing, extended-family atmosphere where residents personalize their relationships and forge strong ties to place (Jakle 1999). Living in a city can be more tolerable when one is surrounded by reminders of the presumably peaceful, caring, wholesome virtues of a rural lifestyle (Little 1999). A link between rural and urban places is evident, then, in my exploration of rural place identification among urban-dwelling Hispanos in Albuquerque, Espanola, and Santa Fe, New Mexico, and in Pueblo, Colorado. (2) LANDSCAPE ANALYSIS MOVES TO THE CITY American cultural geographers are renowned for their meticulous examinations of the built environment (Wagner and Mikesell 1962; Norton 1989; Foote and others 1994; Myers and others forthcoming). For decades geographers with a cultural focus have also interpreted patterns of ordinary cultural landscapes (Meinig 1979a; Groth and Bressi 1997), including the work of such well-known scholars as Peirce Lewis (1979), Donald Meinig (1979b), J. B. Jackson (1984, 1994), Allen Noble (1992), Wilbur Zelinsky (1992), and Terry Jordan, Jon Kilpinen, and Charles Gritzner (1997). The majority of these "traditional" pieces have focused on the attributes of rural, folk, or preindustrial societies. As James Duncan (1990) and others have acknowledged, the methodologies and corpus of knowledge advanced by this approach to cultural geographical research have provided a solid foundation and a tested set of axioms on which the future of the sub discipline can be built. Increasing urbanization, however, combined with a call for the application of more socially grounded and theoretically based investigations, is precipitating a shift in the research agenda of today's largely "new" cultural geographers (Cosgrove and Daniels 1988; Jackson 1989; Cosgrove 1993,1994; Duncan and Ley 1993; Holdsworth 1993; Duncan 1994; Mitchell 1994). Social interaction in urban and industrial places helps drive the research of some present-day cultural geographers (Ley 1996; Hayden 1997; Wheeler 1998; Peach 2002). Furthermore, the 1990s witnessed a growing number of scholars who explored the complexity of urban centers (Muir 1999; Myers and others forthcoming), especially those who sought to understand the role of landscape in the development of culture (Mitchell 1994; Wheeler 1998). Interpreting urban patterns of ethnicity (Arreola 1994; Ruddick 1996; Wood 1997; Li 1998), gender relations (Hayden 1981; Watson 1986; Spain 1992; Fincher and Jacobs 1998), employment and class (Mitchell 1993; Blake a nd Arreola 1996; Bondi 1998; Hiebert 1999), social and political economy (Harvey 1989; Zukin 1995; Mitchell 1996; Warren 1996; Kloosterman, Van der Leun, and Rath 1999), and development, cons umption, and commercialization (Kenny 1995; Smith 1996) is proving to be a rich area for research. …

Abstract: It ha s been recognised that the economic strength and vitality of the post-industrial city depends mainly on the quality of the environment, its image, identity and culture, its accessibility and safety (Roger & Fisher, 1992; Tibbalds, 1992). Thus there are many complex factors connected with the increasing demand for innovation in methods to deal efficiently with the evolving problems of development and redevelopment in the built environment and the transformations that inevitably take place in the built fabric of cities. These have been brought on by the rapidly growing processes of globalisation, the increasing significance of information technology, the shift in concentration of employment opportunities into the service sector and the increasing competition for international trade between major cities. The impact of these factors has been particularly significant for many Central East European (CEE) countries, where the recent rapid political and economic changes since 1990 have raised demands for corresponding changes in the established planning systems and especially in the development control and urban management processes. This paper reviews the impact of the pressures of globalisation , the expansion pressures of the European Union (EU), and the impact of general market competition, on the transformation of the spatial structure of the cities, their and planning processes and regulation of the built environment, with a comparative commentary on the similarities and differences between CEE capital cities. CHANGES IN THE INTERNAL SPATIAL STRUCTURE OF CEE CITIES IN THE

Abstract: Advocates of smart growth and other policies intended to constrain urban sprawl increasingly cite a desire to rebuild community as a primary objective of, and rationale for, reshaping America’s built environment. Authors Kaid Benfield, Jutka Terris, and Nancy Vorsanger write in their fine book Solving Sprawl that “smart growth helps restore a sense of community by building more compact neighborhoods that are walkable, with sidewalks and safe crossings as well as home and shop entrances close enough to the street to be convenient and inviting.”1 Recent publications of the Congress for the New Urbanism stress themes of “building social capital” and “reviving community” in making the case for pedestrian-friendly places modeled on a small town downtown, not on a strip mall. These claims by New Urbanist scholars and their allies have an intrinsic plausibility; a place that looks and feels like a coherent community should help produce citizens who are better able to identify with where they live and are more engaged in civic and political life. New Urbanists can also point to a handful of studies that seem to reinforce these claims. Perhaps most impressively, Robert Putnam’s analysis of national data on civic participation concluded that a ten-minute increase in the average commuting time of a locality is associated with roughly a 10 percent decline in the rate of civic participation in that locale.2

Abstract: The literature on built environment sustainability has grown dramatically in the past 10 years. Despite the proliferation of literature, there is still no consensus on how comprehensively and uniformly to define the concept of sustainability as it pertains to the built environment, nor is there consensus on what aspects of the built environment should be considered in evaluating the sustainability of a built facility. This paper, through an evaluation of selected sources from the sustainability literature, takes a first step in systematically identifying what parameters of both the built environment and the concept of sustainability are emphasised in the existing literature on the topic. The outcome is a set of parameters that can be used in future research to begin uniformly and comprehensively to define sustainability as it applies to built facilities, using techniques such as concept mapping, content analysis, dendograms, and other established research methods.

Abstract: Rapid industrialization of North American cities during the nineteenth century was associated with periodic innovations in transportation and massive increases in traffic, which, in turn, caused perennial problems of congestion in ill-adapted urban cores During the latter half of the nineteenth century, the municipal government of Montreal expropriated and destroyed thousands of properties to widen dozens of existing streets This paper argues that the key to these acts of "creative destruction" was the removal of barriers to circulation through a periodic redimensioning of the "urban vascular system, " and hence, a speed up in the rate of urban growth A detailed investigation of the planning and execution of major street widening projects between 1862 and 1900 reveals how the built environment of Montreal was periodically destroyed and recreated by a local growth coalition committed to increasing aggregate rents, property values, and municipal revenues, through the intensification of land use Examination of a sample of properties before and after street widenings suggests that redevelopment was most intense during economic boom periods and in central areas, when and where competition for space was most extreme, and there existed the greatest pressure to remodel the built landscape to fit the needs of a changed economic environment

Abstract: In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the booming textile industry turned many New England towns and villages into industrialized urban centers. This rapid urbanization transformed the built environment of communities such as New Bedford, Massachusetts, as new housing styles emerged to accommodate the largely immigrant workforce of the mills. In particular, the wood-frame "three-decker" became the region's multifamily housing design of choice in urban areas and is widely acknowledged as a unique architectural form that is characteristic of New England. In The Patina of Place, Kingston Heath offers the first book-length analysis of the three-decker and its cultural significance, revealing New Bedford's evolving regional identity within New England.The Patina of Place offers a multidisciplinary analysis of workers' housing as an index to social change and cultural identity in New Bedford from 1848 to 1925. Heath discusses both the city's company-owned mill housing and the subsequent transition to a speculative building market that established the three-decker rental flat as the city's most common housing form for industrial workers. Using the concept of "cultural weathering" to explore the cultural imprints left by inhabitants on their built environment, Heath considers whether the three-decker is a generic "type" that could be transferred elsewhere. He concludes that the ethnic, economic, and geographic conditions of a locale serve as filters that reshape the meaning, utility, and character of a building form, thereby making it an integral part of its particular community. Specifically, he shows how the three-decker was lived in, and used by, its original inhabitants and illustrates its transformation by later generations of residents following the collapse of the textile industry in the mid-1920s. The Patina of Place focuses on the three-decker in New Bedford, but its overarching theme concerns the cultural, economic, and social complexities of place-making and the creation of regional identity. Heath offers a broad investigation of the forces that drive the production and consumption of architecture, at the same time providing an economic and cultural context for the emergence of a particular architectural form. The Author: Kingston Heath is associate professor in the college of architecture at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. His articles have appeared in The Encyclopedia of Architecture and Old-Time New England, among other publications.

Abstract: Planning and decision-making for sustainable urban development have to be based on reliable information about the relationship between socioeconomic and the ecological performance of the built environment. The orientation of urban development towards sustainability requires suitable methods for the analysis of land-use patterns and urban spatial structures. In this respect, urban structural units are defined as ‘areas with physignomically homogenous character, which are marked in the built-up area by a characteristic formation of buildings and open spaces’. Thus, they integrate areas of similar environmental conditions, and can provide a classification method of the morphological situation and the characteristics that can be expected in different areas. The aim of this study is to assess the significance of the structural unit classification method in producing valuable urban indicators and a framework for sustainable development. An investigation of an urban study area with regard to ecological, housing, and population aspects was also carried out. Different urban structural units were identified. Features of land cover, built-up areas, sealed surfaces, land use, building age, and density of urban and green areas were quantified for every unit. The proposed analysis outcome is a classified map and statistical graphs delineating different structural units of the city. This study should be helpful in producing a framework to evaluate the environmental status and the future prospects for sustainable development in urban areas.

Abstract: The terms "sustainable architecture", "green building" and "ecological design" have emerged, along with a host of similar permutations, in recent practice as environmentally friendly modes of design, construction and operation geared towards producing healthy enduring communities. However, the terms are still vague and lead to much ambiguity in their implementation. This paper consolidates the current foci of sustainable architecture through a review of several projects and institutional guidelines that are geared towards achieving sustainability in the built environment. A contemporary checklist of desirable design strategies and building practices for a green building is presented. Consideration is given to attempts at ranking the importance of these strategies. While it is concluded that the implementation of green building design cannot be prescriptive, the checklist is intended to be an awareness-raising tool that provides the foundation for greater innovation in the designer's approach to building projects. The concept of a "healing building" is proposed as perhaps the next level of sustainable architecture.

Abstract: Any space that involves descending from our typical aboveground environment is a provocation to our sensory perceptions. Such hidden spaces evoke latent mythical images and confront us with the clash between nature and artifice in our built environment. This book explores the character, use and design of underground space as a space of its own. International examples of commercial premises, restaurants, sports facilities, subway stations, museums, churches, libraries, concert halls, houses and other building types form the core material. Interviews with many renowned designers including Norman Foster, Floris Alkemade (OMA) and Francine Houben (Mecanoo) convey the architects' own views on the subject. Essays reflect on the cultural aspects, planning conditions, design considerations, technical requirements and sustainability aspects of building below ground level. Chapters include: Urban Development, Architecture, Functions, Perception and Cognition, Constructions, Energy and Interior Climate.