Great City Parks

Great City Parks
Author: Alan Tate
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 696
Release: 2015-03-05
Genre: Architecture
ISBN: 1317612973

Great City Parks is a celebration of some of the finest achievements of landscape architecture in the public realm. It is a comparative study of thirty significant public parks in major cities across Western Europe and North America. Collectively, they give a clear picture of why parks have been created, how they have been designed, how they are managed, and what plans are being made for them at the beginning of the twenty-first century. Based on unique research including extensive site visits and interviews with the managing organisations, this book is illustrated throughout with clear plans and photographs– with this new edition featuring full colour throughout. Tate updates his seminal 2001 work with 10 additional parks, including: The High Line in NYC, Golden Gate Park in San Francisco and Westergasfabriek, Amsterdam. All the previous city parks have also been updated and revised to reflect current usage and management. This book reflects a belief that well planned, well designed and well managed parks and park systems will continue to make major contributions to the quality of life in an increasingly urbanized world.

Kansas City's Parks and Boulevards

Kansas City's Parks and Boulevards
Author: Patrick Alley
Publisher: Arcadia Publishing
Total Pages: 128
Release: 2014-10-27
Genre: Photography
ISBN: 143964800X

A fast-growing frontier community transformed itself into a beautiful urban model of parks and boulevards. In 1893, East Coast newspapers were calling Kansas City the filthiest in the United States. The drainage of many houses emptied into gullies and cesspools. There was no garbage collection service, and herding livestock through the city was only recently prohibited. Through the diligent efforts of a handful of recently arrived citizens, political, financial, and botanical skills were successfully applied to a nascent parks system. Squirrel pastures, cliffs and bluffs, ugly ravines, and shanties and slums were turned into a gridiron of green, with chains of parks and boulevards extending in all directions. Wherever the system penetrated well-settled localities, the policy was to provide playgrounds, tennis courts, baseball diamonds, pools, and field houses. By the time the city fathers were finished, Kansas City could boast of 90 miles of boulevards and 2,500 acres of urban parks.

Rethinking Urban Parks

Rethinking Urban Parks
Author: Setha Low
Publisher: University of Texas Press
Total Pages: 241
Release: 2005-11-01
Genre: Travel
ISBN: 0292712545

Annotation A study of five major urban parks, including New York's Prospect Park and Philadelphia's Independence National Historical Park, that offers a blueprint for promoting and maintaining cultural diversity in parks around the world.

City Parks

City Parks
Author: Christopher Beanland
Publisher: Batsford Books
Total Pages: 254
Release: 2023-04-13
Genre: Travel
ISBN: 184994864X

A visually stunning and beautifully written celebration of park life around the world. Parks are an absolutely essential part of modern life. From the author who brought you Lido, here are 50 of the world's greatest parks – but not just a list of the examples we already know. Yes, we'll tell you about those storied greats such as Central Park in New York and Phoenix Park in Dublin, but we'll also take you to the Philippines, to Australia, to provincial Britain and around the world to show you the most historic and the most interesting, the newest and most cutting-edge that mix the best of nature and architecture. We'll explore what you can find there, who goes there, why they are important, and how parks respond to their environments, including ones over a road, on old rail lines or in Berlin's former airport. Examples include: • Freeway Park, Seattle, USA: a bizarre and brilliant brutalist park over a motorway. • Ibirapuera Park, São Paulo, Brazil: this one contains amazing galleries and theatres. • Holyrood Park, Edinburgh, UK: mountains within a city. • Adelaide's parks, Australia: unique in that the entire city centre is enclosed by parks. and many, many more. Illustrated with glorious photographs throughout, this book is a fascinating record of the world's most interesting and innovative parks, and the people who use them – you'll want to visit them all.

The Complete Illustrated Guidebook to Boston's Public Parks and Gardens

The Complete Illustrated Guidebook to Boston's Public Parks and Gardens
Author: Richard J. Berenson
Publisher: Sterling Publishing Company
Total Pages: 164
Release: 2002
Genre: Travel
ISBN: 9780760727577

More than 20 pages of maps show paths, roadways, natural and historic spots, and other treasures. You’ll find the locations of public services in every park and garden. There’s an illustrated history of Boston Common, 180 historic and color photos, and 12 walking tours to enjoy. “This beautiful guide is both detailed and compact—the magic formula for a successful take-along in the backpack.”—Booklist.

Urban Parks Between Safety and Aesthetics

Urban Parks Between Safety and Aesthetics
Author: Isabella M. Mambretti
Publisher: vdf Hochschulverlag AG
Total Pages: 223
Release: 2011
Genre: Architecture
ISBN: 3728131873

The question of how to live in the city and increase the quality of urban life creates new challenges for both urban policies and academic research. Urban parks are important keys for achieving a broader understanding of the urban landscape. Open green spaces in every form are essential for life in our ever more urbanised society and are becoming a vital issue for the liveability of the urban environment.The purpose of the present research is to acquire a more thorough knowledge of the evaluation of urban parks. The study uses statistical analysis methods combined with landscape planning and visualisation methods. The research provides an innovative and sophisticated point of view along with the means to improve the comprehension of people's preferences for alternative urban park scenarios. The results are expected to create an advanced discussion platform and make a contribution towards improving knowledge of the public's perception of urban parks. The investigation was conducted with empirical experiments on two parks in Zurich.The functional component of the research is the visualisation of spatial data using powerful visualisation tools. The theoretical prospect is the achievement of broader knowledge about individuals' perception of open green spaces, focusing on previously unexplored experimental research combining conjoint analysis and visualisation methods.The experiments created for the research are effective for modelling and explaining the signifi cance that people assign to specific dimensions characterising different park scenarios. Two motivations are at the base of the research: exploring the use of conjoint analysis methods to study virtual urban parks and evaluating the use of visual stimuli with conjoint analysis.

Large-Scale Urban Parks on Post-Industrial Sites in Contemporary Urban Landscape Conceptions

Large-Scale Urban Parks on Post-Industrial Sites in Contemporary Urban Landscape Conceptions
Author: Mengyixin Li
Publisher: MDPI
Total Pages: 214
Release: 2023-08-09
Genre: Science
ISBN: 3036555609

The theme is related to “Large Parks on Post-industrial Sites in Contemporary Urban Landscape Conceptions”, which is expounded in the fields of landscape architecture, landscape ecology and urban planning. A worldwide perspective is created so as to conduct cross-cultural research on the theories and practices of large-scale urban parks in North America, Germany and China. Through the scientific approach of ‘critical rationalism’, three design paradigms of large parks in different conceptions of contemporary urban landscapes are formulated based on quantitative and qualitative analysis, which are classified as the organic parks of North American ‘landscape urbanism’, the structural parks of German ‘landscape structuralism’ and the large parks of Chinese ‘urban inventory renewal’. By means of critical thinking in diverse cultural interpretations, the research aims to reveal remarkable similarities and differences between the cultures in the Western world according to their understanding of landscapes (coherent vs. creative), landscape and ecology (representation vs. metaphor), and landscape and life (diversity vs. unpredictability). Through theoretical analysis and case studies, it demonstrates that the international park paradigms characterised by complexity, diversity, sustainability, appropriation and identity can influence various socio-cultural, ecological, and aesthetic developments. Finally, the analytical results of the two park paradigms in Western countries are adopted in the examination of landscape architectural park models and urbanistic theoretical frameworks in China. This monograph is written primarily for scholars, professionals and students in the fields of landscape architecture, urban planning and architecture. The book, involving in-depth analysis about urban parks, green open spaces, green infrastructure and post-industrial landscapes, will have international appeal. It will appeal to readers at different levels. Above all, it may be of interest to professionals who are concerned with the topics urban parks and post-industrial landscapes, as well as Chinese scholars and experts, particularly those looking at China’s urban renewal and the ongoing transformation of post-industrial sites at different scales. This book will have strong implications for relevant urban landscape practices in China. Furthermore, it will be supported by the author’s colleagues from various countries such as Germany, Italy, USA, Canada, Brazil and China. Moreover, students to whom the author teaches courses of Landscape Architecture History and Theory and Landscape Planning and Design at BUCEA, as well as the international students at Collaborative Classes organized by BUCEA, TUM, and POLIMI (Politecnico di Milano, Italy), are encouraged to read this book.