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City
Form and Natural Process: Towards a New Urban Vernacular*,
by Michael Hough.
Michael Hough aims to change not only the physical character
of the city but, more importantly, the aesthetic and cultural
attitudes that shape it in the first place. These values
respectively create an abundance of high maintenance lawns
and formal landscaping and treat open spaces in terms of
civic and recreational uses first and foremost over educational
and ecological ones. Basically, Hough argues, by denying
their greater role in the natural world, cities are unsustainable
and require an alternative approach for open space, landscape
and urban design.
After explaining the basis for ecological design in the
first chapter, Hough spends one chapter on specific elements
that the city denies: climate, water, plants, wildlife,
and farming. In the last chapter, he draws the connections
between these various elements, as their existence and treatment
is never singular. Throughout various tables, graphs, drawings,
illustrations, and photographs help convey the necessity
for a change in thinking towards our environment and the
values we ascribe to our surroundings.
*Note: links above and below are provided to the in-print
Cities and Natural Process: A Basis for Sustainability,
by the same author.
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