The Urban Masterplanning Handbook

A highly visual reference tool, this handbook provides comparative information about major urban extensions and masterplans around the world. It places an important new emphasis on the processes and structures that influence urban form, including public or private landownership, management and funding.

Each of the book's 20 subjects is rigorously analysed through custom-made diagrams, to-scale drawings and descriptive texts, which are complemented by key statistics and a wealth of photographs. Presented in order of size rather than date or geographical location, the case studies provide intriguing insights and enable design professionals, developers and city planners, as well as students of architecture and urban design, to make informed organisational and formal comparisons.

European projects from the 19th century to the present day are featured, including Belgravia in London, Sarphatipark in Amsterdam, Potsdamer Platz in Berlin, La Défense Seine Arche in Paris and Hammarby Sjöstad in Stockholm. A further selection of non-European examples presents Stuyvesant Town in Manhattan as a historic case study, as well as more recent or ongoing masterplans such as Puerto Madero in Buenos Aires, Downtown Dubai and the New Central Business District in Beijing.

"This well-researched handbook provides readers with a comprehensive, in-depth and historic evaluation of some of the most recognisable international urban landscapes created over the last 200 years." (Building Engineer,??August 2013)

"... this substantial book is less an instruction manual for urban development and more a deep resource for architects, urban designers, planners and other development professionals." (Building Design, June 2013)

Eric Firley is the author of this book’s companion volumes The Urban Housing Handbook (2009) and The Urban Towers Handbook (2011). Assistant Professor at the University of Miami School of Architecture since January 2011, he is a trained architect and urban designer with work experience in property development and several design practices in Paris and London. Regularly invited to speak at architectural institutions around the world, he has a specific interest in interdisciplinary research and in the relationship between architecture and the urban fabric.

Katharina Grön is a German planner who graduated in 2008 from the Hamburg University of Technology. Already involved in the production of The Urban Housing Handbook, she has developed the graphic concept of the book, including diagrams and custom-made urban plans. She lives and works as a planner and urban designer in Hamburg.