In Design Thinking Peter Rowe provides a systematic account of the process of designing in architecture and urban planning.

Design Thinking

Arts & Photography

Rowe, Peter G.

Architecture

Mit Pr

Today's suburban metropolitan development of single-family homes, shopping centers, corporate offices, and roadway systems constitutes what Peter Rowe calls a "middle landscape" between the city and the countryside. While others have written about this phenomenon from the point of view of sociology or cultural geography, Rowe looks closely at suburban America in terms of design and physical planning. He builds a case for a new way of seeing and building suburbia, complete with theoretical underpinnings and a basis for design.The directions Rowe pursues are threefold: what has actually been built since 1920, as simple arrangements of land, buildings, and infrastructure have been transformed into complex multi-use centers; the mythic themes, metaphors, and attitudes driving the production of important cultural artifacts like the home and the workplace; and the definition of design principles for this new landscape.Rowe looks first at how suburban expansion has altered the land, at the new spatio-cultural mosaic that has emerged and taken the place of the traditional city. He then examines four cultural artifacts - the house and its garden; the retail realm of roadside franchises and commercial strips, shopping villages and malls; the modern workplace of office parks and corporate estates; and the roadway that has become an essential link to all of these. Running throughout, he notes, is a story of technical planning and mass production where, paradoxically, rational excesses are often cloaked in romantic imagery. He concludes by proposing - and illustrating with numerous examples - a symbolic construct of "modern pastoralism" that juxtaposes the idea of arcadian simplicity and valueagainst the modern technical temperament.Peter G. Rowe is Raymond Garbe Professor of Architecture and Urban Design at Harvard University and Chairman of the Department of Urban Planning and Design at the Harvard Graduate School of Design. He is author of "Design Thinking.

Making a Middle Landscape

Politics & Social Sciences

Social Sciences

Starting from the question of how can the design of modern housing can be successful, Peter Rowe explores the social, cultural, and expressive history of housing at two crucial moments: the first large-scale developments along modernist lines in the 1920s, and the widespread reconsideration of modernist principles in the 1970s. Although the inquiry is conducted along historical and theoretical lines, it proposes to uncover practical principles that may guide the design of modern housing, each principle responding to a contemporary architectural paradox posed by modern conditions. Six detailed case studies form the illustrative centerpiece of the book. Modernity and Housing embraces three more or less parallel themes concerning modernity: the rise of technocracy and the attendant tendency of modern space to become universal while the experience of time is confined to the present; the problem of representation for a culture in which subject-centered reason has replaced metaphysical foundations; and social practices that give rise to urban concentrations and the production of mass housing on an unprecedented scale. Within these themes, the modern experience of space and time philosophically grounds discussion of local and traditional versus universal and novel building practices. The perspective of subject-centered reason grounds the exploration of the use of abstract forms and the comcomitant problem of providing for an expressive architectural language; while the unprecedented quantities of housing production raise the thorny issue of widely defining a normative building program that allows for local particularity. The case studies cover Sunnyside Gardens, New York; Romerstadt, Frankfurt-am-Main; Kiefhoek, Rotterdam; Byker Redevelopment, United Kingdom; Villa Victoria, United States; Malagueira Quarter, Portugal. An appendix contains an annotated and statistical summary of all major housing projects described in the text (about 40) with notes that include the date, size, place, architect, client, housing type, relative densities, and other items of interest. Peter G. Rowe is Raymond Garbe Professor of Architecture and Urban Design and Dean of the Graduate School of Design at Harvard University. His previous books include Design Thinking, and Making a Middle Landscape.

Modernity and Housing

"Peter Rowe's Civic Realism is a most important and timely book that proposes a critical examination of the historical relationship between civic place and urban architecture and suggests that this relationship needs to be restructured for a contemporary practice. The book's relevance is heightened by Rowe's concern for the difficult task of making these civic places, and for the necessary presence of an architecture willing to establish a dialogue with the urban realm, beyond aesthetic ideologies." -- Mario Gandelsonas, Professor of Architecture, School of Architecture, Princeton University 
A civic place belongs to everyone and yet to nobody in particular. In Civic Realism, Peter G. Rowe looks at the shape and appearance of civic places, and at the social, political, and cultural circumstances that bring them into existence. The book is as much about the making and reshaping of civic places as it is about urban architecture per se. According to Rowe, the best civic place-making occurs across the divide between the state and civil society. By contrast, the alternatives are not very attractive. On the one side are state-sponsored edifices and places of authoritarian nature. On the other are the exclusive enclaves of corporate-dominated urban and suburban environments. Rowe begins with an example of a civic place that has stood the test of time--Siena's Piazza de Campo. To be a citizen of Siena is to participate in the life of the Campo. The Campo was and is real, with a realism that encompasses everyday life, occasional events, solemn occasions, and extraordinary celebrations. It is this sense of the word "real" that, together with "civic" forms the design practice called "civic realism." Topics covered in the book include the role of the state and civil society in the construction of civic spaces, aesthetic and architectural dimensions of realism, individual and collective uses of urban space, and how civic places constitute as well as represent the civic aspects of our lives. The examples, mostly from the modern period, include recent public spaces in Barcelona, several of the Grand Projets in Paris, neorealist projects in post-war Rome, contemporary transformations of the Manhattan grid, and Plecnik's water axis in pre-war Ljubljana.

Civic Realism

Built around snatches of discussion overheard in a Beijing design studio, this book explores attitudes toward architecture in China since the opening of the Treaty Ports in the 1840s. Central to the discussion are the concepts of ti and yong, or "essence" and "form," Chinese characters that are used to define the proper arrangement of what should be considered modern and essentially Chinese. Ti and yong have gone through various transformations—for example, from "Chinese learning for essential principles and Western learning for practical application" to "socialist essence and cultural form" and an almost complete reversal to "modern essence and Chinese form." The book opens with a discussion of cultural developments in China in response to the forced opening to the West in the mid-nineteenth century, efforts to reform the Qing dynasty, and the Nationalist and Communist regimes. It then considers the return of overseas-educated Chinese architects and foreign influences on Chinese architecture, four architectural orientations toward tradition and modernity in the 1920s and 1930s, and the controversy over the use of "big roofs" and other sinicizing aspects of Chinese architecture in the 1950s. The book then moves to the hard economic conditions of the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution, when architecture was almost abandoned, and the beginning of reform and opening up to the outside world in the late 1970s and 1980s. Finally, it looks at the present socialist market economy and Chinese architecture during the still incomplete process of modernization. It closes with a prognosis for the future.

Architectural Encounters with Essence and Form in Modern China

Kuan, Seng

In Design Thinking Peter Rowe provides a systematic account of the process of designing in architecture and urban planning. He examines multiple and often dissimilar theoretical positions whether they prescribe forms or simply provide procedures for solving problems―as particular manifestations of an underlying structure of inquiry common to all designing. Over 100 illustrations and a number of detailed observations of designers in action support Rowe's thesis.

Design Thinking (Mit Press)

Health, Fitness & Dieting

Exercise & Fitness

The MIT Press

Today's suburban metropolitan development of single-family homes, shopping centers, corporate offices, and roadway systems constitutes what Peter Rowe calls a "middle landscape" between the city and the countryside. While others have written about this phenomenon from the point of view of sociology or cultural geography, Rowe looks closely at suburban America in terms of design and physical planning. He builds a case for a new way of seeing and building suburbia, complete with theoretical underpinnings and a basis for design. The directions Rowe pursues are threefold: what has actually been built since 1920, as simple arrangements of land, buildings, and infrastructure have been transformed into complex multiuse centers; the mythic themes, metaphors, and attitudes driving the production of important cultural artifacts like the home and the workplace; and the definition of design principles for this new landscape. Rowe looks first at how suburban expansion has altered the land, at the new spatiocultural mosaic that has emerged and taken the place of the traditional city. He then examines four cultural artifacts - the house and its garden; the retail realm of roadside franchises and commercial strips, shopping villages and malls; the modern workplace of office parks and corporate estates; and the roadway that has become an essential link to all of these. Running throughout, he notes, is a story of technical planning and mass production where, paradoxically, rational excesses are often cloaked in romantic imagery. He concludes by proposing - and illustrating with numerous examples - a symbolic construct of "modern pastoralism" that juxtaposes the idea of arcadian simplicity and value against the modern technical temperament.

Starting from the question of how the design of modern housing can be successful, Peter Rowe explores the social, cultural, and expressive history of housing at two crucial moments: the first large-scale developments along modernist lines in the 1920s, and the widespread reconsideration of modernist principles in the 1970s. Although the inquiry is conducted along historical and theoretical lines, it proposes to uncover practical principles that may guide the design of modern housing, each principle responding to a contemporary architectural paradox posed by modern conditions. Six detailed case studies form the illustrative centerpiece of the book.

A study of the shape and appearance of civic places and the social, political, and cultural circumstances that bring them into existence.
A civic place belongs to everyone and yet to nobody in particular. In Civic Realism, Peter G. Rowe looks at the shape and appearance of civic places, and at the social, political, and cultural circumstances that bring them into existence. The book is as much about the making and reshaping of civic places as it is about urban architecture per se. According to Rowe, the best civic place-making occurs across the divide between the state and civil society. By contrast, the alternatives are not very attractive. On the one side are state-sponsored edifices and places of authoritarian nature. On the other are the exclusive enclaves of corporate-dominated urban and suburban environments.

Civic Realism (Mit Press)

MIT Press]

A study of traditional and modernist attitudes toward architecture in China from the 1840s to the present.Built around snatches of discussion overheard in a Beijing design studio, this book explores attitudes toward architecture in China since the opening of the Treaty Ports in the 1840s. Central to the discussion are the concepts of ti and yong, or "essence" and "form," Chinese characters that are used to define the proper arrangement of what should be considered modern and essentially Chinese. Ti and yong have gone through various transformations―for example, from "Chinese learning for essential principles and Western learning for practical application" to "socialist essence and cultural form" and an almost complete reversal to "modern essence and Chinese form."The book opens with a discussion of cultural developments in China in response to the forced opening to the West in the mid-nineteenth century, efforts to reform the Qing dynasty, and the Nationalist and Communist regimes. It then considers the return of overseas-educated Chinese architects and foreign influences on Chinese architecture, four architectural orientations toward tradition and modernity in the 1920s and 1930s, and the controversy over the use of "big roofs" and other sinicizing aspects of Chinese architecture in the 1950s. The book then moves to the hard economic conditions of the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution, when architecture was almost abandoned, and the beginning of reform and opening up to the outside world in the late 1970s and 1980s. Finally, it looks at the present socialist market economy and Chinese architecture during the still incomplete process of modernization. It closes with a prognosis for the future.

Architectural Encounters With Essence and Form in Modern China

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Rowe, Peter G.. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Rowe, Peter G.

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Rowe, Peter G.. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Design Thinking

Making a Middle Landscape

Modernity and Housing

Civic Realism

Architectural Encounters with Essence and Form in Modern China

Design Thinking (Mit Press)

Making a Middle Landscape

Modernity and Housing

Civic Realism (Mit Press)

Architectural Encounters With Essence and Form in Modern China