Master planning the adaptive city
The use of master plans to create urban environments

Marco FACCHINETTI

2011, 240 pagine, formato 18x26 cm., € 29.00
ISBN 88-371-1843-0

Are master plans really the missing link between urban planning and architecture? Are master plans the best way to propose urban transformations or urban projects to people, citizens, and stakeholders? Are master plans flexible and detailed at the same time, to help urban planningideas to become urban design projects and, at least, to create livable and sustainable new urban environments? This book presents a variety of ideas and thoughts, and deeply some case studies, in Europe and in the US, about the real potentialities of master plans, as urban design tools, proposing a specific urban transformation, and as urban planning tools, speaking with the general level of planning and referring urban transformations to larger scale planning tools. The use of master plan is considered as a good way to plan,study, propose and create good urban environments, at least because the master plan size and scale gives the possibility to rule and manage simultaneouslythree main parts of a development project: built up spaces, open areas and green open spaces and networks. The researches studies presented here assume that one of the most important aspect to ensure quality is to create a good balance between these three aspects. A tentative series of guidelines and suggestions is offered by the book, on how to deal with the planning of a master plan, considering it as a strategic tool to ensure a sort of shared and respectful urban quality. Many parts and many considerations are structured as a toolkit, with a series of guidelines and rules to see what should be at least included in a master plan and why we strongly believe that a good use of it could enhance urban quality, especially in a period when cities undergo a great number of urban transformations. The book is helpful for students and practitioners, it offers a variety of case studies and examples, and it helps considering master plans as active tools to invest in the quality of urban environments, considering compact development, smart growth, sustainable architecture and transportation oriented development the basis for a good urban development.
Marco Facchinetti is assistant professor of urban planning at Polytechnic of Milan, Department of Architecture and Planning. During his researches and studies, he has been involved in national and international researches programs; he published books, papers and articles about the final results of his researches and he has been visiting professor at the State University of New York at Albany, at the Department of Geography and Planning. At the Department of Architecture and Planning at Polytechnic of Milan, he is now responsible of a workshop of urban planning, actively involved inmany important process of planning for urban regeneration and urban development projects, providing a new way to see urban transformations, as occasions toredevelop part of cities investing in urban form and in the quality of urban spaces. He studies how planning ideas and proposals are actively developed by the use of plans and projects and since many years, he is studying and working directly in many urban transformation processes, involving both infrastructural and urban assets, developing planning tools capable of managing the development process. His research involves studies urban quality and the way to reach it with the use of planning tools. He is an architect with a PhD in urban planning: his view on architecture and urban planning simultaneously is at the base of his research and his involvement into practice.