There are countless Urban Design courses, tutorials, articles available online, but for some, having a book is still a necessity to learn. This is an up-to-date list of recommended books.
- Planning and Urban Design Standards (2006)
- Urban Design: A Typology of Procedures and Products (2017)
- Happy City: Transforming Our Lives Through Urban Design (2014)
- The Urban Design Reader (Routledge Urban Reader Series) (2012)
- Urban Design: The Composition of Complexity (2019)
- The Permaculture City: Regenerative Design for Urban, Suburban, and Town Resilience (2015)
- The Nature of Urban Design: A New York Perspective on Resilience (2015)
- The Urban Design Handbook: Techniques and Working Methods (Second Edition) (2013)
- Urban Design (2009)
- Urban Design Thinking: A Conceptual Toolkit (2016)
- Urban Design for Planners: Tools, Techniques, and Strategies (2018)
- Retrofitting Suburbia, Updated Edition: Urban Design Solutions for Redesigning Suburbs (2011)
Planning and Urban Design Standards (2006)
The new student edition of the definitive reference on urban planning and design Planning and Urban Design Standards, Student Edition is the authoritative and reliable volume designed to teach students best practices and guidelines for urban planning and design.
Urban Design: A Typology of Procedures and Products (2017)
Urban Design: A Typology of Procedures and Products, 2nd Edition provides a comprehensive and accessible introduction to urban design, defining the field and addressing the controversies and goals of urban design.
Happy City: Transforming Our Lives Through Urban Design (2014)
Charles Montgomery’s Happy City is revolutionizing the way we think about urban life. After decades of unchecked sprawl, more people than ever are moving back to the city. Dense urban living has been prescribed as a panacea for the environmental and resource crises of our time. But is it better or worse for our happiness? Are subways, sidewalks, and condo towers an improvement on the car dependence of the suburbs?
The Urban Design Reader (Routledge Urban Reader Series) (2012)
The second edition of The Urban Design Reader draws together the very best of classic and contemporary writings to illuminate and expand the theory and practice of urban design.
Urban Design: The Composition of Complexity (2019)
Urban design is a process of establishing a structural order within human settlements; responding to dynamic emergent meanings and functions in a constant state of flux. The planning/design process is complex due to the myriad of ongoing (urban) organizational and structural relationships and contexts. This book reconnects the process with outcomes on the ground, and puts thinking about design back at the heart of what planners do.
The Permaculture City: Regenerative Design for Urban, Suburban, and Town Resilience (2015)
Permaculture is more than just the latest buzzword; it offers positive solutions for many of the environmental and social challenges confronting us. And nowhere are those remedies more needed and desired than in our cities.
The Nature of Urban Design: A New York Perspective on Resilience (2015)
The best cities become an ingrained part of their residents' identities. Urban design is the key to this process, but all too often, citizens abandon it to professionals, unable to see a way to express what they love and value in their own neighborhoods. New in paperback, this visually rich book by Alexandros Washburn, former Chief Urban Designer of the New York Department of City Planning, redefines urban design.
The Urban Design Handbook: Techniques and Working Methods (Second Edition) (2013)
The go-to guide for the practice of sustainable urbanism, updated to include new case studies and analytic tools. This invaluable guide, brought up to date in its revised edition, offers an introductory course in urbanism and provides an operations manual for architects, planners, developers, and public officials.
Urban Design (2009)
Collects essays written on the establishment and cultivation of urban design as a distinct architectural and planning practice.
Urban Design Thinking: A Conceptual Toolkit (2016)
Urban Design Thinking provides a conceptual toolkit for urban design. Bridging the gap between theory and practice, it shows how the design of our cities and urban spaces can be interpreted and informed through contemporary theories of urbanism, architecture and spatial analysis.
Urban Design for Planners: Tools, Techniques, and Strategies (2018)
Urban Planners: Take the Leadership Role in Urban Design Designing a good community entails so much more than architecture. But too often architects lead the discussion on urban design. In her clarion call for real community-based urban design, Emily Talen challenges planners to reengage in urban design to ensure that it supports and promotes diverse, sustainable, vibrant, and equitable communities.
Retrofitting Suburbia, Updated Edition: Urban Design Solutions for Redesigning Suburbs (2011)
Updated with a new Introduction by the authors and a foreword by Richard Florida, this book is a comprehensive guide book for urban designers, planners, architects, developers, environmentalists, and community leaders that illustrates how existing suburban developments can be redesigned into more urban and more sustainable places.
Best Urban Design Books that Should be on Your Bookshelf
We highly recommend you to buy all paper or e-books in a legal way, for example, on Amazon. But sometimes it might be a need to dig deeper beyond the shiny book cover. Before making a purchase, you can visit resources like Library Genesis and download some urban design books mentioned below at your own risk. Once again, we do not host any illegal or copyrighted files, but simply give our visitors a choice and hope they will make a wise decision.
Trends in Urban Design: Insights for the Future Urban Professional
Author(s): Rob Roggema
ID: 3587486, Publisher: Springer, Year: 2023, Size: 22 Mb, Format: pdf
Urban Dystopias: Lofty Ideals to Shocking Realities
Author(s): Jane Burry, Marcus White
ID: 3624987, Publisher: Wiley, Year: 2023, Size: 45 Mb, Format: pdf
The Green City: Urban Nature as an Ideal, Provider of Services and Conceptual Urban Design Approach
Author(s): Jürgen Breuste
ID: 3192961, Publisher: Springer, Year: 2022, Size: 29 Mb, Format: pdf
Please note that this booklist is not errorless. Some books are absolutely chart-busters according to Los Angeles Times, others are written by unknown writers. On top of that, you can always find additional tutorials and courses on Coursera, Udemy or edX, for example. Are there any other relevant links you could recommend? Leave a comment if you have any feedback on the list.