Mapping Urban Spaces: Designing the European City

Mapping Urban Spaces focuses on medium-sized European cities and more specifically on their open spaces from psychological, sociological, and aesthetic points of view. The chapters illustrate how the characteristics that make life in medium-sized European cities pleasant and sustainable – accessibility, ease of travel, urban sustainability, social inclusiveness – can be traced back to the nature of that space.

The chapters develop from a phenomenological study of space to contributions on places and landscapes in the city. Centralities and their meaning are studied, as well as the social space and its complexity. The contributions focus on history and theory as well as concrete research and mapping approaches and the resulting design applications.

The case studies come from countries around Europe including Poland, Italy, Greece, Germany, and France, among others. The book will be of interest to students, scholars, and practitioners in architecture, urban planning, and landscape architecture.

Lamberto Amistadi is an architect and an associate professor in the Department of Architecture at the University of Bologna – Cesena Campus and the coordinator of the ArchéA program. He is the deputy director of the scientific journal FAMagazine, devoted to research and projects concerning architecture and the city, and co-director of the series TECA, Teorie della Composizione architettonica (Naples: Clean). Along with Ildebrando Clemente, he founded and directs the series SOUNDINGS: Theory and Architectural Openness (Florence: Aión), which has included monographic volumes on John Hejduk and Aldo Rossi. He is also the author of numerous publications.

Valter Balducci is an architect, has a PhD in architecture (IUAV, 1994), and is a professor at the École Nationale Supérieure d’Architecture of Normandie, Rouen-Darnétal. He has been a teacher in the Faculty of Architecture at the Genua University (1990–2000), and a researcher and assistant professor at the Bologna University (2001–2014). Since 2014, he is a full professor in urban design at ENSA Normandie. His major research interests are focused on urban analysis and history. Since 2003, he has been conducting research on seaside tourism and projects on public space within seaside territories in relation to climate change.

Tomasz Bradecki, PhD, is an architect, a researcher, and a lecturer of architecture and urban design in the Department of Urban and Spatial Planning, Faculty of Architecture, Silesian University of Technology since 2010. His main fields of interest include housing, urban design, and mapping with models. Besides research and teaching activity, he has been running an architectural firm since 2008. He is a member of the Polish Chamber of Architects. He is an author and co-author of many publications focusing on housing, commercial, and urban projects.

Enrico Prandi is an architect and an associate professor at the Department of Engineering and Architecture of the University of Parma and the coordinator of the Parma group of the ArchéA program. He is the director of the scientific open access e-journal FAMagazine. He has been contributing to various research projects concerning architecture and the city and is co-director of the series AAC – Arts | Architecture | City (Turin: Accademia University Press). Since 2016, he has been the coordinator of the research project conducted by architect Luigi Vietti at the CSAC – Study Center and Communication Archive. He is also the author of numerous publications.

Uwe Schröder is an architect and a professor at the RWTH Aachen University. In 1993, he founded his architectural office in Bonn, and since then he has devoted himself to the theory and practice of architecture. Between 2004 and 2008, he was an ordinary professor of architectural theory and design at the TH Köln, and since 2008 he has been a professor in the Department of Spatial Design in the Faculty of Architecture at RWTH Aachen University. Besides his research and teaching activity in Germany, he taught as a visiting professor at various Italian universities, including Bologna, Naples, Bari, Catania, Milan, and Parma.