Meta Berghauser Pont, Per Haupt

Design: Studio Joost Grootens, Illustrated (colour and b/w), Hardback, 280 pages, size: 17 x 24 cm
English edition, ISBN 978-90-5662-742-3, € 47.50
July 2010

This book was made possible in part by the generous support of the Department of Urbanism, Faculty of Architecture, Delft University of Technology; The Ministry of Housing, Spatial Planning and the Environment (VROM); The Spatial Planning Department –City of Amsterdam(DRO); and Van Eesteren-Fluck & Van Lohuizen Foundation

Spacematrix explores the potential of urban density as a tool for urban planning and design. The authors’ fascination with density is driven by the desire to understand the relational logic between density, urban form and performance. This is a prerequisite for understanding and successfully predicting the effects of specific designs and planning proposals. The focus of attention is the relationship between types of urban environment and data such as amount, size and physical properties.

Berghauser Pont and Haupt demystify the use of image-based references and concepts such as ‘urbanity’, ‘compact city’ and ‘park city’ by challenging the reliability of such concepts and critically examining the possibility of redefining them through the concept of density.

Spacematrix is of interest to architects as well as urban planners and designers, but is equally relevant for other professionals working in the field of urbanism, such as developers, economists, engineers and policymakers.

*historical overview density developments
*toolkit for quantitative urban design: Spacematrix
*samples from the Netherlands, Germany (Berlin) and Spain (Barcelona)
*trade edition of the PhD thesis Space, Density and Urban Form. The Quality
and Capacity of Space

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