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    The spacemaker's guide to big change : design and improvisation in development practice / Nabeel Hamdi.

    • Title:The spacemaker's guide to big change : design and improvisation in development practice / Nabeel Hamdi.
    •    
    • Author/Creator:Hamdi, Nabeel.
    • Published/Created:New York, NY : Routledge, 2014.
    • Holdings

       
    • Library of Congress Subjects:City planning--Citizen participation.
      City planning--Environmental aspects.
      City planning--Social aspects.
    • Description:xix, 176 pages ; 22 cm
    • Series:Tools for community planning.
    • Summary:"This book gives definition to participatory practice as a necessary form of activism in development planning for cities. It gives guidance on how practice can make space for big and lasting change and for new opportunities to be discovered. It points to ways of building synergy and negotiating our way in the social and political spaces 'in between' conventional and often competing ideals-- public and private interests, top down and bottom up, formal and informal, the global agendas which outsiders promote and the local needs of insiders, for example. It offers guidance on process, designed to close gaps and converge worlds which we know have become divisive and discriminatory, working from the detail of everyday life in search of beginnings that count, building out and making meaningful locally, the abstractions of the global causes we champion--poverty alleviation, environmental sustainability, resilience. Practice--the collective process by which decisions are negotiated, plans designed and actions taken in response to needs and aspirations, locally and globally--we will see, is not just about being practical, but more. Its purpose is to give structure to our understanding of the order and disorder in our cities today, then to disturb that order when it has become inefficient or inequitable, even change it. It is to add moral value to morally questionable planning practice and so build "a social economy for the satisfaction of human need." Practice in these spaces 'in-between' redraws the boundaries of expectation of disciplinary work and offers a new high ground of moral purpose from which to be more creative, more integrated, more relevant, more resourceful--more strategic"-- Provided by publisher.
      "This book offers new guidance for global urban planning and development practice. It defines the advantages of operating in the socially and politically constructed spaces in between competing ideals; top down and bottom up, formal and informal, public and private vested, freedom and order. The book argues that being practical in practice requires that planners continue to make space for innovative solutions to urgent problems, whilst at the same time triggering opportunities for change in order to deal with their primary causes - inequity, violation of rights, risk and vulnerability. To be a Spacemaker is not just to understand the order or disorder in our cities today, but also to disturb that order. Such practice is mutually enabling and allows practitioners to cultivate the ideals of planning afresh. The Spacemaker's Guide to Big Change explores the skills, values, methods and responsibilities required of architects, designers, planners, and others working to regenerate our cities in order to practice effectively and collaboratively"-- Provided by publisher.
    • Notes:Includes bibliographical references and index.
    • ISBN:9780415838559 (hardback)
      041583855X (hardback)
      9780415838566 (paperback)
      0415838568 (paperback)
      9781315773315 (ebook)
    • Contents:Machine generated contents note: pt. 1 Learning Practice
      1. Deciding on Purpose: In Search of Beginnings
      2. Learning and Practice: Understanding and Action
      3. Deciding How to Decide
      Ways of Seeing: Looking and Listening
      Ethics and Rationality
      Disciplinary Work
      Interdisciplinary Work
      Narrative and Quality of Life
      4. Cross-cutting Themes: Ownership, Organization and Asset Building
      pt. 1 Summary: Things to Think About
      pt. 2 Spacemaker's Guide to Becoming Strategic
      5. Equity, Efficiency and Participation
      6. Equity, Efficiency and City Form
      7. Participation in Practice
      Life and Organization of Place
      Nature and Scope of Practice
      Roles and Responsibilities of Practitioners
      pt. 2 Summary: Things to Think About
      pt. 3 Country Files
      Introduction
      8. Cultivating the Top: The Million Houses Programme of Sri Lanka
      9. Case Files: Learning from Practice
      Navagamgoda
      Missing Lightbulb
      Living Room on the Landing
      Tailor's Workshop
      pt. 3 Summary: Things to Think About
      pt. 4 Enablement and the Art of Improvisation
      Introduction
      10. Embracing Serendipity: Finding Opportunity in Ambiguity
      11. `Yes is More:' Getting Unstuck: Working with Troublemakers
      12. Insiders Out and Outsiders In: Practical Wisdom and the Co-Production of Knowledge
      pt. 4 Summary: Things to Think About.
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