Touching the City

"Scale in cities is relative and absolute. It has the ability to make us feel at home in the world or alien from it; connected or disconnected. Both large and small scale in cities can be beautiful; both are right, neither is wrong. Whilst accepting that prescription is no answer, 'getting the scale right' - at an intuitive and sensual level - is a fundamental part of the magic of architecture and urban design. Touching the City explores how scale is manifested in cities, exploring scale in buildings, in the space between them and in their details. It asks how scale makes a difference. The book zooms in from the macro scale of surfing Google Earth to micro moments such as finding fossils in a weathered wall. It examines the dynamics and movement patterns of cities, the making of streets and skylines, the formation of thresholds and facades, and it also touches on the process of design and the importance of drawing. As the book's title, Touching the City, suggests, it also emphasises the tactile - that the city is indeed something physical, something we can touch and be touched by, alive and ever changing"--Back cover.