Site Planning

The highly successful first edition of Site Planning was greeted by reviewers as "a most unusual type of book, in which the most practical and detailed advice is given in terms readily absorbed by beginners, though it is written by a leading theoretician concerning 'the image of the city'" (Architectural Forum)...and as meriting a "prominent place on the bookshelves of all us actively concerned with achieving true quality in our changing environment" (Landscape).

Over one hundred pages longer than the 1962 version, this second edition of Site Planning is a completely revised and updated source of information on the art of arranging the external physical environment in all its detail. Much new material has been added, particularly in respect to ecology, psychosocial analyses, and design methods. The number of illustrations has grown, and the use of margins as a cross-reference system has been amplified. Perhaps the most important aspect—the original idea of environmental design as a continuous process involving many participants—has been more completely and systematically developed.

The art of site planning is comprehensively covered by chapters on analyzing a locality, organizing place and action, movement systems, "sensuous form," problems of control, and design and management of the site. These are interspersed by technical chapters on site form and ecology, social and psychological analyses, streets and ways, earthwork and utilities, design methods, and costs. Discussions of housing and of special types of site planning (shopping centers and commercial strips, industrial districts, institutions, open space, and renewal) conclude the study.

Over one hundred pages longer than the 1962 version, this second edition of Site Planning is a completely revised and updated source of information on the art of arranging the external physical environment in all its detail.

Kevin Lynch (1918-1984) studied with Frank Lloyd Wright at Taliesin and later obtained a Bachelor of City Planning degree from MIT. After a long and distinguished career on the faculty of the MIT School of Architecture and Urban Planning, he was named Professor Emeritus of City Planning.