Foundations of Urban Design

After years of experience in education, research, design and policy, Professor Marcel Smets, former Flemish Government Architect, compiles his insights on the city and urban design in a personal booklet.

In his search for the foundations of urban design, Marcel Smets puts forward thirty complementary pairs of concepts. He starts from archetypal settlement forms (ribbon and cluster, ladder and star), typifies morphological categories (street and road, island and archipelago) and highlights changing design processes (creator and curator, growth and improvement). The concept pairs are illustrated with drawings by Heinrich Altenmüller.

This English edition is the fully revised and expanded edition of the previously published book in Dutch and French.