The Inclusive City: Design Solutions for Buildings, Neighborhoods and Urban Spaces

Abstract

Children, Youth and Environments Vol. 18 No. 2 (2008) ISSN: 1546-2250 The Inclusive City: Design Solutions for Buildings, Neighborhoods and Urban Spaces Goltsman, Susan and Iacofano, Daniel (2007). Berkeley, CA: MIG Communications; 493 pages. ISBN 9780944661314. The Inclusive City is a guide to creating public buildings, green spaces, streets and neighborhoods with positive social impacts, edited by two founding principals in the firm of MIG, which has a long history of designing and facilitating projects of this kind. With text, drawings and many color photographs, it shows how cities can be inclusive for all ages, all abilities, all income levels, and how the people who use and inhabit places can participate in their design and creation. An opening chapter by the editors on “The Challenge of Our Cities” gives a brief history of the idea of “cities for people” and presents a vision of how cities can function as healthy and inclusive habitats for all community members. It is followed by 14 case studies which demonstrate how this vision can be realized, with detailed information on the design and planning process as well as outcomes in the form of new buildings, transformed parks and streets, and revitalized neighborhoods. It closes with an 80-page section on “Inclusive Design Guidelines,” which distills lessons from the case studies and other projects. This section by itself is worth the purchase of the book, but the book as a whole is a useful and attractive celebration of buildings and places that enhance the lives of all people who use them. Because the book’s topic is inclusive cities, every chapter is relevant for the creation of multigenerational community settings. In addition, a number of chapters focus on settings for children. Susan Goltsman describes the design of three institutions that serve children: Edelman Children’s Court in Los Angeles in the chapter “Helping Children Heal,” Tule Elk Park Child Development Center in “Bringing Nature into the 290 Urban School,” and St. Coletta of Greater Washington, D.C., a school for children with mental retardation, autism and multiple physical disabilities, in “Expanding the Learning Environment.” In “Combining Community Facilities,” she writes with Susan McKay about the design and program of the Edison School in Glendale, California, an elementary school that functions as a community focal point, open 15 hours a day and seven days a week. In “Growing Caring Children,” Robin Moore describes Explore! A Child’s Nature—the renovated and reinvented children’s zoo at the Brookfield Zoo in metropolitan Chicago, which has become a model for promoting connection with the natural world among young children and their families. All of these chapters demonstrate how institutions’ philosophies, policies, programs and places function can together to treat children as full-fledged community members whose comfort, engagement and inclusion matters. Reviewer Information Chawla, Louise Louise Chawla is a professor in the College of Architecture and Planning at the University of Colorado. ...