…. here: bdonline.co.uk/opinion/book-…

Our director @boys_nicholas has reviewed the 2nd edition of Street Design for @BDonline He concluded: “This is the most important book on street design in the English language. Every highways department, planning authority, urban designer and architectural practice, should have a well-thumbed copy. First published in 2014, this new and expanded second edition by the American architects and urban designers, Victor Dover and John Massengale, is not a lightweight. It weighs in at £56, 704 pages and two kilograms. This is no field guide. Nevertheless, it is worth the investment in money, time and back muscles. The new edition adds detail, colour throughout, hundreds of illustrations and a convincing catalogue of street types accompanied by online three-dimensional models. Street Design’s underpinning strength is that it understandswhy streets exist. Streets are not just to move through. They are also places in which our civic-life takes places. We dwell in streets. They are critical to the nature of our towns and cities. Street Design’s second great strength is that it does not shy away from concepts that terrify most designers. It understands ‘the importance of the building.’ The facades enclosing streets shape our experience of them. They need to be attractive as the public, not designers, understand it. They show that popularity can be measured and, in turn, influences behaviour, a train of evidence curiously anathema to many.Dover and Massengale argue, correctly, that aesthetics is never, ‘just aesthetics.’ The evidence is even clearer now with the advent of digitally enabled visual preference surveys than it was for their first edition. The breadth of support for street-based city planning shows that the Street has Struck Back. However, the urban design war is not yet won. Street Designis a critical battle guide in the fight for more beautiful buildings, happier neighbourhoods & more prosperous cities.” You can read the full review …