Stefan Al & Tom Verebes: Reading urban design

In this episode of the A is for Architecture Podcast, I spoke with Associate Professor of Urban Planning at Hunter College, Stefan Al, and Professor at New York Institute of Technology, Tom Verebes, about their recent co-edited book, The Urbanism Reader: Design, Technology, Culture and the Future of Cities, published by Bloomsbury (2025). 

Orientated towards design in the contemporary city, The Urbanism Reader gathers together key texts that explore urban theory, planning and development pertinent to the city as we find it now – a messy, networked and highly technological state which inflects, if not forms, the modern citizen and their social world . Bringing together influential writings from scholars and practitioners, including greats like Venturi and Scott Brown, Tschumi, Frampton, Kwinter, Eisenman, Koolhaas and  Maas, but also introducing new voices and accents, including Anne Whiston Spirn, Anaya Roy, Walter Hood and Andrea Moneta among many others, the book presents a good overview of key themes, like virtuality, computationality, informality, equity, ecology, density and connectivity. 

To stand back from all this thinking and just look is thrilling really. Have a listen and find out why you should. Tom and Stefan are great to hear.

Stefan also leads his own practice, Stefan Al Architects and Tom is founder and Creative Director of OCEAN CN. Both gentlemen can be found on LinkedIn and Instagram.  The book is linked above.

#Urbanism #CityPlanning #UrbanDesign #TheUrbanismReader #SustainableCities #UrbanTheory #SmartCities #StefanAlAndTomVerebes #ArchitetcurePodcast #AisforArchitecturePodcast

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Music credits: ⁠Bruno Gillick