Increments of Neighborhood - by Brian O'Looney (Hardcover)

Book Synopsis

Intended as a comprehensive resource, Increments of Neighborhood is a compendium of recent built work for urban neighborhoods, encompassing the spectrum of building types financed/built by today's American real estate industry - from single family and townhouses, through "missing middle" stacked housing, stick-built housing, large multi-family, and high-rise buildings. This publication is the only resource in the marketplace that tabulates market-rate products that fill America's cities, as well as being a comparative resource that shows how these types can be deployed in a way befitting smart-growth using sustainable principles. The only resource of its type, Increments of Neighborhood will demystify the understanding of costs and type, contribute to the public realm for the non-architectural professional, and provide a breadth and range of significant new information for experienced architects who typically specialize in a particular segment of building products such as hospitals or single-family houses, information with which they are frequently unacquainted.

Review Quotes

"Increments of Neighborhood is an essential resource for anyone seeking to visualize the building blocks of a city. It is clearly laid out and easy to navigate. This book is especially important as more and more cities begin to limit exclusionary (only single family) zoning. It is one thing to change the codes, it's another to understand what that means and how to create thriving, sustainable communities using a wide range of building types. This book illustrates how to employ different building types of common scale to work together to create places where the total is greater than the sum of the parts." --Marianne Cusato, author of Get Your House Right and professor of practice at University of Notre Dame School of Architecture--Marianne Cusato

"This book should be on the shelf of every urban designer, planner, architect, and developer (small or large) working to build urban places. It should be available at every charrette. And I don't say that because I think O'Looney should be rewarded for a job well done. The book is just plain good. ... I can flip to any page of Increments of Neighborhood and learn something. There are some books that help you to understand the built environment better, and this is one of them." --Robert Steuteville, Public Square--Robert Steuteville

"This is an essential book for anyone interested in walkable places or places people love. If I only had five feet of bookshelf, this would be one of the books on it, right up there with (in no particular order) the The Timeless Way of Building, A Pattern Language, Suburban Nation, Walkable City, Cities for People, Death & Life of Great American Cities, The Architecture of Community, The Geography of Nowhere, Sprawl Repair Manual, The Smart Growth Manual, Happy City, Street Fight, Strong Towns, Tactical Urbanism, The Language of Towns & Cities, New Urbanism Best Practices Guide, and other classics. In short, if you're on this listserv, you really should buy this book. And you should get one in the hands of anyone who can influence communities to build better places." --Steve Mouzon, Mouzon Design--Steve Mouzon

"Far reaching and inspirational." --Ellen Dunham-Jones, co-author with June Williamson of Retrofitting Suburbia and professor and director of the Urban Design Program, School of Architecture, Georgia Tech--Ellen Dunham-Jones

"Increments of Neighborhood is a masterpiece in its ambitious and comprehensive presentation of the building components of walkable neighborhoods. The book documents aerial and street views, building type applications and shortcomings, and comparative data across a range of densities. Dedicated to the modest proposition that incremental building empowers the citizenry, and that typology empowers the increment, O'Looney introduces the typological segue as a unifying concept in place-making. Copious illustrations and pithy text in a stematic structure ensure appreciation by a broad audience--from residents and builders to designers, developers, and regulators." --Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk, architect, author and former dean of the University of Miami School of Architecture--Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk

"This superb analysis of neighborhoods and their housing types is absolutely invaluable. I highly recommend it." --Virginia Savage McAlester, author of A Field Guide to American Houses--Virginia Savage McAlester