Patch Atlas

An excellent contribution to the rigorous and comprehensive application of patch dynamics theory and urban heterogeneity to the study of urban systems. Especially commendable is the intention to integrate ecology and design, and the book will most certainly result in a further engagement by designers with the work of urban ecologists on novel systems of analysis that offer the opportunity to better integrate ecology and design. --Clinton Hindes and Julian Raxworthy, Journal of Landscape Architecture This brilliant study creates a methodology that enables architects, urban designers, landscape architects and ecologists to share a language that defines urban patches in terms of their dominant ground cover, and then degrees of hybridity in a matrix of cover mixtures. --Grahame Shane, Columbia University Patch Atlas provides an invaluable bridge between the science of urban ecology and the art of urban design. The authors offer an important template for understanding our interactions with our surroundings, crucial for designing better futures in this age of cities. --Frederick Steiner, Dean and Paley Professor, Stuart Weitzman School of Design, University of Pennsylvania If we are to transition to sustainability in an urban century, we need urban designers to understand ecology, and we need ecologists to understand urban design. This much-needed and timely volume brings together the practice and aesthetic of design with urban ecology to uncover hidden patterns in urban systems. It will help designers and ecologists read the urban landscape with a fresh perspective. --Karen Seto, Yale University, and co-author of City Unseen: New Visions of an Urban Planet