Michael Southworth
Morphology of the post-industrial city; design of public space; analysis, design, and management of large scale urban environmental quality; representation and communication of spatial form; educative potentials of urban form; preservation and reuse; theories of urban form.
Michael Southworth is Professor Emeritus in both the Department of City and Regional Planning and the Department of Landscape Architecture and Environmental Planning. Many of his research projects and publications have focused on the evolving form of the American metropolis; particularly the urban edge. His recent book Streets and the Shaping of Towns and Cities (with Eran Ben-Joseph), as well as several journal articles, examine the role of street design standards and development patterns in creating successful neighborhoods and communities.
His work has included design of information systems to enhance the education and communication functions of cities, especially for children’s needs; reuse and preservation plans for older cities, neighborhoods and buildings; design of urban open space; and research on large scale urban design theory and methods. He created the award-winning conceptual plans for the Lowell Urban National Park and the Boott Mill Cultural Center Community in Lowell, Massachusetts.
He was editor and contributor to City Sense and City Design (with Tridib Banerjee) and Wasting Away (by Kevin Lynch). His other books include The AIA Guide to Boston; Maps: A Visual Survey and Design Guide, and Ornamental Ironwork: An Illustrated Guide to Its History, Design, and Use in American Architecture (with Susan Southworth). He is North American Editor for The Journal of Urban Design. Trained and professionally registered in both city planning and architecture, he received the Doctor of Philosophy and Master of City Planning degrees from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and the Bachelor of Architecture and Bachelor of Arts from the University of Minnesota. His awards include the Rockefeller Foundation Bellagio Fellowship, Graham Foundation Fellowship, and the National Endowment for the Arts USA Fellowship. He is a Fellow in the American Institute of Architects and a Charter Member of the American Institute of Certified Planners. He has been a partner in Michael & Susan Southworth/City Design & Architecture since 1971.
LD ARCH 203/CY PLAN 233 Shaping the Public Realm
LD ARCH 251 Theories of Landscape Architecture and Environmental Planning
CY PLAN 240/LD ARCH 250 Theories or Urban Form and Design
CY PLAN 247 The Educative City
ENV DES 252 Urban Place Studies
Streets and the Shaping of Towns and Cities (with Eran Ben-Joseph). Washington, DC: Island Press, 2003; Chinese Edition 2006.
AIA Guide to Boston (with Susan Southworth). Boston: The Globe Pequot Press, Second Edition, 1992; updated edition 1999.
Contributor and Editor, Deperire. Rifiuti e spreco nella vita di uomini e citta (by Kevin Lynch). Naples: Edizioni CUEN-IDIS, 1992.
Ornamental Ironwork: An Illustrated Guide to its Design, History, and Use in American Architecture (with Susan Southworth). Second Edition. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1991.
Contributor and Editor, Wasting Away (posthumous work by Kevin Lynch). San Francisco: Sierra Club Books, 1991; Japanese and Chinese editions 1994.
Contributor and Editor, City Sense and City Design: Writings and Projects of Kevin Lynch (with Tridib Banerjee). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1990; paperback edition 1995.
Maps: An Illustrated Survey and Design Guide (with Susan Southworth). Boston: New York Graphic Society/Little Brown, 1982; Japanese Edition, 1983.
Ornamental Ironwork: An Illustrated Guide to its Design, History, and Use in American Architecture (with Susan Southworth). Boston: David R. Godine, 1978 (hardcover), 1979 (paperback).
The Walkable City, Journal of Urban Planning and Development, Summer 2005.
Reinventing Main Street: from Mall to Townscape Mall, Journal of Urban Design, Summer 2005.
Reconsidering the Cul-de-sac (with Eran Ben-Joseph), Access, Spring 2004; Wharton Real Estate Review, Spring 2005.
The New Urbanism and the American Metropolis, Built Environment, 2003.
Measuring the Livable City, Built Environment, 2003.
Above and Beyond (Book Review) Journal of the American Planning Association, Autumn 2002, 68:4.
Urban Wastelands in the Evolving Metropolis, Plurimondi 3: January-June 2000.
The Suburban Public Realm I: Its Emergence, Growth, and Transformation in the American Metropolis (with Balaji Parthasarathy), Journal of Urban Design, Fall 1996.
The Suburban Public Realm II: Eurourbanism, New Urbanism, and Urban Design, (with Balaji Parthasarathy), Journal of Urban Design, Spring 1997.
Walkable Suburbs? An Evaluation of Neotraditional Communities at the Urban Edge, Journal of the American Planning Association, Winter 1996.
Theory and Practice of Contemporary Urban Design: A Review of Urban Design Plans in the U.S., translated into Chinese by Hongwei Zhang, in Architect 58:1994/6, pp. 74-88 (a Chinese journal).
Street Standards and the Shaping of Suburbia (with Eran Ben-Joseph), Journal of the American Planning Association, Winter 1995.
The Evolving Metropolis: Studies of Community, Neighborhood, and Street Form at the Urban Edge (with Peter Owens), Journal of the American Planning Association, Summer 1993.
City Learning: Children, Maps, and Transit, Children's Environments Quarterly, VII:2, 1990 and Streetwise, 1993.