A B R FESTIVAL

A partner's practice · Barbot Bernardo, Porto · TY-CO

Urban space and life in our cities is, in their own words, "one of our areas of work and a long-standing obsession". In the fifth instalment of their Books Informing our Practice series, our TY-CO partner Barbot Bernardo picked four books on how we move through, share and protect the city.

David Byrne – Bicycle Diaries (Faber & Faber). Reflections on cities, art and music, seen from a bicycle: a book in which cycling becomes a way of looking at architecture, politics and our quality of life.

David Sim – Cidade Suave (TowerBlock Books). The Portuguese edition of Soft City, with a foreword by Jan Gehl: a case for density at a human scale, and for changing cities through small decisions with a big effect on everyday life.

M. Armengaud, A. Degros, R. Radulova-Stahmer (eds) – Towards Territorial Transition (Park Books). Case studies and infographics on the climate transition of urban areas, and on how cities relate to the peri-urban and rural land around them.

Paulo Ventura Araújo, Maria Pires de Carvalho, Manuela Delgado Leão Ramos – À Sombra de Árvores com História (Gradiva). A 2006 portrait of Porto's historic trees, revisited after a summer of heatwaves as a reminder that a city must know, and protect, its trees.

Why it matters for TY-CO

Shade, walkable streets and spaces at a human scale came up again and again in TY-CO's conversations, from OPU's car-free days in Nicosia to the debate on Lisbon's cultural spaces. These four books are a good place to start.

Read the full post on Barbot Bernardo's journal →

Images: Barbot Bernardo

TY-CO (communities in conversation) · ABR – Alternative Brains Rule · Co-funded by the European Union

Funded by the European Union. Views and opinions expressed are however, those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the European Education and Culture Executive Agency (EACEA). Neither the European Union nor EACEA can be held responsible for them.