People Places: Design Guidlines for Urban Open Space, 2nd Edition

Rating:
Summary: If you are a not a specialist, this book is great.
Review: I read this book as part of a research project I was doing about the design of college campuses. I found it to be extremely helpful in my project and I plan on refering to it in the future; I am pursuing a Master's of Landscape Architecture. What I liked about this book is two-fold:

1. Each chapter is a self-contained guide to designing a plaza, park, campus, or playground with people in mind. This important to me becuase I try to focus my designs around the people who will be using them. Each chapter gives useful design tips and helps about the given topic.

2. This book was academic while remaining readable. The authors refer to studies relevent to the topic at hand, but do not become bogged down in theoretical nonsense.

I recommend buying it to anyone who would like a well-organized general design reference book. I would not recommend it to anyone who needs in depth information on any specific topic covered in the book. Check it out from the library if that is your intent.