
Manuals in urban design.
With this compilation of urban design manuals We want to establish a specific information point recognizing that the urban space design It covers a significant amount of information that we must collect slowly.
The actions carried out on urban planning, specifically, on the urban design Both in cities and in a natural environment must be analyzed in a forceful way and in harmony with the environment, given their durability over time and affect on a given area, they must be considered differenturban criteria as a priority in the field of actions.
Definition of urban design
What is urban or urban design It encompasses a broad concept and definition that in many cases is diluted in particular definitions according to the designer who comments. Although, in generic mode we can identify that the definition of urban design it is the process of shaping the physical conditions for life in cities.
In this sense, it is the art of "Make city". It involves the design of buildings, sets of buildings, spaces and landscapes, and the establishment of processes that make sustainable and sustainable development possible. (More information on the definition of creating urbanism here)

Regardless of the definitions used, practically all the authors who have written on the subject, point out 4 basic peculiarities before the characteristics of Urban Design:
- The design of the public space has as its object of work the city and its public space, territory of the processes of the public sphere, but should not be confused with it.
- Urban design in its processes is based on project disciplines and inherits a long tradition that has its origins in the Renaissance.
- The application of urban design has strong interdisciplinary components that are structural to its practices.
- The urban design concepts It necessarily supposes cooperative team work to be multidisciplinary.
Urban design manual
- Design of safe urban spaces… HERE. (Recommendations for community design and management to obtain safe urban spaces)
- Guide for the construction of cities following sustainable mobility criteria … HERE.
- Urbanism and Spatial Planning: theory manual (HERE - 2022)
- Guide for the treatment of landscape and urban planning… HERE.
- Manual of criteria from urban design Y strategic urban planning by Jan Bazant PDF … HERE.
- Manual for bioclimatic and eco-technical design in housing complexes… HERE.
- Urban design manual PDF… HERE. (Urban planning workshop)
- What is urban design (Ard. Pedro Urzúa RamÍrez)… HERE.
- Urban design guide (Authors: José Martínez Sarandeses María Agustina Herrero Molina María Medina Muro)… HERE.
- Urban Planning Manual… HERE. (Environmental aspects in urban design)
- Bioclimatic design manual for open spaces… HERE.
- Design and construction manual of constituent elements of the Public Space (MECEP)… HERE. (Very interesting)
- Urban analysis manual. Gender and everyday life… HERE.
- Criteria city design and urban criteria in an excellent manual on architecture… HERE. (Added 06/29/2017)
- Sustainability criteria applicable to urban design… HERE.
- Architectural urban design and sustainable architecture… HERE.
- Traffic safety in the face of city transport systems. The bus HERE (Very good manual - English.
- School environment design guide… HERE
Although later on there are many documents of interest, we want to point out that from OVACEN we have created a search engine specialized in documents that can be of great help when it comes to finding guides urban planning for the design of cities. We can check from HERE that it works like the following image:
The urban aspect of cities always carries a global vision of the city and its surroundings. From that perspective we can work with the article referring to the interactive map that gives us the possibility through free applications to better understand cities in 3D format. And if we want to print or work on plans obtained in 3D in the article urban topography we explain the processes.
Other manuals of urban design and free spaces
- Guide landscape study methodology… HERE. (Landscaping and urban planning)
- Landscape integration guide for industrial estates (Valencian) … HERE.
- Urban pedestrian infrastructure design manual… HERE.
- Accessibility guide to the physical environment … HERE.
- From Doctoral theses On the Net you can find about 37 Theses for «Urban Design» … HERE.
- Practical manual for egalitarian urban signage… HERE.
- Ecological urban garden manual… HERE.
- Ecodesign of urban elements… HERE.
- Certification of Ecological Urbanism… HERE.
Open magazines of urbanism

- Urbano is a biannual publication specialized in urban-territorial issues, aimed at exploring the scientific and research dimension acquired by the study of the territory and the city … HERE. (When accessed, click on the image)
- Free format we have the Latin American magazine of regional urban studies called EURE… HERE.
- You can download in PDF a series of notebooks on the study of the city and published architecture. From the Department of Architecture of the PUCP with a lot of information … HERE.
Note: The article on digital architecture and design magazines indicates different repositories and sources of information where you can download for free and in PDF format a multitude of urban design books PDF.
Criteria of urban or urban design
The urban public space design is an essential component in the construction of cities and, therefore, of society, in which our culture is reflected and our degree of civility is expressed, so it must serve some urban design criteria consistent.
The recognition of the relevance of its ordering and design as a structuring of the city has been increasing little by little over the last twenty years.
The historical tendency of our cities to design and build the public environment in a disorganized, dismantled way persists, where each intervention is a singular fragment, without the application of general criteria related to its classification, dimensioning, accessibility, materiality, construction, security, unity. and harmony.
The following video is very interesting …
As an application example, we recommend the article how to urbanize, which corresponds to a video where a real case on a street is put into practice. Highly recommended!
The aspects covered by the different urban design guidelines and criteria They are very broad, which is why we have chosen to provide the report"Sustainability criteria applicable to urban planning design" which is based on and explains different urban design methods to take into account when planning:
- Criteria for a more sustainable planning: Land consumption and structure of natural spaces
- Criteria related to the characteristics of the territory
- Criteria in relation to the water cycle
- Criteria in relation to energy
- Criteria in relation to construction materials
- Criteria in relation to urban waste
- Criteria in relation to polluting emissions
- Sustainable mobility criteria
- Criteria for the rehabilitation and recovery of urban areas
- Criteria for co-responsibility and citizen participation
- Criteria for an integrative approach to urban plans
Access to the reference report HERE (Highly recommended as a first urban design manual)
If we want to practice on the urban methodology we can through an online tool in the article urban road design. I hope that the present "pdf urbanism" can improve our perspective of how to apply coherent measures in our cities.
We also recommend the article on sustainable sanitation and Big Data in cities for interest.
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Links of interest:
- Urbanism from a living and ecological perspective.
- The sunning. Practical case
- Analysis of color in architecture.
- Natural lighting of spaces.
- Building efficiency improvement.
- Wood and architecture. (More than 30 manuals)
- Lasting growth
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