Roofscape Design

As focus shifts to "no net land take" city regenerationapproaches one of the main traditional elements of architecture--the roof--is gaining renewed prominence. This bookprovides a survey of worldwide experiences of city rooftopre-use strategies such as building-on and integrating newvolumes within the existing buildings. Twenty-five case studiesillustrate a multiplicity of projects that innovate on traditionaltypologies by offering multiple ways of living, workingand using public services in the city. They all share a symbioticmethod that exploits the extraordinariness of the "topcondition" offered by the roof to foster a subtle change in thewhole building's urban identity. They test new technologiesfor light and quick construction methods in order to deal withstructural constraints and the needs of inhabitants.City roofscape redesign belongs to an adaptive attitude basedon knowledge of the dynamic process of transformation ofthe physical realm, far removed from regressive preservationonlybehavior. It represents a remarkable way of coping withurban regeneration issues.