Building Cities to Last: A Practical Guide to Sustainable Urbanism

Building Cities to LAST presents the myriad issues of sustainable urbanism in a clear and concise system, and supports holistic thinking about sustainable development in urban environments by providing four broad measures of urban sustainability that differ radically from other, less long-lived patterns: these are Lifecycle, Aesthetics, Scale, and Technology (LAST). This framework for understanding the relationship between these four measures and the essential types of infrastructure--grouped according to the basic human needs of Food, Shelter, Mobility, and Water--is laid out in a simple and easy-to-understand format. These broad measures and infrastructures address the city as a whole and as a recognizable pattern of human activity and, in turn, increase the ability of cities--and the human race--to LAST. This book will find wide readership particularly among students and young practitioners in architecture, urban planning, and landscape architecture.

Jassen Callender is concerned with broad relationships between seemingly diverse aspects of making and perceiving architecture and the relation of these to the success of cities. These concerns have prompted a unique path. In the ’90s and early 2000s, Callender worked with several firms on award-winning projects in the American South. Still an occasional practitioner, he is a member of the Society of Architectural Historians, the US Green Building Council, and board member of the Mississippi chapter of the American Institute of Architects. His educational background underscores this range of interests, from undergraduate training in both architecture and philosophy, culminating in a Bachelor of Architecture, to graduate work in painting, sculpture, and art history leading to a Master of Fine Arts from the University of Minnesota. Former Director of Mississippi State University’s Jackson Community Design Center, today Callender is Associate Director of MSU’s School of Architecture and directs the School’s 5th Year Program in Jackson, Mississippi, where he teaches advanced design studios and advises thesis students. His first book, Architecture History and Theory in Reverse, was published by Routledge in 2017.