Patch, Stitch, Mend: A History of Urban Fabric Applied to Contemporary City Repair
The primary aim of this investigation is to trace the evolution of urban fabric as a concept over time in canonical texts that have greatly influenced the theory of urban design and planning. Through historical analysis, it seeks to reveal the original context surrounding its early use and its subsequent influence on urban design and planning principles across different eras. A secondary objective is to show how urban fabric’s evolving meaning continues to generate new interpretations of a city’s essential structures within contemporary practice. A discussion of the role of urban fabric within recent schools of thought, including New Urbanism, Ecological Urbanism, and Landscape Urbanism, culminates with the introduction of three new strategies meant to augment Tactical Urbanism’s operative catalog of tactics. These strategies provide continuity to the idea of the city as a woven entity but are also meant as loose provocations for contemporary urbanists to explore.