From the Bottom Up: A Presentation by Margaret Crawford March 23, 2010

Investigating three ordinary urban practices; garage sales, street vending and vacant lots made into parks, Margaret Crawford unearths unexpected meaning and significance. Carefully studying these usually overlooked aspects of Los Angeles, she discovers an alternative set of urban principals that can inform urban design and planning for America's diverse and constantly changing cities.

Margaret Crawford is a professor of Architecture in the College of Environmental Design at the University of California, Berkeley. She teaches courses in the history and theory of urban development, planning, and design. Her research focuses on the evolution, uses and meanings of urban space. Her book, Building the Workingman's Paradise: The Design of American Company Towns, examines the rise and fall of professionally designed industrial environments. She edited The Car and the City: The Automobile, the Built Environment and Daily Urban Life and Everyday Urbanism, and has published numerous articles on shopping malls, public space, and other issues in the American built environment. Her recent book Nansha Coastal City: Landscape and Urbanism in the Pearl River Delta was published in early 2006 and co-edited by Alan Berger. Organized by the Design, Architecture, and Culture Group of Quadrant.

Official Website: http://www.ias.umn.edu/quadrantcal.php