"Published to coincide with an exhibition at the Museum of the City of New York celebrating the bicentennial of the 1811 Commissioners' Plan of Manhattan, this volume does more than memorialize such a visionary effort, it serves as an enduring reference full of rare images and information."--P. [4] of cover.

The never-before-told story of the grid that ate Manhattan

Investigates the systems of infrastructure that sustain the world and the cultures of historical periods, following various elements, from electricity and pavement to water and waste disposal, back to their origins and people who operate them.

Although grid systems are the foundation for almost all typographic design, they are often associated with rigid, formulaic solutions. However, the belief that all great design is nonetheless based on grid systems (even if only subverted ones) suggests that few designers truly understand the complexities and potential riches of grid composition.

Today's urban resident is seeking a more flexible, sustainable environment-representing a unique, diverse, vibrant, and responsible way of living-as an alternative to the typical development patterns of suburban and semi-urban sprawl. Can urban design help create this type of sustainable urbanism? Grid Street Place presents a unique approach to understanding urban design through scientific, empirical research. The authors examined more than 100 successful projects throughout North America to identify differences and commonalities, and they discovered universal elements that characterize sustainable urban districts. By applying these essential elements, designers and developers can recreate and extend the experience of successful places to their communities. Myriad plans, sections, diagrams, and charts illustrate how each district work-at an extremely detailed level. Concrete examples, as opposed to generalities, make Grid Street Place a must-read for anyone interested in the working strategies of urban design.

Ten grids that changed the world: the emergence and evolution of the most prominent visual structure in Western culture. Emblematic of modernity, the grid is the underlying form of everything from skyscrapers and office cubicles to paintings by Mondrian and a piece of computer code. And yet, as Hannah Higgins makes clear in this engaging and evocative book, the grid has a history that long predates modernity; it is the most prominent visual structure in Western culture. In The Grid Book, Higgins examines the history of ten grids that changed the world: the brick, the tablet, the gridiron city plan, the map, musical notation, the ledger, the screen, moveable type, the manufactured box, and the net. Charting the evolution of each grid, from the Paleolithic brick of ancient Mesopotamia through the virtual connections of the Internet, Higgins demonstrates that once a grid is invented, it may bend, crumble, or shatter, but its organizing principle never disappears. The appearance of each grid was a watershed event. Brick, tablet, and city gridiron made possible sturdy housing, the standardization of language, and urban development. Maps, musical notation, financial ledgers, and moveable type promoted the organization of space, music, and time, international trade, and mass literacy. The screen of perspective painting heralded the science of the modern period, classical mechanics, and the screen arts, while the standardization of space made possible by the manufactured box suggested the purified box forms of industrial architecture and visual art. The net, the most ancient grid, made its first appearance in Stone Age Finland; today, the loose but clearly articulated networks of the World Wide Web suggest that we are in the middle of an emergent grid that is reshaping the world, as grids do, in its image.

The grid has long been an invaluable tool for creating order out of chaos for designers of all kinds—from city planners to architects to typesetters and graphic artists. In recent years, web designers, too, have come to discover the remarkable power that grid-based design can afford in creating intuitive, immersive, and beautiful user experiences. Ordering Disorder delivers a definitive take on grids and the Web. It provides both the big ideas and the brass-tacks techniques of grid-based design. Readers are sure to come away with a keen understanding of the power of grids, as well as the design tools needed to implement them for the World Wide Web. Khoi Vinh is internationally recognized for bringing the tried-and-true principles of the typographic grid to the World Wide Web. He is the former Design Director for NYTimes.com, where he consolidated his reputation for superior user experience design. He writes and lectures widely on design, technology, and culture, and has published the popular blog Subtraction.com for over a decade. More information at grids.subtraction.com