The Spotter's Guide to Urban Engineering (NEW)

If we are to understand the modern landscape, it is important to recognise and comprehend its man-made features. The Spotter’s Guide to Urban Engineering provides non-specialist readers with an introduction to the technology that underpins modern life. It is a useful identification tool for the anonymous blocks, unremarkable roads, and often disregarded features of our urban, suburban and rural landscapes.

The Spotter’s Guide to Urban Engineering is divided into five main areas of infrastructure: Raw materials (including mining, agriculture and waterworks); Power (including electricity grids, power stations, oil and gas extraction and distribution, and renewable energies); Transport (including railways, roads, canals and aviation); Telecommunications (including telephony, radio and television, and digital and satellite technology); and Waste (including sewers, industrial waste management and recycling).

The various engineering features and structures are explored in each chapter, detailing what they are, what they do, how they do it and, most importantly, how to identify them. Each entry is fully illustrated, some with additional explanatory diagrams. Famous real-world examples (the Millau Viaduct and the Golden Gate Bridge, for example) further illuminate the text.

» Author:    Claire Barratt; Ian Whitelaw
» Title:    The Spotter's Guide to Urban Engineering
» ISBN:    9781770222472
» Format:    Trade Paperback
» Release Date:    October 2011
» Pages:    224