Jason Montgomery is an associate professor with expertise in Traditional and Classical Architectural Design and Urban Design. His undergraduate career was completed at Notre Dame, setting Montgomery up for a successful career working at several national and international architectural practices. Jason has been the lead designer for projects in Morocco, Costa Rica, Egypt and South Carolina, and he is now co-principal of Truong Montgomery Architect, a firm based in New York.
Additionally, Montgomery has worked on several editorial projects, including one that is in the works right now. Transforming the City: Inquiries on Wellbeing in the Urban Habitat is a collection of multiple conference papers that cover topics regarding the wellbeing of inhabited cities, and how to transform these places to make them sustainable for future residents.
“Amidst the daunting challenges of environmental, social, and political disruption in the opening decades of the 21st century, cities continue to offer hope as an essential pathway to sustainability and resilience for future generations.”
Transforming the City is scheduled for development and review over the next few months, with October 2024 being the submission target for the manuscript, with each author planning to expand their original papers to be between 5,000 and 7,000 words. This volume has a total of twelve chapters that are divided into three sections that discuss the qualities of livable communities, the inclusivity and accessibility of these neighborhoods, and how to retain the general livability of urban environments. “This range of research compliments and deepens the literature by addressing wellbeing at the policy level but also at the level of specific implementation of evidence-based practices and strategies.”
Featured authors include Italian architect Elena Parnisari, whose chapter with architect Teresa Calix entitled, “The Image of Public Spaces Through Children's Perspective,” tackles the role that younger generations play in the retention of current neighborhoods, and how to keep this demographic in mind while making urban design decisions.
David Howard and Juliet Carpenter co-authored the first chapter of the book, “Healthy by Design: How Can Urban Planning Contribute to Creating Healthy Cities?” Howard is Co-Director of the Global Centre on Healthcare and Urbanisation (GCHU) at Kellogg College, while Carpenter works as the Director of Research at the GCHU at the University of Oxford. Howard and Carpenter worked together to write about healthcare inequalities in cities in the United Kingdom, highlighting, “the essential aspects that urban actors should address, to tackle health inequalities in cities.”
“This interdisciplinary book cuts across categories, with broad examinations of planning and public health combined with case studies that address a diverse set of issues impacting specific populations in identified contexts across a variety of cultures, as well as scientific and theoretical exploration of environmental and socio-environmental impacts on health of urban populations. This approach to a compilation of a range of issues is not unique in this field, although the interdisciplinary approach is still underrepresented in the literature. It is important for new titles like this one to deepen and broaden the discussion of these important topics and present them as related, intersecting aspects of a larger project for health and wellbeing in cities, which is what this book does.”
Be on the lookout for further updates on this book and other written and editorial works by Jason Montgomery.