1st Edition

Rural Design for the Future

By Dewey Thorbeck Copyright 2026
236 Pages 131 Color Illustrations
by Routledge

236 Pages 131 Color Illustrations
by Routledge

236 Pages 131 Color Illustrations
by Routledge

Design thinking and the problem-solving process of design is a strategic resource. Through creativity, innovation, and entrepreneurship it can help communities optimize limited land and water resources in urban and rural landscapes. To address the problems facing communities, it connects human, animal and environmental health through design for both urban and rural regions. Rural Design for... Read more

1. What is Rural Design?

2. Importance of Rural Design in Shaping the Future

3. Land Use Connections around the World

4. Rural Design and Lessons Learned

5. Rural Design to complement Urban Design

6. Principles of Rural Design

7. Rural Design for the Future

Biography

Dewey Thorbeck obtained his Bachelor of Architecture from the University of Minnesota and a Master of Architecture from Yale University. He then won a Rome Prize Fellowship and studied in Italy for two years. The recipient of a number of architectural design awards, he is a Fellow of the American Academy in Rome, Fellow of the American Institute of Architects, and past president of AIA Minnesota. Because of his rural design expertise, he was selected to serve as Vice Director of the organizing committee for the creation of the first World Rural Development Committee that will be managed by the World Green Design Organization established in 2010 by China and the European Union. Thorbeck is an Emeritus Adjunct Professor of Architecture at the University of Minnesota, Emeritus Founder of the Center for Rural Design sponsored by the College of Design and College of Food, Agricultural and Natural Resource Sciences, and now a Senior Research Fellow in the Minnesota Design Center in the University of Minnesota College of Design. His sponsored research work is focused on bringing design and design thinking as a problem-solving process to rural and urban land issues.