Unit I - Introduction to Urban Design

Introduction to Urban Design - UNIT I

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1. Introduction to Urban Design L.Sathish Associate Professor

School of Architecture Meenakshi College of Engineering

Unit I 1. Compone Components nts of Urban Urban Space Space and their their Interdependencies 2. Outline Outline of issues/ issues/ aspec aspects ts of urba urban n space space and articulation of need for urban design 3. scope scope and and object objectives ives of urban urban desig design n as a discipline

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• Urban design is the process of designing and shaping cities, towns and villages. Whereas architecture focuses on individual buildings, urban design address the larger scale of groups of buildings, of streets and public spaces, whole neighborhoods and districts, and entire cities, to make urban areas functional, attractive, and sustainable • Urban design is an inter-disciplinary subject that unites all the built environment professions, including urban planning, landscape architecture, architecture, civil and municipal engineering.

 Urban

design involves the arrangement and design of buildings, public spaces, transport systems, services, and amenities.

 Urban

design blends architecture, landscaping, and city planning together to make urban areas functional and attractive.

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• Urban design is the process of designing and shaping cities, towns and villages. Whereas architecture focuses on individual buildings, urban design address the larger scale of groups of buildings, of streets and public spaces, whole neighborhoods and districts, and entire cities, to make urban areas functional, attractive, and sustainable • Urban design is an inter-disciplinary subject that unites all the built environment professions, including urban planning, landscape architecture, architecture, civil and municipal engineering.

 Urban

design involves the arrangement and design of buildings, public spaces, transport systems, services, and amenities.

 Urban

design blends architecture, landscaping, and city planning together to make urban areas functional and attractive.

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 Urban

design is about making design connections between people and places, movement and urban form, nature and the built fabric. Urban design draws together the many strands of place-making, environmental stewardship, social equity and economic viability into the creation of places with distinct beauty and identity.

• the art of creating and shaping cities and towns Urban design involves the arrangement and design of buildings, public spaces, transport systems, services, and amenities. Urban design is the process of giving form, amenities. shape, and character to groups of buildings, to whole neighborhoods, and the city. It is a framework that orders the elements into a network of streets, squares, and blocks. blocks . Urban design blends architecture, landscape architecture, and city planning together to make urban areas functional and attractive.

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• Urban design is about making connections between people and places, movement and urban form, nature and the built fabric. Urban design draws together the many strands of place-making, environmental stewardship, social equity and economic viability into the creation of places with distinct beauty and identity. • Urban design is derived from but transcends planning and transportation policy, architectural design, development economics, engineering and landscape. It draws these and other strands together creating a vision for an area and then deploying the resources and skills needed to bring the vision to life.

"The building of cities is one of man's greatest achievements." -Edmund Bacon • Urban design involves place-making - the creation of a setting that imparts a sense of place to an area. • This process is achieved by establishing identifiable neighborhoods, unique architecture, aesthetically pleasing public places and vistas, identifiable landmarks and focal points, and a human element established by compatible scales of development and ongoing public stewardship. • Other key elements of placemaking include: lively commercial centers, mixed-use development with groundfloor retail uses, human-scale and context-sensitive design; safe and attractive public areas; image-making; and decorative elements in the public realm.

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• Urban design practice areas range in scale from small public spaces or streets to neighborhoods, city-wide systems, or whole regions. "Urban design and city building are surely among the most auspicious endeavors of this or any age, giving rise to a vision of life, art, artifact and culture that outlives its authors. It is the gift of its designers and makers to the future. Urban design is essentially an ethical endeavor, inspired by the vision of public art and architecture and reified by the science of construction." -Donald Watson

Urban design operates at 3 scales: the region

city and town

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The neighborhood district and corridor

the block

street and building

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Urban Design Includes Infrastructure, Architecture, Public Spaces

Components of Urban Space and their Interdependencies  Buildings:

Are the most pronounced elements of urban design - they shape and articulate space forming the street walls of the city.

 Public

Space: Is the place where people come together to enjoy the city and each other. Great public spaces are the living room of the city.

 Streets:

Are the connections between spaces and places, as well as being spaces themselves.

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Components of Urban Space and their Interdependencies • Transport: Transport systems connect the parts of cities and help shape them, and enable movement throughout the city. • Landscape: Is the green part of the city that weaves throughout. It appears in form of urban parks, street trees, plants, flowers, and water in many forms.

The creative articulation of space Is the most prominent aspect of urban design. The following artistic principles are an integral part of creating form and spatial definition: •Unity •Contrast

d n a s t e e r t S n a b r U –

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•Balance

•Context

•Proportion

•Detail

•Scale

•Texture

•Hierarchy

•Harmony

•Symmetry

•Beauty

•Rhythm

•Order

t p e c n o C n g i s e D c i s a B - k r o e o f b e e R r a u q S

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Urban Design weaves together these elements into a coherent, organized design structure

The urban design structure defines the urban form and the building form

Examples of great urban design are all over the world:

Washington DC

Cartagena, Columbia

Copenhagen, Denmark Portofino, Italy

Siena, Italy

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A new City

Salt Lake City, UT

Strasbourg, France

Aleppo, Syria

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The city as an act of will • Mans greatest achievement • Indicator of civilization • Noble city – true expression • Mankind • Mass and Space

Awareness of space as Experience • Mass and Space - Interrelation • More Mass – less space design • Form and Space – – – – – –

Egyptian Pyramid – dominating Chinese architecture – State of Harmony Islamic architecture – Dome – Christian Churches Indian Temples So in all cultures of the world, architectural form is an expression of the philosophical interaction of the forces of mass and space.

• Defining Space

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• Defining space – Much of greek architecture was designed to infuse spaces with a spirit, and to serve as a link between man and the universe by establishing a firm relationship with natural space. – Volume of spaces that are in scale with the need of present time and defined by means which are harmony with modern technology.

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• Articulating spaces – Architectural forms, textures, materials, Modulation of light and shade, color all combine to inject a quality or spirit that articulate space. – Urban design there should be skillful deployment of architectural

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• Space and Time • Space and Movement • Definition of Architecture • Involvemennt – Apprehension – representation - realization

Urban Issues • • • • • • • •

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Landuse Traffic Pedestrian Vehicular movement Open space Urban elements People Infrastructure

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Urban Design Definition UD: at its broadest, UD is about the form of cities. We may regard it as that element in the planning process that is concerned with finding an appropriate physical framework for human activities in cities. Urban form may be viewed in two or three dimensions, depending on the scale or level of resolution at which the design process is operating.

The Scope of Urban Design From Historical, Professional, and Policy Context….. Why? to provide a framework for exploring the meaning and scope of urban design in contemporary planning and urban development Central Argument: UD is neither big architecture nor limited to urban landscape issues. It does not operate solely at the interface between planning and architecture. UD is a problem-solving activity with applications to spatial decision-making at all scales of urban planning

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The Scope of Urban Design The need for UD as a discipline has arisen as a result of the fundamental cultural, political, social and economic changes. Other issues include the impact of environmental issues and quality of life on the nature of the city and how urban form can best be adapted to our current and future needs. It has proved difficult to provide a simple, commonly accepted definition of the scope of UD

Origins of Recent Urban Design Theory Paul Sprieregaen Urban Design: the Architecture of Towns and Cities was published in 1965 …… The conventions of urban planning at this time favored rigidly-defined, functionally-zoned urban development. This was influenced by the International Modern Architectural Congress (CIAM) set up in 1920s in Europe by Le Corbusier, Walter Gropius & others. Some of their ideas a wholesale renewal of the contemporary city through zoned, single-use high-rise developments. At the same time, organic view of urban form, originating in the English Garden City movement, was being developed in the United States by Olmsted, Mumford, Perry and others. This suggested a regional model of the city, decentralized, low-density and more suburban in character, hierarchically organized on the basis of semiautonomous community-based neighborhood units or “ super-blocks”

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Origins of Recent Urban Design Theory In the United States in 1960s, the economist Jan Jacobs published her powerful critique of modern town planning in The Death and Life of Great American Cities, bringing the attention to the complexities of land use arrangements, and high-density living in traditional city blocks and the shared activities of the traditional city street in a new light.

Origins of Recent Urban Design Theory Defectors from CIAM formed Team X in 1953 exploring new low- and medium rise, high density interwoven urban structures that would allow opportunities for social exchange and encounter that the international style excluded. This laid the theoretical basis for an approach to urban renewal which emphasized vehicular and pedestrian separation

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Origins of Recent Urban Design Theory In the 1950s, Kevin Lynch at MIT began to devise new techniques for analyzing and representing the perceptual structure of cities His work, The Image of City , 1964 helped give rise to a new science of human perception and behavior in the city. • Later, Scott Brown and Robert Venturi published their book Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture questioned the International style and advocated the catholic (conservative) approach to the use of architectural styles and symbolism

Origins of Recent Urban Design Theory Ideas of a morphological approach to UD was explored by Colin Rowe of Cornell University and others in Europe. The b asic idea was to maintain and restore the traditional 19th century street pattern and form of urban block, street square, without constraining the contemporary architectural expression of new building additions. Aldo Rossi’s the Architecture of the City , 1989 introduce the notion of the collective memory of the city with urban form as a repository of culture from generations past and from generations to come. Rob Krier in his book Urban Space, 1984 sought to catalogue all possible forms of urban space generated from the geometric fundamentals of circle, square, and triangle.

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Reference • Wikipedia – Urban Design • Urban Design.org • Design of cities – Edmund Bacon • Urban Design Standards

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Reference Material

Why Design Indian Cities Than Just Plan Them?

Urban Design Mahender Vasandani CNU-A, MRICS, FIUDI

President

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M Square | Urban Design

RICS India: International City Conference, Taj Palace, New Delhi, October 8, 2012

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Why Design Indian Cities Than Just Plan Them?

Urban Design “Good Urban Design Is Good for Cities… Especially Indian Cities!”

RICS India: International City Conference, New Delhi, Oct 12

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What We Will Cover…

Urban Design 1. Urban Growth Challenges

2. New Urban Solutions for Indian Cities A. URBAN: Systematic Urban Transformation B. SUBURBAN: Walk-to-Work New Townships (Examples of Good Urban Design)

3. Are We on Track? 4. Conclusion


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1. India’s Urban Growth Challenges

Sustainable Growth Patterns?


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When Will We Get Out of This Mess (When We Use the Roads Less – in Peak Hours!)

Infrastructure Overload (New Roads Will Provide Only Temporary Solutions) RICS India: International City Conference, New Delhi, Oct 12

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Infrastructure Overload (Need More Transit Service)

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+8.25 m +7.50 m

+2.0 m

+1.2 m

+1.2 m

Source: “McKinsey Quarterly: Cities: The Next Frontier of Global Growth”


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110 7.3 x

15 Car Ownership per 1000: 2010 vs. 2030 Source: freakonomics.com/2011/05/24


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Belated Focus on Urban Issues

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Address Current Growth Issues +

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Plan Ahead Now for Future Growth Challenges

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Current Models of Urban Planning Will Work to An Extent

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Need New Urban Solutions/Need Urban Design


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2. New Urban Solutions for Indian Cities Need Urban Design Solutions

Urban

Suburban

Systematic Urban Transformation

Sustainable New Townships

Strategic Urban Design Plan

Innovative Urban Design

Urban Design Index (UDI) System

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Walk-to-Work

Integrated Diversity

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Needed Public Improvements High Quality Urban Livability

High Quality Urban Livability

Benefits to Developers, Customers, Community and City

Benefits to Developers, Customers, Community And City

(New Growth & Public Realm)

(New Growth & Infrastructure Capacity)


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Good Urban Design

Emphasis on Design of Public Places, Not Just Architecture Good Life Outside, Not Just Inside Buildings

Better Urban Livability/Civic Betterment RICS India: International City Conference, New Delhi, Oct 12

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Good Urban Design

Creative Landscape and Art in the Public Realm:

Enhanced City Life


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Good Urban Design

How Private Projects Meet Public Streets:

Civic Betterment


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Good Urban Design

The PrivatePublic Interface:

Inside Privacy & Outside Security


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Good Urban Design

Integrated Affordable Housing

Effective Mixing of Market & Non-Market Housing


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Good Urban Design

Seamless Integration of Private and Public Domains Pleasant Public Realm

Walkability Across Blocks

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Good Urban Design

Urban Design Plan

Tower Placements & Slender Footprints, Height Limits: Maximum Views + Better Urban Ventilation High Quality Urban Life; High Demand for In-City Living

Highly Successful Urban Transformation RICS India: International City Conference, New Delhi, Oct 12

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Good Urban Design

One of the Top 10 Most L ivable Cities for 10 Years!


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Good Urban Design : Good Strategy for Developers

Harvard Business School Course

What Sells… Urban Design and What Makes a Place


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Good Urban Design : Good Money for Developers

Good Urban Design Delivers… High Profits for Owners & Investors

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2. New Urban Solutions for Indian Cities Good Urban Design

Urban

Suburban

Systematic Urban Transformation

Sustainable New Townships

Strategic Urban Design Plan

Innovative Urban Design

Urban Design Index (UDI) System

Walk-to-Work Integrated Diversity 

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Needed Public Improvements High Quality Urban Livability

High Quality Urban Livability

Benefits to Developers, Customers, Community and City

Benefits to Developers, Customers, Community And City


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Urban

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: Current Conditions

Vital: Need Better Infrastructure, Services & Governance

Current Focus: FSI’s

Good Skyline Won’t Improve Urban Livability


New Solutions

Urban

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: Systematic Transformation


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New Solutions

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Urban


New Solutions

Urban

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New Solutions

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Urban

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Suburban

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: Current Conditions

Current Focus: Primarily Single-Use Townships RICS India: International City Conference, New Delhi, Oct 12

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New Solutions

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Suburban

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: Walk-to-Work New Townships

KEY PRINCIPLES: 

Integrated Diversity Walkability

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(Best Form of Sustainability)

Affordable Housing

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Provide Integrated Uses for Walking to Work, Schools, Store s, Restaurants ,etc.

Better Livability, More Sustainable

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New Solutions

Suburban

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Public Realm: More Important Skylines Less So!


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New Solutions

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Suburban

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Enhancing Public Realm with Good Architecture

Place-making

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2. New Urban Solutions for Indian Cities

Good Urban Design

Urban

Suburban Benefits to Developers, Customers, Community and the City


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3. Are We On Track? Current Urban Planning (JNNURM Funds)

Vital Givens: Key Planning Concepts of VUDA Plan :         

Balanced Regional Development Ecological Balance Integrated Transportation System Hierarchical Regional Development Urban Heritage Low- and Medium-Rise Development Institutional Strengthening Parking Policy Solid Waste Disposal

No Consideration of Urban Design


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4. Conclusion

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Good Start: JNNURM Funds> Comprehensive Plans (25% Cities)

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Build on Early Comp Plan Success> Adopt Urban Design Policies

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Plan Now to Achieve Aspirational Goals by 2030/2050:

• Transform Existing Cities for Better Livability +

• Build Sustainable New Townships With

Good Urban Design


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Urban Design Thank You!

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• Janmarg - Ahmedabad

Masterpieces of Indian Art & Architecture

New Delhi Capital Complex

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New Delhi

Obelisk-Jaipur Column; All India War Memorial Arch, 1911-1931

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Viceroy’s Palace: completed 1931: Edwin Lutyens

Viceroy‟s Palace: completed 1931: Edwin Lutyens

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Viceroy‟s Palace Dome [left] & Sanchi stupa [right]

Viceroy’s Garden, 1911-1931

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Viceroy‟s Palace Gardens: completed 1931: Edwin Lutyens

Viceroy‟s Palace Gardens: completed 1931: Edwin Lutyens

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Viceroy‟s Palace [background] with Herbert Baker‟s Secretariat buildings in foreground: Lutyens‟ “bakerloo”

Viceroy‟s Palace & one of two Secretariat buildings

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Caricature based on Mughal miniature of Lutyens and Baker presenting model of viceroy’s palace and secretariat buildings to Lord Irwin, viceroy of India. Marjorie Shoosmith, 1931

LATER APPROACHES TO URBAN DESIGN LATER URBAN PLANNING THEORIES AND PRACTICES

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• The theoretical literature of western architecture starts with Vitruvious, the Augustan architect, and his treatise De Architectura. It was with Vitruvious that this present search for a theoretical understanding of urban design appropriately began. More important for urban design however, are the works of the Renaissance scholars, Leone Battista Alberti, Antonio Averlino Filarete, Serlio and Andrea Palladio.

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Alberti presented a great work called De Re Aedificatoria to Pope Nicholas V in 1452 in which he established architecture as a learned discipline based upon principles articulated and structured by reason. In his text Alberti dealt also with elements of city design, streets, roads, and piazza.

•

Filarete‟s book Libro Architettonico , in which he wrote a treatise on architecture in a modern language for the first time, a capital city, Sforzinda and a port city Plousiapolis is described in terms of planning, design and construction of the city as well as its institutional organisation .

•

It was, however with Palladio, who wrote the most influential architectural treatise of the 16th century. His book covers the general principles of architectural design, the Classical orders, the design of palaces, villas, etc. Like Alberti, he also dealt with the design of streets and piazzas .

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• These names are of urban designer‟s interest for the development urban form and the origins of urban design until the 19th century. • In the development of the urban form from early times to the 19th century, the urban structure had in common the fact that the shape of towns and cities was very much determined by people who had the social, political and economic power to put their theories into practice. • Also, topography, climate, construction materials and need for defense were the other urban form and planning determinants. • However, modern urban structures - and so modern urban design - are different than the previous examples because the organization of the society is fundamentally different. • In rest of the lecture, the most popular urban design theories (together with the basic principles and ideas behind) of the 19th and 20th centuries will be introduced in a chronological order.

Age of Reason - Public Health Acts In the 18th century Europe, there were two significant developments in the society: (i) expansion of trade leading to growth of a new middle-class, (ii) development of science. The new working middle class could not afford to live in the grand houses and palaces of the old aristocracy and this led to the development of „town houses‟ and grand terraces (e.g. Regents Park, by John Nash, London). More significantly, the middle class realized that the old regimes were obstacles to the new capitalist economic system. This led to revolution in America and in France.

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• The development of science and rationalism influenced the „taste‟ in architecture. • The architectural forms became more simple, refined and rational. This was so called neo-classic planning. • This also provided basis for industrial revolution beginning in England and changed from handcrafts to mass production in factories - a new building type located in rapidly growing cities. • New urban settlements started to develop around these factories and this led to overcrowding in cities. • So the important terms specializing the period are INDUSTRIALISATION, OVERCROWDING and URBANISATION.

• Garnier – La Cite Industrille 1901

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French architect Tony Garnier‟s industrial city plan was based on rigorous zoning. By sitting housing area away from the industrial area and city center, it removed much of the richness of traditional city life along with some of its squalor. Personal transport is still a necessity.

• Existing towns were transformed very quickly. Industry required „new building types - factories, offices, railways and transportation systems, housing, government administrative buildings, prisons, museums, theatres, etc.‟ to serve the new society. There was also a big gap between Capital and Labor and new social problems. Overcrowding in urban housing led to disease and death. Urgent action had to be taken to prevent revolt and the loss of the workforce. In order to improve the living conditions for the poor urban masses, PUBLIC HEALTH ACTS were culminated in 1875 in England.

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• Public Health Acts mainly aimed at improving sanitation and living conditions in general, for the poor urban masses and they prescribed minimum standards for urban housing with respect to the, - level, width and construction of new streets and provision for the sewerage thereof; - structure of walls, foundations, roofs and chimneys for securing stability and the prevention of fires and for the purpose of health; - sufficiency of space about buildings, to secure a free circulation of air, with respect of ventilation of buildings; - drainage of buildings. These regulations affected the form and the design of urban housing and so urban planning in England. Similar cases and process of industrialization and urbanization can be seen in many parts of the world.

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Boulevard Planning • Industrial revolution had a similar process in France but led to different results. • In England the concern was with health and good living conditions; in France and especially in Paris the concern was with preventing another revolution. Thus, after the Revolution in 1848 in France, Napoleon wanted Paris to be redeveloped in such a way that no barricades would be able to be built in the streets. • Baron Haussmann brought a straight, pragmatic solution to a highly practical problem by destroying many existing buildings and building up wide boulevards with the intention of focusing visually and functionally on the great monuments of Paris which were connected to one another by these boulevards.

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• The new railway stations of Paris were also connected to assure more efficient transport between them and the city centers. These boulevards were by no means designed for any kind of intrinsic beauty. They gave long perspective views towards the major monuments, and also afforded the longest feasible sight lines for Napoleon’s troops. Besides, with their round-points in front of or around corners they also speeded up the flow of traffic. The trees, which seemed to humanize the boulevards, together with the great width of the boulevards themselves, made barricade-building difficult too.

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• Haussmann’s Boulevard planning became very influential in many cities in the w orld like Vienna, Barcelona, Ankara, etc.; it became the norm towards which most great European cities were developed or redeveloped in 1870s.

Sitte’s Artistic Planning • Camillo Sitte, a Viennese architect and the originator of modern city planning, reacted against Haussmann’s formal and monumental planning, just as some others. Therefore he attempted to abstract principles for the design of plazas, streets and public squares from the analysis of historic examples, with particular reference to the medieval Italian city. In general, he disliked intensely the boulevard approach which had been so fundamental to Haussmann-like planning.

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• In his book Der Stadbau published in 1889 and translated into English in 1965 under the name of City Planning According to Artistic Principles, he examines the public and aesthetic nature of old European cities that have lived from the pre-industrial age without being damaged. He was concerned with city planning which he considered „an art‟ rather than „a scientific object‟. He restricted his attention and concern to public squares wherein, he believed, lies the character of a city. • He appreciated the informal irregularity of the old squares, their being natural and having picturesque quality. He mentioned the harmonious effect and the balance they produce within the overall composition with the impression of rhythm and peace they have. • The informal freedom of design in classical and medieval towns was considered by Sitte to be the leading idea of old city planning (Onal, 1994, p 35).

• Many urban theorists since the 1950s have focused their attention on the general value of Sitte‟s study and have used his ideas as a basis for their own urban design concepts, although Sitte‟s study of urban space refers specifically to the European city at the turn of the 19th century. Sitte‟s ideas were also supported by Julien Gaudet, the Director of the Ecole des Beaux Arts in Paris.

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The City Beautiful • The next distinguishable movement in city planning - the American City Beautiful was opposite in principle to Sitte‟s artistic planning. It was rather based on Haussmann‟s Boulevard Planning and first seen at Chicago World Fair (World‟s Colombian Exposition) in 1893.

• Chicago had been developing through the 19th century as a great commercial center; and after the disastrous fire of 1871, the architects were concerned with the development of fire-resisting structures for the office and warehouses, such as steel-framed high buildings, skyscrapers with elevators, etc. (1883 by Le Baron Jenney). • However, steel-frame and elevators solved the technical problems but not the architectural ones: the whole city was designed for the Exposition by a group of architects yet the design looked like reproduction of Baroque. Yet the exposition was supported by some business men who, having demonstrated their commercial skills, now wanted to buy cultural respectability.

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• They wanted Chicago to be known, not only as the commercial center of America, but also as its cultural capital. To achieve this aim, they wanted to create a uniform and ceremonious style - a style evolved from the highest civilization in history - i.e. the Classical examples, rather than the current medieval or any other form of romantic or picturesque art. • Designed thus as it was in the Classical manner, the Exposition, and so the city of Chicago, naturally encouraged all those who had been looking for a revival of that grand approach to city planning.

L o o k i n g S o u t h a c r o s s t h e G r a n d P l a za t o w a r d s t h e M a c h i n er y H a l l a t t h e World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago.

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• The influences of the City Beautiful Movement can be observed in England, especially in the City Hall and Law Courts at Cardiff, the Civic Center in Southampton, and the Civic Offices in Portsmouth.

The Garden City • The next great set of planning conventions, those of the Garden City movement were intended to free the pressures on such cities by decanting population to new and much smaller towns, built well outside the city in virgin countryside. • The chief exponent of this approach was Ebenezer Howard whose main concern was to stem the drift of population-limited to 32.000 people-from rural to urban areas presenting the alternatives as town and country magnets, each of which has its attractions and corresponding disadvantages – inegration of town and country.

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• He characterizes the town as closing out nature and catalogues many disadvantages such as the isolation of crowds, distances from work, high rents and prices, excessive hours of work, etc. • He then balances these with some advantages, such as social opportunity, places of amusement, high wages, fresh air, low rents, etc.

• Howard‟s notional plans, which were first published in Tomorrow: A Peaceful Path to Real Reform (1898), and were republished as Garden Cities of Tomorrow, are based very firmly on the idea of a central park/garden of some five acres about which all of the city’s main functions are grouped concentrically. Indeed, major components would all be segregated.

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The first ring around the central garden consisted of public buildings: the town hall, concert and lecture halls,

library, museum, art gallery and hospital. •

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These were surrounded by a ring of parkland, cut through radically by the six principal boulevards and surrounded by the Crystal Palace - a wide glass arcade which, in wet weather, is one of the favorite resorts of the people. The next ring was a broad ring of houses each standing in its own garden. The houses were greatly varied in character, some having common gardens.

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The main ring of housing was surrounded by a Grand Avenue forming a belt of green, an annual park dividing the main part of the town into two concentric belts. The Avenue itself is divided into six radial boulevards occupied by public schools, their surrounding play-grounds and gardens. The outer regions of the town would be occupied by factories, warehouses, markets, coal yards, etc. all with access to circular railway lines which surrounding the town enabling goods to be loaded at various points. Beyond this there would be a full range of uses for agricultural purposes.

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• Howard‟s Garden City can be seen as the beginning of regional planning and decentralization.

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Neighborhood Planning • Clarence Perry developed the idea of the neighborhood unit by analyzing the things he found good - including gardening and community participation - about living in a Long Island suburb named Forest Hills Gardens. • The neighborhood unit was focused on a community centre, a place for debate and discussion. • Crucial to Perry’s concept was the idea of day-to-day facilities: shops, schools, playgrounds, etc. should be within walking distance of every house. This in itself the overall size of a neighborhood, while heavy traffic was kept out, confined to arterial roads w hich skirted around the neighborhood. • Perry estimated the optimum size for a neighborhood to be around 5000 people; large enough to provide for most people’s day-to-day needs, yet small enough for a sense of community to develop.

• The general characteristics of the neighborhood unit were based on the idea of: - the super block - instead of the narrow, rectangular block - the specialized roads planned and built - each for one use instead of for all uses - complete separation of pedestrians and vehicles - houses turned around; living and sleeping rooms facing towards gardens and parks, service rooms towards access road - park as backbone of the neighborhood.

• In addition to the points above, cul-de-sacs/ dead-end streets were used for vehicular access to the fronts of the houses

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The Modern Movement • The modern movement in architecture during the early part of this century has had a strong influence on contemporary architects, planners and urban designers. • The urban design proposals of Le Corbusier and Frank Lloyd Wright represent the polar attitudes toward urbanization and urban design.

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L e C o r b u s i er : V i l l e Ra d i eu s e •

Le Corbusier, being very critical of traditional cities, attempted to convert the city into park within which the actual buildings would occupy only some %5 of the land. He developed a contemporary city – V i l l e R a d i e u s e (Radiant City) – for 3 million inhabitants; this city was to be a city in a garden instead of being a city with gardens. The fundamental principles he put forward were: - freeing the city from traffic congestion, - enhancing the overall densities, - enhancing the means of circulation, - augmenting the area of planting.

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• The second work, Plan Voisin for rebuilding Paris designed in the 1920s but never constructed, illustrates the contrast between traditional urban density and the urban design of Modernism.

• Although his ideas seem to be opposing to Howard’s notion of the small-town Garden City, Le Corbusier’s vision, in fact, had grown out of Howard’s: he points out in his study that, nature melts under the invasion of roads and houses and the promised seclusion becomes a crowded settlement, and the solution will be found in the vertical garden city. • His design for a city is linear and nodal on a large scale grid, proposing two kinds of housing immediately around the city centre: terraces and apartment blocks. He also considered the traffic in the design of a city. According to him, new forms of street must be designed so that the traffic can flow freely at optimum speed.

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There were 3 important principles behind Corbusier’s influence on modern urban space:

1. The linear and nodal building as a large scale urban element – a principle applied physically to define districts or social units 2. The vertical seperation of movement systems – an outcome of Le Corbusier’s fascination with highways and the city of the future 3. The opening up of urban space to allow for freeing landscape, sun and light.

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• Le Corbusier‟s plans and perspectives captured the imagination of architects, urban designers and planners worldwide. • In the 1960s particularly, a remarkable number of them were enabled to make their own cities look remarkably like Le Corbusier‟s perspectives with their motorways slashing between their skyscrapers.

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Fr an k L l o y d W r i g h t : B r o a d ac r e C i ty • As its name emphasizes the proposal of Wright was for a lowdensity development of detached buildings . He envisioned a city of small farms or garden home-steads. His scheme eliminated roads as much as possible and attempted to bring the country into the city rather than create parks.

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Frank Lloyd Wright‟s Broadacre City plan gave an acre of land to every household, but the inhabitants still depended for communications on a motorway grid and a helicopter for every family.

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• Both of these architects have had a great influence on the architectural profession and the general public. In a sense, the both expected and influenced two major kinds of urban form existing today – especially in American cities: the highdensity urban core and the low density suburb.

• Then the principles by which architects and planners were to deal with the problems of the 20th century were codified by CIAM (Cong res Internationaux d ’Architecture Moderne). • Accordingly the city was divided into four main functions: housing, work, recreation, transport. Radical solutions were proposed for each area.

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RECENT URBAN PLANNING THEORIES AND PRACTICES RECENT APPROACHES TO URBAN DESIGN

• Two major themes were found in the Postmodern reaction to the hegemony associated with modern architecture: • New Rationalism - Neo-Rationalism • New Empiricism – N e o - E m p i r i c i s m

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New Rationalism – Neo-Rationalism • TEAM 10 (a young group of second-generation of European Modernists who moved towrad a more contextual approach at least in concept and attempt to re-define the underlying principles and formal expression of urban space) --------REDEFINITION OF PRINCPLES AND FORMAL EXPRESSION OF URBAN SPACE in 1950s NEO-RATIONALISTS: • ALDO ROSSI (ITALY) • LEON & ROB KRIER (LUXEMBOURG) • RICARDO BOFILL (SPAIN)

• Rationalism – promotes a concern for public open space over a preoccupation with individual buildings and incorporates strongly defined geometric spaces as ordering devices. It looks at historic models and classical spatial structures to derive principles for linking old and new, high and low, and diverse materials, colors, and textures for inspiration.

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• Leon Kries‟s mission was to reconstruct the tradional urban blocks as definers of streets and squares. • Formal, multidimensional, horizontal pattern of spaces by highlighting the qualities of public space.

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New Empiricism – Empiricism – Neo-Empiricism • HIGHLIGHTING PERCEPTUAL AND SPATIAL QUALITIES OF THE URBAN ENVIRONMENT • REPRESENTATIVES: KEVIN LYNCH ROBERT VENTURI GORDON CULLEN COLIN ROWE

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KEVIN LYNCH • URBAN ANALYSER IN EMPRICAL TERMS • PRESENTED HIS PRINCIPLE PRINCIPLE RULES FOR DESIGNING CITY SPACES AS: – LEGIBILITY: THE MENTAL PICTURE OF THE CITY HELD BY THE USERS ON THE STREET – STRUCTURE AND IDENTITY: RECOGNIZABLE COHERENT PATTERN OF URBAN BLOCKS, BUILDINGS AND SPACES – IMAGEABILITY: USER PERCEPTION IN MOTION AND HOW PEOPLE EXPERIENCE THE SPACES OF THE CITY

• ACCORDING TO LYNCH: – SUCCESSFUL URBAN SPACE MEET THESE REQUIREMENTS – PARTS OF THE CITIES - “ELEMENTS OF URBAN FORM” SHOULD BE DESIGNED ACCORDING TO THESE REQUIREMENTS

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ROBERT VENTURI • MOST OF THE OUTDOOR SPACES CREATED BY MODERN MOVEMENT ARE LOST SPACES – SPACES – ISOLATED ISOLATED FROM ITS TOTAL SURROUNDINGS.

GORDON CULLEN • A TOWNSCAPE ARTIST • EXPLORED THE EXPERIENCE OF SEQUENCE THROUGH SEQUENCE THROUGH URBAN SPACE • UNIQUE SENSE OF PLACE FROM PLACE FROM STREET LEVEL • RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN THE OBJECT & OBJECT & MOVEMENT • THE EVENT OF ARRIVING OF ARRIVING AT / LEAVING CITY SPACES

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COLIN ROWE • A LEADING URBAN DESIGN EDUCATOR • DILEMMA OF TEXTURE – COMPOSITE URBAN PATTERN OF STREETS, BUILDINGS, AND OPEN SPACES – THE FABRIC OF THE CITY • The problem: Building as a free-standing object and its disruptive effects on the continuity of these urban patterns. • He put forward a pluralist view of urban form, a collage city that accomodates a range of ideas and visions. • His urban design work is based on cubist geometries and historic models of Rome and Florence etc. where buildings as articulated solids are designed to create positive voids.

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Unit I - Introduction to Urban Design

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