Mainstream concepts in urban design_Barrie Shelton
1. Urban Precinct Studio – week 4 Twentieth century urban design – mainstream concepts of space and structure Barrie Shelton
2. Fall and Rise ofUrban Design 1900-50’s Rise of Town/City Planning = Civic Design 1960/70’s Scope of Planning widens at expense ofUrban Design 1980/90’s 3. Rise ofUrban Design Urban Designtoday?
3. Planning in Australia Non-physical Social Planning Economic Planning Law Administrative Processes Policy Physical Town Planning / Civic Design Urban Design (1989 Master of Urban Design programs commence in Australia) 1900 1920 1940 1960 1970 1980 1990 2000
4. Urban Design - history of theory, concepts, approaches and models
5. Thematic content City as a work of ART Late C19th - eg Sitte, Burnham …………..….. City as a MACHINE c. 1920 - Le Corbusier, Stein …………… City as TEXT c. 1960 - Lynch, Cullen, Jacobs ………………….. Recenttimes new urbanism, vertical city, etc (Calthorpe, Yeang, Koolhaas ……………..
13. “At the beginning of the 20th century two great new inventions took form before our eyes: the aeroplane and the Garden City, both harbingers of new age: the first being gave man wings and the second promised him a better dwelling-place when he came down to earth.” (Lewis Mumford, 1946) City as a Machine
14. Ebeneezer Howard City deficient Country deficient City + Country = Garden City sufficient + efficient
21. Le Corbusier - Solutions Bulldoze traditional streets and courts New building forms - opposite in character to those they replace Building forms reflect function 12-60 storey slab and point blocks in continuous parkland Elevated or”floating’ buildings With terraces and roof gardens Old monuments to be isolated and freed from adjacent congestion
22. Le Corbusier - Solutions (cont) Increase density and open space Few roads - tunneled heavy traffic - elevated fast traffic, standard traffic on a 400m grid Many pathways for people in a picturesque parkland Land-use zoning - business - public - residential - recreation - industry - green belts Self-contained buildings with local recreation facilities, shops and services (super-block) Vertical Garden City
25. C. 1960 - Reaction to the Modernist or ‘Machine’ City: City as Text- of amorphous green space- of buildings as isolated objects - of roads rather than streets- of segregated traffic - vehicles and pedestrians- of separated activities (zoning)- of illegible structures, spaces, landscape- without local identity (placelessness)
26. C.1960watershed - Who responded? Kevin Lynch The Image of the City 1960 What does it mean? How does it read? - syntax, structure, grammar, legibility - most explicitly textual Gordon Cullen Townscape1961 How does it feel? How does it read? recovering the art of relationship - making memorable and dramatic places Jane Jacobs The death and Life of Great American Cities 1961 How does it work? How does it read? – the most comprehensive critique)
27. Kevin Lynch Image of the City 1960 elements District - area of common character different from the next Path - line of movement or vision Edge - strong linear break or boundary between areas of different character Node - centres of gravity with a radiating field (eg cross street) Landmark - prominent objects that are key points of reference
28. Gordon Cullen Townscape 1961 A lament for the lost “art of relationship” or townscape Groups of buildings create conditions that are more than the sum of their parts A single building is architecture - groups are townscape They give visual pleasure that none can give separately - create a “surplus” enjoyment
33. clear boundaries between public and private spacesThese conditions were lacking in the ‘garden cities’
34. Jane Jacobs’ principles More than one primary use Range of people whose lives are lived to different schedules Short street blocks; many corner sites, passing and congregation points Mix of building types, conditions and ages High concentrations of people who live, work and own locally, and identify with the place 200 plus dwellings per hectare
35. Modernist’s mistaken assumptions - Jacobs “the street is bad as an environment for humans” Houses to face green space, not streets Frequent streets were wasteful of space Basic unit of the city is the superblock, not the street Shops, offices, etc to be separated from houses Neighbourhood demands can be calculated Good planning must aim for (an illusion) of isolation and suburban privacy That the basic unit of ‘good planning’ is self-contained
36. Circa 1960 the rise of “Text” as metaphor A new kind of urban design literature - learning from experience 1960’s + 1970’s Theory to underpin the text metaphor Alexander, Smith, Broadbent Design primers - circa 1985 Responsive Environments 1985 Finding Lost Space 1986 New Theory of Urban Design 1987 Renewal of interest in pre-Modern texts Re-publication of Sitte (1986) Re-publication of Hegemann & Peets (1988)
37. 1985 + the urban design ‘primers’ 7 key qualities for good city form: PERMEABILITY - street structure VARIETY - mixed uses LEGIBILITY - readable spatial structure ROBUSTNESS - flexible use VISUAL APPROPRIATENESS - interpretation and meaning RICHNESS - urban detail PERSONALISATION - opportunity for modification and embellishment Offers prescriptive & detailed method for achieving these - analysisand realisation (‘putting it all together’)
41. Trancik’s references Sitte, Peets, Burnham Howard, Le Corbusier, Stein, F L Wright, Gruen Jane Jacobs - Lynch - Cullen Appleyard, Bacon, Bakema, Barnett, Cook, Erskine, Crane,Hertzberger, Rob and Leon Krier, McHarg, Maki, Newman, - Norberg-Schultz, Peterson, Rossi, Team X, Venturi & Scott Brown, Peter & Alison Smithson, Van Eyck, Woods
42. Christopher Alexander +A New Theory of Urban Design1987 Piecemeal / incremental growth Each building increment to contribute to a larger whole, more significant than itself Projects to be experienced (‘seen’) and expressed as a vision Every building to create coherent well-shaped adjacent public space Entrances & spatial structure of buildings to be coherent and consistent with their positions in the street and neighbourhood Structure of each building to generate smaller wholes in its fabric Every whole must be a ‘centre’, & produce a system of surrounding centres Wholes within wholes - each increment to be made to ‘heal’ the city
43. mainstream today example alternatives Yeang Tschumi Lineage………………………………………….................................................. Hillier, Marshall Bentley, Trancik, Alexander Lynch, Cullen, Jacobs Sitte Other ways of seeing Urban Design theory, models and principles are essentially Western generated Urban design circa 2000
