UNIT 1 INTRODUCTION TO URBAN DESIGN

Components of urban space and their interdependencies – outline of issues / aspects of urban
space and articulation of need for urban design – scope and objectives of urban design as a
discipline.
INTRODUCTION:

Urban design is the art of making places for people. It includes the connections between people and
places, movement and urban form, nature and the built fabric and the processes for ensuring successful
villages, towns and cities. It is the collaborative and multi-disciplinary process of shaping the physical
setting for life in cities, towns and villages.

Urban design is a key to creating sustainable developments and the conditions for a flourishing economic
life, for the prudent use of natural resources and for social progress. It addresses the larger scale of groups
of buildings, of streets and public spaces, whole neighbourhoods and districts, and entire cities, to make
urban areas functional, attractive, and sustainable.

Urban Design is the process of organizing Physical elements of the urban environment to satisfy human
objectives (Social, Economic, and Physiological & Psychological).

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

URBAN DESIGNDEFINITIONS:

City Planning according to artistic principles. (CAMILO SITTE)

Architecture of Towns and Cities. (PAUL D SPREIREGEN)

The Art of Ornamentation and Decoration (MOUGHTIN)

As an interdisciplinary gap between architecture and planning (REYNER BANHAM)

That part of city planning which deals with physical form of the city.

The most creative phase of city planning, in which imagination and artistic capacities play the important
part.

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It's a professional discipline that is concerned with buildings and the spaces between them, the public and
the private realm‟- Not just the way things look and aesthetic experiences they provide but with all aspects
of human needs in the external built environment.

According to DRAFT MASTER PLAN, NEW DELHI

A city is an assemblage of buildings & streets, system of communication, utilities, Places of work,
Transportation, Leisure & Meeting places. A process of arranging these elements both functionally &
aesthetically is the essence of Urban Design.

According to UNIVERSITY OF WESTMINSTER: URBAN DESIGN UNIT

“Urban Design is concerned with the physical form of cities buildings and spaces between them. The study
of Urban Design deals with the relationships between the physical form of the city and the Social forces that
produce it. It focuses in particular on the physical character of the public realm but is also concerned with
interaction between Public & private development and the resulting impact on urban form”.

According to PLANNING POLICY GUIDANCE (PPG):

Relationships between different buildings, streets, squares, parks & spaces that make up the Public
Domain. The complex relationship between all the elements of the Built & Un-built space. The appearance
& treatment of spaces between &around buildings, as is importance to the buildings itself, along with
landscape design all be considered as an integral part Urban Design.

There is no single definition of urban design. Urban design as an activity seemingly has a very loose
definition, and means different things to different people.

COMPONENTS OF URBAN DESIGN AND THEIR INTERDEPENDENCIES:

Buildings: are the most pronounced elements of urban design - they shape and articulate space forming
the street walls of the city. Well-designed buildings and groups of buildings work together to create a sense
of place.

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-the place where people come together to enjoy the city and each
other. Public spaces make high quality life in the city possible -they form the stage and backdrop to the
drama of life. Public spaces range from grand central plazas and squares, to small, local neighbourhood
parks.

Streets: are the connections between spaces and places, as well as being spaces themselves. They are
defined by their physical dimension and character as well as the size, scale, and character of the buildings
that line them. Streets range from grand avenues to small, intimate pedestrian streets. The pattern of the
street network is part of what defines a city and what makes each city unique.

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Transport: Transport systems connect the parts of cities and help shape them, and enable movement
throughout the city. They include road, rail, bicycle, and pedestrian networks, and together form the total
movement system of a city. The balance of these various transport systems is what helps define the quality
and character of cities, and makes them either friendly or hostile to pedestrians. The best cities are the
ones that elevate the experience of the pedestrian while minimizing the dominance of the private
automobile.

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 landscape helps define the character and beauty of a
city and creates soft, contrasting spaces and elements. Green spaces in cities range from grand parks such
as Central Park in New York City and the Washington DC Mall, to small intimate pocket parks.

URBAN ISSUES:

 Land use
 Traffic
 Pedestrian
 Vehicular movement
 Open space
 Urban elements
 People
 Infrastructure

ASPECTS OF URBAN DESIGN:

A key feature of modern Urban Design practice is the ability to integrate a concern with the Visual and
Aesthetic aspects of Urban Form with a strong social awareness of the need of User groups. Plus, a
sensitivity to wider environmental and sustainability issues.

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VARIOUS ASPECTS AND APPROACHES OF URBAN DESIGN

 Visual – aesthetic
 Appearance
 Townscape
 Public Perception
 Social usage of Public Realm
 Environmental- sustainability, energy/ resource optimization, waste minimization
 Holistic- functional, social, psychological, environmental

The creativeARTICULATIONOF SPACE is the most prominent aspect of urban design. The following
artistic principles are an integral part of creating form and spatial definition:

 Unity  Balance  Proportion

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  Scale  Hierarchy  Symmetry
 Rhythm  Contrast  Context
 Detail  Texture  Harmony
 Beauty  Order

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 skilful deployment of architectural

 Space and Time
 Space and Movement
 Definition of Architecture
 Involvement –Apprehension – Representation - Realization

URBAN DESIGN: OBJECTIVES

 Establish a comprehensive spatial development framework and a set of development policies.

 A direct response to people’s needs and creating a liveable environment. It covers all dimensions
like visual, perceptual, social, cultural, historic and symbolic resources of community.
 Increase the functional efficiency by relating the circulation, urban activities and use of land to
physical form.
 Accommodating urban growth and should be capable of adapting variables of unpredicted growth.
 Economically feasible solutions, geared to incremental implementation over a substantial time
period.
 Solving the environmental deficiencies that exist in terms of physical, visual, perceptual, social and
psychological terms.
 Character – a place with its own identity.
A recognisable image can identify a city or neighbourhood to its residents or visitors. This image
can include historic buildings, village precincts, and buildings with a distinct architecture, public art
and public spaces to name a few.

 Continuity & Enclosure – a place where public & private space are clearly distinguished.
A continuous built form street frontage is needed throughout an area of the city or neighbourhood
to allow users to easily understand where they are, directions to where they need to go and the
purpose of the street (ie is the street a village main street or is it a residential arterial).

 Quality of the Public Realm – a place with attractive & successful outdoor areas.
The public realm is one of the most important components of any city or neighbourhood. As such,
the built form and streetscape treatments should provide an attractive, safe and comfortable
pedestrian environment, while maintaining the overall visual cohesiveness of the area.

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  Ease of movement – a place that is easy to get to & move through.
Older neighbourhoods within cities are usually configured for maximum convenience as the area
has high connectivity and it is a place for pedestrians. A compact urban form, legible urban
structure (ie grid network of streets), short blocks, pedestrian priority and a built form that is transit
and pedestrian oriented ensures an area has maximum convenience for movement.

 Legibility – a place that has a clear image & is easy to understand.

A clear and simple development pattern within a city and neighbourhood enables residents and
visitors to understand how an area is organised and to make their way around. This type of
development pattern is generally delivered through a grid or modified grid network of streets.

 Adaptability – a place that can change easily.

Cities and neighbourhoods are constantly changing. The successes of these places are directly
related to the ability of the form and pattern of development to adapt over time to changing social,
technological and economic conditions.
 Diversity – a place with variety & choice.
Successful neighbourhoods within a city provide for diversity and choice through a mix of
compatible housing and building types and land uses. Through these measures residents of a
neighbourhood have the opportunity to age in place; going through all of their various lifecycles
without having to leave their original neighbourhood and breaking the social networks they have
formed.

URBAN DESIGN:FUNCTIONS

 Analytical function: provides survey and identification of visual and other human sensory qualities,
development qualities, functional qualities, opportunities and limitations of a particular urban place.
 An explicit articulation of design objectives, design evaluation criteria.
 Generation of alternative concepts for future development as well as full illustrative images of
desirable and possible consequences.
 Development of standards, incentives, policies, control techniques and priority programs to achieve
the qualitative values proposal.
 Provisions for verbal statements, illustrative graphics and communication media capable of
engaging all levels of community and choice of options of future form.
 Integration of all elements of planning process, continuous revision possibilities to adapt to urban
growth variables.

URBAN DESIGN:SCOPE

 Applicability of Urban Design can be classified according to elements of physical design like
residential areas, neighbourhood planning, circulation system, river front development. Outcome of
Urban Design project may be a completed project with detail design of building or it can be a
framework for overall growth conceived as self adjusting and continuously changing process.

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  Implications of Urban design – policy framework guidelines for development and detail
implementary measures including building and site.
 Includes public participation, decision making, and Research function.

URBAN DESIGN AT REGIONAL LEVEL

 Classification of Natural and Man-made things

 Topographic analysis
 Identifying developing regions
 Networks
 Wilderness , Flora and Fauna, Landscape
 Tourism, Infrastructure
 Preservation, Conservation, Revitalization of the region

URBAN DESIGN AT METROPOLITAN LEVEL

 Development plans, Structure plans(workable solutions), Transportation networking, Activity and

Land use
 Overall form of the city – open, built, green areas, Infrastructure
 Hierarchy of spaces – (open areas)
 Transportation – Nodes, Links, Hierarchy of roads, highways, modes of transport, new intrusions
 Approach to city and Imageability
 Views and Vistas, Skyline
 Special sites- Typology, development regulations, Guidelines

URBAN DESIGN AT CITY LEVEL

 Planning for urban open spaces – Use, hierarchy, types

 Pedestrian circulation – Formal/informal/Processional/Casual, Activity, Connecting other modes of
transport, Accent, Event
 Landscaping – Preservation of natural resources, planting of trees
 Urban lighting – Quantitative and Qualitative aspects
 Street furniture
 Urban art and sculpture – Landmarks, sense of scale
 Street hardware

URBAN DESIGN AT NEIGHBORHOOD LEVEL

 Rehabilitating old Neighbourhood

 Historic preservation
 Suburban Centres and development and New towns

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MULTIDISCIPLINARY APPROACH TO URBAN DESIGN

Urban design is a multiple-disciplinary activity involving planners, architects, landscape architects

and engineering working together to create and implement a vision for our cities, towns and villages, for
our neighbourhood and for new and existing developments. Urban design is the collaborative and multi-
disciplinary process of shaping the physical setting for life in cities, town and villages, the art of making
places, design in an urban context.
Urban design involves the design of buildings, groups of buildings, spaces and landscapes and the
establishment of frame works and processes that facilitates successful development.
URBAN DESIGN GROUP- LONDON

Traditionally, the most popular definition is that urban design is the interface between urban planning and
architecture. In this sense it plays a mediative role between two major disciplines involved in the urban
realm, but at different levels and scales. Moreover, the latter directly tackles the physical built form in
unitary particles, while planning manages more ‘abstract’ notions such as zoning, functions, transport

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networks and economy. Hence urban design focuses on the urban space created through the effects of
planning and realized through the physicality of architectural buildings. If the subject of architecture
(buildings, etc.) is particle-like and that of planning (policy, etc.) is wave-like, then urban design thus
defined already shows notions of wave–particle duality, but that is a limited and limiting definition of its true
role – although we are already beyond the pejorative definition of urban design as ‘big architecture’

Figure 1: Urban design as the interface between planning and architecture.

In order for urban design to fulfil the role of a real interdisciplinary interface, it should be thought of – and
taught – as a multi dimensional activity. Other than planning and architecture, it should be clear that other
seemingly independent disciplines play equally crucial roles in the study and/or creation of cities.
Landscape architecture, communication and transport engineering, but also the ‘soft’ disciplines –
sociology, economy, group and individual psychology and behavioural studies, even art and the humanities
– are some of the poles that together shape the urban environment and give it its inherent subjective
qualities.
Urban design can and should form the interface between all the relevant specialties that deal with the
human and the human environment, both objective and subjective.

Figure 2: Urban design as a multidisciplinary interface

Urban design should thus function as a multidimensional interdisciplinary interface, with the responsibility to
manage and transform the interactions of the different aspects of urban life into a physical and/or usable
form. In our current educational and professional models, these different disciplines are clearly defined and
entrenched in their respective responsibilities.

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Figure 3: Urban design as a multidimensional interdisciplinary interface.

Urban design as an occupation is relatively new, but historically it has always played the major role in
forming cities. Under different guises and definitions in different periods and places, the longest lasting
imprint on cities and people was due to whoever controlled the urban design decisions. The term itself was
first used only in 1957, by the American Institute of Architecture. It gradually spread, mainly through the
work of Kevin Lynch and Jane Jacobs in the 1960s and Christopher Alexander, Leon and Rob Krier, and
Robert Venturi, amongst others, in the 1970s and 1980s. The last decade of the last century saw urban
design coloured by the views and counter-views of Charles Jencks and Sir Richard Rogers, HRH the
Prince of Wales and Rem Koolhaas, to name but a few ...

In all cases, many today have accepted the fleeting nature of urbandesign definitions as an unavoidable
fact, as Alan Rowley concludes ina highly revealing article:
Many urban designers reflect a deep seated anxiety when challenged to define urban
design. They long for a short, clear definition but in reality this simply is not possible. No
one or two sentence definitionsare really adequate, nor is it likely to prove of lasting
value. So it is pointless to search for a single, succinct, unified and lasting definition of
the nature and concerns of urban design. It is much better to follow a number of
signposts about, for example, the substance, motives, methods and roles of urban
design.

A precise definition of urban design is necessary only for administrative purposes, to relegate
responsibilities and liabilities, and to keep legislators busy. For a designer, it is not necessary. In fact, for a
‘real’ designer – you know, the passionate artist in all of us – boundaries are anathema, and definitions are
just that. Thoughts and pictures are not. That is why I believe a new mindset is what is needed, and that
is what I hope to define in this book.

The underlying search is for the starting point of a theory that relates‘ good urban design’ to the faithfulness
to an organic worldview – notto the retrograde vision of traditionalists and neo-traditionalists, nor to the
nihilistic futurism of postmodernists, and not even to the numb practicalism of post-postmodernists. We will
go after a synthesis of all these approaches and more, going deeper – almost literally – into the heart of the
matter. We will be looking for the role of a unified world view in the making of urban environments, beyond
the formalism adopted by typical research. An urban design process that responds to the current paradigm
should provide positive urban space, as long as this worldview is holistic and organic, as it was in pre-
Cartesian societies, and as long as it is technological and pluralistic, as it need sto be in the twenty-first
century. Because the new sciences provide such a worldview, they should be ingrained as early as
possible in the minds of the different players of the urban realm.

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UNIT 2 HISTORIC URBAN FORM

Western: morphology of early cities- Greek agora- Roman forum- Medieval towns - Renaissance
place making- ideal cities – Industrialization and city growth- the eighteenth century city builders
Garnier’s industrial city- the American grid planning- anti urbanism and the picturesque- cite
industrielle- cittenuovo-radiant city .
Indian: evolution of urbanism in India- Temple towns- Mughal city form- medieval cities -
colonial urbanism- urban spaces in modernist cities: Chandigarh, Bhubaneswar and Gandhi Nagar-
subsequent directions
URBAN MORPHOLOGY

Urban Morphology is the study of the form of human settlements, which consists of street patterns, building
sizes and shapes, architecture, population density and patterns of residential, commercial, industrial and
other uses and the process of their formation and transformation. The study seeks to understand the spatial
structure and character of a metropolitan area, city, town or village by examining the patterns of its
component parts and the process of its development.

Special attention is given to how the physical form of a city changes over time and to how different cities
compare to each other. Another significant part of this subfield deals with the study of the social forms
which are expressed in the physical layout of a city, and, conversely, how physical form produces or
reproduces various social forms.

The essence of the idea of morphology was initially expressed in the writings of the great poet and
philosopher Goethe (1790); the term as such was first used in bioscience. Recently it is being increasingly
used in geography, geology, philology and other subjects. In American geography, urban morphology as a
particular field of study owes its origins to Lewis Mumford, James Vance and Sam Bass Warner. Peter Hall
of the UK is also a central figure.

URBAN MORPHOLOGY OF EARLY CITIES

Man was dominant within the framework of the ancient city because it was built according to human
dimensions. Ancient cities are divided in two categories: those formed through a natural growth and those
created on the Hippodameian system.

The ancient city-states were created in two fashions: the older ones through natural growth whereas the
newer ones by the Hippodameian system. Despite their differences, the concept hidden behind both
building processes was the same: To take advantage of the natural landscape and to create both public
and private spaces according to rational and functional considerations with man at the center. In the cities
of the present, by contrast, both human dimensions and coherence among men and among buildings are
lost.

GREEK CIVILISATION

Greek civilization occurred in the area around the

Greek mainland, on a peninsula that extends into the
Mediterranean Sea. It started in cities on the Greek
mainland and on islands in the Aegean Sea Towards
the later or Hellenistic period, Greek civilization
spread to other faraway places including Asia Minor
and Northern Africa.

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Greek town-planning began in the great age of Greece, the fifth century B.C. They included streets running
parallel or at right angles to one another and rectangular blocks of houses; the longer and presumably the
more important streets ran parallel to the shore, while shorter streets ran at right angles to them down to
the quays.

General Features:

 Creation and maintenance of small state are the main components of Greek towns were Acropolis
and Agora.
 Historical nucleus of old cities
 Domination height – change in level
 Hierarchy with respect to religion
 Sense of Finite – definite size that is workable
 Ideal size of a city of a polis – 10,000 to 20,000 people as per Aristotle
 Greek city - Quasi rectilinear, towns were a jumbled mass of regular rectangular cells
 Street – Circulation space and not a principal element
 Agora – Market and common meeting place
 Climate and topographical influences in the city design
 Scale – Human scale, human measures to the backdrop of landscape
 Manmade objects – parameters of design

Athens the most typical and important cities of Greece were developed around or near a hill or rock, the
acropolis. That is where the god-protector of the town was worshipped. At the beginning it was the seat of
the ruler and it was also the place where the inhabitants used to take refuge in case of war or attack. It was
the core of the city and originally there was no distinction between the city and the acropolis. The city
gradually developed in wider circles near the acropolis. With this natural spread of the city a second c ore
was formed at its lower part, the Agora. This was the center of political, commercial and social gatherings.
The natural position of the agora was near the acropolis, not far from the main entrance to the town.
Acropolis and agora therefore formed the double core of the ancient town, but the agora gradually became
its most important element all the main streets of the town led radically to this main center. The average
dimensions of an ancient Greek state were 40 by 40 km., which means that one needed an 8 hours' walk to
go from one end to the other and that, as a rule, one did not have to cross mountains, which in almost all
cases divided one city-state from the other.

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The core of the town was moved from the acropolis to the agora for two reasons:

a. The development of commerce and handicraft.

b. A shifting of political power from the priests and the monarch to the aristocracy and democracy.

Agora

The agora was the central marketplace in most Greek city-states. Typically the agora was located in the
center of town. Governmental buildings, such as the council building and courts, surrounded the agora in
Athens. There were also two temples on the edge of the agora in Athens.

The agora was more than a marketplace. People came to the agora to discuss politics, meet with friends,
as well as buy items from the market. Rich women were not seen in the agora; instead, their husbands or
slaves would do the shopping for them. Only poor women, who had no help, would go to the market alone.

 Agora served as the facade to form an

enclosed urban space.
 Built with a long span of time.
 Early buildings – small, unified visually
by small shapes and details
 Later buildings – Longer, regular; All the
buildings were grouped around a central
open space. It gave a sense of
enclosure.
 Visual composition – Asymmetrical
balance.
 Massing of the buildings bound the
individual parts to a whole composition.
 Flexible Urban Space.

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Acropolis:

 The buildings in this sacred site lacked any visible design relationships with each other.
 No geometrical, axial relationship or even visual composition
 The buildings were conceived, built and rebuilt over a long period.
 Focus – experience of the human eye and how the observer physically moves
 Design discipline – not an abstract plan, but the real experience of people.

 The best example of Greek emphasis on visualization in design and site planning is seen at the
Acropolis at Athens
 All the buildings on the Acropolis are designed to be seen than use
 All the temples on the Acropolis are place at an angle that enables them to be seen on two sides
 If a building cannot see be from two sides, it is completely hidden
 From the entry at the Propylae, a visitor has a view of all the prominent buildings in the Acropolis
 Buildings are also position at a distance that ensures the appreciation of their details
 The central axis of view from the propylae is left free of building for a view into the country side.

ROMAN CIVILISATION

If Greek and Macedonian town-planning are fairly well known, the Roman Empire offers a yet larger mass
of certain facts, both in Italy and in the provinces. The beginnings, naturally, are veiled in obscurity. We can
trace the system in full work at the outset of the Empire; we cannot trace the steps by which it grew.
Evidences of something that resembles town-planning on a rectangular scheme can be noted in two or
three corners of early Italian history—first in the prehistoric Bronze Age, then in a very much later Etruscan
town, and thirdly on one or two sites of middle Italy connected with the third or fourth century B.C. These
evidences are scanty and in part uncertain, and their bearing on our problem is not always clear, but they
claim a place in an account of Italian town-planning. To them must be added, fourthly, the important
evidence which points to the use of a system closely akin to town-planning in early Rome itself.

Planning Principles

Romans adopted the technology and planning skills of the Greeks. They were more advanced than the
Greeks in terms of technological skills which they used to develop better infrastructural facilities and
construction techniques.

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Urban design of Roman cities follows clear laws for the development of public and military services.
Roman city is basically composed by a number of identic components, disposed in a special way -parallel
and equal-distant- separated by streets. The whole forms a unit of rectangular design surrounded by a
perimetral wall with watchtowers.

It had two main axial roads called

 Cardus E-W
 Decumanus N-S

"Secondary streets" complete the gridiron layout and form the building blocks known as "Insulae"

Perimeter of the city was usually square / rectangular with bastions.

Cross streets occasionally stepped and bridged around the city due to topographical condition.

Generally rectangular walled city entered by several gates, showing complete town organization.

From the religious significance of the Temples by the Greeks there was a change to the civic influence of
Law Courts "Basilica" which became more important than the public buildings.

The most important part of the city was the forum, where political, economic, administrative, social and
religious activities were centred."Forum Area" usually located centre of the town formed by the intersection
of the Decamanus and cardo.similar to Greek “Agoras”. In big cities there were theatres, circuses,
stadiums, and odeons.

Cities help to form the cultural and social structure of Roman civilization: commerce was centralized,
conquered lands were communicated and population was usually under control.

These urban rules were developed during nearly 10 centuries in order to create
the different cities. In these cities, kinds of housing could be divided into house,
domus, insula and villa. There also were casae or housings for slaves and low
classes. Because of their weak systems of building they have all disappeared in
our days. Indeed, there were also great communitary buildings as basilicae,
thermae and the very important social and cultural systems called forums.

Romanum Forum

A forum was a public square in a roman cities reserved primarily for the vending of goods; i.e., a
marketplace, along with the buildings used for shops and the stoas used for open stalls. Many fora were
constructed at remote locations along a road by the magistrate responsible for the road, in which case the
forum was the only settlement at the site and had its own name, such as Forum Popili or Forum Livi.

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At the cross of both streets are the city's forum and the market. These components were necessary for the
design of public buildings: amphitheatre -two components long and one-and-a-half wide-, theatre -one
component-, market -one component-, the whole forum -two components-, and so on. In addition to its
standard function as a marketplace, a forum was a gathering place of great social significance, and often
the scene of diverse activities, including political discussions and debates, rendezvous, meetings, etc.

In new Roman towns the forum was usually located at, or just off, the intersection of the main north-south
and east-west streets (the Cardo and Decumanus). All fora would have a Temple of Jupiter at the north
end, and would also contain other temples, as well as the Basilica; a public weights and measures table, so
customers at the market could ensure they were not being sold short measures; and would often have the
baths nearby. At election times, candidates would use the steps of the temples in the forum to make their
election speeches, and would expect their clients to come to support them.
The Forum Romanum, despite being a relatively small space, was
central to the function and identity of the city of Rome (and the
wider Roman empire). The Forum Romanum played a key role in
creating a communal focal point, one toward which various
members of a diverse socio-economic community could gravitate.
In that centralized space community rituals that served a larger
purpose of group unity could be performed and observed and
elites could reinforce social hierarchy through the display of
monumental art and architecture. These devices that could create
and continually reinforce not only a sense of community belonging
but also the existing social hierarchy were of vital importance in
archaic states.

Even as the Forum Romanum changed over time, it remained an important space. After a series of
emperors chose to build new forum complexes (the Imperial Fora) adjacent to the Forum Romanum, it
retained its symbolic importance, especially considering that, as a people, ancient Romans were incredibly
loyal to ancestral practices and traditions.

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RENAISSANCE TOWNS

During the Renaissance relatively few new towns were established, but existing towns grew rapidly. Many of
these extensions were planned works based on a regular grid. Completely new towns were, however,
founded in Sicily, Scandinavia, and the New World. Most of these towns were fully gridded, and many
included a square near the middle. [Kostof (1991)] There were important exceptions, however, including the
original Dutch settlement of what is today New York. The area south of Wall Street remains a web of
irregular streets. Some of the Scandinavian towns took a radial form.

In the introduction to his chapter on the Renaissance town and its square, Zucker says:

From the fifteenth century on, architectural design, aesthetic theory, and the principles of city planning are
directed by identical ideas, foremost among them the desire for discipline and order in contrast to the
relative irregularity and dispersion of Gothic space.

A pronounced authoritarian thread runs through this era of steadily more powerful monarchs; to this do we
owe the application of rigid rules by one all-powerful figure. The results are often stunning at first glance, but
most of these spaces lack a satisfying sense of evolution. Spaces designed by a single hand in the
Renaissance manner are usually stiff and cool.

Consider the city of Ferrara, which has a large intact medieval district adjoining a similarly-sized
Renaissance district. People still seem to prefer the older part of town, with its curving narrow streets.
Renaissance urbanism only appears in 1470 with Genoa’s Via Nuova, so the Renaissance was slow to
affect the appearance of cities.

What consequences did Renaissance ideas have for the design of urban spaces?

Morris says that the preoccupation with symmetry and the creation of balanced axial compositions were
central motifs. This was sometimes carried to extremes, as in the Piazza del Popolo, with its matching
churches flanking a central street. However, this space is not rectilinear (and is not even fully symmetrical,
the twin churches notwithstanding). Also of great importance was the placement of monumental buildings,
obelisks, and statues at the ends of long, straight streets. Buildings were wrought into coherent ensembles
by repeating basic features. Morris goes on to say that the "primary straight street" was the basis of
Renaissance urbanism, and that new, direct routes to facilitate carriage travel were laid. [Morris, 107]

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Regarding traffic, he says:

On the basis of their traffic functions Renaissance urban spaces can be grouped under three broad
headings: first, traffic space, forming part of the main urban route system and used by both pedestrians and
horse drawn vehicles; second, residential space, intended for local access traffic only and with a
predominantly pedestrian recreational purpose; third, pedestrian space, from which wheeled traffic was
normally excluded. [Morris, 109]

Thus, it is can be seen that even 500 years ago, traffic had already had a major influence on the design of
cities. The other major influence was the expression of Renaissance aesthetics and ideas in street design.
Battista Alberti came of age at the beginning of the Renaissance, and Morris considers the evolution of his
thinking:

Although at first it is clear, from Alberti’s contemporary writings, that streets could be considered to consist
of individual building elevations--best appreciated from curved approaches--as the period progressed
architectural uniformity became de rigeur."From the end of the fifteenth century," Zucker observes, "three-
dimensional distinctness corresponded to structural clarity. Definite laws and rules directed the limits of
space and volume. Purity of stereometric form was in itself considered beautiful." [Morris, 108, quoting
Zucker, 141. See also Alberti, 106-107 (Book Four, part 5

Morris then quotes Patrick Abercrombie’s assessment of these straight streets, with their terminal
monuments and offers his own conclusions regarding the effects of this arrangement:

"The monument at the end is recompense, as it were, for walking along a straight road (devoid of the
surprises and romantic charm of the twisting streets) and economies are met by keeping the fronting
buildings plain so as to enhance the climax--private simplicity and public magnificence." The gridiron also
conformed to the Renaissance ideal of aesthetic uniformity, even if the resulting townscape all too
frequently reveals this to be mere monotony. . . . [Morris, 108]

Strangely enough, the most famous Renaissance squares in Italy do not follow the scheme of the typical
closed squares of this period. . . . Neither are their layouts and appearance derived from the rationalized
intellectual solutions of Gattinara, Valletta, or Palma Nuova. They owe their final shape rather to a gradual
development from the Middle Ages to the Renaissance, when they took on the characteristics which made
them the heart of their cities. [In fact, these spaces had long been the city centers.]

If ever a square was to become the symbol for a whole city, it certainly was St. Mark’s Square. . . in Venice,
the "ballroom of Europe." . . .

. . . And yet, the combination of Piazza, Piazzetta, and the third smaller square at the northwest [sic,
northeast] corner of St. Mark’s fuse into one of the greatest space impressions of all time, comparable in
their symphonic effect only to the Imperial Fora in Rome. [Zucker, 113-115]

This is an astounding statement, coming from someone who is so disparaging of medieval city design.
Finally, perhaps, he starts to understand his own "intuition rather than systematization inspired these

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crystallizations of the human spirit in space." [Zucker, 110] But even here Zucker chooses to overlook the
fact that San Marco was in substantially its present form by the end of the middle ages. The Renaissance
changes merely continued the unfolding of a form that had been laid down centuries before. Why are some
people so reluctant to acknowledge the brilliance of intuition? What is wrong with deep understanding that it
should be papered over by shallow order and regularity? I cannot offer an answer, but I do urge that the
intuitively-correct solutions be given a chance against intellectually-"brilliant" designs created on paper.

The era of renaissance was ushered in, in Europe in the 15th century. The new renaissance style of town
planning was used for town extensions and reconstructions; but the guiding principles of the style were
defence of the town against artillery. In this period of city plans, the basic concept was vista forming straight
streets. The new chessboard pattern of street layout was adopted to create gardens and fountains with new
types of public squares or groups of squares.

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INDUSTRIALIZATION AND CITY GROWTH:
The era of industrialization
In both Europe and the United States, the surge of industry during the mid- and late 19th century was
accompanied by rapid population growth, unfettered business enterprise, great speculative profits, and
public failures in managing the unwanted physical consequences of development. Giant sprawling cities
developed during this era, exhibiting the luxuries of wealth and the meanness of poverty in sharp
juxtaposition. Eventually the corruption and exploitation of the era gave rise to the Progressive movement,
of which city planning formed a part. The slums, congestion, disorder, ugliness, and threat of disease
provoked a reaction in which sanitation improvement was the first demand. Significant betterment of public
health resulted from engineering improvements in water supply and sewerage, which were essential to the
further growth of urban populations.

Later in the century the first housing reform measures were enacted. The early regulatory laws (such as
Great Britain’s Public Health Act of 1848 and the New York State Tenement House Act of 1879) set
minimal standards for housing construction. Implementation, however, occurred only slowly, as
governments did not provide funding for upgrading existing dwellings, nor did the minimal rent-paying ability
of slum dwellers offer incentives for landlords to improve their buildings. Nevertheless, housing
improvement occurred as new structures were erected, and new legislation continued to raise standards,
often in response to the exposés of investigators and activists such as Jacob Riis in the United States
and Charles Booth in England.

Also during the Progressive era, which extended through the early 20th century, efforts to improve the
urban environment emerged from recognition of the need for recreation. Parks were developed to provide
visual relief and places for healthful play or relaxation. Later, playgrounds were carved out in congested
areas, and facilities for games and sports were established not only for children but also for adults, whose
workdays gradually shortened. Supporters of the parks movement believed that the opportunity for outdoor
recreation would have a civilizing effect on the working classes, who were otherwise consigned to
overcrowded housing and unhealthful workplaces. New York’s Central Park, envisioned in the 1850s and
designed by architects Calvert Vaux and Frederick Law Olmsted, became a widely imitated model. Among
its contributions were the separation of pedestrian and vehicular traffic, the creation of a romantic
landscape within the heart of the city, and a demonstration that the creation of parks could greatly enhance
real-estate values in their surroundings.

Concern for the appearance of the city had long been manifest in Europe, in the imperial tradition of court
and palace and in the central plazas and great buildings of church and state. In Paris during the
Second (1852–70), Georges-Eugene, Baron Haussmann, became the greatest of the planners on a grand
scale, advocating straight arterial boulevards, advantageous vistas, and a symmetry of squares and
radiating roads. The resulting urban form was widely emulated throughout the rest of continental Europe.

Haussmann’s efforts went well beyond beautification, however; essentially they broke down the barriers to
commerce presented by medieval Paris, modernizing the city so as to enable the efficient transportation of
goods as well as the rapid mobilization of military troops. His designs involved the demolition of antiquated
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tenement structures and their replacement by new apartment houses intended for a wealthier clientele, the
construction of transportation corridors and commercial space that broke up residential neighbourhoods,
and the displacement of poor people from centrally located areas. Haussmann’s methods provided a
template by which urban redevelopment programs would operate in Europe and the United States until
nearly the end of the 20th century, and they would extend their influence in much of the developing world
after that.

As the grandeur of the European vision took root in the United States through the City Beautiful movement,
its showpiece became the World’s Columbian Exposition of 1893, developed in Chicago according to
principles set out by American architect Daniel Burnham. The architectural style of the exposition
established an ideal that many cities imitated. Thus, the archetype of the City Beautiful—characterized by
grand malls and majestically sited civic buildings in Greco-Roman architecture—was replicated in civic
centres and boulevards throughout the country, contrasting with and in protest against the surrounding
disorder and ugliness. However, diffusion of the model in the United States was limited by the much more
restricted power of the state (in contrast to European counterparts) and by the City Beautiful model’s weak
potential for enhancing businesses’ profitability.

Whereas Haussmann’s approach was especially influential on the European continent and in the design of
American civic centres, it was the utopian concept of the garden city, first described by British social
reformer Ebenezer Howard in his book Garden Cities of To-Morrow (1902), that shaped the appearance of
residential areas in the United States and Great Britain. Essentially a suburban form, Howard’s garden
city incorporated low-rise homes on winding streets and cul-de-sac, the separation of commerce from
residences, and plentiful open space lush with greenery. Howard called for a “cooperative commonwealth”
in which rises in property values would be shared by the community, open land would be communally held,
and manufacturing and retail establishments would be clustered within a short distance of residences.
Successors abandoned Howard’s socialist ideals but held on to the residential design form established in
the two new towns built during Howard’s lifetime (Letchworth and Welwyn Garden City), ultimately imitating
the garden city model of winding roads and ample greenery in the forming of the modern suburban
subdivision.

Perhaps the single most influential factor in shaping the physical form of the contemporary city was
transportation technology. The evolution of transport modes from foot and horse to mechanized vehicles
facilitated tremendous urban territorial expansion. Workers were able to live far from their jobs, and goods
could move quickly from point of production to market. However, automobiles and buses rapidly congested
the streets in the older parts of cities. By threatening strangulation of traffic, they dramatized the need to
establish new kinds of orderly circulation systems. Increasingly, transportation networks became the focus
of planning activities, especially as subway systems were constructed in New York, London, and Paris at
the beginning of the 20th century. To accommodate increased traffic, municipalities invested heavily in
widening and extending roads. Many city governments established planning departments during the first
third of the 20th century. The year 1909 was a milestone in the establishment of urban planning as a
modern governmental function: it saw the passage of Britain’s first town-planning act and, in the United
States, the first national conference on city planning, the publication of Burnham’s plan for Chicago, and the

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appointment of Chicago’s Plan Commission (the first recognized planning agency in the United States,
however, was created in Hartford, Connecticut, in 1907). Germany, Sweden, and other European countries
also developed planning administration and law at this time.

The colonial powers transported European concepts of city planning to the cities of the developing world.
The result was often a new city planned according to Western principles of beauty and separation of uses,
adjacent to unplanned settlements both new and old, subject to all the ills of the medieval European
city. New Delhi, India, epitomizes this form of development. Built according to the scheme devised by the
British planners Edwin Lutyens and Herbert Baker, it grew up cheek by jowl with the tangled streets of Old
Delhi. At the same time, the old city, while less salubrious, offered its inhabitants a sense of community,
historical continuity, and functionality more suited to their way of life.

GARNIER’s INDUSTRIAL CITY

During his student years, Tony Garnier proved to be very different from other students. He was not very
disciplined, and did not carry out the projects requested by the French Academy, which concerned the
study of isolated antique monuments. He preferred to work on an entire city “Tusculum”. In four years at
“Villa Médicis”, he spent only six months working on antique monuments. Most of his time was dedicated to
a project for the creation of a new city, a modern one, called An Industrial City, published for the first time in
1917.

Whereas the designs for garden cities and "Usonia" took root in the country, the French architect and
socialist Tony Garnier made detailed plans for a model of a modern industrial city. Garnier did the
conceptual preparatory work for the Modernist town‐planners. Both his architectonic details and planning
ideas became their basic principles. Tony Garnier’s new industrial city is a utopian planned industrial city
with separated residential and factory zones, green belts with structures built of reinforced concrete.
This project is a significant milestone in modern town planning, as Le Corbusier said: “The first example of
urban land defined as public space and organized to accommodate amenities for the common benefit of
the inhabitants [...] integrating housing, work and contact between citizens.”

Tony Garnier located it in a place that can be identified as being in Saint‐Etienne area (near by
Saint‐Chamont / Rive‐de‐Gier), which was heavily industrialized at the beginning of the 20th century. The
city is located on a rocky headland, the industrial area being clearly separated from it and located down the
headland, at the confluence of a river.
In what many consider to be the first act of Modern master planning,
Garnier designed a self‐sufficient settlement for 35,000 based on
industry, with various functions zoned in discreet areas, connected by
multiple infrastructural systems; a railway, a canal, roads, and an airport.
The industrial city embraces new concepts in city planning: long, narrow
lots running east–west, buildings separated by wide open spaces,
separate levels provided for pedestrians, and houses with roof gardens.

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The renderings of Garnier’s project foreshadowed a new, sprawling urban scale defined by the practical
zoning requirements of the latest industrial and transportation technologies. Another title for the project was
indeed “City of Labor”. So it is very clear, that modern city planning had as source the idea of labor and
production, on the basis of the industrial revolution.
Only three main functions have therefore been conceived by Garnier: production, housing and health
facilities. The dictatorship of production turned housing and health in the service of production. Workers
had to be healthy and therefore housed well to stay stable and reliable in the production process. Therefore
we can say, the center of the conception of the modern city is production.
The classical conception of a city from where the urbanists started was the city as a place of production. In
the wake of the industrial revolution the city was conceived as a sequence of phases conditioned by
industrial labor. You start with an assembly line. Around the assembly line you build a factory. Around the
factory you build the homes of the workers. Around the homes you build shops, restaurants and other
services. Precisely in that sense we can perceive the publication of Une Cité Industrielle.
Going against urban conceptions of his time, the architect developed the zoning concept, dividing the city
into four main functions: work, housing, health, leisure.
The traffic system had separate roads for vehicles and pedestrians, through roads, and access‐roads.
Green spaces took up more than half of the city area. Set in the midst of these were loose groupings of
simple free‐standing apartment blocks, built of reinforced concrete using industrial techniques, and
affording plenty of air and light.
Four main principles emerge: functionalism, space, greenery, and high sunshine exposure. In France, Tony
Garnier caught the modern currents in materials, structure, and composition using which he evolved his
masterful plan for a Cité industrielle.
In the industrial city, reinforced concrete was to be used to create a modern city of modern buildings. The
plan called for the extensive use of reinforced concrete.

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 The general design of Garners’ city shows a
separation between living quarters and industry
and also a separate health centre outside the city.
This is understandable as 'industry' in his case
equals heavy industry with its associated pollution.
The main patterns are grids. However the part with
living quarters is kept narrow to minimize distances
to nature. This is also the reason why there is no
explicit park within the city. In the centre of the
town is a large civic centre. The grid patterns are
not 'stamped' all over the city. The design of the
civic centre is based on a disposition of buildings
around a central axle. This shows elements of
classic design. On the other hand all buildings are
free standing and the open spaces are enormous.
In the whole of the plan there are few squares, let
alone enclosed squares.
 The living quarters show an innovative
new type of building block with free
standing houses and 'urban villas'
(although using this word in this respect is
an anachronism) on an 'island' between
streets. This type of building block had
been taken up in recent urban design in
the Netherlands.
 The result is that there are no enclosed
streets.
 Trees form very much part of the design.
Indicating the more important streets and
losely planted within the blocks.
 Garnier has a lot of drawings showing
public space in living quarters, indicating
that he cared about everyday living
conditions. For the civic centre he only
shows the buildings. This suggests that he
did not consider the design of public space
around public buildings to be a very
important matter.
AMERICAN GRID PLANNING:

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The grid has been used continuously throughout the world as a development pattern since Hippodamus
first used it at Piraeus, Greece in the 5th century BC. A lot happened over the next 2,000 years after that,
but in 1682 William Penn used the grid as the physical foundation for Philadelphia. With that, the grid
began its new life in the new America.

Penn’s instructions for laying out his orthogonal plan were simple:

Be sure to settle the figure of the town so as that the streets hereafter may be uniform down to the water
from the country bounds…This may be ordered when I come, only let the houses built be in a line, or upon
a line, as much as may be…

Penn’s use of the grid may have been influenced by Richard New court’s plan for London following the fire
of 1666. However, Penn may have utilized the grid for its indexical qualities. The grid by its very nature has
no built-in hierarchy. What better way to promote the Quaker value of equality than to build it into the very
foundation of your new town. Philadelphia was the first city to use the indexical system of numbers for
north-south streets and tree names for east-west streets. Because of this coordinate system, the
intersection at 12th/Walnut has no more or less social or political meaning than that at 18th/Cherry. Every
plot of land is essentially equal to every other.

Over 100 years after Philadelphia, Thomas Jefferson executed the purchase of the Louisiana Territory.
Following the acquisition of such a vast territory came the challenges of subdividing, selling, and occupying
it. It was impossible to survey the entire area ahead of time so Jefferson devised a system that would make
platting and selling achievable from a distance. Jefferson answered with the grid in the Land Ordinance of
1785. The Ordinance divided the entire western territory into townships, sections, quarter-sections, and so
on. A system of Euclidean geometry made this possible. Having never stepped foot on their property,
someone could point to a map, make a purchase, and start their wagon westward knowing precisely where
they were going. Today, a cross-country flight will easily show the physical ramifications of Jefferson’s
decision to subdivide our territory upon the grid. The vast majority of America’s western land is so arranged
in logical lattice-work.

Following the precedent of Philadelphia, the grid has been used extensively in a number of American cities
in every one of our now 50 states. Each of these cities, with their own purposes and reasonings, adopted
the grid as their foundation with varying outcomes. In Chicago, the grid was used as a vehicle to maximize
both the speed of development and financial speculation. In San Francisco, the grid flatly ignored

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topography and created a city of dramatic hills and valleys. In Paragonah, Utah, the grid was executed to
promote the doctrine of Mormonism. But perhaps most famous of all American grids is that found in
Manhattan. In 1811, the Commissioners adopted a master street plan that would come to define the city of
New York centuries later. One of the greatest understatements of the 19th century was made by one of the
commissioners at the time:

It is improbable that (for centuries to come) the grounds north of Harlem Flat will be covered with houses.
As we know now Manhattan did grow and it grew well beyond all expectations within only a single century.
The grid was there to accommodate that growth.

In the 1920s, the roles of both the federal government and the States in the development of towns and
cities were refined and codified. Amongst all of the legal changes, two documents stand out: the Standard
City Planning Enabling Act (SCPEA) and the Standard State Zoning Enabling Act (SSZEA). The
SSZEA specifies the creation, adoption, and use of a zoning map. The SCPEA, on the other hand,
specifies the components of a municipal master plan which is made up of a zoning map and a master
street plan. Unfortunately, over the last 80 years judicial interpretation over what constitutes a “master
plan” has allowed the zoning map to replace the master street plan. Without a master street plan the grid is
essentially impossible to execute. Thus, our American grid’s recent history has been a stagnant one.Finally
today, we find ourselves in a situation where our cities develop piece-meal on a lot-by-lot basis. Because a
zoning ordinance only regulates private property and does not–and legally cannot–provide for the public
framework of cities, development is rendered essentially unplanned, un-walkable, and unsustainable. A re-
emergence of the American grid is warranted in order to restore much needed order to the places we call
home.

ANTIURBANISM:

Anti-urbanism is a discourse of fear of the city, produced and reproduced via a variety of negative
representations of urban places, and drawing its power from deeply entrenched pro urban and pro-rural
sentiment. Industrialisation was the force which triggered anti-urban representations, as the rampant,
unchecked urbanization that characterised the industrial city was widely perceived to be a profound moral
upheaval, an unwelcome disruption to traditional values, and the intensification of urban malaise. Whilst
anti-urbanism is a widespread discourse, it is particularly advanced in the United States, partly because of
the influence of major intellectual figures who all treated the city with suspicion. The art of Edward
Hopper explains the power of the anti-urbanism discourse, and its implications. It concludes by offering
some comments on recent accusations that writers such as Mike Davis are reproducing anti-urban
discourse in their popular work on contemporary urbanization.

Anti-urbanism is best defined as a discourse of fear of the city, and something fuelled by the impact of
images of urban dystopia we see in a variety of media, cinematic, literary, artistic, photographic – and in the
case of the Qashi, corporate – representations of urban places. It is a discourse that has been around for a
long time, in conjunction with the emergence of the industrial city, and often constructed in relation to the

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‘good city’ of the ancient Greeks, and especially the perceived virtues of rural life. Anti-urbanism is
particularly advanced in the United States in a variety of guises, from the celebration of rural.

Small-town kinship and community to the fact that Los Angeles has been completely destroyed 138 times
in various motion pictures from 1909 to 1999! Critical analyses of anti-urbanism are vital if the material
consequences of widespread urban fears are to be exposed and challenged. As cultural geographers have
argued for a long time now, if we leave powerful representations unquestioned, then supposedly fixed
‘evidence’ about how a society is organized can very easily become treated as overwhelming evidence of
how it ‘should’, or ‘must’ be organized.

PICTURESQUE:

The idea of the picturesque in urban design is the idea of looking at the environment as a 'picture' or a
collection of 'pictures'. Analysis is aimed at discovering and categorizing these 'pictures' and design is
aimed at making 'pictures': spatial compositions of buildings and objects. This means this activity is aimed
at the perception of the environment. The idea being that a pleasant composition can evoke a feeling of
well being and thus contribute to a good environment.

Sequential Analysis

In the visual arts, architecture and urban design a sequence is a series of images expressing a thought or
feeling, space-time experience. In architecture and urban design the idea behind sequences is that they
represent a certain space-time experience. This space-time experience is an unavoidable part of any
architecture and urban design. As the size and scale of design increases it plays a more important role.
One could say that a very large building complex or city can only be experienced as a sequence.

The environment is interpreted as a dynamic succession of scenes. Together they constitute a story. In
essence sequences are about manipulating experiences and feelings. The most extreme form of this are
theme park rides that manipulate visual impressions but above all impressions of the human system of
equilibrium. This leads to what in psychological terns is called a 'Kinesthetic experience' (the word is a
combination of 'kinetic' and 'aesthetic').

The Picturesque tradition found its original impulse in a popular reaction to the changing face of English
cities in the seventeenth century as commercial expansion, social upheaval, and industrial technology
began to transform the medieval royal center into a crowded, dehumanizing urban catastrophe. The
shocking spectacle of urban deterioration prompted many observers to comment on the unseemly state of
affairs, particularly in London, where filth and high density appeared hand-in-hand with crime,
licentiousness, and social chaos. John Evelyn complained in 1661 that “Catharrs, Phthisicks, Coughs and
Consumptions rage more in this one City than in the whole Earth besides.” He suggested that the problem
could be ameliorated by planting a greenbelt around the city which would be “diligently kept and supply’d,
with such Shrubs, as yield the most fragrant and odoriferous Flowers, and are aptest to tinge the Aer upon

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every gentle emission at a great distance.”4 In addition to this early proposal for a natural remedy for
pollution, Evelyn collaborated with Christopher Wren on a plan for rebuilding London after the Great Fire.
Their plan relied on a “spider web pattern” which subordinated the grid to a network of boulevards and
plazas.

THE CORBUSIAN RADIANT CITY: Paris, Chandigarh, Brasilia, London, St. Louis 1920-1970

Risebero (1997) states that from 1917 to 1932 “Russian artistic ideas were among the foremost in the
world”. Many new towns were built to support industrialisation, with most following Garnier’s principles of
zoning. The most prominent planning theorist of the time, however, was Nicolai Miliutin (1889-1942), whose
proposals for the expansion of Magnitogorsk (1929), Stalingrad and Gorki were based on a linear scheme
that evolved from Soria y Mata’s work. The Spanish transport engineer, Arturo Soria y Mata, had proposed
his Ciudad Lineal in 1882, “a continuous pattern of urban growth stretching through the countryside on
either side of a rapid-transit spine route, incorporating both old and new urban centres”

Miliutin’s concept consisted of “narrow, parallel strips of land running through the countryside, incorporating
the old town centres where they occurred: a railway zone, a factory, workshop and technical college zone,
a green belt with a main highway, a residential zone, a park and sports area, and a wide belt of farmland”
(Risebero 1997).

Not only Miliutin’s plan, but also the envisaged social system of collectivism and egalitarianism became
entrenched in avant-garde European schemes as well. As Teige (1932: 320) writes: “The linear city … has
no centre and no business district. The linear city supersedes the concentric form of the capitalist city. It
represents a new, higher type of city”.

Towards the end of the 1920s, Le Corbusier had extensive contact with other planners especially in
Germany and the Soviet Union – mainly through congresses and the Congrès Internationaux de
l’Architecture Moderne(CIAM) founded by Le Corbusier, Sigfried Gideon, Walter Gropius and others in
1928. While the Radiant City was presented at a CIAM congress focusing on middle- and high-density
housing, a number of authors have suggested that the actual purpose of the scheme was to solicit work in
the Soviet Union, as many of his contemporaries were doing at that time. Both Mata and Miliutin’s ideas
could have served as precedents for Le Corbusier’s basic concept for the Radiant City, and an
unmistakable anthropomorphic analogy was then superimposed to refine the layout. The final plan is
deceptively simple, but Le Corbusier’s writing confirms the vast body of empirical research that underpins it.

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Chandigarh (1952)

Chandigarh is located northwest of Delhi, just south of the Shivalik Mountains, foothills of the Himalayas.
Matthew Nowicki and Albert Mayer designed the initial master plan, a sensitive response to topography and
climate. Le Corbusier was invited to participate after Nowicki died in a plane crash in 1950 and was
appointed in 1951. His collaborators were Maxwell Fry, Jane Drew and Corbusier’s cousin, Pierre
Jeanneret, as well as a number of young Indian architects and planners. It is true that Le Corbusier
retained some key aspects of the Nowicki-Mayer leaf-shapedplan, especially spatial relationships between
key elements (government, city centre, university and industries) and the superblock principle, but
fundamentally his town planning was based on an unbuilt proposal for Bogota he executed in the previous
year (Le Corbusier 1958). There he again, as in Barcelona, consolidated the “Spanish Square” into larger
superblocks, this time measuring 1,200 x 800 metres. But instead of a different geometrical pattern for
pedestrians, he simply conceived a similarly dimensioned superimposed grid and shifted it half a module
relative to the vehicular grid. It is clear that each residential sector was envisaged as a relatively self-
contained urban village, consisting of four neighbourhood-sized quarters (24 ha) each bordering on a green
strip with pedestrian paths running north-south, and a market street east-west. It offers the potential of
accommodating different architectural and urban morphologies within a compact framework, offering all the
diversity and neighbourhood interaction, overlap and connectivity considered desirable today. He allocated
nearly 30 per cent of the city to parks and recreational areas. Le Corbusier was certainly familiar with the
first cities of the Fertile Crescent. Perhaps his choice of a 1,200 x 800 module, rather than his more usual
400 x 400 grid, was not coincidental, but an idea inspired by those first, compact, walkable cities!

Towns are probably the most complex things that human beings have ever created. In ancient times, they
were the wellsprings of culture, technology, wealth and power. People have a love-hate relationship with
cities. Town planning has always been of chief concern since times immemorial. Evidence of planning has
been unearthed in the ruins of cities in China, India, Egypt, Asia Minor, the Mediterranean world, and South
and Central America. Early examples of efforts towards planned urban development include orderly street
systems that are rectilinear and sometimes radial; division of a city into specialised functional quarters;
development of commanding central sites for palaces, temples and civic buildings; and advanced systems
of fortification, water supply, and drainage.

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India has characteristically drifted with history, rising periodically to accomplish great things. In no field has
this been truer than in town planning. From prehistoric Mohenjo Daro, to the imperial city of New Delhi, to
Corbusier's Chandigarh, India has pioneered in town building.

CITY DEVELOPMENT IN ANCIENT AND MEDIEVAL INDIA

Scholars divide urbanization and city development in pre-colonial India into three time periods:
 The pre-historic (2350 to 1800 BC)
 Early historical period (600 BC to 500 AD)
 Medieval period (600 AD to 1800 AD)
Cities of the Indus Valley civilization, such as Harappa, Mohenjo-Daro and Lothal followed a system of town
planning with similarities in their layouts on a rectilinear basis of main east-west routes directed to the
citadels and north-south cross routes. These cities were also the earliest instances of gridiron town
planning. The city proper consisted of two components– a citadel, built on high ground and a lower city
Where the majority of the population lived. The citadel consisted of a large number of structures with large
halls and palaces and was fortified with walls. The lower city was built on a gridiron pattern with a hierarchy
of streets large, small and smallest.

The earliest city developments in the second phase of urbanization around 600 BC took place in and
around the Indus valley and adjoining parts of Rajasthan, Punjab and parts of western Uttar Pradesh and
also in the Deccan and southern parts of India. These cities were Nalanda, Taxashila, Vijayanagar,
Pataliputra, Kancheepuram, Madurai, Varanasi and Delhi. It was during this period that towns like Varanasi
and Pataliputra in the North and Kancheepuram and Madurai in South gained prominence and became the
centres of India’s earliest urban history. The use of iron helped clear forests and facilitated human
settlements, triggering the emergence of these cities.

During the Mauryan period, a complex town planning pattern developed and the janapadas (political
administrative units ruled by local kings) and later mahajanapadas (larger kingdoms) came into being.
Taxashila, Mathura, Kausambi, Pataliputra and Sravasthi were important cities of the Mauryan period. The
decline of these cities in the post-Mauryan period could be attributed to factors like recurrence of natural
calamities, the decline of well-administered empires and foreign invasions. The major cities in South during
this period were Puhar (the port of the Chola kings), Madurai, Kanchi, Karur etc.

Around the fifth century AD, during the rules of the Gupta kings,there was a revival. Again there were
revivals at the time of the Delhi Sultanate and the Mughals. Delhi became the capital city of the slave
dynasty and later the Khiljis, Tughlaqs and Lodhis. Two leading cities from around this time were Delhi and
Agra. Others like Mathura, Allahabad, Varanasi, Thaneshwar, Gwalior, Ujjain, Somnath, Meerut, Panipat,
Baroda and Srinagar also developed. During the Mughal period (1526-1800 AD) the growth of capital cities,
building of forts, large residences and buildings, palaces and mosques became essential features of cities
like Agra, Delhi, Sikandra, Shahjahanabad in the north and Hyderabad and Ahmedabad further South. For
instance, Shahjahanabad was a planned city with a central avenue leading to the main gate of the Red

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Fort. Chandni Chowk housed the market; on one side of the avenue was the Jama Masjid and on the other
the residence of the nobles. Commoners usually lived outside the fort area in mohallas with narrow streets.

EXTRACTS FROM CHANAKYA’S ARTHASHASTRA

Some interesting extracts relating to Town and Country planning in Arthashastra composed by Chanakya in
the Maurya period is given below:
A city should be located in the central part of a country so as to facilitate trade and commerce. The site
selected for the purpose of this city should be quite large in area, and on the banks of a river, or by the side
of an artificial or natural lake, which never goes dry. Its shape should be circular, rectangular or square as
would suit the topography. There should be water on all sides. Separate areas should be provided for
marketing different goods. There should be a wall around the town, which should be six dandas high and
twelve dandas wide. Beyond this wall there should be three moats of 14 feet, 12 feet and 10 feet wide to be
constructed four arm-lengths apart. The depth should be three-fourth of width. Three-east west and three
North – south roads, should divide the town. The main roads should be eight dandas wide and other roads
four dandas wide. The palace should be in the central part. It should face either north or east. The houses
of priests and ministers should be on the south-east, traders, skilled workers, and kshatriyas on the east,
the treasury, goldsmiths and industries on the south, forest produce on the northeast and doctors city
fathers, army commander, artists, on the south. Temples should be located in the center of the town.
Cemeteries should be located on the north and east of the town, that for the higher caste to be located on
the south. The depressed classes should be housed beyond cemetery. There should be one well for every
group of ten houses.

MANASARA VASTUSHASTRA
Another elaborate treatise on town planning in ancient India. It is perhaps of a later date – about 6th
century A.D. There are several chapters in this book on town planning and construction of buildings. One
interesting feature however deserves special mention. There are eight different types of towns and villages
according to the shapes:
1. Dandaka 2. Sarvathobhadra 3. Nandyavarta 4.Padmaka 5.Swastika 6.Prastara 7.Karmuka
8. Chaturmukha

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1. Dandaka
Dandaka type of town plan provides for two main entrance gates and is generally adopted for the formation
of small towns and villages, the village offices being located in the east. The female deity of the village or
the chamadevata will generally be located outside the village and the male deities in the northern portion.
2. Sarvathobhadra
This type of town plan is applicable to larger villages and towns, which have to be constructed on a square
Site. According to this plan, the whole town should be fully occupied by houses of various descriptions and
Inhabited by all classes of people. The temple dominates the village.
3. Nandyavarta
This plan is commonly used for the construction of towns and not for villages. It is generally adopted for the
sites either circular or square in shape, with not less than three thousand houses, but not more than four
thousand. The streets run parallel to the central adjoining streets with the temple of the presiding deity in
the center of the town. “Nandyavarta” is the name of a flower, the form of which is followed in this layout.
4. Padmaka
This type of plan was practiced for building of the towns with fortress all round. The pattern of the plan
resembles the petals of lotus radiating outwards from the center. The city used to be practically an island
surrounded by water, having no scope for expansion.
5. Swastika
Swastika type of plan contemplates some diagonal streets dividing the site into certain triangular plots. The
site need not be marked out into a square or rectangle and it may be of any shape. A rampart wall
surrounds the town, with a moat at its foot filled with water. Two main streets cross each other at the
center, running south to north and west to east.
6. Prastara
The characteristic feature of this plan is that the site may be either square or rectangular but not triangular
or circular. The sites are set apart for the poor, the middle class, the rich and the very rich, the sizes of the
sites increasing according to the capacity of each to purchase or build upon. The main roads are much
wider compared to those of other patterns. The town may or may not be surrounded by a fort.
7. Karmuka
This plan is suitable for the place where the site of the town is in the form of a bow or semi-circular or
parabolic and mostly applied for towns located on the seashore or riverbanks. The main streets of the town
run from north to south or east to west and the cross streets run at right-angles to them, dividing the whole
area into blocks. The presiding deity, commonly a female deity, is installed in the temple build in any
convenient place.
8. Chaturmukha
Chaturmukha type of plan is applicable to all towns starting from the largest town to the smallest village.
The site may be either square or rectangular having four faces. The town is laid out east to west
lengthwise, with four main streets. The temple of the presiding deity will be always at the center.

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MUGHAL CITY FORM
Fatehpur Sikri

After his victories over the Rajputs, Akbar commemorated his achievement by the building of a new capital.
The city was called Fatehpur Sikri and was close to the imperial fort of Agra. Here, within six kilometers of
defensive wall, Akbar built palaces, courts of audience, hunting lodges, mosques and triumphal portals.

The city was abandoned soon after its construction, and the reason for this was the lack of any reliable
water supply for its inhabitants. Its disuse as a city during the Mughal period is the reason why its buildings
have come down to us almost intact, without the changes effected by later emperors on other imperial sites
such as Agra, Allahabad and Delhi.

This means that Akbar’s genius at building can be seen fully here, as also his finely developed aesthetic
sense. Both formally and in their detailing, the buildings at Sikri are a fine blend of Timurid planning and
aesthetics and Rajput art and architecture. Apart from its outer wall, Fatehpur Sikri was not really designed
for a sustained defence, that role being assigned to the fort of Agra close by. The city is situated on a
hilltop, and beyond the walls were the old town, of which little survives today. The highest point of the ridge
is occupied by the main mosque and Sheikh Salim’s dargah. The palace itself, placed across the ridge, is
divided into four principal parts – the daulat khana or treasury in the centre, the haram sara or queen’s
chambers, a princes’ palace and ammunition stocks. Lake
The palace complex itself is dominated by a central court with
water bodies and fountains, in the centre of which is a pavilion for
music.
Fatehpur Sikri itself grants Akbar pride of place as a builder in the
history of India. But there was still more to come – tombs,
mosques, palaces and civil structures. As a remarkable man who
not only won and consolidated political and military power but also
patronized the arts and sciences, Akbar has rightly won the
sobriquet of ‘the Great’.
Site Plan: Fatehpur Sikri

Of the buildings clustered around the court, the diwan-i-am (hall of

public audience) (a), the diwan-i-khas (hall for private audience)
(b), Jodha Bai’s palace (c), Birbal’s palace (d), the Nagina
mosque (f) and the five-storeyed Panch Mahal (g) are noteworthy.
All are disposed around the central court in such a manner as to
recall Gujarati cluster planning.
The diwan-i-khas which is a two-storey building with four chhatris
on top is noted for its great central column, in which radiating
serpentine brackets support the emperor’s dais and throne, from
which four walkways connect it to the sides.

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Town of Shahjahanabad (Delhi)
Shah Jahan after acceding to the throne began to look for suitable terrain on which to build a new
residence. Since in summer it was intolerably hot, it was impossible to return to the ruins of the old towns at
Delhi, since they were too cramped. Fatehpur sikri was also out of the question, since there was no way of
remedying the water shortage. The court astrologers, who although Hindus exerted a considerable
influence, though they had found auspicious terrain on the west bank of the Jumna, to the north of the
towns of Old Delhi. The construction of ‘Red Fort’, lasted for nine years without interruption. Shah Jahan
was an orthodox Muslim. Unlike Akbar, he did not sympathise with other religions, and correspondingly did
not allow his architects to choose between different spatial concepts. During Akbar’s reign architecture was
as flexible as the sovereign’s outlook on the world; Shah Jahan’s architecture was as simple as his
orthodox beliefs. The site plan of the Red Fort is characterized by emphasis on the axial relationship
between successive courts.
The Red Fort at Delhi was evidently planned as a rectangle with sides in the proportion 3:4; in the east it
fronts on the River Jumna, but since an arm of the river would have formed an acute angle with the north
wall, the architect preferred to include this triangular area within the walls of the fort. Only this reason does
the wall have an irregular shape. The southern corners of the rectangle formed by the walls are cut off;
corresponding recesses in the north - western and north - eastern corners.

The palace was divided by its east-west axis into a northern and a southern part, in the proportion 1:1. The
visitor enters the fort along this main axis, on which lie the reception courts. Perpendicular to this it was
planned to build a long bazaar, extending from the south gate to another one in the north; this bazaar
divides the palace in the proportion 1:2. Since the north wall lay along the riverbank, there could be no
north gate and the bazaar from the start lacked the connection it needed with one of the streets of the town.
The northern part of the bazaar thus formed a blind alley; whether it was ever completed or used is open to
doubt.

The area west of the large bazaar, was reserved for the servant’s and soldiers quarters. At the point where
the north-south and east-west axis intersects there is a square court, still accessible to the public. In the
eastern periphery of the fort, on the east-west axis, lie the emperor’s private apartments, which form a
second axis running from north to south; without exception they are oriented towards the Jumna - recalling
a similar alignment in the fort at Agra. Between the northern part of the bazaar and the imperial chambers
there were gardens and offices; to the north of the gardens lay the houses of princes. South of the east-
west axis lay the zenana area.

Hence in Mughal period cities like Agra, Delhi was re-developed. Fatehpur sikri was entirely planned.
Fortification was strengthened in Bijapur, Lucknow. They built many forts in places like Agra, Delhi and
developed beautiful ornamental gardens popularly known as ‘Mughal Gardens’ some of them are still in
good conditions, for e.g. Kabul Bagh at panipat by Babur, Shalimar Bagh and Nishat Bagh by shah Jahan,

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Lal Bagh by Haider Ali. In the same period, other rulers also built beautiful cities like Jaipur and Vijayanagar
with new concepts of town planning.

Moghul Shahajahanabad
Moghul monarch Shahjahan established Shahjahanabad circa 1638 as a capital city from Agra when the
monarchy was at its peak and he its greatest builder. The city for 60000 people, spread across 600
hectares enclosing a wall punctured with seven gates from which radiated highways to all parts of his
empire, was planned on principles prevailing for cities in that era. The city's urban design was an
amalgamated model of Persian, Islamic and Vedic principles. Persia (Safavid empire) enjoyed trade and
diplomatic relations with the Moghuls, and its architects Ustad Hamid and Ustad Ahmed determined the
formalism and symmetry of the Palace complex, gardens and boulevards and even the style of its
buildings. Islamic influences have been inferred from the likeness of Samarkand plan to the
Shahjahanabad one (Islamic cosmology, manmacrocosm anologies; Spine – Chandni Chowk, Ribs-streets,
Head-fort, Heart-Jama Masjid, Organs-Sarai, Wall-skin). The Vedic texts of 16 th century Vastu Shastra
and the Mansara on Architecture and city planning respectively are perceived to have influenced its
settlement geometry as a bow shaped semielliptical (Karmukha ) city located on a river, its axes interpreted
as the bow and the archer's arm, and, its circumferential streets the bow shaft. The junction of the two
axes, an auspicious center, is the Emperors Palace. Scholars have further explored the dimensional
relationships of the city's main elements, and chroniclers have recounted boulevard streets with water
channels, grand mosques, Havelis and gardens of the courtiers, arcaded bazar streets, prominent
localities, baolis, sarais, kotwalis, exclusive garden retreats, baradaris, chhattas kuchas gallis, madrassas,
maktabs, khanqahs, khirkis, ganjs – a host of other elements of the material culture, some still surviving.

Courtyard houses of various scales, complexity and ornamentation signified the owners status and social
ranking; the larger Havelis reproduced a scaled down version of the Palace complex and were self
contained. These Havelis with their spillover dependants building around them formed the nucleus of the
'morally system. Several locality names (Teliwara, Malliwara, Katra Nil, Farashkhana, Ballimaran, Khari
Baoli…) survive in the original, imprinting the associations, images of work settings, caste or social
grouping, or the peculiarities of that area (Khari Baoli saline water stepwell, Chahlpura locality of 40
houses, Chandni Chowk silver square etc). Faiz bazar and Chandni Chowk the two main axes had well
stocked shops of even imported goods. The city had a healthy trade presence. It peaked at 5 lakh
population on the king's death.

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 It is approximately shaped like a quarter circle,
with the Red Fort as the focal point. The old city
was
surrounded by a wall enclosing about 1500 acres,
with several gates:
1. Nigambodh Gate:North/East, leading to
historic Nigambodh ghat on Jamuna
2. Kashmiri Gate: North
3. Mori Gate: North
4. Kabuli gate: West
5. Lahori gate: West
6. Ajmeri Gate: South East, leading to
Ghaziuddin Khan's Madrassa and Connaught
Place, a focal point in New Delhi.
7. Turkman Gate: South East, close to some pre-
Shahjahan remains which got enclosed within the
walls, including the tomb of Hazrat Shah Turkman
Bayabani
8. Delhi Gate: South leading to Feroz Shah Kotla and what was then older habitation of Delhi then. The
surrounding walls, 12 feet wide and 26 feet tall, originally of mud, were replaced by red stone in 1657. In
the Mughal period, the gates were kept locked at night. The walls have now largely disappeared, but most
of the gates are still present. The township of old Delhi is still identifiable in a satellite image because of
density of houses. The famous Khooni Darwaza south of Delhi Gate, was just outside the walled city, it was
originally constructed by Sher Shah Suri.

TOWN PLANNING IN MODERN INDIA IN CONTEXT OF BRITISH TIMES

A prosperous town is normally situated along a sea or river coast. India was the centre – piece of the British
Empire on account of – limit less material resources, insatiable markets, and enormous man power
resource. These attributes funded Britain industrialization making India- the Jewel in the Crown. Both the
architectural style for British buildings in India and town planning ideas were imported from British.
Colonization brought urbanization. It rise density in the urban centres. Urbanization led to the rise of the
suburb. The arrival of the railways accelerated urban growth. Calcutta, Bombay and Madras grew rapidly
and soon became sprawling cities. In other words, the growth of these three cities as the new commercial
and administrative centres was at the expense of other existing urban centres. As the hub of the colonial
economy, they functioned as collection depots for the export of Indian manufactures such as cotton textiles
in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. After the Industrial Revolution in England, this trend was
reversed and these cities instead became the entry point for British-manufactured goods and for the export
of Indian raw materials. The nature of this economic activity sharply differentiated these colonial cities from
India’s traditional towns and urban settlements.

The introduction of railways in 1853 meant a change in the fortunes of towns. Economic activity gradually
shifted away from traditional towns which were located along old routes and rivers. Every railway station
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became a collection depot for raw materials and a distribution point for imported goods. For instance,
Mirzapur on the Ganges, which specialised in collecting cotton and cotton goods from the Deccan, declined
when a railway link was made to Bombay. With the expansion of the railway network, railway workshops
and railway colonies were established. Railway towns like Jamalpur, Waltair and Bareilly developed.

The nature of the colonial city changed further in mid-nineteenth century. After the Revolt of 1857 British
attitudes in India were shaped by a constant fear of rebellion. They felt that towns needed to be better
defended, and white people had to live in more secure and segregated enclaves, away from the threat of
the “natives”. Pasturelands and agricultural fields around the older towns were cleared, and new urban
spaces called “Civil Lines” were set up. White people began to live in the Civil Lines. Cantonments– places
where Indian troops under European command were stationed – were also developed as safe enclaves.
These areas were separate from but attached to the Indian towns. With broad streets, bungalows set
amidst large gardens, barracks, parade ground and church, they were meant as a safe heaven for
Europeans as well as a model of ordered urban life in contrast to the densely builtup Indian towns.

For the British, the “Black” areas came to symbolise not only chaos and anarchy, but also filth and disease.
For a long while the British were interested primarily in the cleanliness and hygiene of the “White” areas.
But as epidemics of cholera and plague spread, killing thousands, colonial officials felt the need for more
stringent measures of sanitation and public health. They feared that disease would spread from the “Black”
to the “White” areas. From the 1860s and 1870s, stringent administrative measures regarding sanitation
were implemented and building activity in the Indian towns was regulated. Underground piped water supply
and sewerage and drainage systems were also put in place around this time. Sanitary vigilance thus
became another way of regulating Indian towns.

LUTYENS' DELHI
Lutyens Built
 Rashtrapati Bhavan
 Four bungalows inside the President’s Estate
 India Gate
 Hyderabad and Baroda palaces at India Gate
Unsung Heroes
Robert Tor Russell built Connaught Place, the Eastern and Western Courts, Teen Murti House, Safdarjung
Airport, National Stadium and over 4,000 government houses. E. Montague Thomas designed and built the
first secretariat building of New Delhi which set a style for the bungalows. Herbert Baker made seven
bungalows and the North and South Blocks. The other bungalows of New Delhi are the work of architects
like W.H. Nicholls, C.G. and F.B. Blomfield, Walter Sykes George, Arthur Gordon Shoosmith and Henry
Medd. Lord Hardinge insisted on roundabouts (Lutyens had initially designed the streets at right angles),
hedges and trees (Lutyens said the trees wouldn’t survive) and demanded the Raisina Hill site for the
Viceroy’s House (Lutyens preferred a more southern setting closer to Malcha). Hardinge also insisted on a
Mughalstyle garden for Viceroy’s House (Lutyens was keen on an English garden with ‘artless’ natural
planting).Using P.H. Clutterbuck’s list of Indian trees, W.R. Mustoe, director of horticulture, was actually

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responsible for the roadside planting work for New Delhi’s avenues. It was Mustoe and Walter Sykes
George who landscaped and planted Lutyens’ Mughal Garden. Swinton Jacob, advisor on Indian materials
and ornaments, suggested raising the ground level of Rashtrapati Bhavan, on a carefully studied contour
plan.

Lutyens’ Delhi" is used indiscriminately to include the work of all the other brilliant architects who worked to
build New Delhi in the 1930s. The only four bungalow-residences designed by Edwin Lutyens, for the
private secretary, surgeon general, military secretary, and comptroller, lie hidden within the security zone of
the President’s Estate. So how can history bury all the bungalows and buildings which are the work of other
architects? Robert Tor Russell built Connaught Place, the Eastern and Western Courts, the commander-in
chief’s house (now Teen Murti House), Delhi’s Safdarjung Airport, Irwin Amphitheatre (now the National
Stadium), and over 4,000 government houses—and not many even know Russell’s name.

The other bungalows of New Delhi are the work of prominent architects like W.H. Nicholls, C.G. and F.B.
Blomfield, Walter Sykes George, Arthur Gordon Shoosmith (from Lutyens’ office), and Henry Medd. Herbert
Baker made seven bungalows or ‘bungle-ohs’—as Lutyens described them to make fun of him. Ironically,
these same ‘bungle-ohs’ are now attributed and credited to Lutyens himself! Baker also designed the North
and South Blocks.

City Plan
Even Lutyens’ layout plan cannot be considered original. He had initially designed a city with all the streets
crossing at right angles, much like New York. But Hardinge told him of the dust storms that sweep the
landscape in these parts, insisting on roundabouts, hedges and trees to break their force, giving him the
plans of Paris and Washington to study and apply to Delhi. The final plan borrows from many other town
plans and from earlier plans for New Delhi. Roderick Gradidge writes, "Although the plan was a group
effort, it has often been attributed to Lutyens, and there is no doubt that he was a powerful influence in its
creation."

Choice of Site
Lord Hardinge had suggested that the Imperial Delhi Committee consider Raisina, a dramatic rocky outcrop
abutting the Ridge, as a site for Government House. John Brodie favoured this site as well. Lutyens,
however, proclaimed that if the committee’s tentative proposal for a site between Malcha and Raisina was
abandoned, he would side with Swinton Jacob in favour of Malcha. On 4 November, 1912, the viceroy,
accompanied by three engineers, T.R.J. Ward, W.B. Gordon and C.E.V. Goument, visited all the proposed
sites and concluded that "Raisina was the best for Government House". The engineers agreed
unanimously with this view. So the site was not chosen by Lutyens who had preferred a more southern
setting towards Malcha.

A Commanding Stature
It was Swinton Jacob, advisor on Indian materials and ornaments, who suggested raising the ground level
of Government House (or Viceroy’s House), on a carefully studied contour plan—not Lutyens. Placed on

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the ground, it would have been less grandiose. The plinth was raised by over three metres (10 feet), and
this was to enshrine forever the stunning eastern view along the axis, right up to Purana Qila (Old Fort). But
unfortunately, a later decision by the viceroy to build Irwin Stadium to perpetuate his name (now called
National Stadium) at the end of the vista has blocked this dramatically symbolic axis forever. However, after
giving both shape and stature to Lutyens’ building (which was never acknowledged), Swinton Jacob
realized Lutyens’ stubbornness in taking advice and resigned saying he had ‘no courage to withstand’
public criticism for what might eventually happen. At that point an all-Roman building was feared. But
Hardinge pursued Jacob’s concern and saw to the Indianising of the structure.

Materials
The use of the superb rhubarb-red and beige-pink sandstones for Rashtrapati Bhavan is also credited to
Lutyens. But, he had actually opposed it in favour of white marble as used in the Taj Mahal. He could
hardly have been aware that in white he too would have built a mausoleum. In fact, sandstone was
suggested by the geological department, which got no credit but only received brickbats for the sandstone’s
heat-retentive qualities!

Land-Use
The late Satish Grover, a former head of the Department of Architecture at the Delhi School of Planning
and Architecture writes: "In the Bungalow Zone the population density is 12 to 15 people per acre; in the old
walled city of Delhi it is 1,500 people per acre." Today the bungalow zone serves as the lungs of New Delhi,
and the density is lower perhaps than any other planned city. This has less to do with the planners’
farsightedness, as is imagined, and more to do with practical constraints. Let it not be forgotten that these
disproportionately large gardens were a design compromise to overcome a diminished budget and yet
cover the maximum land area with about half the number of houses.

The Mughal Garden

Lutyens was keen on doing an English garden with ‘artless’ natural planting and in this view his friend and
mentor Gertrude Jekyll had supported him. Hardinge forced him to travel and see the Mughal gardens of
Agra, Lahore, and Srinagar. Constance Villiers-Stuart’s pioneering research on Indian water-gardens was
also introduced to Lutyens by Hardinge. But almost as if not to acknowledge his influences, Lutyens called
it not the Mughal, but the ‘formal Indian garden’. It was Mustoe and Walter Sykes George who landscaped
and planted Lutyens’ Mughal Garden where there were 17 miles of hedges to maintain!

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BHUVANESHWAR PLANNING:
The city has a history of over 3,000 years starting with the Mahamegha-bahanaChedi dynasty (around the
2nd century BCE) which had its capital at Sisupalgarh, nearby. Bhubaneswar, derived its name
from Tribhubaneswar, which literally means the Lord (Eeswar) of the Three World (Tribhuban). It is the
largest city in Odisha and is a centre of economic and religious importance in Eastern India.
With many Hindu temples, which span the entire spectrum of Kalinga architecture, Bhubaneswar is often
referred to as a Temple City of India and together with Puri and Konark it forms
the SwarnaTribhuja ("Golden Triangle"), one of eastern India's most visited destinations.
Bhubaneswar replaced Cuttack as the capital in 1948, the year after India gained
its independence from Britain. The modern city was designed by the German architect Otto Königsberger in
1946. Along with Jamshedpur and Chandigarh, it was one of modern India's first planned cities.
Bhubaneswar and Cuttack are often referred to as the twin-cities of Odisha.

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Urban Structure:
The city has two distinct divisions namely the Old town and
the New Capital. The following stages have affected the
structure of the city.
 The temple town (upto 1948)
 The New Capital (1948-1956)
 Growth of institutions (1956-1976)
 Developments in organised sector (976 onwards)
 The Present Bhubaneswar
The city is somewhat dumbbell-shaped with most of the growth
taking place to the north, northeast and southwest. The north–
south axis of the city is widest, at roughly 22.5 kilometres.

Growth in the east is restricted due to the presence of Kuakhairiver and by the wildlife sanctuary in the
north western part. The city can be broadly divided into the old town, planned city (or state capital), added
areas and outer peripheral areas. The city is subdivided into Units and Colonies.
The Temple town (1948)

The Old temple town had been the seat of a continous culture of about 2500 years.
It covers an area of 510 ha and comprises of 4 villages namely kapil Prasad,
Bhubaneswar, Goutam Nagar and Rajarani.
The old city is featured by conglomeration of temples, monuments, mandapas,
heritage ponds etc.
Initially, the old city had 1000 temples and at present, the total temples are limited
to 320. The old town or "Temple Town", the oldest part of the city, is
characterised
Majority of the existing by manyrapidly temples,
temples are deteriorating including
and the precious stone
theLingaraj, Rajarani,
carvings are also in damaged condition. and Muktesvara temples, standing
alongside residential areas. This area is congested, with
narrow roads and poor infrastructure.[20] Among
neighbourhoods in the old town are Rajarani Colony, Pandav
Nagar, BrahmeswarBagh, Lingaraj Nagar, Gouri Nagar,
Bhimatanki and Kapileswar.
The New Capital(1948-56)
On 13th april 1948, Bhubaneswar got back its status when the foundation stone of the present capital
township was laid by Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru.

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Bhubaneswar was born as the new capital of Odisha in close proximity of the old temple town, the master
plan for the new township was prepared by the famous architect Dr.Otto H Koenisberger in 1954 on the
basis of the concept of neighbourhood unit planning.
The capital town was planned in 1948 and was built between 1948 – 1961 at a respectful distance from the
temple town with no conscious steps taken to preserve the individual identities of each.
The city grew fast and the intervening areas were filled up quickly.
Planning Principles
Design of New capital city is based on the system of Neighbourhood planning concept.

It is subdivided into units, each with a high school, shopping centers,

dispensaries and play areas. While most of the units house
government employees, Unit V houses the administrative buildings,
including the State Secretariat, State Assembly, and the Raj Bhavan.
Private residential areas were later built in other areas of the planned
city, including Shaheed Nagar and Satya Nagar. Unit I, popularly
known as the Market Building, was formed to cater to the shopping
needs of the new capital's residents. Later, markets and commercial
establishments developed along the Janpath and Cuttack-Puri
Road at Saheed Nagar, Satya Nagar, Bapuji Nagar and Ashok Nagar.
A dedicated institutional area houses educational and research
institutes, including Utkal University, the Institute of Physics,
the Institute of Minerals and Materials Technology and Sainik School.
Indira Gandhi Park, Gandhi Park and the BijuPatnaik Park are located
in the unit. Koenigsberger suggested seven types of roads –
1. Footpaths, 2. Parkways, 3. Cycle paths, 4. Arterial
Road (200ft wide with 10ft wide foot-path) 5. Major Unit
Road (150 ft wide), 6. Major Housing Street (100ft wide),
7. Minor Housing Street (40 ft wide) for seven groups of
users for seven different functions.
The overall width of land allotted for road purposes was, therefore, dependent on the
heights of houses on both sides. The overall widths of land earmarked for roads and
streets were not determined by traffic alone but also by requirements for storm water
drainage services life overhead electric lines, telephone, water and the need of
adequate light and air to the adjoining houses.

City with Heritage Sites

At one time Bhubaneswar had about 7000 temples. Since the 3rd century BC numerous temples and caves
propagating different faiths such as Hinduism, Buddhism, Vaisavnism and Jainism had flourished which are
depicted in numerous temples and caves. These temples and caves are the areas of heritage importance.

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Most of the temples and caves are concentrated in the old town area. Historically, this old city is regarded
as the ‘Ekamraskshetra’. The heritage area spreads over an area of 510 Ha and consist of four villages
namely Kapilprasad, Bhubaneswar, Goutam Nagar and Raja Rani. The old city is featured by
conglomeration of temples, monuments, mandaps, heritage ponds etc. Initially, the old city had 1000
temples and at present, the total temples are limited to 320. Majority of the existing temples are
deteriorating rapidly and the precious stone carvings are also in damaged condition.

GANDHINAGAR PLANNING:

Gandhinagar is one of the most important cities of Western India. Gujarat’s planned capital
city is green, has wide roads, organised sectors and spacious residential, recreational and educational
hubs. GANDHINAGAR, Gujarat’s capital city, was planned by chief architect H.K. Mewada and his
assistant Prakash Madhusudan Apte.
The cultural heart of Gujarat, Gandhinagar is spacious and has a well-organised look of an architecturally
integrated city. Gandhinagar is one of the three planned cities of India, and is located on the banks of the
river Sabarmati. It is the administrative centre of Gandhinagar district, and is one of the greenest capital
cities. Both Mewada and Apte had worked as trainees under legendary architect Le Corbusier in the
Chandigarh Project in the 1950s.
In 1960, the erstwhile Bombay state was bifurcated into the present states of
Maharashtra and Gujarat. It was then decided to build an entirely new capital
for Gujarat. The main city is designed on the west bank of the river, land has a
gentle sloping from north-east to south-west. At the time an influential group
of architects from Ahmedabad, with the active support of certain industrialists,
had tried to usurp the job by bringing the American architect Louis Kahn who

was in Ahmedabad to design the buildings of the management institute. The state government however
was determined to have the city designed by Indian town planners in the best traditions of Gujarat’s rich
heritage of town planning and principles of Mahatma Gandhi, who had his Ashram just south of the new
site on the banks of the river Sabarmati. The government therefore persisted with its choice of the two men
to plan the new capital.
Stages of Development

The city has developed in four distinct phases:

Phase 1: After the city’s infrastructure was completed in 1970, and until 1960 it was known as ‘Gandhian
City’ since it was based on Gandhi’s concepts and principles.
Phase 2: Between 1980 and 1990, a time of low pollution it was known as “Unpolluted City”.
Phase 3: After 1990, many trees were planted, and the city becomes “the Green City”.
Phase 4: In 2002, Gujarat’s Chief Minister, Narendra Modi, proposed a new triple focus for the city. It
should be green, it should utilise solar energy, and it should be cosmopolitan.

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 According to Mr.Meveda, the
need was on the one hand,
to present Gandhinagar to
the public as a small low –
density. Settlement, a
Garden City; and on the
other hand to retain all the
land that the Government
had acquired. Knowing that
in reality the population
figure they were planning for
was more than double the
figure presented the public.

Evolution of Plan Form:

Functionally Gandhinagar is the capital city and therefore is predominantly the administrative center of the
state, though gradually it is acquiring important civic and cultural function.
Conceptually the major work areas are provided in the centre and other works areas are distributed along
the major town roads.

The city is divided into 30 sectors, into which the city has been divided, stretch around the central
government complex. Each sector has its own shopping and community centre, primary school, health
centre, and government and private housing.

There is a provision for parks, extensive plantation and a recreational area along the river giving the city a
green garden-city atmosphere. The main work areas in the city are: Capital Complex and Government
Offices, Light Industries Areas, City Centre, Public Institutions Area, Shopping, Commercial and
Warehousing area and IT Parks.

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The government selected Mewada to design Gandhinagar along with Apte as the town planner. Apte had
studied the local architecture and Gujarat’s ‘pole’ culture and tried to emulate the character while planning
the various sectors of the city.
The primary module of city’s design is a sector, a neighbourhood unit of size 800mts x1200mts.
Each sector is a self-sufficient unit having shops, schools, health centres and places of recreation and
worship.

Jaipur City: Town Planning

Jaipur city was planned with great precision and was designed as per the ancient Hindu treatise, Shilp
Shastra. It was built in the form of a rectangle, divided into blocks (Chowkries) with roads and avenues
running parallel to the sides. The layout of the streets was based on a mathematical grid of nine squares,
representing the ancient Hindu map of the universe, with the sacred Mt. Meru, the abode of Lord Shiva,
occupying the central square. A 'nine square' subdivision of space also helps to utilize the central space for
the privileged use and relate it visually and mathematically to the surrounding area as well. This
arrangement also makes it convenient to undertake vertical constructions. The place sector or the Chowkri
Sarhad, with major monuments of the city is located at the centre of the old city. The 3×3 square grid was
also modified by relocating the NW square in the SE, allowing the hill fort of Nahargarh to overlook and
protect the city. At the SE and SW corner of the city were square with pavilions and ornamental fountains.
The blocks were well defined by broad running at right angles to each other, three of them running north -
south and intersecting the main 3.5 km. long east - west exis. The three junctions thus formed were named
from east to west as Amber Chowk, Manak Chowk and Ramganj Chaupad.

The width of the main roads in the city was kept around 108 ft. or 72 hastas (cubits). Some of the lesser
roads were half this width, the others one fourth. It is quite interesting to note that all the roads were not
built on a standard width, but the concept of hierarchy of roads was utilized to the fullest. The entire city
was also surrounded by a crenellated masonry wall, measuring 20 ft. in height and 9 ft. in thickness. It
could be entered through 7 huge gateways: Dhruvapol (Zorawar Singh Gate) on the north, Gangapol and
Surajpol on the east, Rampol (Ghat Gate), Shivapol (Sanganeri Gate) and Kishan pol (Ajmeri Gate) on the
south, and Chandpol on the west.

Jaipur differs from most other Indian cities, which were subject to haphazard growth. Here, town planning
was carefully practiced and separate areas for markets, residences and guidelines were provided by the
State even for the construction of private residential buildings, so much so that the building line, the height
of the ground floor and buildings were controlled. The prevailing environment encouraged the richer
classes to incorporate architectural elements like jharokhas, jalis, chhajjas, chhatris and todas which
contributed in the beautification of the city.

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Military Reasons
Defence was an important consideration. A site at the South of Amber ensured greater distance from Delhi
and also prevented the expansion of the city in that direction. It was clear that the out skirting hill ranges
(Nahargarh hills) shaped as a horseshoe would allow the new city to expand only in the South. So this flat
site with a basin like shape was chosen. It was an open plain bounded on the north-west and east by hills.
Earlier Rajput capitals were established in the hills, and so moving capital to the plains was an ex of Sawan
Jai Singh's boldness.
Geographical Reasons
 The rocky terrain of Amber restricted expansion.
 Jaipur had the potentialities of developing into a city with adequate drinking water due to the
presence of a perennial stream nearby and good drainage system. Its rugged hills also ensured a
constant supply of building material, which might be required in the times to come

Two significant facts responsible for the origin of the city and its subsequent layout:
 The need of a new capital for 18th century Dhoondhar as the earlier one of Amber built on a hill
was getting congested.
 Sawai Raja Jai Singh’s vision of the new capital as a strong political statement at par with Mughal
cities and as a thriving trade and commerce hub for the region.
The site with the natural east west ridge and the surrounding forts as defense feature

The site selected for establishing the new capital of Jaipur was a valley located south of Amber and the
plains beyond, a terrain that was the bed of a dried lake. There used to be dense forest cover to the north
and the east of the city.
The physical constraints that informed the building of Jaipur city included the hills on the north that housed
the fort of Jaigarh and the Amber palace beyond, and the hills on the east, which contained the sacred spot
of Galtaji.
To facilitate water supply to the new city, the Darbhavati river in the north was dammed to create the Jai
Sagar and Man Sagar (that later housed the Jal Mahal) lakes. Later the Jhotwara River in the north west
was diverted through the Amani Shah Nallah and a number of canals were channelized through
Brahmapuri and Jai Niwas to supply water to the city.

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UNIT 3 THEORISING AND READING URBAN SPACE

Ideas of Imageability and townscape: Cullen, Lynch- place and genius loci- collective memory-
historic reading of the city and its artefacts: Rossi- social aspects of urban space: life on streets
and between buildings, gender and class, Jane Jacobs, William Whyte
INTRODUCTION:
The theory of Imageability from Kevin Lynch (1960) is still discussed and applied because it widened the
scope of urban design and planning practice by considering qualities of main urban elements that are
paths, nodes, edges, landmarks and districts. Lynch’s theory of imageability put emphasis on the
component of ‘identity’ and ‘structure’ of the urban elements as two important factors in affecting
environmental image, before ‘meaning’. Lynch put less emphasis on the factor of ‘meaning’ because it
bears an un-fixed and relatively definitions based on the reader’s categorization in society and culture.

KEVIN LYNCH’S THEORY OF IMAGEABILITY:

Lynch’s theory of imageability is discussing the quality of cities according to the legibility factor of the
elements that are perceived by the observers. The term ‘visible’, which he calls as ‘legible’, is a visual
quality that can be understood through studying mental images as a result of people’s memories and
meanings (Lynch 1960).
The urban elements are read or analyzed into three categories: identity, structure, and meaning. His
study focuses on the two most communicable dimension of the conversation of observer and environment,
which are identity and structure.
 Identity means a distinction from other objects;
 Structure means a relationship to larger pattern of other elements, and
 Meaning means a practical and emotional value for the observer.
It requires first the identification of the elements from others, second the relationship to others, and the last
is its meaning. The first and second are the most legible/visible of the physical elements in cities, while the
third is very relative in cultures.
Lynch highlights the five major elements in cities that enhance the imageability, which are paths, edges,
districts, nodes, and landmarks (Lynch 1960). Paths; it is the most legible element in the city image. The
observer walks along the linear form, such as streets, walkways, canals or railroads. Observers experience
the city while moving through it. The path element creates a relation arrangement and relation among other
elements. Edges; these create a boundary between two or more close regions or districts, linear breaks in
continuity. It could be shores, railroad cuts, and walls. The element is not as strong as paths, but for
observers it is an important character in organizing features. Districts are groups of urban landscapes that
have a similar or common character, which observers could mentally experience ‘inside of ’. The observer
always identifies from the inside with exterior reference from the outside. Nodes are points; they can be an
intersections or junctions between paths where observers can enter the points, for example an enclosed
square. It is a break of movement transportation. Landmarks are points of reference that simply defined a
physical object: signs, buildings, mountains, or shops. Some elements can be seen at a distance, but some
are very simple objects that are familiar to the observers.

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These elements must be patterned together as nets of paths, clusters of landmarks, or mosaics of districts
with sometimes overlapped and interrelated elements. Each element is only a raw material of a city form. In
the urban context, all elements operate together. Images may differ from time to time, season-to-season
and day-to-day.
‘The five elements paths, edges, districts, nodes, and landmarks must be considered simply as convenient
empirical categories, within and around which it has been possible to group a mass of information’. The
description of each element is as follows: -
Paths; it is the most legible element in the city image. The observer walks along the linear form, such as
streets, walkways, canals or railroads. Observers experience the city while moving through it. The path
element creates a relation arrangement and relation among other elements. –
Edges; these create a boundary between two or more close regions or districts, linear breaks in continuity.
It could be shores, railroad cuts, and walls. The element is not as strong as paths, but for observers it is an
important character in organizing features. –

Districts; are groups of urban landscapes that have a similar or common character, which observers could
mentally experience ‘inside of’. –
Nodes; are points; they can be intersections or junctions between paths where observers can enter the
points, for example, an enclosed square. It is a break in movement transportation. –
Landmarks; are points of reference that simply defined a physical object: signs, buildings, mountains, or
shops. Some elements can be seen at a distance, but some are very simple objects that are familiar to the
observers.

GORDON CULLEN’S CONCISE TOWNSCAPE:

He was an English architect, an urban designer who carried on the of the Townscape movement theme.
Later on he wrote and published the “Townscape” book in 1961. He was a key motivator and activist in the
development of British theories of urban design in the post-war period. After his death, David Gosling &
Norman Foster collected various examples of his work and put them together in the book ‘Visions of Urban
Design’.
Gordon Cullen gets famous by the Concise Townscape Theory. The “Townscape” book, one of Gordon
Cullen’s masterpieces, illustrated with over 300 works selected from the drawings Gordon Cullen made
during his lifetime, this anthology documents his influential career as an Urban Theorist, artist and illustrator
from 1930 to 1990. The majority of his drawings have never been published before except in professional
reports, and this book contains numerous drawings executed for the pleasure of observation as well as the
product of his many consultancies.
Serial Vision Serial Vision is to walk from one end of the plan to another, at a uniform pace, will provide a
sequence of revelations which are suggested in the serial drawings opposite, reading from left to right.
Place Place description is in a world of black and white the roads are for movement and the buildings for
social and business purposes.

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Content Content concerned with the intrinsic quality of the various subdivisions of the environment, and
start with the great landscape categories of metropolis, town, arcadia, and park, industrial, arable and wild
nature.
Focal Point Focal point is the idea of the town as a place of assembly, of social intercourse, of meeting,
was taken for granted throughout the whole of human civilization up to the twentieth century.
Closure Closure, may be differentiated from Enclosure, by contrasting ‘travel’ with ‘arrival’. Closure is the
cutting up of the linear town system (streets, passages, etc.) into visually digestible and coherent amounts
whilst retaining the sense of progression. Enclosure on the other hand provides a complete private world
which is inward looking, static and self-sufficient.
Street Lighting Here we are concerned with the impact of a modern public lighting installation on towns
and not, primarily, with the design of fittings. Naturally it is impossible to disassociate the two since, as in all
townscape, we are concerned with two aspects: first, intrinsic design and second, the relationship or putting
together of things designed.

Outdoor Publicity One contribution to modern townscape, startlingly conspicuous everywhere you look,
but almost entirely ignored by the town planner, is street outdoor publicity. This is the most characteristic,
and, potentially, the most valuable, contribution of the twentieth century to urban scenery. At night it has
created a new landscape of a kind never before seen in history.
Here and There The practical result of so articulating the town into identifiable parts is that no sooner do
we create a HERE than we have to admit a THERE, and it is precisely in the manipulation of these two
spatial concepts that a large part of urban drama arises.
Man-made enclosure, if only of the simplest kind, divides the environment into HERE and THERE. On this
side of the arch, in Ludlow, we are in the present, uncomplicated and direct world, our world. The other side
is different, having in some small way a life of its own (a with-holding).

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GENIUS LOCI – SCHULZ

Each city has a unique ‘spirit of place,’ or a distinctive atmosphere, that goes beyond the built environment.
This urban context reflects how a city functions in ‘real time’ as people move through time and space.
Viewed through this lens, the architecture and physical infrastructure of a city give way to the rhythms of
the passing of the day and transition of the seasons. This provides the ‘temporal spectacles’ that define a
city.

This context of a city is more formally known as ‘genius loci,’ or the genetic footprint of a place. Latin for
‘the genius of the place,’ this phrase refers to classical Roman concept of the protective spirit of a place. In
contemporary usage, genius loci usually refer to a location’s distinctive atmosphere, or the afore-mentioned
‘spirit of place,’ rather than a guardian spirit.

The concept of genius loci falls within the philosophical branch of ‘architectural phenomenology.’ This field
of architectural discourse is most notably explored by the theorist Christian Norberg-Schulz in his book,
Genius Loci: Towards a Phenomenology of Architecture.

Norberg-Schulz and Genius Loci

 The Norwegian architect and phenomenologist Christian Norberg-Schulz is a key theorist in

elucidating the concept of genius loci, which he explores in several works spanning three decades.
 In his 1963 thesis, his original intention was to investigate the psychology of architecture (Norberg-
Schulz, 1963).
 Norberg-Schulz (1980) explores the character of places on the ground and their meanings for
people, Norberg-Schulz uses a concept of townscape (although not as Cullen defined it) to denote
skyline or image.
 He sees the skyline of the town and the horizontally expanded silhouette of the urban buildings as
keys to the image of a place.
 He promotes the traditional form of towns and buildings, which he sees as the basis for bringing
about a deeper symbolic understanding of places (Norberg-Schulz, 1985).
 The concept of genius loci is described as representing the sense people have of a place,
understood as the sum of all physical as well as symbolic values in nature and the human
environment.

Concept – “genius loci”

In Norberg-Schulz’s description of the genius loci, as well as in his own use of the concept, four thematic
levels can be recognized: the topography of the earth’s surface; the cosmological light conditions
and the sky as natural conditions; buildings; symbolic and existential meanings in the cultural
landscape.
1. The natural conditions of a place are understood as being based on features in the
topographical landscape, including a cosmological and temporal perspective that includes
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 continual changes of light and vegetation in the annual cycle. These characteristic rhythmic
fluctuations contrast with the stability of physical form. This is the genius loci as a place in nature
that we have to interpret when we are changing our built environment (Norberg-Schulz, 1980).
2. Norberg-Schulz gives a special place in this conception of the genius loci to natural conditions,
distinguishing three basic landscape characters: romantic, cosmic and classical (Norberg-Schulz,
1980; 1985). These are also understandable as ideal types.
3. Both buildings and the symbolic meaning of a settlement are important for the genius loci
concept as expressions of society’s cultural interpretation of place. Norberg-Schulz’s analyses
range from visual impressions to the lived or experienced realm.
4. His four methodological stages—‘image’, ‘space’, ‘character’ and ‘genius loci’—illustrate
people’s experience of the physical environment. His aim, however, is to achieve the atmosphere,
light conditions and sense-related experiences of the genius loci.
5. Nature, he feels, is the basis for people’s interpretation and it is in relation to nature that places
and objects take on meaning. He discusses the way in which morphological and cosmic
connections are given physical expression in society’s dwelling and living. He seeks meaning and
symbolic function by understanding the systematic pattern of the settlement. In summary, Norberg-
Schulz conceives of people’s life world as a basis for orientation and identity (Norberg-Schulz,
1980, 1985).

COLLECTIVE MEMORY- HISTORIC READING OF THE CITY AND ITS ARTEFACTS: ROSSI

Aldo Rossi, a practicing architect and leader of the Italian architectural movement La Tendenza, is also one
of the most influential theorists writing today. Rossi is regarded as an intellectual critic on the failure of the
modern movement to realise its projected utopia. In the context of modern architecture Rossi tried to find
out a solution to the problem – ‘what should be the inner logic of the whole structure of a town’? ‘The
Architecture of the City’ is his major work of architectural and urban theory.

To consider the city as architecture means to recognize the importance of architecture as a discipline that
has a self-determining autonomy. Here architecture does not mean the visible image of the city and the
sum of its different architectures but architecture as a construction of the city overtime. This process of
construction link the past and present and thus it addresses the ultimate and definitive fact in the life of the
collective, the creation of the environment in which it lives. To Rossi, architecture is inseparable from life
and society. People create them with an intention of aesthetic and the creation of better surrounding for life.
This intention also goes with the creation of cities.

City and its architecture, i.e. construction, is an originator of the contrast between particular and universal,
between individual and collective. This contrast is manifested itself through the relationship between the
building and spheres of public and private, between the rational design of urban architecture and the values
of locus or place. Rossi wants to consider a city as a unified element - as an overall synthesis of its different
parts. At the same time he recognises the need of realizing a city by parts, i.e. a singular place, a locus

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solus. City and its parts are always undergoing some changes due to natural and man-made reasons. In
this process of urban dynamics monuments are the fixed points and the only sign of the collective will.

In order to develop a program for the development of urban science Rossi tried to translate the points
specified by Ferdinand de Saussure (1966) for the development of linguistics. However, Rossi dwells
particularly on historical problems and methods of describing urban artefacts, on the relationship between
the local factors and the construction of urban artefacts, and on the identification of the principal forces at
play in the city in a permanent and universal way.

In order to develop a program for the development of urban science Rossi tried to translate the points
specified by Ferdinand de Saussure (1966) for the development of linguistics. However, Rossi dwells
particularly on historical problems and methods of describing urban artefacts, on the relationship between
the local factors and the construction of urban artefacts, and on the identification of the principal forces at
play in the city in a permanent and universal way.

Finally Rossi tried to identify the political problems of the city. He thinks of such problems as one criterion to
study the dynamics of the ideal cities and urban utopias. To him the history of architecture and built urban
artefacts are always the history of the architecture of the ruling classes and the revolutionary impose of
alternative proposals for organizing the city. In his view without outlining an overall frame of reference for
the history of the study of the city there remain two major systems for studying the city. They are, one that
considers the city as the product of the generative functional systems of its architecture and thus of urban
space. In this system the city is derived from an analysis of political, social and economical systems and is
treated from the view point of these disciplines. The second one considers city as a spatial structure, which
system belongs more to architecture and geography. Rossi identifies himself with the second view point but
also draws on those facts from the first which raise significant questions.

Urban Artefact as a work of Art:

Rossi is primarily concerned with the form of a city which is the summary of its architecture. Two different
hypotheses are taken here to mean the architecture of the city. Firstly Rossi finds city as a manmade
object, a work of engineering and architecture. Second, certain more limited but still crucial aspects of the
city, such as urban artefacts, which like the city itself are characterized by their own history and thus by
their own form. Rossi’s direct rejection of function shows his preferences to explain the city form as an
object of art. He emphasizes here that functions are dominated by form and this forms determine the
individuality of every urban artefacts. The urban artefacts such as a building, a street, a district are
considered as a work of art, which are the manifestations of social and religious life. He stated that there is
something in the nature of urban artefacts that renders them very similar and not only metaphorically - to a
work of art. Urban artefacts are material constructions, but they are something different form the material;
‘although they are conditioned, they also condition’. To him urban artefacts and the city itself can be
considered as an art for their link to their quality, their uniqueness, their analysis etc. It also appeared
difficult to him to explain the underlying principles of their variety.

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Rossi argues that ‘since every function can be articulated through a form, and forms in turn contain the
potential to exist as urban artefacts, so forms tend to allow themselves to be articulated as urban elements.
It is precisely a form that persists through a set of transformations which constitute an urban artefact per
excellence. He thinks function cannot be indicated as a principal issue in relation to cities like individuality,
locus, memory, design itself. His study is a denial of the explanation of the urban artefact in terms of
function. He rejects the concept of functionalism, which is dictated by an ingenious empiricism that holds
‘functions bring form together’. So he thinks urban artefacts even the city itself is free from rigid rules of
functions, on the other hand, all their forms are capable to incorporate function with some alternations and
transformations if required.

Theory of Permanence:

Rossi’s ideas support the theory of permanence as proposed by Lavendan (1926). This theory is related to
Rossi’s hypothesis of the city as a giant man-made object produced in the process of time. Thus evolves
Rossi’s ‘Concept of Permanence’, which affects collective and individual artefacts in the city in different
ways. Rossi thinks ‘urban history’ is the most useful way to study urban structure. The persistence of the
city is revealed through ‘monuments’ as well as through the city’s basic layout and the plans. Cities tried to
retain their axis of development by maintaining the position of their original layout and growing according to
the direction and meaning of their older artefacts. However permanence may be ‘propelling’ or
‘Pathological’. Artefacts help to perceive the city in totality or may appear as an isolated element as a part
of urban system. A monument becomes propelling when it survives precisely because of their form which
accommodates different functions over time. When an artefact stands virtually isolated in the city and adds
nothing, it is pathological. However, in both cases, the urban artefacts are a part of the city.

City as a spatial system:

City is conceived as a spatial system composed of many parts. Residential area is one of such elements in
the total form of the city. It is closely attached to nature and evolution of a city, and constitutes the city’s
image. According to Rossi this part and whole character of a city challenge an aspect of functionalist theory
i.e. zoning. He considers the specialized zones are characteristics of a city and may have their autonomous
parts. Their distribution in the city is determined by the entire historical process but not on function.

Primary Element and their dynamics:

One of the important concepts derived by Rossi is the identification of the ‘Primary Elements’ of a city. The
urban elements those function as nuclei of aggregation and are dominant in nature are primary elements.
These are capable of accelerating the process of urbanization in a city and they also characterize the
process of spatial transformation in an area larger than the city. These elements play a permanent role in
the evolution of the city overtime and constitute the physical structure of the city. Many eminent cities
started to grow centred on an urban artefact, like monument. Over time these generating artefacts become
transformed and their functions altered. Such elements have meta-economic character and also become
works of art.

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History and the Collective Memory:

The history is the ‘collective memory’ of people of the city and it has an important influence on the city itself.
The history expresses itself through the monuments. Sometimes myth precedes the history of a city and
thus become important. Athens is the first clear example of the science of urban architecture and its
development through history which is initiated by a myth. Rossi thinks that thus the memory of the city
makes it very back to Greece, where lies the fundamentals of the constitution of the city. The Romans and
the other civilizations conspicuously emulated the example of Greece. According to Rossi Rome reveals
total contrasts and contradictions of the modern city; but Athens remains the purest experience of
humanity, the embodiment of condition that can never recur. Rossi believes in the dominant role of politics
played in the evolution of cities. Political decisions settle on the image of the city if not the city itself. Thus
city becomes the reflection of the collective will. Rossi thinks that ‘urban history’ is most useful to study
urban structure. The continuity and therefore the history are important aspects underlying his theories. To
Rossi historical methods are weak as they isolate the present from the past. Urban aesthetics constitute a
science founded in meaning inherent in the pre-existing building stock of the city. Through collective
memory the intellect is engaged to discover their meaning and beauty. He does not distinguish between
continuity and history. Rossi’s ‘past’ was not overwhelmed by the ancients. Rather he emphases on the
cultural stability and inspires its further development in all the ages. He sees building of cities as part of
culture. To him people had civilized nature and brought it under control by discovering the secrets of her
materials and with them made constructions for the collective purpose. This demands organized systems of
division of labour and commands, and the technical advancement to refine tools for the task.

Jan Gehl, Life between Buildings, 1980

Ultimately, urban design is more about the dynamic activities occurring within the public realm that it is
about the built quality of the space (buildings, physical amenities, etc.). “Inevitably,” writes Jan Gehl, “life
between buildings is richer, more stimulating, and more rewarding than any combination of architectural
ideas.” That is not to say architecture cannot contribute to the experiential, cultural, and social value of an
urban environment – merely that quality urban life trumps quality urban infrastructure amongst a sensitive
designer’s priorities. Of course, there is a relationship between good design and good urban life – in
America; this is most commonly demonstrated negatively, such as when bad design engenders bad
urbanism (by squandering the potential for good urban life).

To ensure an urban space retains the capacity for quality urbanism, Gehl would have the designer take
steps to avoid precluding it. His concept of “soft edges” involves providing certain architectural layers and
complexities that enable certain types of activities, leading to a desirably active and rich urban environment
and society. Specifically, he stresses designing to promote stationary activities that are more prolonged and
entrench people deeper into the urban setting (in contrast to coming and going activities, which are more
frequent but fleeting in duration). “Of course it is important that conditions for walking to and from buildings
are good and comfortable, but for the scope and character of life between buildings, the conditions offered
for long-lasting outdoor activities play the decisive role.”

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“Soft edges” are what really foster public-realm occupation and interaction. These are spaces that flank
and/or permeate buildings where people can settle, work, eat, and otherwise sit and meld into the urban
place. Ideally, Gehl writes, soft edges “link indoors and outdoors – functionally and psychologically.” He
demonstrates this connection with dense, single-story, single-family housing examples (namely by a lucid
sociological link between the shrouded innards of the house, the semi-public porch and yard, and the
entirely public street) but contends the concept holds true across urban topologies: “everywhere people
walk to and from city functions, or where the functions stay outdoors, the establishment of good
connections between indoors and outdoors combined with good resting places in front of the buildings must
be a matter of course.”

Extant soft edges shall be documented and then evaluated according to their frequency (hard edge to soft
edge ratio), depth (degree to which inside and outside connect/merge), vitality (observed activation), and
flexibility (range of stationary activities and their relationship to adjacent/integrated coming-and-going
activities).

William Whyte, The Social Life of Small Public Spaces, 1980

To foster social interactivity, an urban space needs the physical infrastructure necessary to accommodate
actors in the first place. Put simply: an urban space cannot become sociable if it doesn’t have the facilities
about which to socialize – people won’t sit and talk to each other if there’s nowhere to sit! Informed by a
career of first-hand observation and measurement, William Whyte developed strategies for evaluating and
improving such interactivity-enabling infrastructure.

There are three phases to Whyte’s process: assess the visibility, accessibility, and variety of sitting
places; measure the dimensional suitability of each seat; and observe the seating ensemble’s actual usage
to determine overall interactivity-fostering success.

It is most immediately important that sitting places be visible to passersby. As Whyte writes, “if people do
not see a space, they will not use it.” Obviously, the seats must not only be in view but also in reach of
potential sitters: less accessible facilities find themselves less used. Accessibility also involves the
perceived (and actual) publicness of the sitting place - the more private a surface seems (or is), the less
welcoming it effectively becomes. Finally, seat types need to vary across the site to provide for the public’s
varied wants and needs. Variables include size (big enough for one person, two people, and bigger group),
climate (sun/shade, windy/calm), aesthetics (shape, style, and material), functionality (static,
movable/adjustable) and public exposure (along thoroughfare, tucked out of the way).

Whyte offers a few dimensional and mathematical rules of thumb to assess sittability amongst seats.
People tend to avoid seats shorter than one foot or taller than three. Double-sided seats should be a full
“two backsides deep” to ensure both sides are simultaneously usable. There should be about one linear
foot of sitting space per thirty square feet of plaza area.

In addition to compiling the above quantifications, the space should be observed to ascertain exactly how
the public actually uses its seats. Because each space is unique, generalized rules of thumb alone cannot

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fully predict particular sittability and associated interactivity – locally specific factors also hold a strong
hand.

In sum, assessing a place’s sittability involves, first, urbanistically characterizing and dimensionally
inventorying available seats and, second, observing and documenting how people use the seats and how
the seats facilitate social interactivity. Quantifiably, seat plenitude ensures everyone who wants to sit and
socialize can; seat-type heterogeneity supports more diverse breeds of seated socialization.

Jane Jacobs, The Death and Life of Great American Cities, 1961

Good city streets support a heterogeneous population of locals and strangers, lingerers and passersby, old
hats and new arrivals. There are certain morphological characteristics necessary to accommodate that
much sociological diversity without engendering disorder. Jane Jacobs suggests these include a clearly
defined public domain (as obviously distinct from a clearly defined private domain), “eyes upon the street”
to surveil goings on, and enough passersby and other street users to keep things safely active (as opposed
to forebodingly lonely).

“Eyes upon the street” is perhaps the most famous (and architecturally measurable) of these related
concerns. Public urban spaces should promote and support natural surveillance by avoiding visual
obfuscations and hiding articulations that create blind spots pedestrians might fear passing. Additionally,
Jacobs calls for the buildings to orient themselves towards the street so their occupants are architecturally
compelled to observe the outdoors and thereby keep an eye on what’s happening: “There must be eyes
upon the street, eyes belonging to those we might call the natural proprietors of the street. The buildings on
a street equipped to handle strangers and to insure the safety of both residents and strangers, must be
oriented to the street. They cannot turn their backs or blank sides on it and leave it blind.”

Ultimately, the issue doesn’t stop at safety. A comprehensively visible public space potentiates a
comprehensively utilized public space (as William Whyte writes, people don’t go places they don’t know are
there). If the space can be entirely ascertained and evaluated from its edges, it stands a better chance of
honest, earnest use (as opposed to a space of ambiguous extents which might be avoided altogether for
fear of its hidden mysteries). The more hidden corners and enshrouded edges, the more effort one must
expend to simply fathom the space before s/he can even decide if s/he wants to stay. More often than not,
when faced with such a task, the passerby passes by.

By this measure, the better urban space provides more universal visibility from more vantages within and
along its boundaries. The space syntax team originating at University College London provides a powerful
tool to evaluate this “eyes on the street” capacity. Depth map, their flagship utility, calculates isovists (the
area of viewable territory from a given point in a built environment) across a grid cast throughout the space
and then graphically indicates which regions of the space provide more view (or larger isovists) relative to
all others. Areas thusly coded red is directly visible from more positions across the whole space; areas
coded blue are largely invisible from other vantages across the space. A space is said to have high “eyes
on the street capacity” if it sports few darkly colored, less visible regions and is more uniformly brightly
colored and highly visible.

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UNIT 4 ISSUES OF URBAN SPACE

Understanding and interpreting of urban problems/ issues- place-making and identity, morphology:
sprawl, generic form, incoherence, privatized public realm- effects/ role of real estate,
transportation, zoning, and globalisation - ideas of sustainability, heritage, conservation and
renewal contemporary approaches: idea of urban catalyst, transit metropolis, and community
participation –studio exercise involving the above.
CITIES & URBAN GROWTH – Reasons

 Cities grow from internal growth where rural areas and natural increase feed cities.
 Most of the people who move to cities from the countryside are young fertile people who therefore
cause a high birth rate within the cities, this migration feeds city growth.
 The poorest areas of the world have the fastest urban growth.
 Migration is the largest part; this is even more the case when one city dominates the country.
These types of cities can often grow at around 7% per year.
 Much of this growth is in the form of slums.
 By 2020 the number of people living in slums in the developing world will reach 1.3/1.4 billion.

Push & Pull Effect:

PLACE MAKING:

Place making is a multi-faceted approach to the planning, design and management of public spaces. Place
making capitalizes on a local community’s assets, inspiration, and potential, ultimately creating good public
spaces that promote people’s health, happiness, and well being. Place making is both a process and a
philosophy.
Definition - The process of adding value and meaning to the public realm through community-based
revitalization projects rooted in local values, history, culture and natural environment. (Zelinka and Harden,
2005). It relates to planning endeavours focused on spatial development, urban design and city form, public
realm, streetscapes and related infrastructure, and the general imaging and re-imaging of places. (Szold,
2000)

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Origin - The concepts behind Place making originated in the 1960s, when writers like Jane Jacobs and
William H. Whyte offered ground breaking ideas about designing cities that catered to people, not just to
cars and shopping centers. Their work focused on the importance of lively neighborhoods and inviting
public spaces. Jane Jacobs advocated citizen ownership of streets through the now-famous idea of “eyes
on the street.” William H. Whyte emphasized essential elements for creating social life in public spaces.

Place making is a term that began to be used in the 1970s by architects and planners to describe the
process of creating squares, plazas, parks, streets and waterfronts that will attract people because they are
pleasurable or interesting. Landscape often plays an important role in the design process. Place-making
becomes political because place-identity is contested: individuals and groups have their own narratives of
place. A journal on the subject is Places: Forum of Design for the Public Realm wherein there is a
discussion on places is about the design of places, the experiences they make possible and the
consequences they have in our lives. Being in places involves social encounters, immersion in the sights,
sounds, sun, wind and atmosphere of a locale, and curiosity about the traces of thought, imagination and
investment that have guided their construction and use over time. The journal investigates the dynamics of
nature and culture.

Place making is the process through which we collectively shape our public realm to maximize shared
value. Rooted in community-based participation, Place making involves the planning, design, management
and programming of public spaces. More than just creating better urban design of public spaces, Place
making facilitates creative patterns of activities and connections (cultural, economic, social, and ecological)
that define a place and support its ongoing evolution. Place making is how people are more collectively and
intentionally shaping our world, and our future on this planet.

With the increasing awareness that our human environment is shaping us, Place making is how we shape
humanity’s future. While environmentalism has challenged human impact on our planet, it is not the planet
that is threatened but humanity’s ability to live viably here. Place making is building both the settlement
patterns, and the communal capacity, for people to thrive with each other and our natural world.

Place making is:

 Community-driven
 Visionary
 Function before form
 Adaptable
 Inclusive
 Focused on creating destinations
 Flexible
 Culturally aware
 Ever changing
 Multi-disciplinary
 Transformative

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  Context-sensitive
 Inspiring
 Collaborative
 Sociable

Principles

Place making principles has identified 11 key elements in transforming public spaces into vibrant
community places, whether they’re parks, plazas, public squares, streets, sidewalks or the myriad other
outdoor and indoor spaces that have public uses in common. These elements are:
1. The Community Is The Expert - The important starting point in developing a concept for any
public space is to identify the talents and assets within the community. In any community there are
people who can provide an historical perspective, valuable insights into how the area functions,
and an understanding of the critical issues and what is meaningful to people. Tapping this
information at the beginning of the process will help to create a sense of community ownership in
the project that can be of great benefit to both the project sponsor and the community.
2. Create a Place, Not a Design - If the goal is to create a place (which we think it should be), a
design will not be enough. To make an under-performing space into a vital “place,” physical
elements must be introduced that would make people welcome and comfortable, such as seating
and new landscaping, and also through “management” changes in the pedestrian circulation
pattern and by developing more effective relationships between the surrounding retail and the
activities going on in the public spaces. The goal is to create a place that has both a strong sense
of community and a comfortable image, as well as a setting and activities and uses that collectively
add up to something more than the sum of its often simple parts.
3. Look for Partners - Partners are critical to the future success and image of a public space
improvement project. Whether you want partners at the beginning to plan for the project or you
want to brainstorm and develop scenarios with a dozen partners who might participate in the
future, they are invaluable in providing support and getting a project off the ground. They can be
local institutions, museums, schools and others.
4. See a Lot Just By Observing - Learning a great deal from others’ successes and failures. By
looking at how people are using (or not using) public spaces and finding out what they like and
don’t like about them, it is possible to assess what makes them work or not work. Through these
observations, it will be clear what kinds of activities are missing and what might be incorporated.
And when the spaces are built, continuing to observe them will teach even more about how to
evolve and manage them over time.
5. Have a Vision - The vision needs to come out of each individual community. However, essential to
a vision for any public space is an idea of what kinds of activities might be happening in the space,
a view that the space should be comfortable and have a good image, and that it should be an
important place where people want to be. It should instill a sense of pride in the people who live
and work in the surrounding area.
6. Start with the Petunias: Lighter, Quicker, Cheaper - The complexity of public spaces is such
that one cannot expect to do everything right initially. The best spaces experiment with short term
improvements that can be tested and refined over many years! Elements such as seating, outdoor
cafes, public art, striping of crosswalks and pedestrian havens, community gardens and murals are
examples of improvements that can be accomplished in a short time.

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 7. Triangulate - “Triangulation is the process by which some external stimulus provides a linkage
between people and prompts strangers to talk to other strangers as if they knew each other” (Holly
Whyte). In a public space, the choice and arrangement of different elements in relation to each
other can put the triangulation process in motion (or not). For example, if a bench, a wastebasket
and a telephone are placed with no connection to each other, each may receive a very limited use,
but when they are arranged together along with other amenities such as a coffee cart, they will
naturally bring people together (or triangulate!). On a broader level, if a child’s reading room in a
new library is located so that it is next to a children’s playground in a park and a food kiosk is
added, more activity will occur than if these facilities were located separately.
8. They Always Say “It Can’t Be Done” - “If they say it can’t be done, it doesn’t always work out
that way,”. Creating good public spaces is inevitably about encountering obstacles, because no
one in either the public or private sectors has the job or responsibility to “create places.” For
example, professionals such as traffic engineers, transit operators, urban planners and architects
all have narrow definitions of their job – facilitating traffic or making trains run on time or creating
long term schemes for building cities or designing buildings. Their job, evident in most cities, is not
to create “places.” Starting with small scale community-nurturing improvements can demonstrate
the importance of “places” and help to overcome obstacles.
9. Form Supports Function - The input from the community and potential partners, the
understanding of how other spaces function, the experimentation, and overcoming the obstacles
and naysayers provides the concept for the space. Although design is important, these other
elements tell you what “form” one needs to accomplish the future vision for the space.
10. Resource - Money Is Not the Issue - This statement can apply in a number of ways. For
example, once you’ve put in the basic infrastructure of the public spaces, the elements that are
added that will make it work (e.g., vendors, cafes, flowers and seating) will not be expensive. In
addition, if the community and other partners are involved in programming and other activities, this
can also reduce costs. More important is that by following these steps, people will have so much
enthusiasm for the project that the cost is viewed much more broadly and consequently as not
significant when compared with the benefits.
11. Continuous process - Never Finished - By nature good public spaces that respond to the needs,
the opinions and the ongoing changes of the community require attention. Amenities wear out,
needs change and other things happen in an urban environment. Being open to the need for
change and having the management flexibility to enact that change is what builds great public
spaces and great cities and towns.

IDENTITY AND PLACE:

Place identity refers to a cluster of ideas about place and identity in the fields of geography, urban planning,
urban design, landscape architecture, environmental psychology, and urban sociology/ecological sociology.
It concerns the meaning and significance of places for their inhabitants and users.

Methodologies for understanding place identity primarily involve qualitative techniques, such as
interviewing, participant observation, discourse analysis and mapping a range of physical elements. Some
urban planners, urban designers and landscape architects use forms of deliberative planning, design
Charette and participatory design with local communities as a way of working with place identity to
transform existing places as well as create new ones. This kind of planning and design process is

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sometimes referred to as place making. Place identity is sometimes called urban character, neighbourhood
character or local character.

Place identity has become a significant issue in the last 25 years in urban planning and design. Related to
the worldwide movement to protect places with heritage significance, concerns have arisen about the loss
of individuality and distinctiveness between different places as an effect of cultural globalisation.

URBAN MORPHOLOGY:

Urban morphology is the study of the form of human settlements and the process of their formation and
transformation. The study seeks to understand the spatial structure and character of a metropolitan area,
city, town or village by examining the patterns of its component parts and the process of its development.

This can involve the analysis of physical structures at different scales as well as patterns of movement,
land use, ownership or control and occupation. Typically, analysis of physical form focuses on street
pattern, lot (or, in the UK, plot) pattern and building pattern, sometimes referred to collectively as urban
grain. Analysis of specific settlements is usually undertaken using cartographic sources and the process of
development is deduced from comparison of historic maps.

Special attention is given to how the physical form of a city changes over time and to how different cities
compare to each other. Another significant part of this subfield deals with the study of the social forms
which are expressed in the physical layout of a city, and, conversely, how physical form produces or
reproduces various social forms.

The essence of the idea of morphology was initially expressed in the writings of the great poet and
philosopher Goethe (1790); the term as such was first used in bioscience. Recently it is being increasingly
used in geography, geology, philology and other subjects. In American geography, urban morphology as a
particular field of study owes its origins to Lewis Mumford, James Vance and Sam Bass Warner. Peter Hall
of the UK is also a central figure.

Urban morphology is also considered as the study of urban tissue, or fabric, as a means of discerning the
underlying structure of the built landscape. This approach challenges the common perception of unplanned
environments as chaotic or vaguely organic through understanding the structures and processes
embedded in urbanisation.

URBAN SPRAWL:

Urban sprawl is defined as the unplanned, uncontrolled spreading of urban development into areas
adjoining the edge of a city. It is also characterized by the spreading of urban development’s (as houses
and shopping centers) on undeveloped land near a city.

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The term sprawl, as used by land developers, planners and governmental institutions, refers to the change
in trends of land usage, and the change in demographics across given geographies.

Sprawl is generally defined as the increased development of land in suburban and rural areas outside of
their respective urban centers. This increased development of real estate in the outskirts of towns, villages
and metropolitan areas is quite often accompanied by a lack of development, redevelopment or reuse of
land within the urban centers themselves.

This trend is often referred to as both urban sprawl and rural sprawl. Although these two terms might sound
contradictory, they are ironically referring to the same phenomenon—that is, the movement of development
from urban areas, to rural areas. Framed in other terms, sprawl refers to the slow decentralization of human
occupancy. That is, communities are requiring more land and space to supply the same given population
with homes, workplaces, shopping locations and recreation spaces.

URBAN GENERIC FORM:

Generic urbanism describes a non-specific, identity-lacking urban landscape. The generic city has no
specific reference points, either to its history or its residents. Rather it responds to urban stereotypes. In
doing so, it turns cities into yet another commodity, interchangeable from one another. We can see the
result before us as city after city converge in a pastiche of undifferentiated cityscapes Generic urbanism
appears to have started in the American suburbs when developers creating interchangeable developments.
Over the past half century it has crept into our urban cores, where the truest expression of civic identity was
once found. This is, in part, a result of the effort by city governments to attract suburbanites (and their tax
dollars) downtown not by offering them something unique or different̶ but rather the safe and familiar. The
concept is an oxymoron. A generic city resists urbanism and its inherent qualities of diversity and culture.
All the qualities normally associated with a great city: iconic architecture, vibrant but messy streetscapes,
unique neighbourhoods, etc. become subsumed by global trends. Public space becomes formulaic; there’s
nothing to notice to except stoplights. According to Richard Pouly, in the generic city the paradigmatic
urbanite will no longer be a latte-sipping hipster but the weary sales rep who never completely unpacks his
suitcase forgetting if he is in New York or New Delhi. Koolhaas declared the generic city to be a city without
qualities.

PRIVATIZATIZATION OF PUBLIC REALM:

Public realm or the public sphere is an area in social life where individuals can come together to freely
discuss and identify societal problems, and through that discussion influence political action. It is "a
discursive space in which individuals and groups congregate to discuss matters of mutual interest and,
where possible, to reach a common judgment. The public sphere can be seen as "a theatre in modern
societies in which political participation is enacted through the medium of talk" and "a realm/domain of
social life in which public opinion can be formed

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Traditionally public spaces were funded with public money and built by the local government. With a
commitment to public service and less emphasis on returns on investment, design decisions could be made
for the greater good. Lack of Community Cohesion is the primary issue. The gated communities produce
privatized open space, especially in housing developments, leads people to become less inclined to spend
time in truly urbanized open spaces, such as city parks.

The privatized open spaces such as those ones of the public Apartment and condo building has open
space open only for its residents and they can only access ; which leads to people socializing with people
like themselves. This will allow us to get to know only our neighbours; it can discourage us from mingling
with people in our local community. When people keep to themselves, social inclusion and community
cohesion can suffer. In other words, the privatization of public space is an attempt to diminish the
democratic dreams of ordinary citizens.

ROLE OF THE REAL ESTATE:

Urbanization is an outcome of both population growth and migration. As urbanization increases, more and
more people are becoming city dwellers. The problem of urbanization is further forced by limited land
supply in urban areas & lack of proper planning. The ever increasing urban population is creating an
increasing demand for shelter. It is almost impossible for the government to ensure housing for all. As
Government sector become ineffective, people have taken their own initiative to ensure their fundamental
need for shelter. As the globalization process also have influence over our society, there is an emerge of
the new housing concept of real estate.

Real estate development is a field of business activity dealing with land and buildings for providing value
added services in developing residential, commercial, institutional and integrated projects and related
infrastructure. Thus, urban planning has gained importance in India as the country is fast urbanizing

The construction of real estate has the potential to advance sustainability in terms of meeting economic and
social criteria—the Business Case and the Societal Case. This is a crucial aspect in the stated visions and
plans in many developing countries. Hence, it is important to understand how real estate can best
contribute.
Urban Design in the Real Estate Development Process interprets urban design as a place-making activity
in which urban designers influence developers, funders and other development actors by helping to
construct their design environments.

The importance of Real Estate Sector:

For a comprehensive development of city, which was the felt need to tackle urbanization problems, Town
and Country Planning Act have been introduced in 1960s. Many states enacted town and country planning
acts through which master plans, new town development plans and detailed developments are being
prepared. These plans provide framework for real estate development. Land use zoning, development

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regulations and provision of ring and radial roads contemplated in the master plans become the guidelines
for growth of the city. By and large the real estate development now forms part of urban planning which
envisages better living conditions for various sections of the people.
The real estate sector is the second largest employer after agriculture and experts have stated that the
sector is poised to grow around 20% over the next decade. The real estate sector comprises of four sub
sectors: Housing, Retail, Hospitality and Commercial. For the past decades, the high growth of the sector is
matched by the growth of the corporate environment, since there is a demand for office space as well as
urban and semi-urban accommodations. The construction industry in India ranks third among the 14
primary sectors in terms of direct, indirect and induced effects in the economy. It is expected that real
estate sector will incur more NRI investments.

Government Initiatives and Policies:

The Government of India along with the state governments have taken several initiatives to encourage the
development in the sector. It has initiated the ‘smart city project’, where there is a plan to build 100 smart
cities, which has a prime opportunity for the real estate sectors. Few other initiatives are:
 Creation of National Urban Housing Fund.
 Prathan Manthiri Awas Yojana (PMAY) urban.
 Construction of additional affordable houses etc.,
Government of India has come up in a big way to help 60 cities of population exceeding 1 million for
extending Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Mission (JNNURM) with an estimated provision of Rs.50, 000
crore for a period of seven years. For accessing the funds, City Development Plans are needed. City
Development Plans provide greater opportunities for infrastructure development and therefore, the scope of
real estate development gets widened.

GLOBALIZATION AND URBAN ISSUES:

The urban form of cities has witnessed a large shift as a result of the industrial revolution.

The term globalisation means international integration. It is a process through which the diverse world is
unified into a single society. Opening up of world trade, development of advanced means of
communication, internationalisation of financial markets, growing importance of MNC’s, population
migrations and more generally increased mobility of persons, goods, capital, data and ideas

Globalization has affected people’s relation through the “way” they communicate in between in addition to
their linkage to places. As a result of the industrial revolution the meaning of time has changed, space and
distance have been reduced, physical boundaries demolished, and the speed and type of movement is
different. Furthermore, such meaning was more catalysed by the digital revolution; globalization and
telematics have defused place, distance and time making the latter unreal in a way. It is what Manuel
Castells (2002) calls the timeless time

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The shrinkage of distances and the speed of movement that characterize the current period find one of its
most extreme forms in electronically based communities of individuals or organizations throughout the
whole world.

Enlarging 'spaces of democracy', including civic spaces, is crucial for encouraging citizens' involvement in
the governance of cities and regions. However, global trends in urban development have intensified the use
of land and the built environment for economic activities at the expense of civic spaces, and urban spaces
are increasingly being transformed into spaces for consumption rather than for social and civic life.
Inadequacy in the provision of civic spaces is of concern because of its effects on the political efficacy and
well-being of city inhabitants.

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URBAN DESIGN AND SUSTAINABILITY:

The overall aim of sustainable urban development is to achieve a healthy and high quality of life for all
people in this and subsequent generations, with equitable and geographically balanced and socially
cohesive economic development, which reduces the impact on the global and local environments.

 Urban design creates green, sustainable places

 Compact, walk-able places are the most sustainable form of living. The combination of human
scale urbanism, with a mix of uses and services, a range of housing options, extensive train
systems, and the ability to walk and bicycle as part of daily life all make for sustainable, green
living. Add safe, clean, renewable energy, and true sustainability results.

 In the era of gradually decreasing oil supplies and rising energy costs, the need for low energy
lifestyles has never been greater. Urban design principles and practices bring together the ideas
and plans to create enjoyable places to live, work and play while greatly reducing energy use.

 Designing away the need for cars is the most important step in creating sustainable places. This
has the triple effect of lowering our energy use (especially imported oil), reducing global warming
emissions, and raising our quality of life in cities by increasing mobility and convenience.

URBAN DESIGN AND TRANSPORTATION:

The combination of urban design and transportation objectives produces urban environments in which
people can live, work, learn, play and recreate; all within a short walk or a transit ride. This is an antidote to
the large lots of single-family homes that are a car drive away from everything, and that have come to
characterize urban sprawl. It is also characterised by the spreading of urban developments (as houses and
shopping centers) on undeveloped land near a city

URBAN CATALYST:

 Urban catalysts are new redevelopment strategies comprised of a series of projects that drive and
guide urban development. Redevelopment efforts in the past, such as urban renewal and large-
scale redevelopment projects, have often jeopardized the vitality of downtowns. The difference
between the urban catalyst and these redevelopment strategies is that catalytic redevelopment is a
holistic approach, not a clean-slate approach, to revitalizing the urban fabric.

 Many cities have considered urban catalysts as a means for revitalization. Among the most noted
catalytic projects are sports stadiums and arenas: however not all catalytic projects have to be
designed at such a grand scale, nor do all cities possess a threshold of support to successfully
sustain such developments.

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  The urban catalyst theory says design can be linked to place through the study of contextual
factors in urban design. These factors include: morphological, social, functional, perceptual, visual,
and temporal. For the urban catalyst to respond to its setting it also must possess a strong sense
of place and authenticity. Each component of my research supports my position that each city has
unique attributes that can serve as basic models or seeds for urban redevelopment.

TRANSIT METROPOLIS:

A Transit metropolis is an urbanized region with high-quality public transportation services and settlement
patterns that are conducive to riding public transit. While Transit villages and Transit-oriented developments
(TODs) focus on creating compact, mixed-use neighbourhoods around rail stations, transit metropolises
represent a regional constellation of TODs that benefit from having both trip origins and destinations
oriented to public transport stations. In an effort to reduce mounting traffic congestion problems and
improve environmental conditions, a number of Chinese mega-cities, including Beijing and Shenzhen, have
embraced the transit metropolis model for guiding urban growth and public-transport investment decisions.

COMMUNITY/ PUBLIC PARTICIPATION AND URBAN DESIGN:

 Public participation is the involvement of people in the creation and management of their built and
natural environments. Its strength is that it cuts across tradition professional boundaries and
cultures.
 The activity of community participation is based on the principle that the built and natural
environments work better if citizens are active and involved in its creation and management instead
of being treated as passive consumers. The main purposes of participation are;
o To involve citizens in planning and design decision making processes and, as a result,
make it more likely they will work within established systems when seeking solutions to
problems.
o To provide citizens with a voice in planning and decision making in order to improve plans,
decisions, service delivery, and overall quality of the environment.
o To promote a sense of community by bringing together people who share common goals.
Participation should be active and directed; those who become involved should experience
a sense of achievement.
 Traditional planning procedures should be re-examined to ensure that participation achieves more
than a simple affirmation of the designers or planners intentions.
 The Importance of Participation: The planning system is meant to reflect the general wishes of the
local community and there is a need on the local authority to consult widely during the formulation
of a Local Plan and in the operation of the development.

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UNIT 5 BEST PRACTICE IN URBAN DESIGN

Contemporary case studies from developing and developed economies that offer design guidelines
and solutions to address various issues/ aspects of urban space – case studies.
CASE STUDIES OF BEST PRACTICES – INDIAN CONTEXT

BHENDI BAZAAR, Mumbai

Work on the city’s largest redevelopment project, the metamorphosis of Bhendi Bazaar, got underway with
the project having received the final set of clearances from the Brihan Mumbai Municipal Corporation
(BMC) to begin construction in the first phase. The corporation granted a commencement certificate to
Saifee Burhani Upliftment Trust (SBUT), implementing the Bhendi Bazaar makeover for its first phase of
two clusters, comprising four buildings
Bhendi Bazaar redevelopment project is one of the first cluster redevelopment projects to be taken up in
the city. The project will involve the transformation of 16.5 acres of 250 dilapidated buildings housing 3,200
families and 1,250 shops into well-planned clusters of 17 new high-rises, wide roads, parks and other
amenities.

The History

The anecdote of Bhendi Bazaar is one of the many stories that contribute to making the epic saga of
Mumbai becoming the economic capital of India. Originally Bhendi Bazaar formed part of the inner-city
areas developed to cater to the housing needs of manpower aiding trade and commerce activities in the
harbor of Old Bombay, as Mumbai was known then. Proximity to the then elite market place 'Crawford
Market' gave better business prospects for the area. The colloquial pronunciation of Behind the Bazaar
(Crawford Market) became Bhendi Bazaar. Businessmen from various communities seeing an opportunity
owing to its strategic location, moved into Bhendi bazaar selling things as diverse as hardware and foam, to
clothing and antique items. People from across the city visited the famous Chor Bazaar to score precious
items.
Bhendi Bazaar was developed in the 'Chawl' or dormitory fashion. They were designed to house single
men who had moved to the city for earning a livelihood. Slowly entire families moved into these Chawls.
Forced closeness resulted in a distinct community culture that has organically developed over morning
queues outside the toilets and shared evening tea. Bhendi Bazaar is the only area where a distinct
Gharana of Indian Classical Music developed in the late 1890's.

The Proposal

The ambitious redevelopment project comprising of 16.5 acres of landform has approximately 250 existing
buildings, 1250 shops and 3200 families. All of these will be incorporated into a state-of-the-art sustainable
development with new buildings, wide roads, modern infrastructure, more open spaces and highly visible
commercial areas. The mosques and religious structures will be retained and enhanced to add to the
culture of the place.
The project is being planned to meet the present and future socio-economic needs of the people. Master
Planning of the area is being done using 'best principles' of Urban Planning to create a development which
serves as a model for the city. People, their needs, the community and business interests along with an
aesthetic design and urban principles were the brief given by SBUT to develop the Master Plan. The
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neighborhood has been divided into 9 sub-clusters for better management and functionality. Almost 80% of
the land mass will be used for rehabilitating existing tenants. Fatimid styling of the buildings at the street,
neighborhood and city level will mark the project. Arches, jallis and lattice work will weave a distinct identity
for the neighborhood.

The new transformed place will create a modern urban area that will not only set a precedent to urban
renewal projects in Mumbai; but also provide impetus for other urban renewal projects in India, and
throughout the world. The project is planned holistically to promote sustainable way of living. The entire
area will be divided into functionally appropriate spaces, and the buildings rise in height from south to north
to minimize heat ingress while maximizing air circulation and natural lighting around the buildings.

Significantly more space will be available for open areas, green spaces, play and recreational facilities.
Wide roads will replace the narrow and congested lanes to accommodate tree lined footpaths that will allow
for smooth flow of vehicular traffic. Best principles for traffic management have been incorporated in the
design.

The area will have its own environment-friendly and efficient sewage treatment plant, solar panels,
rainwater harvesting, and garbage disposal units. Each of the 9 planned sub-clusters will be independent
with provisions for their own solid waste and sewage management, power provision and open spaces. The
project aims to be resource neutral. It has already been pre-certified 'Gold' by the Indian Green Buildings
Council.

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DHARAVI Redevelopment Proposal

The Dharavi Redevelopment Plan (DRP) was the result of a developer- Mukesh Mehta who argued for a
comprehensive development plan which would cover the entire area of Dharavi as opposed to the
prevalent scheme of Slum redevelopment which engaged in redevelopment in small pockets of the slum
and relied on getting its profits outside Dharavi. The DRP proposes the intensive utilisation of land in
Dharavi for rehabilitation of slum dwellers and commercial development. The argument is that this will lead
to more integrated development and benefits for residents of Dharavi and enable them to integrate to
mainstream development.

The key proposals of DRP are:

The entire area will be accorded a FSI (Floor Space Index) 2 of 4.0. It proposes that this high FSI will lead
to a financial model where rehabilitation of slum dwellers and a premium to state government can be cross
subsidized from the profits to be potentially accrued from high end commercial development, taking
advantage of the proximity of Dharavi to Bandra Kurla Complex, which is emerging as an international
finance centre.
The entire land of Dharavi is divided into 5 sectors to make the plan commercially viable. Each of these
sectors takes advantage of the central location of Dharavi. Thus Sector 1 is located along the Kurla –Sion
road, Sector 5 on the Bandra link road, sector 2 on the Matunga- Mahim link road etc.
Each eligible household is entitled to receive an apartment of 269 sq feet free as a rehabilitation package.
These apartment buildings will be located in buildings with 30-40 stories. In addition, developers were also
expected to contribute to a corpus for maintenance.
The DRP was considered as a model for redevelopment of large stretches of slums. It was considered as
an example of government initiative and so the conditions of consent 3; characteristic of other slum
rehabilitation schemes was waived in this case.
The DRP has been highly critiqued by academics, planning experts, civil society organizations and
residents. One of the biggest reasons for stalling of the project so far is the strong resistance to it from local
residents. The resistance to the project has gone through different phases from a large scale rejection to a
mode where the project is seen as acceptable but on more favourable terms.
These terms include a) award of greater apartment area ie 300 sq feet to all eligible residents b) some
recognition of the tenants in the area by extending a provision of rental housing c) detailed surveys and
preparation of transport plans. These terms have thus deepened the redevelopment discourse. The
missing element is the consideration of current livelihoods and whether these livelihoods can be sustained
in a post redevelopment scenario.

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NAVI MUMBAI (Satellite Town of Mumbai) – Example of URBAN PROJECT

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CASE STUDIES OF BEST PRACTICES – INTERNATIONAL CONTEXT

CANARY WHARF, London: Urban Redevelopment

Designed to accommodate The City’s expanding financial activities, SOM’s Master Plan revitalized a major
vacated London Docklands site in the Isle of Dogs to create a world-class business environment at a time
when London was struggling to maintain its status as the centre for banking and finance in Europe. The
project provided large-scale office and trading floor space, new retail facilities and significant new public
outdoor amenities in order to attract international calibre tenants. SOM master planned the entire
development and led the detailed design of the initial and subsequent urban infrastructure including new
streets, parks, gardens, plazas, waterfront courts and promenades, major utility facilities and service
corridors.
The master plan established essential connections to public transport, linking Canary Wharf to Central
London via the Docklands Light Rail (DLR), The Jubilee Line (London Underground) as well as ensuring
the vital integration of Cross rail in the near future which will add further development potential to the
Estate. SOM also designed several key buildings throughout the various phases of delivery over the past
25 years comprising over 350,000 square metres in total area. Building on the variety of public spaces
established in SOM’s Master Plan, the firm led the detailed design and construction of the overall public
realm during the initial and subsequent phases of development. In collaboration with local artists and
landscape architects, the varying scales and diverse character of the Estate’s outdoor places were brought
to life.
Comprehensive designs integrated gardens, plazas, water courts, outdoor and indoor shopping arcades
and dockside promenades throughout the Estate. Tree-lined urban boulevards were established catering
primarily to pedestrians while also providing places for VIP drop-offs, taxi-queuing and local bus stops. ‘In-
between’ spaces were rigorously coordinated with neighboring buildings through a comprehensive
collaboration between SOM and individual building design teams. Over time, other designers also added to
the initial public realm design creating unique pedestrian bridge linkages to adjacent docks and the wider
community.
Canary Wharf occupies a 29-hectare site located three kilometers east of central London. Linked to the city
by road, rail, and river, this development is specifically designed to foster the expansion of London’s
financial trading floors. SOM master planned the entire development, in addition to designing all
infrastructure, including new roads, parks, gardens, and other open spaces. SOM also provided
architectural and engineering services for two buildings. The full Canary Wharf development is designed to
encompass 5.67 million square meters and accommodate 90,000 workers.
For the expansive site, SOM designed a two-level looped road system. A roundabout at the west end
serves as the main interchange with off-site roadways, and a less-utilized interchange accommodates
traffic on the east end. Additional site access is provided by an elevated light-rail station at the center of the
development and a link to the London Underground metro system. Storm drainage systems provide a high
level of flood protection for both the upper and lower levels of the site and consider the tidal influences of
the adjacent Thames River.

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BATTERY PARK – New York – Urban Revitalization

Battery Park is a 25-acre (10 ha) public park located at the Battery, the southern tip of Manhattan Island in
New York City, facing New York Harbor. The area and park are named for the artillery batteries that were
positioned there in the city's early years to protect the settlement behind them. Battery Park City began as a
vision of what cities could be in the future. Known as a financial and business epicenter, of both New York
and the world, the areas of lower Manhattan gradually became an in-demand center for residential housing
as well.

It has been home to many innovative ideas to improve the urban experience. There were many different
plans for Battery Park City proposed between 1962 and 1975. They all had three goals in common:

 To expand the area of lower Manhattan;

 To get people living downtown again; and
 To provide lower Manhattan with a few more trees and some open space

1962 – Revitalization

Collapsing status of 20 piers in the Hudson River in Tribeca region initiated the earliest ideas for Battery
Park City. A study of the Hudson waterfront revealed that the site may have a different potential. The idea
was to build an "unprecedented new city" on top of the shipping terminals, with a sort of industrial
esplanade along the edge. The plan to combine housing and offices along with cargo handling however
was badly received.

1966 – Integrated society

The idea of building above the piers seemed like an attractive proposition for one can house a lot of people
without displacing entire communities. The Governor’s plan was to not simply house people coming out of
slums but to give them a superior quality of life. However this scheme too was not well received –housing
projects for the poor were beginning to fail in New York. The style was orthodox Corbusian modernism,
which was quickly losing popularity and the design itself seemed overly standardized and having little to do
with this particular site.

1969 – High Technology

Battery Park City Authority, formed in 1968, tossed the most elaborate urban plan essentially consisting of
a seven-story mall, containing urban functions and amenities - shops, restaurants, schools, parks, rapid
transit, utilities, public and recreational facilities. This service spine ran the length of Battery Park City as a
partly glassed-in, partly open "lifeline," to which all the buildings were plugged in. The master plan was a
modular assembly of futuristic designs that incorporated pedestrian traffic with park-like spaces on one
level and transportation uses on another subterranean level. The plan was well received but its timing was
off the ´73 recession had hit. Investors were unwilling to commit themselves to such an untested concept.

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1975 – Defensible space

The 1969 plan was slowly picked apart; its grandiose public infrastructure was cast off.

The Battery Park City project was broken down into discrete residential clusters that could be developed
independently and incrementally. These were called “pods” one of which, Gateway Plaza, was built.

The pod has just one guarded entrance to provide a controllable, safe environment for three or four
thousand people. The city at large was kept out. This was the developer's solution to the problem of middle-
class suburban flight: the attempt was to bring the suburbs to the city.

1979 – Practical realism

Streets and sidewalks were returned to grade level and made an extension of Manhattan's grid (as had
been done in all earlier landfill expansions of lower Manhattan). This yielded conventional development
blocks, which, in turn, yielded conventional building forms.

Each block could be parceled out to different developers at different times, according to market demand.
The commercial center was moved from the southern end of the site up to the middle, tying it to the World
Trade Center. The plan is more a framework for development than it is a fixed design. This has allowed a
great deal of flexibility in actual execution and has served as a basis to bring a diversity of uses, buildings
and parks to Battery Park City, all within a context that relates everything

Primary guidelines for the land use and waterfront development in the region

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  Reflect changing conditions. Enact comprehensive zoning changes to address the dramatic
changes that have taken place in recent decades, and to prepare the communities for the twenty-
first century.
 Promote housing opportunities. Capitalize on vacant and underused land for new housing
development, addressing both local and citywide needs.
 Address neighborhood context. New development should fit in with its surroundings, building on
the strong character of the existing neighborhoods.
 Create a continuous waterfront walkway and maximize public access to the waterfront. Establish a
blueprint for a revitalized, publicly accessible East River waterfront.
 Facilitate development that will reconnect the neighborhood to the waterfront.
 An outstanding feature of the Battery City park is the high percentage of open areas it allows for
while providing for sufficient floor area as well. The site is home to about 35 acres of parks which
act as community and recreational spaces.
 The project has its unique landscape designs that celebrate public space, fusing functionality,
aesthetic and symbolic richness.

A EUROPEAN VISION OF URBAN DESIGN FOR SUSTAINABILITY:

Based on a first draft of principles produced by the Commission the following summary draws on points
raised in most of the expert contributions on the best practice and ‘state of the art’ in their respective
countries:

Sustainable urban design is a process whereby all the actors involved (national, regional and local
authorities, citizens, civil society and community-based organizations, research, academic and professional
institutions and the private sector) work together through partnerships and effective participatory processes
to integrate functional, environmental, and quality considerations to design, plan and manage a built
environment that:

 Creates beautiful, distinctive, secure, healthy and high quality places for people to live and work in
that foster a strong sense of community pride, social equity, cohesion, integration and identity at
the local and wide scale.
 Supports a vibrant, balanced, inclusive and equitable economy and promotes effective urban
regeneration.
 Treats land as a precious resource that must be used in the most efficient way possible, reusing
land and empty property within the urban area in preference to seeking new land outside and
avoiding urban sprawl: compactness of the city at a human scale as a local development
requirement; concentrated decentralization as a regional development pattern.
 Looks at cities and smaller settlements in relationship to their hinterland and to one another,
considers the functional existence of city regions, networks and urban corridors and systems and
their development trajectory, and treats the urban and rural landscape of the city region as an
integrated whole.

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  Ensures the strategic location of new developments and local area development in relation to the
natural environment (addressing resource conservation, biodiversity and public health and
recreational needs) and public transportation systems, and to ensure maximum efficiency in the
use of vehicular movement systems.
 Promotes mixed land use to make best use of the benefits of proximity (easy and equitable access
to services, amenities, green areas and workplaces), ensure the maximum efficiency in the use of
public infrastructure and services, a balanced community and population structure, vitality and
security in the use of public space and adaptability in the long-term development of built space
(with the concept of adaptability applied to existing and new buildings alike).
 Has sufficient density and intensity of activity and use so that services such as public transport are
viable and efficient whilst achieving a high quality living environment (including appropriate
standards of privacy, personal space and minimizing adverse effects such as noise and pollution).
 Has a green structure to optimize the ecological quality of the urban areas including microclimate
and air pollution, and give access to a biodiversity for those who lives in the urban areas to explore,
experience, learn about nature elements.
 Has high quality and well-planned public infrastructure including public transport services,
pedestrian and cycle networks and networks of streets and public spaces to promote accessibility
particularly for disadvantage communities and to support a high level of social, cultural and
economic activity.
 Makes use of the state of the art of resource saving technology including low energy housing and
other buildings, environmental technology, fuel efficient, non-polluting transportations systems,
recycling systems, district heating and bio-mass fuelled and other alternative forms of power
production.
 Respects and builds upon the existing cultural heritage and social capital and networks of existing
communities whilst avoiding conservation for its own sake.

FOR MORE CASE STUDIES ON SUSTAINABLE URBAN DESIGN Refer to SUSTAINABLE

PLANNING AND ARCHITECTURE – UNIT 5 NOTES

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