Exchange program: Universtity of Strathclyde Msc Urban Design Studio
Barbara Le Fort_Junior Architect_Master Student “Urban Design & Planning�_Sint Lucas Brussels
Presentation of the Msc Urban Design Studio
The MSc in Urban Design is composed by AAD students (one the 6 studios of the fifth year of Architecture), Msc Students (Master in Urban Design) and Exchange students. It is articulated into four phases. I took part of the first three of them: 1. Case analysis. The students work in groups on the study area as part of a larger urban sector, getting to know intimately this area, its links potentials and pitfalls (Studio 1a); 2. Urban Design Strategy. The students, organized in groupes with one member of each analysis groups, propose a Strategic Plan and a Concept Plan, together forming the Urban Design Strategy, for the improvement of this area envisaging actions and projects that deal with services, mobility, housing, and public realm provision (Studio 1b); 3. Street front analysis and coding, an draft foundation masterplan. Students come up with:- A comprehensive morphological analysis of street fronts selected (by staff) as for their representativeness of typical elements of the existent urban fabric in the study area and in Glasgow at large under different urban conditions (in particular different density, land use and building type).- A Draft Foundation Masterplan, that: a) defines the boundary of the Masterplan Area, and within those boundaries: b) the proposed street layout in a preliminary version, along with the hierarchy of streets; c) the street front types referred to every street in the proposed hierarchy; d) areas for main transformation; e) areas for regulation (studio 1c); 4. Masterplanning and place design. (during the second semester)The students are led to the production of a Masterplan for sub-areas of the study area. You will learn how to take action for subdivision of large blocks, a correct management of density as related to transport and land use, how to design safe and liveable streets and how to interpret the existent urban fabric of public and private buildings in relation to streets, land uses, density and transport. Finally, you will be asked to deepen your Masterplan and Code by experimentally developing the design of streets and buildings in a small part of it (Studio 2). All the phases are linked together and fully prepared by staff through briefs where are explain every step we need to follow to reach the expected result. The theory is framed in the New Urbanism theory.
Site Presentation Glasgow, the M8 Motorway
The motorway infrastructure and its urban surroundings (radius 400m)
Phase 1: Case Analysis: Network Analysis of Streets
To have a most compleet understanding of the site, we divided the class into 5 groups of 4 people which have analysed 5 different urban components: 1. Drawing the existing city. Before further design may be convened, it is essential to have a highly detailed, working map of the study area. This group’s task was to make the most current mapping of the study area with an extremely high level of detail. From street markings to parking meters, this information is the more current and more detailed than any other map of the area. Group members: Afton Montgomery (AAD) Gina Zadeikyte (MSc) Sin Pei Ei (AAD) 2. History and stories. The History & Stories analytical group focuses on the relevant history of the study area, focusing mainly on changes in the Urban Form over time. This is done through a demonstration of the changes in buildings and blocks.This analytical group also gathered information about life in the time and how and why the City has changed. This is done through first hand accounts and also through in- depth investigation of historical records. Group Members: Ioannis Bourlakis (AAD), Jacob Dibble (MSc), Martina Donatova (Exchange), James Nolan (MSc) 3. Planning framework. This group’s purpose was to investigate the current plans for the study area, and what plans the City Council has for its future. The goal was to achieve a full understanding of the current demographics of the area and all existing, proposed, completed and failed plans. Moreover, this group sought to generate a full understanding of the current policies and governmental involvement in the study area and how they pertain to the M8 motorway.Group members: Eghossa Aiyevbomwan (MSc) Alessandra Feliciotti (Exchange) Ho Jak Hui (AAD) Maria Siti (MSc) 4. Experiencing and comparing place. While the Planning Framework analytical group analyzed the goverment’s perceptions and reactions to the study area, the Experiencing & Comparing places group studies how the City perceives and reacts to this area. This group focused on the way in which the City users perceive the City, use the City and understand the City. Important analyses conducted by this group included mapping the actual connections to
over the motorway and how they are used, people’s fear perception compared to the Police Department’s statistics, and a Pedshed mapping, showing the actual walkability of certain areas.Group Members: Hui Lih Cheah (AAD), Tereza Haubeltova (Exchange), Felicia Lee (AAD), Lieu ‘Edmund’ Wei Yang (AAD) 5. Network analysis of streets: The MCA (Multiple Centrality Assessment) is a way to better understand the connections in a City. This assessment simplifies the street network of the city to edges and nodes and analyzes the connections between and along them, to show the connectivity and betweenness at both the Global and Local levels.Although conceptual, these analyses are critical to understand the true connectivity, or lack thereof, in a given area or across the City as a whole.Group Members: Nathan Bliss (MSc), Barbara Le Fort (Exchange), Andrew Muir (MSc), Patrick Vogel (Exchange), Amily Voon (AAD) Objectives: 1. To map the structural potential of each urban space in the study area to sustain a thriving and diverse local life, as expressed by its density of centrality with respect to all other places in the system. 2. To test alternative scenarios of development of the street system in order to understand the impacts of local decisions on possibly remote spaces.
Phase 2: Urban Design Strategy: Minimal Change on the Motorway
The overall scope of the strategic phase is the generation of strategic programmes for the development and management of transformation in the study area within its immediate territorial context. This module aims to assist students in developing realistic urban regeneration programmes for the transformation of the immediate areas along the M8 motorway and also other adjacent areas which are severely affected by the M8 in the larger urban context. In particular, on the basis of the information gathered in the previous analytical phase, students will formulate imaginative but at the same time realistic scenarios for the transformation of the site and the ‘making of place and mediation of space’, recognising and taking into account often contradictory forces and interests. There are four scenarios which will be experimented and explored to identify their respective strengths in achieving the urban regeneration and transformation programmes. The four scenarios are: 1. Minimal Change on the Motorway 2. Partially Covering the Motorway 3. Tunnelling the Motorway 4. Transforming the Motorway into Boulevard Students will compare emerging ideas for change and transformation and combine them to form a holistic strategy for the study area that takes into account formal, social, economic and environmental aspects of sustainable urban development. Throughout this process, students are requested to relate their strategy to the current urban design and planning debate.
This strategy is based on the idea that the city and the motorway are one mechanism. From the analysis we described that the main weakness derived from the M8 as an urban gap by various factors. We stand for a reversing of that gap-effect by utilizing the M8 as an urban link which contrains new network of centralities in which neighbourhood are improved.
Phase 3_1: Front Analysis and Coding
The Street Front is a mostly built-up space defined by one street, that takes the name of reference (ref) street, and one pertinence line. The pertinence line is the line that lays on the inner limits of plots that abut on the ref street. Therefore the Street Front is not here to be intended as a set of buildings facades identified in elevation. Rather, it is identified in plan, and constituted by the whole urban area covered by the set of one or more plots that defines one side of the ref street. According to the definition above, the “building block� of a street front is the urban plot. In traditional urbanism identifying the urban plot and therefore the street front is rather trivial. Quite on the contrary, doing that in a conventional XXth century periphery is sometimes very tricky, as the plot structure itself is often not really present. In such cases, the definition of the pertinence line may be a highly subjective exercise. WP1 (Street Front Analysis) is about measuring and comparing street fronts in the study area as well as in the larger urban area of Glasgow. Fronts are selected by staff in representation of a range of combined different options based on density, land-use and building type. This organizational framework, or Local Transect, is structured as follows: 01_HIGH DENSITY: 01.A. Mixed Use 01.A.a. Aggregated 01.A.b. Isolated 01.B. Mostly Residential 01.B.a. Aggregated 01.B.b. Isolated 02_MEDIUM DENSITY: 02.A. Mixed Use 02.A.a. Aggregated 02.A.b. Isolated 02.B. Mostly Residential 02.B.a. Aggregated 02.B.b. Isolated 03_LOW DENSITY: 03.A. Mixed Use 03.A.a. Aggregated 03.A.b. Isolated 03.B. Mostly Residential 03.B.a. Aggregated 03.B.b. Isolated
Phase 3_2: Draft Foundation Masterplan
The scope of this work package is for each student to select the Masterplan Area and gradually zoom in with design of increasing detail ending up with a Draft Foundation Masterplan (DFM). The Masterplan Area is one portion of the study area already explored with the strategic and concept plans developed in the preceding phases. The students in group of 2 or 3 may choose to follow whatever Strategic Plan they like among the ones developed in the previous phase by all strategic groups, but once they have chosen a strategy. On the Masterplan Area, the students will at this stage undertake three activities: 1. Defining the boundary of the Masterplan Area, and within those boundaries: 2. Representing all decisions taken in the strategic phase (Strategic + Concept Plans); 3. Proposing a street layout in a preliminary version, along with the hierarchy of streets; 4. Defining “transformation areas”, i.e. areas that are targeted by substantial transformation in terms of density and/or land use; 5. Defining “regulation areas”, i.e. areas that are NOT targeted by substantial transformation in terms of density and/or land use; 6. Within the limits of transformation areas, attributing to each street front a proposed street front type selected among those investigated in the Street Front Analysis; This is the Draft Foundation Plan (DFM). In short, it is the initial step of the Masterplan.