jakub havlík_planning the liveable by Jakub Havlík

planning the liveable

“I have also thought of a model city from which I deduce all the others,” Marco answered. “It is a city made only of exceptions, exclusions, incongruities, contradictions. If such a city is the most improbable, by reducing the number of abnormal elements, we increase the probability that the city really exists. So I have only to subtract exceptions from my model, and in whatever direction I proceed, I will arrive at one of the cities which, always as an exception, exist. But I cannot force my operation beyond a certain limit: I would achieve cities too probable to be real.” (Calvino, 1972, p.69)

planning the liveable

by Jakub Havlík supervisors: Vicente Guallart, Maite Bravo, Pep Salas Institute of Advanced Architecture of Catalonia MAA02 Barcelona, 21/06/17 “Thesis presented to obtain the qualification of Master Degree from the Institute of Advanced Architecture of Catalunya”.

abstract

Current city planning methods produce spaces which fail to provide conditions for “life” to emerge in comparison to e.g. historical cities which which have been growing over a large period of time rather than being designed in a single act. This reinforces the “concentric model“ of city, omnipresent in the european context especially, marginalizing population from the periphery, by denying them full access to the goods which urban condition is capable to offer. This thesis suggests a formulation of city´s liveability based on a framework composed of specific parameters which can be divided into 7 main categories: spatial, visibility, solar, public/civic/market ratio, program, social, and other. There is a correlation between these parameters and the amount of life emerging within urban structures. By understanding and manipulating them, more liveable cities can be designed. In order to test the impact of these variables, case studies comparing liveability of public spaces within the city of Barcelona were carried out. According to the data collected throughout this process, a set of rules was defined. These rules informed the main outcome of this thesis - a design manual for more liveable cities, whose application was demonstrated on an example - a site in Barcelona. 6

keywords

Liveable Urban Natural Artificial Incidental Intentional Bottom-up Top-Down Parameter

prologue

In terms of the european context: Why are historical city centers more vibrant than periphery? Why do people prefer to hang around in these places just for the sake of being there? Why does majority of urban population prefer to live in historical centers rather than on the modernist suburbs? Why are people willing to pay more rent in order to rent a flat in the historical center? What is the quality to which they mostly refer as „atmosphere“, „genius loci“, „vibe“ or „life“? Problem: What are the main factors having influence on this ? Yet, there are already two common features which we may observe: The places buzzing with people were constructed before the 20th century whereas the ones that do not were constructed during 20th or 21th century. Another common feature which we might notice as well is that the first group was growing spontaneously (to a large extent) whereas the second was planned (to a large extent) From that we may already deduce, that the main cause of this “failure to attract life“ may be the concept of planning as such. I will borrow terminology from Christo10

pher Alexander, in which to planned cities he refers to as artificial whereas the spontaneous cities he calls natural. Natural cities (or parts of the city) have been growing, changing and evolving in an extensive period of time, as result of mental and physical activity of generations. On the contrary artificial cities (or parts of the city) were planned in a single mental act by a group of several people and constructed either all at once, or in stages, but these stages always referred to the original “masterplan“. The natural could be as well referred to as bottom-up and the planned as top-down. In comparison to the natural cities, artificial cities or parts of the city often fail to attract life on the streets, fail to offer diversity, fail to entertain, fail to do all these things in a way, that natural cities are capable of. Even if they manage to attract certain amount of life, it usually happens in a very predefined and separated manner (skaters in the skatepark, kids on the playground, dogs in the park....), but never in a way, as it happens in natural cities, which are capable of facilitating time and space for all these activities to happen in parallel, to overlap. Rather than reinforcing the concept of what is being referred to as “urban“, rather than finding ways for these “overlaps“ to happen, contemporary city planning and architecture seems to utterly negate this concept. As if “form follows function“ and “machine for living in“ were a magic spell which paralyzed the architectural discipline (non-architectural ones as well) for almost a century. And it still seems, that the recovery in not yet to

come. Out of these concerns, the research problem was formulated as following: Current city planning methods produce spaces which fail to provide conditions for “life” to emerge. This reinforces the “concentric model“of city, omnipresent in the european context especially, marginalizing population from the periphery, by denying them full access to the goods which urban condition is capable to offer. There have been numerous authors (many of them from other fields than architecture) who criticized the modern, or artificial city. These critiques started around the beginning of 1960s, in the times when the modernist concepts turned into actual cities, and could finally be tested empirically, by the citizens themselves. The first of these citizens who loudly expressed their opinion was Jane Jacobs, though not being an arhictect or urbanist, gave a very sharp critique of modern cities and their incapacity to become as liveable as the historical (natural) cities do. She wrote a book on this topic, Death and Life of Great American Cities (1961), which became a canonical work for next generations of urban planners, sociologists etc. She was followed by Christopher Alexander and his essay A City is Not a Tree (1965), which in comparison to Jacobs´s work was more theoretical, and discredited the concept of urban planning, and top-down approach as such, which opened the way for Alexander´s later work, such as A Pattern Language

(1977), mainly based on bottom-up approach. Very inspiring work was developed by Bill Hillier, Julienne Hanson and other colleagues at The Bartlett in the early 1980s, the so called Space Syntax. It is set of theories analyzing spatial configurations. They argued that physical environment does have social impact. More contemporary author who indirectly supports this argument is Czech architect and theoretician Pavla Melková. In her book Humanistic role of architecture (2016), she underlines an interesting obsevation, a tendency of contemporary architecture to neglect the importance of the built enviroment as such, arguing that events happening within this environment have higher priority. Such attitude denies possibility of correlation between the social and the physical. Melková argues against this, stating that there is a correlation between these two entities. Perhaps the most optimistic among all (surprisingly), urban sociologist Richard Sennett, unlike Jacobs and Alexander, is one of the few, who believes in the idea of planning as such, trying to develop a conceptual framework which would be able to merge the advantages of planning with those of spontaneous (natural) cities. He refers to it as the Open City. However, most of the work of the mentioned authors as well as of those non-mentioned ones remains on the theoretical level. Though there have been numerous experiments carried out, either by the authors themselves or other authors, in order to prove their theories, 11

up until now, the vast majority of this knowledge is not being applied in urban planning. Another problem is that the vast majority of this work is a pure critique. Only a very few of the concerned authors concluded their critique with a practical proposal. Among the proposals, the majority was not specified quantitatively.

The objective of this thesis is finding a way in which cities (parts of the city) capable of becoming liveable could be created intentionally. Out of this objective the research question was formulated: Would it be possible to intentionally resemble that quality which discerns Carrer de Verdi in Gracia from Rambla de Prim in Sant Marti? (2 streets from 2 various districts of Barcelona) Would it be possible to intentionally resemble the conditions which make places liveable? Among the all the critiques, a common pattern was observed, and that was associating city´s liveability to certain spatial conditions, to certain morphology – to the natural city. According to this observation, hypothesis was defined: There is a correlation between parameters defining urban structures and the amount of life emerging within these structures. By understanding these relations, it could be possible to intentionally recreate conditions 12

which make cities liveable. Methodologically, this research has a tripartite basis, collecting concepts and tools from the urban sociology, urban morphology and algorithmic design/ parametric urbanism. In order to prove what the hypothesis stated, to find correlation between parameters defining urban structures and the amount of life emerging within these structures, experiments were carried out. Barcelona was chosen as laboratory, in order to maintain constant inputs (climate, cultural context, etc.), and the case studies to be tested were Bareclona´s most vital organs, its public spaces. Together, 20 case studies were compared, defined by parameters which were divided into 7 main categories: 1) spatial 2) visibility 3) solar 4) public/civic/ market ratio 5) program 6) social 7) other. The results of the experiment were then evaluated in order to find presence of correlation between liveability and each parameter from the 7 categories. The parameters were sorted according to their impact on the liveability of the tested public space. The most significant parameters were applied in the main proposal of this thesis – a design method by which more liveable cities (parts of the city) could be generated To test this method, as an example, a site was chosen in Barcelona, in order to maintain the same inputs as throughout the experiment. The site is located in

Zona Franca, Sants-Montjuic district, at the very edge of the city. It is one of the last, relatively large, empty slots of Barcelona. Currently, there is an ongoing development, following the master plan according to which on of the typical suburban residential districts will grow. The method proposes an alternative way in which this district could grow into a more liveable one â&#x20AC;&#x201C; in compariaon to what its current masterplan restricts it to. By using data from the research, learning from liveable districts of Barcelona, a set of lines for the streets to follow and a set of bounding boxes was defined which would guide the district growth â&#x20AC;&#x201C; so that it would maintain the spatial relationships of liveability. However, what will happen within (and between) these bounding boxes, is up to their inhabitants.

acknowledgements

I would like to thank to everybody who feels I should be thankful to. Perhaps, there are some people who do not feel that I should be thankful to them, nevertheless, I am thankful to these people as well. Maybe, there are even people to whom I am not thankful but they feel I should be, so to avoid any kind of umbrage, I would like to thank to these people as well. I would specially like to thank to: Maite Bravo, Gonzalo Delacámara, and Jordi Vivaldi Piera for academic guidance. Elena Čániová for constantly questioning the actual reason of what I was doing. Sameera Chukkapalli for believing in this project in the times when I did not believe in it. Juraj Havlík for sociological questions.

contents

Part 1 1. State of the art 1.1 Authors who criticize 1.2 Authors who wonder if 1.3 Authors who propose 2. Methodology 2.1 What to measure 2.2 How to measure 2.3 Experiment design 2.4 Hypothesis variables 3. Results

16 19 25 27 32 34 36 38 44 58

Part 2 4. Application 4.1 How should it grow? 4.2 Who designs it? 4.3 How should it be? 4.4 For e(i)xample 5. Conclusion 6. Bibliography 16

74 74 75 76 80 100 102

part 1 deconstruction

1. state of the art

Miles Davis

Arnold Schoenberg

_ Kind of blue (1959)

art

_ 12 tone music (1920s)

Brad Mehldau _ Places (2000)

Italo Calvino _ Invisible cities (1972)

Steven Johnson

Leon Festinger

_ Emergence (2001)

science

_ “cognitive dissonance” (1957)

Carl Bovill

Nikos Salingaros _ Distribution of sizes (1998)

_ systems theory

open vs. closed system

Marc Augé

Friedrich Nietzsche

Richard Sennett _

_ Non-Places (1995)

_ Apollonian and Dyonisian (1872)

_ dichotomy (greek mythology)

_ Occupying and connecting (2009)

_ Fractal geometry in architecture (1996)

open/closed system

Apollonian and Dyonisian

sociosophy

emergence Frei Otto

place/identity/genius loci

“Open city” (2010)

Edward W. Soja _ Postmetropolis (2000)

Aristotle

Manuel De Landa

_ “cities cannot be made of similar people”

built environment can transform social relations

human scale

spatial relations

Jane Jacobs _ The death and life of great american cities (1961)

Ildefons Cerdá

_ “physical environment can transform social relations” (1859)

urbanism

_ Use of genetic algorithm (2002)

_ imitating natural environment (1892)

City of Rhodes _ “artificial cave” (first evidence) (300 b.c.)

Grotta

_ “artificial cave” (16th cent.)

intention to resemble natural environment

open architecture Tomáš Baťa

architecture

_ “first let people walk and following their trails build pavements” (1930)

_ Life between buildings (1987) Cities for the people (2010)

Space Syntax

Aldo Rossi

_ The architecture of the city (1966)

Fumihiko Maki _ Collective form (1964)

without architects

_ imitating natural environment (18th cent.)

1000

1500

1700

1800

1900

Sou Fujimoto

1950

Quinta monroy (2004)

Isamu Noguchi _

Playscapes (1976)

Architecture without architects (1964) _ CEPT campus (1962)

_ Fractal Cities (1994)

_ Pavla Melková Notes on the synthesis of form Torre _David (1964) _ Humanistická role architektury A city is not a tree (2010) (2016) (1965) Pattern language (1977) _ The timeless way of building Primitive future (1979) (2008) The nature of order Alejandro Aravena (2002)

B.V. Doshi

Michael Batty

Christopher Alexander

Bernard Rudofsky

English Garden

_ The right to the city (2008)

Jan Gehl

_ (1980)

Sintra

David Harvey

Rem Koolhaas

_ Generic city (1995) Princess _ (2004)

Christian Norberg-Schultz _ Peter Zumthor Genius loci (1980)

Kristian Kerez _ incidental space (2016)

Diana memorial Ricardo Bofill

_ Thinking architecture (1998)

_ “...but it is clear that people prefer to live in historical centers, not in new cities.” (2016)

2000

1. state of the art

Every movement has always had an anti-movement. In architecture the criticism may as well happen on the theoretical level, before the project is being built, but this usually happens within the group with architectural backgrounds. In order to get the broader public engaged in this criticism, an empirical experience of the actual built object is required. In architecture the time range from the first sketch until the built object and its userÂ´s experience is usually no more than 10 years. In urban planning, the situation is different. The time range from the first sketch (of the masterplan) to the actual empirical experience of the city is much larger. The modernist thoughts on urban planning started in the beginning of 20th century, but it was not until the 1960s when these concepts could become fully perceivable by its inhabitants. This empirical experience of modernist planning and architecture has prepared a fertile ground for postmodernism become a movement. Nevertheless, according to this research, the most interesting critiques were written in the times before and after postmodernism had become a mainstream fashion â&#x20AC;&#x201C; which justified anyone 22

to criticize the modern, without being obliged to construct a valuable argument or to propose an alternative solution. I will now introduce a list of authors, many of them from fields other than architecture, who worked on topics very familiar to this thesis as well as their knowledge has been a great help in defining framework for this research. The authors will be divided into 3 groups (problem, question, and hypothesis), according to which part of this research is their work related to. Some authors may appear in all three groups, others only in one, depending on whether their work was a pure critique, a pure question, or as well included a proposal. The authors of the mentioned works, are listed chronologically: - - - - - - - - - - - -

Marc Antoine Laugier (1753) Charles Baudelaire (1859) Jane Jacobs (1961) Christopher Alexander (1965) Italo Calvino (1972) Bill Hillier, Julienne Hanson - Space Syntax (1980) Jan Gehl (1987) Rem Koolhaas (1995) Nikos Salingaros (1998) Richard Sennett (2013) Sou Fujimoto (2014) Pavla MelkovĂĄ (2016)

1.1 authors who criticize:

Current city planning methods produce spaces which fail to provide conditions for “life” to emerge. This reinforces the “concentric model“of city, omnipresent in the european context especially, marginalizing population from the periphery, by denying them full access to the goods which urban condition is capable to offer. Just like the research problem, the first group criticizes the modern planning, from various points of view. Jane Jacobs (1961) In her book The death and life of great american cities (1961), she was one of the first to give a constructive critique of modern urban planning. Her observations were very empirical and practical. Though she did not provide much theoretical framework, her observations are incredibly sharp, supported by strong arguments, defining problems very precisely. One of her main concerns was the deterministic manner in which modern cities were designed. In her own words: “Orthodox planning is much imbued with puritanical and Utopian conceptions of how people should spend their free time, and in planning, these moralisms on people’s private lives are deeply confused with concepts about the workings of cities.“ (Jacobs, 1961, p.41)

In opposition to the simplicity of modernist cities, she was fascinated by the complexity of pre-modernist cities (in american context), which modernist planners considered as disorder and chaos. “Under the seeming disorder of the old city, wherever the old city is working successfully, is a marvelous order for maintaining the safety of the streets and the freedom of the city. It is a complex order.“ (Jacobs, 1961, p.50) She argued that this complexity is the source of urban life, and by organizing and sorting cities this life is being uprooted. Christopher Alexander (1964) In his second book, Notes on the synthesis of form (1964), not directly related to urban design Alexander talks about design process in general, however, the concepts which he developed are applicable in very wide range of fields. He questions individual´s capacities to deal with such a complex task as urban design. “Similarly, the very frequent failure of individual designers to produce well organized forms suggests strongly that there are limits to the individual designer’s capacity.” (Alexander, 1964, p.5) He also mentions the disproportion between the time it takes to design a city and the time it takes for a city to evolve as well as the individual knowledge and collective knowledge: “To achieve in a few hours at the drawing board what once took centuries of adaptation and development, to invent a form suddenly which clearly fits its context- the extent of the invention necessary is beyond the average designer.” (Alexander, 23

1964, p.59) He argues, that in order to grasp the complexity of design process as such, general principles are being developed in order to simplify the decision-making process. “The constant burden of decision which he comes across, once freed from tradition, is a tiring one. So he avoids it where he can by using rules (or general principles) , which he formulates in terms of his invented concepts. These principles are at the root of all so-called “theories” of architectural design.” (Alexander, 1964, p.62) Not so well known as A Pattern Language or Timeless Way of Building, City is not a tree (1965) is one of the first texts of Christopher Alexander, first one to talk about urban planning (and perhaps the one most directly related to urbanism), very precisely criticising the incapacity of modern cities to become liveable: “It is more and more widely recognized today that there is some essential ingredient missing from artificial cities. When compared with ancient cities that have acquired the patina of life, our modern attempts to create cities artificially are, from a human point of view, entirely unsuccessful.” (Alexander, 1965, p.1) He divides cities (or parts of the city) into two categories: a) Natural – cities which have grown spontaneously and evolved over an extensive period of time and b) Artificial – cities planned in a single mental act by a group of several people and constructed either all at once, or in stages, but these stages always referred to the original “masterplan“. “I want to call those cities 24

which have arisen more or less spontaneously over many, many years natural cities. And I shall call those cities and parts of cities which have been deliberately created by designers and planners artificial cities. Siena, Liverpool, Kyoto, Manhattan are examples of natural cities. Levittown, Chandigarh and the British New Towns are examples of artificial cities.“ (Alexander, 1965, p.1) Put more simply, natural cities were created in a bottom-up manner whereas artificial cities in top-down (more or less). For the rest of this text, the terms “natural” city and “artificial” city will be used. Similarly to Jacobs, he criticizes the determinism, in which modern cities were planned, only providing receptacles for the systems which it can grasp - leaving no space for the undefined, spatially separating population according to their age, profession, etc. “Another favourite concept of the CIAM theorists and others is the separation of recreation from everything else. This has crystallized in our real cities in the form of playgrounds. The playground, asphalted and fenced in, is nothing but a pictorial acknowledgment of the fact that ‘play’ exists as an isolated concept in our minds. It has nothing to do with the life of play itself. Few self-respecting children will even play in a playground.“ (Alexander, 1965, p.13) He also criticizes modernism´s ignorant attitude towards complexity, its oversimplified vision of reality, its insistence on order and clear structure. Alexander compares this „clear structure“ (artificial city) to the structure of a tree, whereas the structure of more com-

plex systems (natural city) he compares to a semilattice. “The tree of my title is not a green tree with leaves. It is the name of an abstract structure. I shall contrast it with another, more complex abstract structure called a semilattice. (...) Both the tree and the semilattice are ways of thinking about how a large collection of many small systems goes to make up a large and complex system. More generally, they are both names for structures of sets.“ (Alexander, 1965, p.1) He defines the both axioms in a following way: “The semilattice axiom goes like this: A collection of sets forms a semilattice if and only if, when two overlapping sets belong to the collection, the set of elements common to both also belongs to the collection. The tree axiom states: A collection of sets forms a tree if and only if, for any two sets that belong to the collection either one is wholly contained in the other, or else they are wholly disjoint.“ (Alexander, 1965, p.4) He argues that tree structure is not capable of representing such a complex system of relationships as city is, and simply fails to correspond to the reality of cities: “However, in every city there are thousands, even millions, of times as many more systems at work whose physical residue does not appear as a unit in these tree structures. In the worst cases, the units which do appear fail to correspond to any living reality; and the real systems, whose existence actually makes the city live, have been provided with no physical receptacle.“ (Alexander, 1965, p.9)

He states, that tree-structure is oversimplified, yet the semilattice is too complex for planners to grasp, therefore it cannot be used as a diagram or scheme for planning cities. However, the idea of planning as such depends on a diagram, and once the diagram cannot be drawn, the whole idea of planning collapses.This concludes that planning a city is an impossible task. City is not a tree is Alexander´s last text in which he talks about cities in a top-down manner. His following work acknowledges that city planning as such is not capable of designing a liveable city. Rem Koolhaas (1995) One of the most paradoxical figures (paradoxical in terms relationship between his statements and this research) from the ones which I have mentioned here, nevertheless, just like the research problem of this thesis, his text Generic city criticizes the concentric model of cities (omnipresent especially in European context). Stating that due to this model cities are being divided into center and periphery. “Without center, no periphery.“ (Koolhaas, 1995, p.1249) The main difference is, that for Koolhaas centre is a matter of location whereas for this research center has more of a morphological than topographical character. Its location (in the center) is only a consequence of the urban growth. “Conceptally orphaned, the condition of the periphery is made worse by the fact that its mother is still alive, stealing the show, emphasizing its offspring´s 25

inadequacies.“ (Koolhaas, 1995, p.1249) I would like to argue that the condition of periphery, its inadequacies, are the consequence of its spatial properties – centers are in the majority of cases natural cities whereas peripheries are artificial – therefore the centers are stealing the show – because unlike the periphery, they provide spatial conditions for life to emerge. However, this condition is constantly being nurtured, since the urban expansion is happening in the form of artificial city. “The persistence of the present concentric obsession makes us all bridge-and-tunnel people, second-class citizens in our own civilization.“ (Koolhaas, 1995p.1249) Since the cities keep on expanding in an artificial manner, therefore it is the minority of citizens now living in natural cities. Nikos Salingaros (1998) A close collaborator of Christopher Alexander (in his later works). The cited fragments originate from paper in which Salingaros focused on scales in the urban context, however, instead of focusing either on macro or micro, he understood the scale in more hollistic manner, ranging from size of a street to size of a flowerpot. In order to achieve one of the conditions of liveable environment (in a way that natural cities do), he argues that the scales of urban elements should be distributed according to power-law scaling law. “Traditional cities and towns contain urban elements of many different sizes; from the largest buildings down to street furniture, bollards, and potted 26

plants. We claim that a necessary though not sufficient condition for a living city is that urban units be distributed according to the inverse power-law scaling [rule (6)].“ (Salingaros, 1998, p.920) This as well applies to the scale of connections. He mentions examples of the two extreme conditions: “At one extreme we have the modernist city and suburb, which lack small-scale connections (…) At the other extreme, the inner-city ghetto or squatter settlement lacks longer connections because of socioeconomic conditions and the availability of jobs, and not because of the road structure, and this isolates its residents from the rest of the city and from society in general.“ (Salingaros, 1998, p.919) He claims that contemporary planning is focused on larger scales only, therefore, the cities produced by this method fail in becoming liveable. “Today’s cities follow stylistic rules that skew the distribution of urban units towards the largest possible scale, which is irrelevant to human activity. The intermediate scales are severely weakened. (…) A skewed distribution in the sizes of urban elements makes it impossible to generate the appropriate connections that tie a living city together.“ (Salingaros, 1998, p.920) Richard Sennett (2013) Along with Alexnader, Sennett is one of the most important references for this research. Among others, he is the most critical of himself – the most aware of the

risk of becoming utopian. “There are many intelectuals who question the world, but very few intellectuals who question the world of intellectuals.“ (Bourdieu, 2012, p.8) This quote by Bourdieu is perhaps the most suitable to describe the work of Sennett. He appeals that despite the amount of technological advancements available, urban planning has fails to apply them in a creative manner. “Let me begin with a paradox. The art of designing cities declined drastically in the middle of the 20th century. That’s a paradox because today’s planner has an arsenal of technological tools -- from lighting to bridging and tunneling to materials for buildings -- which urbanists even a hundred years ago could not begin to imagine: we have more resources to use than in the past, but resources we don’t use very creatively. This paradox can be traced to the over-determination both of the city’s visual forms and its social functions.” (Sennett, 2013, p.1) He claims that the reason why these tools are not being used in a creative manner is over-determination, as if form-follows-function had been taken too seriously and turned into a general design doctrine. The result of over-determination, that cities fail to adapt to changing conditions: “The result of over-determination is another paradox, namely that these frozen cities decay much more quickly than urban fabric inherited from the past. As uses change, buildings have to be replaced, since fixed form-function relations make them so difficult to adapt.” (Sennett, 2013, p.3) Which is a paradox, since natural

cities proved to be (and are) much more adaptable than artificial cities. Perhaps the most important point about Sennett´s work is, that unlike the other authors, he does actually believe in planning as such. Unlike Jane Jacobs, Bernard Rudofsky and other „lefty urbanists“ (in his own words) who claimed that unplanned, spontaneous growth will produce liveable community Sennett argues that cities cannot be left unplanned: “If you leave society unplanned, you will get classes, segregation, etc.(...)You have to „plan against that.“ (Sennett, 2013) Though in general praising the work of Jacobs (his own work is based on it to a large extent), he criticizes it for neglecting the importance of urban design: “Urban design, as design, does not figure much in her version of the city; the art of design matters in mine.” (Sennett, 2013, p.8) He does not believe that cities have the capability to organize themselves in the bottom-up manner entirely, yet too much control from above inhibits their viability. Sou Fujimoto (2014) Sou Fujimoto´s way of seeing architecture´s incapacity of being true to life. He appeals on the lack of gradients within ordinary architecture. “In ordinary architecture, our world is clearly arranged according to the word “function“, as is clearly divided into black and white. But isn´t real life sustained by the innumerable acts that lie between them? And unlike the internet, space cannot instantaneously 27

switch from 0 to 1. Conversely, the charm of space lies in the richness of the gradations, that exist between 0 and 1 implemented in the real world.“ (Fujimoto, 2014, p.132) Pavla Melková (2016) Czech architect and theoretician, in her book Humanistic role of architecture (2016), she criticizes contemporary architecture´s failure to provide deeper meaning or value than the purely utilitarian one. She refers to these values as humanistic, however, despite using slightly different terminology, her observations correlate with ohter author´s concerns about the lack of liveability. “Nowadays, when urban planning is often being based on instrumentality and technocracy, we feel the absence of an elementary solid framework based on meaning.“ (Melková, 2016, p.72) She argues that results of modernist urban planning lack the capacity of being identified with by their inhabitants. “After the era of failures – never absolute, but frequent – of modernist urban planning, which their inhabitants cannot identify themselves with and are often being perceived as uninhabitable.“ (Melková, 2016, p.72) She is surprised by the fact, that 20th century avant-garde movements had such a large impact on urban planning even though the main body of their work was theoretical, and even if built, it failed to prove its original hypothesis. “It is surprising to what extent had the 20th century avant-garde movements succeeded in establishing their own positions, albeit their promises 28

of new significance, unity and completeness were being proved more by publicity, exhibitions, manifestos and utopian projects than by quality of the actual buildings, not speaking about cities.“ (Melková, 2016, p.75) She has observed the most recent tendency (and perhaps a fashion) in architecture, and that is marginalizing the importance of built environment in favour of events, as if there was no relationship between between these two entities. “The fact that the importance of physical environment´s quality is being marginalized in favour of events has an impact on the perception of the importance of architecture, and hence the architectural profession as such. However, the events are always being attached to the physical space in some way, and cannot exist without it. Architecture, respectively, physical environment is always a necessary support as well as initiation of the events, though this direct attachment is not being perceived.“ (Melková, 2016, p.55)

1.2 Authors who wonder if:

Would it be possible to intenionally resemble that quality which discerns Carrer de Verdi in Gracia from Rambla de Prim in Sant Marti? Would it be possible to intentionally resemble the conditions which make places “liveable“?

This group of authors realizes the complexity of the task, however, instead of direct critique, they praise the natural city by questioning, though most of their questions remain rhetorical. Nevertheless, their writing was helpful in defining the research question for this thesis. In all cases we may observe a dialectics between the natural and the artificial. The artificial is often being compared to the natural condition, as well questions, whether this natural condition could be recreated intentionally. Marc Antoine Laugier (1753) “It is not easy to design a city in which a magnificient ensemble would be divided in an afinity of beautiful details, all different from each other; in which there would be order, although also a sort of confusion; in which a plurality of regular parts would yield altogether a certain idea of irregularity and chaos, which is so well suited to large cities:(...) No city more than Paris offers to the imagination of a clever artist such a beautiful field of action. It is

an immense forest, with topographical variations which alternate plains and mountains, divided by a large river that, dividing itself in different branches, forms islands of different magnitude.“ (Marc Antoine Laugier, 1753) There is a paradox, a contradiction in Laugier´s writing, and that is a mixture of order and chaos. This contradiction, I am afraid, will be omnipresent throughout this entire thesis, since the main objective of this research is to propose a way how these two could be merged. Another topic he has tackled is also a contradiction in a certain manner. He praises the unity of details, in which each detail would be different, but as an ensemble they give an impression of a coherent whole. Charles Baudelaire (1859) “The vertigo felt in large cities is similar to the vertigo we feel in the midst of nature. – Pleasures of chaos and immensity.“ (Charles Baudelaire, 1859) Same as Laugier, Baudelaire compares urban condition to a natural one. He as well describes how chaos can be a source of pleasure. Christopher Alexander (1965) “It is not enough merely to make a demonstration of overlap – the overlap must be the right overlap. This is doubly important because it is so tempting to make plans in which overlap occurs for its own sake. This is essentially what the high- density ‘life-filled’ city plans of recent years do.“ (Alexander, 1965, p.19) Alexander is questioning, 29

(and seems to be sceptical) whether the kind of overlap which occurs in natural cities, could be designed intentionally. Nikos Salingaros (1998) As many before, Salingaros anticipates the dialectics between order and chaos. Wondering whether the ratio between these two could be expressed in quantitative manner. “One comes back to the old question of what makes a complex structure interesting to human beings. The answer, at least in part, is that it has to lie somewhere in between two extremes: too regular or empty, which is boring; or too incoherent, which is disturbing.“ (Salingaros, 1997, p.910) He acknowledges that cities need both order and chaos. “Just as in music, we enjoy a building or city because it offers a mixture of regularity and surprise in a certain ratio.“ (Salingaros, 1998, p.910) Richard Sennett (2013) „What are the physical forms that allow people be social?“ (Sennet, 2013) Sennett has more faith in urban design than Alexander (and perhaps the most of all the mentioned authors), and believes, that cities in which people would be more social are possible to design, however, he doesn´t have an answer yet. Sou Fujimoto (2014) Fujimoto tries to describe a place which would exceed 30

its function. He uses a cave as an example: “In other words, a cave is not functional but it is heuristic. Rather than a coercive functionalism, it is a stimulating place in which various activities are enabled. Each day, people will discover new usages for a place.“ (Fujimoto, 2014, 130) He poses a very fundamental question: “Is an “artificial cave“ possible in “architecture made by people?“ The big question is whether something that is without purpose, or something that exceeds purpose, can be made intentionally.“ (Fujimoto, 2014, 130) Perhaps intentionally and perhaps not, he questioned the capability of making as such, which by its nature is a top-down approach, in which an idea is ahead of the act. He compares ruins to a cave. “Ruins are the ending of architecture, and simultaneously the beginning of architecture. Ruins are incomplete and accidental, and therefore become artificial caves.“ (Fujimoto, 2014, 130) However, neither ruins were made intentionally. “A delicate method of producing accidents may reduce the distance between natural things and artificial things. A new existence possessing the diversity of nature and the lucidity of artifice.“ (Fujimoto, 2014, 130) Again, same as previously, dialectics between the natural and the artificial, between the chaos and the order, between the incidental and intentional…

1.3 Authors who propose:

There is a correlation between parameters defining urban structures and the amount of live emerging within these structures. By understanding these relations, it could be possible to intentionally recreate conditions which make cities „liveable“. The third group consists of authors, who as well concluded their critique with some sort of proposal, though in most cases, the work remained at theoretical level. The roots of this research´s hypothesis could be traced down to the second half of 19th century, in which there was a belief, strongly influenced by positivism, that physical environment is capable of transforming social relations, represented by such figures as Haussmann, Cerdá and Olmsted (the first two were the first urban planners who actually called themselves urban planners, the third was a landscape architect). Though very far from the attitude of positivism as well as from intentions of the mentioned figures, or any attempts to recreate society, there is one thing in common. Both admit that spatial structure affects the way how people behave within this structure – which is the very core of my hypothesis. Jane Jacobs (1961) Similar as hypothesis of this research, Jacobs under-

stood the city as a system of relationships: “A city sidewalk by itself is nothing. It is an abstraction. It means something only in conjunction with the buildings and other uses that border it.“ (Jacobs, 1961, p.29) She was the first the talk about emergence in urban context, without using that actual word which became so fashionable for architects and urbanists four decades later. “We are the lucky possessors of a city order that makes it relatively simple to keep the peace because there are plenty of eyes on the street. But there is nothing simple about that order itself, or the bewildering number of components that go into it. Most of those components are specialized in one way or another. They unite in their joint effect upon the sidewalk, which is not specialized in the least. That is its strength.“ (Jacobs, 1961, p.54) Against the over-determined visions of modern urban planners, Jacobs argued that places should become both dense and diverse, either in the form of dense streets or packed squares; such physical conditions can prompt the unexpected encounter, the chance discovery, the innovation which is the genius loci of cities. In order to promote urban life in cities, the physical environment should be characterized by diversity at both the district and street level. Diversity, in turn, requires four essential conditions: (i) mixed land uses, that is, districts should serve more than two primary functions, and that would attract people who have different purposes; (ii) small blocks, which promote contact opportunities among people; (iii) buildings diverse in terms 31

of age and form, which make it possible to mix high-rent and low-rent tenants; and (iv) sufficient dense concentration of people and buildings. She emphasized that all four factors are necessary: density alone cannot create urban diversity, and mixed-land use would not flourish in areas with big blocks and of low density. Italo Calvino (1972) Despite the fact that this book is a novel and its author is not an architect, it served as an important reference for this research, especially by naming the problems by using a completely different language. Invisible cities (1972) has tackled almost every key aspect of this research. The hypothesis highlights the importance of spatial relationships, so does Calvino: “I could tell you how many steps make up the streets rising like stairways, and the degree of the arcades’ curves, and what kind of zinc scales cover the roofs; but I already know this would be the same as telling you nothing. The city does not consist of this, but of relationships between the measurements of its space and the events of its past.“ (Calvino, 1972, p.10) He describes the city as whole: “Zora has the quality of remaining in your memory point by point, in its succession of streets, of houses along the streets, and of doors and windows in the houses,though nothing in them possesses a special beauty or rarity. Zora’s secret lies in the way your gaze runs over patterns following one another as in a musical score where not a note can be altered or displaced.“ (Calvino, 1972, p.15) 32

Christopher Alexander (1979) After City is not a tree, Alexander definitely departs from the concept of top-down planning and starts working on his best known work The Pattern Language (1977). A timeless way of building, though published later, was written as an introduction to The Pattern language. In this text Alexander compares the complexity of city to a complexity of a living organism and argues that if an organism cannot be created in a top-down manner, so cannot a city. “This hinges on a simple scientific proposition: the great complexity of an organic system, which is essential to its life, cannot be created from above directly; it can only be generated indirectly. (…) This cannot happen unless each part is at least partly autonomous, so that it can adapt to the local conditions in the whole. (Alexander, 1979, p.162-163) He emphasizes, that every part of a complex system requires certain amount of autonomy, nevertheless, he admits the presence of a certain top-down principle, to which he refers as „genetic code“. In generative process of a city, it is the Pattern language which plays the role of the genetic code. “The people can shape buildings for themselves, and have done it for centuries, by using languages which I call pattern languages. A pattern language gives each person who uses it, the power to create an infinite variety of new and unique buildings, just as his ordinary language gives him the power to create an infinite variety of sentences.“ (Alexander, 1979, p.167)

He concludes that planning itself would never be able to reach such complexity as the genetic process does. “The fact is, that the creation of a town, and the creation of the individual buildings in a town, is fundamentally a genetic process. No amount of planning or design can replace this genetic process.“ (Alexander, 1979, p.240) Space Syntax (1980) Space syntax – a set of theories and techniques for the analysis of spatial configurations, conceived by Bill Hillier, Julienne Hanson and colleagues at The Bartlett, in the late 1970s to early 1980s as a tool to help urban planners simulate the likely social effects of their designs. One of the most influential references for this research, especially in terms of the experiment design. Some techniques developed by the Space-syntaxists were applied in the experiments, as well as the hypothesis of this research is being based on one of their main arguments, which states that physical structures influence the way how people behave within these structures. “Buildings are composed of a series of spaces; each space has at least one link to other spaces. The structural properties that comprise these spaces and links might have an embedded social meaning that has implications on the overall behaviour of human habitat. (…) The same description might also apply on an urban scale. Cities are aggregates of buildings held together by a network of spaces flowing in-between the blocks. This network connects a set

of street spaces that form together a discrete structure.“ (Hillier, 1980, p.7) Jan Gehl (1987) Similar to Jacobs, rather than defining a theoretical framework, the work of Gehl is being based more on practical observations and field research, which are documented in his book Life between the buildings (1987). Among other authors, Gehl was the one to focus the most on psychological aspect of the cities, i.e. the way how inhabitants perceive the city, (what makes them feel good and what doesn´t). Compared to the others, mostly focused on macro scale, Gehl focuses on micro scale. His main object of interest are public spaces. He defined a set of practical guidelines for designing public spaces, from which some of the rules were applied in the experiments of this research. Richard Sennett (2013) Sennett´s critique can be summarized in a following manner: Artificial city, the result of modern planning, the main object of his criticism he classifies as a “Closed city”, which he defines by 6 main characteristics: 1) Over-determined, 2) Balanced, 3) Integrated, 4) Linear, 5) Full of boundaries and walls, 6) Top-down. He proposes an “open city”, characterized by opposing these 6 main characteristics: 1) Incomplete, 2) Errant, 3) Conflictual, 4) Non-linear, 5) more boarders and membranes, 6) Buttom-up. He argues that such 33

city could be designed: “I’d like to conclude tonight by presenting to you three ways in which I think an open city can be well designed. These designs involve creating ambiguous edges between parts of the city, contriving incomplete forms in buildings, and planning for unresolved narratives of development.“ (Sennett, 2013, p.8) With ambiguous edges, he refers to blurring the edges of space, a space between or gradient. Christopher Alexander uses the word “overlap”, whereas Sou Fujimoto names it more poetically: “innumerable acts that lie between black and white”. (Fujimoto, 2014) By incomplete forms, he means structure which could be customized by their users according to their need. A brutal example of this approach could be Torre David in Caracas, Venezuela, a bit more gentle one social housing by Alejandro Aravena. Unresolved narratives could be as well described as “not yet defined”, not trying to resolve all the problems simultaneously with one solution. To accept that life may not be as linear as one would wish it to be. Pavla Melková (2016) Melkova proposes, that in order to achieve more liveable cities, it may be necessary to look back into the past (and learn from it), however, not in a formal sense, but by understanding the principles under which these cities had grown. “It may be necessary to admit that there is no other option than following up with the interrupted tradition, however, not based on its formal appearance, but 34

rather on its principle, for which we may need to find new meaning. Adoption of this principle could consist of applying certain formal rules of historical cities.“ (Melková, 2016, p.72) She points out, that this should be done very carefully, in order to avoid such results, as the ones produced under the influence of New Urbanism movement. “Nevertheless, it should not be understood as mechanical replication of its model; their acceptance should include a critical layer defining their position in the value framework of contemporary society.“ (Melková, 2016, p.72-73) Melková marks the spatial qualities of public spaces as superior to the events happening within these spaces, though she admits the importance of other factors too. “The material space is a determinant framework for the quality of public spaces. Functions and events are the primary goal of this framework, simultaneously they belong to the category of variable and liquid properties of the site, which is defined by the material space. It can enable, facilitate, or initiate these events.“ (Melková, 2016, p.84) She defines a set of properties which define a high-quality public space. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5.

Quality of stay Quality of movement Accessible to all citizens Accessibility, permeability Freedom of choice

6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12.

Safety Healthy environment Sensory, cognitive and aesthetic function Communicability Legibility – possibility to identify with the environ ment Adequate social contact Flexibility

Key properties of high-quality public spaces (p.86 - 90)

Summary: To sum up this chapter, even though most of the authors concluded their concern about contemporary cities with a proposal how cities should be in terms of qualitative information, up to few exceptions (e.g. Gehl and Salingaros), almost none of them mentioned qualitative information. No precise data were given. Therefore, this will be one of the main objectives of this research – to specify this data – to find correlations between liveability of places and quantitative information defining these places.

2. methodology

problem

question

hypothesis

Current city planning and architecture produces spaces which fail to to provide conditions for life to emerge.

Would it be possible to intentionally resemble the conditions which make places places “living“ ?

There is a correlation between parameters defining urban structures and the amount of live emerging within these structures. By understanding these relations, it could be possible to intentionally recreate conditions which make cities „living“. These parameters can be divided into 7 main categories which are: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7.

methodology 1. define criteria to discern “living” from “non-living” 2. according to the criteria, find case studies within barcelona 3. case study analysis 4. collect parameters 5. inform the design with these parameters

spatial visibility solar public / civic / market program social other

barcelona

broader context (500m)

test Barcelona against this criteria

1. average building height 2. building height range 3. average discontinuity per block 4. built area / free area

specify terms “living” and “non-living”

1. Christopher Alexander:

1. define criteria

2. case studies

3. analysis 2. placa de george orwell

3. Jan Gehl:

3. placa dels angels 5. rambla del raval

10 places that “live”

1. according to literature

analyze each place and its surroundings within 500m radius

criteria to discern “living” from “non-living”

2. field research

4.collect parameters

4. placa de sant cugat

5. David Harvey

1. everyday experience

6. average sreet size

1. placa del sol

2. Jane Jacobs: 4. Richard Sennett

2. according to observation

5. density

10 places that don´t

the common parameters of “living”

the common parameters of “non-living” 1. forum 2. diagonal mar 3. jardins de merce 4. rambla de prim 5. harry walker

1. spatial 1. triangular segmentation 2. facade perimeter 3. average discontinuity 4. isovist

sort parameters according their importance

2. solar 3. private/public

3.SOCIAL WHICH

AGE GROUPS USE THE PLACE ?

5. objects to interact with 6. topography 7. usage 4. traffic

plaza itself

design Generating a new barcelona district informed by the data from the research

2.0 methodology

Methodologically, this research has a tripartite basis, collecting concepts and tools from the urban sociology, urban morphology and algorithmic design/parametric urbanism.

2.1 What to measure

There were two main struggles in the initial phase of this research. First one was to find an appropriate word for the phenomena I was observing. „Life“, „liveability“, „genius loci“, „atmosphere“ – it seemed as if any none of these terms had the ability to describe this phenomea as a whole, only partially mentioning some of its qualities. I tried asking people in my surroundings, and with each one of them, we came to an agreement that there is some quality which discerns natural cities from the artificial ones, however, none of them knew, how to call it properly. 38

It seems that I was not the first to struggle on this. In Timeless Way of Building, Christopher Alexander faced a similar problem: “But it is easy to understand why people believe so firmly that there is no single, solid basis for the difference between good building and bad. It happens because the single central quality which makes the difference cannot be named.” (Alexander, 1979, p.25) Similarly as in my case, words were the ones which were inprecise, not the phenomena itself: ”The fact that this quality cannot be named does not mean that it is vague or imprecise. It is impossible to name because it is unerringly precise. Words fail to capture it because it is much more precise than any word.” (Alexander, 1979, p.25) Eventually, Alexander has reconciled with the term „quality without a name“. Though not being completely satisfied, just for the sake of not provoking the academic commnity, for the rest of this text, I will be using a term „liveability“. Pavla Melkova argues that architecture as such lacks terminology in which it could express other than technical or qualitative values. She devides terms into two categories, hard and soft: 1.) the first category (hard) contains e.g. technical terms, referring to specific quantitative values. 2.) the second category (soft) contains e.g. terms describing qualitative phenomena. Soft terms are not as precise as the hard terms, can be interpreted in various ways which causes that are often referred to as vague. According to Melkova, terms which represent humanistic values of architecture (or any other than technical) belong to the second category: ”What

is missing, among other things, to support the humanistic dimension of architecture is also a language of its communication. On one hand, an intelligible language of architectural communication with its users, and on the other hand a consistent professional terminology capable of expressing the concepts of humanistic values which are „soft“ by their nature, in order to withstand the competition of „hard“ technical concepts applied at all levels of decision-making which affect the built enviroment.” (Melková, 2016, p.15) This research is facing a similar problem. It deals with problems which belong to the category „soft“, however, to test the hypothesis, it would be more than desirable to have them as „hard“. ”There are of course many, many misfits for which we do not have such a scale. Some typical examples are “boredom in an exhibition,” “comfort for a kettle handle,” “security for a fastener or a lock,” “human warmth in a living room,” “lack of variety in a park.” No one has yet invented a scale for unhappiness or discomfort or uneasiness, and it is therefore not possible to set up performance standards for them. Yet these misfits are among the most critical which occur in design problems.” (Alexander, 1964, p.98)

2.2 How to measure

The second struggle was to find a way how to measure „liveability“. Very soon, a conclusion was made, that trying to define what liveability actually is was of no effect, since every time asked, the answer was different, more based on respondents´s subjective feelings than on objective facts (They will tell you that they feel good but rarely why). But how to measure a quantity which is not properly defined? By not measuring it this obvious answer, however, has inspired me to look at the problem in a buttom-up manner: If liveability cannot be measured directly, is there anything else, related to liveability, that could be measured then? ”In practice, it will never be as natural to speak of good fit as the simultaneous satisfaction of a number of requirements, as it will be to call it the simultaneous nonoccurrence of the same number of corresponding misfits.” (Alexander, 1964, p.24) There are two more, causally related, options left. First, the conditions which enable the place to become liveable, and second, the effects of this liveability. The intention was to look at the ocurrence of both these conditions and effects, since in many cases it was difficult to make clear distinction of what is the cause and what is the effect, since many times, an effect can simultanously be effect and vice versa. Suggesting that Liveability is a boolean variable (either true or false), which turns

„true“ if certain set of conditions is fulfilled, or false if one (or more) of the conditions within the set is not fulfilled. According to the previous research done on this topic as well as my own observations, a set conditions to classify a place as liveable (or not) was defined: 1. more than 2 functions 2. presence of overlaps (parallel activities) 3. active throughout all day/night 4. at least 2 different age categories at the same time 5. unplanned activities are taking place (activities for which the space was not originally designed) 6. people are eager to give up certain amount of comfort for the sake of being there 7. feeling of safety (children playing without guardiance of their parents)

2.3 Experiment design

Once the conditions of the liveability were defined, the next step was to find case studies, on which the experiments could be carried out. The object of interest were public spaces, „city´s most vital organs“ as Jacobs used to call them. After proposals to test public spaces of various european cities, the circle was eventually narrowed down to Barcelona, in order to maintain constant input conditions (such as cultural context, temperature, sun path, sun hours, etc.), as well as having possibility to visit the places personally, in order to carry out field research, observations etc. The conditions which the case studies had to fulfill in order to be considered were following: a) to represent each of Barcelona´s ten districts (1. Ciutat Vella, 2. Eixample, 3. Sants-Montjuic, 4. Les Corts, 5. Sarria Saint Gervasi, 6. Grácia, 7. Horta Guinardo, 8. Nou Barris, 9. Sant Andreu, 10. Sant Marti) b) to sample various urban fabric types present in Barcelona – e.g. medieval town (Ciutat Vella), grid structure (Eixample), pre-modernist adjacent town (Grácia), large modernist blocks (Sant Marti), etc. c) to include examples of three most common public space typologies omnipresent in entire Barcelona 1) placa (plaza), 2) rambla (large street where majority of

space is dedicated to pedestrians), 3) jardin (small park or a city garden). d) to avoid sites of main tourist interest â&#x20AC;&#x201C; even though, these places may fulfill the conditions of liveability, they are distorting the image of life, since a tourist is not using the city as a citizen, and the most common (and only) reason why he/ahe visits these sight is because a tourist guide has told him/her to do so. e) to avoid main traffic nodes â&#x20AC;&#x201C; similarly as in the case of touristic sites, these places may distort the image of liveability â&#x20AC;&#x201C; since the reason why these places are visited is mostly utilitarian. The aim was to collect data from 10 public spaces, which according to the conditions of liveability could be classified as liveable, and 10 which could not. The selection process was following: In each one of the 10 districts of Barcelona, by using a map, several examples of placa, rambla, and jardin were picked. Next step was to visit each of these sights in order to carry out field research. Each site was visited at a weekday and at a weekend, three times a day, between 9-10 a.m., between 3-4 p.m., and between 20-21 p.m. The field reserach consisted of checking, whether the conditions of liveability were being fulfilled (1. more than 2 functions, 2. parallel activities, 3. active throughout all day/night, 4. 2 different age categories, 5. unplanned activities, 6. people eager to give up comfort, 7. safety). If reply to all this variables was positive, the 44

public space was classified as liveable. In case one (or more) of the variables turned out as negative, the public space was classified as non-liveable. The process was repeated until the desired amount was reached: 20 public spaces, 10 liveable and 10 non-liveable.

placa del sol

placa de del forum

placa de george orwell

placa de la palmera de sant marti

jardins del forat de la vergonya

jardins de merce

placa dels angels

jardins de les tres xemeneies

rambla del poblenou

rambla de prim

carrer de enric granados

rambla de guipuscoa

placa de mercat

placa de harry walker

placa del mercadal

jardins de can mantega

placa de joan capri

rambla del carmel

rambla del raval

placa de toyo ito

2.4 Hypothesis variables

In order to verify the hypothesis, finding the correlation between spatial properties of urban strucutres and their liveability, a detailed analysis of each public space was made. Very important reference was a research paper titled Multidimensional analysis of public open spaces (JoĂŁo Lopes et al., 2014) which proposed a detailed methodology of describing spatial properties of plazas in portugese cities and Space syntax methodology developed by Hillier et al. The analysis was carried out using Rhinoceros combined with Grasshopper and Depthmap X (in case of space syntax analysis). Each of the 20 case studies (10 liveable, 10 non-liveable) was analyzed in parameters, which could be divided into following 7 categories: 1. Spatial (500m radius) 2. Visibility 3. Solar 4. Ratio between public/civic/market 5. Program 6. Social 7. Other

1. Spatial 1.1 global 1.1.1 two dimensional 1.1.1.1 built area 1.1.1.2 free area 1.1.1.3 land usage 1.1.1.4 block area 1.1.1.5 street size 1.1.1.6 plot width 1.1.1.7 plot depth 1.1.2 three dimensional 1.1.2.1 built volume 1.1.2.2 void volume 1.1.2.3 space usage 1.1.2.4 average height 1.1.3 space syntax 1.1.3.1 integration 1.1.3.2 depth 1.2 local 1.2.1 public space itself 1.2.1.1 area 1.2.1.2 perimeter 1.2.1.3 longest diagonal 1.2.2 surroundings 1.2.2.1 direct contact 1.2.2.2 average plot width 1.2.2.3 average height 2 Visibility 2.1 Isovist field 2.2 Isovist lines 2.3 Area within 25m range 2.4 Area within 100m range 2.5 Eyes on the street 3 Solar 3.1 Shadow 3.2 Insolation 4 Public / Civic / Market 4.1 Public space 4.2 Surrounding volume 5 Program 5.1 Market 5.2 Civic 5.3 Overlap 6 Social 6.1 Population density per district 6.2 Public space intersection 6.3 Social space intersection 7 Other 7.1 Toporaphic qualities 7.2 Greenery 7.3 Traffic access

1. Spatial analysis The aim of the spatial analysis was to parametrize space, by measuring spatial properties of each public space (placa, rambla, jardin) from the list of case studies. The analysis was conducted 2 scales: global and local. 1.1 Global scale Global scale represents the broader spatial context of the analyzed public space, within 500 meter diameter (the dimension of the diameter was derived from the walkability index – it refers to an average distance that people are eager to go by foot). The reason why broader context of the public space was analysed was to check whether the urban structure directly affecting the public space (direct contact) is similar to the one affecting the space indirectly (indirect contact) – to find out whether the local has the same properties as global - in order to check whether the homogenity of urban fabric affects the liveability of the public space. The Global scale analysis can be divide into 3 subcategories: 1.1.1 Spatial – two dimensional 1.1.2 Spatial – three dimensional 1.1.3 Spatial – space syntax

1.1.1 Spatial – two dimensional This analysis was basically a „Nolli plan“ of the area surrounding the public space – to get a precise two dimensional image of the neighbourhood. For each parameter, a range of measured values was defined as well as average was calculated. The parameters were: 1.1.1.1 Built area 1.1.1.2 Free area 1.1.1.3 Land usage 1.1.1.4 Block area 1.1.1.5 Street size 1.1.1.6 Plot width 1.1.1.7 Plot depth 1.1.2 Spatial – three dimensional Aim of this analysis was to get an overall spatial image of the urban texture, as if Nolli map was extruded, measuring such dimensions as the volume of built space and void space, as well as calculating a ratio between these two. The parameters were: 1.1.2.1 1.1.2.2 1.1.2.3 1.1.2.4

Built volume Void volume Space usage Average height

1.1.3 Space syntax By applying the Space syntax methodology (see page 9), 2 parameters were tested (integration, visual step depth), from which the first is analyzed in axial space represented by an axial map whereas the latter is analyzed in convex space represented by convex map. Axial space is spatial diagram described by straight lines (sight lines), which are possible to follow by foot. Axial map depicts the least number of axial lines covering all convex spaces of a layout and their connections. Convex space is a space where no line between any two of its points crosses the perimeter. Convex map depicts the least number of convex spaces that fully cover a layout and the connections between them. 1.1.3.1 Integration: is a static global measure. It describes the average depth of a space to all other spaces in the system. The spaces of a system can be ranked from the most integrated to the most segregated. 1.1.3.2 Depth: Depth between two spaces is defined as the least number of syntactic steps in a graph that are needed to reach one from the other. ToTo sum up, the integration analysis has shown how well connected are the tested public spaces within the 500m diameter as well as the overall connection (the 53

count of direct connections) of all spaces within this circle. The depth analysis has shown the depth of the public space within the analysed circle, i.e. when walking from the perimeter of the circle towards its centre, how many visual steps need to be undertaken in order to reach the tested public space. 1.2 Local scale At the local scale, only the public space itself was as well as the buildings in direct contact with this space were analyzed. The measured parameters of the public space were: 1.2.1.1 area 1.2.1.2 perimeter 1.2.1.3 longest diagonal The measured parameters of the surrounding buildings were: 1.2.2.1 direct contact ratio 1.2.2.2 average plot width 1.2.2.3 average height

2.Visibility analysis The aim of this analysis was to gather various parameters related to the sight. 2.1 Isovist field: A viewshed or visibility polygon, the field of view from any particular point. 2.2 Isovist lines: Mesauring the shortest and the longest isovist line, as well as calculating their average length. The following two parameters are described by Jan Gehl. In his book Citites for the people (2001) he described the limits of human visibility: 2.3 Also known as the „theatre distance“ 25m is the limit for our recognition of people´s expression. This parameter measured what percentage of the overall area is visible within 25m radius when standing in the middle of the public space. 2.4 Also known as the „stadium distance“, 100m is the limit of recognizing people from other object, according to the human scale, this is the limit of our visibility. This parameter measured what percentage of the overall area is visible within 100m radius when standing in the middle of the public space. 2.5 Eyes on the street ratio: Inspired by Jane Jacobs, 55

this parameter measures what percentage of the overall area of the public space is within the field of vision measured from the top floor of each building surrounding the public space. Put more simply: How much percent of the public space is under the control of the residents living around it. 3.Solar analysis The aim of the solar analysis was to check the solar conditions of each public space. The measured parameters were: 3.1 Shadow: AÂ simulation of shadows casted by the surrounding buildings from March until September (the winter months were not included), from 9:00 â&#x20AC;&#x201C; 21:00. Calculating what percentage of the overall area of the public space is constantly exposed to sun within the mentioned times. 3.2 Insolation: Measuring the insolation of the area of the public space as well as of the facades of the surrounding buildings.

4.Public / Civic / Market 4. public / civic / market

4.1 public

The aim of this category was to measure the ratio between the public, civic, and market.

4.1 Public space: This parameter measured the ratio of these 3 sectors within the public space. 50m

4.2 civic

4.2 Surrounding volume: This parameter measured the ratio of these 3 sectors within the volume of surrounding buildings.

50m

4.3 market

50m

5. program

5.Program The aim of this category was to measure programmatic representation within the surrounding volumes.

5.1 market

5.1 Market: Analysis of the market sector. 5.2 Civic: Analysis of the civic sector.

50m

5.3 Overlap: Analysis of areas where overlap of multiple sectors is present.

5.2 civic

5.3 overlap 50m

50m

6. Social Social data were analyzed in this category. 6.1 Population density per district 6.2 Public space intersection: This analysis is based on the study of social distances by Edward T. Hall. It was based on aÂ hypothetical model, that in case the public space would be occupied evenly, how many occupants would be required in order to intersect their public space (7.6m radius). 6.3 Social space intersection: This analysis is based on the study of social distances by Edward T. Hall. It was based on aÂ hypothetical model, that in case the public space would be occupied evenly, how many occupants would be required in order to intersect their social space (3.6m radius).

7. other

7. Other The remaining parameters have been included in this group.

7.1 items to inte topographical qu N

7.1 Topographic qualities: Checking for the presence of staircases, statues, fountains, benches, etc. Basically places to sit on or to interact with.

50m

7.2 Greenery: Measuring the ratio of green area as well the amount of trees. 7.3 Traffic: Ratio between the traffic area and the pedestrian area.

6.3 monument ? traffic access N

50m

7.2 greenery ?

3. results

3.0 results

There is one thing which I would like to highlight to introduce this chapter: This thesis is not an elegy for historical architecture, an attempt to bring back something tha once was. The objective is to look at places which are liveable and find the key parameters that have the main impact on their liveability. And for some reason, the historical achieve better results. There were certain observable patterns in the initial phase of the experiment already. While doing the field research and checking the case studies against the 7 conditions of liveability, an observation was made, that the majority of public spaces which fulfilled all 7 conditions, and thus have been classified as liveable were located in natural parts of Barcelona. On the contrary, the majority of unliveable spaces were located in artificial parts of the city. Nevertheless, the most interesting cases for this research were the exceptions, the reason why will be described later in this chapter.

Regarding the hypothesis variables, the clearest patterns were observable on parameters from following categories: 1. Spatial 2. Visibility 4. Public / Civic / Market 5. Program No clear patterns were observable on parameters from following categories: 3. Solar 6. Social 7. Other Out of the params which correlated with liveability, data visualizations were constructed. In order to highlight the fact that the liveability depends on balance of multiple variables, the data was visualized in circular diagram. By overlapping the diagrams, it becomes clear where the which variables differ the most.

Data visualization of one liveable (cyan) and one nonliveable (cyan) case study. Placa del sol and Placa del Forum

When overlapping the two graphs the main differences are visible.

Linear graphs show basically a „flipped matrix“ of the results, where each graph represents different variable. This graphtype helped to visualize the average values for each variable. What most important finding from the results was that the liveability is a dynamic system depending on balance between multiple variables. i.e. if one of the variables was out of the range – it caused the whole system to be out of balance – which caused it not to fulfill the conditions of liveability. This can be seen very clearly in the data visualization. For instance, in the case of Jardins de can Mantega (Sants-Montjuic district), where all the variables were within the range of liveable, except for the public / civic / market distribution, where it lacked the market sector – due to which the place failed to attract people with other interests than residential. Another interesting example was Poble Nou, (Sant Marti district) which is based on the regular Cerda grid, nevertheless, the blocks vary in density. Rambla del Poble Nou is located between the blocks with higher density of buildings, therefore was classified as liveable, whereas Jardins de Merce, only a few blocks away, surrounded by a single residential building, failed to provide conditions for liveability.

placa del sol

placa de del forum

placa de george orwell

placa de la palmera de sant marti

jardins del forat de la vergonya

jardins de merce

placa dels angels

jardins de les tres xemeneies

rambla del poblenou

rambla de prim

carrer de enric granados

rambla de guipuscoa

placa de mercat

placa de harry walker

placa del mercadal

jardins de can mantega

placa de joan capri

rambla del carmel

rambla del raval

placa de toyo ito

placa del sol

placa de del forum

placa de george orwell

placa de la palmera de sant marti

jardins del forat de la vergonya

jardins de merce

placa dels angels

jardins de les tres xemeneies

rambla del poblenou

rambla de prim

carrer de enric granados

rambla de guipuscoa

placa de mercat

placa de harry walker

placa del mercadal

jardins de can mantega

placa de joan capri

rambla del carmel

rambla del raval

placa de toyo ito

part 2 reconstruction

4. application

Coming back to the main objective of this thesis, which was to propose a design method by which more liveable cities (parts of the city) could be planned (better word would be generated). The hypothesis has been tested on 20 case studies, and the majority of the thesis variables have shown correlations between their values and the liveability of the tested site. The following chapter will now show, how can the collected data could inform a design process. This chapter will be an attempt to respond the following three questions: 1. 2. 3.

How should the city grow? Who designs the city? How should the city be?

4.1 How should the city grow?

In the first chapter of this text, there was a vast critique of the deterministic approach in contemporary (modern) planning which results in cities incapable of becoming „true to life“. Nevertheless, the objective is not to neglect planning as such, only finding a way of merging the advantages which planning offers as such with the spontaneity and the surprise of the natural cities. To sum up, finding a way how the buttom-up and top-down processes could negotiate, understand one-another, be more aware of the advantages which one can benefit from the other, and vice-versa. None of these approaches could exist on their own, well, they could, and there are many examples where they do, but never result in a liveable city. The relationship between these two approaches was described very well in works of Christopher Alexander therefore, I will briefly mention again what has already been mentioned in the first chapter. Alexander has made a very clear distinction: “(…) life cannot be made, but only generated by a process“ (Alexander, 1979, p.174) in which „Made“, he refers to the top-down whereas „Generated“ to the buttom-up. He argues that complex systems, such as living organisms cannot be created from exclusively from above, since each part needs at least a small amount of autonomy: “This hinges

on a simple scientific proposition: the great complexity of an organic system, which is essential to its life, cannot be created from above directly; it can only be generated indirectly. (…) This cannot happen unless each part is at least partly autonomous, so that it can adapt to the local conditions in the whole.“ (Alexander, 1979, p.162-163) However, he acknowledges the presence of a top-down principle, to which he refers as „genetic code“. “What makes a flower whole, at the same time that all its cells are more or less autonomous, is the genetic code, which guides the process of the individual parts, and makes a whole of them.“ (Alexander, 1979, p.165) He then compares the complexity of an organism to a complexity of a town: “The fact is, that the creation of a town, and the creation of the individual buildings in a town, is fundamentally a genetic process. No amount of planning or design can replace this genetic process.“ (Alexander, 1979, p.240) This genetic code, he later calls „The pattern language“.

4.2 Who designs the city?

“The people can shape buildings for themselves, and have done it for centuries, by using languages which I call pattern languages. A pattern language gives each person who uses it, the power to create an infinite variety of new and unique buildings, just as his ordinary language gives him the power to create an infinite variety of sentences.“ (Alexander, 1979, p.167) This is not applicable in today´s context – however, it could be translated into today´s context – where the expression shape buildings for themselves could be understood as participatory planning. In this sense, the citizens would have not only have right to the city in terms of accesing its resources, but as well in terms of shaping it, as David Harvey argues: “The right to the city is far more than the individual liberty to access urban resources: it is a right to change ourselves by changing the city.” (Harvey, 2008, 23) The task of the genetic code would be to define boundaries, more precisely – bounding boxes - within which these processes can happen – in order to maintain spatial relations of liveability. It is necessary to propose a certain regulation which had been proven by such situations as in the case of Eixample district in Barcelona – where the building regulations for the illas have been violated in various ways and resulted in spaces of very low quality. 79

On the other hand, if individual actions guided in a proper manner, it could lead to a very interesting mixture of order and chaos. “These larger patterns create the structure of the town. If every person who makes an individual house, at the same time follows these larger patterns, step by step, and does whatever he can with the layout and placing of his house to help create these larger patterns too, then the town slowly gets its structure from the incremental aggregation of their individual acts.“ (Alexander, 1979, p.191) The proposed method would be what Alexander calls Larger Patterns.

4.3 How should the city be?

It cannot be precisely said how the city “should be”, in fact, this formulation itself has a deterministic nature, perhaps a more suitable way of saying this would be: “what do we expect the district to be”. There is of course a certain mental image, a certain expectation, a certain idea in the background of all this. However, this mental image is not an image of specific buildings, but more of a feeling of the atmosphere, which the district is expected to evoke. Coming back to the struggle no.1 in the chapter about methodology, a struggle to find the right 80

word to name that quality which discerns liveable places from the non-liveable ones. Coming back to the term of Christopher Alexander – a quality which cannot be named. The expectation is this very quality. Even though it cannot be named, similarly as in the experiment design, instead of trying to define the quality itself, a set of attributes of places with this quality will be defined: Unlike Alexander or Jacobs, Richard Sennett is not as likely to fall into utopian tendencies, and has much more critical approach (towards his work). He tackles the relationship between top-down and buttom-up from a more sociological point of view. He addresses Jane Jacobs, Bernard Rudofsky and other „lefty urbanists“ (in his own words) who claimed that unplanned, spontaneous growth will produce liveable community. Sennett argues that cities cannot be left unplanned: “If you leave society unplanned, you will get classes, segregation, etc.(...)You have to „plan against that“ (Sennet, 2013). Unlike Alexander, who has used biology as a comparison, Sennett mentions Systems theory, and makes distinction between the closed and open system, in which the top-down is being compared to the closed system whereas bottom-up to the open one. Nevertheless, he argues that open system should not be understood as pure bottom-up, but rather a mixture of the two. He refers to this concept as to The Open City. Sennett proposes 3 conditions in which open city can be well designed:

1) Ambiguous edges 2) Incomplete forms 3) Unresolved narratives

With ambiguous edges, he refers to blurring the edges of space, a space between or gradient. Christopher Alexander uses the word “overlap”, whereas Sou Fujimoto names it more poetically: “innumerable acts that lie between black and white” (2014, p.132). By incomplete forms, he means structure which could be customized by their users according to their need. A brutal example of this approach could be Torre David in Caracas, Venezuela, a bit more gentle one social housing by Alejandro Aravena. Unresolved narratives could be as well described as “not yet defined”, not trying to resolve all the problems simultaneously with one solution. To accept that life may not be as linear as one would wish it to be. I would like to show this on following example. Though not an ideal state, it can serve well to show that there is a possibility for symbiosis between the bottom-up and top-down principles. Think of the Poble-nou district in Sant marti, Barcelona – not judging its qualities of the liveability at the moment – is a very good example of symbiosis of the top-down and the bottom-up. The top-down is represented by the grid of Cerda´s plan. Its rigid structure ensures the easy access for infrastructure, traffic, cyclist path, greenery, street names, etc., all the advantages, what the city planning can bring. In parallel, what is happening inside the blocks is close to 82

anything but regulated. The chaotic fabric of buildings of various heights, sizes, styles. Their only unifying factor is that all of them respect the boundary defined by Cerda´s 113,5 x 113,5 illa (city block in catalan) with chamfered edges. None of the buildings crosses dares to cross that line. All the competition and social darwinism happens inside the illa. In some cases, a narrow passage is being cut through the block, or parts of buildings are torn down – creating a sort of Boolean subtraction between the volume of the demolished building and the volume rest – which behaves as if it were one single mass, since the density within the blocks is so high that all the buildings inside are in contact with each other. Some of these empty sites are being refilled again with new construction, others are illegally occupied as urban gardens. Vast majority of the walls surrounding these empty sites was used by graffiti artists – in contrast to the facades on the outside of the block which are barely touched by a spray-paint. A few have been turned into parks or playgrounds. Simultaneously, a lot of self-construction by the inhabitants is present. Not visible from the street level, but once entering a block or accessing some of the roof terraces a brand new world unfolds – a mixture of medieval town and favela – many of the buildings have been extended in vertical as well as horizontal direction – contrasting with the facades outside – on the inside almost none of the buildings is coated – without of sign

of intention to ever do so. Necessary to mention Richard Sennett again, who was talking about the over-determined forms created by modern planning. Originally, Poble Nou was the major industrial district of Barcelona, which does not serve its original function anymore. Nevertheless, most of the buildings are still from that era but slightly adjusted for their new purpose.

4.4 For e(i)xample

The following chapter will show you an example, how the collected data can inform a proposal for a new district, however, rather than a master plan, the result will be a design method, a way of negotiating between the topdown and the buttom approaches. The application didn´t go into such depth as particapatory planning – it is more of a rough sketch, showing how the collected data can inform a generative process of new urban texture. Since the experiments were conducted in Barcelona, the example is located in Barcelona too, in order to maintain constant inputs. As site, La marina del prat vermell was chosen, located in Zona Franca, Sants-Montjuic district, at the very edge of the city. The majority of urban texture of this district mainly consists of large modernist blocks, a typical example of Barcelona´s periphery. The site is one of the last, relatively large, empty slots of Barcelona. Currently, there is an ongoing development, following the original master plan according to which one of the typical suburban residential districts will grow. The objective is to propose an alternative way in which this district could grow into a more liveable one – by applying the design method developed in this thesis. The main objective is to generate a street network and populate this network with bounding boxes which would guide the growth of buildings within them, in order 84

to maintain tha spatial relationships of Barcelona´s liveable districts. The intention was to propose an alternative to the top-down street networks definition in traditional master planning. The idea was to challenge this concept by generating networks which would be more as a diagram of forces (Thompson, 1917) than a superimposed structure. Strongly influenced by the research of Frei Otto, which he described in his book Occupying and connecting (2009), the resemblance between street networks of natural cities and cracking pattern was studied. An algorithm based on the cracking principle was developed. Another important reference, especially for the evaluation phase were Space Syntax methods.

The idea was to create a system which would generate innumerable variations of street networks and evaluate them at the sime time. For the network generation, a genetic algorithm was applied using Rhinoceros combined with Grasshopper, the evalution was done via DepthmapX, which provided the fitness values of each iteration. The evaluation criteria was overall integration of the proposed street network within the context of entire Zona Franca.

The street network generation will now be described in detail on the following pages: Step 1: Primary division: Random amount of axis ranging from 1 to 20 in random layout divided the site. Step 2: Superblocks were defined, according to the primary division. Step 3: Secondary division: Blocks were defined, taking into account the average street size, street size range and the average block area. In order to simulate the process of defining the 86

street-network described by Frei Otto, the method which was applied was a recursive block subdivision algorithm.

Four different types of cracking algorithm were applied in order to increase the number of possible options. 1. Method 1: Two points on each polygon of the primary division were randomly defined â&#x20AC;&#x201C; the first point between curve parameter from 0 to 0,25, the second point between curve parameter from 0 to 0,75. The points were then connected with a line which divided the polygon into two new polygons. This was iteratively repeated until the area of the resulting polygons was within the range of block area of liveable districts. 2. Method 2: The procedure was same as in method 1, the only difference was, that on each polygon a midpoint was found, and the line (in this case polyline) which connected the 2 randomly found points was drawn through that midpoint as well. 3. Method 3: Each polygon of the primary division was exploded into lines. Two longest lines from the list were selected and a midpoint was found on each. The midpoints were then connected with a line which divide the polygon into two new polygons. This was iteratively repeated until the area of the resulting polygons was within the range of block area of liveable districts. 4. Method 4: The procedure was same as in method 3, the only difference was, that on each line which connected the two midpoints, two random points were found, and each translated in a vector facing towards outside of the new polygon created from the line. A

curve between the two midpoints and the two translated points was interpolated.

Step 4: In each iteration, an analysis of integration was carried out using Depthmap X. This process was repeated large number of times, using a genetic algorithm to generate various street layouts and to evaluate their connectivity. The â&#x20AC;&#x17E;fittestâ&#x20AC;&#x153; option was chosen.

Step 5: The fittest layout was chosen to generate the street pattern. Note: Regular grids were tested as well, however, the irregular ones resembling cracking achieved better results in connectivity tests â&#x20AC;&#x201C; and therefore were applied. Next set of steps will describe the further application of the generated street-network. Step 6: The urban fabric already existing on the site was integrated into the model, in order to be considered for the further evaluation.

Step 7 Searching for a place to locate plaza. According to the axial analysis of integration carried out on the case studies, a pattern was discovered that the plaza is never located on the busiest route, however, in majority of cases, it was located relatively close to â&#x20AC;&#x201C; no further than 100m. Another attribute of the majority of tested placas was their spatial depth â&#x20AC;&#x201C; it was located in the deepest visual step depth of the analysed system. These two attributes were combined when defining the location for the plaza within the proposal. To define the dimensions and shape of the placa, the paramaters from the database of liveable public spaces were used.

Step 8 Next step was to check the ratio between the built and the unbuilt area and comparing it to the results from the database. To achieve the desired value, certain slots have been subtracted. Step 9 and 10 This step shows, how the resulting blocks could be further divided into parcels following the dimensions from the database of liveable spaces. I need to underline that this step is hypothetical in terms of layout and size of the parcels â&#x20AC;&#x201C; which were randomly assigned computationally following the prescribed rules. The last step is extruding these parcels, which results in bounding boxes of various heights and shapes, however, never violating the prescrided rules. The last 2 steps â&#x20AC;&#x201C; the generation of bounding boxes could give a much more interesting image if using data from participative planning â&#x20AC;&#x201C; where the actual demands of citizens would be applied and negotiation between them would be necessary. Nevertheless, this is not the topic this research, yet it would be interesting to explore in further research.

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5. conclusion

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5. conclusion

Formulation of city´s liveability can be based on a framework composed of specific parameters which can be divided into 7 main categories: spatial, visibility, solar, public/civic/market ratio, program, social, and other. There is a correlation between these parameters and the amount of life emerging within urban structures. By understanding and manipulating them, more liveable cities can be designed. On the global level, the results of the case studies have shown that most significant parameters to correlate with the liveability as such were the the ones belonging to the categories of a) spatial quality and b) public/civic/market ratio. However, this does not mean that the other parameters would have no significance. When analyzing each case study locally, the factor, on which the liveability depended the most seemed to be a balance beetween all the parameters. This means, that even if the place has achieved good marks in terms of spatial qualities and public/civic/market distribution but failed in the traffic category – it did not fulfill the requirements to be classified as liveable. The main idea of this thesis was to introduce a 104

hollistic framework to analyze liveability of cities. The research was more focused on the relationship between the parameters (hypothesis variables) on the global level rather than analyzing each parameter in depth. However, each parameter could to be studied in much more detail opening a space for new research, exceeding the field of architecture, by combining it, for example, with sociology or anthropology. This research could be a useful tool for city planners and architects – applied both in city planning as well as for revitalizing the existing urban structures. Despite the fact the case studies were carried out in Barcelona, this method could be applied in any city – since all the inputs are data from city currently analyzed. It is basically a manual showing how to learn from a city rather than providing a sequence of precise instructions. It is a manual for cities to learn from themeselves.

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6. bibliography

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SENNETT, R. The Open City. Harvard University: Graduate school

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FUJIMOTO, S. Primitive future. Tokyo: Inax Pub., 2014.

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GEHL, J. Cities for the people. London: Island Press, 2010. HARVEY, D. The right to the city. New Left Review, 2008, 53, 23-53. HILLIER, B., HANSON, J. The Social Logic of Space. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1980. JACOBS, J. The death and life of great American cities. New York: Random House, 1961. JOHNSON, S. Emergence. London: Penguin Books, 2001. KOOLHAAS, R., MAU, B.: S,M,L,XL. New York: Monacelli Press, 1995. LAUGIER, M.A. Essay sur l´a architecture Paris: chez Duchesne, 1753. LOPES, J.V., PAIO, A., BEIRÃO, J.N., PINHO, E. M., NUNES, L. 2014. Multidimensional Analysis of Public Open Spaces: Urban Morphology, Parametric Modelling and Data Mining. Spatial Analysis, 2014 (1), eCAADe 33, 351-360. 109

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