Making a Cohesive City: Fine Tuning the Framework
Alastair Leighton Associate Director - Design
alastair.leighton@aecom.com
1 City Layers
Evolution & Change
2 Challenge 3 Community & Vitality
4 Future
Places of exchange, commerce & vitality
Diverse layers of heritage, community & functions
Variety, Opportunity & Complexity
Delightful & Sustaining
Integrated climate response and function
Interconnected functional layers forming a complex mechanism
Evolution - and more radical changes Development Population Growth Complexity
Participation
What happens when it goes wrong?
Urban Monoculture in places that are still required to perform multiple functions
Fragmentation & sharp, broken edges
Challenge of a city-scape of different parts not integrated layers
Complexity = positive Complication = negative
Some environments delivered as individual parts
Sometimes the important layers get a bit lost
Complexity = positive Complication = negative
Layering & integration of different active transport modes
Distribution of space responsive to demand
environmental quality
Retrospective adjustment
Residential street = Residential character
Recipe for success - Tendency to repeat the familiar formula?
Is too much of the future character sometimes
Seeking value within urban design - a complex multi-layered assessment
Unlock the potential of local community passions & innovation - the vibrant community dimension behind the plans
In the current climate, should the design & planning process be more opportunistic, and support a slightly more messy process?
Experimental or short-term opportunities?
Quick Illustration: Alternative Recipe?
Urban Design Powers of Cohesive Vision
101 010 001
Demonstrating the value of vision and the importance of integrated layers
Layers:
Not much value on their own
00000000
Individual value of 0
Important
1
Individual value of 1
Adding a vision for an integrated urban design response to places:
000000001
power & real value
100000000
Alignment with the Vision:
Vision
Delivering value over time Responsive to community Dependable, but dynamic Common philosophy, not format
within the framework Implications for the whole place
Launch pad for further evolution and additional layers
The expected and the unexpected
Strategic vision informing responses to places within the framework
Articulation of a robust multi-functional vision for a whole place
1 City Layers
Evolution & Change Fine-tuning the framework
2 Challenge
Integration & Balance
3 Community & Vitality
4 Future?
New layers?
Alastair Leighton Associate Director - Design alastair.leighton@aecom.com