W3 theories for urban design

Theories for Urban Design Normative/Societal/Formal/ Environmental by miss Nur Rasyiqah Abu Hassan

BUEU3108 - WEEK 3 Theory is a contemplative and rational type of abstract or generalizing thinking, or the results of such thinking.

How might the planning and design of the built environment contribute to making a good city?

Normative theory • Broadbent (1990) classifies different normative theories of urban design by differences in their philosophic bases.

• This leads him to a distinction between three different approaches; empiricism, rationalism and pragmatism. 经验

1. Empiricism  as formulated by philosophers such as Bacon, Locke and Hume  asserts that we know the world through experience, as perceived through our senses.  ideas are generated either by resemblance – that one thing is like, or seems like, another, by contiguity – that things that appear together seem related, or by causality – that one thing seems to imply another (ibid.).

2. Rationalism  based on the Cartesian view that we cannot trust the evidence of our senses, but must search for universal truths.  can only be arrived at through logical thinking.  Contrary to the empiricist view, rationalism holds that things don’t have to be perceived, but can be known without sensory experience, as long as they can be conceived.

3. Pragmatism  formulated and developed by the American philosophers Peirce, James and Dewey,  holds that things must be understood in terms of their practical consequences and application. ideas are tested against their concrete consequences, solutions may often seem ‘impure’ from a rationalist point of view.

Types of normative theory natural models

Utopian Models

Explanation

seek inspiration in history and the large number of traditional urban forms which have survived the passage of time and which work to a greater or lesser degree first group is primarily concerned with visions of society, which form the basis for the formulation of formal theories, accommodating these visions.

Origins

19th & 20th century Howard, Wright and Le Corbusier, as well as the Neo-Rationalists

Types of normative theory Utopian Models

Explanation

Origins

1st Group- primarily concerned with visions of society, which form the basis for the formulation of formal theories, accommodating these visions. to accommodate built form to their visions of society

19th & 20th century Howard, Wright and Le Corbusier, as well as the Neo-Rationalists

2nd Group- specific technical solutions to various perceived problems of modern society. require that society adapts to the technical solutions they devise

1950-60s Buckminster Fuller, Yona Friedmann, Archigram and

3rd group - they are critical of the very idea of centralized social and technical utopias. this group of models claims to favor the needs and wishes of the ordinary citizen over the utopian visions of experts, even when they – quite paternalistically – claim to know what these needs and wishes are.

Types of normativ e theory Art and sciences

Explanation

Origins

• The theories in this category draw from other disciplines, such as semiotics, environmental psychology, and the social sciences, in order to investigate the relationship between urban space and various aspects of human life.

• They are generally more scientific (in the soft, argumentative, social sciencesense) than the more ideologically oriented theories of the other categories.

• The theories in this category are analytical (although value-laden) rather than prescriptive, theories about urban form.

Jane Jacobs, Gordon Cullen, and Kevin Lynch’s

Societal Theory • focus on the city as an expression of society. • a reorganization of space must go hand in hand with a reorganization of society. • Two main characteristic; 1. the linkage between society and space, 2. the idea that, like changes in society may lead to changes in space, so can changes in space also be a means to change society and the other is their radical nature. Because of these characteristics, they may be called utopian theories of urban design (Fishman, 1982). vice versa

Garden Cities At the beginning of the 20th century two great new inventions took form before our eyes; the aeroplane and the Garden City, both harbingers of new age; the first being gave man wings and the second promised him a better dwelling-place when he come down to earth.

- Lewis Mumford, 1946

• Mumford suggests that modern regions would be more sustainable had the administrators of the past taken into account an area’s natural affiliations.

• Topographical and geological conditions encouraged certain industry which subsequently influenced socio-economic evolution.

• As Norberg-Schulz observes, natural settlements occur only where nature (through it’s favourable environmental conditions) ‘invites’ man to settle (1979:170)

The contemporary cities

Le Corbusier, in his book ‘Urbanisme’ also advocated the garden city and stressed the importance of an intermediary zone: “Lying between these two organs (the central city and the

peripheral garden city), we must require the legal establishment of that absolute necessity, a protective zone which allows of extension, a reserved zone of woods and fields, a fresh air reserve.”

Advocate garden city to be part of national physica planning

(Le Corbusier, 1929: 162)

The ideology for his city of tomorrow can be compared to Mumford’s regional plan.

The basic principles we must follow are these: 1. We must de-congest the centres of our cities.

2. We must augment their density.

3. We must increase the means for getting about.

4. We must increase parks and open spaces.� 扊

Le Corbusier’s ‘Contemporary City’ – The great city is in the centre, the industral city (red) is separated as are the small garden cities (yellow) around the periphery. The green shaded area demonstrates the vastness of the ‘protected zone’ (Le Corbusier, 1929:172 – colour and text added by Suzanne O’Donovan, 2009)

Le Corbusier, Plan Voisin, Paris, 1925

Formal theory • Their focus of interest is the formal quality of urban space, and their ambition therefore, is to establish specific aesthetic or conceptual paradigms of urban design. • The critique of formal theories of urban design is typically directed towards a perceived deterioration of urban space, as caused by nonarchitectural intervention or what is considered wrong paradigms of architectural intervention.

• many of the formal theories of urban design see the present state of urban space as deteriorated from a better, historical state, their approach is typically conservative or nostalgic.

Urban Artifacts • The change of nature of the ‘urban artifact’ may diminish the value of the evolution, overriding the rational design of ‘locus’.

• Aldo Rossi held that the city remembers its past and uses that memory through monuments; that is, to the city. monuments give structure

• Rossi defines urban artifacts as primary elements because their existence has contributed to the morphological and cultural evolution of the city.

Palazzo della Ragione, Padua. Rossi uses the building as an example of a ‘primary element’, whose use may change over time, while its form remains the same, thus maintaining the essence of the city

Rossi advancing this theory for urban artifacts and with a novel vision for urbanism says that a city is a collective memory of its people, and like memory it is associated with objects and places. The city is locus of collective memory.

This relationship between locus and citizenry then becomes a city’s predominant image, a great shape history moulds its future to.

• Urban artifacts are stable moments in the constantly shifting composition of a city. This idea serves as a foundation for a series of prints—compositions based on aerial imagery of cities.

• The negative space in these prints—while based not on analysis, but rather on visual interpretation—is representative of the moment of change, while the black ink is the constant. Each print displays the unique formal characteristics of a particular city.

Composition of Madrid, Spain

Composition of San Francisco, USA

拼贴

Collage • The term use as an analogy to the heterogeneous structure of the postmodern city.

• Developed by Rowe & Koetter (1978).

• Their concept remains vague and indeterminate and curiously non-architectonic, and seems to limit itself to an aesthetic and (or) philosophical formulation of the problem of, and subsequently principle for, urban design.

Wholeness • Alexander (1987) pays much attention to the process of urban design.

• Aim is to identify a process which produces a ‘whole’ city over time.

• He asserts that wholeness is an objective condition which can be measured, and that the process which creates wholeness is welldefined

• Alexander’s explicit ideal is the organic and ‘self grown’ traditional town with its feeling of naturalness and coherence.

• Fundamental features of the organically grown town; its piecemeal growth, its unpredictable structure, and its sense of coherence.

Mountain village, Oman. To Alexander, the ideal urban form is constituted by the wholeness which characterizes self-grown towns

Environmental theory • See urban space as a living environment, which must meet a range of requirements in order to be a pleasurable place to live. • The ambition of environmental theories of urban design may be categorized as mid-way between the societal and the formal theories of urban design: While urban design is regarded as more than a matter of formal aspects of space, the social, cultural and economic aspects. Urban design can still be improved without major changes of society.

Liveable streets Allan Jacobs and Donald Appleyards (Mid 1980s) • The urban environment should also invoke a sense of attachment and responsibility to the people living there. • A fundamental goal is liveability. • Cities must provide for people to be able to live and bring up children in health and comfort. The urban environment must therefore be relatively free from nuisance, danger, and pollution.

Housing development, Amsterdam. The central issue for Jacobs Appleyard is liveability. Urban space should be designed with regard to use value, and meet people’s needs for health and comfort, reduce alienation and foster the sense of identity and ‘rootedness’.

Five ‘physical characteristics’ of Liveable streets , 1. liveable streets and neighborhoods, 2. minimum densities, 3. functional integration and proximity, 4. positive urban space, and 5. human scale and variation.

New Urbanism • Vanderbeek & Irazábal (2007) consider the New Urbanism movement in the US over the last couple of decades as equal in importance to the Garden City movement.

• It’s neo-traditionalist approach to urban planning encourages community values, as well as socioeconomic and environmentally sustainable development.

• New urbanism rejects the much valued individualism that is indulged in the affluent suburbs and essentially ignores the existing multiculturalism of the inner city.