Semester 2_Elements of Urban Design : Understanding Public Life by vidhi shah

Understanding Public Life

Elements of Urban Design Vidhi Shah | PUD20394 Spring Semester 2021 | CEPT University

Colaba Causeway, Mumbai

Table of Contents

1. Studio Brief

3. Building Types

2. What is your City talking about? Railway to Green way

4. Open Space Leicester Square, London

16-19

5. Streets Colaba Causeway, Mumbai Leicester Square, London .............................. 6. Urban Blocks Nariman Point, Mumbai Old Town, Toronto

20-25

7. Synthesizing the Urban Blocks Analysis of Urban Blocks Percentage of Open Space Comparing Permeability

32-35

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9-15

26-31

8. Design of Public Place 36-56 Revitalizing the Shopping Street, Linking Road, Bandra, Mumbai. About the Shopping Street Site Context Existing Site conditions Spatial Analysis and Activity Mapping Stakeholder Matrix Design Aim Zoning Design Strategy Existing and proposed layout Proposed Cross-section and views

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9. Key Learnings

Studio Brief The studio is structured as introduction to urban design representation and how it is used as a means of design thinking. The premise is that urban design is best understood and expressed through study and representation of the built urban environment. Hence the studio will focus on the study and representation of the key urban elements in cities and will be structured in multiple modules running through the semester, each culminating with an exhibition of the outcome. These modules will significantly focus on effectively capturing and communicating the spatial qualities of the urban built environment. Module 1 will involve perceiving and representation of the key elements of urban design. The premise is that building types, urban blocks, streets and public open spaces form the key elements that come together to make any functional urban space. The exercises in this module will enable student with methods to study each element and how they contribute to the scale, form, character and their relationship with the larger urban context. Module 2 will be the final exercise which will involve design of public places. The learning outcome of the studio are: to prepare design drawings to graphically communicate the key spatial characteristics of an existing urban built environment with focus on its elements and prepare a design for a given urban area in the form of a framework plan, design analysis and 3-dimentional illustration to represent the design.

Oxford Street, London

What is your City talking about? Softwares Used : Research based exercise through online sources

Design Strategy The Railway in Bombay defines the linear city and dictates how 7.7 million people travel daily. The Greenway will provide conductive environment for active modes of transport with flat, tree-lined shaded pathways and cycling tracks.

The Railways are lifeline of Mumbai City. The Project proposal looks forward to a greener, cleaner and safer environment in the city. The Greenway Project is completely designed as a self-sustainable model that will improve infrastructure and integrate urban parks into the living, working, and commuting spaces. The proposal while offering dynamic and engaging public space does not require land acquisition as it will be built as a podium above the existing railway tracks. If this project is implemented in the future, it will positively impact the needs and desires of people. The environment and user experience will greatly improve, but it will be challenging to get this large-scale project in the light of day.

The Proposal

The Greenway beyond basic transportation needs also caters to the leisure needs of an ever-growing city. Benefits a lot of Commuters, they would have space of their own to walk, run, cycle and relax. 6

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Elements of Urban Design Building Types

Project Type : Individual

The exercise focused on some number of buildings that were considered from Indian and International context, to study and analyze the relationship of buildings with ground edge, streets and surroundings and effectively represent building typology in urban design drawings.

Building Types Softwares Used : Sketch Up, Photoshop

Analyzing Building Types, relationship with Streets and Spaces between buildings

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The color coding for Indian case studies are in orange and for international case studies are in blue. The highlighted portion shows the active edges for people. The shades of color represent the fading space and decreasing activities i.e. between the built and street. It can be inferred that the building setting influences user movement, activities and impacts the surrounding.

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Building Types Softwares Used : Sketch Up, Photoshop

Analyzing Building Types, relationship with Streets and Spaces between buildings

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The buildings in the Indian context have an entrance space with compound walls around the defined plot in both the typologies whereas in the International context, the buildings are directly connected with the street or road running along. This allows people to connect with the built and the street. The built form keeps the street active and vibrant. The buildings in India are gated and confined so, they are not strongly connected with the main road.

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Building Types Softwares Used : Sketch Up, Photoshop

The educational buildings in the Indian context mainly have a vertical development cause of limited space in the city whereas, in the International context, they are more horizontal spread campus. The building setting, built use and scale of building define the influence zone and the type of activities it attracts.

Analyzing Building Types, relationship with Streets and Spaces between buildings

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Elements of Urban Design Open Space

Project Type : Individual

This exercise is designed to develop understanding of various attributes of an open space in order to analyze the parameters that shapes their physical form. Understanding relationship with the surrounding context and it also aimed at exploring various techniques to represent their character.

Open Space Softwares Used : Sketch Up, Photoshop

Analyzing relationship of the open space with the Builtedge and the surrounding context The illustration on right shows Leicester Square located in London. It shows the built form and enclosure of activities in the square. With features of the old and new city combined into one, Leicester Square is a famous attractions for locals and visitors in London. The open space is studied and analyzed with respect to the open space and its relation with the ground and built.

Inference : The activeness of open space depends on surrounding building use, enclosure of built forms and accessibility to the space. The ground edge is active and vibrant in Leicester Square because the pedestrian movement is unobstructed. The street furniture around enhances the space and the park in centre of Leicester square is used for relaxing and like a pause point. The quality of each open space; whether large, small, wide, narrow, has an observable character which influences the experience of users.

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Elements of Urban Design Streets

Project Type : Individual

This exercise is designed to develop understanding of various attributes of streets. To analyze the parameters that shapes their physical form. To understand their relationship with the surrounding context and to explore various techniques to represent their character. The main intend is to understand the functional role of a street in terms of mobility, accessibility and its role as a public space.

Streets

Colaba Causeway, Mumbai

Softwares Used : Sketch Up, Photoshop

Analyzing relationship of the street with the Built-edge and the context The illustration shows maximum activity hour where in Colaba Causeway is mostly observed to be active in day light hours and Oxford street is majorly active post 6pm, i.e during the evening. Colaba Causeway is a famous clothing and accessory market of south Mumbai. The distinct elements of Colaba Causeway are ground floor edge, arcades along the footpath and the vending activities that actives the whole street and makes a public space.

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Streets

Oxford Street, London

Softwares Used : Sketch Up, Photoshop

Analyzing relationship of the street with the Built-edge and the context The Oxford Street in London is a famous shopping paradise for tourist and visitors. The distinct elements of Oxford street are the junction, active shop-fronts and the wide footpath that enhances user experience and makes the street vibrant.

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Elements of Urban Design Urban Blocks

Project Type : Individual

This exercise is designed to develop strategic understanding of various attributes regarding Urban Blocks and its components – Building Types, Streets and Spaces between buildings. The exercise required to identify and represent prevailing urban blocks in different cities. It also aimed at developing skills for representing the character of these urban blocks through three-dimensional form that abstracts the character of blocks.

Urban Blocks Softwares Used : Sketch Up, Photoshop

Nariman Point,Mumbai

The illustration highlights the distinctive elements – Built blocks, active spaces between the building spaces, streets, open spaces and relationship between them.

Analyzing Building Types, relationship with Streets and Spaces between buildings Nariman point has evolved as a patch of the sea into the City’s commercial hub in Mumbai.

The blocks have a well-connected street network which allows users to use the tertiary streets and escape the long hours of Mumbai traffic. 28

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Urban Blocks Softwares Used : Sketch Up, Photoshop

Old Town, Toronto

The illustration highlights the distinctive elements – Built blocks, active spaces between the building spaces, streets, open spaces and relationship between them.

Analyzing Building Types, relationship with Streets and Spaces between buildings The Old town is located in the neighborhood of the new down town, Toronto.

The Old town is driven by the institutional built use in the center, and it has many building uses around which makes it a self-sufficient neighborhood. 30

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Elements of Urban Design Synthesizing the Urban Blocks

Project Type : Group

The study on urban blocks is initially based on the analysis of open spaces and block perimeters across a pallet of 66 samples of urban blocks sized 500 x 500m situated across the continents. Further the second part comprises the comparison of selected blocks representing different categories of patterns for understanding permeability. The objective is to study and compare the permeability across blocks. To perform this study, three typical examples from each street pattern category are selected with a diverse range of average block perimeters.

Synthesizing the Urban Blocks Softwares Used : Sketch Up, Photoshop

There are 4 categories of patterns in which the urban blocks are arranged namely Grid, Mix, Non-Linear and Radial, which are arranged in decreasing order of percentage of public open spaces.

In the observed cases, when there are designated open spaces and wide roads in the urban blocks the percentage ranges from 25%-80% Where as in cases where there are only roads as open spaces the percentage ranges between 10-20%. Furthermore the average block perimeter ranges across 200-1030m for Non-Linear and grid patterns and around 100700m for mix and radial. 34

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Starting from a major public transit node along the primary street, several routes leading into the blocks are marked till a range of 400m distance selected on the basis of maximum displacement from the public transit node. The net displacements of all these selected routes marked in magenta are used to calculate the average effective displacement from the node. The ratio of this average effective displacement and the maximum possible displacement of 400m is calculated to find the permeability ratio, graphically represented by the concentric arcs. The outer blue arc represents the maximum 400m displacement while the inner black arc represents the average effective displacement.

The block perimeter and link ratio generalizes the accessibility and connectivity of the block, but does not consider the ground realities. Whereas the permeability ratio which is specific to the location of the primary transit node and the commonly traveled paths into the inner blocks, portrays a better understanding of the user’s convenience. CEPT University | Elements of Urban Design 35

Public Place Design

Project Type : Individual

Revitalizing the Shopping Street Linking Road, Bandra

The focus of the design exercise was to re-imagine existing scenarios in the city with a fresh perspective on the opportunities in the public domain. The selected public place was required to have a spark of an idea of how the place will look like after design intervention was implemented. The design intends to develop ability to re-imagine the public place with strategic design that not only solves the existing issues but also provides multiple uses either through the day, or season or on special occasions.

Revitalizing the Shopping Street

Site Context

Softwares Used : Sketch Up, Photoshop

Linking Road, Bandra

Mumbai markets are a shopaholic’s lifeline.. the bazaars of Mumbai are the most crowded and popular places to buy things at reasonable rates.

The project is about this famous shopping street of Bandra, Mumbai. Located abutting the main Link road and Patwardhan Park on its opposite side where shop fronts are aligned on the edge of the park.

Existing Section

History of Linking Road Market dates back to early 1940s, Linking Road did not start as a shopping paradise. After the construction of RD National College, the fashion stores started to thrive and many new shops came up. Park

Over the years this shopping hub has stretched beyond its original length. Vendors sell clothing items, shoes and accessories etc. on the street. The market is taken over by vendors, yet the informality of the street keeps it active and vibrant but the park behind the street is not active. 38

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Shopping Street

Link Road

RD National College

The street has no segregation of vehicular path and pedestrian movement because of which the vehicles often pass through the shopping space to avoid main road traffic. CEPT University | Elements of Urban Design 39

Spatial Analysis and Activity Map

Stakeholder Matrix

The Ground floor use is predominantly The pedestrian movement is The shopping street is accessible from Commercial and retail commercial. obstructed by vehicles and vending two ends of the street. The Park is accessible one entrance only. activities.

Issues Identified No segregation for pedestrians and vehicular movement. The shop-fronts take up the footpath. There is no visual/physical access to the Patwardhan park. The junction is usually busy and lack of parking facility. The Shopping street is most active during the evening. 40

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The intervention aims beyond just reorganizing the shopping street. It caters to multiple stakeholders and adding activities that will bring people together. The informality of the street would remain but in an organized manner where each identified stakeholder gets its zone segregated. CEPT University | Elements of Urban Design 41

Design Aim

Zoning

Existing Layout

The idea is to integrate the shopping The existing layout shows how the street and park edge. stalls are aligned in a linear pattern along the park edge making it a dead edge. The idea is to integrate the shopping street and park edge. The proposal comprises of 1.8 m pathways which are comfortable to walk without obstructions. The zones for formal and informal vending is demarcated to avoid encroachment and create unobstructed pedestrian movement.

The design aims at revitalizing the shopping street into a multipurpose plaza with multiple activities catering to a larger user group. The journey of the user adds several layers to integrate the functions which flow throughout the roadMultipurpose plaza- inside the park.

Proposed Layout

Design Strategy

The division of plaza led to creating Stitching the street and the park edge The junction edge juts out from the multiple axes into the public space opens up a larger space for people. plaza space. Carving and slicing out the connecting each of the activity zones. activity zones in the proposed plaza. 42

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The Proposal

Proposal of the Multipurpose Plaza, Linking Road, Bandra

Softwares Used : Sketch Up, Photoshop

The shopping street is re-imagined as a multipurpose plaza with activities around integrating the park edge making it a space for people. The linear shopping market is proposed as a chunk of shopping zone with buffer spaces and temporary builtstructures. The food cart zone located on the south of the plaza next to shopping zone, with hand drove small carts; Central plaza designed as a central public space which holds both the ends of the proposal. Exhibition zone is a flexible layout proposed for art/or any kind of installation, located on the north end of plaza. Play Zone, this zone includes activities for kids and adults adjacent to exhibition zone. All together this plaza makes a PUBLIC SPACE FOR PEOPLE OF MUMBAI CITY.

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RD National College Main Link Road 24 m

Pedestrian Pathway 1.8 m Patwardhan park

Integrated Park Edge

Sunken Gathering

Floor Fountain

Drop-off Point

The section runs across the road, plaza and the park showing differences in levels and activity zones. Even throughout the cross section it is observed that change in material pattern denotes change of activities. 46

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There is a clear segregation proposed for the vehicular and pedestrian movements with defined drop off points and adequate number of parking bays along the main road. Pedestrians will be able to move freely on the plaza and the vehicular movement will be unobstructed.

The pathways are designed in a way that will create the most important way of direction, physically and visually connected and leading to any of the activity zones. The plaza will be active throughout the day and night because of the multiple activities catering to larger user group. Even the people who are just passing by will have a sense of the plaza space.

There are several activity zones one of which is shopping zone. Mumbai markets are most active and vibrant spaces. There are lined up shops along the streets. The informal experience of shopping will remain but in an organized manner with buffer and seating spaces around the corners.

The footpath connects the north end of the plaza. Play zone will enhance the activities for all age groups and keep the space active. The play zone is visually connected from the footpath but protected with safety barriers. This proposal if implemented will make the place more active and vibrant.

Key Learnings Softwares Used : Sketch Up, Photoshop

Streets, Built forms, Open Spaces, Urban Blocks are various urban design elements that make up the Urban Public Place. These elements are linked with one another and they help in the functioning of urban space for the people. The study of elements of urban design helped to understand the relationship between the surrounding context, condition of ground floor edge, and its influence on the activities around. Public open spaces apart from being accessible should have porous edges for a visual connection with the user. Through the analysis done for various elements, my design proposal for Linking road Bandra focuses on designing a place for people which is more than a shopping paradise. The design aims at solving the existing problems of vehicular traffic and pedestrian movement along with integrating the dead edge of the park into an active and vibrant public plaza. This project will lead to a vibrant plaza, active street edges, and integrated park edge. Hereby enhancing the livability of the city. The project if implemented will also act as an addition to the public open space in Mumbai city which will play a multipurpose role for the people of the city.

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vidhi.pud20394@cept.ac.in | +91 9769061146