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2.1. The Urban Design Process Part 1: AR

591B-ARCH51S6

INTRODUCTION

This page introduces the notion of a 'method framework' for urban

design, drawing on the idea, set out in the preceding topic, of design
as a cyclic-process involving analysis and synthesis, or composition.
This is to present a guide rather than a formula that can be rigidly
applied to any situation. 

LEARNING CONTENT

Artistic inspiration versus 'Geddesian' analysis

To those unfamiliar with the process, design is rather mysterious,

driven by artistic inspiration and primarily concerned with visual
artistic rather than practical purpose. This view of design as
inspiration is also shared by many designers who see themselves as
(sometimes actually are) gifted artists. Are you one of them? In urban
design, this view is represented in the 'beaux arts' approach, where
the stress is on the beautifying the city through grand and often
formal street layouts and landscaping interventions. A similar
motivation underlies the 'big architecture' approach to urban design,
where it is the visual and spatial impact of the large-scale
development, as a 'statement' of the individual architect, that is seen
to count. 

Remember the 'traditions of thought' of urban design in our previous

module speci cally the one discussed in the topic 'Towards
Understanding Urban Design',? This particular notion falls in the visual
artistic tradition. 

Design as a problem-solving activity

The contrary view is of design as a problem-solving activity,

concerned with the issue of spatial organization to meet functional
needs. This approach has its roots in the engineering outlook of the
19th century, with its railways, bridges, buildings and new structures
of concrete, iron and glass. In town planning, the city was also seen in
engineering terms, with increasing problems of public health and
tra c circulation addressed by planning new urban infrastructures
and and garden cities. Out of this movement emerged the idea of
'functionalism' or 'form follows function'. The functionalist approach
suggests that if we analyze the problems that the design sets out to
address in su cient detail and in scienti c manner, a spatial solution
will emerge from this analysis or 'program'. It suggests that design is
a linear process, which if carried out with su cient rigor, will lead to a
single optimum solution. 

On the surface, there are parallels between this functionalism in the

modernist architecture and the 'civic' diagnosis of the turn-of-century
Scottish biologist and urban theorist, Patrick Geddes - his notion of
'survey-analyze-design (plan)'. Many of the modernist architects and
planners wished to build the modern city anew according to the strict
functionalist principles, ignoring the past. Geddes however, was
concerned with learning from history and with understanding the
organic and gradually evolving form of the city and the life of its
inhabitants. The 'program' part of Geddes' formula - 'survey and
analyze' - sets out to provide a rational framework for understanding
the issues that a particular plan seeks to address. This is achieved
through a careful 'reading' of the urban context within which a
particular intervention is to be made. Each situation requires,
alongside a statement of the current economic and social issues to
be addressed, an understanding of the particular
cultural circumstances in terms of the history of the urban fabric and
the lives and life-styles of the people. With its stress on sensitivity to
the urban context, this approach provides the basis for much
contemporary urban design. 

The urban design cycle and the importance of types

Taken one way, the Geddesian approach suggests that the collection
of su cient data and its careful analysis will yield a rational solution
to a particular set of urban problems. The scienti c planning tradition
follows this -view, i.e. that the solution to any particular planning
problem lies in gathering su cient data. However, it is clear that
design does not work in this way and that no amount of information
and data analysis will cause a spatial plan or design to emerge of its
own accord; rather, urban design follows a cycle. Information
is gathered, and concepts are formulated and evaluated against the
knowledge that has been accumulated. This suggests where
additional information is needed, how it can be structured, where a
design concept can be modi ed or how a new idea can take shape.
Any particular urban design development can involve a number of
such cycles of analysis, synthesis or composition and evaluation.
Design also does seem to require leaps of the imagination to proceed.
However, there is much that the student unfamiliar with design can do
to help the imagination on its way, including following some of the
principles set out here. If not from analysis, where do design ideas
come from? Is it an entirely subjective matter? While it is true that
much Of the 'brain-work' that goes on between design analysis and
solution is unconscious. few designs are entirely unique, Most
solutions to a particular set of problems can be divided up into
'families' that share common features. This suggests that design
concepts are shaped by drawing on pre-existing forms or precedents.
A clue to what these might be is the idea of urban types — buildings.
spaces, infrastructure — introduced as one of the basic 'generators of
urban form. In the design process, it seems likely that we draw on a
library of such prototypes or precedents, built up from our experience,
learning and memory, combining them in various ways and testing
them against the evolving brief. The element of invention and
creativity in the way that such types are combined and developed
always allows for original designs and new urban types to emerge. 

Design as a rational and experimental process

The design process is rational and experimental rather than simply

inspirational. It works through a process of deduction rather than
induction, where a design solution is an early hypothesis to be tested,
drawing on pre-existing models, rather than the end-point of the long
accumulation of facts. To map out an urban design solution requires
analyzing and simplifying the problems to be addressed. This process
of simpli cation and abstraction is necessary before the designer is
able to give a physical shape to a solution. With too much detail, this
is simply not possible. The aim is to clarify priorities and make explicit
future scenarios, dealing with such questions as: 

• What are the most important factors? How are these measured and
weighted? 

• Where there are con icting requirements, are compromises

possible? If not. which requirement takes priority? 

• What assumptions are being made about the future situation in

which an urban design policy or plan is being implemented? 

Since design is a matter of prioritization and assumption, every

solution will be better at dealing with some issues and worse at
dealing with others. More e cient design solutions can often be
achieved through modi cations, but improvements in one area are
often coupled with compromises elsewhere. This is a matter of
experimentation and students that are new to it will discover design
to be an open-ended and time-consuming process. 

A framework for the urban design process 

To summarize, the urban design in the framework presented here

involves a cyclic process of analysis—composition—evaluation. It is
an attempt to reconcile factors that relate to client or user needs,
factors that relate to the site or area under study and its context,
factors that relate to the constraints of planning policy and local
planning regulations. It involves understanding the problems that are
to be addressed and re ning, abstracting and prioritizing the essential
issues. In the process of analysis and synthesis or composition,
urban types, drawn from the in uence of experience or practice, are
used to organize information and to shape out a solution. 

The particular in uences, which techniques are used and how they
are combined re ect the preferences and design of the urban
designer or design team. This is a fourth factor in the urban design
process. It involves issues of aesthetics and of symbolic and cultural
expression on which there is a considerable amount of literature for
the interested student.

De ning and analyzing the problem

Design involves prioritizing and reconciling often con icting aims and
objectives and arriving at a strategy or solution that addresses a
multitude of different factor. Part of the problem to be addressed will
be set out in the statement of client or user requirements that will
form part of the commissioning brief for an urban designer in
practice, or be described in the project brief in a student urban design
exercise. Other requirements will emerge in the collection and
analysis of data in the initial phase of the urban design process.
Some of these will relate to the site and its context, or the area under
study, and emerge in the process of urban analysis. Others will relate
to constraints of planning policy and local planning regulations. Yet
other factors that will shape the design process relate to the design
philosophy or approach being used to shape particular urban design
solutions. These will often operate at an unconscious level, an implicit
rather than explicit element of the urban design process.

Study area appraisal and surveys 

Whether the area that is the object of an urban design study is a

development site or a larger district, city quarter or neighborhood,
determining the particular physical and social characteristics of the
study area is an essential starting point for the urban design process.
How an urban design appraisal is used in local area urban design
studies is described in the next module. This offers re ections on the
appraisal process in practice and a framework for incorporating the
appraisal in the larger design process. The appraisal may be viewed
as a two-stage process — survey and analysis — although in  practice
there is considerable overlap.

The survey involves a visual inspection of the study area and the
collection of material in the form of annotated maps, written notes,
photographs or videos and sketches. These primary data are
supplemented with material from other sources: local authority
development plans (CLUP), historical plans and literature on the
history of the area, socio-economic surveys, estate agents surveys
and so forth. Ideally. students should carry out questionnaire surveys
of local residents or users, or interview representative stakeholders. In
the scope of the average student project, there is unlikely to be time to
carry out surveys in this amount of detail.  The next module will
concentrate on short-cut techniques that allow students to carry out a
rapid appraisal of urban form and activity. Additionally, the appraisal
stage of an urban design project is most e ciently carried out in
teams (collaboration), with the different tasks being shared out so
that more information can be gathered and processed.

Site planning and the need for context studies 

Any site planning exercise should involve a wider appraisal of the

urban context in which the site is located. The scale of this exercise
depends on the limited time and resources available, but it is
important to get some measure of the urban context within which an
intervention is being proposed. The scope of a context study depends
on how the context is spatially de ned. Generally, it is useful to de ne
a series of concentric areas around the site of a proposed
development, so that the site can be viewed in its city-wide, district
and local context. The next module provides a practical example of
how to carry out an area appraisal under de ned criteria.

Study area analysis

The study area analysis forms the basis of the rst level of analysis,
which after the survey forms the second part of the appraisal and is
described in the next module. In practice, much of the basic,
unprocessed survey data can be sifted and mapped as part of the
contextual analysis, skipping one step in the process.
Whether information is mapped in one or two stages depends of the
type of notation that is developed for the purpose. Sometimes it is
better to have one type of notation to record information and another
to carry' out an analysis.

The design process

The next module outlines the rapid area appraisal using simple

freehand analytical diagrams and drawings. There are other more
sophisticated, though less often used, techniques for
which computers are either -useful or essential, examples of which
are as follows:

Spatial structure analysis: graph theory and space syntax (see

Hillier and Hanson 1984).
Network analysis: modelling of transport/vehicular links and ows.
Computer analysis: standard Geographical Information Systems
computer applications rely on comprehensive data collection and
entry, and are generally more useful at the larger planning scale for
identifying area features through 'sieving' or 'hot-spotting' process.

A common feature of the techniques of urban form and activity

analysis is their ability to abstract essential factors which are
important in developing clear spatial strategies. Unlike the hard-edged
and more rigorous scienti c analytical methods listed here, they
also incorporate a degree of 'fuzziness' which can be useful in
allowing the necessary exibility in developing spatial solutions. What
this type of analysis provides is clear cues and clues from which
development strategies can be shaped. 

Developing a rationale 

Following on from the context or study area appraisal is a second

level of analysis which, generalizes and abstracts from the rst. 

Summary analysis, opportunities and constraints diagrams The most

important features of each of the separate analytical studies are
summarized in a summary analysis diagram (or diagrams). From this
summary can be drawn the main opportunities for development and
improvement that the area offers and likely constraints on
development. Where possible, opportunities and constraints should
be mapped as a diagram. Sometimes opportunities and
constraints involve non-place-speci c economic, planning
or management factors, which should be listed as bullet points. 

Clarifying scenarios The idea of identifying opportunities and

constraints is a little less clear-cut than it sounds, as what is an
opportunity and what is a constraint is dependent on what
assumptions are made about the likely funds that can be made
available to  nance future development. The basic assumption
of urban regeneration, for example, is to turn constraints on
development, in terms of poor quality land and infrastructure and
unattractive buildings, into development opportunities by strategic
public investment and incentives to private investors. The important
issue here is-to be clear about the time-scale being considered and
the broader development scenario (what type of development will be
economically and socially feasible). It might be useful to list the
features of the scenario and to test out the effect of different
scenarios, short term and long term, optimistic and pessimistic, on
the nature of an area's development opportunities and constraints. 

Another technique that can be used, in place of cr alongside the

spatial mapping of opportunities and constraints, is a SWOT
analysis. This is a common management technique that considers
the strengths and weaknesses of an organization, and the
opportunities offered and threats faced as a basis for developing a
planning strategy. While a study area may not have the same sense of
identity as an organisation, considering its strengths and weaknesses
is a useful exercise. Contrasting opportunities with threats tends to
provide a greater focus on who is being affected and lays greater
stress on the competitive economic environment that affects area
development these days. 

To make a perfect SWOT Analysis, explore HERE. 

Area strategy It is useful at this stage in the exercise to think in terms

of an area strategy (Figure 1). Where the exercise is to devise an
urban design framework for the area, the purpose may already be set
out in the client's brief. In the absence of such a framework or where
the study is concerned with a particular development site or sites, an
area strategy is a useful device within which to develop site
development options. In this case it is being used as a scenario and a
way in which the development may be presented to the local
authority. 

Urban design objectives What are the objectives that the strategy sets
out to achieve? These could be listed as a few important bullet points.
They may include the prime objectives that are given in the client's
brief or other established user requirements, as well as objectives
that have emerged from the area appraisal and SWOT analysis. 

Urban design composition The rationale provides a basis on which to

develop an urban design option (or alternative options if time allows),
whether these are in the form of an area strategy or speci c site
development proposals, or both. The area analysis methodology
shows how it can help shape the development of an urban
design framework or armature for the area. The approach is
visualized initially as a concept diagram (a 'bubble' diagram) which
sketches out the broad movement and land use development
strategy. This may be su cient for considering speci c development
interventions on particular sites. Where the requirement is
to formulate an area strategy or urban design framework, the public
realm, built form and land-use elements are worked out in more detail
and the concept diagram turned into a strategic development plan or
framework plan for the area. 

Alternatively, the intention may be to create an intervention in the form

of a site development proposal, a planning brief for a development
site or a public realm improvement strategy. 

Evaluation 

In sketching out design proposals, urban designers make quick and

often unconscious evaluations of the options they are exploring.
Since almost every design involves compromises in certain aspects
and few meet all the requirements, it is usually readily apparent which
parts of the design do not 'work'. The designer may decide to adjust
the proposal, to develop an entirely new one, or to go with the current
option as representing the best compromise. Evaluation, in practice, is
seldom a formal process in which the design is measured against
identi ed criteria.  An example is provided for a set of evaluation
criteria, which students may nd useful in their own urban design
tasks. These criteria have been derived from contemporary work in
urban design studies (Punter 1990). 

The issue of how performance is measured is tricky in that there are

many qualitative aspects of design that do not have simple
quantitative measures. Sometimes measurable indicators can be
devised or identi ed which, while not measuring design qualities
directly, provide indirect indices of performance. Another useful aid to
evaluation is to use the techniques of urban form and activity analysis
listed above and carry out 'before' and 'after' comparisons. These can
be carried out simply by using gure ground plans or through the use
of the evaluation criteria.

The most obvious source of evaluation criteria is provided by those

design objectives, and urban designers and students are advised to
return to them throughout the course of the design process. Table 1
below is an example of evaluation criteria as taken from an urban
design project proposal. These  are just examples to show that
depending on the objectives and criteria that has been set for an
urban design project, its likely outcome or design solution can be
objectively measured. 

Table 1. Evaluative measures of urban design

Quality Brief Description

Place making Appropriate spaces and activities

Relationship to
Dialogue between history and context
historical context

Vitality Mixture of uses, public-private interaction

Quality of public access, movement

Public access
systems, access for disabled

Relationship of parts to surroundings, to

Scale each other, to human activities and to
senses

Legibility, hierarchy of routes (where

Articulation
appropriate)

Adaptability Ability to respond to change

Stimulation Sensory delight

Safety Surveillance, protection

Social justice, empowerment (where

Community process
possible), social mix

E ciency Cost, re-use of resources, phasing

LEARNING SUMMARY

This module has set out a framework within which the urban design
process can be located, indicating which methods it is appropriate to
employ at different stages in the process and how they contribute to
the development of rationally considered urban design proposals. It
has aimed to provide an insight into how the design works as a cyclic
process and how those who are unfamiliar with this process can nd
ways of entering this process and managing it. 

The main points can be summarized as follows: 

There are two contrasting ideas of design: [1] as artistic

inspiration; and [2] problem-solving activity, concerned with the
issues of spatial organisation to meet functional needs. 
A Geddesian approach, involves a rational approach to
understanding urban design problems, and involves a careful
reading of the existing urban context.
Urban design follows a cycle which draws on precedents and
existing models, and adapts combines them to come up with
possible design solutions. This process is rational and
experimental rather than purely inspirational.
Urban design requires a process of simpli cation and abstraction
to enable spatial solutions to be devised.
The study area appraisal requires two processes: [1] survey and [2]
analysis. Urban form and activity analysis can be used to carry out
a rapid area appraisal to develop an area strategy or carry out a
context study for particular local interventions or development
proposals.
The importance of developing a design rational has been stressed,
both as a basis for discovering workable urban design options and
in providing supporting argument for them.
Proposals can be evaluated against de ned criteria.

SOURCES AND REFERENCES

Jones, Tony Lloyd (2001). In Approaching Urban Design: The Design

Process, pp. 51-56. Pearson Education Ltd., England

10 Key Tips for a Perfect SWOT Analysis