COLLEGE OF ENGINEERING

AND ARCHITECTURE

HISTORICAL
BACKGROUND OF
PLANNING

TAN, BRYANT ANGELO E. AR. KAE SHEN GALANG

The architect usually begins to work when the site and the type and cost of a building
have been determined.

The site involves the varying behaviour of the natural environment that must be adjusted
to the unvarying physical needs of human beings; the type is the generalized form established
by society that must be adjusted to the special use for which the building is required; the cost
implies the economics of land, labour, and materials that must be adjusted to suit a particular
sum.

Thus, planning is the process of particularizing and, ultimately, of harmonizing the

PLANNING THE ENVIRONMENT

The natural environment is at once a hindrance and a help, and the architect seeks both
to invite its aid and to repel its attacks. To make buildings habitable and comfortable, the
architect must control the effects of heat, cold, light, air, moisture, and dryness and foresee
destructive potentialities such as fire, earthquake, flood, and disease.

The methods of controlling the environment considered here are only the practical
aspects of planning. They are treated by the architect within the context of the expressive
aspects. The placement and form of buildings in relation to their sites, the distribution of spaces
within buildings, and other planning devices discussed below are fundamental elements in the
aesthetics of architecture.

ORIENTATION

The arrangement of the axes of buildings and their parts is a device for controlling the
effects of sun, wind, and rainfall. The sun is regular in its course; it favours the southern and
neglects the northern exposures of buildings in the Northern Hemisphere, so that it may be
captured for heat or evaded for coolness by turning the axis of a plan toward or away from it.
Within buildings, the axis and placement of each space determines the amount of sun it
receives. Orientation may control air for circulation and reduce the disadvantages of wind, rain,
and snow, since in most climates the prevailing currents can be foreseen. The characteristics of
the immediate environment also influence orientation: trees, land formations, and other
buildings create shade and reduce or intensify wind, while bodies of water produce moisture
and reflect the sun.

ARCHITECTURAL FORMS

Planning may control the environment by the design of architectural forms that may
modify the effects of natural forces. For example, overhanging eaves, moldings, projections,
courts, and porches give shade and protection from rain. Roofs are designed to shed snow and
to drain or preserve water. Walls control the amount of heat lost to the exterior or retained in the
interior by their thickness and by the structural and insulating materials used in making them.
Walls, when properly sealed and protected, are the chief defense against wind and moisture.
Windows are the principal means of controlling natural light; its amount, distribution, intensity,
direction, and quality are conditioned by their number, size, shape, and placement and by the
characteristics of translucent materials (e.g., thickness, transparency, texture, colour). But the
planning of fenestration is influenced by other factors, such as ventilation and heating. Since
most translucent materials conduct heat more readily than the average wall, windows are used
sparingly in extreme climates. Finally, since transparent windows are the medium of visual
contact between the interior and exterior, their design is conditioned by aesthetic and practical
demands.

COLOUR

Colour has a practical planning function as well as an expressive quality because of the
range of its reflection and its absorption of solar rays. Since light colours reflect heat and dark
colours absorb it, the choice of materials and pigments is an effective tool of environmental
control.
Materials and techniques

The choice of materials is conditioned by their own ability to withstand the environment
as well as by properties that make them useful to human beings. One of the architect’s jobs is to
find a successful solution to both conditions; to balance the physical and economic advantages
of wood against the possibility of fire, termites, and mold, the weather resistance of glass and
light metals against their high thermal conductivity, and many similar conflicts. The more violent
natural manifestations, such as heavy snow loads, earthquakes, high winds, and tornadoes, are
controlled by special technical devices in regions where they are prevalent.

Any number of these controls may be out of reach of the planner for various reasons.
The urban environment, for example, restricts freedom of orientation and design of architectural
forms and creates new control problems of its own: smoke, dirt, noise, and odors.

INTERIOR CONTROL

The control of the environment through the design of the plan and the outer shell of a
building cannot be complete, since extremes of heat and cold, light, and sounds penetrate into
the interior, where they can be further modified by the planning of spaces and by special
conditioning devices.

Temperature, light and sound are all subject to control by the size and shape of interior spaces,
the way in which the spaces are connected, and the materials employed for floors, walls,
ceilings, and furnishings. Hot air may be retained or released by the adjustment of ceiling
heights and sources of ventilation. Light reflects in relation to the colour and texture of surfaces
and may be reduced by dark, rough walls and increased by light, smooth ones. Sounds are
transmitted by some materials and absorbed by others and may be controlled by the form of
interiors and by the use of structural or applied materials that by their density, thickness, and
texture amplify or restrict sound waves.

Conditioning devices played only a small part in architecture before the introduction of
mechanical and electrical systems in the 19th century. The fireplace was almost the only
method of temperature control (though the ancient Romans anticipated the modern water
system for radiant heating); fuel lamps and candles had to be movable and were rather in the
sphere of furnishings than of architecture; the same is true of the tapestries and hangings used
for acoustical purposes and to block drafts.

Today, heating, insulation, air conditioning, lighting, and acoustical methods have become basic
parts of the architectural program. These defenses and comforts of industrialization control the
environment so efficiently that the contemporary architect is free to use or to discard many of
the traditional approaches to site and interior planning.

Planning for use

While environmental planning produces comfort for the senses (sight, feeling, hearing) and
reflexes (respiration), planning for use or function is concerned with convenience of movement
and rest. All activities that demand architectural attention require unique planning solutions to
facilitate them. These solutions are found by differentiating spaces for distinct functions, by
providing circulation among these spaces, and by designing them to facilitate the actions of the
human body.

Differentiation

The number of functions requiring distinct kinds of space within a building depends not only
upon the type of building but also upon the requirements of the culture and the habits and
activities of the individual patrons. Some houses have a single room with a hearth area, and
others have separate areas for cooking, eating, sleeping, washing, storage, and recreation. A
meetinghouse with a single hall is sufficient for Quaker religious services, while a Roman
Catholic cathedral may require a nave, aisles, choir, apse, chapels, crypt, sacristy, and
ambulatory.

The planning of differentiated spaces involves as a guide to their design (placement, size,
shape, environmental conditions, sequence, etc.) the analysis of use (number of uses and
character, duration, time of day, frequency, variability, etc., of each), users (number, behaviour,
age, sex, physical condition, etc.), and furniture or equipment required.

Circulation

Communication among differentiated spaces and between the exterior and the interior may be
achieved by openings alone in the simplest plans, but most buildings require distinct spaces
allotted to horizontal and vertical circulation (corridors, lobbies, stairs, ramps, elevators, etc.).
These are designed by the procedure of analysis employed for differentiating uses. Since their
function is usually limited to simplifying the movement of persons and things toward a particular
goal, their efficiency depends on making the goal evident and the movement direct and easy to
execute.

Facilitation

The convenience of movement, like the comfort of environment, can be increased both by
planning and by devices. Planning methods are based on analysis of the body measurements,
movements, and muscular power of human beings of different ages and sexes, which results in
the establishment of standards for the measurements of ceilings, doorways, windows, storage
shelves, working surfaces, steps, and the like and for the weight of architectural elements that
must be moved, such as doors, gates, and windows. These standards also include allowances
for the movement of whatever furnishings, equipment, or machinery are required for the use of
any building. Devices for facilitating movement within buildings replace or simplify the labours of
daily life: the traditional pumps, plumbing, and sewerage systems and the innumerable modern
machines for circulation, food preparation and preservation, industrial processing, and other
purposes.

Economic planning

Major expenses in building are for land, materials, and labour. In each case they are high when
the commodity is scarce and low when it is abundant, and they influence planning more directly
when they become restrictive.
The effect of high land values is to limit the amount of space occupied by any building as well as
the amount of expenditure that can be reserved for construction. When land coverage is limited,
it is usually necessary to design in height the space that otherwise would be planned in breadth
and depth, as in the ancient Roman insula (apartment houses) or the modern skyscraper. When
the choice of materials is influenced by cost, all phases of architectural design are affected,
since the planning procedure, the technique, and the form of buildings are dependent on
materials. High labour costs influence the choice of techniques and, consequently, of materials.
They encourage simplification in construction and the replacement of craftsmanship by
standardization. The development in the 19th and 20th centuries of light wood-frame
construction and methods of prefabrication was largely the result of the rising cost of labour.

Planning involves not only the control of cost in each area but also the proportioning of
expenditures among land, materials, and labour in order to produce the most effective solution
to an architectural problem.

Techniques

The techniques of architecture in the sense that they will be considered here are simply the
methods by which structures are formed from particular materials. These methods are
influenced not only by the availability and character of materials but also by the total
technological development of society, for architecture depends on an organized labour force
and upon the existence of the tools and skills necessary to secure, manufacture, transport, and
work durable materials.

The evolution of techniques is conditioned by two forces. One is economic—the search for a
maximum of stability and durability in building with a minimum of materials and labour. The
other is expressive—the desire to produce meaningful form. Techniques evolve rapidly when
economic requirements suggest new expressive forms or when the conception of new forms
demands new procedures. But they remain static when architects avoid the risk of pioneering
with untried and possibly unsuccessful methods and depend instead on proved procedures or
when the need for the observance of tradition, for the communication of ideas, or for elegance
and display is best fulfilled by familiar forms.
The ultimate purpose of building techniques is to create a stable structure. In mechanical terms,
structures are stable when all their parts are in a state of equilibrium, or rest. Walls and roofs
can buckle, crack, or collapse if they are not properly designed. These movements are caused
by forces that tend to push or pull bodies in a given direction. Forces acting on any member
(part) of a building are, first, its own weight and, second, the loads it carries, principally from
other members but also from persons, furnishings, wind, etc. Their action encounters a reaction
in opposing forces that hold the member in place by resisting at its joints. These forces may be
active in all directions, and they must be balanced for stability. They tend to crush, pull apart,
and bend the member—in other words, to change its size and shape.

Within the member itself there are forces, too, that tend to resist any deformation. They are
called stresses, and they vary according to the strength of materials and the form of the
member. The kinds of stress under consideration are compression, which resists crushing;
tension, which resists pulling apart; and bending, which occurs when one part of a member is in
compression and the other is in tension. A column is put into compression by the loads it
carries; in a trussed roof the piece that forms the base of the triangle is put into tension by the
outward-pushing forces in the sides; and a lintel or beam (the member that spans a space) is
put into bending by loads and forces that push down on its top and encounter a reacting force at
its ends. Some materials are strong only in compression (e.g., stone, brick, cast iron, concrete)
and others in tension as well (e.g., wood, steel, reinforced concrete), so the latter are more
efficient in resisting bending forces.

Finally, the stability of the total structure whose single members are all in equilibrium is achieved
by diverting the loads from all of them downward so that they may be resisted by the upward-
supporting forces of the ground.

Techniques will be discussed in terms of the characteristics of building materials and the
methods by which they are used in architecture (see building construction).
REFERENCE
https://www.britannica.com/topic/architecture/Planning-for-use
https://www.slideshare.net/amukh03/history-theory-of-planning-introduction-to-planning
https://www.dwell.com/article/a-brief-history-of-the-birth-of-urban-planning-104a9e4f