what range of products does plug-in urban design cover at one end of the financial scale we have

publicly funded sites and services programs that have the objective of providing the water supply
drainage seabridge sewerage and road systems of a development in order to provide low income
residents with an incentive to build or upgrade their residences much suburban development for
wealthier families is similar but much more generous at another level of complexity we have the
system of vertically segregated transportation links walkways and X as in lada phones in Paris
perhaps most importantly in terms of this discussion is the idea of plugged in

plugging in as an idea

in urban design the plug-in concept has emerged from two streams of thought

the first has been the down to earth use of this infrastructure of cities as a catalyst for
development or for unifying developments. the second is that associated with the archigram
group in the United Kingdom in the 1960s and 70s. the arc igram group observed that many of us
live in a throwaway societies. certainly all kinds of products from tissue paper to automobiles 2
computers are discarded with remarkable ease once their utility or use by dates are past. the group
suggested that components of cities could be considered in the same manner precincts of cities
could be plugged into the existing framework of a city as needed and moved away to another
location as needed this idea is far fetched for the present except on a small scale for temporary
accommodations what is important however is the thinking behind the idea.

the closest design to the Arctic gram idea is the serviced campground. vacationers drive up in their
camper vans for a stay and then move on to the another location or return home. trailer parks are
similar except the trailers once plugged in never move. temporary townships for pilgrims series are
indeed ever changing buildings and precincts will be demolished and rebuilt the cities of Asia and
Latin America are going through rapid changes with high rates of rural urban migration some
company towns maybe abandoned housing areas will continue to be built on a mammoth scale

the case studies

this chapter includes a number of case studies that demonstrate a variety of plug in urban design
types it begins with examples of infrastructure design at the citywide level this set is divided into two
parts where the infrastructure has preceded buildings and where it has been plugged into an existing
built environment. the second set of case studies deals with infrastructure design at the precinct
level. it is subdivided in the same manner there is only one example of a third set which deals with
plugging in specific building types into a precinct to act as catalyst for development. it is included
as a note rather than a case study because its impact is yet to be seen it is the case off the schools as
infrastructure elements in Chattanooga TN Tennessee.

urban links binding cities into units

the design of the links between precincts of the city might be expected to fall outside the preview of
urban design and be regional in city planning or civil engineering endeavour much new town design
however starts out by working out the infrastructure pattern as le corbusier PGA did in promulgating
his design for the restructuring of Antwerp in the 30s.

links can be highways or roads heavy or light rail links and pedestrian an cycleways designers today
are paying special attention to the landscaping of streets and public squares along the trolley routes
to ensure that they are aesthetically acceptable components of the urban scene though all these
networks may be important roads in pedestrian paths remain the major structural elements of
urban form.

three case studies of citywide infrastructures design that have strong urban design overtones have
been included here the selection of coritiba in Brazil is arbitrary but it is internationally considered to
be a good example of master planning and a relatively inexpensive plug in urban design it serves well
as an example of how the infrastructure in urban design projects can go hand in hand the other two
case studies deal with mass transit heavy heavy rail systems the first of these two is one that was
largely but not entirely considered prior to Urban Development taking place the second is a subway
system put into place in response to potential demand but also as a catalyst for local urban renewal
projects in areas of a city undergoing rapid transformation.

Corteva Brazil masterplanning and plug in urban design 1965 to 1998

the most important thing to retain here is The blinding effort focused on land use strategies and the
use of non physical design processors to achieve physical design quality Inns these browsers
included the use of the transference of development rights from historically sensitive to other areas
of the city and incentives to preserve natural areas and buildings of significant cultural value. they
were also designed to attract developers to build affordable housing another amenities deemed to
be in the public interest. The most important infrastructure elements were is the structural axes let's
transportation radiating from but running tangentially to the city centre. they have provided the
armature for plugging in a broad array of urban design projects high density knows well detailed
stations and bus stops lighthouses of knowledge library right libraries citizenship streets community
centres and the strategic locating of accessible museums theatres parks and recreational facilities in
addition and symbolically most importantly the focus of the transportation routes on the city centre
enabled the core of the city to be completely revital ized and modernized through the election of
new buildings in the refurbishment of old the location of the major transit lines on the periphery of
the central business district allowed the creation of what are called boulevards pedestrian streets
within it thus associated associated with the transportation network where a large number of
architectural landscape architectural and urban design projects that have transformed the city. What
however amongst all these activities is urban design the answer is the design of the transit system
can be regarded as plug in urban design and the community centres consisting of a number of
buildings might be regarded as a total urban designs. this type of endeavour has traditionally been
called physical planning such an effort in corteva Brazil has resulted in a large number of specific
design project which fragments in themselves are part of a well coordinated larger system a number
of observers regard such word as urban design at the city scale how was courteous success achieved
in Brazil CURITIBA in the first place the power elite elite rallied around specific schemes secondly the
media wholeheartedly supported the work in widely this amid disseminated images of proposed
schemes surely the lower income groups could see clear if small material gains over the last decade
the planning process and see you RIT ibba has run into problems the basic issue is that the citizen
the citizenry has not been actively involved in the decisions that affect their lives the middle classes
have been favored there has been little that celebrates the plurality of views.

The MBTI system Singapore an outstanding rapid transit system 1967 to the president continuing
what I should retain is the catalytic effect of the amortizations was both foreseen and exploited by
the planners and urban designers in Singapore the construction of stations for instance led to a
proposed surge of high density high rise development in the CBD and on ORCHARD Road. the
GURONG industrial area was not doing very well until workers had access to it via the murty
development around the stations is now being an intensified in 2001 the ministry of national
development established new guidelines for stations to have convenient and comfortable in the e
underground links with shopping areas in environment of which one can be proud is seen as
essential for transit systems to compete effectively with the pleasure of driving myself about the city
while the MBTI is a good example of plugging or in design it can also be seen as in all of a piece
urban design or as a straight planning project depending on what about is development its
development one stresses it is the necklace on which the new towns in the central district of
Singapore are strung.

Line extension London England UK

what happened is that they built a sort of a in their ground line extension of the light rail transit in
London the catalytic effect of the investment in the public realm is yet to be seen the station has
north green which was located at a highly derelict location but it enabled the ill-fated Millennium
Dome to be built and the festival to be held perhaps Stratford has the greatest potential because of
its connection to the new international station on the Channel Tunnel and rail link. the multiplier
effect of the investment in the line will depend on the state of the economy more than the state of
the app picture time will tell the line does bind part of London long neglected into the whole the
urban and architectural image is very important in an era of the globalization of marketing it
established an air of up-to-dateness.

Precinct links binding precincts into units

The physical links binding precincts into coherent identifiable units take many different forms they
are most commonly streets and pedestrian ways but they can be greenways bicycle paths skyway
links and underground passages and the ground pedestrian networks may seem to be a surprising
way of linking elements together at the precinct level but many cities have them.

Designing the infrastructure to be plugged into

designing the basic infrastructure streets and reticulated water supply system system sewers
electricity and communication systems is very much the basis for Urban Development it can lead
development Paris could be included here as an example of a precinct with a multilayered
infrastructure layout into which new commercial buildings have been plugged the same principle
applies to most worlds fairs although in their case everything is done in a great hurry infrastructure
is built into individual exhibitors then plug their buildings into it similarly on a much vaster scale
suburban housing development throughout the world consists of the infrastructure roads sewers
waters and electric supply being built by a property developer public or private in the plots sold off
to individual owners to develop as they wish although many such developments are totally when
designs but others are all of a piece designs in which the designs of the individual houses are heavily
controlled by design guidelines.

Unity is achieved at all it is obtained through diversity standard suburban developments cater to the
needs of the middle and upper income groups in the society sites and services cater to low income
populations in third world countries.
in the sites and services approach to the creation of housing for the very poor and new precinct is
provided with roads and St lights sewers and reticulated water system each site is provided with
connections to the sewerage system and the water tap the householders then build their houses
themselves plugging them into the infrastructure provided in sites and services projects the houses
are literally built by the owners themselves although skilled craftspeople afternoon assist for
wealthy people in contrast the division of labour is sharply defined contractors build their houses.

Most blogging residential neighborhood designs are highly conservative in nature and not
responsive to the emerging demographic characteristics of the population or the needs of the
people who are not actually doing the purchasing. the site and services approach has had mixed
success is it works when the areas selected for development are close to jobs and it works when the
projects are not heavily subsidized by the public sector if a site is distant from jobs nobody wants to
leave there and if heavily subsidized the cash strapped poor are likely to sell their plots at markets
rates to higher income groups in order to obtain cash in hand.

case study Expo 92 Spain worlds fair

The question with worlds fairs is what do you do with the side when the fair is over most of the
world's fairs are demolished after their run is over and the sides completely turned over for other
uses

Case study townships India the project was one in which plots were prepared and services provided
by the ID a but the construction of houses was left to the owners of the plots 5 objectives dictated
the design first to ensure a fine living environment second to create a sense of community third to
deal with the hot arid climate 4th to create an efficient cost effective armature into which individual
buildings could be plugged and 5th to provide for the way that life in low income areas in India spills
out onto the street and in arid areas onto the flat roofs of buildings I The site layout makes it
possible to reach the core from the periphery of the site in a 10 minute walk workplaces are
integrated into the plan.

plugging in the infrastructure

links designed to bind existing parts of a precinct together a proposed for a number of reasons and
take on several forms the primary reasons are to enhance accessibility and to provide an amenity to
pedestrians or bicyclists like the skywalk system that was designed to make the parts of the Super
blood easily accessible from each other but also to both separate vehicle or traffic from pedestrian
on safety grounds and be assembled of the unity in an area of diverse buildings the case studies
explained here will encompass two different examples an infrastructure of the first is at the 2nd
floor level and is enclosed while that of the second is really below the street at basement level but
open to the sky the first was designed to segregate pedestrians and vehicle traffic and to provide a
comfortable passage from building to building in harsh Minnesota winter. the second was simply to
make a city centre a more attractive place both have been catalysts for a new development. the
other type that is the underground pedestrian network mentioned earlier we can we can for
example mention the example of Toronto connects 38 office buildings three major hotels in five
subway stations it houses 1000 stores and restaurants Montreal has its golden square mile of
protected walkways reputedly the most extensive in the world in Kansas and everything.
the skywalk system in Minnesota USA

Is the skyway is success one hallmark of his success is the increase in the number of links over the
years they have been deemed to be desirable it is certainly successful in terms of the comfort ease
and sense of security that it provides pedestrians it is in terms of second floor retail activity it has
however taking match business off the street level close chops attest to that at the same time the
downtown area of the city has become more attractive to investors in terms of what it offers it has
enabled the city centre to compete with suburban cities for development although the cost of
building bridges has deterred some organizations from locating in the city parking lots in fringe areas
have had their patronage boosted and the usage of the cities bus system has increased because of
the added convert convenience provided by the skyway links in moving around downtown some
people worry about the way the system provides shops catering to the middle class and in doing so
separates middle class people in the poor thus creating a dual downtown society.

Another case study San Antonio TX USA a Riverside walkway the reclaiming of the river as intended
reinvigorated san antonio's central area Riverwalk is now home to numerous cafes and restaurants
some of the buildings that backed on to the river have been turned around to face it by the bags of
others have simply been tidied up and act as a reminder of the former status of the river other
buildings change there is uses the plugged in elements include the yacht hotel whose base and
atrium acts as a link to the Alamo the convention centre and river centre. you can be walking good
condition is expensive it requires constant maintenance the city's department of Parks and
Recreation has an annual budget of 4.25 million to maintain the walk the department puts an
extraordinary number of new plants into the ground each year the effort yields results the design
has become a president for other cities to follow closed of alleys closed in rivers abandoned rail
tracks and a host of alleys can be turned into attractive assets for a city persistence and foresight is
what urban design needs.

plugging in components strategic investments as catalysts

it's not the architecture of the buildings that is the attraction but what the bill is uses attract because
of what they offer in terms of services to the area around him the guardian a museum in Bilbao may
be an exception schools fall into a different category they are parts of the infrastructure of everyday
life good schools are essential in attractive middle income families to live nearby the catalytic
effect in social economic and physical middle income families care for more than just surviving on a
day-to-day basis high quality education for their children is highly prized

case study Tennessee USA schools as catalyst for precinct revitilization

the development of the schools is a product of aggressive policy formation community support civic
leadership and philanthropy combining to achieve a social goal the improvement of the quality of
the physical environment was a vital component of the scheme the urban design process began with
a decision in 2000 by the Department of Education of Hamilton County such designs are part of the
as yet small involvement with design and sustainable environments on the part of architects and
urban designers both schools provide field experiences for education students at the University of
Tennessee and their preschool programs are attractive teachers who might otherwise be reluctant
to teach in add downtown school the long rang catalytic effect of the schools remains to be seen but
initial reports are optimistic and enthusiastic.

Commentary of plug in case studies

in many ways much of what has been discussed in this chapter involves city planning and project
development practice. some of the examples included example the schools for Chattanooga are
drawn from the literature aimed at professional city planners an argument can be made for the
inclusion of all these examples in chapter 4 and certainly the schools in chapter 6 all these cases case
studies however show that the continuous development and maintenance of cities and urban design
schemes are essential to their success the word does not stand still.

explicit in the projects included in this set of case studies are social and economic objectives but
there is also a strong recognition of the importance of physical environment in operationalizing in
operationalizing social goals by providing the affordances for them to be met urban design last
becomes a major issue is central concern in match social and economic planning social objectives
are often difficult to meet without consideration of the milieu in which behavior takes place. this
lesson is one that made social planners have yet to learn.

the goal of infrastructure projects is to have a catalytic effect on their surroundings social and
physical as (Attoe and Logan, 1989, 45) note: urban catalysts have a greater purpose in solving a
functional problem or creating an investment or providing an amenity

: a catalyst is an element that is shaped by a city and then in turn shapes its context. Its purpose is
the incremental continuous regeneration for urban fabrics the important point is that the catalyst
is not a single end product but an element that impels and guides subsequent development.

case studies reinforce the observation that individual initiatives are crucially or are crucial in
perceiving opportunities for improvement in the built environment of cities the studies show that
the quality of design is crucial to the a success of urban design endeavors quality is obtained
through the coordinated action of diverse groups of people and individuals

The future of urban design

Urban design is a label coin that I'm in the English speaking world at least when architecture and city
planning were developing distinct and clearly separate identity's whether or not the term urban
design will endure or soon be replaced by a more precise term or terms remain to be seen the term
will probably continue to be used loosely as it is now. City planning all the traditional design fields
are undergoing change city planning for example has broadened in its scope of concern in an
attempt to be comprehensive in its outlook landscape architecture has considerably extended its
domain of interest from horticulture bayes to include urban environments. while architecture has
many practitioners who focus on different aspects of the built environment Urban design emerged
as identifiable professional field in response to the limitations of particularly architectural ideas
about the nature of the future city as presented in the Athene charter of Congress international
architecture modern.

The utility of empiricist ideas particularly as represented by the Garden City paradigm was also
strongly questioned How do we deal with group interests in relationship to individual in Urban
Development how do we define the public interest While modernist site designing ideas if not
architectural still hold considerable sway in the minds of architects across the world knew paradigms
have emerged most recently it has been the new urbanist or smart growth movement that has been
attracting the most international attention it draws heavily on past urban patterns that have worked
well as a basis for designing the future it possesses strong empiricist tones however the world is
changing.

It would be grossly unfair to claim that the rationalists amongst urban designers were not certain
centrally concerned with public interest issues a human lives and human needs or motivations they
wear their concern was however based on their own perceptions of what the world should be
rather than observations of what works and what does not according to jaune he personally hopes
that urban design will continue to be a collaborative field of design rather than an independent
discipline and profession.

Learning from the case studies

The first lesson is that there is no single best practice in urban design all their bin designs deal with a
number of issues that are generic or universal in nature but also concerns that are highly specific
Sorting out the complexities of a case and what is important and what is last so for whom is always
difficult and arduous the easiest way to deal with them is to assume that they do not exist to ignore
them and block ahead only case studies presented here address some issues more thoroughly than
others.

Private sector property developers will not deal with a greater range of concerns that they have to
do in order to be profitable in the short run long term concerns will generally be neglected public
sector developers are seldom better

The range of variables and people of concern it would be designs differ in the range of variables
considered in their creation in much recent work in countries such as China Malaysia and South
Korea access to sunlight in all habitable rooms is the determinant criterion in defining the spacing
of buildings in the United States and Europe it was similarly so during the 60s in these cases the
functions of concern are those of the very basic of levels of human needs shown in figure 1.6 they
are indeed important the issues that have emerged as now being of concern have been a response
to the types of though and sadly after dangerous environments with widely spaces buildings that
weighting the single is an criterion so heavily affords.

each paradigm addresses some issues and not others Brasilia Paris turn their backs on street life
Battery Park city and Canary are street oriented. Much recent design has focused on the image
imagery of the built environment the aesthetic function of the environment as a statement of self
worth and for uplifting the spirit is perceived to be important The designs that receive attention in
the architectural press and those favorite by architectural juries are bold in character bold designs
are those in which geometric novelty and the single minded focus on a few highly visible dimensions
of design outweigh others but the question to ask is for whom is one designing this this question
leads to many many others who uses the public remove sites who would use it more if were
designed in a different way how does one deal with the often fronted or behaviors such as the
hanging out or steak boarded of teenagers does the physical design make any difference We need to
consider the needs of the diverse sets of people or constitute a city the young Brit IRES the able
bodied in the handicapped each project described in this book focuses after by default on particular
groups of people well crafted well cited buildings in urban spaces may provide good living and
working environments but they attract neither attention of politicians nor writers and architecture
they are not exotic enough.

agency are efficient environments efficient

In urban design efficiency has often been seen in terms of ease of traffic movement ease of access
ease of servicing and easy and phasing construction at a low cost such a view does not take into
consideration the informal networks of communication that keep affection in city or neighborhood
alive. if one considers the range of design variables of concern in something like the way they are
shown in figure 1.6 then it is clear that any design is likely to be more efficient in meeting the
demands on some dimensions than others. for example streets designed for rapid high volume
traffic movement and with no curb parking are inefficient and unpleasant for pedestrians efficient
weather protection for pedestrians in Kyoto may not well display the aesthetic expression in the
facades of buildings that it cuts across much urban design involves a tradeoff between
effectiveness in meeting one design objective and another.

Efficient design today may not be in the future the design goal is thus to allow for change to create
urban designs that are robust whose parts are easy to change short term inefficiencies may prove
to be long run efficiencies elements of urban form buildings in particular should be able to be
adapted or removed with relative ease urban designers need to recognize what efficiencies are
necessary to support the weight city works and for whom they are necessary and for whom not we
need to think about how our work can be demolished.

the segregation integration of activities and people

The segregation is dull and creates dull physical environments the response has been to advocate
mixed-use environments the generic ideas of the modernist when applied have had disappointing
results logical on paper particularly at the beginning of the 20th century in dealing with industrial
city the segregation of uses tends to create those environments.

A number of politicians and designers are worried about the social satisfaction of a society social
planning policies sued to make racially integrated Singapore has a policy to make all residential areas
how's the different ethnic groups of the state in proportion to their representation in the total
population the goal is to avoid any area being stigmatized and Rachel grounds The best way to avoid
conflict seems to be to design for micro segregation with macro integration what this means is
what some areas should be designed with one population in mind while larger areas cater for the
whole variety of people living within them .

Segregation of vehicular and pedestrian traffic the nature of streets.

cars are important part of everyday life they are also sources of danger how best to segregate or
integrate with this reunion vehicle are traffic and how to deal with parking or recording recurring
themes in urban design every case study included in this book has dealt with the concerns in one
manner or another. the major clash in urban design paradigms has been over the way streets are
considered are they seems or edges when is one for more appropriate than the other that seems
they joint blocks together as edges they divide districts.

A sense of place

the term sense of place deals with two concerns one is sociological and the other psychological the
first has to do with the Saints of ones location or one societies location within a larger social unit and
the second with a sense of belonging to a region and regional culture.
in urban design in the first has to do with the imagery of build forms and the meanings they
communicate their associational value and the second wave the ecological and cultural soundness of
build forms with reference to local terrestrial and cultural conditions the sense of loss that many
people feel has to do with the changes on both dimensions we seek better words property
developers often lead the way they are real ****** *******.

new rich wish to gain respect by having what they perceive to be high status environments in which
to leave and work or simply to show off to outsiders they desire in new image for themselves.

International developers and their architects their architecture takes one of two forms buildings are
either constructed of extensive amounts of glass steel and expensive polished stones or they
incorporate classical architectural elements of columns and pediments in a variety of ways some
buildings are a mixture of the two others drive to be glue call international with local reference in
sitting more in appearance.

Architecture theory has responded with the concept of critical regionalism it is imprecisely defined
but it is an ideology that is against vernacular ISM sentimentalism and the picturesque it supports
the position that architecture and presumably landscape architecture and urban design should be
responsive to cultural and societal values by it is weak in addressing exactly what this position
means in terms of design guidelines.

Procedural issues the urban designing processes complex the way it should be carried out is open
to debate there are different ways of getting involved of deciding on designing the issues to
address different ways of designing solutions and different ways of evaluating choosing and
implementing them there have been and are two major intellectual traditions in designing the
empiricist and the rationalist the former involves learning from experience from presidents and
the letter is based on logical design based on a set of idealistic prepositions despite this
generalization many interests that have been designed to have been highly idealistic Anne
rationalist once have drawn from presidents as well presidents as well although that is often not
admitted many designs are however products of purely pragmatic design process

the nature of the design process

the process is full of Ups and downs backtracking and leaping ahead as particularly the all of a piece
urban designs included here show urban design process deals with whipped issues those that
cannot be grasped with totally comprehensive understanding problems and opportunities can
never be perceived with total clarity we can never identify all the issues of importance in a
particular situation let alone deal with them we don't know what the future holds for us but all we
can predict the future is to work what we have now in the present from our present last
experiences.

The design of a development program based on the objectives the exploration of potential solutions
and the certain and the creation of implementation techniques these techniques differ if one is
dealing with a total of of peace design or a piece by piece design the way the exploration of
potential solutions takes place depends on one's philosophical stains or background rationalists
would argue that it should be based on pure reasoning while empericists will be looking at
precedents as the basis for identifying the issues and generating a design Urban design or urban
designing requires the continuous making of assumptions about the future predictions about how it
design will work if implemented predictions about the nature of the future context in which the
design has to work predictions about the resources available the process is value laden urban design
is a collaborative art. (to match with carmona)

the nature of public consultation

Hardly in some instances proposed schemes are Simply put on this on display for public comment
and feedback few of the case studies here went beyond this level of consultation politicians view
have implicitly acted as Sarah gates several gates for public opinion. at the other end of the scale
designs emerged through a full participatory design effort often in sessions two or three days long
in publicly conducted charrettes during tarrats designers and stakeholders in a project work
intensively to generate prelimanary designs these designs are then develop professionally in full
design and engineering detail.

it is often difficult to get the general public involved in thinking about what a project should be
until a design is shown to them it is there nevertheless important to get them involved if they are
to claim designs as their own and for such designs to be well cared for after implementation you
see if seen as the work of outsiders being imposed on them the reaction can be hostile.

The lay public often cannot comprehend the consequences of designing in one manner rather than
another after any environmental changes seen as negative in many suburban communities for
instance the fear of high rise buildings is so embedded in ways of thinking that sensible discussion of
the disk of the advantages and disadvantages of taller buildings residential or commercial seems
impossible.

How does one get the public involved and more importantly in specific projects how does one get
all stakeholders to actively engage in discussions before crisis occur. the media and newspaper
and television have been important in bringing visions of what places can be like to popular
attention they have also been important in molding people's attitudes what the lay public sees as
desirable in illustrations is what they seek and in turn the press feeds images back to them of what
they want to see advertising advertisers dictate much it is difficult to break into this cycle but
urban designers have a role as educators a detailed knowledge of case studies can be used in this
educational process

The nature of creativity

what freedom of action should individual designers have in creating the public realm of cities, those
observers will regard urban design as a fine art would argue for little or no outside interference into
what individual designer or artist does the population simply has to live with the consequences in
the name of heart the art defence that's an object or environment is an expressive act of an
individual and thus a work of art has been used to justify many design decisions from pieces of
sculpture to squares the streets that are detrimental to the enjoyment of the city.

in bourbon design the quality of individual works sculptures or buildings or sculptures often does not
affect the way cities are experiencing provided the space is created on the ground floor of a city
suburb or building complex function well in a multi dimensional manner the problem arises when
property developers and their arctics folks on highly individualistic designs as objects in space in the
name of art and in the future further in furthering of their own careers
true creativity involves not the making of innovative building and urban forms but rather the design
of a problem in a new and more appropriate way and recognizing that specific patterns respond well
to the problem maybe being able to evaluate designs well is the most important ability to possess in
creative problem solving.

Dealing with the future

dealing with the future is at the heart the heart of urban designing how does one deal with potential
changes in the future political environment while the job is in progress political change often brings
projects that are long in gestation to a grinding halt or a change in direction values change areas of
the city become obsolete and others are justified a general rule of thumb implicit in much urban
design has been not to look for word into the future for more than one generation at the
beginning of the 20th century who could have predicted the technological changes that occured
during it particularly those of his first five decades that have changed our lives so much the
automobile has enabled the development of a far flying suburbs but necessitated links that afford
high speed driven driving between them yet the street pattern in the very core of much loved cities
like Paris is essentially that of the 19th century and often earlier.

One of the major questions that crops up particularly in the design of infrastructure systems is
whether it is the users of a scheme or those who benefit from it who should pay for it presumably all
the tourists who visit Paris including those who never visit lady falls benefit from the centre
existence the case studies described in this book show a variety of approaches to funding projects in
some cases developers have had to pay for some of the codes cost of the public or Cassie public
infrastructure as in the skyway system of Minneapolis in other cases individual developers have to
pay for the infrastructure piece by piece in order to get in all of peace design functioning

The degree of control

How much should governments intervene in the way the market shapes cities and their precincts
during the years covered by this book the answer has variant it has differed considerably from
society to society and within the same society overtime it would seem that the public interest
concerns rise to the forefront when cities appeared to be in trouble or when opportunities for
making CDs better places are missed as the result of private greed or political indecision.

The debate of when to seek unity at more diversity diversity or chaos in an urban design will
continue how controlled the design process should be will continue to be argued few people are
opposed to the use of zoning and building codes to ensure the meeting of public health and safety
needs the fundamental human needs identified in figure 1.6 will developers and their architects
design sustainable environments for instance without being forced to be do so by design controls,
will they give a hoot about the context geographical or cultural of their proposals without having to
work with in design guidelines, at present the answers emerge as a result of how the design process
is conducted it is a byproduct of other decisions and not want addressed head on.

what is clear from the case studies is that the precision with which design objectives are stated the
guidelines are operationally defined and the review process is transparent the creator the likelihood
that the implemented design will meet the goals set for it the goals that are set will always be
political the knowledge we have from the case studies and on ongoing person environment research
enabled us to design the means to achieve ends with some confidence

Commentary

the knowledge of case studies is important while every situation faced by an urban designer is
unique many generic problems are addressed the typology presented here demonstrates
commonalities both in product and process types architects and other design professionals rely
heavily on precedents every now and then a new paradigm is in veiled the most recent in urban
design is that of a new urbanism or smart growth with its strength transient the fog transect design
paradigm

urban design will continue to support an intervene in the operation of both the capital web of
investment decisions and the invisible web of legal decisions that shape Urban Development.

Afterthoughts urban design field or discipline and profession

those who used first use the term urban design were concerned with large scale multi building
architectural projects these projects were nice eated in Europe by the devastation of World War
Two the colonization in Asia and much of africa's park Newtown and housing projects urban design
was thought of as architecture particularly in Europe the real distinction was made between city
planning and architecture problem was that many politicians and architects alike so the nature of
cities and city life within an intellectual framework for far removed from everyday life.

The mainstream of architectural thought suit so lace from the criticism of scholars like change Rico
Peter Blake but city planners particularly those in academia turned their attention to the social and
economic problems of cities that they considered more important luckily you Carter of architects
and planners and on any extensive scale only much more recently landscape architects retained an
interest in the qualities of the physical environment of cities they focused their attention on how this
I can enhance or diminish the opportunities for people to achieve the positive aspects of what they
are motivated to achieve this book has been about the efforts of this design professionals in many
people to improve the quality of cities in more than a piece meal manner.

the proviso is that urban design needs to be based more on an empirical rather than a purely
rational list foundation rational thinking will however make *** consider future possibilities that are
departures from failing traditions

So what then is urban design

The case studies included in this volume show the breadth of urban design work, it is concerned
with the three end preferably the four dimensional word procedurally urban design or
operationally urban design is concerned with four types of projects total all of her piece piece by
piece and plugging or indesign.

remove design concerns and activities clearly overlap those of other fields it should do so it does
an should overlap city planning endeavors concerned with broad policies about the distribution of
activities in space and the linkages between them. urban design products are produced Andrew
that umbrella and created. similarly similarly open design does anschutz overlap civil engineering
ensuring the buildability of large scale elements of infrastructure. it does ensure overlap
architecture in its concerns for how buildings front and make behaviourally and symbolically the
public realm. it doesn't should overlap landscape architecture in its concern for the detailing of the
space between buildings in designing for sustainable futures.

the city is a collage of overlapping precincts places and linkages.

Keep this for Priscilla design professionals have to assess the competence to inform both politicians
and the public about future possibilities to challenge political assumptions and to follow ideas
through they need a stamina and considerable tenacity of purpose if they are to succeed. A coherent
city is not simply 1/2 azard collage, it is one of this tank and varied paths districts landmarks edges
and nods kevin lynch. Edges are not as important as he thought they are nods are probably more
reporting edges do give clarity to the boundaries of districts or precincts. The projects in many of the
case studies included here are bounded islands of development. being also integrated into their
surroundings would probably be a good idea buttery Park City clearly has edges to it making it a unit
but on the landward side it is also clearly linked to the lower Manhattan by streets patterns and view
corridors. remove design is particularly concerned with in lynch lynch is terms districts in pass good
districts will almost certainly contain nods and landmarks they may be well defined with edges but it
is the core area that matters most.

urban design is it a discipline

Many observers see urban design as laying at the intersect of the interests of the three main
professions concerned with the layout of the environment which are architecture landscape
architecture and city planning to which I have added civil engineering as shown in figure 12 from the
observations I have made above however my appearance is that urban design while overlapping
these fields has developed its own area of expertise It will draw on the expertise of the three
traditional design fields but it differs from them in that it has become more development oriented
more socially oriented and more caches of the politically volatile nature of decision making on the
urban level.

Conclusion

the objective of this book has been to display in understand its range of activities through the
provision of a typology for classifying design projects it has also presented a number of descriptive
case studies that illuminate the typology classified by type of product has been the tradition in
architecture but classifying by process gets closer to the essence of the nature of urban designing
either way the goal has been to show the scope of concerning ferbane designers

I only hope is that urban design will continue as a collaborative professional activity collaboration
between public and private sector of the economy a collaboration between politicians design
professions and citizens in between research and practice.