URBAN DESIGN
UNIT I INTRODUCTION TO URBAN DESIGN
Components of urban space and their interdependencies- outline of issues/ aspects of urban space and articulation of need for urban design- scope and objectives of urban design as a discipline
UNIT II HISTORIC URBAN FORM
Western: morphology of early cities- Greek agora- Roman forum- Medieval towns-
Renaissance place making- ideal cities – Industrialization and city growth- the eighteenth century city builders Garnier’s industrial city- the American grid planning- anti urbanism and the picturesque- cite industrielle- citte nuovo-radiant city .
Indian: evolution of urbanism in India- Temple towns- Mughal city form- medieval cities - colonial urbanism- urban spaces in modernist cities: Chandigarh, Bhuvaneshwar and GandhiNagar- subsequent directions
UNIT III THEORISING AND READING URBAN SPACE
Ideas of Imageability and townscape: Cullen, Lynch- place and genius loci- collective memory- historic reading of the city and its artefacts: Rossi- social aspects of urban space: life on streets and between buildings, gender and class, Jane Jacobs, Wiiliam Whyte
UNIT IV ISSUES OF URBAN SPACE
Understanding and interpreting of urban problems/ issues- place-making and identity, morphology: sprawl, generic form, incoherence, privatized public realm- effects/ role of realestate, transportation, zoning, globalisation - ideas of sustainability, heritage, conservation and renewal- contemporary approaches : idea of urban catalyst, transit metropolis,community participation.
UNIT V BEST PRACTICE IN URBAN DESIGN
Contemporary case studies from developing and developed economies that offer design guidelines and solutions to address various issues/ aspects of urban space
The historic urban context includes notably the site’s topography, geomorphology, hydrology and natural features, its built environment, both historic and contemporary, its infrastructures above and below ground; its open spaces and gardens, its land use patterns and spatial organization; perceptions and visual relationships; as well as all other elements of the urban structure. It also includes social and cultural practices and values, economic processes and the intangible dimensions of heritage as related to diversity and identity. TONY GARNIER:CITY INDUSTRIALLE:
Tony Garnier designs the plans of an ideal city, called “An industrial city” during his stay at “Villa Médicis” (1899-1904). Published in 1917, it is a milestone in the 20th century history of architecture and urban planning. Tony Garnier will be rebuked many times by the French Academy for not dedicating his full energy to his research project, “Tusculum” which concerned the reconstitution of a Roman city. He dedicated himself instead to avant-garde ideas, by working on his modern city project, designed for about 35.000 inhabitants. The “Industrial City” of Tony Garnier, which can be compared to a city of labor, illustrates the ideas of Fourier. Tony Garnier located it in a place that can be identified as being in Saint-Etienne area (near by Saint-Chamont / Rive-de-Gier), which was heavily industrialized at the beginning of the 20th century. Going against urban conceptions of his time, the architect developed the zoning concept, dividing the city into four main functions: work, housing, health, leisure. The city is located on a rocky headland, the industrial area being clearly separated from it and located down the headland, at the confluence of a river. Four main principles emerge: functionnalism, space, greenery, and high sunshine exposure.
Tony Garnier 'An industrial city'
Tony Garnier (1869- 1948) was the son of Pierre Garnier the architect of the famous Paris Opera house that formed one of the focus points of the 19th century transformation of Paris. Garnier studied at the Ecole des Beaux arts that was so much associated with 19th century eclectic architecture. His interest in town planning was sparked of during his stay in Rome after winning the prestigious Prix de Rome where he met other prize winners that had a lot of interest in town planning and design. Garniers development coincides with the revision of ideas at the Ecole des Beaux arts under the influence of growing criticism. Working in Rome and living from the stipendium Garnier developed his plan for an ideal industrial
city. He got negative comments by the academy because he had deviated completely from the commission given to him under the Prix de Rome conditions. Despite this his work was exhibited in Paris in 1904.Although there were some negative reactions, the written press and the professional press did not react either in a positive nor in a negative sense. It looked as if his very unconventional work had sparked interest but no one could catagorize it. Also Garnier was modest, not a strong debater and he did not propagate strong opinions or make strong statements. This in contrast with the arrogance and out loud preaching of opinions by the modernist. So in history his work fell somewhere in between. It was only first publicized in 1917. Only later he was regarded as the fore runner of modernism, but this is only partly true. He shared the concern about social questions and the idea that the
design of cities as a whole should be approached rational and that industry had te be seperated from living quarters. On the other hand he showed great sensibility to the symbolic meaning of buildings and the quality of urban space, something the modernists lacked. He also considered the city to be a 'rhizome' where citizens could circulate freely, whereas the modernists advocated strickt hierarchical road networks and separation of types of traffic. In hind sight Garnier was a 'stand alone' case in urban design. It is amazing to see the enormous number of drawings Garnier produced, describing the city in detail and designing every important building as well as numerous housing types. It is by far the most comprehensive ideal town ever designed.
The general design of Garniers city shows a seperation between living quarters and industry and also a separate health centre outside the city. This is understandable as 'industry' in his case equals heavy industry with its associated pollution.
The main patterns are grids. However the part with living quarters is kept narrow to minimize distances to nature.This is also the reason why there is no explicit park within the city. In the centre of the town is a large civiccentre.
9The grid patterns are not 'stamped' all over the city. The design of the civic centre is based on a
dispositon of buildings around a central axle. This shows elements of classic design. On the other hand all buildings are free standing and the open spaces are enormous. In the whole of the plan there are few squares, let alone enclosed squares.
•The living quarters show an innovative new type of building block with free standing houses and 'urban villas' (although using this word in this respect is an anachronism) on an 'island' between streets. This type of building block had been taken up in recent urban design in the Netherlands.
•The result is that there are no enclosed streets.
•Trees form very much part of the design. Indicating the more important streets and losely planted within the blocks.
•Garnier has a lot of drawings showing public space in living quarters, indicating that he cared about everyday living conditions. For the civic centre he only shows the buildings. This suggests that he did not consider the design of public space around public buildings to be a very important matter.
PLACE MAKING:
Place making is a people-centred approach to the planning, design and management of public spaces. It involves looking at, listening to, and asking questions of the people who live, work and play in a particular space, to discover needs and aspirations. This information is then used to create a common vision for that place. The vision can evolve quickly into an implementation strategy, beginning with small-scale, do-able improvements that can immediately bring benefits to public spaces and the people who use them.
Place making is a multi-faceted approach to the planning, design and management of public spaces. Place making capitalizes on a local community’s assets, inspiration, and potential, ultimately creating good public spaces that promote people’s health, happiness, and wellbeing. Place making is both a process and a philosophy.
The concepts behind Place making originated in the 1960s, when writers like Jane Jacobs and William H. Whyte offered ground-breaking ideas about designing cities that catered to people, not just to cars and shopping centers. Their work focused on the importance of lively neighbourhoods and inviting public spaces. Jane Jacobs advocated citizen ownership of streets through the now-famous idea of “eyes on the street.” William H. Whyte emphasized essential elements for creating social life in public spaces.
Place making is a term that began to be used in the 1970s by architects and planners to describe the process of creating squares, plazas, parks, streets and waterfronts that will attract people because they are pleasurable or interesting. Landscape often plays an important role in the design process.
Place making can be used to improve all of the spaces that comprise the gathering places within a community—its streets, sidewalks, parks, buildings, and other public spaces
Place making is not just the act of building or fixing up a space; it is a process that fosters the creation of vital public destinations. It refers to the kind of places where people feel a strong stake in their communities and commitment to making things better.
Place making capitalizes on a local community’s assets, inspiration and potential, creating good public spaces that pro mote people’s health, happiness, and economic well-being.
IDENTITY AND PLACE:
Place identity refers to a cluster of ideas about place and identity in the fields of geography, urban planning, urban design, landscape architecture, environmental psychology, and urban sociology/ecological sociology. It concerns the meaning and significance of places for their inhabitants and users.
Methodologies for understanding place identity primarily involve qualitative techniques, such as interviewing, participant observation, discourse analysis and mapping a range of physical elements. Some urban planners, urban designers and landscape architects use forms of deliberative planning, design Charette and participatory design with local communities as a way of working with place identity to transform existing places as well as create new ones. This kind of planning and design process is sometimes referred to as place making.
Place identity is sometimes called urban character, neighbourhood character or local character.
Place identity has become a significant issue in the last 25 years in urban planning and design. Related to the worldwide movement to protect places with heritage
significance, concerns have arisen about the loss of individuality and distinctiveness between different places as an effect of cultural globalisation.
URBAN MORPHOLOGY:
Urban morphology is the study of the form of human settlements and the process of their formation and transformation. The study seeks to understand the spatial structure and character of a metropolitan area, city, town or village by examining the patterns of its component parts and the process of its development.
This can involve the analysis of physical structures at different scales as well as patterns of movement, land use, ownership or control and occupation. Typically, analysis of physical form focuses on street pattern, lot (or, in the UK, plot) pattern and building pattern, sometimes referred to collectively as urban grain. Analysis of specific settlements is usually undertaken using cartographic sources and the process of development is deduced from comparison of historic maps.
Special attention is given to how the physical form of a city changes over time and to how different cities compare to each other. Another significant part of this subfield deals with the study of the social forms which are expressed in the physical layout of a city, and, conversely, how physical form produces or reproduces various social forms.
The essence of the idea of morphology was initially expressed in the writings of the great poet and philosopher Goethe (1790); the term as such was first used in bioscience. Recently it is being increasingly used in geography, geology, philology and other subjects. In American geography, urban morphology as a particular field of study owes its origins to Lewis Mumford, James Vance and Sam Bass Warner. Peter Hall of the UK is also a central figure.
Urban morphology is also considered as the study of urban tissue, or fabric, as a means of discerning the underlying structure of the built landscape. This approach challenges the common perception of unplanned environments as chaotic or vaguely organic through understanding the structures and processes embedded in urbanisation.
The tool for analysing the Urban Morphology has some theories such as Space syntax, Figure and Ground cities
Three Theories of Urban Spatial Design: (i) Figure and Ground
(ii) Linkage theory (iii) Place Theory URBAN SPRAWL:
Urban sprawl is defined as the unplanned, uncontrolled spreading of urban development into areas adjoining the edge of a city.
It is also characterised by the spreading of urban developments (as houses and shopping centers) on undeveloped land near a city.
The term sprawl, as used by land developers, planners and governmental institutions, refers to the change in trends of land usage, and the change in demographics across given geographies.
Sprawl is generally defined as the increased development of land in suburban and rural areas outside of their respective urban centers. This increased development of real estate in the outskirts of towns, villages and metropolitan areas is quite often accompanied by a lack of development, redevelopment or reuse of land within the urban centers themselves. This trend is often referred to as both urban sprawl and rural sprawl. Although these two terms might sound contradictory, they are ironically referring to the same phenomenon— that is, the movement of development from urban areas, to rural areas.
Framed in other terms, sprawl refers to the slow decentralization of human occupancy. That is, communities are requiring more land and space to supply the same given population with homes, workplaces, shopping locations and recreation spaces.
PRIVATIZATIZATION OF PUBLIC REALM:
Public realm or the public sphere is an area in social life where individuals can come together to freely discuss and identify societal problems, and through that discussion influence political action.
It is "a discursive space in which individuals and groups congregate to discuss matters of mutual interest and, where possible, to reach a common judgment. The public sphere can be seen as "a theatre in modern societies in which political participation is enacted through the medium of talk" and "a realm/domain of social life in which public opinion can be formed
Traditionally public spaces were funded with public money and built by the local government. With a commitment to public service and less emphasis on returns on investment, design decisions could be made for the greater good. Lack of Community Cohesion is the primary issue. The gated communities produce privatized open space, especially in housing developments, leads people to become less inclined to spend time in truly urbanized open spaces, such as city parks.
The privatized open spaces such as those ones of the public Apartment and condo building has open space open only for its residents and they can only access ; which leads to people socializing with people like themselves. This will allow us to get to know only our neighbours; it can discourage us from mingling with people in our local community. When people keep to themselves, social inclusion and community cohesion can suffer. In other
words, the privatization of public space is an attempt to diminish the democratic dreams of ordinary citizens.
GLOBALIZATION AND URBAN ISSUES:
The urban form of cities has witnessed a large shift as a result of the industrial revolution.
Globalization has affected people’s relation through the “way” they communicate in between in addition to their linkage to places. As a result of the industrial revolution the meaning of time has changed, space and distance have been reduced, physical boundaries demolished, and the speed and type of movement is different.
Furthermore, such meaning was more catalysed by the digital revolution; globalization and telematics have defused place, distance and time making the latter unreal in a way. It is what Manuel Castells (2002) calls the timeless time. The shrinkage of distances and the speed of movement that characterize the current period find one of its most extreme forms in electronically based communities of individuals or organizations throughout the whole world.
Enlarging 'spaces of democracy', including civic spaces, is crucial for encouraging citizens' involvement in the governance of cities and regions. However, global trends in urban development have intensified the use of land and the built environment for economic activities at the expense of civic spaces, and urban spaces are increasingly being transformed into spaces for consumption rather than for social and civic life. Inadequacy in the provision of civic spaces is of concern because of its effects on the political efficacy and well-being of city inhabitants.
URBAN DESIGN AND SUSTAINABILITY:
Urban design creates green, sustainable places
Compact, walkable places are the most sustainable form of living. The combination of human scale urbanism, with a mix of uses and services, a range of housing options, extensive train systems, and the ability to walk and bicycle as part of daily life all make for sustainable, green living. Add safe, clean, renewable energy, and true sustainability results.
In the era of gradually decreasing oil supplies and rising energy costs, the need for low energy lifestyles has never been greater. Urban design principles and practices bring together the ideas and plans to create enjoyable places to live, work and play while greatly reducing energy use.
Designing away the need for cars is the most important step in creating sustainable places. This has the triple effect of lowering our energy use (especially imported
oil), reducing global warming emissions, and raising our quality of life in cities by increasing mobility and convenience.
URBAN DESIGN AND TRANSPORTATION:
The combination of urban design and transportation objectives produces urban environments in which people can live, work, learn, play and recreate; all within a short walk or a transit ride. This is an antidote to the large lots of single-family homes that are a car drive away from everything, and that have come to characterize urban sprawl. It is also characterised by the spreading of urban developments (as houses and shopping centers) on undeveloped land near a city
URBAN DESIGN AND TRANSPORTATION:
The combination of urban design and transportation objectives produces urban environments in which people can live, work, learn, play and recreate; all within a short walk or a transit ride. This is an antidote [A remedy that stops or controls the effects of a problem] to the large lots of single-family homes that are a car drive away from everything, and that have come to characterize urban sprawl.
TRANSIT METROPOLIS:
A Transit metropolis is an urbanized region with high-quality public transportation services and settlement patterns that are conducive to riding public transit. While Transit villages and Transit-oriented developments (TODs) focus on creating compact, mixed-use neighbourhoods around rail stations, transit metropolises represent a regional constellation of TODs that benefit from having both trip origins and destinations oriented to public transport stations. In an effort to reduce mounting traffic congestion problems and improve environmental conditions, a number of Chinese mega-cities, including Beijing and Shenzhen, have embraced the transit metropolis model for guiding urban growth and public-transport investment decisions.
COMMUNITY/ PUBLIC PARTICIPATION AND URBAN DESIGN:
Public participation is the involvement of people in the creation and management of their builtand natural enviroments.Its strength is that it cuts across tradition professional boundaries and cultures.
The activity of community particiaption is based on the prinicple that the built and naturalenviromnets work better if citizens are active and involved in its creation and managementinstead of being treated as passive concumers.The main purposes of participation are;To involve citizens in planning and design decision making processes and, as a result, make itmore likely they will work within established systems when seeking solutions to problems.
To provide citizens with a voice in planning and decision making in order to improve plans,decisions, service delivery, and overal quality of the enviroment. To promote a sense of community by bringing together people who share common
goals.Participation should be active and directed, those who become involved should experience asense of achievement.
Traditional planning procedures should be rexamined to ensure that participation achieves morethan a simple affirmation of the designers or planners intentions. The Importance of Participation: The planning system is meant to reflect the general
wishes of the local community and there is a need on the local authority to consult widely during the formulation of a Local Plan and in the operation of the development.
URBAN CATALYST:
Urban catalysts are new redevelopment strategies comprised of a series of projects that drive and guide urban development. Redevelopment efforts in the past, such as urban renewal and large-scale redevelopment projects, have often jeopardized the vitality of downtowns. The difference between the urban catalyst and these redevelopment strategies is that catalytic redevelopment is a holistic approach, not a clean-slate approach, to revitalizing the urban fabric.
Many cities have considered urban catalysts as a means for revitalization. Among the most noted catalytic projects are sports stadiums and arenas: however not all catalytic projects have to be designed at such a grand scale, nor do all cities possess a threshold of support to successfully sustain such developments.
The urban catalyst theory says design can be linked to place through the study of contextual factors in urban design. These factors include: morphological, social, functional, perceptual, visual, and temporal. For the urban catalyst to respond to its setting it also must possess a strong sense of place and authenticity. Each component of my research supports my position that each city has unique attributes that can serve as basic models or seeds for urban redevelopment.
AMERICAN GRID PLANNING:
The grid has been used continuously throughout the world as a development pattern since Hippodamus first used it at Piraeus, Greece in the 5th century BC. A lot happened over the next 2,000 years after that, but in 1682 William Penn used the grid as the physical foundation for Philadelphia. With that, the grid began its new life in the new America. Penn’s instructions for laying out his orthogonal plan were simple:
Be sure to settle the figure of the town so as that the streets hereafter may be uniform down to the water from the country bounds…This may be ordered when I come, only let the houses built be in a line, or upon a line, as much as may be…
Penn’s use of the grid may have been influenced by Richard Newcourt’s plan for London following the fire of 1666. However, Penn may have utilized the grid for its indexical qualities. The grid by its very nature has no built-in hierarchy. What better way to promote the Quaker value of equality than to build it into the very foundation of your new town. Philadelphia was the first city to use the indexical system of numbers for north-south streets and tree names for east-west streets. Because of this coordinate system, the intersection at 12th/Walnut has no more or less social or political meaning than that at 18th/Cherry. Every plot of land is essentially equal to every other.
Over 100 years after Philadelphia, Thomas Jefferson executed the purchase of the Louisiana Territory. Following the acquisition of such a vast territory came the challenges of subdividing, selling, and occupying it. It was impossible to survey the entire area ahead of time so Jefferson devised a system that would make platting and selling achievable from a distance. Jefferson answered with the grid in the Land Ordinance of 1785. The Ordinance divided the entire western territory into townships, sections, quarter-sections, and so on. A system of Euclidean geometry made this possible. Having never stepped foot on their property, someone could point to a map, make a purchase, and start their wagon westward knowing precisely where they were going. Today, a cross-country flight will easily show the physical ramifications of Jefferson’s decision to subdivide our territory upon the grid. The vast majority of America’s western land is so arranged in logical lattice-work.
Following the precedent of Philadelphia, the grid has been used extensively in a number of American cities in every one of our now 50 states. Each of these cities, with their own purposes and reasonings, adopted the grid as their foundation with varying outcomes. In Chicago, the grid was used as a vehicle to maximize both the speed of development and financial speculation. In San Francisco, the grid flatly ignored topography and created a city of dramatic hills and valleys. In Paragonah, Utah, the grid was executed to promote the doctrine of Mormonism. But perhaps most famous of all American grids is that found in Manhattan. In 1811, the Commissioners adopted a master street plan that would come to define the city of New York centuries later. One of the greatest understatements of the 19th century was made by one of the commissioners at the time:
It is improbable that (for centuries to come) the grounds north of Harlem Flat will be covered with houses.As we know now Manhattan did grow and it grew well beyond all expectations within only a single century. The grid was there to accommodate that growth. In the 1920s, the roles of both the federal government and the States in the development of towns and cities were refined and codified. Amongst all of the legal changes, two documents stand out: the Standard City Planning Enabling Act (SCPEA) and the Standard State Zoning Enabling Act (SSZEA). The SSZEA specifies the creation, adoption, and use of a zoning map. The SCPEA, on the other hand, specifies the components of a municipal master plan which is made up of a zoning map and a master street plan. Unfortunately, over the last 80 years judicial interpretation over what constitutes a “master plan” has allowed the zoning map to replace the master street plan. Without a master street plan the grid is essentially impossible to execute. Thus, our American grid’s recent history has been a stagnant one.Finally today, we find ourselves in a situation where our cities develop piece-meal on a lot-by-lot basis. Because a zoning ordinance only regulates private property and does not–and legally cannot–provide for the public framework of cities, development is rendered essentially unplanned, unwalkable, and unsustainable. A reemergence of the American grid is warranted in order to restore much needed order to the places we call home.
PICTURISQUE:
The idea of the picturesque in urban design is the idea of looking at the environment as a 'picture' or a collection of 'pictures'. Analysis is aimed at discovering and categorizing these 'pictures' and design is aimed at making 'pictures': spatial compositions of buildings and objects. This means this activity is aimed at the perception of the environment. The idea being that a pleasant composition can evoke a feeling of well being and thus contribute to a good environment.
Sequentional analysis
In the visual arts, architecture and urban design a sequence is a series of images expressing a thought or feeling. space-time experience In architecture and urban design the idea behind sequences is that the represent a certain space-time experience. This space-time experience is an unavoidable part of any architecture and urban design. As the size and scale of design increases it plays a more important role. On e could say that a very large building complex or city can only be experienced as a sequence
cinematographic view Characteristic for the idea of sequences is the cinematographic view. The environment is interpreted as a dynamic succession of scenes. Together they constitute a story. In essence sequences are about manipulating experiences and feelings. The most extreme form of this are theme park rides that manipulate visual impressions but above all impressions of the human system of equilibrium. This leads to what in psychological terns is called a 'Kinesthetic experience' (the word is a combination of 'kinetic' and 'esthetic').
The Picturesque tradition found its original impulse in a popular reaction to the changing face of English cities in the seventeenth century as commercial expansion, social upheaval, and industrial technology began to transform the medieval royal center into a crowded, dehumanizing urban catastrophe. The shocking spectacle of urban deterioration prompted
many observers to comment on the unseemly state of affairs, particularly in London, where filth and high density appeared hand-in-hand with crime, licentiousness, and social chaos. John Evelyn complained in 1661 that “Catharrs, Phthisicks, Coughs and Consumptions rage more in this one City than in the whole Earth besides.” He suggested that the problem could be ameliorated by planting a greenbelt around the city which would be “diligently kept and supply’d, with such Shrubs, as yield the most fragrant and odoriferous Flowers, and are aptest to tinge the Aer upon every gentle emission at a great distance.”4 In addition to this early proposal for a natural remedy for pollution, Evelyn collaborated with Christopher Wren on a plan for rebuilding London after the Great Fire. Their plan relied on a “spider web pattern” which subordinated the grid to a network of boulevards and plazas.
ANTIURBANISM:
Anti-urbanism is a discourse of fear of the city, produced and reproduced via a variety of negative representations of urban places, and drawing its power from deeplyentrenched pro urban and pro-rural sentiment. Industrialisation was the force which triggered anti-urban representations, as the rampant, unchecked anti-urbanization that characterised the industrial city was widely perceived to be a profound moral upheaval, an unwelcome disruption to traditional values, and the intensification of urban malaise. Whilst anti-urbanism is a widespread discourse, it is particularly advanced in the United States, partly because of the influence of major intellectual figures who all treated the city with suspicion. This article uses the art of Edward
Hopper to explain the power of the anti-urbanism discourse, and its implications. It concludes by offering some comments on recent accusations that writers such as Mike Davis are reproducing anti-urban discourse in their popular work on contemporary urbanization.
Anti-urbanism is best defined as a discourse of fear of the city, and something fuelled by the impact of images of urban dystopia we see in a variety of media, cinematic, literary, artistic, photographic – and in the case of the Qashqai, corporate – representations of urban places. It is a discourse that has been around for a long time, in conjunction with the emergence of the industrial city, and often constructed in relation to the ‘good city’ of the ancient Greeks, and especially the perceived virtues of rural life. Anti-urbanism is particularly advanced in the United States in a variety of guises, from the celebration of rural
small-town kinship and community to the fact that Los Angeles has been completely destroyed 138 times in various motion pictures from 1909 to 1999! Critical analyses of anti-urbanism are vital if the material consequences of widespread urban fears are to be exposed and challenged. As cultural geographers have argued for a long time now, if we leave powerful representations unquestioned, then supposedly fixed ‘evidence’ about how a society is organized can very easily become treated as overwhelming evidence of how it ‘should’, or ‘must’ be organized.
RADIANT CITY: Radiant City (1930)
Risebero (1997: 241) states that from 1917 to 1932 “Russian artistic ideas were among the foremost in the world”. Many new towns were built to support industrialisation, with most following Garnier’s principles of zoning. The most prominent planning theorist of the time,
however, was Nicolai Miliutin (1889-1942), whose proposals for the expansion of Magnitogorsk (1929), Stalingrad and Gorki were based on a linear scheme that evolved from Soria y Mata’s work.
90 The Spanish transport engineer, Arturo Soria y Mata, had proposed his Ciudad Lineal in 1882, “a continuous pattern of urban growth stretching through the countryside on either side of a rapid-transit spine route, incorporating both old and new urban centres”
Miliutin’s concept consisted of “narrow, parallel strips of land running through the countryside,incorporating the old town centres where they occurred: a railway zone, a factory, workshop and technical college zone, a green belt with a main highway, a residential zone, a park and sports area, and a wide belt of farmland” (Risebero 1997: 241). Not only Miliutin’s plan, but also the envisaged social system of collectivism and egalitarianism became entrenched in avant-garde European schemes as well. As Teige (1932: 320) writes: “The linear city … has no centre and no business district. The linear city supersedes the concentric form of the capitalist city. It represents a new, higher type of city”. Towards the end of the 1920s, Le Corbusier had extensive contact with other planners especially in Germany and the Soviet Union – mainly through congresses and the Congrès Internationaux de l’Architecture Moderne (CIAM) founded by Le Corbusier, Sigfried Gideon, Walter Gropius and others in 1928. While the Radiant City was presented at a CIAM congress focusing on middle- and high-density housing, a number of authors have suggested that the actual purpose of the scheme was to solicit work in the Soviet Union, as many of his contemporaries
were doing at that time. Both Mata and Miliutin’s ideas could have served as precedents for Le Corbusier’s basic concept for the Radiant City, and an unmistakable anthropomorphic analogy was then superimposed to refine the layout (figure 10). The final plan is deceptively simple, but Le Corbusier’s writing confirms the vast body of empirical research that underpins it.
CHANDIGARH: Chandigarh (1952)
Chandigarh is located northwest of Delhi, just south of the Shivalik Mountains, foothills of the Himalayas. Matthew Nowicki and Albert Mayer designed the initial masterplan, a sensitive response to topography and climate. Le Corbusier was invited to participate after Nowicki died in a plane crash in 1950 and was appointed in 1951. His collaborators were Maxwell Fry, Jane Drew and Corbusier’s cousin, Pierre Jeanneret, as well as a number of young Indian architects and planners.It is true that Le Corbusier retained some key aspects of the Nowicki-Mayer leaf-shapedplan, especially spatial relationships between key
elements (government, city centre, university and industries) and the superblock principle, but fundamentally his town planning was based on an unbuilt proposal for Bogota he executed in the previous year (Le Corbusier 1958: 210). There he again, as in Barcelona, consolidated the “Spanish Square” into larger superblocks, this time measuring 1,200 x 800 metres. But instead of a different geometrical pattern for pedestrians, he simply conceived a similarly dimensioned superimposed grid and shifted it half a module relative to the vehicular grid (figure 26). It is clear that each residential sector was envisaged as a relatively self-contained urban village, consisting of four neighbourhood-sized quarters (24 ha) each bordering on a green strip with pedestrian paths running north-south, and a market street east-west. It offers the potential of accommodating different architectural and urban morphologies within a compact framework, offering all the diversity and neighbourhood interaction, overlap and connectivity considered desirable today. He allocated nearly 30 per cent of the city to parks and recreational areas. Le Corbusier was certainly familiar with the first cities of the Fertile Crescent. Perhaps his choice of a 1,200 x 800 module, rather than his more usual 400 x 400 grid, was not coincidental, but an idea inspired by those first, compact, walkable cities!
ROMAN FORUM:
The Roman Forum (Latin: Forum Romanum, Italian: Foro Romano) is a rectangular forum (plaza) surrounded by the ruins of several important ancient government buildings at the center of the city of Rome. Citizens of the ancient city referred to this space, originally a marketplace, as theForum Magnum, or simply the Forum.
It was for centuries the center of Roman public life: the site of triumphal processions and elections; the venue for public speeches, criminal trials, and gladiatorial matches; and the nucleus of commercial affairs. Here statues and monuments commemorated the city's great
men. The teeming heart of ancient Rome, it has been called the most celebrated meeting place in the world, and in all history.[1] Located in the small valley between
the Palatine and Capitoline Hills, the Forum today is a sprawling ruin of architectural fragments and intermittent archeological excavations attracting numerous sightseers. Many of the oldest and most important structures of the ancient city were located on or near the Forum. The Roman kingdom's earliest shrines and temples were located on the southeastern edge. These included the ancient former royal residence, the Regia (8th century BC), and the Temple of Vesta (7th century BC), as well as the surrounding complex of the Vestal Virgins, all of which were rebuilt after the rise of imperial Rome.
Other archaic shrines to the northwest, such as the Umbilicus Urbis and the Vulcanal (Shrine of Vulcan), developed into the Republic's formalComitium (assembly area). This is where the Senate—as well as Republican government itself—began. The Senate House, government offices, tribunals, temples, memorials and statues gradually cluttered the area.
Over time the archaic Comitium was replaced by the larger adjacent Forum and the focus of judicial activity moved to the new Basilica Aemilia (179 BC). Some 130 years later, Julius Caesar built the Basilica Julia, along with the new Curia Julia, refocusing both the judicial offices and the Senate itself. This new Forum, in what proved to be its final form, then served as a revitalized city square where the people of Rome could gather for commercial, political, judicial and religious pursuits in ever greater numbers.
Eventually much economic and judicial business would transfer away from the Forum Romanum to the larger and more extravagant structures (Trajan's Forum and the Basilica Ulpia) to the north. The reign of Constantine the Great, during which the Empire was divided into its Eastern and Western halves, saw the construction of the last major expansion of the Forum complex—the Basilica of Maxentius (312 AD). This returned the political center to the Forum until the fall of the Western Roman Empire almost two centuries later.
Unlike the later imperial fora in Rome—which were self-consciously modelled on the ancient Greek plateia (πλατεῖα) public plaza or town square—the Roman Forum developed gradually, organically and piecemeal over many centuries.[2] This is so despite the tidying
up of men like Sulla, Caesar and Augustus who attempted, with some success, to impose a degree of order there. By the Imperial period the large public buildings that crowded around the central square had reduced the open area to a rectangle of about 130 by 50 metres.[3]
Its long dimension was oriented northwest to southeast and extended from the foot of the Capitoline Hill to that of the Velian Hill. The Forum's basilicas during the Imperial period—the Basilica Aemilia on the north and the Basilica Julia on the south—defined its long sides and its final form. The Forum proper included this square, the buildings facing it and, sometimes, an additional area (the Forum Adjectum) extending southeast as far as the Arch of Titus.[4]
Originally the site of the Forum had been marshy lake where waters from the surrounding hills drained.[5] This was drained by the Tarquins with the Cloaca Maxima.[citation
erosion of the surrounding hills have been raising the level of the Forum floor for centuries. Excavated sequences of remains of paving show that sediment eroded from the surrounding hills was already raising the level in early Republican times.As the ground around buildings began to rise, residents simply paved over the debris that was too much to remove. Its final travertine paving, still visible, dates from the reign of Augustus. Excavations in the 19th century revealed one layer on top of another. The deepest level excavated was 3.60 metres above sea level. Archaeological finds show human activity at that level with the discovery of carbonised wood.]
An important function of the Forum, during both Republican and Imperial times, was to serve as the culminating venue for the celebratory military processions known as Triumphs. Victorious generals entered the city by the western Triumphal Gate (Porta Triumphalis) and circumnavigated the Palatine Hill (counterclockwise) before proceeding from the Velian Hill down the Via Sacraand into the Forum.[6]
From here they would mount the Capitoline Rise (Clivus Capitolinus) up to the Temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus on the summit of the Capitol. Lavish public banquets ensued back down on the Forum.[6] (In addition to the Via Sacra, the Forum was accessed by a number of
storied roads and streets, including the Vicus Jugarius, Vicus Tuscus, Argiletum, and Via Nova.)
GREEK AGORA: No floods
Abundant and diverse resources
Fish, grain, grapes, olives, chestnuts, figs Many isolated valleys and islands (natural barriers) Sea ≈ moat
Isolation meant greater security, so power took a less aggressive form both externally and internally
Alphabet derived from Phoenician consonant system, promoted democracy and public life
Money (local)
Decentralized political power
Ritual blended with competition to produce a fairly relaxing life
Tremendously creative society: drama, poetry, sculpture, painting, logic, mathematics, geometry
The Greek Polis
A self-governing city-state Not large cities
Plato thought ideal city should have 5,000 citizens
Athens at its peak had a bit over 100,000 citizens -- about the size of Waco
The Romans were very practical but they also carried remnants of an older, mystical view of the city Augury (an animal was cut open in order to examine its entrails for signs that it was a good or bad place for a city)
At founding of a city, a priest would plow the outline of the city to ritually mark it off from the surrounding wilderness
The city was divided into quarters by the creation of two perpendicular streets: the Cardo and the Decumanus
A Roman “castra” or military camp and a typical Roman town
Grid (or gridiron) plan served practical purposes, as well Easy to lay out Easy to administer
Breezes could flow through for natural ventilation Easy to defend if walled
INDUSTRIALIZATION AND CITY GROWTH: The era of industrialization
In both Europe and the United States, the surge of industry during the mid- and late 19th century was accompanied by rapid population growth, unfettered business enterprise, great speculative profits, and public failures in managing the unwanted physical consequences of development. Giant sprawling cities developed during this era, exhibiting the luxuries of wealth and the meanness of poverty in sharp juxtaposition. Eventually the corruption and exploitation of the era gave rise to the Progressive movement, of which city planning formed a part. The slums, congestion, disorder, ugliness, and threat of disease provoked a reaction in which sanitation improvement was the first demand. Significant betterment of public health resulted from engineering improvements in water supply and sewerage, which were essential to the further growth of urban populations. Later in the century the first housing reform measures were enacted. The early regulatory laws (such as Great Britain’s Public Health Act of 1848 and the New York State Tenement House Act of 1879) set minimal standards for housing construction. Implementation, however, occurred only slowly, as governments did not provide funding for upgrading existing dwellings, nor did the minimal rent-paying ability of slum dwellers offer incentives for landlords to improve their buildings. Nevertheless, housing improvement occurred as new structures were erected, and new legislation continued to raise standards, often in response to the exposés of investigators and activists such as Jacob Riis in the United States and Charles Booth in England.
Also during the Progressive era, which extended through the early 20th century, efforts to improve the urban environment emerged from recognition of the need for recreation. Parks were developed to provide visual relief and places for healthful play or relaxation. Later, playgrounds were carved out in congested areas, and
facilities for games and sports were established not only for children but also for adults, whose workdays gradually shortened. Supporters of the parks movement believed that the opportunity for outdoor recreation would have a civilizing effect on the working classes, who were otherwise consigned to overcrowded housing and unhealthful workplaces. New York’s Central Park, envisioned in the 1850s and designed by architects Calvert Vaux and Frederick Law Olmsted, became a widely imitated model. Among its contributions were the separation of pedestrian and vehicular traffic, the creation of a romantic landscape within the heart of the city, and a demonstration that the creation of parks could greatly enhance real-estate values in their surroundings. (See landscape architecture.)
Concern for the appearance of the city had long been manifest in Europe, in the imperial tradition of court and palace and in the central plazas and great buildings of church and state. In Paris during theSecond Empire (1852–70), Georges-Eugène, Baron Haussmann, became the greatest of the planners on a grand scale, advocating straight arterial boulevards, advantageous vistas, and a symmetry of squares and radiating roads. The resulting urban form was widely emulated throughout the rest of continental Europe. Haussmann’s efforts went well beyond beautification, however; essentially they broke down the barriers to commerce presented by medieval Paris, modernizing the city so as to enable the efficient transportation of goods as well as the rapid mobilization of military troops. His designs involved the demolition of antiquated tenement structures and their replacement by new apartment houses intended for a wealthier clientele, the construction of transportation corridors and commercial space that broke up residential neighbourhoods, and the displacement of poor people from centrally located areas. Haussmann’s methods provided a template by which urban redevelopment programs would operate in Europe and the United States until nearly the end of the 20th century, and they would extend their influence in much of the developing world after that.
As the grandeur of the European vision took root in the United States through the City Beautifulmovement, its showpiece became the World’s Columbian Exposition of 1893, developed in Chicago according to principles set out by American architect Daniel Burnham. The architectural style of the exposition established an ideal that many cities imitated. Thus, the archetype of the City Beautiful—characterized by grand malls and majestically sited civic buildings in Greco-Roman architecture—was replicated in civic centres and boulevards throughout the country, contrasting with and in protest against the surrounding disorder and ugliness. However, diffusion of the model in the United States was limited by the much more restricted power of the state (in contrast to European counterparts) and by the City Beautiful model’s weak potential for enhancing businesses’ profitability.
Whereas Haussmann’s approach was especially influential on the European continent and in the design of American civic centres, it was the utopian concept of the garden city, first described by British social reformer Ebenezer Howard in his book Garden Cities of To-Morrow (1902), that shaped the appearance of residential areas in the United States and Great Britain. Essentially a suburban form, Howard’s garden city incorporated low-rise homes on winding streets and culs-de-sac, the separation of commerce from residences, and plentiful open space lush with greenery. Howard called for a “cooperative
commonwealth” in which rises in property values would be shared by the community, open land would be communally held, and manufacturing and retail establishments would be clustered within a short distance of residences. Successors abandoned Howard’s socialist ideals but held on to the residential design form established in the two new towns built during Howard’s lifetime (Letchworth and Welwyn Garden City), ultimately imitating the garden city model of winding roads and ample greenery in the forming of the modern suburban subdivision.
Perhaps the single most influential factor in shaping the physical form of the contemporary city wastransportation technology. The evolution of transport modes from foot and horse to mechanized vehicles facilitated tremendous urban territorial expansion. Workers were able to live far from their jobs, and goods could move quickly from point of production to market. However, automobiles and buses rapidly congested the streets in the older parts of cities. By threatening strangulation of traffic, they dramatized the need to establish new kinds of orderly circulation systems. Increasingly, transportation networks became the focus of planning activities, especially as subway systems were constructed in New York, London, and Paris at the beginning of the 20th century. To accommodate increased traffic, municipalities invested heavily in widening and extending roads. Many city governments established planning departments during the first third of the 20th century. The year 1909 was a milestone in the establishment of urban planning as a modern governmental function: it saw the passage of Britain’s first town-planning act and, in the United States, the first national conference on city planning, the publication of Burnham’s plan for Chicago, and the appointment of Chicago’s Plan Commission (the first recognized planning agency in the United States, however, was created in Hartford, Connecticut, in 1907). Germany, Sweden, and other European countries also developed planning administration and law at this time.
The colonial powers transported European concepts of city planning to the cities of the developing world. The result was often a new city planned according to Western principles of beauty and separation of uses, adjacent to unplanned settlements both new and old, subject to all the ills of the medieval European city. New Delhi, India, epitomizes this form of development. Built according to the scheme devised by the British planners Edwin Lutyens and Herbert Baker, it grew up cheek by jowl with the tangled streets of Old Delhi. At the same time, the old city, while less salubrious, offered its inhabitants a sense of community, historical continuity, and a functionality more suited to their way of life. The same pattern repeated itself throughout the British-ruled territories, where African capitals such as Nairobi, Kenya, and Salisbury, Southern Rhodesia (now Harare, Zimbabwe), were similarly designed to accommodate their white colonial rulers. Although the decorative motifs imposed by Francein its colonial capitals reflected a somewhat different aesthetic sensibility, French planners likewise implanted broad boulevards and European-style housing in their colonial outposts.
JANE JACOB:
Jane Jacobs (1961), one of the most serious critics of modernist planning, defended traditional
neighborhoods, lively street life and crowded pedestrian sidewalks. She emphasized the need
to understand cities in terms of combinations or mixtures of uses rather than separate land uses. She stressed on diversity as a measure of urban vitality and put forth some indispensable conditions to generate diversity in urban space.
GORTNA CULLEN:
Gordon Cullen (1961) in townscape brought forth the relationships between the building and external spaces in the urban context. He stressed on the subjective values in relationships of elements visà- vis the observer
KEVIN LYNCH:
Kevin Lynch (1960) pioneered a scientific approach to urban design studying and analysed the components of urban design parameters and human evaluation. He put forth the image of the city as a concept which can be perceived, evaluated and changed. His seminal work lay in identifying basic elements of an image of a city and in introducing a technique of image analysis as the basis of a plan for a future visual form of the city. His work was based on American cities. In his words, the image analysis may differ with other cultures or other races. Later work in architectural research, landscape architecture, environmental psychology has dealt with specific studies in perception studies and cognitive maps in America and Central America.
IMAGEABILITY:
Imageability in a city may be said to be more a perceptual concept than a physical or visual entity. It is the interpretation of various layers of a city’s images - its form, profile and experiences over a period of time. Imageability refers to the probability that an environment will evoke a strong image from observers. Imageability is probably the single most important factor in the identity of a place (Lynch, 1960)..
WILLAIMS WHITE:
urban plazas brought forth characteristics of successful urban plazas which showed how or when people used urban common spaces. His studies on urban open spaces and urban plazas in New York brought forward some interesting observations on how people use public spaces and measure of vitality of urban spaces in terms of user density.
The concept of Genius Loci
Architecture is a thing of art, a phenomenon of the emotions, lying outside questions of construction and beyond them. The purpose of construction is to make things hold together; of architecture to move us. Architectural emotion exists when the work rings within us in tune with a universe whose laws we obey, recognize and respect. When certain harmonies have been attained, the work captures us. Architecture is a mater of “harmonies,” it is a “pure creation of the spirit.”
Le Corbusier, Vers une architecture .Human culture is very strongly linked to places. Indeed, the inseparableness of the human being and the world, at least from the human being’s point of view, has been one of the main discussions of philosophy. We are and we ‚take place’. In Being and Time, Heidegger (1962) argued that, in conventional philosophy and psychology, the relationship between person and world has been reduced to either an idealist or realist perspective. In an idealist view, the world is a function of a person who acts on the world through consciousness and, therefore, actively knows and shapes his or her world. In contrast, a realist view sees the person as a function of the world in that the world acts on the person and he or she reacts. Heidegger claimed that both perspectives are out of touch with the nature of human life because they assume a separation and directional relationship between person and world that does not exist in the world of actual lived experience.
Instead, Heidegger argued that people do not exist apart from the world but, rather, are intimately caught up in and immersed. There is, in other words, an unsolvable unity between people and the world. This situation – always given, never escapable – is what Heidegger called Dasein, or being-in-the-world. It is impossible to ask whether person makes world or world makes person because both exist always together and can only be correctly interpreted in terms of the holistic relationship, being-in-world. On a less philosophical level, our relationship and direct exchange with the environment is even more apparent. Our metabolism has a daily input and output of about 5kg mass, consisting of food, water and oxygen (Reed & Coulter, 1999). An average human being is
thus processing about 140 tons of ‘world’ during a life time.
Eliade (1961) is pointing out, that in all cultures, places have had a deeply mythological meaning. The foundation of a house, a settlement or a town has been a religious act, which is still reminiscence today. Architecture has an eminent role as a key interface and definition of our being-in-the-world. Where natural environment is more and more lost, architecture takes a key role in creating places and in the best case a ‘genius loci’. In Roman mythology a genius loci was the protective spirit of a place. It was often depicted as a snake. With the dawn of rationalism, this spiritual meaning of a place has been more and more negated. The modern movement in architecture tried to analyse the site based on scientific parameters and their optimization like sun angles and circulation distances. The fast growth of cities in the last century, which is still continuing today, and the application of the ‚modern formula’ quickly resulted in sterile and faceless neighbourhoods. First social problems resulted in high-density poor city quarters, but in fact, also the fast growth of the. single family houses in the agglomeration results in places with no identity. The genius loci, which was found in medieval and renaissance cities has been lost!
In contemporary usage, "genius loci" usually refers to a location's distinctive atmosphere, or a "spirit of place", rather than necessarily a guardian spirit. It has been Norberg-Schulz (1982) who re-introduced this topic in the modern context, but the attempts of the postmodernists to reintroduce it into actually built architecture, did not go beyond a naive an formalistic repetition of long surpassed historic concepts. History can never be revived, it can only be understood and be taken as a base of knowledge for future developments.Most people are charmed by the specific atmosphere of places, which developed over centuries or have been very well planned and seem to convey a unity, a rightness and an atmosphere. A harmony with Human culture and nature. These places
cannot be reproduced, since their making was a complex cultural process. GLOBALISATION AND THE URBAN SPACE:
McGee and Watters have identified two features of the present version of globalisation — increased integration of the national economies with the global systems of production, consumption, and distribution; and space-time contraction that is the effect of technological advances in transport, communication, and computer technology.
And, cities are the primary spatial framework within which capital, goods, people, and information are concentrated; therefore, globalisation has influenced urban space formation in India. However, shaping of spatial structures of Indian cities by global forces has been little discussed in globalisation debates.
Before the British came, Indian cities were monocentric — located around central market places (eg, Delhi's Chandini Chowk, Abid/Koti in Hyderabad). To the market centre the British ad ..
After Independence state housing boards and urban development authorities, to accomplish certain explicit and defined goals, added contrived centres to Indian cities, which led to the emergence of government-driven polycentric cities. Market-driven polycentric cities have, in contrast, developed during the late 1990s and show three spatial patterns — leapfrog development, fractured cities, and divided cities.
Revenues generated to meet external demands have provided funds to support productionof locally-consumed goods and services in Indian cities. The market demand for retail products and housing has led to construction of malls, retail outlets, and apartment complexes, which has transformed the urban space within the monocentric city.
As a matter of fact, tall buildings, shopping malls, corporate headquarters, prestige hotels, and hospitals were overlaid on the earlier built environment by a process of creative destruction, for instance road widening often left buildings unfit fo . for use and developers would purchase a group of buildings to construct high-rise structures. Consequently, the core city space has become randomly marked with glass and steel structures as if development has leapfrogged from one location to another.
At the same time, several economic centres have developed in the periphery leading to polycentric cities. In the west these nuclei of economic activity are known by various names — "technoburbs" (Robert Fishman), "urban villages" (Kenneth Jackson) .. "middle landscape" (Peter Rowe), and "edge cities" (Joel Garreau). In India global capital in search for the cheapest available land honed-in on the periurban space surrounding cities.
Periurban areas in India are the rural-urban interface and a landing ground for rural residents migrating to cities. Polynucleation of periurban areas is spatially manifested in the form of office parks, malls, and apartments and single-family homes.
Moreover, the core and periphery of Indian cities are now separated as if by a fault line and construction of expressways, ring-roads, bypasses has accentuated the fracture. State
governments, by their excessive reliance on public health inspired zoning based on abstract pattern of standard streets, lots, and set backs, and commercial strips, have also contributed to the process of fracturing of Indian cities.
Indian cities have been divided by the desire of different types of people to live s . separately from other socio-economic groups leading to distance in urban space. This was observed by the Chicago School in the US and called "spatial polarisation". Divided cities have arisen due to the "exclusionary aspirations rooted in fear and protection of privilege and the values of civic responsibility...and the dangers of making outsiders of fellow citizens".
Spatially, this has led to the construction of "gated communities" to wall out uncertainty, reduce different types of physical risk (e.g. personal safety) and social interactions (eg unwanted social exchanges). At the same time job creation in cities due to multiplier effects of external injections has attracted different types of people leading to diverse and plural cities, called "mongrel cities" by Leonie Sandercock.
How to plan to enrich human life in fractured, divided, and mongrel cities Planning has two components — the hard component (built environment) and the soft component. In turn, planning for the built environment is possible at two scales. At the macro-level regional level planning for transport, water supply, sewage disposal, and environment management is required. Simultaneously micro-level planning by using tools, such as neo-traditional models, is a practical possibility to retro-fit neighbourhoods.
In contrast to conventional development, neo-traditional develop ment models aim to recreate the classic small town with its walkable streets, mix of land uses, and blend of buildings and open space. Orlando City in Florida has combined neo-traditional planning principles and public-private partnership frameworks to develop compact and walkable neighbourhoods, villages, and town centres with a jobs/housing balance; and clustered open spaces occupying more than 40% of the land.
Noteworthy is the integration of principles of architecture, urban design, and planning at the neighbourhood level and planning looks at the built form (eg footprints of all structures), land use patterns (eg location and density of retail, office spaces), public open space (eg parks, plazas), street design (eg circulation systems), and pedestrian access (eg one-quarter mile access from shops).
The soft component is the management of the emerging new urban condition in which difference and othotherness prevail. Establishing social consensus requires managing diversity by developing skills of listening, consensus-building, facilitation, negotiation, and securing effective public involvement, as opposed to mere consultation.
The much-acclaimed municipal participatory budgeting in the Brazilian city of Porte Alegre is one example. Even though finances were scarce, people were involved in the budgeting process. The outcomes have demonstrated that ordinary citizens have the capacity to debate among themselves and to establish spending priorities and upscale their neighbourhood-level experiences.
IDEAS OF SUSTAINABILITY:
Sustainable design (also called environmental design, environmentally sustainable design, environmentally conscious design, etc.) is the philosophy of designing physical objects, the built environment, and services to comply with the principles of social, economic, and ecological sustainability.
The intention of sustainable design is to "eliminate negative environmental impact completely through skillful, sensitive design".[1] Manifestations of sustainable design
require no non-renewable resources, impact the environment minimally, and connect people with the natural environment.
Beyond the "elimination of negative environmental impact", sustainable design must create projects that are meaningful innovations that can shift behaviour. A dynamic balance between economy and society, intended to generate long-term relationships between user and object/service and finally to be respectful and mindful of the environmental and social differences
Conceptual problems Diminishing returns
The principle that all directions of progress run out, ending with diminishing returns, is evident in the typical 'S' curve of the technology life cycle and in the useful life of any system as discussed inindustrial ecology and life cycle assessment. Diminishing returns are the result of reaching natural limits. Common business management practice is to read diminishing returns in any direction of effort as an indication of diminishing opportunity, the potential for accelerating decline and a signal to seek new opportunities elsewhere.[citation needed] (see also: law of diminishing returns,marginal utility and Jevons
paradox.)
Unsustainable Investment
A problem arises when the limits of a resource are hard to see, so increasing investment in response to diminishing returns may seem profitable as in the Tragedy of the Commons, but may lead to a collapse. This problem of increasing investment in diminishing resources has also been studied in relation to the causes of civilization collapse by Joseph Tainter among others.[3] This natural error in investment policy contributed to the collapse
of both the Roman and Mayan, among others. Relieving over-stressed resources requires reducing pressure on them, not continually increasing it whether more efficiently or not[4]
Waste prevention
Plans for Floriade 2012 in Venlo, the Netherlands: "The Greenest Building in the Netherlands - no external fuel, electricity, water or sewage."
Negative Effects of Waste
About 80 million tonnes of waste in total are generated in the U.K. alone, for example, each year.[5] And with reference to only household waste, between 1991/92 and 2007/08, each
