URBAN DESIGN
P.GOPALAKRISHNAN
Urban Design: Course Structure
• Brief history
• Scope and objectives
• Modern concepts and theory
• Visual survey, principles and techniques
• Urban image, Urban spaces
• Urban Morphology
• Urban renewal, regeneration
• UD guidance, frame work, development
brief
1
Urban Design: Definitions
URBAN DESIGN is
• Physical direction to urban growth, conservation &
change
• Design of cities
• Interface between architecture, landscape &
townplanning
• Complex relationship between all the elements of built &
unbuilt space
• Architecture of public space
Urban Design: Definitions
URBAN DESIGN is
• Not land use policy, sign controls and street lighting
districts
• Not strictly utopian or procedural
• Not plan for downtown , nor a subdivision regulation
2
Urban Design: Definitions
As per Draft Master Plan, New Delhi
• A city is an assemblage of buildings & streets,
System of communication, utilities, Places of work,
Transportation, Leisure & Meeting places.
• A process of arranging these elements both Functionally &
Aesthetically is the essence of Urban Design.
Urban Design: Definitions
• Urban Design is the process of organizing
Physical elements of the Urban environment to
satisfy human objectives (Social, Economic,
Physiological & Psychological).
3
Urban Design: Definitions
University of Westminster: Urban Design Unit
• “UD is concerned with the physical form of cities
buildings and spaces between them. The study
of UD deals with the relationships between the
physical form of the city and the Social forces
that produce it. It focuses in particular on the
physical character of the public realm but is also
concerned with interaction between Public &
private development and the resulting impact on
urban form”.
Urban Design: Definitions
As per Planning Policy Guidance (PPG):
• Relationships between different buildings,
streets, squares, parks & spaces that make up
the Public Domain.
• The complex relationship between all the
elements of the Built & Un built space. The
appearance & treatment of spaces between &
around buildings, as is importance to the
buildings itself, along with landscape design all
be considered as an integral part Urban Design.
4
Urban Design: Definitions
• Urban design is the art of making places for
people. It includes the connections between
people and places, movement and urban form,
nature and the built fabric and the processes for
ensuring successful villages, towns and cities
• Urban design is a key to creating sustainable
developments and the conditions for a
flourishing economic life, for the prudent use of
natural resources and for social progress
Urban Design: Perceptions
• Many equate Urban Design with, Town
scape, Urban Conservation, Architecture,
Town plng etc.
• Urban Design as part of Town planning.
• Architects may believe it as “Architecture
writ large”, across the whole urban fabric,
where as some Urban Designers may
believe as “strategic city wide urban policy
issues”.
5
Urban Design: Perceptions
• Some Urban designers think that planners
imagine Urban Design as beautifying detailed
aspects of planning such as; pedestrianization,
Boulevards, townscape schemes. Conversely
architects may see UD as a larger extension of
architecture in the process of designing every
thing.
• Traffic engineers may see it as Traffic Calming.
Urban Design: Perceptions
• Although the agenda of UD may appear new and
different related to modern town planning, in fact
UD is an ancient profession which has shaped
towns and cities over the centuries all over the
world.
• UD was the chief form of town planning, in which
architectural and aesthetic issues/design
principles predominated with timeless relevance.
6
Urban Design: Perceptions
• A key feature of modern Urban Design practice is the
ability to integrate a concern with the Visual and Aesthetic
aspects of Urban Form with a strong social awareness of
the need of User groups. Plus, a sensitivity to wider
environmental and sustainability issues.
Visual and Social awareness of Environmental and
aesthetics aspects the need of user sustainability issues
groups
URBAN
DESIGN
Urban Design Group: Guiding Principles
• Empowerment: Building
the sense of identity of
the people who live and
work in a place, and their
involvement in caring for
or changing its fabric or
character.
• Diversity: Encouraging
the variety that enlarges
the interest or choices a
place can offer.
7
Urban Design Group: Guiding Principles
• Equity: Making places (and their facilities
and amenities) accessible to people
beyond the owner and immediate users.
• Stewardship: Taking a broad and long
term view of the costs and benefits of any
change.
• Context: Building on the best of what
already exists.
Urban Design: Reference
• Paul Spreiregen, The Architecture of towns and cities, McGraw
Hill book company 1965
• Broadbent, Geoffrey. Emerging Concepts in Urban Space
Design. London: Van Nostrand Reinhold (International), 1990.
• Ian Bentley, et al, RESPONSIVE ENVIRONMENTS, a manual for
designers, 1985
• Moughtin. C , URBAN DESIGN; STREET AND SQUARE, oxford,
butterworth architecutre, 1992.
• Lang, Jon T. Urban Design: The American Experience. New York:
Van Nostrand Reinhold, 1994.
• Lynch, Kevin. Image of a city. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press,
1987.
• Cullen, Gordon. The Concise Townscape. New York: Van
Nostrand Reinhold, c1961, 1971.
• Bacon, Edmund N. Design of Cities. New York: Viking Press, 1967.
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Urban Design: Web Reference
• URBAN DESIGN GROUP- www.udg.org.uk
• URBAN TASK FORCE - www.urbantaskforce.com.au
• URBAN DESIGN ALLIANCE- www.udal.org.au
• ENGLISH HERITAGE-www.english-heritage.org.uk
• ENGLISH PARTNERSHIP- englishpartnerships.co.uk
• DEPARTMENT OF THE ENVIRONMENT AND
DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORT –DETR
• PPS – PROJECT FOR PUBLIC SPACES – pps.org
