“Theory of a good city form” biological requirements and capabilities of

human being, how it protect the survival of

the species. He mentioned three principals of
it which are sustenance, safety, consonance.
 Sustenance- availability of all the elements to
sustain the life. There should be an adequate supply of
food, energy, water and air at the same time availability of
proper disposal of wastes, i.e. the “throughput”.

 Safety- it considers psychological safety, social

safety and physical safety. There should be safety from
physical elements like hazards, poisons, and diseases, also
social and psychological safety like defence against
violation attacks, the prevention of food and fire, the
resistance to earthquake.

Lynch provided five dimensions of  Consonance- the environment should

performance vigor, sense, fit, access, and consonance with the basic biological structure of human
control. He also put out his own idea of good being. It should support natural rhythms, and should
provide optimum sensory input.
city design, which can result in excellent
settlements, attributes that allow 2. Sense-
"development, within continuity, via
openness and connection." He also This is the joint between the form of the
introduced the "meta-criteria" of fairness and environment and the human processes of
efficiency. Efficiency and justice are two perception and cognition. It depends on the
meta-criteria that affect all five other form of the space, quality and human
aspects. activity. He said identity, structure,
congruence, legibility, transparency are the
In this theory, he first looks at three characteristics of Sense.
normative theories that view the city as a
living thing, a machine, and a model of the  Identity- it is the extent to which person can
recognige or recall a place as being distinct from other
universe. In the end, it was determined that places, having unique character of its own.
these hypotheses were insufficient and could
not withstand careful examination. Rather  Structure- which at the scale of small place is
the sense of how it parts fit together an in large
than assessing how settlements should settlement is the sense of orientation.
function, the goal of these theories is to
merely explain how they do so. Cities are  Congruence- identification/ recognization of the
place by form of city or building.
modeled in these theories as ecological
systems, fields of force, linked decision  Transparency- one can directly perceive the
processes, or sites of class conflict. operations of the various technical functions, activities,
and social & natural processes that are occurring within
the settlement.
Only the spatial form of the city may be
used to gauge its performance. However, a  Legibility- inhabitants of settlement are able to
place's quality is a result of both the location communicate accurately to each other via its symbolic
and the people that lives there. This is crucial physical feature.

for researchers who observe how the

3. Fit-
behavior of social groupings is mirrored in
the morphology of metropolitan areas. The It is the match between place and whole
researcher then chooses the technique used patterns of behaviour . it is linked to
to reveal this. characteristics of the human body and of
physical system in general. Adaptability,
manipulability, reversibility excess capacity,
improving accessibility, separation of parts,
modular and standardization, reduction of
recycling costs are the characteristics of fit.

4. Access-

“PERFORMANCE DIMENSIONS & META

CRITERIA”

1. Vitality-

The degree to which the form of the

settlement supports the vital functions, the
It is the extent to which goods, services, dimensions like vitality, sense, fit, access and
place and information are accessible with control.
minimum time and efforts. (least path of
resistance) It is classified as access to other
people, access to human activities, access to
A good city form should be vital (safe,
services, access to material resources,
consonant, and sustainable), sensible
access to natural environment, access to
(recognizable, structured, congruent,
information.
transparent, legible, unfolding, and
5. Control- significant), well-fied (manipulable and
resilient), accessible (diverse, equitable, and
It refers to the pervasive phenomena of locally manageable), and well-controlled
territorial occupation of space and time for (congruent, certain, responsible, and
discharging day to day activities. It depends intermittently loose), all of which are
upon ownership. There are some spatial right accomplished with justice and internal
like right of presence, right to be in place, efficiency.
right of use and action, rights of modification,
right of disposition.

Following aspects are comes under Control References:

 Congruence- the extent to which the actual user Patil, R. (2016, January). Theory of good city form by
or inhabitants of a space control it in proportion to the Kevin Lynch- Review. International Journal of Innovative
degree of their Permanente stake in it. User congruence Research in Science, Engineering and Technology.
allows for better fit and greater security, satisfaction and https://www.ijirset.com/upload/2016/january/109_25_THEO
freedom as a consequence of it. RY.pdf

 Responsibility- is a balancing criteria and Suresh, S. (2023, July 17). Book in Focus: The Theory of a
supposes that those who control a place should have Good City form by Kevin Lynch - RTF: Rethinking the
motives, information and power to do it well. future. RTF | Rethinking The Future. https://www.re-
thinkingthefuture.com/rtf-architectural-reviews/a4037-
 Certainty- the degree to which people book-in-focus-the-theory-of-a-good-city-form-by-kevin-
understand the control system, can predict its scope, and lynch/#google_vignette
feel secure with it.

6. Efficiency-

It is the balancing criteria; it relates the level

of achievement in some performance to loss
in some other. There are certain
interdimensional conflicts like i. a vital
environment will often conflict with
decentralized user control, ii. the ideal of a
vital environment will often conflict with a
well-fitted one, iii. Sense is frequently in
opposition to adaptability of fit, iv. Present
and future fit are contradictory to each other.

7. Justice-

Justice is the way in which benefits and costs

of any one kind are distributed between
persons. It deals with all the performance