Urban Design Factors and Guidelines

Fig 1.1  Aerial view of Brasila, Brazil

Brasilian Syndrome

Brasilia is one of the most famous modernistic cities, completed in 1955.

Weakness:
It has no human scale. What looks from the aerial view, bare green plot of land, actually doesn't look nice on human level. The planning was planned from an aerial view (floor plan) and not designed from human scale.

Fig 1.2 Panorama view of Brasilia 

Brasilian Syndrome is to design a city from the aerial view.
(also known as "bird shit architecture" by Jan Gehl) used in cities like China and Dubai.
Architects are more focused on the forms than the design of the surroundings and the environment.
Jan Gehl mentioned that the architects are twisting their architecture, capturing their imagination, but it is not the right way to plan a city. The architects are not planning according to the needs or the likings of the residents but to show off their creativity and idea of a utopia. Higher skyscrapers is causing scale confusion in cities. He also mentioned that people like to walk in a place with more human scale than a place without proper human scale.

Important points of architecture is the interaction between lives and forms but not only the forms itself.
As mentioned by one of the lecturers in school:

"It is not the design that defines the environment but is the environment that should shape your design.

Maybe that's a reason why site analysis always comes first in projects.
Well, as the city grow bigger, more people moving from rural areas into cities. These people can be a benefit to the city's economy. Soon cities will lose its cultural and historical identities because it is more important to house the people who are living in the cities.

Bicycling

Over the years, more and more countries, states and cities are encouraging their people to cycle. Despite building more parking lots and spaces for bicycles, it is still economically friendly as riding a bicycle can save resources and money for the country, and time for the user.

Reference:
Fig 1.1 https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjPcV8B6DACjcWIr62PDEFf6DDeAfsRaVFEvX1y66i6giks0KZQivu4LqPSM6MU1o6U-CZ_6wNjfE8Bx_RZoUa2WECXu2SE-6KIYXV3UJALRk5B0qzkTYfyHputBF92vLJB7jdT6OuLj9AY/s800/Brasilia.jpg
Fig 1.2 http://wikitravel.org/upload/en/thumb/f/f0/Bras%C3%ADlia_Esplanada_Pan.jpg/400px-Bras%C3%ADlia_Esplanada_Pan.jpg
http://evworld.com/press/cycling_wheels480x319.jpg

THE BIG RETHINK: URBAN DESIGN

Sutainability- The Big Talk

By 2050 it is predicted that 64.1% and 85.9% of the developing and developed world respectively will be urbanized.

With growing population in the urban cities, the basic design principles slowly shifts towards improving quality of spaces and life, providing the people with necessities and comfort. Every city in the world wishes to have a stable economy and well-being for its people. Thus, sustainability has became the common topic among designers to develop the cities of the future.

One of the movements introduced to improve the qualities of life is the Slow City movement (Cittaslow)

Cittaslow

A movement to decrease the speed of life (the traffic, pace) to:

• making life better for everyone living in an urban environment
• improving the quality of life in the cities
• resisting the homogenization and globalization of towns around the globe
• protecting the environment
• promoting cultural diversity and uniqueness of individual cities
• provide inspiration for a healthier lifestyle

Imagine yourself in a vehicle. As it moves, you realize that it is hard to see the surroundings clearly because everything is moving too fast. But when it slows down or comes to a stop, you can see everything clearly, detailed. The same applies to our perspective in life. Naturally when everything slows down, we are able to appreciate even the slightest details in our surroundings, people will tend to be happier.

Buildings nowadays are built in a sense they no longer continue the characteristics and historical values of the city. Cityscape can be shaped by the humans, but in turn they will also affect the people. It is a cycle whereby the people and spaces both defines one another. A good urban design retains the city's character and history even when striving to improve, with the aid of modern technology. It is a smart mixture of the past, present and the future.

It is the balance between its people, economy, character, and sustainability.

Radiant City

Radiant City

Le Corbusier

A movement

Radiant City:

• Green spaces
• Symmetry
• Skyscrapers

A radiant city is a city made to work well under sunlight, as its name suggests: RADIANT

http://www.cuepe.ch/html/plea2006/Vol1/PLEA2006_PAPER987.pdf

An article shows how the radiant city works during daylight compared to Paris.

"At the core of Le Corbusier’s plan stood the notion of zoning: a strict division of the city into segregated commercial, business, entertainment and residential areas. The business district was located in the center, and contained monolithic mega-skyscrapers, each reaching a height of 200 meters and accommodating five to eight hundred thousand people. Located in the center of this civic district was the main transportation deck, from which a vast underground system of trains would transport citizens to and from the surrounding housing districts. 

Similarly to the Green City Movement, the planning of the city consists of the main necessities in the centre of the region, with the residential and sub-commercial surrounding it. However, the difference between the two styles is vastly different. Green City Movement focuses on nature more than buildings whereas Radiant City is more of a hardscape city. The tall skyscrapers contribute to the concrete jungle, fitting a wide diversity of community into one single building.

"The housing districts would contain pre-fabricated apartment buildings, known as “Unités.” Reaching a height of fifty meters, a single Unité could accommodate 2,700 inhabitants and function as a vertical village: catering and laundry facilities would be on the ground floor, a kindergarden and a pool on the roof. Parks would exist between the Unités, allowing residents with a maximum of natural daylight, a minimum of noise and recreational facilities at their doorsteps.

Hotel Le Corbusier, Marseille

Singapore's architecture can be deemed similar to the architecture of Radiant City; tall, concrete and over-populated. The infrastructure connecting the buildings are of grid in Radiant City. 50 metres in height will be about 16-17 storeys high, which are now commonly seen in urbanized cities, like Singapore's HDB. Also, these buildings have facilities built in, like commercial-residential buildings we commonly see in Singapore.

Key Movements of Urban Planning; Green City Movement

Garden City Movement

Sir Ebenzer Howard

Founder

Garden City Movement is an urban planning technique which is first founded in 1898 by Sir Ebenzer Howard in United Kingdom.

His idea of the movement was to allow people and nature to live in harmony.

Basically, Sir Ebenzer Howard dreamt of creating a utopian city that

• ·         involves people living, growing, breathing in the fresh air, in the gifts of Nature
• ·         solves the problem of overcrowding and dirty city
• ·         to combine the elements of urbanization and rural areas
• ·         neither too large to deprive it of country character nor too small to erase the presence of social intercourse

The Three Magnets illustration of the relationship between: Town, Country and Town-Country

Early Influences

"Air and space, wood and water, schools and churches, shrubberies and gardens, around pretty self contained cottages in a group neither too large to deprive it of country character, nor too small to diminish the probabilities of social intercourse." (Edinburgh Magazine. Dec. 1848.)

 

Satellite Town 

Singapore was formerly known as a "Garden City", recently changed her title to "City in a Garden", is a vision set by the NParks for Singapore. As her title suggested, it must somehow be related to the Green City Movement, the whole city is designed and planned according to the style. To my surprise, URA came up with a new concept called the Satellite Town. It was an adaption of the "Ring Concept Plan" where facilities stand and surround a body of water with greenbelts tucked in between.

Queenstown was named in commemoration of Queen Elizabeth II's coronation in 1953

"The concept of a satellite town began with the conceptualization of The Concept Plan of 1971 by the Urban Redevelopment Authority (URA). It adopted the “Ring Concept Plan”, which “envisaged the development of a ring of new high-density satellite towns around the central water catchment area, with each town separated by green spaces and a system of parks and open spaces.” Low- and medium-density private housing would be built beside these towns and there would be provisions for industrial estates.”

 - See more at: http://blogs.nlb.gov.sg/ask/singapore/2484#sthash.y0c0bZR9.dpuf

Queenstown was the very first Satellite Town to be established in Singapore, then later on Ang Mo Kio..
What these estates have in common is that they have all the necessities within the estate itself: cultural facilities, town council, residential, education etc.

So it's a planning-ception! Satellite Town within a Green City.

http://www.singaporecitygallery.sg/images/wmQueenstown-Book.pdf

Now Green Cities doesn't only mean to have pockets of green in the planning, but also to be eco-friendly and sustainable.



http://liverpool.metapress.com/content/c18131177l7l8x30/
http://www.rickmansworthherts.freeserve.co.uk/howard1.htm#sna
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garden_city_movement
http://www.library.cornell.edu/Reps/DOCS/howard.htm
http://www.es.a.u-tokyo.ac.jp/lep/thesis/98D_murakami-e.html
http://www.celsias.co.nz/article/what-do-new-zealands-futurologists-think-our-citie/
http://blogs.nlb.gov.sg/ask/singapore/2484
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garden_city_movement