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Urban design

2015-11-05T14:56:55Z

Urban Design Group:

Urban design is the collaborative and multi-disciplinary process of shaping the physical setting for life in cities, towns and villages; the art of making places; design in an urban context. Urban design involves the design of buildings, groups of buildings, spaces and landscapes, and the establishment of frameworks and processes that facilitate successful development.

Peter Webber defines urban design as 'the process of moulding the form of the city through time'. Jerry Spencer has described it as 'creating the theatre of public life'. To Carmona, Heath, Oc and Tiesdell it is 'the process of making better places for people than would otherwise be produced'. The urban designer Doug Paterson has defined urban design as 'merging civitas and the urbs: building the values and ideals of a civilized place into the structure of a city'. Peter Batchelor and David Lewis define urban design as 'design in an urban context'. 

They use the word design 'not in its traditional narrow sense, but in a much broader way. Economic projections, packaging new developments, negotiating public/private financial partnerships, setting up guidelines and standards for historic revitalisation, forming non-profit corporations that combine citizens with public and private sector financing resources, all are considered as design.'

In the words of the writer and critic Peter Buchanan: 'Urban design is about how to recapture certain of the qualities (qualities which we experience as well as those we see) that we associate with the traditional city: a sense of order, place, continuity, richness of experience, completeness and belonging. Urban design lies somewhere between the broad-brush abstractions of planning and the concrete specifics of architecture. It implies a notion of citizenship: life in the public realm. It is not just about space, but time as well. Much of what passes for urban design is conceived only for one moment. Good urban design is more than just knitting together the townscape. Urban designers should be configuring a rich network in which buildings come and go: a framework of transport, built fabric and other features, which will create natural locations for things. Urban design structures activities.'

Buchanan has written that 'urban design is concerned with analysing, organising and shaping urban form so as to elaborate as richly and as coherently as possible the lived experience of the inhabitants. In essence it is about the interdependence and mutual development of both city and citizen. And at its core is the recognition that, just as the citizen is both biological organism and self-consciously acculturated persona, so the city too is an organism shaped by powerful intrinsic, almost natural, forces (that must be understood and respected in any successful intervention) and a wilfully, even self-consciously, created cultural artefact. Interventions of the creative will have always guided the city's growth and change, elaborated its identity in many ways large and small as well as conceived and realised those crowning glories that make great cities so special. 

Urban design is essentially about place making, where place is not just a specific space, but all the activities and events that it makes possible. As a consequence the whole city is enriched. Instead of a city fragmented into islands of no place and anywhere, it remains a seamlessly meshed and richly varied whole. In such a city, daily life is not reduced to a dialectic between city centre and one of the similar suburbs: instead the citizen is encouraged to avail himself of the whole city, to enjoy all its various parts and so enrich his experience and education (become street-wise) in the ways only real urban life allows.'

Some urban designers define urban design as 'the design of the spaces between buildings', presumably to distinguish it from architecture, which they define as the design of the buildings themselves. This definition excludes urban design's proper concern with the structure of a place; it ignores the fact that to a significant extent the characteristics of the spaces between buildings are determined by the buildings themselves; and it encourages architects in any tendency they may have to ignore the context in which they are designing. The question of where urban design should or does fit into the landscape of urban professions -- whether it should be regarded as a distinct profession itself, or as a way of thinking, or as common ground between a number of professions or between a wide range of people involved in urban change, for example -- is widely discussed.

Barry Young has suggested one set of stages for the urban design process. These are: 
*Define physical design principles. 
*Identify performance criteria. 
*Develop design options. 
*Evaluate the options in terms of design principles and performance criteria. 
*Develop the preferred option.

Abercrombie and Forshaw wrote in their 1943 County of London Plan of the 'low level of urban design' in pre-war London. Urban design was being discussed in the American planning profession in the 1950s. What is generally said to have been the first urban design conference was held at Harvard University's Graduate School of Design in 1956, its participants including Lewis Mumford, Jane Jacobs, Victor Gruen And Edmund Bacon. Its organiser, Jose Luis Sert, announced urban design as a new academic field, which he defined as 'the part of planning concerned with the physical form of the city'. 

The first university course in urban design was established at Harvard in 1960. Lewis Mumford wrote in 1957 from the USA accusing FJ Osborn (in a letter to him) of identifying new towns with 'only one kind of urban design'. In 1959 the American Institute of Planners' policy statement on urban renewal stated: 'Renewal offers an opportunity to secure superior urban design when relatively large areas of land are improved under coordinated design leadership, and relatively uniform site and building controls'.

The American Institute of Architecture established a Committee on Urban Design in 1960 and it published Paul D Spreiregen's book Urban Design: the architecture of cities and towns in 1965. The Joint Centre for Urban Design at Oxford Polytechnic (later Oxford Brookes University) was established in 1972. The UK Urban Design Group was formed in 1978. Punter and Carmona note that in the UK the term urban design 'had been conspicuous by its absence' in government publications and guidance until the publication of John Gummer's Quality in Town and Country in 1994.

The Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions gave a definition (in Planning Policy Guidance Note 1) that was broad in describing what urban design covered but, despite its length, said little about what sort of activity urban design was. Urban design, said PPG1, was 'the relationship between different buildings; the relationships between buildings and the streets, squares, parks, waterways and other spaces which make up the public realm; the relationship of one part of a village, town or city with other parts; patterns of movement and activity which are thereby established; in short, the complex relationship between all the elements of built and unbuilt space.'

This article was written by --[[User%3AUrban%20Design%20Group|User:Urban_Design_Group]]

= Find out more =

'''Related articles on Designing Buildings Wiki '''
*Architecture.
*Built environment.
*Designing smart cities.
*Garden cities.
*Public space.
*The compact sustainable city.

'''External references'''
*Urban Design Group

[[Category:Theory]]

Public space

2015-11-05T14:55:56Z

Urban Design Group:

To help develop this article, click 'Edit this article' above.

= Introduction =

Successful spaces are generally part of a broader urban fabric that is rendered intelligible and coherent by the way its ‘nodes’ are linked to one another. The cities of Florence, Rome and Glasgow clearly demonstrate this.

Cousseran says that ‘public space is a particular kind of social space created specifically for the bringing together of people, and where locals and strangers, the familiar and the unusual, can mingle freely.’ (1) How, then, do such spaces come about?

= Florence =

Florence, a city noted for its particularly outstanding public spaces with two millennia of historical layering, shows us how they are often the product of both historical accretions and powerful bursts of civic planning.

‘Generally speaking’, Bosch says, ‘the medieval city [of Florence] was functionally inadequate, aesthetically ill-considered, and lacking in unifying qualities’. At the beginning of the Renaissance, the city had no established political order, with ecclesiastic authorities, local feudal lords, invading feudal powers and the Holy Roman Empire, as well as craft guilds and an increasingly powerful banking sector all aspiring to power.

These rivals had funded the construction of significant buildings, which were swallowed up by the dense medieval grain of the city. Powerful families inhabited compounds, built with no regard for the public realm, with towers like those of San Gimignano competing for visual dominance. The church, the state, and families like the Medici, however, transformed the city over the next 200 years, ‘slowly producing the greatness of its various spaces out of medieval mediocrity’.

Although this resulted in what are perceived as great public spaces, the interests of the public were not part of the thinking of the patrons, whose aim was to establish spaces around the major points of interest, the nodes of church and palace, from which to view them, and streets to connect them.

In Florence, as in other Italian Renaissance examples, often ‘the single most important driving force… was the power and ideals of one man who was able to push for order in his particular city. Such men did this as a means of assuring a physical structure that would bring the city even greater influence and growth, to their benefit, and as and expression of what they personally owed the city for their power.’ (2) The Uffizi for example, which today feels like an inherent component of the composition of the Piazza Signorina, was commissioned by the Medici, whilst the town hall, was an expression of the rival interests of the ‘republican commune’.

The lesson of Florence is, perhaps, that competing interests recognised that their own glory could be best asserted by accommodating the imprint of others’ desire for the same end, rather than by attempting to eliminate it. This allows an accretion of contextual responses to accumulate over time. Significant participants in the shaping of the city have directed their resources towards the making of space rather than object buildings, seemingly embracing the fact that their investments thereby became the ‘property’ of the public at large. This attitude differs almost completely from the predominant contemporary paradigm, in which investment in ‘object’ buildings leaves incoherent overall urban fabric, and begins to suggest the importance of investing in space rather than just buildings.

We can perhaps better understand why the spaces resulting from the processes described above feel so satisfying to be in, if we move from considering the reasons for their evolution to an assessment of their characteristics. Rowe and Koettler, in Collage City, offer a useful starting point, characterising ‘the debate as a debate between two models; acropolis and forum. What they call the ‘acropolis’ model of urban fabric denotes a modernist emphasis on individual buildings surrounded by open space which, according to Cousseran has ‘unfortunately become synonymous with empty space. The ‘forum’ is not a void with objects placed in it, but a solid with spaces carved into it. Florence follows this pattern, with its dense grain opened out around significant buildings, following the compression of its streets with the release of well- defined spaces – the result of orderly rationalisation of dense earlier development.

= Rome =

A similar process took place in Rome somewhat later, as Pope Sixtus V set about applying an urban design strategy in 1585 that would impose order on what was at the time a chaotic medieval city, albeit one containing remains of imperial grandeur. Watson and Bentley, in the concluding passages of ‘Identity by Design’, say that '''‘...'''a leitmotif of all our case studies has been the manifold advantages, in place-identity terms, of forming public space into highly connected networks, rather than designing a system of relatively isolated enclave spaces.’ This passage could have been written to describe Sixtus’ plans for Rome, which involved carving routes through the urban fabric to connect significant points and, often, to create points for pause – public spaces – around them. He built very few buildings in his lifetime, but the order he established has acted as a template and inspiration ever since, evidence that designing spaces rather than forms can be a sound basis for creating harmonious urban environments.

The dramatic tension in the city is set up by the relationships between significant nodes, each of which has a different character. Bacon (3) describes the development of the Piazza del Popolo as ‘...[demonstrating] more clearly than any other single work in Rome the power of an idea as an organizing force over time.’

Prior to the redesign of Popolo and its connecting axes to the rest of the city, the area was ‘squalid and confused’, with an arbitrarily shaped open space sitting beneath mud banking on its eastern edge, which sloped up to open fields on the hill above. Although the piazza terminated three important axial streets leading into the heart of the city, and was itself a space of civic proportion at a gateway to the city, it failed to capitalise on these inherited attributes, having never, effectively, been designed, but simply allowed to exist.

Two great interventions, 130 years apart, transformed this into one of the great anchor points of the Rome we see today. Rainaldi, between 1660 and 1679 built two churches, ‘...whose entire justification is the role they play in the larger structure of the design. The buildings are neither totally of the square nor totally of the street, yet they link both and are related to both as well as to the obelisk of Sixtus V.’ (4) Valadier, in 1813, then regularised the design of the piazza with exedras on either side of the churches, ‘...repeating the basic form of Santa Maria del Popolo on the opposite side of the Porta Del Popolo.’ To the east, Valadier ‘...designed a great stairway, ramp, and cascade descending from the Pincio Gardens, which had the effect of binding this open space into the structure of the piazza.’ ‘The harmony and unity of the total work’, Bacon concludes ‘...are the more remarkable in that its parts were created in such widely spaced periods of time, each having its own mode of architectural expression.’

It succeeds in making features around it which whilst they developed independently, feel like part of a great composition: the gardens which were laid out atop what was once the mud banking feel like an essential complement to the piazza, without which it would lack completeness. The piazza itself terminates and contains the marvels of the city – aided by the river on the west and the hillside to the east, in a demonstration of another of the principles of public space making: using topography as a strategic ally in delivering harmonious, even beautiful, urban plans. It is worth noting that the Piazza del Popolo, although it is clearly a public space, was not developed into its present form primarily ‘...for the bringing together of people, where locals and strangers, the familiar and the unusual, can mingle freely’, although it certainly facilitates these things, it was intended to capitalise on the vision of Sixtus V, and elevate the level of the city as a complete composition.

= Glasgow =

Like the two Italian case studies, Glasgow once had a medieval core. Whilst never comparable in commercial wealth to medieval Florence or possessing the classical heritage of Rome, Glasgow was an important ecclesiastical centre, and as such its cathedral was at the apex of an axial development towards the river Clyde.

When mercantile activity brought wealth to the city in the 17th and 18th centuries, mansions were built in what is now the merchant city, and the city’s built fabric became increasingly established, with the grid as we know it today set out in the Victorian period at the height of Glasgow’s commercial prosperity.

However, there is very little historical layering. For the most part, medieval and early mercantile architecture was built over by the Victorians, with a few isolated structures (such as the Royal Exchange and the Tron) surviving. Buchanan Street feels like the primary axis of the city plan, but terminates at its northern end in a shopping centre and at its south by a ‘public space’, St Enoch’s square, which is simply a left over space from the demolition of the former railway station, and lies outside of the grid. None of the other primary axes feel as though they lead anywhere. Ingram Street for example, is anchored successfully at its western end by Royal Exchange square, but peters out into nondescript student housing and a car park, again just beyond the edge of the grid.

If public spaces are defined as much by their relationships with each other as their own spatial characteristics, then such public spaces cannot be considered successful. Blythswood Square seems to be little more than a missing block, which has no special relationship with any surrounding streets; George Square is located almost at the eastern extent of the grid’s coherence, and as a piece of urbanism succeeds only in terms of offering space to view the façade of the City Hall. In short, there is no sense that an overarching vision has ever been in place to apply a hierarchy of spaces to the grid.

It has the feel of a city plan which was laid out to accommodate the quick building demanded by the rapid influx of capital rather than a response to either existing built context or topography, the denial of which is pronounced. In this sense, of an architecture born of a thoroughgoing capitalism, there is some comparison with Florence, but whereas the urban fabric of Florence was the subject of careful surgery and improvement over time, that of Glasgow was laid out on a drawing board, a Victorian equivalent of the modernists ideal tabula rasa – and whilst it accommodates some spectacular architecture, it fails to provide beautiful public space.

It is tempting to conclude that this failure is the result of the inherent limitations of a grid plan, its lack of capacity to respond to topography, or particularly significant spaces or buildings. Grahame Shane, in his ‘Field Analysis of Central London’, examines how the Georgian great estates were originally laid out in between tributaries of the Thames, ‘...with the grandest houses fronting the square at the heart of the estate[s] to attract the wealthy early buyers and to set the market for the secondary street streets of more modest terraces behind’. Subsequent development has responded to this skeletal masterplanning, which was itself derived from a direct response to existing context. In this, it is fundamentally different from the Glasgow grid’s denial of context, and its refusal to accommodate or acknowledge significant nodes with an interlinked system of public spaces.

Brasilia is a good example of urban design as a composition, which accommodates hierarchy and dramatic tension in a completely different paradigm to that described in the Roman and Florentine case studies, which responded to existing built context. As Bacon says in his analysis of the city, ‘...the gift of Brasilia is not primarily the form of its structures, or the formal symmetry of its composition, but rather the reformulation of the vision of the city as a totality’. This totality contains a ‘...harmonic reverberation between buildings [which] does not depend on one carefully posed photograph; it is ever present and intensifies as one moves around the buildings’. This is a kind of layering, of major and minor spaces and buildings, which the powerful but one dimensional grid layout of Glasgow cannot accommodate.

Poor public space is often discussed in terms of the negative effects of the modern idiom, in which coherent urban fabric is replaced by buildings as objects, which fail to define space and result in a reduction in quality in what Jan Gehl calls ‘life between buildings’. Glasgow does not suffer from these issues, at least in its centre, which with its coherent grain defines very definite ‘inscribed space’, and yet its public spaces are lacking, particularly in comparison with the other exemplars discussed. Coherence at an urban level is not enough, good public spaces must be connected in a way that lends meaning and significance to the whole city as a composition, major and minor spaces, which function at the human as well as the civic scale, and constitute an overall environment for people to inhabit are essential prerequisites in elevating urban space above the functional and towards the beautiful.

= Find out more =

=== Related articles on Designing Buildings Wiki ===
*Architectural styles.
*Classical orders.
*Masterplanning.
*Smart cities.
*Terraced houses and the public realm.
*Urban design.

=== External references ===
*(1) Post-Modern Movement: The Inscribed City, in Urban Design Futures, Alain Cousseran ed Moor, Rowland, Routledge, 2006
*(2) Ingersoll, Richard, The Advent of the Closed City
*(3) Bacon, Edmund N: Design of Cities
*(4) These churches can be seen on my photographs and are marked on the map.
*Post-Modern Movement: The Inscribed City, in Urban Design Futures, Alain Cousseran ed Moor, Rowland, Routledge, 2006
*Design of Cities: Bacon, Edmund N., Thames and Hudson, 1975
*Cities for People: Gehl, Jan, Island Press, 2010
*Identity by Design: Watson, Bentley, Elsevier, 2007
*Collage City, Rowe, Koetter, MIT Press, 1978

[[Category:Articles_needing_more_work]]
[[Category:History]]
[[Category:Theory]]

Garden cities

2015-11-05T14:54:47Z

Urban Design Group:

= Introduction =

The Town and Country Planning Association (TCPA) suggest, that a garden city is a ‘holistically planned new settlement which enhances the natural environment, tackles climate change and provides high quality housing and locally accessible jobs in beautiful, healthy and sociable communities’.

They were described in Ebenezer Howard’s 1898 publication ‘To-morrow: A Peaceful Path to Real Reform’ as having, ’...the advantages of the most energetic and active town life, with all the beauty and delight of the country...'

Howard went on to become founder of the Garden City Association (now the Town and Country Planning Association) and by 1903 land had been purchased for the first Garden City at Letchworth. This was followed in 1919 by land acquisition for the creation of Welwyn Garden City. These projects were followed by the New Towns programme in the aftermath of the Second World War, which promoted the development of larger, 'new towns' such as Milton Keynes.

The Garden City idea has remained popular, and the TCPA suggest that 21st Century Garden City principles include:
*Land value capture for the benefit of the community.
*Strong vision, leadership and community engagement.
*Community ownership of land and long-term stewardship of assets.
*Mixed-tenure homes and housing types that are affordable for ordinary people.
*A strong local jobs offer in the Garden City itself, with a variety of employment opportunities within easy commuting distance of homes.
*Beautifully and imaginatively designed homes with gardens, combining the very best of town and country living to create healthy homes in vibrant communities.
*Generous green space linked to the wider natural environment, including a surrounding belt of countryside to prevent sprawl, well connected and biodiversity rich public parks, and a mix of public and private networks of well-managed, high-quality gardens, tree-lined streets and open spaces.
*Opportunities for residents to grow their own food, including generous allotments.
*Strong local cultural, recreational and shopping facilities in walkable neighbourhoods.
*Integrated and accessible transport systems – with a series of settlements linked by rapid transport providing a full range of employment opportunities (as set out in Howard’s vision of the ‘Social City’).

Ref [http://www.tcpa.org.uk/pages/garden-cities.html TCPA Creating Garden Cities and Suburbs Today].

= Locally-led Garden Cities =

The supply of new homes remains a key priority for the UK government, and in April 2014, it published the [https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/303324/20140414_Locally-led_Garden_Cities_final_signed.pdf Locally-led Garden Cities] prospectus which set out a broad support package for local authorities to develop garden cities. The prospectus is aimed at providing guidance for proposals which must be locally-led, include at least 15,000 homes and be supported by existing residents.

Local authorities with an interest are invited to put forward ideas:
*For how they would like to develop garden cities.
*How they wish to make use of the existing central-government funding and support.
*What else they require in terms of freedoms, flexibilities and support to make new garden cities a reality.

More than £1 billion in funding is being provided between 2015 and 2020 and it is hoped that this will deliver up to 250,000 homes.

The government is offering a variety of support, depending on the requirements of the local authority:
*Brockerage: Support in working across government with the Homes and Communities Agency to co-ordinate partners to overcome potential barriers.
*Direct planning: Support is on offer from the Advisory Team for Large Applications in the Homes and Communities Agency, who can assist with the planning and design process.
*Capacity funding: Available for support at the local level to help with the detailed development and implementation of new proposals.
*Capital funding: The government will work with local partners to identify private sector funding options which could include bids into existing funding programmes which the government will facilitate.
*Freedoms and flexibilities: Any assistance with freedoms and flexibilities that may help with the development of garden cities are invited.

There is an ongoing invitation for the expression of interest with no fixed deadline via the Department for Communities and Local Government.

= Find out more =

=== Related articles on Designing Buildings Wiki. ===
*British post-war mass housing. 
*Changing lifestyles in the built environment.
*CIBSE Case Study: Garden City.
*Code for sustainable homes.
*Compact sustainable city.
*Creating strong communities – measuring social sustainability in new housing development.
*Eco Town.
*Green belt.
*Green deal.
*Home Quality Mark.
*Housing standards review.
*Lyons Housing Review.
*Masterplanning.
*Passivhaus.
*Smart cities.
*Terraced houses and the public realm.
*The compact sustainable city.
*Town and Country Planning Association.
*Urban design.
*Zero carbon homes.

=== External references ===
*[https://www.gov.uk/government/news/government-offers-support-for-locally-led-garden-cities Government offers support for locally-led garden cities].
*[https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/303324/20140414_Locally-led_Garden_Cities_final_signed.pdf Locally-led Garden Cities].
*[http://www.tcpa.org.uk/pages/garden-cities.html Town and Country Planning Association Garden Cities.]

[[Category:History]]
[[Category:Theory]]
[[Category:Policy]]
[[Category:Sustainability]]

Designing smart cities

2015-11-05T14:54:17Z

Urban Design Group:

= Introduction =

“The major challenges of the twenty first century include the rapid growth of many cities and the decline of others, the expansion of the informal sector, and the role of cities in causing or mitigating climate change. Evidence from around the world suggests that contemporary urban planning has largely failed to address these challenges.” [http://mirror.unhabitat.org/pmss/listItemDetails.aspx?publicationID=2831 Global Report on Human Settlements 2009, Planning Sustainable Cities] Foreword by Ban Ki-Moon Secretary General, United Nations

Over half of the planet's population now lives in cities. This figure is predicted to rise to more than 70% by the second half of the century, a figure made even more startling by the fact that the human population will have increased by two billion in the same time-frame.

[[File:Urbanisation.jpg|373x200px|alt=Urbanisation.jpg|link=http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=fuR9vZc9Pxw]]

= Definition =

“Smart cities” is defined in [http://shop.bsigroup.com/en/ProductDetail/?pid=000000000030298436 PAS 180: 2014 Smart Cities. Vocabulary] as '...the effective integration of physical, digital and human systems in the built environment to deliver a sustainable, prosperous and inclusive future for its citizens.'

Smart cities optimise the use of technology in the design and operation of infrastructure and buildings in a way which meets the current and future needs of their citizens. Truly smart cities should be about more than just harnessing technology; they require consideration of governance and growth, urban development and infrastructure, the environment and natural resources, society and community. (Ref Buro Happold:Defining and benchmarking SMART cities)

Some experts believe that the notion of smart cities has been overly driven by hi-tech companies. There are a number of reasons for this:
*The enthusiasm of high-tech companies to identify solutions that their own hardware and software can offer inefficient cities.
*Practitioners (architects, planners and especially engineers) failing to engage properly in the debate. Engineers are singled out here as the profession that historically has held the role of harnessing emergent science and technology to improve the environment.
*A lack of understanding at the municipal leadership level.

Given this situation and the belief by some that the planning, design and construction of future cities requires an integrated approach to achieve successful outcomes, alternative terminology has been suggested. The term 'The Living City' refers to an approach in which technology plays an important but nevertheless supporting role (Ref Buro Happold: [http://www.burohappold.com/thelivingcity/ The Living City]).

[[File:The living city.jpg|507x321px|alt=The living city.jpg]]

The relationship between Smart Cities and the Living City. Image courtesy Buro Happold.

= Background =

As communications networks and transport connections make the planet seem ever smaller, city ‘nodes’ are becoming our economic powerhouses; competing to attract global businesses, skilled employees and eager consumers. The basis of this competition is broad and includes: access to education and jobs, personal safety and security, effective healthcare, efficient transport, an attractive physical environment and vibrant communities.

Cities strive to differentiate themselves, developing brands that emphasise their economic, cultural, physical, and even climatic advantages. Cities can enhance their desirability, and so their economic success, by the efficient design and management of core services and infrastructure as well as by enhancing their physical appearance.

While some cities in this global competition face problems arising from population shrinkage, as residents and businesses are enticed away to find better opportunities elsewhere, many more are growing too rapidly for their infrastructure and services to cope. City authorities are being stretched to breaking point simply meeting basic requirements for clean water, adequate waste treatment and the supply of energy and food.

There is broad agreement that densely populated urban areas should be more sustainable than less concentrated rural settlements. However, whilst around 50% of the global population lives in cities, they account for more than 75% of the consumption of non-renewable resources, and create around three quarters of global pollution.

Creating successful cities that begin to mitigate some of these impacts is a balance between social, environmental and economic opportunities delivered through smart planning, design and construction, and underpinned by smart technology.

[[File:Jeddah 2030 plan.jpg|379x220px|alt=Jeddah 2030 plan.jpg]]

Jeddah 2030 Plan. Image: Happold Consulting

= Governance and Growth =

Creating smart cities is a complex, long-term process, and its success depends on a sustained commitment to a clear course of action:
*Unified leadership.
*A clear inspirational vision.
*A set of well-defined strategies and objectives.
*The creation of an appropriate and acceptable governance model.
*The development of a business case and economic appraisals to assess the impacts of development.
*A clear understanding of urban development, transport and infrastructure strategies and regeneration models.
*A thorough grasp of how technology can be integrated across city functions and departments to create new synergies and insights.
*An appreciation of current and emerging best practice in the use of smart systems in services, infrastructure, and buildings.
*An appreciation of context and an understanding of the interests of stakeholders, local culture and customs can have a big influence on what is acceptable.
*An understanding of the ownership, safety, security and use of data as well as funding models for new infrastructure.

Strategies for smart cities should include:
*Clear communication
*A unifying vision through the whole life cycle.
*Integration with policies and governance structure.
*Clear holistic understanding of how data is transferred and captured between technologies and systems and how it is used by decision makers.

= Urban development and infrastructure =

Design teams must operate across the complete project lifecycle, from assessing the physical opportunities and constraints of a site and considering the viability of different development options, to working with planners and developers to design and build the best solution.

From urban regeneration projects to creating new cities, an integrated, multi-disciplinary approach is required to ensure that all aspects of civil engineering and environmental planning are covered:
*Ground conditions.
*Flood risk.
*Energy.
*Utilities infrastructure and strategies.
*Waste infrastructure and strategies.
*Transport and access.
*Assessments of environmental impacts, and how they can be minimised.

At present, many smart systems, or smart grids linked to infrastructure, operate in functional silos, with their own specific hardware and software, operated by companies with specialist knowledge of that particular field. Each system has its own dedicated controls and networks of sensors.

Ideally a single, 'smart', shared control system would not only avoid duplication – with significant cost savings – but also provide a far richer picture of what is happening; enabling more informed decision-making and more rapid deployment of measures to deal with emerging situations. This concept has given rise to the notion of an ‘urban operating system’ (ref Living PlanIT: Urban Operating System), something akin to the operating systems utilised by the computer industry and involving a layer of ‘middleware’ which sits between the city infrastructure ‘hardware’ and the operational ‘software’ controls and (in the future) City Apps.

There are a number of problems associated with the integration of individual functionally-focused systems, including the lack of common interfaces and operating systems and the ability to cope with the vast amount of data generated. However, technology businesses are alive to the potential and a number are attempting to develop integrated city or urban operating systems that aim to take advantage of enhanced, intelligent, machine-2-machine connectivity. It is clear that open IT architecture with standard interface protocols and the ability to plug ‘n’ play new applications and hardware will make it much easier to link systems as well as opening the market to new entrants with valuable fresh thinking.

At present there are still very few working examples of city wide smart ICT approaches. But despite this, advances in ICT are already making a significant contribution to city efficiency, including; traffic management, building and campus management systems and the provision of utilities.

= Environment and natural resources =

Natural resources are being depleted at an alarming rate. The arrival of ‘peak oil’, which some say is imminent, will push the costs of fuel and other carbon-based products to much higher levels, increasing transport costs, damaging existing logistics chains and economic models and preventing developing countries from achieving levels of prosperity and opportunity comparable to the developed countries.

At the same time, the exploitation of the remaining oil stocks means that carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases will continue to be pumped into the atmosphere. The damage to the earth’s atmosphere that these emissions are causing has been demonstrated by the increasing volatility of weather patterns causing droughts, floods, unseasonal temperature changes and great ranges of wind speeds. Some authorities suggest that managing the global average temperature rise to less than two degrees is already a lost cause (red Doha [http://unfccc.int/meetings/doha_nov_2012/meeting/6815.php Climate Change Conference] - November 2012).

It is incumbent on all those working in the built environment to stop this spiral of resource depletion and waste production and to begin to repair some of the damage:
*Identifying approaches to urban development that reduce resource inputs and reduce waste outputs.
*Designing buildings and neighbourhoods that consume fewer resources.
*Optimising generation processes and distribution networks.
*Introducing renewable energy sources.
*Designing buildings and neighbourhoods to re-use or recycle the by-products of heat and recycle water.
*Using smart technology to create efficient buildings.
*Adopting Integrated Systems Engineering.
*Ensuring demand and supply side matching.

Greater environmental efficiencies and a more sustainable approach may be achieved by adopting development in a more consistent manner. One such initiative entitled ‘Mean Lean Green’, is designed to establish a cost effective and logical process to improve the sustainability of development and to begin to achieve meaningful reductions in carbon and water footprints.

To be fully effective, any such approach requires more work in a number of key areas and a broader framework to operate within. Whether it is compliance with good development policy or self-regulation to achieve corporate governance targets, there is a need to monitor actual outputs, encourage ongoing improvements and adjust behaviours. At each point in this integrated approach, there is the opportunity to introduce technologies in key enabling roles – in sensing, monitoring, data storage, control and management, in analysis, self learning and through machine-to-machine interfaces.

= Society and community =

[[File:Detroit works project.jpg|375x301px|alt=Detroit works project.jpg]]

Already 3.5 billion people – that is 50% of the global population - live in cities, and that figure is set to rise by a further two to two and a half billion over the next 25 years. To accommodate these numbers, we will need to build ten cities the size of London every year.

The primary driver for this ‘urbanisation’ is economic opportunity, but there are other factors at play, including:
*Access to better education.
*Access to health facilities.
*Greater communal safety.
*Greater individual self-expression.
*Improved accessibility.
*Improved mobility.

Whilst the move to cities may be thought to improve the personal situations of those moving, it can place great stresses on other individuals, their communities and the wider society. This can be seen in the growing gap between the wealthy and the poor, by the growth of ghettos and shanty towns, by marginalisation of individuals and groups, by lower levels of educational attainment, and by the increase in many urban areas of crime, disease, and mortality rates.

Cities must aspire to broaden access to lifestyles that provide a common level of education, training and employment, to improve the quality of the environment and so improve health and well-being, and to provide safety and security.

It is also important to capture the benefits of urban living, where scale and density should make it easier to deliver smart, technology-based progress, and share them with more isolated communities. In the field of education, free software in open-source format and free, online tutorials are already giving wider access quality teaching and delivering higher standards.

The focus on design to improve mobility is achieving significant and necessary improvements in lifestyles and health. The growth in access to data and improved communications will also provide the opportunity for citizens to interact with one and another with more efficiency and will establish greater transparency between them and those who manage cities on their behalf.

= Looking forward =

Urbanisation presents something of a dichotomy – the city should be the most sustainable model for large human populations, and yet cities account for three-quarters of the global carbon footprint. With climate change threatening many cities through rising sea levels, increasingly volatile weather patterns and diminishing resources, the governments of both developed and developing countries face the demand not only for improved social conditions and better economic prospects, but also, greater resilience and more environmentally-sound city forms.

The need to ensure that cities are sustainable, energy efficient and low impact is placing increasing emphasis on the provision of accurate, accountable and objective professional advice. There is a need to create ‘layers of smartness’, not just resource efficiency but health, economic stability, a sense of shared community and an ability to adapt to future challenges. And beyond this, to link these layers to harness data to enhance efficiencies of city operations and urban living even more.

The smart city approach ranges from a complete city solution covering infrastructure, transport, governance, business, economic and land use planning and digital masterplanning to individual projects whether building, campus, district or public realm. The common thread is an acute understanding of how professional services are interrelated, bringing them together to work most effectively whilst at the same time creating greater opportunity for efficiencies through the application of technology.

Capital costs and return on investment will become increasingly important aspects of decision making in city governance. Quantifying the revenue generated by infrastructure starts to adjust the economics of investment choices and has the potential to bring about a major step change in city performance. A great example of this is the [http://www.thehighline.org/ High Line project in New York] where one project has transformed a blighted area of the city and has been the catalyst for $2bn of private investment, adding thousands of new residential units, thousands of new jobs, a thousand new hotel rooms, new restaurants, galleries and shops.

Whilst this begins to hint at a new way of approaching urban development, there are a number of challenges that need to be addressed if genuine progress is to be made:
*What types of governance models are appropriate for smart cities and how do you measure their success?
*Who funds the investment required to enable smart cities to be created and how does the funder derive returns on that investment?
*What guarantees are there for the security and safety of smart networks?
*How do we use an integrated systems approach to deliver the most from smart grids?
*Who owns the data accumulated by smart grids and networks?
*How do systems adapt to the vagaries of human behaviour and still deliver the promise of very high efficiencies?

Urbanisation is happening at an unprecedented rate and will affect us all no matter where we live. If we collaborate, and view these challenges as opportunities, smart city solutions may offer us a way forward.

----

This article was created by --[[User%3ABuro%20Happold|Buro Happold]] 19/2/2013

A note from the authors:

''Smart Cities is an arena of topicality and no little importance. With the demographic shifts taking place globally, the impact of climate change and the volatility of resource demand and production, the need for a focus on the planning, design and delivery of sustainable urban development has never been so great. The appropriate application of emerging technologies offers some hope of achieving greater efficiencies in the way cities operate and citizens live their lives. But too often the focus of the debate is lost. Technology and ‘smartness’ needs to be taken in context – they are another layer to help improve the sustainability of projects, not the answer in themselves. Buro Happold takes the position that first and foremost, urban development needs skilled and experienced teams to promote an effective business case allied to first class planning and design as a prerequisite to creating successful urban space. We call this approach [http://www.burohappold.com/thelivingcity/ The Living City]. ''
*''Andrew Comer , Partner and Director of Environment+Infrastructure, Buro Happold (andrew.comer@burohappold.com)''
*''Robert Moyser , Associate Director, Environment+Infrastructure, Buro Happold (robert.moyser@burohappold.com)''

= Find out more =

=== Related articles on Designing Buildings Wiki ===
*Access and inclusion in the built environment: policy and guidance.
*Big data.
*Brownfield land.
*Changing lifestyles.
*City Beautiful.
*Cities as systems - BRE Solutions for urban environments.
*Compact sustainable city.
*Eco towns.
*Engineering Smart Cities.
*European connected and smart home market.
*Garden cities.
*Green belt.
*Inclusive design.
*Information and communications technology.
*Infrastructure.
*Internet of things.
*Living in the hyperreal Post-Modern city.
*Masterplanning.
*Mean lean green.
*Neighbourhood planning.
*Open data.
*PAS 180:2014 Smart cities – Vocabulary.
*PAS 181:2014 Smart city Framework. Guide to establishing strategies for smart.
*PAS 182 Smart city data concept model.
*Public space.
*Smart buildings.
*Smart cities design timeframe.
*Smart construction.
*Smart technology.
*Sustainable development.
*Sustainability.
*Urban design.

=== External references ===
*Living PlanIT: Urban Operating System
*Buro Happold: [http://www.burohappold.com/thelivingcity/ The Living City].
*[http://mirror.unhabitat.org/pmss/listItemDetails.aspx?publicationID=2831 Global Report on Human Settlements 2009, Planning Sustainable Cities] Foreword by Ban Ki-Moon Secretary General, United Nations.
*Doha [http://unfccc.int/meetings/doha_nov_2012/meeting/6815.php Climate Change Conference] - November 2012.
*[http://www.thehighline.org/ High Line project in New York].
*YouTube: [http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=fuR9vZc9Pxw Urbanisation].
*Buro Happold: Defining and benchmarking SMART cities.
*Buro Happold: [http://www.burohappold.com/thelivingcity/ The Living City].
*The Edge Debate: [http://www.edgedebate.com/?p=1819 How scary is smart]?
*Buro Happold: [http://www.burohappold.com/blog/post/the-living-city-systems-methodology-2316/ The Living City; systems methodology]. 2013.

[[Category:Theory]]
[[Category:Sustainability]]
[[Category:Client_procedures]]
[[Category:Cost_/_business_planning]]
[[Category:Public_procedures]]

Built environment

2015-11-05T14:53:48Z

Urban Design Group:

To help develop this article, click Edit this article above.

----

The term ‘built environment’ refers to aspects of our surroundings that are built by humans, that is, distinguished from the natural environment. It includes not only buildings, but the human-made spaces between buildings, such as parks, and the infrastructure that supports human activity such as transportation networks, utilities networks, flood defences, telecommunications and so on.

The [http://cic.org.uk/services/all-party-parliamentary-group.php Construction Industry Council] (CIC) suggest that the built environment, '...encompasses all forms of building (housing, industrial, commercial, hospitals, schools, etc.), and civil engineering infrastructure, both above and below ground and includes the managed landscapes between and around buildings.'

'Built environment' can be a useful term, as other descriptions such as; ‘buildings’, ’civil engineering’, ‘construction’ and so on do not fully capture the extent of our human-made environment, and separating the subject into its component disciplines fragments what should be considered a holistic endeavour. However the term itself is not widely used and is easily misunderstood.

As the population increases, and there is greater pressure for sustainable development, the requirements we have from the built environment are becoming more demanding. Over half the planet's population now lives in cities and this figure is predicted to rise to more than 70% by the second half of the century, a figure made even more startling by the fact that the human population will have increased by two billion in the same time-frame.

There is broad agreement that densely populated urban areas should be more sustainable than less concentrated rural settlements. However, whilst around 50% of the global population lives in cities, they account for more than 75% of the consumption of non-renewable resources, and create around three quarters of global pollution.

In part, this is because it is not always clear who is responsible for the built environment. It is an interdisciplinary field, with involvement form architects, engineers, town planners, landscape designers, urban designers, central and local policy makers and so on, but there is often an absence of leadership. It can seem that our built environment simply develops organically, through the constant turnover of stand-alone developments.

In his foreword to the [http://mirror.unhabitat.org/pmss/listItemDetails.aspx?publicationID=2831 Global Report on Human Settlements 2009, Planning Sustainable Cities] Ban Ki-Moon, Secretary General of the United Nations wrote, “The major challenges of the twenty first century include the rapid growth of many cities and the decline of others, the expansion of the informal sector, and the role of cities in causing or mitigating climate change. Evidence from around the world suggests that contemporary urban planning has largely failed to address these challenges.”

Effective development of the built environment depends on a sustained commitment to a clear course of action over the short, medium and long term:
*Unified leadership.
*A clear inspirational vision.
*A set of well-defined strategies and objectives.
*Clear communication
*The creation of an appropriate and acceptable governance model.
*The development of a business case and economic appraisals to assess the impacts of development.
*A clear understanding of urban development, transport and infrastructure strategies and regeneration models.
*A thorough grasp of how technology can be integrated into our built environment.
*An appreciation of current and emerging best practice in the use of smart systems in services, infrastructure, and buildings.
*An appreciation of context and an understanding of the interests of stakeholders, local culture and customs.
*An understanding of the ownership, safety, security and use of data as well as funding models for new infrastructure.

= Find out more: =

=== Related articles on Designing Buildings Wiki ===
*Architecture.
*Engineer.
*Government Construction Strategy.
*Infrastructure.
*Infrastructure UK.
*Masterplanning.
*Open data.
*Placemaking.
*Smart cities.
*Urban design.

[[Category:Theory]]

Architecture

2015-11-05T14:53:24Z

Urban Design Group:

To help develop this article, click 'Edit this article' above and start typing.

= Introduction =

Architecture is both the process and product of planning, designing and construction.

'Architecture' can mean:
*Buildings and other physical structures.
*The style of buildings and other physical structures.
*The method of constructing buildings and other physical structures.
*The practice of the architect.

Architecture as ‘the practice of the architect’ refers to planning, designing and constructing form, space and ambience. It extends from urban design and masterplanning to building design, the design of individual spaces and even fixtures and fittings. It also includes the pragmatic aspects of realising buildings and structures, including programming, procurement and contract administration.

The term ‘architecture’ is also commonly used to describe the process of designing any kind of system, and is commonly used in describing information technology.

= Origins =

Buildings first evolved from a need to satisfy the human needs of shelter, security, worship, and so on. The way that these needs were satisfied using the available materials, space and skills gave rise to a wide range of building techniques and [http://www.designingbuildings.co.uk/wiki/Styles Styles].

The origins of human-made shelters can be traced back over 40,000 years to the ice age and the Siberian Steppe, where remains have been found of simple shelters constructed from animal skins draped between sticks. It is likely that structures of this type were the first dwellings constructed by humans.

These ‘tented’ structures thrived in regions where materials were scarce, or where survival required mobility; both conditions which tended to be brought about by low rainfall. Changing climates brought about a slow transition from nomadic tents to permanent huts and vice versa, and it was from the resultant process of intermediate modification that an enormous range of composite dwellings evolved.

Some of these basic generic forms of structure are still used in remarkably un-changed forms throughout the world today, for example; the black tent, the mud brick hut and the yurt (a composite structure still in common use in Mongolia).

It was through the maintenance and personalisation of these early structures, that decoration was introduced, and they became more than purely functional shelters. As cultures developed and knowledge was formalised, the process of building became a craft and vernacular “[http://www.designingbuildings.co.uk/wiki/Architecture Architecture]” emerged.

See architectural styles for more information.

= Architects =

The term 'architect' has been in existence for many centuries, however the architect as its own recognised profession is a relatively modern concept dating back to the mid 16th century, from the French architecte and Italian architetto (originating from the Greek arkhitektōn, where arkhi means 'chief' and tektōn 'builder'). The term and what it represents has evolved through history to its current form in which architects are seen as highly qualified and educated professionals.

See The architectural profession for more information.

= Training. =

The most common route into the architectural profession in Britain today (almost 96%) is through university study which is broken down into: 
*Part 1 – Honours degree in architecture.
*1 year out in practice under the guidance of an architect and monitored and recorded in line with RIBA requirements.
*Part 2 - Masters, Diploma or BArch (depending on individual school) taught in university for 2 to 3 years.
*A further monitored and recorded year in practice.
*Part 3 - the RIBA final exam.

See architectural training for more information

= Regulation =

Although buildings in the UK are commonly designed by people who are not architects, the term ‘architect’ itself is protected by the [http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1997/22/contents Architects Act] 1997 which established the [http://www.arb.org.uk/ Architects Registration Board] (ARB). Only qualified individuals that are registered with the ARB can offer their services as architects. Section 20 of the Architects Act states that 'A person shall not practise or carry on business under any name style or title containing the word “architect” unless he is a person registered under this Act'.

The ARB has responsibility for:
*Recognising qualifications.
*Maintaining a list of registered architects and ensuring that people not on the list do not offer their services as an architect.
*Monitoring standards and investigating complaints.

ARB issues a code of conduct for architects and can take action against those falling short of the code’s standards.

Architects can also become chartered members of the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA), but this is voluntary and not necessary to practice as an architect.

See The architectural profession for more information.

The ARB code states that architects ‘are expected to keep (their) knowledge and skills relevant to (their) professional work up to date and be aware of the content of guidelines issued by the Board (ARB)...’ The RIBA has developed a curriculum for continuing professional development (CPD), and it is considered that anyone satisfying the RIBA’s requirements is likely to satisfy the ARB that they have maintained their competence.

The ARB code also required that architects maintain 'adequate and appropriate' professional indemnity insurance (PIII). The level of PII required will vary considerably depending on the role of the individual and the size and nature of the projects they undertake, however, ARB state that ‘in any event an architect is expected to hold a limit of indemnity of no less than £250,000’.

= Design process =

Architecture is a team-working process and rarely a lone activity. There is always a client and there is always an interpreter of that client’s needs. The relationship between client and architect is fundamental, and the establishment of a professional and trusting relationship between the two is the bedrock of every successful project. Creating architecture involves art and beauty, science and engineering, values and beliefs, friendship and team-working. It is one of life’s rewarding activities, bringing together a wide range of personalities, skills and expertise. It is an adventure for the client, the architect and their team. It is important to place that adventure within a sound organisational and contractual context so that procedural complications do not derail the principal activity. A simple, clear, legally-defined understanding of what is involved will benefit the whole process, avoid conflict and help clarify the interrelationships and responsibilities of all the partners involved in commissioning, designing and building a project, large or small. Architectural services can be procured by a multitude of routes, however, they generally involve certain core activities:
*Receiving and understanding the brief, agreeing how to proceed and gathering data.
*Feasibility and assessment.
*Concept design / outline design.
*Design development.
*Construction data
*Construction procurement.
*Inspection.
*Post-occupancy evaluation

See Concept architectural design for more information.

= Find out more =

=== Related articles on Designing Buildings Wiki ===
*Appointing consultants.
*Architect.
*Architect's fees.
*Architectural styles.
*Architectural training.
*Concept architectural design.
*Consultant team.
*Design liability.
*Lead designer.
*Professional indemnity insurance.
*The architectural profession.
*Urban design.

=== External references ===
*[http://www.arb.org.uk/ Architects Registration Board].
*[http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1997/22/contents Architects Act.]

[[Category:History]]
[[Category:Theory]]
[[Category:Design]]
[[Category:Products_/_components]]
[[Category:Roles_/_services]]

Urban design

2015-11-05T14:51:53Z

Urban Design Group:

Urban design is the collaborative and multi-disciplinary process of shaping the physical setting for life in cities, towns and villages; the art of making places; design in an urban context. Urban design involves the design of buildings, groups of buildings, spaces and landscapes, and the establishment of frameworks and processes that facilitate successful development.

Peter Webber defines urban design as 'the process of moulding the form of the city through time'. Jerry Spencer has described it as 'creating the theatre of public life'. To Carmona, Heath, Oc and Tiesdell it is 'the process of making better places for people than would otherwise be produced'. The urban designer Doug Paterson has defined urban design as 'merging civitas and the urbs: building the values and ideals of a civilized place into the structure of a city'. Peter Batchelor and David Lewis define urban design as 'design in an urban context'. 

They use the word design 'not in its traditional narrow sense, but in a much broader way. Economic projections, packaging new developments, negotiating public/private financial partnerships, setting up guidelines and standards for historic revitalisation, forming non-profit corporations that combine citizens with public and private sector financing resources, all are considered as design.'

In the words of the writer and critic Peter Buchanan: 'Urban design is about how to recapture certain of the qualities (qualities which we experience as well as those we see) that we associate with the traditional city: a sense of order, place, continuity, richness of experience, completeness and belonging. Urban design lies somewhere between the broad-brush abstractions of planning and the concrete specifics of architecture. It implies a notion of citizenship: life in the public realm. It is not just about space, but time as well. Much of what passes for urban design is conceived only for one moment. Good urban design is more than just knitting together the townscape. Urban designers should be configuring a rich network in which buildings come and go: a framework of transport, built fabric and other features, which will create natural locations for things. Urban design structures activities.'

Buchanan has written that 'urban design is concerned with analysing, organising and shaping urban form so as to elaborate as richly and as coherently as possible the lived experience of the inhabitants. In essence it is about the interdependence and mutual development of both city and citizen. And at its core is the recognition that, just as the citizen is both biological organism and self-consciously acculturated persona, so the city too is an organism shaped by powerful intrinsic, almost natural, forces (that must be understood and respected in any successful intervention) and a wilfully, even self-consciously, created cultural artefact. Interventions of the creative will have always guided the city's growth and change, elaborated its identity in many ways large and small as well as conceived and realised those crowning glories that make great cities so special. 

Urban design is essentially about place making, where place is not just a specific space, but all the activities and events that it makes possible. As a consequence the whole city is enriched. Instead of a city fragmented into islands of no place and anywhere, it remains a seamlessly meshed and richly varied whole. In such a city, daily life is not reduced to a dialectic between city centre and one of the similar suburbs: instead the citizen is encouraged to avail himself of the whole city, to enjoy all its various parts and so enrich his experience and education (become street-wise) in the ways only real urban life allows.'

Some urban designers define urban design as 'the design of the spaces between buildings', presumably to distinguish it from architecture, which they define as the design of the buildings themselves. This definition excludes urban design's proper concern with the structure of a place; it ignores the fact that to a significant extent the characteristics of the spaces between buildings are determined by the buildings themselves; and it encourages architects in any tendency they may have to ignore the context in which they are designing. The question of where urban design should or does fit into the landscape of urban professions -- whether it should be regarded as a distinct profession itself, or as a way of thinking, or as common ground between a number of professions or between a wide range of people involved in urban change, for example -- is widely discussed.

Barry Young has suggested one set of stages for the urban design process. These are: 

*Define physical design principles. 
*Identify performance criteria. 
*Develop design options. 
*Evaluate the options in terms of design principles and performance criteria. 
*Develop the preferred option.

Abercrombie and Forshaw wrote in their 1943 County of London Plan of the 'low level of urban design' in pre-war London. Urban design was being discussed in the American planning profession in the 1950s. What is generally said to have been the first urban design conference was held at Harvard University's Graduate School of Design in 1956, its participants including Lewis Mumford, Jane Jacobs, Victor Gruen And Edmund Bacon. Its organiser, Jose Luis Sert, announced urban design as a new academic field, which he defined as 'the part of planning concerned with the physical form of the city'. 

The first university course in urban design was established at Harvard in 1960. Lewis Mumford wrote in 1957 from the USA accusing FJ Osborn (in a letter to him) of identifying new towns with 'only one kind of urban design'. In 1959 the American Institute of Planners' policy statement on urban renewal stated: 'Renewal offers an opportunity to secure superior urban design when relatively large areas of land are improved under coordinated design leadership, and relatively uniform site and building controls'.

The American Institute of Architecture established a Committee on Urban Design in 1960 and it published Paul D Spreiregen's book Urban Design: the architecture of cities and towns in 1965. The Joint Centre for Urban Design at Oxford Polytechnic (later Oxford Brookes University) was established in 1972. The UK Urban Design Group was formed in 1978. Punter and Carmona note that in the UK the term urban design 'had been conspicuous by its absence' in government publications and guidance until the publication of John Gummer's Quality in Town and Country in 1994.

The Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions gave a definition (in Planning Policy Guidance Note 1) that was broad in describing what urban design covered but, despite its length, said little about what sort of activity urban design was. Urban design, said PPG1, was 'the relationship between different buildings; the relationships between buildings and the streets, squares, parks, waterways and other spaces which make up the public realm; the relationship of one part of a village, town or city with other parts; patterns of movement and activity which are thereby established; in short, the complex relationship between all the elements of built and unbuilt space.'

This article was written by --[[User:Urban_Design_Group|User:Urban_Design_Group]]

= Find out more =

'''Related articles on Designing Buildings Wiki '''
*Architecture.
*Built environment.
*Designing smart cities.
*Garden cities.
*Public space.
*The compact sustainable city.
*Ventilation.

'''External references'''
*Urban Design Group

[[Category:Theory]]

Urban design

2015-11-05T14:36:46Z

Urban Design Group: Created page with " Urban design is the collaborative and multi-disciplinary process of shaping the physical setting for life in cities, towns and villages; the art of making places; design in an u..."

Urban design is the collaborative and multi-disciplinary process of shaping the physical setting for life in cities, towns and villages; the art of making places; design in an urban context. Urban design involves the design of buildings, groups of buildings, spaces and landscapes, and the establishment of frameworks and processes that facilitate successful development.
Peter Webber defines urban design as 'the process of moulding the form of the city through time'. Jerry Spencer has described it as 'creating the theatre of public life'. To Carmona, Heath, Oc and Tiesdell it is 'the process of making better places for people than would otherwise be produced'. The urban designer Doug Paterson has defined urban design as 'merging civitas and the urbs: building the values and ideals of a civilized place into the structure of a city'. Peter Batchelor and David Lewis define urban design as 'design in an urban context'. They use the word design 'not in its traditional narrow sense, but in a much broader way. Economic projections, packaging new developments, negotiating public/private financial partnerships, setting up guidelines and standards for historic revitalisation, forming non-profit corporations that combine citizens with public and private sector financing resources, all are considered as design.'In the words of the writer and critic Peter Buchanan: 'Urban design is about how to recapture certain of the qualities (qualities which we experience as well as those we see) that we associate with the traditional city: a sense of order, place, continuity, richness of experience, completeness and belonging. Urban design lies somewhere between the broad-brush abstractions of planning and the concrete specifics of architecture. It implies a notion of citizenship: life in the public realm. It is not just about space, but time as well. Much of what passes for urban design is conceived only for one moment. Good urban design is more than just knitting together the townscape. Urban designers should be configuring a rich network in which buildings come and go: a framework of transport, built fabric and other features, which will create natural locations for things. Urban design structures activities.'Buchanan has written that 'urban design is concerned with analysing, organising and shaping urban form so as to elaborate as richly and as coherently as possible the lived experience of the inhabitants. In essence it is about the interdependence and mutual development of both city and citizen. And at its core is the recognition that, just as the citizen is both biological organism and self-consciously acculturated persona, so the city too is an organism shaped by powerful intrinsic, almost natural, forces (that must be understood and respected in any successful intervention) and a wilfully, even self-consciously, created cultural artefact. Interventions of the creative will have always guided the city's growth and change, elaborated its identity in many ways large and small as well as conceived and realised those crowning glories that make great cities so special. Urban design is essentially about place making, where place is not just a specific space, but all the activities and events that it makes possible. As a consequence the whole city is enriched. Instead of a city fragmented into islands of no place and anywhere, it remains a seamlessly meshed and richly varied whole. In such a city, daily life is not reduced to a dialectic between city centre and one of the similar suburbs: instead the citizen is encouraged to avail himself of the whole city, to enjoy all its various parts and so enrich his experience and education (become street-wise) in the ways only real urban life allows.'Some urban designers define urban design as 'the design of the spaces between buildings', presumably to distinguish it from architecture, which they define as the design of the buildings themselves. This definition excludes urban design's proper concern with the structure of a place; it ignores the fact that to a significant extent the characteristics of the spaces between buildings are determined by the buildings themselves; and it encourages architects in any tendency they may have to ignore the context in which they are designing. The question of where urban design should or does fit into the landscape of urban professions -- whether it should be regarded as a distinct profession itself, or as a way of thinking, or as common ground between a number of professions or between a wide range of people involved in urban change, for example -- is widely discussed.Barry Young has suggested one set of stages for the urban design process. These are: *Define physical design principles. 
*Identify performance criteria. 
*Develop design options. 
*Evaluate the options in terms of design principles and performance criteria. 
*Develop the preferred option.
Abercrombie and Forshaw wrote in their 1943 County of London Plan of the 'low level of urban design' in pre-war London. Urban design was being discussed in the American planning profession in the 1950s. What is generally said to have been the first urban design conference was held at Harvard University's Graduate School of Design in 1956, its participants including Lewis Mumford, Jane Jacobs, Victor Gruen And Edmund Bacon. Its organiser, Jose Luis Sert, announced urban design as a new academic field, which he defined as 'the part of planning concerned with the physical form of the city'. The first university course in urban design was established at Harvard in 1960. Lewis Mumford wrote in 1957 from the USA accusing FJ Osborn (in a letter to him) of identifying new towns with 'only one kind of urban design'. In 1959 the American Institute of Planners' policy statement on urban renewal stated: 'Renewal offers an opportunity to secure superior urban design when relatively large areas of land are improved under coordinated design leadership, and relatively uniform site and building controls'.The American Institute of Architecture established a Committee on Urban Design in 1960 and it published Paul D Spreiregen's book Urban Design: the architecture of cities and towns in 1965. The Joint Centre for Urban Design at Oxford Polytechnic (later Oxford Brookes University) was established in 1972. The UK Urban Design Group was formed in 1978. Punter and Carmona note that in the UK the term urban design 'had been conspicuous by its absence' in government publications and guidance until the publication of John Gummer's Quality in Town and Country in 1994.The Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions gave a definition (in Planning Policy Guidance Note 1) that was broad in describing what urban design covered but, despite its length, said little about what sort of activity urban design was. Urban design, said PPG1, was 'the relationship between different buildings; the relationships between buildings and the streets, squares, parks, waterways and other spaces which make up the public realm; the relationship of one part of a village, town or city with other parts; patterns of movement and activity which are thereby established; in short, the complex relationship between all the elements of built and unbuilt space.' 

[[Category:Theory]]