� 2138255 Matthew Carmona 1111111111111111111111111 Tim Heath Taner Oc Steve Tiesdell

PU

LJRBAN SPA

I I •

The Dimensions of Urban Design lrAroo

PUBLIC PLACES - URBAN SPACES

The Dimensions of Urban Design

Matthew Carmona, Tim Heath, Toner Oc and Steven Tiesdell

Architectural Press

AMSTERDAM BOSTON HEIDELBERG LONDON NEW YORK OXFORD PARIS SAN DIEGO SAN FRANCISCO SINGAPORE SYDNEY TOKYO An imprint of Elsevier ArchitecturalLinacre House, Press jordan Hill, Oxford OX2 8DP 200 Wheeler Road, Burlington MA 01803

First published 2003 Reprinted 2003

Copyright 2003, M. Carmona, T. Heath, T. Oc, Tiesdell. All rights reserved

The right of© M. Carmona, T. Heath, T. Oc and Tiesdell5. to be identified as the authors of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 5. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any material form (including photocopying or storing in any medium by electronic means and whether or not transiently or incidentally to some other use of this publication) without the written permission of the copyright holder except in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 or under the terms of a licence issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency Ltd, 90 Tottenham Court Road, London, England WlT 4LP. Applications for the copyright holder's written permission to reproduce any part of this publication should be addressed to the publishers

Permissions may be sought directly from Elsevier's Science and Technology Rights Department in Oxford, phone: (+44) (0) 1865 843830; fax: (+44) (0) 1865 853333; e-mail: [email protected]. You may also complete your request on-line via the Elsevier homepage (http://www.elsevier.com),UK: by selecting 'Customer Support' and then 'Obtaining Permissions'.

Public places - urban spaces: the dimensions of urban design British1. City Library planning Cataloguing in Publication Data I. Carmona, Matthew II. Heath, Tim Ill. Oc, Tanner IV. Tiesdell, Steven 711

A catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data ISBN 0 7506 36327

For information on all Architectural Press publications visit our website at www.architecturalpress.com

Composition by Scribe Design, Gillingham, Kent, UK Printed and bound in Great Britain Contents

Acknowledgements iv Preface v

PART 1: THE CONTEXT FOR URBAN DESIGN 1 Urban design today 3 2 Urban change 20 3 Contexts for urban design 36

PART II: THE DIMENSIONS OF· URBAN DESIGN 4 The morphological dimension 61 5 The perceptual dimen.sion 87 6 The social dimension 106 7 The visual dimension 130 8 The functional dimension 165 9 The temporal dimension 193

PART Ill: IMPLEMENTING URBAN DESIGN 1 0 The development process 213 11 The control process 237 12 The communication process 263 1 3 Holistic urban design 283

Bibliography 291 Index 305 Acknowledgements

We would like to thank the many people who have for all her help with editing the final text, and last helped us in bringing this book to publication. but not least our students (past and present) at Foremost among them are: University College London, and the Universities of Nottingham, Aberdeen and Sheffield. john Henneberry for his valuable comments and positive suggestions on an early draft of what We are grateful to those who have given permis­ became Chapter 1 0. Bob Jarvis for his helpful and sion for illustrations to be reproduced. Sources of supportive comments on a draft version of this these are acknowledged in the captions. book. jim Livingston, Alison Sandison, David Chapman, Elisebete Cidre and Steven Thornton­ All photographic and other non-referenced illus­ jones for their work on the illustrations. Alison trations supplied by Matthew Carmona and Yates, Liz Whiting and Colleagues at the Architec­ Steven Tiesdell. tural Press for their patience. Margaret Downing Preface

This book provides an exposition of the different, The motivation but intimately related, dimensions of urban design. It takes a holistic approach, which neither focuses The genesis of this book came from two distinct on a limited checklist of urban design qualities nor sources. First, from a period during the 1990s when - it is hoped - excludes important areas. By this the authors worked together at the University of means, it provides a comprehensive overview both Nottingham on an innovative undergraduate urban for those new to the subject and those requiring a planning programme. Its primary motivation was a general guide. The structure is easily accessible, strong - and, in hindsight, we believe correct - with self-contained and well cross-referenced conviction that, by teaching urban design at the sections and chapters. This enables readers to dip core of an interdisciplinary, creative, problem-solv­ in for specific information, while the incremental ing discipline, planning (and other) students would layering of concepts aids those reading the book have a superior and more valuable learning expNi­ cover to cover. ence, which would -in turn - provide a better foun­ Urban design is also treated as a design process dation for their future careers. Although in many in which, as in any such process, there are no schools of planning, urban design is figuratively put 'right' or 'wrong' answers - there are only 'better' into a 'box' and taught by the school's only urban and 'worse' ones, the quality of which may only design 'specialist', our contention was that urban be known in time. It is necessary, therefore, to design awareness and sensibility should inform all - have a continually questioning and inquisitive or, at least, most - parts of the curriculum. The approach to the subject, rather than a dogmatic same may be considered to be true of schools of view. The book does not, therefore, seek to architecture and surveying. Second, there was a produce a 'new' theory of urban design in a need to prepare undergraduate lecture courses prescriptive fashion and, hence, no formulaic presenting ideas, principles, and concepts of the 'solution' iis offered. There is, nevertheless, a subject to support the programme's design studio broad belief in - and attitude to - urban design as teaching. Although many excellent books existed,, it an important part of urban development, soon became apparent that none drew from the full renewal, management, planning and conserva­ range of urban design thought. The writing of these tion processes. courses generated the idea for the book, and Synthesising and integrating idea:>, theories, provided its overall structure. etc., from a wide range of sources, the book is embedded in a comprehensive reading of existing literature and research. It also draws on the The structure authors' experience in teaching, researching and writing about urban design in schools of plan­ The book is in three main parts. It begins with a ning, architecture and surveying. broad discussion of the context within which urban vi Preface design takes place. In Chapter 1, the challenge for making better places than would otherwise be 'urban design' and for the 'urban designer' - a produced. This is - unashamedly and unapologeti­ term used throughout the book in its broadest cally - a normative contention about what we sense to encompass both 'knowing' and 'unknow­ believe urban design should be about, rather than ing' urban designers - is made explicit. The chap­ what at any point in time it is about. We thus ter deliberately adopts a broad understanding, regard urban design as an ethical activity: first, in seeing urban design as more than simply the phys­ an axiological sense (because it is intimately ical or visual appearance of development, and as an concerned with issues of values); and, second, integrative (i.e. joined-up) and integrating activity. because it is - or should be - concerned with While urban design's scope may be broad and its particular values such as social justice and equity. boundaries often 'fuzzy', the heart of its concern is In Chapter 2, issues of change in the contem­ about making places for people: this idea forms the porary urban context are outlined and discussed. kernel of this book. More realistically, it is about Chapter 3 presents a number of overarching Preface vii contexts - local, global, market and regulatory - professional level have combined to give it a new that provide the background for urban design prominence - in the public sector, through the action. These contexts underpin and inform the spread of design review control as a means to discussions of the individual dimensions of urban promote better design through planning action, design principles and practice in Part II. and in the professions with the emergence of, for Part II consists of six chapters, each of which example, the Congress for the New Urbanism. In reviews a substantive dimension of urban design - addition, urban design is the focus of well-devel­ 'morphological', 'perceptual', 'social', 'visual', oped grass roots activity, with local communities 'functional' and 'temporal'. As urban design is a participating in the design, management and joined-up activity, this separation is for the purpose reshaping of their own local environments. of clarity in exposition and analysis only. These six Urban design is an expanding discipline. There overlapping dimensions are the 'everyday subject is unprecedented and increasing demand from the matter' of urban design, while the crosscutting public and private sectors for practitioners - or, contexts outlined in Chapter 3 relate to and inform more simply, for those with urban design expertise. all the dimensions. The six dimensions and four This demand is being matched by a range of new contexts are also linked and related by the concep­ urban design courses at both graduate and under­ tion of desig�n as a process of problem solving. The graduate levels; by greater recognition in plannin�J, chapters are not intended to delimit boundaries architectural and surveying (real estate) education; around particular areas of urban design. Instead, and by new demand from private and public prac­ they emphasise the breadth of the subject area, titioners wanting to develop appropriate skills and with the connections between the different broad knowledge. areas being made explicit. Urban design is only All urban designers - both knowing and holistic if all the dimensions (the areas of action) unknowing (see Chapter 1) - need a clear under­ are considered simultaneously. standing of how their various actions and interven­ In Part Ill, implementation and delivery mecha­ tions in the built environment combine to create nisms are explored - how urban design is high quality, people-friendly, vital and viable envi­ procured, controlled, and communicated - stress­ ronments or, conversely, poor quality, alienating or ing the nature of urban design as a process moving simply monotonous ones. As a field of activity, from theory to action. The final chapter brings urban design has been the subject of much recent together the various dimensions of the subject to attention and has secured its place among the emphasise its holistic nature. other established built environment professions as a key means of addressing interdisciplina1y concerns. In this position it is a policy- and prac­ Urban design: an emerging and tice-based subject which, like architecture and evolving activity planning, benefits from an extensive and legitimis­ ing theoretical underpinning. This book draws on It is only recently in the UK that urban design has that, now extensive, underpinning, to present been recognised as an important area of practice many of the key contributions aimed at beneficially by the existing built environment professions, and influencing the overall quality and liveability of even more recently that it has been recognised by urban environments. central and local government, and incorporated While urban design has developed quickly and more fully into the planning remit. The Urban continues to evolve, it is hoped that the structure Design Alliance (UDAL), a multi·profession adopted by this book will stand the test of time umbrella organisation, has also been set up by the and, over time, will be able to incorporate built environment professional institutes to advances in our thinking on the practice and promote urban design. process of urban design, as well as any omissions In certain states in the US, urban design has which - through ignorance or lack of appreciation often been more fully conceptualised and better - have not been included from the start. As a integrated into the activities of the established built contribution to the better understanding of good environment professionals. Examination of the urban design, it is hoped that it will contribute to planning history of cities such as San Francisco and the design, development, enhancement and Portland clearly demonstrates this. More generally, preservation of successful urban spaces and cher­ as in the UK, recent initiatives at both public and ished public places.

THE CONTEXT FOR URBAN DESIGN

Urban design today

INTRODUCTION - and their relationship to open spaces. Urban design denotes a more expansive approach. Evolv­ This book adopts a broad understanding of urban ing from an initial, predominantly aesthetic, design, which is focused on the making of places for concern with the distribution of building masses people (Figures 1 .1, 1.2). More precisely and realis­ and the space between buildings, it has become tically, it focuses on urban design as the process of primarily concerned with the quality of the public making better places for people than would other­ realm - both physical and sociocultural - and the wise be produced. This definition asserts the impor­ making of places for people to enjoy and use. tance of four themes that occur throughout the Containing two somewhat problematical words, book. First, it stresses that urban design is for and 'urban design' is an inherently ambiguous term. about people. Second, it emphasises the value and Taken separately, 'urban' and 'design' have clear significance of 'place'. Third, it reco9nises that meanings: 'urban' suggests the characteristics of urban design operates in the 'real' world, with its towns or cities, while 'design' refers to such activi­ field of opportunity constrained and bounded by ties as sketching, planning, arranging, colouring economic (market) and political (regulatory) forces. and pattern making. Throughout this book, Fourth, it asserts the importance of design as a however, as used generally within the practice of process. The idea that urban design is about making urban design, the term 'urban' has a wide and better places is unashamedly and unapologetically a inclusive meaning, embracing not only the city and normative contention about what it should be, town but also the village and hamlet, while rather than what it is at any point in time. 'design', rather than having a narrowly aesthetic Providing an introduction to the concept of interpretation, is as much about effective problem urban design, this chapter is in three main parts. solving and/or the processes of delivering or organ­ The first develops an understanding of the subject. ising development. The second discusses the contemporary need for In a wide-ranging review of urban design, Mada­ urban design. The third discusses urban design nipour (1 996, pp. 93-1 17) identified seven areas of practice. ambiguity in its definition:

1 . Should urban design be focused at particular TOWARDS AN UNDERSTANDING OF scales or levels? URBAN DESIGN 2. Should it focus only on the visual qualities of the urban environment or, more broadly, The term 'urban design' was coined in North Amer­ address the organisation and management of ica in the late 1950s, and replaced the narrower urban space? and somewhat outmoded term 'civic design'. Typi­ 3. Should it simply be about transforming spatial fied by the City Beautiful Movement, civic design arrangements, or about more deeply seated focused largely on the siting and design of major social and cultural relations between spaces civic buildings - city halls, opera houses, museums and society? 4 Public Places - Urban Spaces

FIGURE 1.1 A place for people - Harbour Steps, Seattle, Washington, USA

4. Should the focus of urban design be its prod­ The first three ambiguities are concerned with the uct (the urban environment) or the process by 'product' of urban design, the last three with which it is produced? urban design as a 'process', while the fourth 5. Should urban design be the province of archi­ concerns the product-process dilemma. Although tects, planners or landscape architects? Madanipour's ambiguities are deliberately 6. Should it be a public or private sector activity? presented as oppositional and mutually exclusive, 7. Should it be seen as an objective-rational in most cases, it is a case of 'and/both' rather than process (a science) or an expressive-subjective 'either/or'. As we 'consciously shape and manage process (an art)? our built environments' (Madanipour, 1996, Urban design today

5

FIGURE 1.2 A place for people - Broadgate, London,

Ul< p. 11 7), urban designers are interested in, and Urban design is typically defined in terms of archi­ engaged with, both process and its product. tecture and town planning -Gosling and Maitland While, in practice, 'urban design' can be used to (1 984) describe it as the 'common ground' refer to all the products and processes of devel­ between them, while the UK's Social Science opment, it is often useful to use the term in a Research Council located urban design at 'the more restricted sense to mean adding of quality to interface between architecture, landscape architec­ them. ture and town planning, drawing on the desi,gn Attempting to sum up the remit of urban tradition of architecture and landscape architec­ design, Tibbalds (1 988a) notes a definition of it as ture, and the environmental management and 'Everything you can see out of the window.' While social science tradition of contemporary planning' this has a basic truth and logic, if 'everything' can (from Bentley and Butina 1991 ) . Urban design is be considered to be urban design, then equally not, however, simply an interface. It encompasses perhaps 'nothing' is urban design (Daganhart and and sometimes subsumes a number of disciplines Sawicki, 1994). Nevertheless, in acknowledging and activities - prompting Rob Cowan (200'1 a, the potential scope and diversity of urban design, p. 9) to ask: there is little value in putting boundaries around which profession is best at interpreting policy; the subject. The real need is for definitions that assessing the local economy and property encapsulate its heart or core rather than prescribe market; appraising a site or area in terms of its edge or boundary. That is, for the identifica­ land use, ecology, landscape, ground condi­ tion, clarification and debate of central beliefs and tions, social fa ctors, history, archaeology, urban activities rather than of boundaries and exclu­ form and transport; managing and fa cilitating sions. a participative process; drafting and illustrating It is frequently easier to say what urban design is design principles; and programming the devel­ not, than to say precisely what it is. It is not, for opment process? example, architecture, civil or highway engineer­ ing, landscape architecture, estate management, or Cowan contends that while all these skills are likely town planning. Equally, it is both more and less to be needed in, say, producing an urban design than any of these long-established activities framework or master plan, it is rare for them all to (University of Reading, 2001 ). Relational definitions be embodied by a single professional. The best (i.e. those that define something in relation to frameworks and master plans are drawn up by a something else) can, nonetheless, be helpful. number of people with different skills, working in 6 Public Places - Urban Spaces

collaboration. Urban design is inherently collabora­ Traditions of thought in urban design tive and interdisciplinary, involving an integrated approach, and the skills and expertise of a wide Two broad traditions of urban design thought stem range of professionals and others. from different ways of appreciating design and the Scale has also been used as a means of defining products of the design process. In his paper 'Urban urban design. Urban design has commonly been Environments as Visual Art or Social Settings', Bob considered to function at an intermediate scale Jarvis (1 980) discussed this distinction in terms of a between planning (the settlement) and architec­ 'visual-artistic' tradition emphasising the visual ture (individual buildings). In 1976 Reyner Banham qualities of buildings and space, and a 'social defined its field of concern as 'urban situations usage' tradition primarily concerned with the social about half a mile square'. This definition is useful qualities of people, places and activities. In recent only if we see urban design as an activity mediat­ years, the two have become synthesised into a ing between architecture and planning. Kevin third, 'making places' tradition. Lynch (1 981, p. 291) defined it more broadly as encompassing a wide range of concerns across (i) The visual-artistic tradition different spatial scales, arguing that urban design­ The visual-artistic tradition was that of an earlier, ers may be engaged in preparing a comprehensive more 'architectural' and narrower understanding of regional access study, a new town, a regional park urban design. Predominantly product-oriented, it system, and equally, 'may seek to protect neigh­ focused on the visual qualities and aesthetic expe­ bourhood streets, revitalise a public square, ...set rience of urban spaces, rather than on the cultural, regulations for conservation or development, build social, economic, political and spatial factors and a participatory process, write an interpretative processes contributing to successful urban places. guide or plan a city celebration'. It is important to Influenced by Sitte's City Planning According to Artis­ appreciate that urban design operates at and tic Principles (1 889) as well as (what appeared to be across a variety of spatial scales rather than at any its aesthetic antithesis) the work of Le Corbusier, particular one. the visual-artistic tradition is clearly expressed in Although consideration of urban design at a Unwin's Town Planning in Practice (1 909), and rein­ particular scale is a convenient device, it detracts forced by the various contributions to MHLG Design from the fact that urban environments are vertically in Town and Village (1 953). It is typified by Freder­ integrated 'wholes'. Urban designers need to be ick Gibberd's concern for the pictorial composition constantly aware of scales both above and below of front gardens, rather than for considerations of that at which they are working, and also of the rela­ privacy or of opportunities for personalisation tionship of the parts to the whole, and the whole (Jarvis, 1980, p. 53). Issues of pictorial composition to the parts. In a necessary reminder to the built also predominate in the 'townscape' approach environment professions, Francis Tibbalds (1 992, developed by Gordon Cullen and others in the late p. 9) argued that 'places matter most': 'We seem 1940s and the 1950s. As Punter and Carmona to be losing the ability to stand back and look at (1 997, p. 72) note, while Cullen's Townscape what we are producing as a whole ...We need to developed his personal and expressive response to stop worrying quite so much about individual urban environments, it largely failed to acknowl­ buildings and other physical artefacts and think edge public perceptions of townscapes and places, instead about places in their entirety.' In broad which - by contrast - Kevin Lynch's contempora­ terms, Christopher Alexander's 'pattern language' neous The Image of the City highlighted (Lynch, illustrates the range of scales at which urban design 1960). operates, with the patterns being ordered in terms of scale, beginning with patterns for strategic (city­ wide) design, and working down to interior design. (ii) The social usage tradition Alexander et (1 977, p. xiii), however, stressed The social usage tradition emphasised the way in that no pattern was an 'isolated entity': 'Each which people use and colonise space. It encom­ pattern can existof. in the world only to the extent passed issues of perception and sense of place. that it is supported by other patterns: the larger Identifying Kevin Lynch (1 960) as a key proponent patterns in which it is embedded, the patterns of of this approach, Jarvis (1 980, p. 58) highlights the same size that surround it, and the smaller Lynch's attempt to shift the focus of urban design patterns which are embedded in it.' in two ways: Urban design today

7 in terms of appreciation of the urban environ­ (iii) The making places tradition • ment: rejecting the notion that this was an Over the past twenty years, the concept of urban exclusive and elitist concern, Lynch emphasised design that has become dominant is one of making that pleasure urban environments was a places for people. This evolution of urban design commonplace experience; thought is nicely summed up in the following defi­ in terms of the obi.nject of study: instead of exam­ nitions: • ining the physical and material form of urban environments, Lynch suggested examining In 1953, Frederick Gibberd argued that the • people's perceptions and mental images. 'purpose of town design is to see that [the urban] composition not only functions prop­ jane jacobs - whose book The Death and Life of erly, but is pleasing in appearance'. Great American Cities attacked many of the funda­ In 1961 , jane jacobs asserted that: 'To approach • mental concepts of 'Modernist' urban planning the city ...or neighbourhood as if it were a larger and heralded many aspects of contemporary urban architectural problem . . . is to substitute art for design - was a key proponent of this approach, life.' arguing that the city could never be a work of art In 1988, Peter Buchanan argued that urban • because art was made by 'selection from life', while design was 'essentially about place making, a city was 'life at its most vital, complex and where places are not just a specific space, but intense' (1 961, p. 386). Concentrating on the all the activities and events that make it possi­ sociofunctional aspects of streets, sidewalks and ble'. parks, jacobs emphasised their role as containers of human activity and places of social interaction. The Synthesising the earlier traditions, contemporary same kind of detailed observation informed subse­ urban design is simultaneously concerned with the quent work in this tradition, such as jan Gehl's design of urban space as an aesthetic entity and as studies of public space in Scandinavia (1 971) and a behavioural setting. It focuses on the diversity William H. Whyte's (1 980) Th e Social Life of Small and activity which help to create successful urban Urban Spaces. places, and, in particular, on how well the physical Christopher Alexander's work also epitomises milieu supports the functions and activities taking the social usage tradition. As Jarvis (1980, p. 59) place there (Figures 1.3, 1.4). With this concept notes in Notes on the Synthesis of Form (Alexander, comes the notion of urban design as the design 1964) and A City is Not a Tree (Alexander, 1965), and management of the 'public realm' - defined as Alexander identified both the failings of design the public face of buildings, the spaces between

philosophies that considered 'form without frontages, · the activities taking place in and context' and the dangers of approaching city between these spaces, and the managing of these design in ways that did not allow for a rich diver­ activities, all of which are affected by the uses. of sity of cross connections between activities and the buildings themselves, i.e. the 'private realm' places. Alexander's ideas were developed further (Gleave, 1990, p. 64) (see Chapter 6). in A Pattern Language (Alexander et a/., 1977) and In recent years, 'official' definitions have also Th e Timeless Way of Building (Alexander et a/., embraced the concepts of making places, and of 1979), in which he set out a range of 'patterns'. the public realm. In England, for example, planning Rather than 'complete designs', each pattern was policy guidance states that 'urban design' should a 'sketched minimum framework of essentials', a be taken to mean: 'few basic instructions' and 'rough freehand sketches' to be shaped and refined (Jarvis, 1980, the relationship between different buildings; the p. 59). For Alexander, the patterns are intended to relationship between buildings and the streets, provide the designer with a usable - but not squares, parks and other spaces which make up predetermined - series of relationships between the public domain itself; the relationship of one activities and spaces. Even those patterns closest to part of a village, town or city with the other the traditional visual or spatial concerns of urban parts; and the patterns of movement and activ­ design, in which Alexander frequently cites ity which are thereby established. In short, the Camillo Sitte, are grounded in and justified by complex relationships between all the elements research and/or observation of people's use of of built and unbuilt space. (DoE Planning Policy places. Guidance Note 1, 1997, para. 74) 8 Public Places - Urban Spaces

FIGURE 1.3 A place for people - Darling Harbour, Sydney, Australia

FIGURE 1.4 A place for people -Waterfront Park, Portland, Oregon, USA Urban design today 9

The Department of Transport, Environment and 3. Fit, the degree to which the form and capac­ the Regions (DTER, previously the DoE) and the ity of spaces matches the pattern of behav­ Commission for Architecture and the Built Environ­ iours that people engage in or want to engage ment (CABE, formerly the Royal Fine Art Commis­ in. sion) subsequently gave a more rounded definition, 4. Access, the ability to reach other persons, activ­ identifying urban design as the 'art of making ities, resources, services, information, or places, places for people': including the quantity and diversity of elements that can be reached. It includes the way places work and matters 5. Control, the degree to which those who use, such as community safety, as well as how they work, or reside in places can create and look. concerns the connections between manage access to spaces and activities. people and places, movement and urban form, nature IIand the built fa bric, and the processes Two meta-criteria underpinned the five dimen­ for ensuring successful villages, towns and sions: those of efficiency, relating to the costs of cities. (DETR/CABE, By Design: Urban Design in creating and maintaining a place for any given the Planning System: Towards Better Practice, level of attainment of the dimensions; and of 2000a, p. 8) justice, relating to the way in which environmen­ tal benefits were distributed. Thus, for Lynch the The guide identified seven objectives of urban key questions were: (i) what is the relative cost of design, each relating to the concept of place: achieving a particular degree of vitality, sense, fit, access, or control?; (ii) who is getting how much 1aracter: a place with its own identity; of it? • >ntinuity and enclosure: a place where public • arCl d private spaces are clearly distinguished; Allan Jacobs and Donald Appleyard Cl Q Jality of the public realm: a place with attrac­ In their paper 'Towards an Urban Design Mani­ • th·e and success-Ful outdoor areas; festo', jacobs and Appleyard (1 987, pp. 115-1 6) Ec se of movement: a place that is easy to get to suggested seven goals that were 'essential for the • ar d move through; future of a good urban environment': Legibility: a place that has a clear image and is • easy to understand; 1. Liveability: A city should be a place where Adaptability: a place that can change easily; everyone can live in relative comfort. • Diversity: a place with variety and choice. 2. Identity and control: People should feel that • some part of the environment 'belongs' to them, individually and collectively, whether Urban design frameworks they own it or not. 3. Access to opportunities, imagination and joy: As part of the 'making places' tradition, there have People should find the city a place where they been a number of attempts to identify the desirable can break from traditional moulds, extend their qualities of successful urban places and/or 'good' experience, and have fun. urban form. It is useful to note the key content of 4. Authenticity and meaning: People should be five such attempts. able to understand their (and others') city, its basic layout, public functions and institutions, and the opportunities it offers. Kevin Lyrnch 5. Community and public life: Cities should encour­ lynch (1 981 , pp. 118-1 9) identified five perfor­ age participation of their citizens in community mance dimensions of urban design: and public life. 6. Urban self-reliance: Increasingly cities will have 1. Vitality, the degree to which the form of places to become more self-sustaining in their uses of supports the functions, biological requirements energy and other scarce resources. and capabilities of human beings. 7. An environment for all: Good environments 2. Sense, the degree to which places can be clearly should be accessible to all. Every citizen is entitled perceived and structured in time and space by to a minimal level of environmental liveability, users. and of identity, control and opportunity. 10 Public Places - Urban Spaces

To achieve these goals, five physical characteristics ity and robustness (resilience). Bentley (1 999, or 'prerequisites' of a 'sound' urban environment pp. 215-1 7) has subsequently proposed a were defined: 'responsive city typology' consisting of the deformed grid, the complex use pattern, robust 1. Liveable streets and neighbourhoods. plot development, the positive privacy gradient, 2. A minimum density of residential development the perimeter block, and the native biotic and intensity of land use. network. 3. Integrated activities - living, working, shopping - in reasonable proximity to each other. Francis Tibbalds 4. A manmade environment that defines public In 1989, His Royal Highness The Prince of Wales space, particularly by its buildings (as opposed offered a framework for architectural design spark­ to buildings that mostly sit in space). ing an important debate. In response, an urban 5. Many separate, distinct buildings with complex design framework of ten principles was developed arrangements and relationships (as opposed to by the then-president of the Royal Town Planning a few, large buildings). Institute and founder of the UK-based Urban Design Group, Francis Tibbalds (1 988b, 1992):

1 . consider places before buildings; Responsive Environments 2. have the humility to learn from the past and During the late 1970s and early 1980s, a team at respect your context; the then Oxford Polytechnic formulated an 3. encourage the mixing of uses in towns and approach to urban design, published as Responsive cities; Environments: A manual for urban designers (Bentley 4. design on a human scale; et a/., 1985). The approach stressed the need for 5. encourage the freedom to walk about; more democratic, enriching environments, 6. cater for all sections of the community and maximising the degree of choice available to users. consult with them; The design of a place, it was argued, affected the 7. build legible (recognisable or understandable) choices people could make: environments; 8. build to last and adapt; Where they could and could not go. 9. avoid change on too great a scale at the same • The range of uses available. time; • How easily they could understand what oppor­ 1 0. with all the means available, promote intricacy, • tunities its offers. joy and visual delight in the built environment. The degree to which they could use a given • place for different purposes. The Congress for New Urbanism Whether the detailed appearance of the place • made them aware of the choice available. New Urbanism is a term applied to a set of ideas Their choice of sensory experience. that appeared in the USA during the second half of • The extent to which they could put their own the 1980s and early 1990s, including 'neo-tradi­ • stamp on a place. tional neighbourhoods' (NTDs) or 'traditional neighbourhood developments' (TNDs), where the The approach respectively focused on seven key central idea was to design complete neighbour­ issues in making places responsive: those of hoods that would be similar to traditional neigh­ permeability, variety, legibility, robustness, visual bourhoods (e.g. Duany and Plater-Zyberk, 1991 ), appropriateness, richness and personalisation. It and 'pedestrian pockets' or 'transit-oriented devel­ was later suggested that resource efficiency, clean­ opment' (TOO), where the central idea was to liness and biotic support be added, to include the design neighbourhoods that were explicitly related ecological impact of urban forms and activity to transport connections and of a sufficient density patterns (Bentley, 1990). Based on their experi­ to make public transport viable (e.g. Calthorpe, ence in practice and teaching, McGlynn and 1989, 1993). There was some convergence Murrain (1 994) argued that four qualities between the ideas, including common preferences appeared to be fundamental - permeability, vari­ for mixed uses; environmental sensitivity; an inter­ ety (vitality, proximity and concentration), legibil- nally consistent hierarchy of architectural, building Urban design today 11 and street types; legible edges and centres; walka­ Their criteria suggest the vibrant, lively and well­ bility; and a reliance on succinct graphic guidelines integrated urban form of cities such as San Flran­ in lieu of traditional zoning codes (Kelbaugh, cisco and Paris. As is discussed later in this book, 1997). Their origins, however, show a much urban designers should be wary of being too greater diversity. Coming from an energy and envi­ prescriptive about urban form, since that which is ronmental design ethic, pedestrian pockets and appropriate in one local climate and culture may TODs were predicated on a regional transit and not be so in another. open space system, while TNDs grew out of a While these frameworks are sound in them­ concern to recreate traditional notions of city, selves, there is a danger of their treatment as inflex­ town, neighbourhood and architecture. ible dogma or their reduction to mechanical Formalised through the creation of the Congress formulae. They should be used with the flexibility for New Urbanism (CNU) in 1993 and the publica­ derived from a deeper understanding and appreci­ tion of a Charter for New Urbanism (www.cnu.org) ation of their biases, justifications and interrela­ styled on ClAM's 1933 Charter of Athens (see Chap­ tions. Urban design should not be reduced to a ter 2), New Urbanists were 'committed to re-estab­ formula. Application of a formula negates the lishing the relationship between the art of building active process of design that relates general princi­ and the making of community, through citizen ples to specific situations. In any design process based participatory planning and design' (CNU, there are no wholly 'right' or 'wrong' answers, 1999). While explicitly recognising that physical there are only better and worse ones. Their quality solutions alone cannot solve social and economic may only be known in time. Furthermore, frame­ problems, the Charter argued that 'neither can works may well stress the outcomes or products of economic vitality, community stability, and envi­ urban design rather than the process dimensions, ronmental health be sustained without a coherent suggesting qualities of 'good' environment or and supportive physical framework'. It advocated urban design, but not how these can be achieved. the restructuring of public policy and development The processes through which the urban environ­ practices to support the following principles: ment comes about demand cognisance of, and sensitivity to, power dynamics in urban space and Neighbourhoods should be diverse in use and its production. Urban designers therefore need to • population. understand the contexts within which they operate Communities should be designed for the (Chapter 3) and the processes by which places and • pedestrian and for transit, as well as for the car. developments come about (Chapters 1 0 and 11). Cities and towns should be shaped by physi­ As in many spheres, there is often an imple­ • cally defined and universally accessible public mentation 'gap' between theory and practice. The spaces and community institutions. experience of New Urbanism provides an illustra­ Urban places should be framed by architecture tion of this. Sohmer and Lang (2000, p. 7'56) • and landscape design that celebrate local argue that New Urbanism can be considered to histon;, climate, ecology and building practice. involve three main components: (i) an architec­ tural style (i.e. nee-traditional, contextualiised The Charter also asserted principles to guide public architecture); (ii) an urban design practice (i.e. policy, development practice, planning and design, prescribed street forms, street profiles, public at the scales of region (metropolis, city and town), spaces and densities); and (iii) a set of land use neighbourhood (district and corridor) and block policies (i.e. mixed-use, mixed-income, mixed­ (street and building). tenure, and transit-oriented development). These can be arranged in a pyramid, whereby those at the lower levels are easier to implement and those The frameworks at the higher levels harder to implement. The Each of the above frameworks has a different pyramid reflects the hierarchy of the use of f\Jew degree of prescription regarding desirable physical Urbanism. The New Urbanist architectural style is and spatial form. Lynch's framework is least often used without the other two components. prescriptive and is essentially a series of criteria to Housing developments may, for example, feature guide and evaluate urban design, which leaves New Urbanist-inspired nee-traditional homes but others to determine the physical form. jacobs' and on standard suburban lots. While not as readily Appleyard's framework is much more prescriptive. adopted as the architectural style, the urban 12 Public Places - Urban Spaces . ! . � i � . •• design component is more common than New the physical divides that purposefully or acci­ __ , • !" i Urbanist land use policies. Sohmer and Lang, dentally separate social worlds; ·. � r:: therefore, conclude that for 'true' New Urbanism, the spaces that development has passed by or • ,. � all three components must be in place. It could, where new development creates fragmentation however, be argued that for 'true' New Urbanism, and interruption. �J� ,, the 'architectural style' component is dispensable (see Chapter 11). She gives examples of such cracks in a range of locations. Examples in the urban core include those situations 'where corporate towers assert their THE NEED FOR URBAN DESIGN dominance over the skies, but turn their back onto the city; where sunken or elevated plazas, skyways Having clarified the scope of urban design, it is and roof gardens disrupt pedestrian activity; and necessary to discuss the contemporary need for where the asphalt deserts of parking lots fragment urban design. Writing in the mid-1 970s, ian Bent­ the continuity of the street' (p. 91 ). Elsewhere the ley (1 976) saw the emergence of concerns for cracks include car-oriented commercial strips, with urban design originating in critiques of: (i) the no sidewalks or pedestrian amenities, and walled or urban environmental product; (ii) the development gated developments that 'assert their privateness process; and (iii) the professional role in controlling by defying any connection with the surrounding its production. Each of these critiques detected landscape' (pp. 91-2). various kinds of fragmentation and a lack of Poor quality urban environments also come concern for the totality and overall quality of the about in response to various social and economic urban environment. trends, such as those of homogenisation and stan­ dardisation, of a focus on individualism rather than collective issues, of the privatisation of life and The urban environmental product and culture, and of retreat from and decline of the the development process public realm. jacobs and Appleyard (1 987, p. 113) There have been many critiques of the built envi­ comment that cities - especially American cities - ronment. The poor quality of much of the contem­ have become privatised through consumer soci­ porary urban environment, and the lack of concern ety's emphasis on the individual and the private for overall quality, are functions of the processes by sector. Escalated greatly by increasing car use, which the environment is produced, and the forces these trends result in a 'new form of city', that act on those processes. Influence and blame is one of closed, defended islands with blank and attributed - rightly or wrongly - to the develop­ windowless fa r;ades surrounded by wastelands ment industry. The authors of the DETR/Housing of parking lots and fast-moving traffic ... The Corporation's Urban Design Compendium (Liewe­ public environment of many American cities has lyn-Davies, 2000) argue that the development become an empty desert, leaving public life process and the actors within it have become dependent for its survival solely on planned 'entangled' in a system that produces 'develop­ formal occasions, mostly in protected internal ments', but not 'places', constrained by the locations. 'predominantly conservative, short-term and supply-driven characteristics of the development industry'. Environmental degradation also results The role of the built environment from the cumulative effect of incremental decisions professions by 'unknowing' urban designers (see below). In a similar vein, focusing on the product rather The contemporary concern for urban design is also than the process of urban design, Loukaitou-Sideris located in critiques of the role of the various built (1 996, p. 91 ) discussed urban quality in terms of environment professions. As the apparent certain­ 'cracks', seeing the cracks as: ties of Modernism in architecture and planning became increasingly questioned, the period from the gaps in the urban form, where overall the 1960s onwards saw a series of crises of confi­ • continuity is disrupted; dence in the main environmental professions about the residual spaces left undeveloped, under­ what they were doing and how they were doing it. • used or deteriorating; Lang (1 994, p. 3) locates the birth of urban design -

Urban design today 13 in the recognition that 'the sterile urban environ­ URBAN ments achieved by applying the ideas of the SMN'� Modern Movement to both policy-making and to 1r�ii!(R�t Of architectural design at the urban scale were a fail­ ' ure in terms of the lives of the people who inhab­ ·� �i · ited them·' - people who, in McGlynn's words ; at� : . .. n�tidnill� regional and local � Jt;�, . · . (1 993, p. 3), 'began to challenge the values and 'E:nsurethat urban design is :p9licy�PP�iatusta ofp61itkal assumptions of architects and planners and to 1r�la¢�if;at . . . and administrative distrust their ability to improve upon the spatial 1 aet:is1oi1.L.• :9 . : : · and physical forms of pre-modernist urbanism'. . k�cittivitY· . rff • •. ·•.�·.i: , Problems of a lack of quality in contemporary pklnni�g system· dop a development have also been attributed to well­ 'chlttiurt>atidesign process, intentioned but ill-conceived public sector regu­ n'df 'f'leai::ti,Je antlto n�ative a t and lation, and to development controls and :nirQ� pt�ak:tive antl positive intervention. · standards with little holistic awareness. Drawing •:• • · r q� i gul l !J . . ·· . 6 � inspiration from john Ruskin's 'Seven Lamps of plate iand• . • itlie. :Wf.ala d by stronger ing to achieve high standards of . . . urban � q�a!i�y:o'fd�ign: nte"·

design' (see Box 1 .1 ). Similarly, in discussing . . [ ; JJ�!Jnn�ss•· ; planning and development controls in the US, �elearned the'j!lrieEiof .. • Duany et a/. (2000, p. 19) argue that many devel­ / bt the.Ya"lue:of .sa. . .many opment codes have a negative effect on the qual­ e�erat and urban design in :iDesign< aY�ost money, but ity of the built environment: .. � . . .. e:., . Their size and their result are symptoms of the ::,/ l: �: :;,:�s; :,,:: same problem: they are hollow at the core. \ �� i ed �lth They do not emanate from any physical vision. interpr�t.exce11encell�� They have no images, no diagrams, no recom­ ecqhle illlt:erate,the and mended models, only numbers and words. � 4il�ca e Ptlrselves. Their authors, it seems, have no clear picture of t e tirMiail�i�...... what they want their communities to be. They br�ti�Jt· · rhent iS charl)ct�rised by are not imagining a place that they admire, or . p�i$H; :.(!lt �fidency revert buildings that they hope to emulate. Rather, all n ..de!)bmitl�f.or,

ing shortages, no overcrowding. ;, :�;: .) .;(�): .•. ·� ... � .. · · ,, Inflexible applications of technical standards ditldn 'ril�Hstb�t ft••t¢1'mism'·sIs not the frequently frustrate the creation of places. In the US · by ;�.merit· �i'f3ted the context, Duany et a/. (2000, p. xi) observe that: 'one U�irijsand the need cannot easily build Charleston anymore, because it -yeatfunding. al\cycle1 t�ree:.year is against the law. Similarly, Boston's Beacon Hill, . nt,!.af)d the spectre of Nantucket, Sante Fe, Carmel - all of these well­ ;)!,', <,,, known places, many of which have become tourist destinations, exist in direct violation of current zoning ordinance.' The problem is particularly pronounced with regard to highway and traffic design standards, the rigid application of which As is discussed in Chapter 11, rather than controls effectively determines the layout of many residential for the sake of controls, the need is for 'smart' areas. This is partly a consequence of fragmentation: controls that are informed by a holistic awareness. focusing on a part while failing to see the whole, or Bentley (1 998, p. 15) argues that one of the to recognise design as a process of creating 'wholes'. most important reasons for urban design arises 14 Public Places - Urban Spaces

because of the gaps created by the boundaries set to address aspects of professional practice that up and institutionalised around the various envi­ were detrimental to quality, arguing for greater ronmental disciplines and concerns, producing a consideration of place and the environment in 'fragmented set of professions', with 'tight bound­ planning, and for greater appreciation and respect aries around' and 'gaps between them'. As the for issues of context in architecture (i.e. including gaps between the environmental professions consideration of the 'site' as something beyond the became increasingly hardened and institution­ immediate ownership boundary). alised, it appeared that what was falling through Recognising the need to join up a fragmented the gaps was concern for 'the public realm itself - set of professions, certain key individuals - and the void between buildings, the streets and spaces subsequently organisations - set out to build which constitute our everyday experiences of bridges and to create dialogue and common cause urban spaces' (McGlynn, 1993, p. 3). This among the established built environment profes­ suggested a need to focus on the integration of sions. In the UK, the first umbrella organisation, the professional activity, and a concern for the envi­ Urban Design Group (UDG), was founded in 1978. ronment as a whole. From the late 1960s onwards, The UDG considered that everyone acting in the an increasing number of professionals began to see environment was an urban designer 'because the the hard-edged division of responsibilities as decisions they made affected the quality of urban contributing to poor quality urban environments, spaces' (Linden and Billingham, 1998, p. 40). The poor quality development, and poor quality places. interprofessional nature of urban design was further emphasised in the UK by the launch of the Urban Design Alliance (UDAL) in 1997. Founded by URBAN DESIGN AS JOINING UP the Civic Trust, the Landscape Institute, the Institu­ tion of Civil Engineers, the Royal Institute of British The discussion above gives rise to two related Architects (RIBA), the Royal Institution of Chartered notions of urban design: (i) as a means of joining Surveyors (RICS), the Royal Town Planning Institute up a fragmented set of professions and (ii) as a (RTPI) and the Urban Design Group (UDG), UDAL means of restoring or giving qualities of coherence aims to 'foster greater awareness of urban design and continuity to individual, often inward-focused and to promote higher standards of urban design'. urban developments (i.e. to improve overall envi­ The campaigning work of these organisations has ronmental quality and make better places). been partly responsible for a major shift in the UK Government's approach to urban design (see Chapter 11). Joining up the professions Problems of overall urban quality typically have a Joining up the urban environment number of common characteristics, including inter­ connectivity, complexity, uncertainty, ambiguity In a complex and sophisticated argument, Stern­ and conflict. Such problems are inherently multi­ berg argued that the primary role of urban design dimensional, their dimensions interdependent and is to reassert the 'cohesiveness of the urban experi­ not forming an easy fit with professions based on ence'. Drawing on the 'organicist' school of functional divisions. Although rigid 'silo-based' thought - which had influenced Patrick Geddes, specialisation has its place (we need brain surgeons Lewis Mumford and, more recently, Christopher as well as general practitioners), it may also encour­ Alexander, who noted how organicists observed age professionals to see things from one narrow that 'modern society (especially its central dynamic disciplinary perspective, fragmenting the pool of mechanism, the market) atomised community, skills, and reducing the options for integration and nature and the city. Inspired by biological holistic consideration. It is clear that the strands of metaphors and philosophical concepts of vitalism, interest and expertise need to be drawn together. the organicists set out to reassert the natural In essence, this becomes an argument for soft­ growth and wholeness that a 'mechanical' market edged rather than hard-edged professionalism, and society would tend to undermine' (Sternberg, for collaborative and inclusive working practices. 2000, p. 267). Sternberg suggested that the ideas By the 1970s, some professionals had begun to informing urban design share an intellectual foun­ show concern, and, where possible, to take respon­ dation in implicitly acknowledging the 'non­ sibility, for overall urban quality. They also sought commodifiability' of the human experience across Urban design today

'1 5 property boundaries (i.e. that it is impossible to from 'knowing' to 'unknowing' urban designers. separate the parts from the whole). He contended This is not a distinction in terms of the quality of that the leading urban design theorists share 'the outcome: the outcomes of both knowing and view that good design seeks to reintegrate the unknowing can be 'good' and 'bad'. Nevertheless, human experience of urban form in the face of real given the complexity of the contemporary envi­ estate markets that would treat land and buildings ronment, unknowing urban design is not a 'bad as discrete commodities' (p. 265). Here, without thing' per se, but - because overall environmental conscious concern for urban design as a process of quality is not an explicit consideration - it lessens restoring or giving qualities of coherence and the likelihood of 'good' places being created. continuity to individual, often inward-focused Barnett (1 982, p. 9), for example, contends that developments, the issue of overall quality will 'Today's city is not an accident. Its form is usually inevitably be neglected. unintentional, but it is not accidental. It is the prod­ This is put more directly into an urban design uct of decisions made for single, separate purposes, context by Alexander's notion of 'things' and 'rela­ whose interrelationships and side effects have not tionships'. Alexander (1 979) argued that what we been fully considered.' perceive to be 'things' in our everyday surround­ 'Knowing' urban designers are the professionals ings - buildings, walls, streets, fences -- are better employed for their urban design expertise. They understood as 'patterns' intersecting with other may nonetheless have no specific training in the patterns (i.e. as relationships). A window, for exam­ subject, but have learnt from experience following ple, is a relationship between inside and outside, an initial training in architecture, planning or land­ between public and private. When they cease to be scape architecture. Further along the continuum 'relationships' and become 'things' (i.e. they are the built environment professionals who, become isolated or removed from their context), despite having an influence on decisions affecting patterns lose the quality that Alexander calls 'alive­ the quality of the urban environment, do not ness'. Thus,, just as Alexander et a/. (1 977) argued consider themselves to be urban designers. They that no pattern is an isolated entity, but is embed­ nevertheless acknowledge their role in improving ded in the patterns that surround it, so the role of environmental quality. This group includes those urban design is in large part about joining up the property developers who recognise the potential of patterns that others (architects, developers, high­ urban design to add value and promote long-term way engineers, etc.) are primarily concerned with commercial success (University of Reading, 2001 ). providing. 'Unknowing' urban designers, those who make urban design decisions without appreciating that this is what they are doing (Figures 1.5, 1.6), URBAN DESIGN PRACTICE include the following:

Who are the urban designers? An inclusive Politicians in central/state government, who set • response is all those who take decisions that shape the strategic framework for design within the urban environment, which includes not just national economic strategy and the policy architects, landscape architects, planners, engi­ context for sustainability. neers, and surveyors, but also developers, investors, Politicians in local or regional government, who • occupiers, civil servants, politicians, events organis­ implement central government strategy, inter­ ers, crime and fire prevention officers, environmen­ preting and developing it in the light of local tal health officials, and many others. Individuals circumstances including the investment of and groups engage in the process of urban design public resources in the public realm. in different capacities and with different objectives. The business community and civil servants, who • Their influence on design decisions may be direct make investment decisions, including those or indirect, consisting of 'self-conscious urban relating to the physical infrastructure. design' (i.e.. what people who see themselves as Accountants, who advise the public and private • urban designers create and do) or 'unselfconscious sectors about their investments. urban design' (resulting from the decisions and Engineers, who design the roads and publlic • actions of those who do not see themselves as transport infrastructure and integrate it into the urban designers) (Beckley, 1979, from Rowley, public realm. 1995, p. 187). In this sense, there is a continuum Investors, who assess investment opportunities, • 16 Public Places - Urban Spaces

FIGURE 1.5 The introduction of wheely bins in Greenwich, London, has had an unexpected disruptive impact on the urban scene and represents an example of unknowing urban design

Providers of infrastructure (e.g. electricity, gas • and telecommunications companies), which invest in the hidden infrastructure and in main­ taining the public realm. Community groups, which support or oppose • developments, campaign for improvements, and otherwise involve themselves in the devel­ opment process. Householders and occupiers, who maintain and • personalise their property.

Without conscious recognition of the qualities and additional value of good urban design, the creation and production of urban environments often occurs by omission rather than commission. The challenge for knowing urban design practitioners is to demonstrate the importance and value of urban design, and to ensure that concern for it is not absent through ignorance or neglect, or omitted for misguided or short-sighted convenience. Part of this role involves educating unknowing urban FIGURE 1.6 designers about the important role they play. The location of re-cycling bins can offer a similar example of a disruptive addition to the street scene - in this case an Aberdeen conservation area TYPES OF URBAN DESIGN PRACTICE

Mainstream practice customarily affords urban and options concerning, for example, develop­ designers two basic roles, those of 'planner/urban ments and developers to back. designer' and 'architect/urban designer'. The Urban regeneration agencies, which invest public former typically guides and co-ordinates the activ­ • money in regeneration projects and balance ities of others, but increasingly is called on to environmental, social and economic objectives. establish long-term spatial or physical 'visions' for Urban design today 17 localities, by means of a master plan or urban Contemporary urban design practice is, design framework. Such control is typically, but however, much broader than this. Research for not exclusively, exercised by the public sector over DETR (2000) identified four types of contempo­ private interests, where the public interest is rary urban design practice: urban development deemed sufficient to justify protection or guid­ design; design policies, guidance and control; ance. The 'architect/urban designer' is directly public realm design; and community urban involved with the design of development, usually design (see Table 1.1 ). Lang (1 994, pp. 78-89) in the form of a specific building or series of build­ also outlined four key types of urban design ings. action: the urban designer as total designer; 'all-

TABLE 1.1 Types of urban design practice

PROFESSIONAL CHARACTERISTICS ACTIVITIES DOMAIN

URBAN Traditionally domain Rooted in the development Involves all-of-a-piece design DEVELOPMENT of architects process. Typically applicable situations and some total DESIGN supported by at site and neighbourhood design situations landscape architects scales and other designers

DESIGN POLICIES, Traditionally domain The design dimension of the Includes: (i) area appraisals, GUIDANCE AND of planners planning process (e.g. design strategy and policy CONTROL supported by primarily response to formulation; (ii) preparation architects, landscape anticipated effects of urban of supplementary design architects, change on urban design guidance and briefs, and (iii) conservation officers quality, whereby guidance exercise of design or and others and control are typically 'aesthetic' control applied from outside development process). Range of considerations usually wider than concerns of urban development design. Applicable at all scales of urban design

PUBLIC REALM Engineers, planners, Encompasses design of Includes: (i) design and DESIGN architects, landscape 'capital web' (e.g. roads and implementation of specific architects and streets, footpaths and projects; (ii) production and others. pavements, car parks, public application of guidelines for But frequently transport interchanges, parks design and improvement of a unintentional result and other urban spaces). locality; and (iii) ongoing of unco-ordinated Relevant over range of scales management and decisions and actions maintenance of places, taken by many including programming of different parties activities and events

COMMU��ITY No particular Seeks to work with and in Utilises range of approaches URBAN DESIGN profession communities developing and techniques to engage proposals from grass-roots with those who will use the level. Particularly applicable environment to neighbourhood scale

(Source: adapted from University of Reading, 2001 ) . 18 Public Places - Urban Spaces

of-a-piece' urban designer; the urban designer as principles in policy form, defining and designing infrastructure designer; and the urban designer public space, specifying certain uses, encourag­ as guideline designer. Several other important ing and stimulating development, and conserv­ variants of urban designer exist, and ten types are ing existing environments. Used in the public outlined below. These are not mutually exclusive, and (increasingly) in the private sector, guide­ and within the same project, urban designers lines link policy with practice. may be involved in a number of roles. Urban manager: promotes, develops and under­ • takes the day-to-day management of urban Total designer: a single person or team carrying areas. The role concerns the whole urban envi­ • a project from its inception to its completion on ronment, and often encompasses many of the site. While an urban designer may be central to activities listed under facilitator of urban events the design process for a project, given the (below), together with the initiation of small­ multi-disciplinary nature of urban design and scale initiatives through the assembly of a coali­ the many actors involved in the process, it is tion of interest groups, and management of the unlikely that the total designer will be a single servicing and maintenance of the public realm. individual. Facilitator of urban events: stimulates activity by • 'All-of-a-piece' urban designer: a single designer initiating and/or administering programmes of • or firm prepares a master plan giving detailed cultural animation, with social events and spec­ guidelines for developers and architects to tacles that encourage a diverse range of people follow in the design of buildings. Here 'the to visit, use and linger in urban places. urban design team acts as the reviewer of each Programmes usually involve a variety of events sub-proposal and implicitly, the elements of the and activities across a range of times and whole project are built within a short period of venues, and require local enthusiasm and, time of each other, if not simultaneously' usually, official recognition, partnership and (Lang, 1994, p. 79). sponsorship. The facilitator must consider why Vision maker (concept provider): provides the and how events are provided, where they • concept of how to organise the spatial pattern should occur, and who is the target audience. of a city or urban area, communicating it in the Community motivator or catalyst: responsible for • form of a framework or set of guidelines for enabling community participation in the devel­ other actors to develop the detailed phases or opment process, including the urban design, parts. planning and management of the local built envi­ Infrastructure designer: closely associated with ronment. A wide range of methods, including • the civil engineering and, to a lesser degree, meetings, forums and workshops, are typically the town planning professions. Because much used to involve all sections of the community, of the character of an urban environment stems and citizens groups, in planning to suit local from its streets, parks, public spaces and other circumstances, time scales and resources. public facilities, this role is a crucial one which Urban conservationist: influences the decision­ • should not be underestimated. making process with regard to the delicate Policy maker: closely involved with politicians balance between retention and change. This • and decision-makers in the creation of a posi­ requires a sensitive appreciation of the dynam­ tive future for towns and cities. This is a facili­ ics and processes of urban change. The scale tating role, which involves providing guidance and level of interest can vary from individual and advice to decision-makers regarding the buildings to large areas of townscape, neigh­ nature of changes to the built environment; bourhoods or quarters of the city, to the whole establishing goals for development, and guide­ city. As well as the protection of buildings and lines within which others operate; and co-ordi­ areas, the role is concerned with the promotion nating, monitoring and evaluating work as it is of change that will positively enhance the exist­ implemented. The policy maker must consider ing townscape. short- and long-term consequences of design decisions, look to the needs of future genera­ Clients and consumers of urban design tions, and have concern for both the commu­ nity and the environment as a whole. Given their role in the urban environment, urban Guideline designer: establishes detailed design design practitioners serve a wide range of 'client' • Urban design today 19 interests. The processes and outcomes of urban number of 'gaps'. There are, for example, typically design involve and affect people and interests in gaps between the producers and the users or different ways: as individuals; as members of local consumers of the urban environment (see Chapter groups, communities and society as a whole; as 1 0). There are also communication and social gaps occupiers and users; and as members of present between the designer and the user and the profes­ and future generations. Lang (1 994, pp. 459-62) sional and the layperson (see Chapter 12). If their makes the distinction between 'paying' and 'non­ desire is to make places for people, urban design­ paying' clients of urban design. Paying clients ers should attempt to narrow rather than exacer­ include entrepreneurs and their financial backers. bate these gaps. In the public sector, the entrepreneurs are govern­ ment agencies and politicians and their financial backers are the taxpayers. In the private sector, the CONCLUSION entrepreneurs are developers, and their financial backers are the bankers and lending institutions. As Over the past forty years, urban design has Lang notes, these actors often act as surrogates for become a recognised field of activity. Although its the people - purchasers, tenants, users - who will scope is broad and its boundaries often 'fuzzy' and ultimately pay for the buildings and environments sometimes contested, this chapter has argued that produced. Lang identifies several types of non­ it should be seen as an integrative 'joined-up' paying client, the main two groups of which are: activity, at the heart of which is a concern for making places for people. While it is probably Occupiers and users: Non-paying in the sense inevitable that different groups, including those • that they do not hire or interact with the with urban design qualifications, will continue to professionals designing for them, thus leaving lay claim to it as a discrete profession, urban an administrative and experiential gap between design is a shared rather than a particular respon­ professional and user-client (see Chapters 10 sibility - not least because the problems posed and and 11 ). Users are often represented in the challenges presented are often too complex to be development process by, for example, public handled by a single person or profession, but also agencies or marketing experts, whose profes­ because the responsibility for the overall quality of sional skills include an understanding of users' the urban environment often falls between the needs and how they can be met. established built environment professions. The public interest: While it is easy to assert that The creation of a good urban environment and • urban designers should serve the public interest, an attractive public realm is not just the preroga­ ascertaining and defining that interest, in any tive of professional specialists and their patrons. As particular situation, is difficult. Participants in the urban design cannot be abstracted from the day­ development process have different, sometimes to-day life of urban areas, all those involved in the competing, interests, while built environment creation and functioning of such areas have a role professionals' assumptions about the public to play in ensuring their success. Hence, a multi­ interest are often based on narrow professional tude of parties are concerned with the creation of and/or class factors. In practice, defining the urban environments and places - including central public interest often involves bargaining and and local government, local communities, the busi­ negotiation among vying parties. ness community, property developers and investors, occupiers and users, passers-by and In discussing the clients and consumers for urban future generations. All of these groups have an design, it is important to note the possibility of a interest and a role to play in urban design. Urban change

INTRODUCTION into the 'organic' and the 'planned'. Most towns and cities grew by piecemeal ad hoc actions, often Urban environments have changed significantly in involving the replacement of buildings on existing recent years, as have ideas about how they should plots. Expressly planned settlements, usually in the be designed, changed and improved. The signifi­ form of gridded plans including those developed by cance of 'place' (meaning a location whose posi­ the Greeks and Romans, are exemplified in the tion relative to other locations is important) has medieval bastide towns in France, and in Edward l's diminished as the means and methods of commu­ plantation towns in England. nication between locations (both physical and elec­ With professional planners/architects assuming tronic) have evolved, and the pace and intensity of the work of building cities and developing theories globalisation and other processes have accelerated. about how cities ought to be, it was the Renaissance Traditional, centralised, city form has evolved into that properly heralded the transition from freely a less legible landscape of sprawling polycentric evolved to planned cities which 'became to a greater 'cities'. As assumptions of centralised urban form degree a work of art, conceived, perceived, and and dominant central business districts become less executed as a whole' (Gehl, 1996, p. 43). Examples tenable, and notions of 'city centre', 'suburb', and of consciously designed developments include 'city edge' less meaningful, members of each resi­ squares and public spaces (e.g. the Place Vend6me dential unit 'create their own city from the multi­ and Place des Vosges in Paris); street systems (e.g. tude of destinations that are within suitable driving Sixtus V's plans for Rome, Haussmann's remodelling distance' (Fishman, 1987, p. 185) - although of Paris); extensions to existing cities (e.g. Edinburgh advances in electronic communications increas­ New Town, the Cerda plan for Barcelona); and the ingly make physical travel unnecessary. redevelopment of fortifications (e.g. the Ringstrasse This chapter is in two main sections. The first in Vienna). Even planned cities subsequently accrued discusses changing ideas about urban space incremental and organic development, responding design. The second discusses the processes of to the configuration of land ownership, and to the urban change, and their outcomes in terms of incremental evolution of road and other infrastruc­ industrial, post-industrial and informational age ture networks (Kostof, 1991 ). urban form. Until the Industrial Revolution, urban develop­ ment was limited in a number of fundamental ways, resulting in urban spaces modestly scaled (by URBAN SPACE DESIGN current standards) by:

'Traditional' urban space can be regarded as the Transport methods and speeds limited to those • evolved state of urban form immediately prior to of the pedestrian and the horse and cart. the onset of large-scale industrialisation and urban­ Availability of construction materials. Each city • isation. The processes of urban growth in 'tradi­ was built using locally derived materials, giving tional' (pre-industrial) cities can be broadly divided it a relatively consistent appearance.

20 Urban change :!1

Building methods, usually limited to load-bear­ introduced new building materials and construc­ • ing masonry and timber construction. These tion techniques (e.g. plate glass, steel, concrete, materials -together with the absence of lifts to balloon frames). Other influences included techno­ service high-rise - limited the height that could logical developments (e.g. railways, the safety be built to a maximum of six or seven storeys. elevator, the internal combustion engine) and Taller buildings were made only occasionally, related social and economic innovations (e.g. social for special purposes (e.g. cathedrals, watch institutions such as hospitals, large offices, hotels, towers). industrial concerns). Architects and engineers sought to create new structures and plans to meet Change in the urban fabric was generally gradual, new demands and challenges. These ideas would enabling successive generations to derive a sense of become known as Modernism. continuity and stability from their physical Modernism emerged in architecture and plan­ surroundings. With the growth of capitalism and ning at the end of the nineteenth century and in rapid urbanisation, mainly during the nineteenth the first half of the twentieth century. It was driven century, the older scale and pace of city develop­ both by horror at the squalor and slums of nine­ ment was overtaken. Limiting factors on construc­ teenth century industrial cities, and by perception tion and scale changed as industrialisation of the start of a new age - the Machine Age - in 22 Public Places - Urban Spaces

which society would reap the benefits of, and and the prevailing practices and outcomes of urban accompanying, technological development and development (see Box 2.2). Contemporary urban industrial production. The leading Modernist in the space design has in large part drawn stimulus from design of cities was the Swiss architect and planner, these perceived shortcomings. Critiques of Le Corbusier. The period's most influential 'urban Modernism almost inevitably, however, tend design' manifesto was The Charter of Athens, the towards caricatures, presenting it as more mono­ report by the 1933 Congress of ClAM, the Interna­ lithic than it actually was. It is therefore important tional Congress of Modern Architecture established to recognise the scope for more nuanced and in the 1920s by, among others, Le Corbusier. sympathetic discussions of Modernism: as Wells­ A number of contemporary problems and Thorpe (1 998, p. 1 05) observes, many of the bene­ opportunities informed Modernists' concepts of fits of Modernism are now taken for granted. urban space design, from which they sought to In a stimulating article, 'The Contemporary City derive new principles of urban form (Box 2.1 ). in Four Movements', Mitchell Schwarzer (2000, Traditional, relatively low-rise streets, squares and pp. 129-36) presents a typology of contemporary urban blocks were eschewed in favour of a rational, urbanisms which neatly encapsulates some of the usually orthogonal, distribution of slab and point diversity of contemporary urban development blocks set in park land and open space. Rather than processes and urban design ideas: being enclosed by buildings, urban space would now flow freely around them (Giedion, 1971 ). 1 . Traditional urbanism looks back 'to an age of Opportunity and political will to develop grids, public squares, moderately dense hous­ Modernist ideas in practice came after 1945 with ing and pedestrian corridors'. Based on a post-war reconstruction in Europe, and later critique of the placelessness of the modern through slum clearance programmes and as a vehicular city and of urban sprawl, traditional consequence of road-building schemes in all devel­ urbanism attempts to recover what it regards as oped countries. Comprehensive redevelopment, a more 'authentic' urban framework. rather than incremental rehabilitation, refurbish­ 2. Conceptual urbanism adopts a more radical atti­ ment and infill development, ostensibly offered tude, attempting to 'shake off assumptions of significant physical improvements over earlier what the city was, is or should be', and to urban form and was justified by claims and desires appreciate the 'fluid instabilities' of cities as well for progress and modernity. The post-war period as their 'inertia of material residue'. Instead of saw a dramatic acceleration in the pace and physi­ denouncing the 'chaos and congestion' of cal scale of the cycle of demolition and renewal. contemporary urban life, conceptual urbanists Comprehensive redevelopment offered the 'experiment out from disruption and disorder'. prospect of higher quality environments and more 3. Marketplace urbanism is characterised by the efficient transport networks. At the same time, 'immense financial, technological and political however, urban clearance, together with the energies' developing at 'those nodes of design of new developments, destroyed historic dynamic intensity coalescing around the inter­ street patterns and traditional notions of urban sections of major freeways, atop tens of thou­ space. The process of redevelopment was highly sands of acres of farmland or waste land, on the disruptive to the economic and social infrastruc­ borders of existing cities'. Both the scale of ture, while the product was also fatally flawed: suburban development, and the economic large blocks simplified the land-use pattern, remov­ power of edge cities, are seen as 'proof of their ing the 'nooks and crannies' that could house harmony with popular values ...Pragmatism is economically marginal but socially desirable uses identified with what sells'. and activities that gave variety and life to an area. 4. Social urbanism: a critique of most aspects of Nevertheless, although often a painful process, for contemporaryUS cities, in particular the 'uneven most of the initial post-war period, the destruction consequences' of commodity capitalism. High­ of the physical, social and cultural fabric of inner lighting areas of the city that 'capital ignores or city areas, mixed-use functional neighbourhoods, flees from', such areas are seen as an 'indictment and poorer, working-class residential areas was against the ongoing denigration of urban life at accepted without serious question. the hands of unequal capital concentration, There were a number of reactions to, and criti­ relentless business and real-estate competition cisms of, Modernist ideas of urban space design, and ceaseless social movements'. Urban change 23 24 Public Places - Urban Spaces

These types constitute two pairs of opposites. form and nature of all settlements. Increased Traditional urbanism and conceptual urbanism mobility through innovations in transport - canals, propose contrasting ideas about what should railway, automobiles, etc. - has been a key factor inform design and the creation of urban form. in the changing distribution of activities in space, Market place urbanism is about the forces shaping and the changing spatial form of cities and urban contemporary urban form, while social urbanism is areas. These innovations have compressed a critique of the contemporary urban condition. space-time (the distance that can be travelled in a Traditional urbanism is akin to New Urbanism, unit of time), allowing urban areas to spread out. while conceptual urbanism relates to New Where fifteen minutes' walking time in a medieval Modernism (see Box 2.3). Although primarily town might cover one mile and take you from one based on US precedents and developments, side of the town to the other, fifteen minutes' Schwarzer's typology has a more general applica­ driving in a city today might cover five or six miles bility, although it is not exhaustive. Other without leaving the city. There have also been approaches are also possible, for example, one that innovations in communications technology (e.g. recognises the realities of both market place and telegraph, telephone, e-mail, video-conferencing), social urbanism, respecting the values of traditional which have provided alternatives to co-presence in urbanism while embracing the opportunities of communication. conceptual urbanism. Patterns of urban development can be regarded as the product of successive eras of transport/communication technology. Borchert (1 991, from Knox and Pinch, 2000, p. 86), for TRANSFORMATIONS IN URBAN FORM example, identifies a series of epochs in the devel­ opment of US cities, each of which produced a Cities and settlements have evolved through three distinctive urban form: historical eras. In the first, they were primarily market places; in the second, primarily centres of The pre-rail epoch (before 1 830). • industrial production; and in the third, they are The 'iron horse' epoch (1 830-1 870). • primarily centres of service provision and consump­ The streetcar epoch (1 870-1 920). • tion. The original basis for cities was people's need The automobile/cheap oil epoch (1 920-1 970). • to come together, for purposes including security The jet propulsion/electronic communication • and defence; trade and the exchange of goods and epoch (1 970 onwards). services; access to information, other people and place-specific resources; to engage in activities In City of Bits: Space, Place and the lnfobahn, William requiring communal effort or organisation; and to Mitchell (1 994) argues that digital telecommunica­ use particular equipment, machines, etc. The tions networks will transform urban form and func­ essential factor was that activities required people tion as radically as networks of water supply and to communicate, which, at least initially, meant sewers, electricity, and mechanised transportation, being in the same place at the same time. The telegraph and telephone have previously done. By coming together of people in space and time facil­ supporting remote and asynchronous interaction, itates an important social dimension which has electronic networks will further loosen many of the subsequently been taken as the essence of the spatial and temporal linkages that previously 'urban' in a cultural sense. Oldenburg (1 999, bound human activities together. p. xxviii), for example, contends that without To illustrate the costs and benefits of public gathering places integral in people's lives, local/remote and synchronous/asynchronous the 'promise of the city' is denied because the communication, Mitchell (1 999, p. 1 36) uses the urban area 'fails to nourish the kinds of relation­ example of seeking information from a colleague. ships and the diversity of human contact that are He puts these modes of communication into a four­ the essence of the city' (see Chapter 6). stage historical context that inter alia helps explain Since the first settlements, the reasons for the development of urban form (see Figure 2.1 ). people coming together have multiplied massively. While face-to-face contact provides the most So too has the technology and means of effectively intense, high quality and potentially enjoyable being in the same place at the same time. The use interaction, it is also the most expensive option, of this technology has had significant effects on the requiring travel, and consuming real estate. By Urban change 25

contrast, despite separating participants in both need for the spatial concentration of activities, and space and time, remote asynchronous communica­ has allowed activities to spread out. tion can be far more convenient and often much Electronic communication is perhaps the most less costly. In general, therefore, increased mobility powerful decentralising and dis-urbanising force - both physical and electronic - has reduced the ever experienced. Many experts see the inforrna- 26 Public Places - Urban Spaces

tion superhighway further dispersing people and 'simple or determinist' way: 'new technology their jobs from cities. As Peter Hall (1 998, p. 957) shapes new opportunities, to create new industries observes: 'After all, that was the effect of previous and transform old ones, to present new ways of technological breakthroughs, like the telephone organising firms or entire societies, to transform the and the car; the information superhighway will potential for living; but it does not compel these simply take the trend to its logical conclusion'. For changes'. Similarly, Manuel Castells (1 989, pp. 1-2) Mitchell (1 995, p. 94), the new technology has has noted how, despite various prophecies that the dissolved the 'glue' that held the old agglomera­ need for concentration of population in cities will be tions together - the need for face-to-face contact removed, 'intensely urban Paris is the success story with co-workers, for close proximity to expensive for the use of home-based telematic systems'. Simi­ information-processing equipment, for access to larly, Mitchell (1 995, p. 169) questions whether: the information held at a central location. As well as 'development of national and international infor­ transport and communication technologies, forms mation infrastructures and the consequent shift of of social and economic organisation, together with social and economic activity to cyberspace, mean other types of technology (e.g. construction tech­ that existing cities will simply fragment and niques), change over time. Potential changes can collapse? Or does Paris have something that telep­ be illustrated by comparing a traditional local resence cannot match?' bookshop with an e-tail bookseller such as Amazon The next three sections discuss the evolution of (see Table 2.1 ). urban form from the core-dominated cities of the Nevertheless, due to communication technol­ industrial age to the polycentric and extended ogy, while cities and urban areas are spatially urban regions of the post-industrial and informa­ diffuse and fluid, they are also more connected and tional ages. For the urban designer, it is important integrated - albeit electronically rather than physi­ to understand this evolution because urban design cally - than ever before. both contributes to the evolving trends in the Recognition of the importance of transport and development of new urban form and reacts to that communication technology should not be seen as a left behind by previous patterns of growth. case of technological determinism. The application of technology is mediated by social trends. Decen­ tralisation and the so-called 'death of distance' and THE INDUSTRIAL CITY the end of the city are not foregone conclusions. Peter Hall (1 998, p. 943) argues that information Before the full emergence of capitalist economies in technology does not drive decentralisation in any the eighteenth century, and the advent of the

Example: talking face-to-face Example: leaving a note. In pre-literate societies, because With literacy, a significant there was no alternative, amount of human interaction activity was limited to the local­ shifted to the local­ synchronous quadrant and the asynchronous quadrant, and associated costs of cities began to develop into communication constrained the their characteristic modern size and form of settlements. forms.

Example: talking by telephone. Example: sending e-mail. With telecommunications, the With the development of remote-synchronous quadrant digital networks, there is a opened up, the scales of massive shift of activity to the organisations and social units FIGURE 2.1 very low cost, remote­ grew, and the process of Modes of asynchronous quadrant. globalisation began. communications (source: adapted from Mitchell, 1999, pp. 136-8) Urban change 27

TABLE 2.1 Impacts of communication technology

TRADITIONAL LOCAL BOOKSHOP £-TAIL BOOKSELLER

Provides a place where customers can browse Browsing and purchasing is done at home or • • and purchase books anywhere with an internet connection (i.e. Book purchasing and browsing in public these activities are decentralised) • becomes a social interaction Book purchasing becomes a private activity • Book purchasing and browsing can only be Book purchasing can be undertaken 24 hours • • undertaken during opening hours per day Stores a stock of books on the premises Storage and distribution of books are • • Must be located near to customers . centralised where land is cheap and • Bookstore has a 'real' presence, communications good • advertising/communicating itself as such Retailer is both everywhere and nowhere • within the local environment Retailer has a virtual presence • The shop is managed, and accounts kept, in Administration undertaken anywhere labour is • • offices within the building available

(Source: adapted from Mitchell, 2002, p. 19).

Industrial Revolution in the nineteenth century, industrial city was, therefore, a product of the cities were essentially small-scale settlements. Industrial Revolution. During the late eighteenth and the nineteenth For much of the early twentieth century, the centuries, initially in England and subsequently in most influential ideas about, and explanations of, other countries, major social and economic urban form and structure came from the Univer­ changes took place. As population increased sity of Chicago's urban sociology unit, and rapidly, changes in farming methods produced a constituted what became known as the 'Chicago surplus of labour in agricultural districts. At the School'. Chicago was then a new city. It had same time, the increasingly prosperous towns and grown rapidly, owing much of its growth to cities of industrial and mining districts offered the industrialisation. Several models of urban struc­ prospect of employment and a perceived higher ture - most famously Burgess's concentric zone standard of living. There was a general migration of model - were based on research there, and population into towns. The introduction of steam inevitably reflected the city's structure and the power enabled a factory system which demanded forces that created it (Figure 2.2). The 'typical' further concentration of labour. The rapid growth mature industrial city had a dominant, lar�Jely of cities led, however, to severe overcrowding. commercial, city centre or Central Business Without mass public transport, workers had to be District (CBD). Surrounding the centre was a ring within walking distance of factories, and there was of industry which required a large labour force to relatively indiscriminate development of factories be housed nearby, leading to the development of among poorly constructed and designed workers' a further ring of blue-collar and working-class housing, producing unsanitary and unhealthy housing. Beyond this was a ring of ma1inly conditions. City authorities were inadequately middle-class suburbs. The urban structure organised for, and experienced in, coping with focused on the CBD as the most accessible point, such rapid growth. the hub of the transport network and road The growth of the urban population was never­ system. Competition for sites and the ability of theless spectacular. In 1801 the urban population some land uses to outbid others meant land of England and Wales was three million - about values were at their highest at the city centre. one third of the total population. By 1911, the Land values and the intensity of development urban population was thirty-six million - almost 80 there declined smoothly with distance from the per cent of the total population. The modern or centre of the city. 28 Public Places - Urban Spaces

most countries, ineffective planning systems - led to further suburbanisation. The post-Second World War period saw further extension enabled by the individual mobility afforded by steadily increasing car ownership, spreading out the previously inte­ grated activities of home, work, business and leisure. Rapid urban decentralisation has been a feature of most Western countries since the Second World War, and earlier in the US. Breheny (1 997 p. 21) observes how the nature of this decentralisation has differed. In North America, Japan and Australia, it has tended to take the form of massive, sprawl­ ing suburbanisation. In European countries, by contrast, it has tended to involve both the subur­ banisation of larger cities and towns, and the growth of smaller towns and villages, partly as a FIGURE 2.2 result of the imposition of green belts around larger Burgess's Concentric Zone Model (source: Knox and cities. Pinch, 2000, p. 21 6) A suburban population commuting to work in the city centre created problems of access and congestion, reducing the CBD's accessibility advan­ tages. In the 1950s and 1960s, road-building POST-INDUSTRIAL URBAN FORM schemes addressed the increasing need for access from suburbs to city centres, and were supple­ Since the 1960s, new urban forms have been mented by ring roads, bypasses and connections to emerging that are significantly different to national motorway systems. In time, the transport modern/industrial cities in their form, pattern of pattern was transformed from a 'hub-and-spoke' land values, and social geographies. Following the configuration where the city centre hub was the urbanisation precipitated by the Industrial Revolu­ most accessible point, to networks where the most tion, when the main means of transport was by accessible locations were the junctions in the net. horse or on foot, the introduction of mass transport These transformations materially changed the systems broke the necessarily close spatial relation pattern of access in the city region, opening up the between workplace and residence. Whereas indus­ potential for scattered growth and removing the trial cities had initially grown in terms of density, necessity of being close to the centre, which had after about 1870, with the development of subur­ kept city form compact and growth patterns ban railway systems, they began to grow in area concentric throughout the nineteenth century too. The early 1900s saw the development of (Southworth and Owens, 1993). Suburban densi­ horse-drawn, and then motorised, trams and ties of jobs and residents might now appear next buses, and (in the years before and after the First to the CBD, while new concentrations of residen­ World War) of underground railways in the largest tial, employment and retail development could cities. Such developments permitted the decentral­ sprout on the urban periphery. To describe larger isation of residential land uses. versions of the latter, Joel Garreau (1 991) coined While the initial motivation for living in suburbs the term 'edge city'. was to escape the industrial city and its pollution, Central city decline, and the emergence of less disease and crime, there were also the attractions monocentric city forms, were perhaps inevitable of better quality housing, a garden, healthier living once the original CBD lost its advantage in terms of conditions, and the social status that such locations accessibility. In many cases this precipitated its conferred. In the 1930s, the steady salaried dissolution as a political economic, social and employment of the burgeoning middle classes symbolic locus - a process termed the 'hollowing enabled banks to lend money as mortgages. This out' of cities. Fishman (1 987, p. 17) observes the fuelled speculative development, which, together creation of 'perimeter cities that are functionally with the expansion of transport systems - and, in independent of the urban core', a phenomenon Urban change :Z9 that has been most prominent in the USA. In Europe, there is usually a still vibrant (though often revitalised and reinvented) core surrounded by a 'shatter zone' and then suburbia, with more pros­ perous residential developments and a mix of other developments - retail malls, leisure complexes, business parks, and employment centres - surrounding it. An extensive body of work by scholars based in California defines Los Angeles as the archetypal post-industrial or 'postmodern' city. The 'Los Ange­ les school' argues that post-industrial 'cities' are increasingly fragmentary in their form and chaotic in their structure, and are generated by different processes of urbanisation than were earlier cities (Box 2.4). A key theme is that of 'fragmentation', both in terms of the urban form and of the associ­ ated economic and social geographies (see Figure 2.3). Graham and Marvin (2001, p. 115) describe how: complex patchworks of growth and decline, concentration and decentralisation poverty and extreme wealth are juxtaposed. Whilst downtowns may maintain their dominance of some high level service functions, back offices, corporate plazas, research and development and university campuses, malls, airports and logistics zones, and retail, leisure and residen­ tial spaces spread further and further around the metropolitan core. The prime contributor to this pattern of growth has been the car. Schwarzer's 'market place' urbanists see the car as the 'elixir of city life', enabling dwelling, work and shopping to 'break free from their dependency on rail centres and corridors. Edge cities soar beyond inner-city constraints of land assembly, zoning regulation and high tax rates; they exploit fears of crime through privatised space, and desires for comfort and convenience via car-accessible and climatised space' (Schwarzer, 2000, p. "1 31 ). Nevertheless, while cars have enabled cities and their activities to spread out, to operate effectively in such cities, cars become a necessity and both society and our environment become increasingly auto-dependent (Kunstler, 1994; Kay, 1997; Duany et a!., 2000). In such envi­ ronments urban form and transport options are such that choice is limited to car use with an asso­ ciated range of environmental, economic and social problems (see Table 2.2). Growing concern about development patterns in the US has led to the emergence of 'smart 30 Public Places - Urban Spaces

FIGURE 2.3 Transition from the classic industrial city 'Spettaculac' site of n>and {Cl'ltre) c.l945-1 973 and 'post­ Fordist' metropolis, c.l975 onwards (source: Knox and Pinch, 2000, p. 69) growth' (see www.smartgrowth.org). Its advocates in the city; and the environmental costs of aban­ unify around the aim of trying to change undesir­ doning 'brownfield' sites, building on open space able impacts of (sub)urban sprawl. They typically and prime agricultural land at the suburban fringe, question the economic costs of abandoning infra­ and thus increasing pollution by necessitating structure only to rebuild it further out; the social longer commuter journeys (Environmental Protec­ costs of the mismatch between new employment tion Agency, 2001 ). Downs (2001) identifies four­ located in the suburbs, and the available workforce teen basic elements of smart growth (see Box 2.5), Urban change 3:1

TABLE 2.2 Problems of car dependency

ENVIRONMENTAL ECONOMIC SOCIAL

Oil vulnerability External costs from accidents Loss of street life • • • Petrochemical smog and pollution Loss of community • • Toxic emissions such as lead Congestion costs, despite road Loss of public safety • • • and butane building Isolation in remote suburbs • High greenhouse gas High infrastructure costs in Access problems for those • • • contributions new sprawling suburbs without cars and those with Urban sprawl Loss of productive rural land disabilities • • Greater stormwater problems Loss of urban land to bitumen • • from extra hard surfaces Traffic problems such as noise • and severance

(Source: Newman and Kenworthy, 2000, 1 09).

p. and four groups that claim to support it in Complex street patterns, reflecting ancient • principle: patterns of settlement and long, slow growth. The presence of plazas and squares (many of • 1. Anti- or slow-growth advocates, a1m1ng for pre-modern foundation) which remain impor­ slower urban expansion with reduced car­ tant centres of activity. dependence. High density and compact forms, resulting from • 2. Pro-growth advocates, aiming for outward high levels of urbanisation, a long history of expansion to fully accommodate future growth. urban development, the constraints of defen­ 3. Inner-city advocates, aiming to prevent the sive walls and, more recently, strong planning draining of resources from the inner city by regulations limiting lateral growth. outward growth processes. Low skylines, constrained by historic materials • 4. Better-growth advocates, aiming for reasonable and technology, and by planning and building growth with reduced negative impacts. codes preserving the dominance of important buildings. Restructuring processes are mediated by sociocul­ Lively downtowns, due to the relatively late • tural choice, by institutional structures and by pre­ arrival of the suburbanising influence of the car, existing physical forms. The cities epitomising and because of strong planning controls industrial (Chicago) and post-industrial (Los Ange­ directed at urban containment. les) urban form were relatively free from the Stable social and physical neighbourhoods: Euro­ • constraints of earlier patterns. Most cities, particu­ peans move house much less frequently than larly European ones, have extensive physical and Americans; and, due to past use of durable socio-economic legacies of earlier urbanisation, but construction materials (e.g. brick and stone), not the levels of disinvestment that have plagued the physical life cycle of neighbourhoods tends many North American cities. Thus, while Los Ange­ to be longer. les-style restructuring and urban form may be a The scars of war: defensive hill-top sites and city • future for some cities, it is not necessarily a future walls limited and shaped the growth of modern for all. Knox and Marston (1 998, pp. 449-53) iden­ cities. tify distinctive physical, social and economic Symbolism: the legacy of a long and varied • features of European cities which both distinguish history includes a rich variety of valued symbols them from those of North America, and provide in the built environment and the historic area. some form of resistance to Los Angeles-style A tradition of municipal socialism: European • restructuring: welfare states generally provide - or have 32 Public Places - Urban Spaces

sition from an industrial to an 'informational' era. Precisely how cities and urban areas will develop in the informational age is, as yet, unknowable. Nevertheless, it has been argued that 'the very idea of a city is challenged and must eventually be re­ conceived. Computer networks become as funda­ mental to urban life as street systems. Memory and screen space become valuable, sought-after sorts of real estate. Much of the economic, social, political and cultural action shifts into cyber-space' (Mitchell, 1995, p. 1 07). Another dimension of the development of elec­ tronic communications is the increasing potential for telecommuting - the ability to work from home, blurring distinctions between 'home' and 'workplace' - which has been hailed as both revo­ lutionising living and working conditions and allowing greater choice of domicile. Thus, rather than 'urbanity by necessity', it could be a case of 'urbanity by choice'. Telecommuting does not remove the need to design and create places where people want to live, work and play. Telecommut­ ing may also facilitate spatially fluid and complex urban lifestyles. Graham and Marvin (1 999, pp. 95-6), for example, note that most teleworking is done in the zones within and around the large cities, allowing people to go to the office on one or two days a week for face-to-face meetings. The informational age also takes further the ideas of Melvin Webber (1 963, 1964) who extolled the freedom offered by the freeway system and the highly decentralised city. Webber conceived the 'non-place urban realm' (where 'place' refers to geographical location) that challenges the real estate orthodoxy of 'location, location, location'. Arguing that spread-out cities such as Los Angeles worked just as well as traditional high-density ones such as New York, he suggested that 'the essential qualities of urbanness are cultural in character not territorial ...these qualities are not necessarily tied to the conceptions that see the city as a spatial phenomenon' (1 963, p. 52). In a celebrated provided - a broad range of municipal services passage, he concluded that: and amenities, including public transit systems and housing. the values associated with the desired urban structure do not reside in the spatial structure per se. One pattern of settlement is superior to INFORMATIONAL AGE URBAN FORM another only as it better serves to accommo­ date ongoing social processes and to fu rther the The contemporary restructuring of urban form is non-spatial ends of the political community. I not just a consequence of the transition from an am flatly rejecting the contention that there is industrial to a post-industrial era. As Manual an overriding spatial or physical aesthetic of Castells (1 989) suggests, it is also part of the tran- urban form. (Webber, 7 963, p. 52) Urban change

:n Electronic communication could mean that future dent combinations of meeting places and public 'cities' are aspatial and ageographic. Mitchell spaces' (1 999, p. 97). They also note how, despite argues that: 'The Net negates geometry ... it is the growth of e-tailers, a wide range of consumer fundamentally and profoundly aspatial. .. The Net services - tourism, shopping, visiting museums and is ambient - nowhere in particular but everywhere leisure attractions, eating and drinking, sport, at once' (1 995, p. 8). As it does not matter where theatre, cinema and so on - remains embedded in computers are located, merely that they are urban locations and seems likely to resist any connected together, the Internet gets much closer simple, substantial substitution by 'online' equiva­ to providing universal accessibility (where every­ lents (1 999, p. 95). where is equally accessible) than does the car. A possible implication in terms of urban form is the Environmental sustainability situation described in Dear and Flusty's concept of Keno Capitalism. Dear and Flusty (1 999, p. 77) Other factors influential in changing urban form argue that in 'the absence of conventional and include concerns about global warming, about transportation imperatives mandating propinquity, pollution (especially from cars), and about the the once-standard Chicago School logic has given depletion of fossil fuel reserves. Factors such as way to a seemingly haphazard juxtaposition of land increasing fuel prices will change the parameters of uses scattered over the landscape'. They argue that locational choices. While some argue that this will the result, in terms of urban form, could be a land­ lead to more compact and centralised urban forms, scape 'not unlike' that formed by a keno gamecard, there is considerable debate about such predic­ in which: 'Capital touches down as if by chance on tions. a parcel of land, ignoring the opportunities on Breheny (1 997, pp. 20-1 ) suggests that the intervening lots . . . The relationship between dominant motive for urban compaction and the development of one parcel and non-development compact city is the need to red uce travel by facili­ of another is a disjointed, seemingly unrelated tating shorter journeys and the use of public trans­ affair.' Here, 'Conventional city form, Chicago­ port (thereby reducing the use of non-renewable style, is sacrificed in favour of a non-contiguous fuels and vehicle emissions). Other motives are, collage of parcelised, consumption-oriented land­ that it can support retention of open space and scapes devoid of conventional centres yet wired valued habitats; encourage traffic calming and into electronic propinquity and nominally unified walking and cycling; make the provision of ameni­ by the mythologies of the disinformation super­ ties and facilities economically viable, enhance highway' (1 998, p. 81 ). social sustainability; and encourage social interac­ 'Places' or facilities are nevertheless interdepen­ tion. dent assets, and the direct rather than virtual expe­ Central to the argument that more compact rience of place remains important. If location in cities will result in less travel has been Newman atnd space (geographical location) matters less in loca­ Kenworthy's work relating petroleum consumptlion ' tional decisions, then the quality of local 'place' per capita to population density, for a number of may start to matter more. Graham and Marvin large cities (Figure 2.4). Higher densities were (1 999) contest the assumption that new commu­ found to be consistently associated with lower fuel nication technologies will 'dissolve' the city, argu­ consumption. Their ideas were criticised for, inter ing that IT applications are largely metropolitan alia, their focus on the single variable of density. phenomena. Noting how, as the value added in IT Hall (1 991 ) argued that travel distances and modal industries is shifting to places that can sustain inno­ splits depend also on urban structures, Gordon and vation in software and content - and, crucially, Richardson (1 989) argued that market mechanisms where the employees of such industries want to live would produce polycentric cities with relatively low and socialise - they cite a study of Manhattan's energy consumption and congestion, and Gordon SoHo and TriBeCa, which found that the raw mate­ and Richardson (1 991 ) found that, despite contin­ rial for such industries was 'the sort of informal uing d�centralisation, commuting distances in the networks, high levels of creativity and skills, tacit US had recently tended to remain stable or to fall, knowledge, and intense and continuous innovation which they attributed to the co-relocation of processes that become possible in an intensely­ people and jobs, with most work - and non-work localised culture, based on on-going, face-to-face - trips being suburb to suburb, rather than suburb contacts supported by rich, dense and interdepen- to centre. jobs and retail had generally moved 34 Public Places - Urban Spaces

60,000 United States

FIGURE 2.4 Newman and Kenworthy's comparison of petroleum consumption per capita to population density (source: Newman and 0 25 Urban50 75 density 100 125in persons150 175 200per hectare225 250 275 300 Kenworthy, 1989)

closer to, rather than further from, where people CONCLUSION live (Pisarski, 1987). Various commentators have suggested other This chapter has reviewed the context in which sustainable urban forms, such as decentralised but contemporary urban design operates. At the start concentrated and compact settlements linked by of the twenty-first century, the old 'certainties' public transport systems, and concentrated nodes about urban form are challenged. The future will and corridors of high-density development (Frey, be different from now, in ways we do not yet 1999). Many such patterns are based on aggregation know. Mitchell (1 999, p. 7) contends that the of relatively small-scale, walkable neighbourhoods. impact of the digital revolution will 'redefine the Susan Owens (from Hall, 1998, p. 972) suggests that: intellectual and professional agenda of architects, urban designers, and others who care about the At regional scale, neighbourhood-sized units spaces and places in which we spend our daily • (1 0-1 5 000 people) might be clustered to form lives'. Pollution, global warming and the depletion larger settlements, with the units arrayed in a of fossil fuels may also provoke radical change. linear or rectangular form along a public trans­ Mitchell suggests that, while future urban environ­ port spine. ments will retain much that is familiar, there will be At subregional scale, compact settlements, also a new layer consisting of 'a global construction of • in linear or rectangular form, might have high-speed telecommunication links, smart places, employment and commerce dispersed to give and increasingly indispensable software, [which a 'heterogeneous' land-use pattern. will] shift the functions and values of existing urban At local scale, subunits at pedestrian and cycle elements, and radically remake their relationships'. • scale, medium to high residential density, and As a result, he suggests that: possibly high linear density, might have local employment, commercial and service opportu­ the new urban tissue will be characterised by nities clustered to permit multi-purpose trips. live/work dwellings, twenty-four hour neigh- Urban change

3�5 bourhoods, loose-knit, fa r-flung configurations Urban design is not simply a passive reaction to of electronically mediated meeting places, flexi­ change. It is - or should be - a positive attempt to ble, decentralised production, marketing and shape change and to make better places. The recent distribution systems, and electronically UK urban renaissance agenda (Urban Task Force, summoned and delivered services. 1999) and the smart growth movement in the US have highlighted how the ignoring of fundamental Future urban design might, therefore, increasingly urban design considerations such as connections, be about the design of mixed-use urban neigh­ accessibility and mixed uses, can result in the bourhoods and villages, business and employment creation of less sustainable, less socially equitablle, parks, leisure and entertainment complexes, and in the long term less economically viable urban offices, shopping malls and home-work units - forms. While types of urban form may have to be cheek-to-jowl or widely separated, and with seem­ rethought and reconsidered, it is clear that the ingly no overarching logic of land values providing structure of urban places matters. Furthermore, an even transition of intensity and density of devel­ there is a clear relationship between the spatial and opment. Terms such as 'city centre', 'suburb' and physical characteristics of a city, and its functional, 'periphery' may become less meaningful, and socio-economic and environmental qualities. The social and spatial fragmentation may continue, need, therefore, is to design cities and urban places with exclusive enclaves of wealth and privilege, but to work well, to be people-friendly and to have a also areas of intense deprivation and disadvantage. positive environmental impact. Contexts for urban design

INTRODUCTION boundaries. In general, the larger the project, the greater its scope to control or create its own context.

This chapter discusses a set of broad 'contexts' ..,. Nevertheless, whatever their scale, all urban design local, global, market and regulatory - that actions are embedded within and contribute to their constrain and inform all areas of urban design local context. All acts of urban design are therefore action. Although these contexts change over time, contributions to a greater whole. at any particular moment they are relatively fixed Encapsulated in Francis Tibbalds' golden rule and are typically outside the scope of the urban that 'places matter most', is the idea that respect design practitioner's influence. Hence, in relation to for, and informed appreciation of, context are individual urban design projects and interventions, prime components of successful urban design. they have to be accepted as givens. They also Each place's unique quality is perhaps its most underpin and inform the discussions of the dimen­ precious design resource, with urban designers sions of urban design in the following six chapters. frequently operating within established, generally The dimensions constitute the everyday material of complex, and often delicate contexts. As discussed urban design, which urban designers have greater in Chapter 2, the ideologically motivated innova­ scope to manipulate and change. In practice, the tion and the 'clean sweep' of comprehensive boundaries between 'contexts' and 'dimensions' schemes were largely responsible for the rejection are blurred. In a general sense, however, while of Modernist ideas of urban space design. As a urban designers can make decisions about a devel­ response, there has been a preference for more opment's form or visual appearance, they cannot incremental development that respects local char­ change the fact that it is situated in a particular acter and context (Figure 3.1 ). local and global context, or that it occurs within a Not all contexts or places require the same market economy that is regulated to a greater or degree of 'contextual' response. Areas of highly lesser extent. Relating the four contexts and the six unified character generally require more respectful dimensions is urban design's essential nature as a responses, while areas of low environmental quality problem-solving process. The final part of this offer greater opportunity for the creation of new chapter, therefore, presents a discussion of the character. Most areas fall between these extremes. urban design process. Equally, while not of particular historic or aesthetic quality, they may also be valued for their social or cultural qualities. The concept of context must be THE LOCAL CONTEXT considered broadly. Buchanan (1988, p. 33) argued that 'context' was not just the 'immediate surround­ Where urban design action involves the preparation ings', but the 'whole city and perhaps its surround­ of a public realm strategy, the site is itself part of the ing region'. It was not 'narrowly formal', but context. Where urban design action involves a devel­ included 'patterns of land use and land value, opment project, the context can be considered to topography and microclimate, history and symbolic include the site plus the area immediately outside its significance and other socio-cultural realities and

36 Contexts for urban design

37 aspirations - and of course (and usually especially which to explore the diversity of established urban significant) the location in the larger nets of move­ contexts (Figure 3.2). Lang (1 994, p. 19), for ment and capital web'. example, suggests that all environments can be A study of London's urban environmental qual­ conceived of in terms of four interlocking compo­ ity (Tibbalds et a/., 1993) identified eight key nents: factors forming a useful departure point from 1. Terrestrial environment - the earth, its structure and processes. 2. Animate environment - the living organisms that occupy it.

3. Social environment - the relationships among people. 4. Cultural environment - the behavioural norms of, and artefacts created by, a society.

Terrestrial and animate factors include climate and local microclimates; the established natural environ­ ment; underlying geology, land form and topo­ graphical features; environmental threats; and sources of food and water. Social and cultural factors include a settlement's original purpose; changes of purpose and human interventions over tirne; patterns of land ownership; the culture of the inhabitants; relations with neighbouring popula­ tions; and adaptability in changing circumstances. In any one place and time, an 'urban environment' is part of a particular terrestrial context inhabited by a diverse animate community, incorporating multi­ FIGURE 3.1 layered social interactions producing a distinctive London's Urban Environmental Quality (source: Tibbalds local culture, and forming one among a prolifera­ et a/., 1993, p. 22) tion of distinctive and complex urban contexts.

FIGURE 3.2 New development in London's Isle of Dogs makes little reference to and is often not connected with its surrounding context. Despite significant investment in the area, the benefits are almost negligible in the areas adjacent to the key developments 38 Public Places - Urban Spaces

It is also clear that considerations of context are in creating and managing the built environment, not just concerned with 'place' in a physical sense, urban designers shape, but do not determine, but also with the people that create, occupy and patterns of social and cultural life and interaction. use the built environment. Understanding local The last two decades, for example, have seen the sociocultural contexts and cultural differences emergence of 'cafe society', 'loft living' and a allows urban places to be 'read' and understood, culture of urban living in the centres of many revealing much about the culture that created and British cities. This is a result of people seeking these maintains them. lifestyles and of the media and cultural industries The relationship between culture and environ­ presenting positive images of them - but also of ment is a two-way process. Over time, people's developers and designers making such opportuni­ choices create distinctive local cultures that shape ties available. and reinforce their environments, and are symbol­ Given the naivety of assuming that principles of ised within them. Based on prior experience, such good urban design are universal and transferable choices are motivated by shifting criteria related to between cultures, urban design requires sensitivity goals, values (both individual and societal) and to cultural diversity. Furthermore, as processes of preferences. While people - and the choices they globalisation threaten to overwhelm cultural diver­ make - collectively create sociocultural contexts, sity, it is increasingly important to respect that they do not do so in a vacuum. Choices are shaped which continues to exist. While the discussion in by, for example, the ability and willingness to pay; this book is drawn primarily from a Western (and the constraints and opportunities offered by the probably Anglocentric) perspective, Barrie Shel­ local climate; the availability and cost of technol­ ton's Learning from the japanese City: West Meets ogy and resources. The contemporary urban envi­ East in Urban Design offers an important reminder ronment in the US, for example, is a product of that ideas about urban space are culturally specific. choices predicated on relatively low motoring costs Shelton (1 999, p. 9) notes that, to most Western (and the expectation of their remaining low). In eyes, Japanese cities 'lack civic spaces, sidewalks, much of Europe, it is a product of choices predi­ squares, parks, vistas, etc.; in other words, they lack cated on relatively high motoring costs. those physical components that have come to be Technology, especially that of communication viewed as hallmarks of a civilised Western city'. He and transport, provides new opportunities. explains how, behind Japan's urban forms, there Although its impact on social and cultural life can are ways of thinking and seeing that are rooted be both dramatic and radical, as change often deeply in the wider Japanese culture. Japanese occurs in incremental and subtle ways, we are less thinking about architectural and urban space, for conscious of it while it is actually happening and example, has greater affinity with 'area' - as shown more aware in retrospect. The impacts of new tech­ by the importance of the tatami mat and the floor nology on social, cultural and economic life can be in buildings -than that of Western thinking, which illustrated by the example of the local high street, focuses on 'line'. There are also debates about, for where, until recently, banks were a ubiquitous pres­ example, 'European' and 'American' traditions of ence, often occupying architecturally elaborate urban design, usually in attempts to identify a buildings and offering face-to-face interaction distinctively American, rather than a transplanted (Mitchell, 2002, p. 19). Their role was affected by and remedial European, tradition (Dyckman, 1962; the provision of automatic cash points providing Attoe and Logan, 1989). banking facilities 24 hours a day, and as telephone As the economic, social, cultural and technolog­ and electronic banking further diminished the need ical context continually changes, so does the urban for high street branches, they tended to close, and environment. Change is inevitable and often desir­ their buildings found other uses. able. Prior to the Industrial Revolution, change in Such changes come about through the aggre­ the built environment tended to be slow and incre­ gate effect of individual market choices, based on mental. Since then, the pace and scale of change the availability of new technology. While urban has increased, with a corresponding increase in designers must respect and work with the grain of development pressures on particular places, and in people's sociocultural values and preferences, the homogenisation of places and contexts (see urban design both responds to cultural change and Chapter 5). Pressures include globalisation and is itself a means towards such change. Through internationalisation; standardisation of building their involvement in the development process and types, styles, and construction methods; loss of Contexts for urban design 39 vernacular traditions; use of mass-produced mate­ The range of uses a development contains (e.g. • rials; decentralisation; estrangement of people from mixed use, access to facilities/amenities, work­ the natural world; pressures for short-term financial ing from home). returns in the development industry and in the Site layout and design (e.g. density, landscap- • decisions people make about their living environ­ ing/greening, natural habitats, daylight/ ments; the public sector's often unthinking and sunlight). homogenising regulation of the built environment; The design of individual buildings (e.g. built • and increased personal mobility, and dominance of form, orientation, microclimate, robust build­ cars. These pressures, which have both local and ings, building reuse, and choice of materials). global dimensions, provide the link between local and global contexts. The concept of sustainable development includes not only environmental, but also economic and social, sustainability. Urban designers need to have THE GLOBAL CONTEXT regard to social impacts and long-term economic viability, as well as environmental impacts. Just as all acts of urban design are embedded in There is often tension between the meeting of their local context, they are also inextricably human needs, aspirations and desires, and envi­ embedded in the global context: local actions have ronmental responsibility (Figure 3.3). If human global impacts and consequences, while global needs are considered to be short-term and 'urgent' actions have local impacts and consequences. and those of the environment long-term and Given warnings of global warming, climate 'important', a balance is needed between short­ change, pollution of the natural environment, and term and long-term interests. The problem is the the depletion of fossil fuel sources, the need for tendency to privilege short-term urgent needs at environmental responsibility is an important the expense of long-term important ones.

consideration for urban designers -· one which Commenting about the short-termism of market impacts on design decisions at many levels, includ­ behaviour, the economist John Maynard Keynes ing those of: suggested that in the market's view the long-term did not matter because 'in the long-term, we are The integration of new development with exist­ all dead'. A different view is expressed in Chief • ing built form and infrastructure (e.g. choice of Seattle's wise and poetic words: 'We do not inherit location/site, use of infrastructure, accessibility the world from our ancestors; we borrow it from by various modes of travel). our children.' If future generations are to enjoy the

FIGURE 3.3 Supermarket, Greenwich Peninsula, London, UK. This development shows the all too frequent contradictions inherent in the concept, in this case an 'energy efficient' yet car-dependent development 40 Public Places - Urban Spaces

environmental quality and the quality of life throughout its lifetime - should be as self-sufficient enjoyed today, sustainable design and develop­ as possible. Barton et a/. (1 995) view develop­ ment strategies are of paramount importance. ments in terms of a series of spheres of influence A key difficulty is that environmental concerns (Figure 3.4). For more sustainable and self-suffi­ are often marginalised and seen as 'someone cient development, the aim is to increase the level else's problem'. Concern for such issues in devel­ of autonomy by reducing the impact of the inner opment is often limited to the extent to which spheres on the outer spheres. Although many they are financially prudent or are required by urban design actions are relatively small scale, public regulation. Financial calculations within their aggregation results in major effects on the development processes often fail -through inabil­ overall natural systems of the neighbourhood, ity, unwillingness or lack of compulsion - to town, city, region, and - eventually - on the include the full environmental costs. The devel­ earth's biosphere. oper is typically concerned only with those costs Some commentators propose that urban envi­ that directly impact on the project's viability and ronments should be explicitly viewed as natural rarely with wider environmental impacts bearing ecosystems. In his book Design with Nature, for on the investor, the occupants, and society at example, ian McHarg (1 969) argues that towns large. and cities should be considered as part of a wider, Developments have a much larger environmen­ functioning ecosystem. Similarly, Hough (1 984, tal impact than is immediately apparent. This can p. 25) argues that, just as ecology has become the be visualised by considering a development's envi­ 'indispensable basis' for environmental planning of ronmental footprint (Box 3.1 ). More sustainable the larger landscape, 'an understanding and appli­ urban design involves reducing the total environ­ cation of the altered but nonetheless functioning mental footprint by, for example, reducing depen­ natural processes within cities becomes central to dence on the wider environment for resources, urban design'. Decision-makers need to be aware and reducing pollution of it by waste products. To of, and understand, the natural processes operat­ achieve this, development - in its construction and ing within urban areas (Figure 3.5). Contexts for urban design 41

A number of writers have identified more World/Biosphere/Gaia specific principles of sustainable urban desi9n. Michael Hough (1 984) identified, for example, five ecological design principles:

1. Appreciation of process and change: natural processes are unstoppable, and change is inevitable and not always for the worse. 2. Economy of means: deriving the most from the least effort and energy. 3. Diversity: the basis for environmental and social health. 4. Environmental literacy: the basis for wider understanding of ecological issues. 5. Enhancement of the environment: as a conse­ quence of change, not just as damage limita­ tion.

A range of commentators and organisations have also suggested sets of principles for sustainable urban development and/or design (Ta ble 3.1 ). Of these, Barton et al.'s (1 995) analysis of sustain­ FIGURE 3.4 Nesting spheres of influence (source: Barton, et at., able design principles is the most comprehensive. 1995, p. 1 2) A combined set of criteria can also be created (Table 3.2).

emissions ))! evapotranspiration

materials

waste fluids

Monitoring the Settlament as Eco-system Have you the inputs and outputs of the settlement? i 1. audited How do you reduce unsustainable inputs and outputs? FIGURE 3.5 2, The settlement as ecosystem (source: Barton et a/., 1995, p. 1 3) TABLE 3.1 � Strategies for sustainable development design v c: MICHAEL BREHENY (1992) COMMISSION OF THE EVANS ET AL. (2007) URBED (1997) EUROPEAN COMMUNITY (1 990) 2::v ;:;·

Urban containment Appropriate open and civic Freedom from pollution - Quality space - attractive, human tilVI • • • • n policies should be space to improve health minimising waste and urban rt> ..., i adopted and and quality of life Biotic support - by maintaining A framework of streets and I • • decentralisation slowed Importance of planting and biodiversity squares - well-observed routes c • down landscape in ameliorating Resource conservation - air, and spaces 0"" • Ill Extreme compact city pollution water, topsoil, minerals and A rich mix of uses and tenures :::l • • Vl proposals are Compact and mixed fo rms energy A critical mass of activity - to ""C • • Ill unreasonable of development Resilience - a long life for sustain facilities and animate the nVI • rt> Town centres and inner Reducing travel development streets • • cities should be Recycling and energy Permeability - providing a choice Minimal environmental harm - • • • rejuvenated reduction initiatives of routes during development and in the Urban greening should be Maintenance of regional Vitality - making places as safe ability to adapt and change over • • • encouraged identity as possible time Public transport needs to Integrated planning across Variety - providing a choice of Integration and permeability • • • • be improved disciplines and uses A sense of place mixing new with • Intensification should be bureaucracies Legibility - enabling people to old • • supported around understand the layout and A feeling of stewardship and • transport nodes activities of a place responsibility Mixed-use schemes are to Distinctiveness - in landscape • • be encouraged and culture CHP systems should be • used more widely

IAN BENTLEY(199 0) HUGH BARTON (7 996) GRAHAM HAUGHTON RICHARD ROGERS (1991) AND COLIN HUNTER (1 994)

Energy efficiency - Increasing local self- Variety - multifunctional districts A just city - where justice, food, • • • • minimising the external sufficiency - seeing each with varied building styles, ages shelter, education, health and energy needed to development as an and conditions hope are fairly distributed and

construct and use a place, organism or a mini eco- Concentration - sufficient density where all people participate in • and maximising the use of system in its own right to maintain variety and activity government ambient, particularly, solar .. Human needs - matching including people who are ., A beautiful city - where art, energy a concern for sustainable resident architecture and landscape spark Resilience - building to development with the Democracy - offering choice in the imagination and move the • • adapt to different uses satisfaction of basic where activities are conducted spirit over time, rather than human needs Permeability - connecting people A creative city - where open­ • • wastefully tearing down Development structured with each other and to facilities minded ness and • and rebuilding each time around energy-efficient Security - through the design of experimentation mobilise the full • human aspirations change movement networks - spaces to enhance personal potential of its human resources (an extension of the taking circulation of safety and allows a fast response to earlier robustness people on foot and bike Appropriate scale - developments change • principle) and the effectiveness of building on local context and An ecological city - which • Cleanliness - designing public transport as a reflecting local conditions minimises its ecological impact, • places to minimise starting point Organic design - respecting where landscape and built form • pollution output, and The open space network - historic narrative and local are balanced and buildings and • where a degree of to manage pollution, distinctiveness infrastructures are safe/resource­ pollution is unavoidable wildlife, energy, water, Economy of means - designing efficient • designing as far as and sewage as well as with nature and using local A city of easy contact - where • possible to be self­ enhancing the local resources the public realm encourages cleansing provision of greenspace Creative relationships - between community and mobility and • Wildlife support - Linear concentration - buildings, routeways and open information is exchanged both • • designing places to around movement spaces face-to-face and electronically support and increase the networks while avoiding Flexibility - adaptability over time A compact and polycentric city ­ • • variety of species town cramming Consultation - to meet local which protects the countryside, • Permeability - increasing An energy strategy - for needs, respect traditions and tap focuses and integrates • • choice by making places every new development resources communities within accessible through a to save money; reduce Participation - in the design, neighbourhoods and maximises • variety of alternative fuel poverty; and reduce maintenance and running of proximity routes resource exploitation and projects A diverse city - where a broad ....() • 0 Vitality - the presence of emissions range of activities create �(1):J • V> other people and 'eyes on A water strategy - to animation, inspiration and foster - • the street' decrease water run-off a vital public life ...., Variety - the choice of and increase infiltration c:0 • ...., experiences into the ground Legibility - understanding C'" • DJ the potential for choice :J V>0.. (1) 1.0' :J

ol:lo w TABLE 3.2 :t Matrix of sustainable design principles v c Michael Jan Commission Michael Andrew Graham Hugh URBED Richard Evans et a/. Hildebrand Hough Bentley of the Breheny Blowers Haughton Barton Rogers Frey and Colin 2:v European ;::;- Community Hunter (7 997) (2 007) (7 999) (7 984) (7 990) (7 990) (7 993) (7 996) (7997) IllQJ nV>I STEWARDSHIP Enhancement Integrated Town centre A sense of A creative city through change (7planning 990) rejuvenation (7 994) stewardship -. e­ ll>c RESOURCE Economy of Energy Reducing Public Land/minerals/ Economy of Energy efficient Minimal An ecological Resource Public :::::1 EFFICIENCY means efficiency travel/energy transport, CHP energy resources, means movement. environmental city conservation transport, VI reduction, systems infrastructure Energy strategy harm reduce traffic "'0 and buildings Ill recycling volumes n IllV> DIVERSITY AND Diversity Variety, Mixed Mixed use Variety. Integration. A city of easy Permeability, Mixed-use, CHOICE permeability development Permeability Permeability. contact. variety hierarchy of A rich mix of A diverse city services and uses. facilities

HUMAN NEEDS Legibility Aesthetics. Security. Human needs A framework of A just city. Legibility Low crime. Human needs Appropriate safe/legible A beautiful city Social mix. scale space lmageability

RESILIENCE Process and Resilience Flexibility Ability to adapt Resilience Adaptability change and change

POLLUTION Cleanliness Ameliorating Climate/water/ Water strategy Freedom from Low pollution REDUCTION pollution air quality pollution and noise through planting

CONCENTRATION Vitality Compact Containment/ Concentration Linear A critical mass A compact, Vitality Containment. development intensification concentration of activity polycentric city Densities to support services

DISTINCTIVENESS Regional Heritage Creative Sense of place Distinctiveness Sense of identity relationships. centrality. Organic design Sense of place

BIOTIC SUPPORT Open space Urban Open space. Open space Biotic support Green space - greening Bio-diversity networks public/private. Symbiotic town/country

SELF-SUFFICIENCY Environmental Self-sufficiency Democracy. Self-sufficiency Some local literacy Consultation. autonomy. Participation Some self- sufficiency

(Source: Carmona, 2001, from Layard et al., 2001). Contexts for urban design 45

A further overarching principle for environmentally development process in, for example, the constant responsible urban design involves building in - or search for novelty and innovation. leaving room for - future choice. Proposing a While urban designers need to recognise and 'pragmatic principle' for urban design, Lang (1 994, appreciate the processes that drive development, p. 348) argues that, rather than assuming that two common misconceptions must be noted: that technology will always find an answer, urban built environment professionals are the main designers should take an environmentally benign agents in shaping urban space; and that develop­ position, designing flexible and robust environ­ ers make the main decisions, with designers merely ments that enable and facilitate choice. For exam­ providing 'packaging' for those decisions (Madani­ ple, there should be choice of means of travel - pour, 1996, p. 119). The first overstates the role of walking, cycling, public transit - even though, in designers and exposes them to criticism for aspects the short term, people are likely to continue to use of development that are outside their control; the their cars. Table 3.3 summarises environmental second understates their role in shaping the urban design issues at various spatial scales. environment. The overstating of the architect's role - and indeed, those of other professionals in the development process - has been called the THE MARKET CONTEXT 'fetishising of design' (Dickens, 1980) (i.e. focusing on buildings and architects rather than on the The third and fourth contexts - market (economic) broader social processes and relations surrounding and regulatory (governmental) represent different the production and meaning of the urban environ­ sides of the same (state-market) coin. As most of ment). us live in market economies, most urban design Urban development is substantially determined actions occur within a context based on funda­ by those in control of - or in control of access to - mental forces of supply and demand. The necessity resources. As buildings and urban developments of obtaining a reward (or, at least, a return that are typically expensive to produce, those fi nancing covers production costs) imposes - at the very least them do so for their own purposes, usually - budgeta1y constraints. Furthermore, in a market concerned with making profits. As Bentley (1 998, economy, many decisions that have public conse­ p. 31) observes, most major property developers quences are made in the private sector. The are not interested in 'art for art's sake', and have context for decision-making in the private sector is, shareholders who will invest elsewhere if accept­ however, usually mediated by policy and by regu­ able profits are not achieved. Economic and market latory frameworks and controls designed to offset ­ power lies, therefore, in the hands of those groups or, at least, temper - economic power so as to with the power and resources to initiate develop­ produce better outcomes. Thus, urban design ment. As Cowan (2000, p. 24) asserts, 'it is markets actions typically occur in market economies that that lead investment, not design'. Urban design is are regulated to a greater or lesser extent. itself intrinsically limited: while its initiatives and To operate effectively, urban design practition­ actions can assist trends that are under way, ers need to understand the financial and economic attempts to channel market activity to other than processes by which places and developments come where it wants to be are unlikely to be successful. about. Market economies are driven by the search As Cadman and Austin-Crowe (1 991 , p. 19) warn: for profit and by the prospect of reward mediated 'No amount of careful design or promotion can by associated risks. They are often characterised by totally overcome the disadvantage of a poor loca­ strategies or regimes of capital accumulation. As tion or a lack of demand for the accommodation at the development and redevelopment of the built an economic price irrespective of location.' environment is a means of making profits and Subject to appropriate considerations of value, accumulating capital, urban design and the cost, risk/reward and uncertainty, development has production of the built environment are often key to be economically viable before it is undertaken. components of such strategies (Harvey, 1989b). In The potential rewards and risks attached to any discussing architects, but making a more general development opportunity reflect both the point that applies to urban designers, Knox (1 984, complexity of the process, and the wider economic p. 115) argues that, by helping to stimulate context within which it occurs. At all stages a consumption and the constant circulation of capi­ project is vulnerable to external and internal risks, tal, designers have an instrumental role in the not least market fluctuations and the need to main- TABLE 3.3 � Sustainable design by spatial scale " c BUILDINGS SPACES QUARTERS SETTLEMENTS 2:: STEWARDSHIP Respond to and enhance Respond to and enhance Design for revitalisation 'Join-up' contributions to ;:;· • context • context • Developing long-term vision • quality - design, planning, (Jl" • s:;;- Design for easy • Calm traffic Invest the necessary resources transport, urban manage­ n • maintenance Allowing personalisation of • ment ..., • public space Governance that supports I • c­ Manage the public realm stakeholder involvement ctll • ::J Vl RESOURCE Using passive (and active) Layouts to allow sun penetra­ Reduced parking standards Invest in public transport -c EFFICIENCY • solar gain technologies • tion • Create urban block depths that • infrastructure til • iti Design for energy retention Spaces that reduce vehicle allow sun and natural light Utilise more efficiently V> • Reduce embodied energy - • speeds and restrict vehicle penetration and which encour­ • before extending estab­ • local materials and low circulation age natural ventilation lished capital web (infra­

energy materials Design spaces that reduce • Use combined heat and power structure) Use recycled and renewable • wind speeds and enhance systems • materials microclimate Provide local access to public Design for natural light and Using local, natural materials • transport • ventilation •

DIVERSITY AND • Provide opportunities to • Design for mixed uses along Design for mixed uses within Integrate travel modes CHOICE mix uses within buildings streets and in blocks • quarters • Connect route networks • • Mix building types, ages Design for walking and cycling Design fine grained street and (macro scale) • • and tenures Combat privatisation of public space network (micro scale) • Centre hierarchy to boost Build accessible, lifetime • realm Support diversity in neighbour­ choice • homes and buildings Remove barriers to local acces­ • hood character Variety in services and facili­ • sibility Localise facilities and services • ties between centres • • Remove barriers to accessibility

HUMAN NEEDS Support innovation and Provide high quality, image­ Design visually interesting Enhance legibility through • artistic expression in design • able, public spaces • networks of space • quarter identity and disposi­

Design to human scale • Combat crime through space • Enhance legibility through tion • Design visually interesting design and management landmark and space disposition Promote equity through • buildings Enhance safely by reducing Socially mix communities • land-use disposition • pedestrian/vehicle conflict • Build settlement image to Design for social contact and • foster sense of belonging • for safe children's play

RESILIENCE Build extendible buildings • Design robust spaces, usable Design to allow fine grained Build robust capital web - • • • • Build adaptable buildings for many functions changes of use across districts infrastructure to last and

• Build to last Design spaces able to accommo­ • Design robust urban block adapt Use resilient materials • date above and below ground layouts Recognise changing • infrastructure requirements • patterns of living and work Design of serviceable space • POLLUTION • Reuse and recycle waste • Reduce hard surfaces and run- • Match projected C02 emissions • Challenge 'end-of-pipe' REDUCTION water off with tree planting solutions to water/sewerage

• Insulate for reduced noise • Design in recycling facilities • Plant trees to reduce pollution disposal

transmission - vertically and • Design well-ventilated space to • Tackle light pollution • Control private motorised horizontally prevent pollution build-up transport

• Provide on-site foul water Give public transport priority • Clean and constantly main- treatment * tain city

CONCENTRATION • Design compact building • Reduce space given over to • Intensify around transport • Enforce urban containment forms to reduce heat loss, roads intersections and reduce expansion

i.e. terraces • Reduce space given over to • Raise density standards and • Intensify along transport

• Bring derelict buildings back parking avoid low density building corridors

into use • Increase vitality through activity • Build at densities able to • Link centres of high activity

• Consider high buildings concentration support viable range of uses where appropriate and facilities

• Respect privacy and security needs

DISTINCTIVENESS • Reflect surrounding • Reflect urban form, townscape • Reflect morphological patterns • Protect any positive regional architectural character in and site character in design and history - incremental or identity and landscape char-

design • Retain distinctive site features planned acter

• Enhance locally distinctive • Design for sense of place - • Identifyand reflect significant • Utilise topographical setting

building settings local distinctiveness public associations • Preserve archaeological

• Retain important buildings • Retain important building • Consider quarter uses and inheritance groups and spaces qualities

BIOTIC SUPPORT • Provide opportunities for • Design in robust soft landscap- • Provide minimum public open • Link public (and private) greening buildings ing space standards open space into network

• Consider buildings as • Plant and renew street trees • Provide private open space • Green urban fringe loca-

habitats • Encourage greening and • Create new or enhancing exist- tions

display of private gardens ing habitats • Integrate town and country

• Respect natural features • Support indigenous species

SELF-SUFFICIENCY • Demonstrate sense of public • Encourage self-policing • Build sense of community • Encourage environmental

sector civic responsibility through design • Involve communities in deci- literacy through example and promotion • Encourage private sector • Providing space for small-scale sion making nfD civic responsibility trading • Encourage local food produc- • Consultation and participa- 0 X::J • Provide bicycle storage • Provide bicycle parking facilities tion - allotments, gardens, tion in vision making and

• Connect to internet urban farms design {;i • Pay locally for any harm Q a-c Ill ::J c.. m "'

(Source: adapted from Carmona, M., in Layard 2001, pp. 179-81). ::J t5' et a/., � .., 48 Public Places - Urban Spaces tain cash flow (Figure 3.6). In the private sector, 2. Choice, provided by markets, empowers viability is considered in terms of the balance consumers by giving access to competing between risk and reward, with reward seen primar­ suppliers, and the opportunity to combine ily in terms of profits. A major barrier to achieving different packages of goods and services urban design quality is the argument that such according to personal preferences. People are development 'does not pay', at least not on the able to maximise their individual welfare, time scale required by investors. In the public constrained only by their willingness and ability sector, viability is considered both in terms of value to pay. for public (or taxpayers') money and in terms of the broader objective of achieving and maintaining As Klosterman (1 985, p. 6) explains, the argument a healthy economy. is that competitive markets can be relied upon 'to co-ordinate the actions of individuals, provide . incentives to individual action, and supply those The operation of markets goods and services which society wants, in the A market exists when buyers wishing to exchange quantities which it desires, at the prices it is willing money for a good or service are in contact with to pay'. Adam Smith famously referred to this as sellers wishing to exchange goods or services for the 'invisible hand' of competitive market money. Advocates generally claim two main advan­ processes. He considered that, although individuals tages to the market mechanism: pursued their own advantage, the greatest benefit to society as a whole was achieved by their being 1. Competition between producers and suppliers free to do so. Each individual was 'led by an invisi­ means efficient allocation of goods and ble hand to promote an end which was no part of services. Prices are determined (largely) by the his intention'. Hence, as Smith wrote: 'It is not from interaction of supply and demand, with the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the competition on quality and/or price, benefiting baker, that we expect our dinner, but from their consumers by providing goods and services regard for their own interest.' As Varoufakis (1 998, reduced by the benign forces of competition, p. 20) suggests, it is 'as if an invisible hand forces while ensuring that all producers strive to offer on those who act shamelessly a collective outcome a service as good as that available from other fit for saints'. producers, thereby forcing producers to While in (neo-classical) market theory, the compete or go out of business. Competition producer supplies precisely what the consumer also encourages entrepreneurs to innovate and wants, in practice this 'consumer sovereignty' does exploit technology to gain advantage. not exist because the necessary competition does

Site Option Planning ChangesFailures/ Grant " �sign Fin�ncl�l \ Conservation Subcon ctor\ 1\!egotlati�n Uncertainty Permission crsll · Competitor ) \ \ Flow Dela � Consents } Interest\ ' \ J ProJeCtion I \

;� Labour jj Shortage ; I i Legal \/ I Liability Adapt:;�tion� T( Requif>'Jd FIGURE 3.6 Risks in the procurement process Contexts for urban design 49 not occur. Critics argue that because 'big business' Furthermore, because the market does not penalise corporate concerns and multinational corporations drivers commensurately with the social cost, deci­ dominate markets, consumers are inevitably sions to drive are taken with regard to drivers' manipulated into buying the products and services private costs and benefits rather than those of soci­ offered for sale rather than what they really want. ety as a whole. Negative externalities also derive Another problem is that 'big business' typically from landowners who ignore the costs of conges­ represents economic interests that are increasingly tion, noise and loss of privacy that their develop­ freed and estranged from allegiance to specific ment imposes on the neighbours. Landowners gain locations. Zukin (1 991, p. 15) highlights the funda­ positive externalities through the increased land mental tension between 'global capital' that can values associated with new transportation links and move and 'local community' that cannot, while other large-scale improvements. Although such Harvey (1997, p. 20) considers that capital is no gains are sometimes recouped by the state (e.g. longer concerned about place: 'Capital needs fewer through betterment taxes), private landowners workers and much of it can move all over the mostly benefit without incurring costs. Apprecia­ world, deserting problematic places and popula­ tion of externalities and spill-over effects is a crucial tions at will.' As a consequence, the fate of local part of urban design, which is often about enhanc­ place is increasingly determined from afar by ing positive effects - as in the positive synergy anonymous and impersonal economic forces. deriving from a mix of uses within a limited To work efficiently, markets require 'perfect' geographical area - and minimising negative ones competition, which in turn requires all of the (see Chapter 8). following: a large number of buyers and sellers; the While land and property markets are well quantity of any good from one seller being small equipped to handle private costs and benefits, they relative to the total quantity traded; the goods or are unable to take account of social costs and bene­ services sold by diffe rent sellers being identical; all fits (Adams, 1994, p. 70). Given the imperative of buyers and sellers having perfect information, and profit maximisation (or, more simply, profit-seek­ perfect freedom of entry to the market. In practice, ing), developers generally minimise 'private' devel­ markets often 'fail' in some way, due, for example, opment costs and maximise private benefits, at the to monopoly or oligopoly conditions; public (or expense of 'social' costs and benefits. The individ­ collective consumption) goods; externalities or ual developer's profit maximisation, therefore, spill-over effects; 'prisoners' dilemma' conditions tends to be achieved at the expense of the wider where individual actions result in suboptimal community. As a result, the process and product of collective outcomes; and common pool goods to development is often flawed because it is essen­ which there exist common property rights. tially concerned with individual developments that Adams (1 994, pp. 70-1 ) argues that market fail­ ignore their local context, rather than with the ure in land and property markets results from the creation of places that form an intrinsic part of it. intrinsic nature of land as a 'social' rather than a As the social costs can often be ignored, markets 'private' commodity. Land is a social good because often result in highly individualistic behaviour, with the potential use and value of any land is directly a prioritising of individual (private) outcomes that constrained by neighbouring activity, which benefit the individual over collective (sodal) inevitably spills over. Land is, therefore, an interde­ outcomes that benefit society. pendent asset and a substantial proportion of its Although, once produced, the built environ­ value (or lack of value) derives from activities ment is usually durable and lasts for many years, beyond its boundaries. the provision of funding for development normally The social costs and benefits of private produc­ depends on returns on investment, with the retums tion and consumption can be considered in terms made over the first few years of a building's llife of spill-over effects. These are not taken into exceeding the development costs sufficiently to account in the process of voluntary market ensure the desired profit (Adams, 1994, p. 71 ). In exchange (i.e. they are external to the price paid). conventional methods of development appraisal, They are illustrated by the social and environmen­ costs and benefits that occur over longer periods tal costs imposed by cars, which pollute the air and are substantially discounted. A higher priority is, add to road congestion (Hodgson, 1999, p. 64). therefore, accorded to short-term rather than long­ Each driver bears relatively little of the environ­ term concerns, resulting in short-termism and a mental cost, most of which is imposed on others. neglect of the long-term. 50 Public Places - Urban Spaces

Whether a public or private sector activity, urban and be able to predict most of the direct and indi­ design always has public outcomes. The exterior of rect consequences of intervention/regulation - that a development, for example, is a public object and is, they must be market-aware. In urban design both aesthetically and functionally forms part of the terms, designers need to appreciate the market­ public realm. It is a local 'public' (collective) good, driven and market-led nature of the development simultaneously benefiting many individuals because process. (ignoring congestion effects) one person's enjoy­ ment does not prohibit that of others. It is a local public good, because the benefits are attenuated by THE REGULATORY CONTEXT distance. Controlling access to such goods is often impossible. By contrast, access to a private good can The fourth context for urban design is the regula­ be restricted, with a price charged for its enjoyment. tory context. The concern here is with the 'macro' The benefit individuals receive from a public good regulatory (governmental) context, which provides depends on the total supply of that good, rather the overall context for the detailed elaboration of than on their contribution towards its production. In public policy, including, in particular, urban design making contributions to pay for a particular good, policy and the operation of design control/review

individuals have an incentive to understate their real (see Chapter 11) . Despite having to accept the preferences, in the hope that others will pay for it. macro regulatory context as a given, urban design­ This allows them to be 'free riders', enjoying the ers frequently lobby for change here, typically good at no personal expense. If everyone did this, through professional societies and organisations however, funds to provide the good would not be rather than as individuals. available. Thus, as private actors cannot (exclusively) It is important to distinguish between 'politics' appropriate the benefits and rewards, 'rational' and 'government'/regulation. Politics is essentially developers contribute to the development of collec­ an activity where the merits of alternative forms of tively used infrastructure and public realm only to action to deal with public problems can be debated the extent that they can accrue private benefits. The as a prelude to choice, as individuals and groups same argument applies to elements of infrastructure put their opinions onto the agenda for government used collectively. For these reasons, the private action. It is here that, for example, the balance sector tends to lack interest in the creation and between 'economic' and 'environmental' objec­ supply of such goods. If the private sector under­ tives is determined. Government, by comparison, is provides public goods, then either the state must where decisions are made on behalf of all, and supply them or they are not supplied. where legal and policy frameworks are established. A conclusion often drawn from the above The regulatory context proper is therefore discussion is that there is a case for government preceded and informed by a political process. intervention to 'correct' market failures. This might Before a policy can be enacted, the political argu­ nonetheless commit the fallacy of supposing that ments must be won. the alternative to imperfect markets is 'perfect In representative democracies, decisions are government'. The (often political) choice concerns made by elected politicians who, in principle, first which imperfect form of organisation is likely to consider and reconcile the varied views and opin­ lead to a better outcome (Wolf, 1994). Although ions held by the public. Decisions may then be sometimes presented as a binary choice between implemented through direct action by government the unfettered play of market forces or state inter­ agencies, or by influencing private actors via policy, vention, it is often the case that some intervention administrative and legal frameworks, and fiscal makes markets work better. Many urban design measures (taxes, tax breaks and subsidies). In most actions (particularly in the public sector) are public market economies, the public sector does not act interventions into land and property markets. The directly on private sector actors (developers, land main argument for state intervention in land and owners, etc.). Instead it establishes the public property markets is that it produces a better envi­ policy and regulatory framework for private sector ronment and greater efficiency and/or equity in the decision-making - influencing the set of incentives use of land and environmental resources than and sanctions available, thereby making some would be produced by unfettered markets. Inter­ actions more likely than others. vening and regulatory agencies must, however, While there will inevitably be debates about fully appreciate the working of market mechanisms whether the state should have a greater or lesser Contexts for urban design .5;1 direct role, and how much it should intervene in the itates local innovation where the mayor values operation of land and property markets, for many urban design while, at the national level, presti9e urban design practitioners these are of only acade­ projects act as design exemplars. In the UK, the mic interest. The realityis that urban design projects relatively strong central government, and corre­ must be designed and implemented in accordance spondingly less autonomous local authorities, with prevailing market conditions and within the provide potential for a more consistent desi�1n regulatory context that exists at the time. emphasis, but also - until the mid-1 990s - a general undermining of initiative at the local level. Rather than relatively straightforward, hierarchi­ The structure of government and cal systems, more complex systems of governance governance are emerging, with central government bodies and In democracies, members of the various tiers of quasi- and non-governmental organisations (quan­ government are elected for a limited period, after gos and NGOs) being established at various levels which they must seek re-election. Governments and across different functional sectors and and politicians can therefore be voted out of office. geographical areas. These are complemented by an The achievement of significant improvements in increasing range of public-private partnerships, urban areas is typically a long-term process, for also operating within different levels, sectors and which relatively short periods of political office, areas. coupled with various economic cycles, do not provide a stable context for long-term investment Market-state relations or for the implementation of strategic visions. Indeed, the short-termism of elected mayors and An important part of the regulatory context is the

politicians ·- whether desiring instant effects or balance between public and private sectors. avoiding unpopular decisions - can result in long­ Depending on the sectoral viewpoint, develop­ term objectives being sacrificed for short-term ment will often be perceived differently. Some 'electoral' reasons. Some politicians have, never­ basic distinctions can be identified (see Box 3.2). theless, been strong advocates of good design, and This provokes consideration of the degree to influential in raising the quality of development in which the activities of the private sector are or their cities. should be regulated, which in turn raises issues As changes of administration can also result in regarding the purpose of urban design. The key wavering commitment to particular policies, there issue is whose interests does - or should - urban is a need to secure commitment to long-term goals design serve: the maximisation of returns for and strategies. Achieving long-term change often private sector investment or the interests of the requires the support of a broad-based coalition of public at large. In practice, each sector depends on interest groups spanning different administrations the other to achieve its goals and their roles are and policy eras. Studies of the planning histories of generally complementary rather than antagonistic, cities with reputations for urban design quality as is shown by the increasing proliferation of testify to the long-term commitment to and strug­ public-private partnerships. gle for such quality by a range of local stakehold­ In considering market-state relations, distinction ers (Abbott, 1997; Punter, 1999). must be made between 'mixed' and 'market-led' A key element of the (macro) regulatory context economies. As both are, in a strict sense, mixed is the relationship between the tiers of government economies, the distinction is between the state and the relative autonomy of each tier, especially playing a more, or a less, significant and direct role with regard to local governments' autonomy to in the management of the economy. In mixed develop responses to local problems, opportunities economies, the state generally has a more execu­ and contexts. Centre-local relations are a focus for tive, 'hands-on' role, with direct action public much political science inquiry and debate. In the agencies. Here, urban design policies and decisions US, where the Federal Government has little or no have, in principle, the potential to more fully reflect role in planning or urban design, individual states the public interest, to address context, to reflect and cities have relative freedom to develop their urban design as well as architectural concerns, and own responses and, depending on local priorities, to incorporate local concerns. In market-led the result is both poor and high quality urban economies, the state has a more facilitative, 'hands­ design. In France, the strong mayoral system facil- off' role, with direct action being undertaken by 52 Public Places - Urban Spaces

the private and voluntary sectors. Here, for reasons subsidise any activity that does not benefit them of economic and construction efficiency, design directly as individuals. As Lang (1 994, p. 459) decisions are based on market analysis, contribu­ notes, stereotypical taxpayers want to minimise tax tion to the wider public interest is rarely a major payments: weighed down by self-interest, they are consideration, and context is not a major concern only concerned with public infrastructure and unless seen as a financial asset, with the qualities design of the built environment when it directly and attributes of buildings as individual objects affects them. Galbraith (1 992, p. 21) suggests that prioritised over their contribution to place. expenditure and new investment in public infra­ As direct state intervention often involves public structure is 'powerfully and effectively resisted' spending, the degree of intervention is often a func­ because 'present cost and taxation are specific, tion of politicians' and political parties' perception of future advantage is dispersed. Later and different the willingness of the taxpayer to fund public provi­ individuals will benefit; why pay for persons sion and infrastructure. Lang (1 994, pp. 459-62) unknown?' Alternatively, taxpayers are concerned usefully distinguishes between 'paying' and non­ that the state will not make 'good' use of 'their' paying clients of urban design. In both public and money. As a consequence, there are pressures for private sectors, paying clients include entrepreneurs tax limitation, which imposes budgetary constrains and their financial backers. In the public sector, on state action and, as is discussed below, a desire entrepreneurs are government agencies and politi­ for 'privatism'. cians, and their financial backers are the taxpayers Over the last thirty years or so, debate has and increasingly also the private sector (for example, increased about the appropriate roles of the private through direct payments for planning gain). Tradi­ and public sectors, and the relationship between tionally the public sector has acted on behalf of the the state and the market. Following critiques of 'big public interest in the public realm. It has promoted government' and of assumptions that 'more - and often substantially funded - development of government' was the solution, came arguments the 'Capital Web' (see Chapter 4). It has also been that government was actually part of the problem, concerned with those elements of the urban envi­ and that the solution involved freeing market forces ronment seen as beneficial to society as a whole, but through deregulation. The 1970s and 1980s saw which would not pay for themselves directly through neo-liberal and 'New Right' arguments coming to user fees, or for which it is administratively impossi­ prominence - particularly during the Reagan era in ble to collect fees. Such public goods are funded the US and the Thatcher era in the UK - with much through general taxation. effort directed at reducing the state's powers and Taxpayers appear, however, to be increasingly its role to provide room for market forces to flour­ reluctant to fund investment in the public realm ish. The result saw a shift towards market-led and are often considered to be unwilling to fund or economies. Contexts for urban design 53

From the mid-1 980s onwards, 'managerialism' design interventions were exclusively designed became a key theme in the form of 'reinventing for tenants rather than for the wider public; government' where governments should 'steer' design initiatives were opportunistic, and • rather than 'row' (Osbourne and Gaebler, 1992), public policy reactive rather than proactive; and in general operating more like the private as a result, developments were ad hoc, • sector. The emphasis was on making government disjointed, episodic and incrementalist; work 'better', defined and measured somewhat this new urban design had lost any larger • narrowly in terms of cost (lower rates of personal public purpose or vision; taxation) and the size of government, rather than privatisation had exacerbated polarisation into • in terms of the quality of services provided, and of the rundown, public downtown of indigents, outcomes. As new political ideologies combined and the glamorous, private downtown of with fiscal constraints on municipal governments to corporate America. dictate the public sector's dependence on private sector investors and developers, the overall result Similar observations can be made in the UK, where was a distinct shift towards private provision and throughout much of the 1980s and 1990s, public privatisation. agencies were often characterised by short­ 'Privatism' became a dominant policy theme, termism, lack of strategic vision and an absence of especially in the US and UK, and throughout much public sector interest in design quality, resulting in of the developed world. A key means of privatism an abandonment of urban design. In commenting was various forms of privatisation and private on early developments in the London Docklands provision of what had previously been public area and, as he saw it, the folly of not providing an services. In the context of urban design, Graham urban design framework to guide development, (2001 , p. 365) observes how elements of the Michael Wilford (1 984, p. 1 3) argued that: 'Depen­ urban public realm and infrastructure were priva­ dence on the capacities of non-regulated capitalism tised and sold off to profit-seeking companies or to as fairy god-mother has been demonstrated tinne various types of public-private partnership. Simi­ and again to be a deluding myth and cowardly larly, Loukaitou-Sideris (1991, from Loukaitou­ evasion on the part of those charged with the task Sideris and Banerjee, 1998, p. 87) attributes the of designing our cities' (Figure 3.7). Demonstrating privatisation of public space in US downtowns to a positive response to the public sector's abandon­ three interrelated factors: the public sector's desire ment of urban design considerations, the Canary to attract private investment and to relieve its Wharf development marked a turning point. To financial burdens by utilising private resources; the protect their investment's long-term viability, the private sector's responsiveness to development developer/investors - Olympia and York - insisted initiatives and its willingness to participate in on higher design and infrastructure standards public-private partnerships and provide (quasi-) which, within its own terms, produced a high qual­ public spaces within private development projects; ity - albeit introspective, commercial and private - and the existence of a market demand for the facil­ development. ities and services offered in privately built open During the 1990s and into the twenty-fi1rst spaces. She notes how the desire of office workers, century, attempts to go beyond simplistic notions of tourists and conventioneers to be separated from 'government good, market bad' (or vice versa) have 'threatening' groups, provided the market oppor­ tended to coalesce around the notion of a 'third tunity for spaces produced, maintained, and way' or, more precisely, third ways (Giddens, 20011 ). controlled by the private sector (see Chapter 6). Concepts of the third way are based on the argu­ Against the background of a retreat from proac­ ment that contemporary society is undergoing tive public policy direction and direct public sector profound and irreversible changes which call estab­ investment, Loukaitou-Sideris and Banerjee (1 998, lished political and policy-making frameworks into p. 280) examined the outcomes of market-led question. Third way advocates claim to go beyond urban design in West Coast American cities. In the conventional categories of 'left' and 'right' particular, they noted how: defined in terms of attitudes to the role of the market. In contrast to the 'second way' of neo-liber­ urban design had been privatised and was alism, the third way accepts the need for interven­ • mainly dependent on private initiatives; tion by government to moderate the impact of to maximise returns on investment, urban market forces, while simultaneously - unlike the 'first • 54 Public Places - Urban Spaces

urban design quality. During the 1990s there have been positive changes in this context in the UK that have begun to do so (Carmona, 2001, pp. 304-1 9). The desire to improve levels of qual­ ity, for example, underpinned the Government's 'Quality in Town and Country Initiative' from 1994 to 1997. Elsewhere, a philosophy that recognises the role of design in achieving environmental qual­ ity was already well established. Urban design was seen as a means to add and/or ensure quality in the development of, for example, the Berlin IBA, the waterfronts of Barcelona and Boston, and, in the UK, in Birmingham's city centre regeneration schemes.

THE URBAN DESIGN PROCESS

The notion of urban design as a process is a recur­ ring theme in this book. Through a design process the four contexts discussed above and the six dimensions discussed in Part II are related. Part I will therefore conclude by briefly focusing on the urban design process. The 'design' in urban design is not (only) an 'art' -type process, it is also one of FIGURE 3.7 research and decision-making. Design is a creative, At the same time as the relatively deregulated exploratory and problem-solving activity through development of the London Docklands, the Broadgate which objectives and constraints are weighed and development was completed within an equally frenzied balanced, the problem and possible solutions development context in the City of London. The Broadgate development provides a coherent addition to explored, and optimal resolutions derived. It adds the City of London, is integrated into its context and value to the individual component parts, so that creates a successful and coherent series of 'public' the resulting whole is greater than the sum of the spaces. It illustrates the potential of the private sector to parts. innovate and its ability to deliver quality outcomes All design must satisfy certain criteria. Vitruvius' 'firmness, commodity and delight' can be taken as criteria of good urban design in a product design way' of social democracy - recognising important sense: firmness concerns achievement of the neces­ limits to state action. Rather than 'command and sary technical criteria; commodity concerns the control' models of policy and delivery, local govern­ functional ones; while delight is about aesthetic ments are expected to use their powers to provide appeal. These criteria cannot be placed in a hierar­ leadership, to enable a co-ordinated local approach, chy of importance: good design must achieve and to seek to harness the creativity, energy and them simultaneously. In an era of increasing aware­ resources of the private and voluntarysectors. ness of the scarcity of natural resources, a fourth This discussion of the regulatory context is not criterion of 'economy' should also be added, not intended to make the case that one or other form only in the financial sense of respecting budget of economy is likely to produce better urban design constraints, but also in the wider sense of minimis­ outcomes -although this may be implied. It simply ing environmental costs. acknowledges that there are different (macro) All 'design' activity follows an essentially similar regulatory contexts within which urban design process. john Zeisel (1 981) characterised this as a practitioners must operate. It can nevertheless be 'design spiral', a cyclical and iterative process by argued that there is the need for a regulatory which solutions are gradually refined through a context that recognises and supports the value and series of creative leaps or 'conceptual shifts' (Figure quality of urban design and that seeks to increase 3.8). A problem is identified to which the designer Contexts for urban design �;5

My answer is very simple: by producing an inadequate solution and by criticising it. Only in this way can we come to understand the prob­ lem. For to understand a problem means to understand its difficulties; and to understand its difficulties means to understand why it is not easily soluble - why the more obvious solutions do not work. We must therefore produce these more obvious solutions; and we must criticise them, in order to find out why they do not Initid image :ormation work. In this way, we become acquainted with the problem, and may proceed from bad solu­

D-omain of tions to better ones - provided always that we acceptable respon%.5: have the creative ability to produce new guesses, and more guesses. This . . . is what is meant by 'working on a FIGURE 3.8 The design spiral (source: john Zeisel, 1981 ) problem'. And if we have worked on a problem long enough, and intensively enough, we begin to know it, to understand it, in the sense that we know what kind of guess or conjecture or forms a tentative solution, a range of solutions or ­ hypothesis will not do at all, because it simply more generally - approaches to a solution. These misses the point of the problem, and what kind are evaluated in terms of the original problem or of requirements would have to be met by any set of objectives, and then refined, developed and serious attempt to solve it. In other words, we improved through testing, discovering and purg­ begin to see ramifications of the problem, its ing of errors or inappropriate ideas, or abandoned. sub-problems, and its connection with other Design is therefore a continuous process of problems. trial-test-change, involving imaging (thinking in At the macro scale, urban design processes take terms of a solution), presenting, evaluating and re­ two distinct forms (see Chapter 1 ): imaging (reconsidering or developing alternative solutions). The process moves towards a final 1. Unknowing design: the ongoing accumulation of acceptable solution, until, once within the domain relatively small-scale, often trial-and-error, deci­ of acceptable responses, the decision is taken to sions and interventions. Many towns developed proceed and implement the proposal. The proposal in this way, slowly and incrementally, never will also be further modified and improved through being designed as a whole. The resulting envi­ the implementation process. ronments that have :survived are highly valued As well as seeking solutions, the design process today. It also worked because the pace of involves e>

designs - including design policies and other guid­ Evaluation (appraisal): reviewing both the • ance - reconsidered in the light of new objectives, finished product and its success, measured or implemented in part and later adapted as new against the identified goals. external influences come to bear. In each of the four key development phases - Each stage represents a complex set of activities, particularly that of design - the urban designer's which, while generally conceptualised as a linear thought processes can be disaggregated into a process, is in practice iterative and cyclical, and less series of thought stages: mechanistic and more intuitive than the various Setting goals: in conjunction with other actors diagrams of design process appear to indicate. • (particularly clients and stakeholders), and At this level, urban design parallels similar design having regard to economic and political reali­ processes in urban planning at the city-wide scale, ties, proposed time scale, and client and stake­ in architectural design of individual buildings, engi­ holder requirements. neering at infrastructure and in landscape design Analysis: gathering and analysing information across the range of scales (Figure 3.9). This reiter­ • and ideas that might inform the design solu­ ates both the position of the urban design process tion. within the development and planning processes Visioning: generating and developing various (see Chapters 1 0 and 11) and its multi-disciplinary, • possible solutions through an iterative process multi-actor nature. of imaging and presenting, usually informed by personal experience and design philosophies. Synthesis and prediction: testing the generated CONCLUSION • solutions to identify workable alternatives. Decision-making: determining the alternatives This chapter has presented four fundamental • to be discarded, and those for further refine­ contexts for urban design action. The essence of its ment or promoting as the preferred design argument has been that urban design requires a solution. respect for the local and global contexts and the

------Knowing ' Urban Design : Goals• ----___,

Unknowing Analysis• Urban Design

The integrated urban design process FIGURE 3.9 Contexts for urban design �i7 market and regulatory contexts. It has also empha­ from attempting to challenge and push the bound­ sised that the nature of urban design - like all forms aries of their field of opportunity. Fourth, it asse'rts of design - is a cyclical, iterative process. the importance of design as a process. The four contexts are subsumed within the defi­ Each of the next six chapters discusses a differ­ nition of urban design given at the start of Chapter ent dimension of urban design - 'morphological', 1. This definition - urban design is the process of 'perceptual', 'social', 'visual', 'functional' and making better places for people than would other­ 'temporal'. As urban design is a joined-up activity, wise be produced - also asserts the importance of this separation is for the purpose of clarity in expo­ four themes that occur throughout this book. First, sition and analysis only. Overlapping and interre­ urban design is for and about people. It involves lated, these dimensions are the 'everyday matter' considerations of equity, gender, income groups, of urban design. The crosscutting contexts outlined etc., and generally stresses broader, collective in this chapter relate to and inform all the dimen­ outcomes rather than narrower, individual sions. The dimensions and contexts are linked and outcomes. Second, it emphasises the value of place related by the conception of design as a desiqn and the need for an explicit concern for issues of process - a process that, for urban design to be place making and responses to both local and effective, must be grounded in an appreciation of global context. Third, it recognises that urban and respect for local and global context and design operates in the 'real' world and that the prevailing economic (market) and political (regula­ field of opportunity for urban designers is typically tory) realities. Without this, urban design is not constrained and bounded by forces (market and worthy of the title 'urban design' - it is either just regulatory) that are beyond its control or influence. 'development' or simply a fanciful aspiration wiith This does not, however, prevent urban designers little chance of successful implementation.

II

THE DIMENSIONS OF URBAN DESIGN

The morphological dimension

INTRODUCTION work in the field focused on analysing evolution and change in traditional urban space. Morpholo­ This chapter is in three parts and focuses on the gists showed that settlements could be seen in 'morphological' dimension of urban design; that is, terms of several key elements, of which Conzen the layout and configuration of urban form and (1 960) considered land uses, building structures, space. There are essentially two types of urban plot pattern and street pattern to be the most space system, which, for the purposes of this book, important. He emphasised the difference in stabil­ will be referred to as 'traditional' and 'modernist' ity of these elements. Buildings, and particularly (Box 4.1 ). 'Traditional' urban space consists of the land uses they accommodate, are usually the buildings as constituent parts of urban blocks, least resilient elements. Although more enduring, where the blocks define and enclose external space. the plot pattern changes over time as individual 'Modernist' urban space typically consists of free­ plots are subdivided or amalgamated. The street standing 'pavilion' buildings in landscape settings. plan tends to be the most enduring element. Its During the modern period, the morphological stability derives from its being a capital asset not structure of the public space network has changed lightly set aside; from ownership structures; and,. in in two important ways (Pope, 1996; Bentley, 1998): particular, from the difficulties of organising and from buildings as constituent elements in urban implementing large-scale change. Changes do blocks (i.e. connected terraced masses) defining happen, however, through destruction by war or 'streets' and 'squares', to buildings as separate free­ natural disaster or, in the modern period, through standing pavilions standing in an amorphous programmes of comprehensive redevelopment. 'space'; and from integrated and connected small­ The following sections expand on Conzen's four scale finely meshed street grids, to road networks morphological elements. The varied patterns and surrounding segregated and introverted 'enclaves'. environments that these form can be studied In each case there is currently a reaction to these through what Caniggia terms tessuto urbana or changes. The changes are discussed in the first and 'urban tissue' (Caniggia and Maffei, 1979, 1984). second parts of this chapter. The final part discusses urban blocks and urban block structures. Before Land uses that, it is necessary to present a more general discussion of urban morphology. Compared with the other key elements, land uses are relatively temporary. Incoming uses often lead to redevelopment and the creation of new buiild­ URBAN MORPHOLOGY ings, to plot amalgamations and, less often, to subdivisions and changes in the street pattern. By Urban morphology is the study of the form and contrast, displaced land uses are more likely to relo­ shape of settlements. Appreciation of morphology cate to existing buildings in older areas and, rather helps urban designers to be aware of local patterns than redeveloping them, to adapt and convert of development and processes of change. Initial them.

61 62 Public Places - Urban Spaces

Building structures block' form. Loyer (1 988) describes similar devel­ opment and urban intensification in eighteenth Plots have often had a recognisable progression or and nineteenth century Paris, and the cycle also cycle of building development. In England, this holds true for nineteenth century industrial towns process transformed the medieval 'burgage' plots, and twentieth centurysubu rbs (Whitehead, 1992). which started out as long, narrow fields laid out With no indigenous tradition of burgage plots, perpendicular to a street or circulation route many New World countries witnessed an early (Conzen, 1960) (see Box 4.2). Because the first part focus on grids: Moudon (1986) details the evolu­ of a plot to be developed was that adjoining the tion of block, lot and building patterns in San Fran­ street, development generally began in 'perimeter cisco's Alamo Square neighbourhood. The morphological dimension

�13 '� �

4 5 Urbann

fallow

Some buildings - churches, cathedrals, public a main street at each end. Over time, as plots are buildings, etc. - will last longer than others for a bought and sold, boundaries can change. Larqe variety of reasons, including the greater investment plots may be subdivided, or several may be amal­ -financial and symbolic - in their design, construc­ gamated. As plots have been amalgamated to tion and ornamentation. Such buildings may also enable the construction of larger buildings, plot become particularly meaningful to residents and sizes have become larger. This process usually visitors, and often symbolically represent the city. occurs in one direction only: plots are often amal­ In the absence of conservation controls, other gamated, but more rarely subdivided. In extreme buildings survive only if they are able to adapt to cases, such as the construction of shopping centres new or changing uses: that is, if they have a qual­ in central areas, whole urban blocks can be amal­ ity known as robustness (see Chapter 9). Buildings gamated, with any intervening streets being priva­ that endure over time often accommodate various tised and built over. Although plot and block uses and/or intensities of use during their lifetime - amalgamation removes most of the evidence of for example, a townhouse may successively be an earlier forms, in many towns, especially in Europe, upmarket single-family home, then offices, then evidence of earlier plot patterns persists from that student bedsits. period. As few of these plots have buildings of that period, it also demonstrates that buildings chanqe more rapidly than plot patterns. The plot pattern Cadastral units (urban blocks) are typically subdi­ The cadastral (street) pattern vided or 'platted' into plots or lots (Figure 4.1 ). These may be 'back to back', each having a The cadastral pattern is the layout of urban blocks frontage onto the street and a shared boundary at and, between them, the public space/movement the rear. Plots may also face onto main streets at channels or 'public space network' (see below). the front with service alleys at the rear. Less The blocks define the space, or the spaces define common are 'through' plots with a frontage onto the blocks. The ground plan of most settlements 64 Public Places - Urban Spaces

FIGURE 4.1 These buildings in central Prague show the evidence of their original long narrow plots fronting onto a public space

can be seen as a series of overlays from different fragmented townscapes. Patterns of streets and ages. The term 'palimpsest' is used as a metaphor spaces have often developed over many hundreds for such processes of change, where current uses of years, and fragments and 'ghosts' of patterns overwrite, but do not completely erase, the marks from different eras can be seen in the ground plans of prior use. Twentieth century roads often cut of many cities. In Florence, for example, the Roman through the street patterns of older areas, leaving street pattern is still evident in the plan of the city's central core (Figure 4.2). An important urban design quality established by the cadastral pattern is that of 'permeability' - meaning the extent to which an environment allows a choice of routes both through and within it. It is also a measure of the opportunity for movement. A related measure - 'accessibility' - is a measure of what is achieved in practice (i.e. a prod­ uct of the interaction between the individual and the cadastral system). 'Visual' permeability refers to the ability to see the routes through an environ­ ment, while 'physical' permeability refers to the ability to move through an environment. In some cases there may be visual but not physical perme­ ability (and vice versa). Cadastral patterns composed of many small­ sized street blocks have a fine urban grain, while patterns with fewer larger blocks have a coarse urban grain. An area with smaller blocks offers a greater choice of routes and generally creates a more permeable environment than one with larger FIGURE 4.2 blocks (Figure 4.3). Smaller blocks also increase The street pattern of central Florence retains the layout of the original Roman settlement (source: adapted from visual permeability - the smaller the block, the Braunfels, 1988) easier it is to see from one junction to the next - The morphological dimension �;5

FIGURE 4.3 Permeability. Finely meshed grids offer many different ways to get from place to place within the grid. Coarser grids offer fewer ways. If f- 1 "" I' / I I' I' the grid becomes L � discontinuous through the severing of LL_ ....!> ' connections and the \. / creation of dead ends, "' / permeability is reduced. This has radical impacts / _, _:,. within coarsely meshed "<" , ....v -v ' -'> grids I 'v v 'v 1/ v thereby improving people's awareness of the most basic planned layouts have generally been choices available. rectilinear. Many European cities have as their A basic distinction in cadastral patterns can be foundation Greek or Roman regular or semi-regular made between regular or 'ideal' grids characterised grid plan settlements. In Europe, regular grid by geometric regularity and organic or 'deformed' grids characterised by apparent irregularity. Although in terms of physical permeability, the shape of the grid does not matter, deformities may affect potential movement by reducing visual permeability (see Chapter 7). In countries and regions with a long history of incremental urbanisation, most urban grids are 'deformed' (Figure 4.4). They are often described as 'organic'; their layouts having been, or appearing to have been, generated naturally rather than being consciously manmade. Generally based on pedes­ trian movement, and strongly influenced by local topography, they were built as integral parts of the immediate area rather than as through routes, and evolved and developed with use. Bill Hillier (1 996a, 1996b; Hillier et a/., 1993) has extensively theorised the relation between movement and the evolution of the urban grid. His central proposition is that movement largely dictates the configuration of urban space, and is itself largely determined by FIGURE 4.4 spatial configuration. The theory's principal genera­ Plan of Rothenburg, Italy. In a 'deformed' grid, the structure of the space is deformed in two ways. First, tor is that, considered purely as a spatial configura­ the shaping and alignment of the islands of buildings tion, the urban grid's structure is the 'most powerful (i.e. urban blocks) mean that sight lines do not continue single determinant' of urban movement (Hillier, right through the grid from one side to the other but 1996b, p. 43) (see Chapter 7). continually strike the surfaces of the building blocks. Second, as one passes along lines, the spaces vary in Regular and ideal grids are usually planned and width. Hillier (1 996) argues that 'deformities' in the grid typically have some degree of geometric discipline. affect visual permeability and are, thereby, an importotnt Due to the ease of laying out straight stree , the influence on movement (source: Bentley, 1998)

ts 66 Public Places - Urban Spaces

patterns have frequently been overlaid on, or added alongside, more organic patterns, for exam­ ple by Cerda in Barcelona. Various cities in the New World are examples of regular, orthogonal grids, by which large, relatively plain tracts of land could be easily divided into manageable plots and sold off. The grids used to lay out cities in the US became simpler over time. The public squares and diagonal streets that constituted important features of earlier street patterns - in Savannah, Philadelphia, Washing­ ton, etc. - were often dropped later in favour of simpler systems of straight streets and rectangular blocks. Noting that few American cities used the grid­ FIGURE 4.5 iron as 'more than an equitable expedient', Morris Savannah was laid out on the basis of cellular units with (1 994, p. 347) regards Savannah as an important growth intended to be by repetition of those units. Each exception and suggests that the urban mid-west's unit had an identical layout: four groups of ten house lots and four 'trust lots' (reserved for public or more geometry might well have been 'less monotonously important buildings) surrounding a public square. The debasing' under its influence (Figure 4.5). main through traffic was on the streets between cellular Some planned street patterns have an important units, leaving the public squares to quieter traffic. At symbolic function written into the overall plan. intervals, tree-lined boulevards, replaced ordinary streets (source: adapted from Bacon, 1967) Traditional Chinese capital cities, for example, were planned as perfect squares, with twelve city gates, three on each side, representing the twelve months of the year; Roman new towns had two intersect­ During the late nineteenth and early twentieth ing main streets representing the solar axis and the centuries, in many countries (especially the USA) the line of the equinox. Such layouts are not always dominance of rectilinear patterns provoked reaction religious or ancient. In Washington DC, for exam­ against their use in favour of continuous curvilinear ple, the locations of the White House and the Capi­ layouts, where wide, shallow plots (in contrast to tol symbolise the separation of executive and deep, narrow ones) offered an impression of legislative powers. spaciousness. Curvilinear layouts derived from English While deformed grids usually have a picturesque picturesque design of the early nineteenth century, character as a result of their changing spatial enclo­ such as John Nash's 1823 design for Park Village near sure, regular grids have often been criticised for Regent's Park, are exemplified in Olmsted and Vaux's their supposed monotony. Camillo Sitte (1 889, 1868 plan for Riverside near Chicago, and Letch­ translated in 1965, p. 93) condemned Mannheim's worth Garden City (1 905). While curves served to 'unrelenting thoroughness', where there were no enclose views and add visual interest to newly devel­ exceptions to 'the arid rule that all streets intersect oping neighbourhoods and suburbs, they were also perpendicularly and that each one runs straight in designed to reduce visual permeability and discour­ both directions until it reaches the countryside age non-residents from entering into the area. beyond the town'. Rybczynski (1 995, pp. 44-5) Most of the curvilinear patterns developed from argues, however, that such grids do not necessar­ the late nineteenth century through to the 1920s ily lack poetic character: picturesque elements and 1930s were variations of grids. A refinement occur where, for example, grids meet the natural (introduced by Unwin and Parker at New Earswick, landscape, as in the fracturing of the grid by 1898) which became increasingly common during ravines in Los Angeles. Equally grids do not have to the late 1950s, was the cul-de-sac. Cui-de-sacs be homogeneous and entirely reg ular. The 1811 sought to retain the aesthetics of curvilinear layouts plan of midtown Manhattan, for example, had while militating the nuisances and dangers of cars broad, short-block avenues for large buildings, and and other traffic such as the problems of through narrow, long-block streets for smaller row houses, traffic. As is discussed later in this chapter, wide­ while open squares, wider avenues, and in particu­ spread use of this road form changed the public lar the meander of Broadway, introduced elements space network from a grid to a hierarchical and of differentiation and interest. discontinuous pattern. The morphological dimension

67 THE PUBLIC SPACE NETWORK AND THE the relatively permanent parts of the city. Withiin CAPITAL WEB this framework, individual buildings, land uses and activities come and go. Hence, even thoug1h The cadastral pattern establishes an urban area's subject to change, some essence of the city's iden­ public space network and is a key element in the tity is retained (see Chapter 9). broader concept of the capital web (see below). As well as displaying and providing access to the 'public face' of private property, the public space BUILDINGS DEFINING SPACE AND network accommodates the overlapping realms of BUILDINGS IN SPACE 'movement space' and 'social' space (i.e. outdoor space for people to engage in economic, social and A major transformation in the morphological struc­ cultural transaction). This social space is a ture of the public space network was from build­ constituent part of the 'public realm' (see Chapter ings as constituent elements in urban blocks - i.e. 6). Pedestrian movement is compatible with the terraced masses, defining 'streets' and 'squares' - notion of streets as social space. Indeed, there is a towards buildings as freestanding pavilions in symbiotic refationship between pedestrian move­ amorphous space. According to Modernist 'func­ ment and interpersonal transactions. By contrast, tionalist' ideas, the convenience of a building�'s car-based movement is pure circulation. Opportu­ internal spaces was the principal determinant of its nities for most forms of social interaction and external form. Le Corbusier (1 927, p. 167), for exchange only occur once the car has been parked example, likened a building to a soap bubble: 'This - prompting a focus on destinations rather than bubble is perfect and harmonious if the breath has journeys. been evenly distributed and regulated from the When the principal modes of transport were by inside. The exterior is the result of interior.' foot or by horse, the realms of movement and Designed from the inside out, responding only to social space had considerable overlap. With the their functional requirements and to considerations development of new modes of travel, these realms of light, air, hygiene, aspect, prospect, 'move­ have become increasingly compartmentalised into ment', 'openness', etc., buildings became sculp­ vehicular movement space and pedestrian move­ tures, 'objects in space', their exterior form - and ment/social space. At the same time, public space therefore the relationship to public space - merely has been colonised by the car and the social a by-product of their internal planning. aspects of the 'street' suppressed in favour of At the larger scale - and based on ideas of movement and circulation - the 'road'. providing healthier living conditions, of aesthetic The pattern of blocks and the public space preference, and of the need to accommodate cars network, plus basic infrastructure and any other in urban areas - Modernist urban space was relatively permanent elements of an urban area, intended to flow freely around buildings rather constitute the above ground, visible elements of than to be contained by them. Le Corbusier, for David Crane's 'capital web'. For Buchanan (1 988a, example, saw the traditional street as 'no more p. 33), the capital web 'structures a city, its land than a trench, a deep cleft, a narrow passage. And uses and land values, the density of developments although we have been accustomed to it for more and the intensity of their use, and the way the citi­ than a thousand years, our hearts are always zens move through, see and remember the city as oppressed by the constriction of the enclosing well as encounter their fellow citizens'. walls' (quoted in Broadbent, 1990, p. 129). The In working within the capital web, urban design­ desire for separation was reinforced by publlic ers need to be aware of patterns of stabilitywithin health and planning standards such as density change: that is, to differentiate between elements zoning, road widths, sight lines, the space required which either do not change or change slowly for underground services, street by-laws and (giving a measure of consistency of character and daylighting angles. identity) and those that change over much shorter The shift towards freestanding buildings was periods of time. Buchanan (1 988, p. 32) argued also fuelled by the desire for them to be distinctive that it was the movement network, the services - a consequence of the commercial interests of the buried beneath it, and the monuments and civic development industry and building sponsors. buildings within and adjacent to it - plus the Buildings can stand out in a number of ways, such images these structured in the mind - that formed as by being physically separate or taller than 68 Public Places - Urban Spaces

surrounding buildings, and/or architecturally ing buildings had major impacts on the character distinctive. Through separation and physical of public space. As a direct consequence, the public distance, freestanding buildings are insulated from space network changed from definite spatial types negative (and positive) spill-over effects of the local ('streets' and 'squares') towards an amorphous context. 'space' that - unless expressly designed and main­ Before the modern period, only a few building tained - is residual, accidental and merely 'occu­ types - churches, town halls, palaces, etc. - used pied' by objects standing within it. As such these means of gaining distinction. These were developments became more common during the typically 'public' rather than 'private' buildings, second half of the twentieth century, cities tended whose interiors had some significance for the city to lose their spatial coherence, becoming a series of and its people. Von Meiss contends that a funda­ unrelated and competing or isolated monuments mental problem of twentieth century urbanisation and small complexes of buildings surrounded by has been the multiplication of 'objects' and the roads, parking and (often disparate) landscaping. neglect of 'fabrics', 'There are too many buildings The combination of Modernist ideas with which present themselves as "objects", indifferent modern construction and development processes to the public or hierarchical role they play in the resulted in a new kind of city, made up of amor­ values of our society.' He further complains that phous spaces 'punctuated with monumental build­ contemporary production methods confer an ings' and 'arbitrary and disconnected individual object status on buildings whose 'content and features' (Brand, 1994, p. 1 0). In the absence of significance are ordinary' (Von Meiss, 1990, p. 77). explicit concern for the spaces between the build­ When freestanding buildings were built in tradi­ ings, environments were simply collections of indi­ tional urban space, they challenged and broke vidual buildings. The unintended outcome was a down the urban block system. In traditional space, bastardised version of Modernist ideas of urban where buildings are normally sited adjacent to one space design. As Trancik (1 986, p. 21) observes: another and flush with the street, their fa�ades 'Somehow - without any conscious intention on form the 'walls' of open space. As the only part anyone's part - the ideals of free flowing space and exposed to view, the fa�ade conveys - and is pure architecture have evolved into our present designed to convey - the building's identity and urban situation of individual buildings isolated in character. Embedded in a dense urban fabric, the parking lots and highways.' Similarly, Lefebvre building's backs and sides can be more mundane (1 991 , p. 303) argues that the outcome was a without detriment to the public realm. Further­ 'fracturing of space': 'a disordering of elements more, while complete in itself, the fa�ade is also a wrenched from each other in such a way that the constituent part of the larger systems of the 'street' urban fabric itself - the street, the city - is also torn and the 'urban block'. apart'. Urban block systems have an inherent discipline The apparent choice between 'connected that relies on each individual property masses' or urban blocks defining space and free­ owner/developer abiding by certain 'rules' in order standing pavilions is more than one of aesthetic to achieve a collective benefit. If a developer preference. The resultant space has different social cannot rely on others abiding by the rules, more characteristics. As Bentley (1 999, p. 125) argues, individualistic strategies come into play. If neigh­ the concept of buildings as freestanding sculptural bouring buildings are likely to be destroyed, objects ignores the socially constructed distinction enlarged, or rebuilt in a different configuration, between front and back which is vital in establish­ property owners can no longer rely on only their ing conditions of privacy, and in the relationship of fa�ade to represent their building, nor on neigh­ public and private. Development generally benefits bouring buildings to protect the privacy and secu­ from having a front onto public space, for rity of their backs. If it can no longer be assumed entrances, social display and 'public' activities, and that adjacent structures will be similar in size and a back for more private activities. Backs should face style (i.e. if the stability of the context can no onto private space and other backs, while the longer be relied upon), owner/developers become public fronts should face onto public space and motivated to design and build structures that can other fronts. The shift away from buildings having stand alone. distinct fronts and backs has been further empha­ Applied across a range of building types and sised by the denigration in architectural circles of within traditional urban space systems, freestand- the 'fa�ade' (Bentley, 1999, p. 125). The morphological dimension Ei9

A related distinction can be made between consider buildings not just as objects, but also as 'active' and 'passive' fronts. Because social space backgrounds (Figure 4.6). Subsequently in Collage provides opportunities for interaction and City, Rowe and Koetter (1 978) described the exchange, development facing onto it will tend to 'spatial predicament' of the Modernist city as one be 'socially' active. By contrast, movement space of 'objects' and 'texture' (pp. 50-85). Objects are has few opportunities for interaction, and develop­ sculptural buildings standing freely in space, while ment facing onto it will tend to be 'socially passive'. texture is the background matrix of built form Thus, although it is public space, movement space defining space. Using figure-ground diagrams, will tend to be faced by socially passive fronts with Rowe and Koetter showed how traditional cities few or no windows and little indication of human were the inverse of Modernist ones: one diagram presence (see Chapter 8). was almost all white (an accumulation of solids in Because freestanding pavilion buildings are largely unmanipulated void), the other almost all surrounded by public space, at least some of this black (an accumulation of voids in largely unma­ must be faced by backs: 'The privacy barriers, which nipulated solid). Nevertheless, rather than privileg­ are necessary in these situations, create increasing ing the positive space ('space-fixation') or the proportions of inactive, blank edges to public space positive building ('object-fixation'), they recog­ - edges without windows or doors - as the transi­ nised situations where one or the other would be tion from perimeter blocks to pavilions proceeds' appropriate. The situation to be hoped for, there­ (Bentley, 1999, p. 184). Thus, with a proliferation of fore, was 'one in which both buildings and spaces freestanding buildings, the interface between build­ exist in an equality of sustained debate. A debate ings and the public spaces adjoining them increas­ in which victory consists in each component ingly shifts from 'socially active' to 'socially passive'. emerging undefeated' (Rowe and Koetter, 1978, p. 83). In other words, this would be a state of figure-ground reversal (see Chapter 7). THE RETURN TO TRADITIONAL URBAN Another morphological approach to urban SPACE space design developed from the ideas of Aldo Rossi and the Italian Rationalist School in the mild- Reacting both to Modernist approaches and to 1960s, and subsequently of others such as Rob and contemporary development patterns, recent urban Leon Krier. Rossi's book The Architecture of the City design has seen a new interest in the relationship (1 982) resurrected ideas of architectural types and between built space and urban space. This has led typology. In contrast to building type, which to attempts to organise the parts so that the whole (the public realm) is greater than the sum of its individual buildings and developments. It has also prioritised the need (both functional and aesthetic) to focus on the creation of defined, positive space (see Chapter 7). Such approaches have often taken reference from the traditional urban space of blocks formed by the connected mass of individual 'back­ ground' buildings defining, or defined by, 'positive' spaces. As well as being a reaction to the Modernist attitude to the past, this also demonstrated a new interest in,, and concern for, the continuity of places, together with a willingness to examine and learn from precedent. A key figure in the re-evaluation of urban space design was Colin Rowe. Under Rowe's influence, an approach explicitly relating new development to a city's historical structure and to traditional typolo­ gies of urban space was explored at Cornell Univer­ sity from the early 1960s. Particularly significant in these studies were figure-ground diagrams which FIGURE 4.6 Rowe used to teach architectural students to Extract of the Nolli plan of Rome 70 Public Places - Urban Spaces

FIGURE 4.7 Rob Krier's typology of SPATIAL TYPES urban sq uares. In Krier's analysis, European urban spaces generally fall into three main plan shapes: squares, circles or triangles. These basic shapes can be adapted or modified in a varietyof ways: they can occur on their own or in combination with the others; they can be "" regular or irregular; they z "' � 0 0. "' z"' 0:: can be modulated by <.:> ;::: cci5 altering their angles, z i5 "' dimensions and by �<( :!i1 <( �::5 ffi adding or subtracting :!i1 from the basic shape; they can be twisted, divided, penetrated, or overlapped; they can be closed by walls, arcades or colonnades from the streets around them, or they can be open to the environment. Building fas;adesframe the spaces and can take many forms: from solid, unrelieved masonry to masonry with openings of various kinds: windows, doors, arcades, colonnades, to fas;ades that are entirely glazed. The basic shapes can also be modified by a great variety of sections that substantially alter the quality of the space. Each section can also be treated differently in elevation, which in turn influences the quality of the space. Finally, the number and positions of intersecting streets determines the 'closed' or 'open' nature of the square (source: R. Krier, SCALE 1990)

generally refers to function, the architectural type is processes of learning from experience and prece­ morphological and refers to form. Architectural dent, and revived a traditional way of looking at types are abstractions of basic principles, ideas or function. Typologists asserted that, when designing forms and, in a sense, are three-dimensional a building or an urban space, 'tried and tested' templates that can be repeatedly copied with architectural types that had evolved over time endless variation (Kelbaugh, 1997, p. 97). offered a better point of departure than Modernist The study of architectural and morphological functionalism which sought to discover new forms types effectively formalised and systematised the latent in 'programme' or 'technology'. As Kelbaugh The morphological dimension 71

FIGURE 4.8 Leon Krier identified four types of urban space. Three are types of traditional urban space; the fourth is a form of Modernist urban space. (i) The urban blocks are the result of the patterns of streets and squares: the pattern is typologically classifiable. (ii) The pattern of streets and squares is the result of the position of blocks: the blocks are typologically classifiable. (iii) The streets and squares are precise formal types: the public 'rooms' are typologically classifiable. (iv) The buildings are precise formal types: there is a random distribution of buildings standing in space (source: L. Krier, 1990)

(1 997, p. 96) explains, while typologists may to Camillo Sitte (1 889) and Zucker (1 959) (see 'admit that a design can present unprecedented Chapter 8) who concentrated on the aesthetic social issues and new technical opportunities ... effect of urban spaces, Krier used elementary they also know that human nature, human needs, geometry as his starting point. Krier's brother Leon and the human body haven't changed; nor has also developed a critique of Modernist urban space climate (yet) or geography (much)'. design, rooted in a preference for traditional urban One source of evidently durable morphological spatial forms and types, and identifying four types is the historic city itself. As Gosling and Mait­ systems of urban space (L. Krier, 1978a, 1978b, land (1 984, p. 134) note: 'Until the point at which 1979) (Figure 4.8). it was destroyed by the disastrous innovations of Although much contemporary urban space design the twentieth century, the city is seen as having has been informed by a reaction to Modernism's developed certain "type" elements . . . universal stance on history and tradition and has a strong solutions of great simplicity and integrity, arrived at historicist dimension, many remain sceptical of such over a period of time by the operation of anony­ approaches. Read (1982) warned that while we are mous forces of selection.' Key urban types include far enough removed from the Modern Movement to the 'quarter', the 'urban block', and more specific recognise its limitations, we should also recognise types such as 'streets', 'avenues', 'arcades' and that the industrial city's problems were real problems 'colonnades'. In his book Urban Space (1 979), Rob and that 'while it may be reasonable now to reject Krier analysed urban space and developed a typol­ the forms which Modernists evolved in their response ogy of urban squares (see Figure 4.7). In contrast to the problems of the industrial city, those problems 72 Public Places - Urban Spaces

will not be removed simply by looking further back 'STREET/BLOCK' STRUCTURES AND to the pre-industrial city'. Equally, it can be argued 'ROAD' NETWORKS that the pioneer Modernists sought to emphasise what was new and different by downplaying what The other major transformation in the public space was essentially the same: Aldo Van Eyck (see Smith­ network's morphological structure - from finely son, 1962, p. 560), for example, criticised Modernist meshed grids to road networks surrounding super architects for continually 'harping' about 'what is blocks and segregated enclaves - was a product of different in our time to such an extent that they have the need to accommodate fast-moving vehicular lost touch with what is not different, with what is traffic. When the dominant modes of travel were essentially the same'. walking and travel by horse, there were relatively While learning from experience demands aware­ few conflicts between the needs of movement ness and involves recognition of what changes over space and social space. Arrangements for different time and what stays the same, there are two forms of travel started with the special needs of particular areas of difficulty: canals and railways. While these involved mostly First, while morphological approaches to urban separated systems of infrastructure, horse-drawn design tend to be premised on patterns of urban carriages, and then cars, shared space with pedes­ form rather than on economic, social or functional trians, exacerbating the tension between the arguments that generate form (the Modernist competing demands of movement space and social approach), prescription about particular forms can space. Thus, provision for vehicular traffic initially invite accusations of environmental determinism evolved by usurping pedestrians from large parts of (see Chapter 6). Although it is naive to say that the public space network. The separation of pedes­ spatial forms will create particular social behaviour, trian from vehicular movement in conventional such spaces may offer potential for certain activi­ streets occurred in many cities during the eigh­ ties. Furthermore, while certain forms have been teenth and nineteenth centuries, through the intro­ 'tried' in the past and 'tested' in the intervening duction of pavements (sidewalks) which left the period, their suitability for the future is unknown. It centre of the street for vehicles, where pedestrians is also debatable whether particular types and had to beware. Pavements also served to separate patterns can be applied in differing cultures, pedestrians from the new side channels and climates and social conditions. This does not, cambered roads designed to improve health however, preclude the identification of regional or through more efficient disposal of sewage and run­ locally appropriate types. off (Taylor, 2002, p. 28). Second, there is tension in the design process During the early twentieth century, more radical between the value placed on 'originality' and ideas evolved. The best way to accommodate the 'creativity', and the role of types. On the one hand, growing numbers of cars seemed to be to give as Bentley (1 999, p. 55) argues, pre-existing types them their own dedicated movement network. cannot be seen as a product of the individual Noting Le Corbusier's well-known dislike of the designer's creativity. On the other hand, designers 'hurly-burly' of streets, Boddy (1 992, p. 132) competing in the market have to be able to claim argues that formulating a 'more rationalised alter­ originality in their work - a claim undermined by native' was the generative idea of his urbanism. Le the notion that they 'are "merely" selecting and Corbusier's city plans featured both the radical manipulating socially-sanctioned types' (Bentley, separation of modes of travel and their equally radi­ 1999, p. 55). Although many design theorists cal reintegration in vast transport interchanges. regard the idea of type as a problem (see Lawson, Ideas for separating different modes of traffic were 1980, p. 110), Bentley counters the suggestion further developed, from the late 1920s to the that the 'type' approach denies potential for 'indi­ 1940s, in works such as Alker Tripp's Road Traffic vidual genius', by arguing that types change over and its Control (1 938) and Town Planning and Road time and that how they change is a function of Traffic (1 942). The intention was to distribute traf­ individual human action. More generally, the ideo­ fic through a hierarchy of routes closely matched to logical imperative for originality, creativity and traffic flows. endless novelty is often misplaced: rather than The introduction of hierarchical road systems being valued as ends in themselves, they should meant that some roads in the network would be more usefully be seen as means to create better expressly designed or designated for higher traffic buildings and environments. loads. Traffic flow on such roads was assisted by The morphological dimension 73

--1 /1'- / I / ; / -1 /

T

/

...;,. '

,

-it ....r -.¥

; h�lpi�ari��$ly g�ri�rate a sense of identity, a .s�nse Af �o r:hmunlty and a sense of safety and s:� �urity .tor thoselivfto ng in area, .aellel<:�'prfientjs th'� gated community(see Cl:i'aptE!r 6). the their ultimate • ' ; . 74 Public Places - Urban Spaces JUUUUUUD�

FIGURE 4.9 JDDIJDDDUDO[ Street pattern of Clarence Perry's Neighbourhood Unit compared with grid layout. Perry proposed lUDDllDOIJODI that arterial roads would bypass rather than penetrate the unit, thereby protecting the DOilOO[JODm unit from through traffic. The hierarchy of relatively poorly connected streets deters nooounooo traffic from 'rat running' lnnnnnnnnnl through the unit

reducing the number of pedestrian crossings, limiting the number of other roads connecting into them, and prohibiting private driveways from opening onto them. The idea continues today: in England, for example, government guidance in Design Bulletin 32: Residential Roads and Footpaths (DETR, 1998, p. 15) suggests a four-level hierar­ chy: primary distributor roads; district distributor roads; local distributor roads and residential access roads. Where a new hierarchical road system was created within a traditional street grid, certain streets were designated and equipped as major roads, with access onto them limited to allow traf­ fic to move more freely and quickly. To enable a wider road to be built, buildings on one or both sides might be demolished. The 'super block' surrounded by major roads would be many times larger than the traditional urban block. Pope (1 996, p. 189) describes this process as 'grid erosion', with open gridded streets giving way to 'laddered' streets where every destination has an exclusive highway entrance/exit (see Box 4.3). More often, a hierarchical road layout would be laid out on previously undeveloped land, provid­ ing access to the major road network at widely spaced intervals between relatively large cells. The coarse-grained major road network would carry non-local traffic, allowing the streets/roads within FIGURE 4.10 each cell to carry local traffic only. The area within Buchanan's concept of 'environmental areas' (source: the super block - the cell of the major road Scoffham, 1984) The morphological dimension 75

FIGURE 4.11 Chicago, USA. Major roads create problems of severance in urban areas

network - also needed to be designed to prevent building, Buchanan's report was much subtler. A or deter traffic from taking short cuts ('rat road engineer as well as an architect, Buchanan running') through streets intended to carry lighter recognised the conflict between providing for easy traffic loads. One option was to make the local traffic flow and preserving the residential and archi­ road network relatively discontinuous (i.e. tectural fabric of the street - and the related need through the use of cui-de-sacs) or at least poorly to strike a balance between accommodating traffic connected. Clarence Perry's neighbourhood unit and sustaining the qualityof urban life. of 1929, for example, was a super block A particular problem in this regard is the surrounded by major arterial roads. Within the tendency for major roads to act as barriers to unit there was a hierarchy of roads, each sized movement across them, creating severance and according to the intended traffic load, and delib­ fragmenting urban areas (Figure 4.1 1 ). Lefebvre erately less well integrated than in a grid layout (1 991, p. 359), for example, describes how where opportunities for rat runs are maximised urban space is 'sliced up, degraded, and eventu­ (Figure 4.9). Perry also saw through traffic as an ally destroyed by . . . the proliferation of fast obstacle to community formation, and busy traf­ roads'. Movement between the fragments fic routes as obvious boundaries for residential becomes a purely movement experience rather areas. than a movement and social experience. Similarly, within his hierarchical road network, Containing both social space and movement Tripp (1 942) advocated a 'precinct principle' - space, walkable streets connect buildings and effectively a super block - from which extraneous activities across space. Containing only move­ traffic would be excluded. Given the ideas of his ment space, roads divide and separate areas. lin a day, Tripp saw the precincts as specialised, single well-known piece of research, Appleyard and land-use areas. In the early 1960s, a similar idea Lintel! (1 972) compared three San Francilsco appeared in the highly influential Buchanan report, streets which, while similar in many ways, varied Traffic in Towns (1 964). Buchanan proposed the in the amount of traffic on them and in their division of the city into 'environmental' areas - a social use (Figure 4.1 2). Where roads pres.ent mixed-use rather than a specialised single-use super obstacles to movement, subways and pedestrian block concept - each bounded by major roads and bridges are often used to reconnect the areas kept free from through-traffic (Figure 4.1 0). either side (Figure 4.1 3). These often cause signif­ Although often taken as an argument for road icant inconvenience to pedestrians, however, and 76 Public Places - Urban Spaces

FIGURE 4. 12 Appleyard and Lintel! (1 972) compared three San Francisco streets that, while similar in many ways, varied in the amount of traffic travelling along them. On the heavily trafficked street, people tended to use the sidewalk only as a pathway between home and final destination. On the lightly trafficked street, there was an active social life: people used the sidewalks and the corner stores as places to meet and initiate interaction. The high-volume street was seen as a less friendly place to live than the lightly trafficked street

FIGURE 4.13 Furnival Gate, Sheffield, UK. To avoid slowing cars down, pedestrians are often severely inconvenienced The morphological dimension 77

FIGURES 4.14 and 4.. 15 As an explicit strategy of 'breaking the concrete collar' of the inner ring road and making a more pedestrian-friendly environment, a section of Birmingham's inner ring road was lowered and a wide pedestrian bridge created to link the existing city centre with a new public space at Centenary Square. Pedestrians now barelly notice they are crossing the busy inner ring road

in many cities there are now plans to remove of buildings, often referred to as 'pods' (Ford, subways and replace them with surface crossings 2000). In 'pod' developments, each use - shopping (Figures 4.14 and 4.15). mall, fast-food outlet, office park, apartments, hotel, housing cluster, etc. - is conceived as a sepa­ rate element, surrounded by its associated parking POD DEVELOPMENTS and usually with its own access onto a collector or main distributor road. As Ford (2000, p. .21) A further transformation in the morphological comments: 'The idea is to separate - often to the structure of urban areas is that from outward­ point of walling off - land uses into distinctive facing urban blocks to inward-focused complexes social and functional worlds.' 78 Public Places - Urban Spaces

Mall Apartments With no pedestrian flow, only vehicular flow, pods do not generally front onto main traffic distri­ bution roads. Instead, development is introverted, focused on the road/street network within the super block, and the points where people can park their cars. As an alternative pattern, 'large lump' develop­ ments such as shopping centres, office complexes, multi-screen cinemas or hotel complexes, occupy the centre of the block, surrounded by car parking. Although some pod developments have pedes­ trian-oriented spaces where buildings enclose or define spaces, they are usually private spaces, with access and behaviour closely controlled and regu­ lated (see Chapter 6). In their book, Splintered Urbanism, Graham and Marvin (2001, pp. 120-1 ) observe how urban spaces are increasingly being reconfigured 'as inward-looking "islands" or "enclaves", surrounded by the physical highways, connections and services to support motor access, parking and use'. Similarly, Bentley (1 999, p. 88) observes how the city as a whole becomes 'trans­ formed into a series of islands, with spectacular interiors, set in a "left over" sea'. A particular kind of pod development (first intro­ duced in the late nineteenth century) is the resi­ FIGURE 4. 16 dential cul-de-sac, a relatively short dead-end street Each development is a self-contained pod, unrelated to with a turning hammerhead or circle, serving other pods and having its own exclusive connection to perhaps twenty or thirty dwellings. Its advantages et a/., 2000, 23) the collector road (after Duany p. included savings in road construction costs - having a lighter traffic load, cui-de-sacs could be built with a lower specification. Their use increased While individual pods may be more or less well from the mid-1 950s onwards as traffic engineers designed, they tend to be introverted and sepa­ began to address the safety problems associated rated from adjacent developments by main roads with through traffic in residential streets, by means and by hectares of car parking. Often deliberately of hierarchical road networks and discontinuous turning their back on their surroundings, pods may road patterns. Many contemporary residential be geographically proximate but otherwise have areas are designed with 'dendritic' (tree-like) street very little relation. Indeed, apart from a road link, patterns, in which a curvilinear collector road loops there is little need for connection because almost off a major highway, with a number of cui-de-sacs everyone drives between them. Thus, instead of a branching off it. In its most extreme form all the system of blocks defining space, urban areas houses are situated on cui-de-sacs with none on become conceived of in terms of routes surround­ the busier loop road. Due to their shape on plan, ing individual buildings or inward-focused these are sometimes contemptuously referred to as complexes of buildings in space, sometimes in 'lollipops' and the system as 'loops and lollipops'. landscaped settings, but more often amid car parks Southworth and Ben-joseph (1 997, pp. 120-1 ) (Figure 4.16). Furthermore, many pod schemes are note that among many architects and planners, the entirely standardised and repetitive - Duany et a/. term cul-de-sac has become pejorative because 'it (2000) refer to them as 'cookie cutter' develop­ represents the essence of suburbia today: the ments - imposed on a location 'from above', with isolated, insular, private enclave, set in a formless little regard for local context, topography or land­ sprawl of similar enclaves, separated socially and scape. Pod development is also the characteristic physically from the larger world, and dependent form of out-of-centre complexes and edge cities upon the automobile for its survival'. New Urban­ (Garreau, 1991 ). ists (e.g. Duany et a/., 2000) have strongly criticised The morphological dimension 79 the use of cui-de-sacs and are committed advo­ cates of interconnected and grid street patterns. Though disparaged by professionals, the cul-de-sac seems to be much loved by suburban residents and developers (see Box 4.4). Nevertheless, Southworth and Ben-joseph (1 997, p. 126) argue that it is possible to design new residential districts - and, perhaps less easily, to retrofit old ones - with inter­ connected pedestrian networks as well as limited access vehicular systems.

THE RETURN TO 'STREETS'

As discussed above, for reasons of safety and traffic flow, accommodating the car in traditional streets has typically led to an effacement of social space by movement space. As Buchanan (1 988a, p. 32) observed, it is only in recent times that movement is separated spatially and functionally in the city: 'Before that ... movement [was] always inextriiCa­ bly linked with - and indeed usually generates - other activities, both adjacent and within the same external space.' Sustainable urban design, never­ theless, requires patterns of development able to accommodate and integrate the demands of the various movement systems, while supporting social interaction and exchange. Hence, while there are inexorable tensions and conflicts between the public space network's roles as movement space and as social space, a multi-purpose public space network is needed where the two are separated if absolutely necessary, but otherwise have consider­ able overlap. Alexander (1 965) uses the separation of pedes­ trians from moving vehicles as an example of what he terms a 'tree' structure, arguing that while this is often a good idea, there are times when the 'ecology of a situation' demands the opposite - as in the case of taxis, which can only function when pedestrians and vehicles are not strictly separated: the 'prowling taxi' needs a fast stream of traffic so that it can cover a large area to find passengers, while the pedestrian needs to be able to hail the taxi from any point, and then to be taken to any other point in the 'pedestrian world'. The system containing taxis, therefore, needs to overlap both the vehicular traffic system and the pedestrian circulation system. While there will always be a need for 'roads', many commentators advocate rediscovering 'streets' as both social space and as connectin91 - 80 Public Places - Urban Spaces

rather than dividing - elements within cities. Vari­ to consider other road users' (Southworth and ous authors (e.g. Appleyard, 1981; Moudon, 1987; Ben-joseph, 1997, p. 1 12). The shared street layout Hass-Kiau, 1990; jacobs, 1993; Loukaitou-Sideris gives pedestrians primary rights, so that, sensing and Banerjee, 1998; Hass-Kiau et a/., 1999; Baner­ they are intruding into a pedestrian zone, motorists jee, 2001) highlight the role of streets in contribut­ drive more cautiously. ing to the quality of public life and emphasise how Writing about residential areas, David Engwicht streets and sidewalks can be captured for social (1 999) refers to the process of recapturing social purposes. Noting how the contemporary down­ space as 'Street Reclaiming' - a conceptual step town in many Californian cities has been frag­ beyond traffic calming, which typically involves mented into a series of unrelated and spatially speed bumps and chicanes. He argues that 'the limited realms, Loukaitou-Sideris and Banerjee more space a city devotes to movement, the more (1 998, p. 304) argue that instead of - or perhaps the exchange space becomes diluted and scat­ in addition to - treating the street as a 'channel for tered. The more diluted and scattered the efficient movement' (as in the Modernist era) or as exchange opportunities, the more the city begins an 'aesthetic visual element' (as in the City Beauti­ to lose the very thing that makes a city: a concen­ ful era), urban design 'should rediscover the social tration of exchange opportunities' (Engwicht, role of the street as a connector that stitches 1999, p. 19). Comparing streets with houses, he together and sometimes penetrates the disparate suggests that the latter are designed to reduce downtown realms'. movement space (corridors) while maximising The problem is not only that demand for move­ exchange space (rooms). He, therefore, proposes ment diminishes the potential of streets to function 'Five Rs' of traffic reduction: replace car trips with as social space, but also that greater concern is other travel modes; remove unnecessary trips by given to traffic than to pedestrians. Buchanan combining purposes; reduce trip lengths; reuse (1 988, p. 32) complains that public space has lost saved space; and reciprocate by acting collectively its social function and purpose and is often consid­ for mutual benefit. The first three are strategies for ered solely in terms of movement. In this respect, households, who, he argues, through simple strate­ the car is often uniquely privileged. Sheller and gies can reduce their car use by 25-50 per cent Urry (2000, p. 745) argue that car travel 'rudely without significant impact on lifestyle. The last two interrupts' the use of urban space by others 'whose are for streets, neighbourhoods and cities, as indi­ daily routines are merely obstacles to the high­ vidual actions are of little value if other drivers speed traffic that cuts mercilessly through slower­ quickly fill the space freed. Such actions are only moving pathways and dwellings'. Research in really possible where choice is available: they are central Aberdeen, for example, showed that while not possible in car-dependant environments. the ratio of pedestrian to vehicular movement was 4:1, the space available for this movement was 1 :4. The figures were used to support arguments for URBAN BLOCK PATTERNS increasing the area of pedestrianised space in the city centre. Reaction to the two major transformations of the Careful design is needed to reconcile the morphological structure of public space networks demands of different forms of movement. In prac­ has led to a shift towards a new appreciation of the tice, this generally involves protecting social space qualities of traditional urban space. Many contem­ from the impacts of cars and the creation of areas porary urban design projects are conceived in that, while accessible by cars, are pedestrian-domi­ terms of urban blocks defining space rather than nant (see Moudon, 1987; Hass-Kiau, 1990; South­ individual buildings in space (Figure 4.1 7). worth and Ben-joseph, 1997). Such ideas are The layout and configuration of urban block epitomised by the concepts of 'shared streets', structure is important both in determining the Home Zones (in the UK) and 'woonerfs', all of pattern of movement and in setting parameters for which integrate pedestrian activity and vehicular subsequent development. Conceived as a public movement on a shared surface. In the late 1960s, space network, such structures open up possibilities a professor at Delft University of Technology, Niek and - in conjunction with basic typologies/codes/ De Boer designed streets, which he named rules about physical parameters - can provide woonerfs, wherein 'motorists would feel as if they coherence and 'good' urban form, without neces­ were driving in a "garden" setting, forcing drivers sarily being deterministic about architectural form The morphological dimension 81

FIGURE 4. 17 Many contemporary urban development schemes use urban block structures. Master plan for Granton, Edinburg�h, Scotland (source: Llewelyn Davies)

or content. This is akin to designing cities without struck between providing sufficient area for devel­ designing buildings (Barnett, 1982). As the block opment to make it commercially viable and provid­ pattern forms a basic element of the capital web, ing sufficient space for efficient and convenient the pattern and configuration of blocks should be circulation and social space. A balance also needs based on appreciation of the different rates of to be struck between arguments for smaller blocks, change of different morphological elements. As the pedestrian permeability and social use of space and street pattern is generally the most resilient part of those for larger blocks and an optimum distributilon the infrastructure, it is important to give it a config­ of built form and open space (see below). A range uration and dimensions that allow it to be robust of block sizes (including, in particular, small blocks) and enduring. may encourage diversity of building types and land The size and shape of urban blocks contribute uses. significantly to an environment's character. Micro­ Block sizes can be determined by the local climate, wind and sun penetration also need to be context (Figure 4.1 8). In undertaking development considered. Tall, narrow streets in northerly or in established contexts or on brownfield sites, block southerly climes, for example, will have limited sizes may be inferred by an 'urban healing' approach sunlight penetration for much of the year. In estab­ - that is, working with the existing fabric and lishing new patterns of urban development - or in remnant patterns of previous urbanisations, reinte­ 'healing' established ones - a balance needs to be grating isolated fragments, and re-establishing - 82 Public Places - Urban Spaces

FIGURE 4.18 Block sizes can be established by considering existing linkages and connections and working within the grain of the local context. The diagrams shown here from the Urban Design Compendium start by considering how the site can be connected with nearby main routes and public transport facilities. The second diagram shows how cul-de-sac layouts would create an introverted layout that failed to integrate with the surroundings. The third diagram suggests a more pedestrian-friendly approach that integrates with the surrounding context, and links existing and proposed streets. The street pattern then forms the basis for urban blocks - shown in the fourth diagram. This approach can be seen as 'urban healing' or 'urban Internal streets weaving' (source: Llewelyn-Davis, 2000, Bus stop p. 36) •

and/or creating new - linkages with the wider found at the urban centre, with blocks tending to context that facilitate movement and integration of grow larger and simpler towards the periphery, the new development with its surrounding context. before finally dissolving into single freestanding On greenfield sites there are usually fewer contextual objects. cues to suggest appropriate block sizes. Block sizes Small block sizes are often advocated for reasons could be determined by analysing the requirements such as urban vitality, permeability, visual interest of particular land uses (e.g. offices, housing, shops, and legibility. jane jacobs (1 961, pp. 191-9), for industry) or through the use of historical precedents example, devoted a chapter of The Death and Life -that is, patterns that have endured and accommo­ of Great American Cities, to 'The Need for Small dated growth and change over time. Noting that Blocks', because of the increased vitality and choice ideal block size cannot be established any more such layouts offer. Krier (1 990, p. 198) also prefers precisely than the ideal height of a human body, small blocks, for their greater urbanity: 'If the main Leon Krier (1 990, p. 197) argued that through cause for small blocks and a dense pattern is 'comparison and experience', sizes of urban blocks primarily economic, it is this very same reason 'more apt' to form a 'complex urban pattern' can be which has created the intimate character of a deduced. Krier observed that, in most European highly urban environment. Such an environment is cities that have evolved organically, the smallest and the basis of urban culture, of intense social, cultural typologically most complex blocks are generally and economic exchange.' The morphological dimension

IB

FIGURE 4.19 Perimeter blocks in central Paris, France. Perimeter block development has a number of advantageous characteristics/features: explicit public and private sides; the capacity to accommodate different densities of development; and a public fa�ade that both physically defines and 'socially' addresses an urban space

Small urban blocks may be a single building, 4.19). Because the depth of the perimeter ribbon is with perhaps a central light well or atrium. Akin to limited to the depth of building that can be natu­ freestanding buildings, such blocks raise problems rally lit and ventilated, the size of the central space of 'fronts' and 'backs'. Larger urban blocks are often increases as the dimensions of the block get larger. perimeter blocks, with the. ribbon of buildings Depending on its size, this space can be used for around the edge providing the public front and various purposes - residents' car parking, private or private or semi-private space in the interior (Figure communal gardens, sports facilities, etc. Larger 84 Public Places - Urban Spaces

FIGURE 4.20 CBD block structures and sizes in four US

ST ADAMS cities - Portland and Seattle (small square and rectangular block cities)

CHiCAGO and Chicago and Indianapolis (medium square block cities) BUILDlNGS BELOW BVILDINGS ABOVE • SSTOREYS HIGH • STOREYS HIGH 8 (source: Siskna, 1998)

perimeter blocks provide greater opportunities for between Park and Eighth Avenues and 42nd and bio-diversity: Llewelyn-Davies (2000, p. 58) recom­ 57th Streets, Martin (1 972, pp. 21-2) demon­ mends that blocks of external dimensions of about strated how the same volume of development 90 m 90 m, containing private or communal could be organised in radically different ways. gardens, provide a good trade-off between bio­ Imagining the area developed as 36-storey x diversity and other considerations. 'Seagram'-type buildings, he calculated the Larger block structures may, however, be more amount of floor space achieved. Replacing the efficient in terms of the distribution of built form Seagram buildings with perimeter blocks and and open space. Examining the densities and land­ enlarging the street block by omitting some of the use intensities of different development patterns, cross streets, he showed how the same amount of Martin and March (1 972) provided mathematical floor space could be accommodated in buildings of arguments both for larger block sizes, and for eight storeys. The spaces inside the perimeter perimeter rather than pavilion development. Look­ blocks would each be equivalent in area to Wash­ ing at housing layouts in particular, they showed ington Square and, furthermore there would be that, subject to certain environmental criteria, twenty-eight such spaces. For Martin, this both courtyard layouts (perimeter blocks) had a higher showed the range of choices available and raised land-use intensity than pavilions (tower blocks). 'far-reaching questions' about the relationship Investigating the area of central Manhattan between built form and open space. The open The morphological dimension ��5

COLLINS ST

FL INDERS ST

MELBOURNE

ADElAIDE ST RUNDLE MAll

GRENFELL ST FIGURE 4.21 CBD block structures. and sizes in four

ELIZABETH ST Australian cities - BRISBANE Melbourne and Brisbane (medium rectangular block

o cities) and Perth and 100 200m �-�-- ---··-----' Adelaide (large rectangular block

• SUit DINGS BELOW • BUILDINGS ABOVE cities) (source: Siskna, G STOREYS HIGH 6 STOREYS HIGH 1998)

space provided in the Seagram layout was in the teenth century (before the onset of the automobile form of traffic corridors - within the perimeter age), each city plan had had more than a century blocks it was traffic-free courts. While this example and a half of growth and evolution. provides support for larger, coarser, less permeable Two interrelated characteristics of the evolution block structures, it also demonstrates the need to of the block and street patterns were of particular consider the layout of the urban framework in interest: the persistence of the block and street three dimensions rather than two (i.e. in terms of patterns, and the size of the circulation meshes. the possible configurations of urban form). To examine the development and sustainability 1. Persistence of the block and street pattern: Demon­ of urban patterns, particularly block sizes and circu­ strating their durability in changing circumstances, lation meshes, Siksna (1 998) studied the CBDs of the original block and street patterns of the small four American cities - Portland and Seattle (small block cities were substantially intact. Similarly, the square and rectangular block cities) and Chicago patterns of the medium block cities were largely and Indianapolis (medium square block cities) - intact - albeit with some insertion and/or deletion and four Australian cities, Melbourne and Brisbane of alleys and arcades - more so in Melbourne and (medium rectangular block cities) and Perth and Brisbane. Although the original street patterns of Adelaide (large rectangular block cities) (Figures the large block cities were also largely intact, the 4.20 and 4.21 ). Laid out in the first half of the nine- blocks and streets had changed considerably, the 86 Public Places - Urban Spaces

original blocks having been broken down into pattern nevertheless played an important role, with smaller ones, and the street patterns altered signif­ certain block forms and sizes proving more robust icantly by the insertion of alleys and arcades. In or more amenable to adaptation over time. Adelaide, for example, all blocks had been divided, typicallyinto four or five smaller blocks or sub-blocks; in Perth, they had been subdivided CONCLUSION into two or three blocks. In both cities, the origi­ nal large blocks now approached the dimensions This chapter has discussed the morphological of those in the other cities. dimension of urban design, focusing on two key 2. Circulation mesh: Regarding the area available for issues of urban form and urban layout. In general circulation, Siksna concluded that a good terms, it has showed and discussed the contempo­ proportion was one where circulation occupied rary preferences for urban block patterns and grid­ 30 to 40 per cent of the total area. All the Amer­ ded, permeable street layouts. While such ican examples attained or exceeded this in their preference is clear, it is necessary to appreciate why initial layouts and needed few additional streets hierarchical, segregated and introverted layouts or alleyways. Layouts where streets and alleys have come about. Given the prevalence of such initially occupied less than 30 per cent of the layouts, active resistance is needed to reductions in area needed additional routes. Layouts with permeability. If a high level of permeability is initially small and medium blocks, where streets and provided, segregation can usually be achieved later, alleys initially occupied more than 40 per cent of if necessary, through design or management: the the area, could be seen as too generous. Siksna layout is robust and capable of adaptation. concluded that a circulation mesh of between Conversely, it is difficult, even impossible, to turn an 80 m and 110m gave optimal provision. In environment designed for segregation into one for some cases a finer pedestrian mesh (from 50 m integration. To ensure permeability, all streets should to 70 m spacing) had evolved in intensively used lead somewhere and terminate in other streets or retail areas, through the insertion of additional space rather than in dead ends. Such a principle streets, alleys, arcades, and other routes. would tend to create permeable grids. Although the vehicular mesh of most cities in the The chapter also reveals that a key issue in study had coarsened in recent years, primarily as contemporary urban space design is how to a result of one-way systems, cities with small accommodate the car. By colonising public space blocks had retained a convenient mesh size (i.e. networks, subordinating other forms of mobility, below 200 m), while in medium and large block and reorganising the distribution of activities in cities the mesh size generally exceeded 300 m, space, automobility both undermines other forms which was considered inconvenient for local traf­ of mobility (walking, cycling, rail travel, etc.) and fic movement. has a disabling effect on those who do not have access to cars. Furthermore, by monopolising Although his research suggests an evolution resources - leading to inadequate public transport, towards optimum blocks sizes, Siksna concluded and to transformations of the city landscape such that processes of incremental change generally that important services become inaccessible to overcame, or at least reduced, the deficiencies of non-car uses - the car system discriminates against the initial layout. He also noted that, in practice, non-car users (Lohan and Wickham, 2001 , p. 43). these changes had generally emerged through the A solution may be to prioritise and provide for initiative of individual or adjacent owners rather other forms of movement, and then to accommo­ than through direct public intervention. The initial date the car. The perceptual dimension

INTRODUCTION in practice, it is not clear where sensation ends and perception begins. Awareness and appreciation of environmental Sensation refers to human sensorysyste ms react­ perception, and, in particular, of perception and ing to environmental stimuli. The four most vatlu­ experience of 'place', is an essential dimension of able senses in interpreting and sensing the urban design. Since the early 1960s an interdisci­ environment are vision, hearing, smell and touch. plinary field of environmental perception has developed, and there now exists a significant Vision: The dominant sense, vision provides • body of research on people's perception of their more information than the other senses urban environment. An initial concern with envi­ combined. Orientation in space is achieved ronmental images has been supplemented by visually. As Porteous (1 996, p. 3) observes, work on symbolism and meaning in the built envi­ vision is active and searching: 'We look; smells ronment. The interest in environmental percep­ and sounds come to us.' Visual perception is tion has also been reinforced by a body of work highly complex, relying on distance, colour, focusing on the experiential 'sense of place' and shape, textural and contrast gradients, etc. 'lived-in' experiences associated with urban envi­ Hearing: While visual space involves what llies • ronments. Exploring how people perceive envi­ before us and concerns objects in space, ronments and experience places, this chapter is in 'acoustic' space is all-surrounding, has no obvi­ two main parts. In the first, environmental ous boundaries, and emphasises space itself perception is discussed, and in the second, the (Porteous, 1996, p. 33). Hearing is information construction of place, in terms of sense of place, poor, but emotionally rich. We are strongly placelessness, and the phenomenon of 'invented' aroused by, for example, screams, music, thun­ places is explored. der, and soothed by the flow of water or the wind in the leaves (Porteous, 1996, p. 35). Smell: As with hearing, the human sense of • ENVIRONMENTAL PERCEPTION smell is not well developed. Nevertheless, while even more information poor than sound, smell We affect the environment and are affected by it. is probably emotionally richer.

For this interaction to happen, we must perceive - Touch: In the urban context, as Porteous (1 996, • that is, be stimulated by sight, sound, smell or p. 36) notes, much of our experience of texture touch that offer clues about the world around us comes through our feet, and through our (Bell et a/., 1990, p. 27). Perception involves the buttocks when we sit down, rather than gathering, organising and making sense of infor­ through our hands. mation about the environment. A distinction is generally made between two processes that gather These sensory stimuli are usually perceived and

and interpret environmental stimuli -· 'sensation' appreciated as an interconnected whole. The indi­ and 'perception'. These are not discrete processes: vidual dimensions can only be separated out by

87 88 Public Places - Urban Spaces

deliberate actions (closing one's eyes, blocking ronmental stimuli. For Kevin Lynch (1 960, p. 6) one's nose or ears) or by selective attention. While environmental images resulted from a two-way vision is the dominant sense, the urban environ­ process in which the environment suggested ment is not only perceived visually. Bacon (1974, distinctions and relations, from which observers p. 20), for example, argued that the 'changing selected, organised, and endowed with meaning visual picture' was 'only the beginning of the what they saw. Similarly, Montgomery (1 998, sensory experience; the changes from light to p. 1 00) distinguished between 'identity', what a shade, from hot to cold, from noise to silence, the place is actually like, and 'image', a combination of flow of smells associated with open spaces, and the this identity with perception of the place by the tactile quality of the surface under foot, are all individual with their own set of feelings about, and important in the cumulative effect'. impressions of, it. Pocock and Hudson (1 978, Although contributing to the richness of experi­ p. 33) suggest that the overall mental image of an ence, non-visual dimensions of sensation and urban environment will be: perception are often underdeveloped and under­ exploited. Lang argues that concern for the 'sonic Partial: not covering the whole city; • environment' should - in specific settings - focus Simplified: omitting a great deal of information; • on increasing the positive, e.g. birdsong, children's Idiosyncratic: every individual's urban image • voices, the crunching of autumn leaves. He argues being unique; that an environment's 'soundscape' 'can be orches­ Distorted: based on subjective, rather than real, • trated in much the same way as its visual qualities distance and direction. by the choice of materials used for the surfaces of the environment and the nature of objects within Relph (1 976, p. 1 06) argues that environmental it' (1 994, p. 227). Positive sounds - waterfalls, images are 'not just selective abstractions of an fountains, etc. - can mask negative sounds like traf­ objective reality but are intentional interpretations fic noise. of what is or what is not believed to be'. As is Perception (sometimes, confusingly referred to discussed later, this is the basis of 'intentionality' as 'cognition') concerns more than just seeing or and 'phenomenology'. sensing the urban environment. It refers to the Rather than being simply a biological process, more complex processing or understanding of perception is also socially and culturally 'learnt'. stimuli. lttelson (1 978, from Bell et a/., 1990, p. 29) While sensations may be similar for everyone, how identifies four dimensions of perception, which individuals filter, react to, organise and value those operate simultaneously: sensations differs. Differences in environmental perception depend on factors such as age, gender, Cognitive: involves thinking about, orgams1ng ethnicity, lifestyle, length of residence in an area, • and keeping information. In essence, it enables and on the physical, social and cultural environ­ us to make sense of the environment. ment in which a person lives and was raised. Affective: involves our feelings, which influence Despite everyone effectively living in their 'own • perception of the environment - equally, world', similarities in socialisation, past experience perception of the environment influences our and the present urban environment mean that feelings. certain aspects of imagery will be held in common Interpretative: encompasses meaning or associ­ by large groups of people (Knox and Pinch, 2000, • ations derived from the environment. In inter­ p. 295). Mental 'maps' and images of places and preting information, we rely on memory for environments, particularly shared images, are points of comparison with newly experienced central to studies of environmental perception in stimuli. urban design. Evaluative: incorporates values and preferences The key work in the field of urban imagery is • and the determination of 'good' or 'bad'. Kevin Lynch's The Image of the City (1 960) based on cognitive (mental) mapping techniques, and The 'environment' can be considered as a mental interviews with residents of Boston, jersey City and construct, an environmental image, created and Los Angeles. Initially interested in legibility (how valued differently by each individual. Images are people orientate themselves and navigate within the result of processes through which personal cities), Lynch argued that the ease with which we experiences and values filter the barrage of envi- mentally organise the environment into a coherent I The perceptual dimension 89

.! pattern or 'image' relates to our ability to navigate through it. A clear image enables one to 'move about easily and quickly', and an 'ordered environ­ ment' can 'serve as a broad frame of reference, an organiser of activity or belief or knowledge' (p. 4). Through his research, Lynch found that the minor theme of city orientation grew into the major theme of the city's mental image. Observa­ tion of cities with districts, landmarks and pathways that were easily identifiable and easily grouped into an overall pattern, led to the definition of what Lynch called 'imageability', 'that quality in a phys­ ical object which gives it a high probability of evok­ ing a strong image in any given observer' (p. 9). Although aware that images could vary signifi­ cantly between different observers, Lynch sought to identify the city's public, collective image, or its key components. He argued that 'workable' environmental images required three attributes:

Identity: an object's distinction from other • things, as a separable entity (e.g. a door); Structure: the object's spatial relation to the • observer and other objects (e.g. the qoor's position); Meaning: the object's meaning (practical • and/or emotional) for the observer (e.g. the door as a hole for getting out) (p. 8).

Since meaning was less likely to be consistent at the city level and across disparate groups of people, Lynch separated meaning from form, exploring imageability in terms of physical qualities relating to identity and structure. Through mental mapping (cognitive geography) exercises, he aimed to iden­ tify aspects of the environment that left a strong FIGURE 5.1 Certain paths are significant in supporti ng clear mental image in observers' minds. Aggregation of individ­ maps of cities or parts of cities. The mental maps of ual images would define a public or city image. Londoners locate various other parts of London - such From his research, Lynch derived five key physical as The Mall, Piccadilly Circus, and Oxford Street - in elements: relation to Regent Street (source: Moughtin, 1992, p. 163) 1. Paths: Paths are the channels along which observers move (streets, transit lines, canals, etc.). Lynch noted that paths were often the fa�ade characteristics, proximity to special predominant elements in people's images, with features in the city, visual prominence, or by other elements arranged and related along virtue of their position in the overall path struc­ them. Where major paths lacked identity or ture or topography (Figure 5.1 ). were easily confused with each other, the 2. Edges: Edges are linear elements that are either whole image would be less clear. Paths could not used or considered as paths and often form be important features in city images for several boundaries between areas or linear breaks in reasons, including regular use, concentration of continuity (e.g. shores, railroad cuts, edges of special uses, characteristic spatial qualities, development, walls). As Lynch (p. 47) notes: Public Places - Urban Spaces

90 'edges may be barriers, more or less penetra­ ble, which close one region off from another; or they may be seams, lines along which two regions are related and joined together'. The strongest edges are visually prominent, contin­ uous in form, and often impenetrable to cross movement. Edges are important organising features, particularly when they hold together generalised areas, as in the outline of a city by water or a wall. Most cities have very clearly identified edges. The image of Istanbul, for example, is structured by the River Bosphorus which forms an edge for both the European and Asian sides of the city. Water forms an important edge for many cities located on coasts (e.g. Chicago, Hong Kong, Stockholm) or rivers (e.g. Paris, London, Budapest). 3. Districts: Districts are the medium-to-large parts of a city which observers mentally 'enter', and/or which have the identifying physical character of 'thematic continuities' in terms of texture, space, form, detail, symbol, uses, inhabitants, maintenance, topography, etc. (p. 47). Given some distinctive elements, but not enough to create a 'full thematic unit', a district will be recognisable as such only to someone familiar with the city. Reinforcement of clues may be needed to produce a stronger image. Districts may have hard, precise bound­ FIGURE 5.2 aries, or soft uncertain ones gradually fading New Orleans' French Quarter has a strong identity as a away into surrounding areas (Figure 5.2). district 4. Nodes: Nodes are point references: 'the strate­ gic spots in a city into which an observer can enter, and which are the intensive foci to and form contrasting with their background, and a from which [s/he] is travelling' (p. 47). Nodes prominent spatial location, are more easily may be primarily junctions, or simply 'thematic identifiable and likely to be significant to the concentrations' of a particular use or physical observer. Lynch (pp. 78-9) argued that a land­ character. As decisions are made and attention mark's key physical characteristic was 'singular­ heightened, junctions and changes of travel ity': 'some aspect that is unique or memorable mode make nodes more significant. Dominant in the context', and that 'spatial prominence' nodes, however, tend to be both 'concentra­ can establish elements as landmarks by making tions' and 'junctions', with both functional and them visible from many locations and/or creat­ physical significance, for example, public ing contrast with nearby elements. How an squares. While not essential, distinctive physical environment is used may also strengthen a form is more likely to make the node more landmark's significance: for example, its loca­ memorable (pp. 72-6). tion at a junction involving path decisions 5. Landmarks: Landmarks are point-references (Figures 5.3 and 5.4). external to the observer. Some -towers, spires, hills - are distant, typically seen from many None of Lynch's elements exists in isolation: all angles and distances over the tops of smaller combine to provide the overall image: 'districts are elements. Others - sculpture, signs, trees - are structured with nodes, defined by edges, pene­ local, visible in restricted localities and from trated by paths, and sprinkled with landmarks ... certain approaches. Landmarks with a clear elements regularly overlap and pierce one another' The perceptual dimension '91

FIGURE 5.3 Whatever one thinks of its design, the prominently sited Haas Haus in central Vienna (Austria) provides a notable local landmark

FIGURE 5.4 The Grand Arch at La Defense, Paris, provides a powerful distant landmark that can be seen across the city 92 Public Places - Urban Spaces

(pp. 48-9). Sets of images often overlap and inter­ 2. Legibility and imageability: In Good City Form, relate in a series of levels reflecting the scale of the Lynch (1 981 , pp. 139-41 ) reduced the empha­ area. Thus, observers move as necessary from sis on legibility, seeing it as one kind of 'sense' images at street level to those of the neighbour­ within just one dimension of city experience. hood, the city and beyond. Further downplaying its significance in 'Recon­ sidering The Image of the City', he accepted way­ finding as a 'secondary problem for most BEYOND THE IMAGE OF THE CITY people', 'If lost in a city, one can always ask the way or consult a map' (Lynch, 1984, p. 250). He Lynch's original study, based on a small sample of questioned the value of legible environments: people, has been replicated in various contexts. 'What do people care if they have a vivid image Lynch (1984, p. 249) argued that in 'every case' of their locality? And aren't they delighted by the basic ideas held, 'with the important proviso surprise and mystery' (p. 250). This raised the that images are much modified by culture and issue (discussed below) of the distinction familiarity'. He noted that basic elements of the city between environments that are imageable and image 'seem astonishingly similar in some very those that are liked. De Jonge's (1962) study in diverse cultures and places. We were lucky.' From Holland suggested that people liked 'illegible' various studies in the Lynch tradition, there is a environments, while Kaplan and Kaplan (1 982) wealth of information about the way different highlighted the need for environmental groups in different places structure their city 'surprise' and 'mystery' (see Chapter 7). images. De jonge (1962), for example, found that 3. Meaning and symbolism: It has also been argued Amsterdam was more legible to its inhabitants than that attention should be paid to what the were Rotterdam and The Hague to theirs. Compar­ urban environment meant to people, and how ing Milan and Rome, Francescato and Mebane they felt about it (the 'affective' dimension), as (1 973) found that, while both cities were highly well as to the structuring of mental images. legible, they were legible in different ways. The Cognitive mapping techniques tend to neglect mental maps of the Milanese were structured by a those issues. Appleyard (1980) extended clearly connected set of paths relating to their city's Lynch's work by identifying four ways in which radial street pattern, whereas Romans' mental buildings and other elements in the urban envi­ maps exhibited a greater diversity of content and ronment were known: tended to be structured around the landmarks and by their imageability or distinctiveness of • edges associated with the city's historic buildings, form; its hills and the River Tiber. by their visibility as people move around the • Some work has been highly critical of Lynch's city; findings and methods. To some extent this is by their role as a setting for activity; • unfair, because Lynch explicitly offered it as a 'first by the significance of a building's role in • initial sketch'. Three areas of criticism are of partic­ society. ular note: Gottdiener and Lagopoulos (1986, p. 7) argued 1. Observer variation: The validity of aggregating that, in the Lynchian tradition, 'signification' - the the environmental images of people with differ­ process whereby places, people and things are ent backgrounds and experience has been given representational meaning - is reduced to a questioned. While finding that common city perceptual knowledge of physical form, at the images could be identified, arising from expense of the important elements, such as the common human cognition strategies, culture, 'meaning' of an environment and whether people experience and city form, Lynch (1 984, p. 251) liked it or not. Although he had sought to set aside acknowledged the 'deliberate and explicit' issues of meaning, Lynch (1984, p. 252) consid­ neglect of observer variation in his original ered that they had 'always' crept in because study. Francescate and Mebane's study of 'people could not help connecting their surround­ Milan and Rome (1 973) and Appleyard's study ings with the rest of their lives'. The conclusion was of Ciudad Guyana (1 976), showed how, as a drawn that the social and emotional meanings result of social class and habitual use, people's attached to, or .evoked by, the elements of the city images differed. urban environment were at least as important - The perceptual dimension !�3 often more so - than the structural and physical of connotation, and is of a symbolic nature. Layer­ aspects of people's imagery (Knox and Pinch, ing enables distinction to be made between the use 2000, p. 302). Environments could be memorable of objects for their immediate function, and the or forgettable, liked or disliked: Lynch's method socially sustained understanding of them. Thus, tended only to record the first options. Issues of structures or building elements have second-order, meaning and symbolism are in fact important connotative, meaning: for example, a porch components of environmental images. (primary function, providing shelter from the weather) made of Italian marble with Doric columns, connotes a different 'symbolic function' ENVIRONMENTAL MEANING AND or meaning from one made of roughly sawn timber SYMBOLISM (Figure 5.5). Eco shows that the secondary function can be All urban environments contain symbols, meanings more important than the primary one. For exam­ and values. The study of 'signs' and their meanings ple, a chair denotes the function of being able to is known as semiology or semiotics. As Eco (1 968, sit down. If it is a throne, however, it should be sat pp. 56-7) explains, semiotics studies 'all cultural on with a certain dignity. The connotation can phenomena as if they were systems of signs'. The become so functionally important as to distort the world is replete with 'signs', interpreted and under­ basic function: in connoting 'regalness', a throne stood as a function of society, culture and ideology. 'often demands that the person sitting on it sits Following Ferdinand de Saussure, the process of rigidly and uncomfortably ... and therefore seats creating meaning is called 'signification': 'signi­ one "poorly" with respect to the primary utilitas' fieds' are what are referred to, 'signifiers' are the (1 968, p. 64). The second-order meaning enables things that refer to them, and 'signs' establish the differentiation to be made between objects. It can association between them. A sign represents some­ thereby stimulate consumption: commodities thing else: in a language, for example, a word consist of more than their material qualities, we represents a concept. Different types of sign are also consume the 'idea' of them and what they will identified: allow us to become. The 'idea' can become more important than the commodity itself - rather than Iconic signs: have a direct similarity with the selling houses, for example, developers sell images • object, e.g. a portrait represents the sitter; of desirable 'lifestyles' (Dovey, 1999). Economic Indexical signs: have a material relationship with and commercial forces are, therefore, highly influ­ • the object, e.g. smoke indicates fire; ential in creating the symbolism of the built envi­ Symbolic signs: have a more arbitrary relation­ ronment. • ship with the object, and are essentially Because meanings in environments and land­ constructed through social and cultural scapes are both interpreted and produced, there is systems, e.g. classical columns represent debate about the extent to which meaning resides 'grandeur' (from Lane, 2000, p. 111) . in the object or in the mind of the beholder. It is clear that certain elements have relatively stable just as the words of a formally codified language meanings to most people. Knox and Pinch (2000, have agreed-upon meanings, the meaning of non­ p. 273) note the difference between 'intended' verbal signs also arises from social and cultural messages sent by owners/producers via architects, conventions. There is greater flexibility, however, in planners, etc., and the 'received' messages of 'envi­ interpreting the latter. As society changes, so does ronmental consumers'. The 'gap' between the signification. Meanings attached to the built envi­ intended and the perceived meaning of architec­ ronment become modified as social values evolve ture and architectural symbolism can be related to in response to changing patterns of socio­ Barthes' (1 968) discussion of the 'death of the economic organisation and lifestyles (Knox, 1984, author' - that is, the figurative death of those p. 112). authors who proposed a system of meaning based A key idea in semiotics is the layering of mean­ upon 'mimesis' - the belief that an image, word or ing. The first layer or 'first-order' sign is that of object (or work of architecture) carries a fixed denotation, meaning the object's 'primary function' message determined by the author (architect, or the function it makes possible (Eco, 1968). The sponsor). For Barthes, the reader inexorably 'second-order' sign or 'secondary function' is that constructs a new text in the act of reading. Thus, 94 Public Places - Urban Spaces

FIGURE 5.5 Seaside, Florida, USA. In their ideas and claims, New Urbanists are often accused of architectural determinism. Huxtable (1997, p. 42), for example, contends that the New Urbanist developments are based on a 'past ideal of community', which has become part of the 'mythology of the American dream'. She argues that by reducing 'the definition of community to a romantic social aesthetic emphasising front porches, historic styles, and walking distance to stores and schools as an answer to suburban sprawl ...they have avoided the questions of urbanisation to become part of the problem' (Huxtable, 1997, p. 42). Nevertheless, while the porches may symbolise or connote 'community', they also have a practical function (i.e. a use value) which may - or, equally, may not - assist the creation of contacts between neighbours (see Chapter 6)

reading an environment involves understanding day 'big government' and 'big business' - the how it comes to mean different things to different purpose has always been the same: 'to legitimise people and how meanings change. Accordingly, a particular ideology or power system by provid­ much of the built environment's social meaning ing a physical focus to which sentiments could be depends on the audience, and on the concepts of attached'. As it may not always be desirable to 'audience' held by developers, architects and display power, symbolism may 'involve "modest" managers of the built environment (Knox, 1984, or "low profile" architectural motifs; or carry p. 112) (see Figure 5.6). deliberately misleading messages for the The symbolic role of buildings and environ­ purposes of maintaining social harmony' (Knox, ments is a key part of the relationship between 1987, p. 367). There may, however, be compet­ society and environment. Much attention has ing associations and interpretations: for some, focused on how environments represent, large office blocks symbolise financial strength communicate and embody patterns of power and and influence; for others they symbolise 'corpo­ dominance. According to Lasswell (1 979, from rate greed' (Knox and Pinch, 2000, p. 55). Polit­ Knox, 1987, p. 367), the 'signature of power' is ical and economic power is not the only message manifested in two ways: through 'strategies of conveyed, as elements of counter-ideology awe', which 'intimidate' the audience with generate their own symbolic structures and envi­ 'majestic displays of power', and through 'strate­ ronments. The symbolic content of the contem­ gies of admiration', which 'divert' the audience porary built environment is multi-layered and with 'spectacular' design effects. While, as Knox often ambiguous. (1 984, p. 110) argues, the source of this symbol­ All manmade environments symbolise the power isation has changed over time - from royalty and to make or change the environment. Knox (1 984, aristocracy, through industrial capital, to present- p. 1 07) argues that the built environment is not The perceptual dimension �!J5

FIGURE 5.6 Signs, symbols and settings: A framework for analysis (source: Knox and Pinch, 2000, p. 273)

simply an expression of the power exerted at differ­ However, in rejecting one form of symbolism, ent times by individuals, groups and governments, Modernists were unable to avoid it altogether. All but also a rneans by which the prevailing system of elements of the built environment are inescapably power is maintained. Dovey (1 999, p. 2) observes symbols. In his highly influential book, Complexity how: 'The more that the structures and the presen­ and Contradiction in Architecture (1966), Rohert tations of power can be embedded in the frame­ Venturi challenged the minimalism and elitism of work of everyday life, the less questionable they the International Style, and the role of symbolism become and the more effectively they can work.' He and meaning in Modernist architecture. In their­ argues that: 'the exercise of power is slippery and subsequent book, Learning from Las Vegas, Venturi ever-changing. Power naturalises and camouflages et a/. (1 972) identified three ways of externally itself, chameleon-like within its context. The choice expressing a building's function or meaning: of the mask is a dimension of power' (p. 16). At other times, the expression of power is more overt. the 'Las Vegas way': placing a 'Big Sign' in front • Indeed, many totalitarian or imperial/colonial of a 'Little Building'; regimes have used the built environment to symbol­ the 'decorated shed': designing an efficient • ise political power (see Saoud, 1995). building, and covering the fa�ade with signs; Acknowledging the impact of symbolism in the the 'duck ': making the building's overall form • built environment, architectural Modernists express or symbolise its function (i.e. an iconic rejected its display in the form of applied ornament sign). or decoration. As Ward (1 997, p. 21) argues, Modernist buildings were to carry no associations Venturi et a/., point out that while most pre-twen­ beyond their own 'magnificent declaration of tieth century buildings were decorated sheds, modernity'. Their universally applicable 'modern Modernist buildings, designed to express their style' transcended national and local cultures, and internal functions, were ducks (see Chapter 4). was capable of reproduction anywhere - Hitchcock Influenced by Venturi's arguments, new 'postmod­ and johnson (1922) introduced it to America as ern' ideas about architecture emerged, emphas,is­ 'The International Style'. ing stylistic pluralism and scenographic, decorative 96 Public Places - Urban Spaces

and contextual properties with architects exploring significant social, cultural and technological cha.nge the variety of ways in which people gain meanings (Dubos, 1972, p. 7, from Relph, 1976, p. 98). For from the environment. From the 1970s onwards, Relph (1 976, p. 99), the spirit of place retained there was a greater interest in and use of architec­ through such changes is 'subtle', 'nebulous', not tural symbolism. Thus many postmodern buildings easily analysed in 'formal and conceptual terms', are collages of different visual styles, languages or but nonetheless 'extremely obvious'. From a more codes, and make allusions to popular culture, tech­ commercial perspective, Sircus (2001, p. 31) likens nology, local traditions and context. the sense or spirit of place to a brand that connotes In contrast to Modernism's 'univalent' single, certain expectations of quality, consistency and universal meaning, Jencks (1 987) argued that post­ reliability: 'Every place is potentially a brand. In modernism was 'multivalent', open to many differ­ every way as much as Disneyland and Las Vegas, ent meanings and interpretations. This shift has cities like Paris, Edinburgh and New York are their elicited much debate in the architectural literature. own brands, because a consistent, clear image has Because it uses pre-existing forms of explicit emerged of what each place looks, feels like, and symbolism, much postmodern architecture is char­ the story or history it conveys.' acterised as 'historicist'. jameson (1 984) suggested Montgomery (1 998, p. 94) highlights the nub a two-part categorisation: 'parody', the mimicry of of the issue for urban designers: it is relatively old styles, which, Ward (1 997, p. 24) suggests, has straightforward to think of a successful place, and a critical edge and 'mocks rather than merely plun­ to experience it as such; it is much more difficult to ders from tradition'; and 'pastiche', a 'neutral prac­ discern why it is successful, and whether similar tice' possessing none of 'parody's ulterior motives', success can be generated elsewhere. The next but instead being 'speech in a dead language' section discusses the sense of place. Providing a (Jameson, 1984, p. 65). Jencks (1 987) distin­ wider frame of reference, the final sections discuss guished between 'straight revivalism' - problematic the concept of placelessness and the phenomenon because it simply repeated rather than challenged of 'invented' places. tradition - and 'radical eclecticism', the ironic mixing of styles and references expressing a more Sense of place critical attitude to tradition and architecture (Ward, 1997, pp. 23-4). While the historicist influence can The period since the 1970s has seen increasing be ironic or earnest, Doug Davis (1 987, p. 21, from interest in examination of people's ties to, and Ellin, 1999, p. 160) argues that, in ignoring the conceptions of, places. This has often drawn on ideological or religious implications of the periods 'phenomenology', which, based on Edmund quoted, supposedly historicist architects and Husserl's notion of 'intentionality', aims to describe urbanists are, in fact, anti-historicist: 'they prefer and understand phenomena as experiences history-as-arcadian-symbol, not history-as-reality'. wherein human consciousness takes in 'informa­ tion' and makes it into 'the world' (Pepper, 1984, p. 120). Thus, while the meanings of places are THE CONSTRUCTION OF PLACE rooted in their physical setting and activities, they are not a property of them, but of 'human inten­ Having discussed environmental perception/cogni­ tions and experiences' (Relph, 1976, p. 47). Hence, tion and the generation of meaning in the urban what 'the environment' represents is a function of environment, the second part of this chapter our own subjective construction of it. discusses one kind of meaning that is particularly Dovey (1 999, p. 44) sees phenomenology as a important in urban design - that of 'sense of place'. 'necessary but limited' approach to the under­ Sense of place is often discussed in terms of the standing of place, since the focus on the lived-in Latin concept of 'genius loci', which suggests that experience involves a 'certain blindness' to the people experience something beyond the physical effects of social structure and ideology on everyday or sensory properties of places, and can feel an experience. jurgen Habermas makes a useful attachment to a spirit of place (Jackson, 1994, distinction between the 'life-world', the everyday p. 157). world of place experience, social integration and The genius loci or spirit of place often persists in 'communicative action' and the 'system', the social spite of profound changes. Many cities and coun­ and economic structures of the state and the tries have retained their identities in the face of market (Dovey, 1999, pp. 51-2). Phenomenology The perceptual dimension !J7 tends to focus on the former to the exclusion of the things, and a significant spiritual and psychological latter. attachment to somewhere in particular'. Edward Relph's Place and P/ace/essness (1 976) It is often argued that people need a sense of was one of the earliest works drawing on phenom­ identity, of belonging to a specific territory and/or enology and focused on the psychological and group. Crang (1 998, p. 1 03) suggested that 'places experiential 'sense of place'. Relph ("1 976, p. 8) provide an anchor of shared experiences between argued that, however 'amorphous' and 'intangi­ people and continuity over time'. Individuals need ble', whenever we feel or know space, it is typically to express a sense of belonging to a collective associated with a concept of 'place'. For Relph, entity or place, and of individual identity, which places were essentially centres of meaning may be achieved by physical separation or distinc­ constructed out of lived-experience. By imbuing tiveness, and/or a sense of entering into a particu­ them with meaning, individuals, groups or societies lar area. Design strategies can emphasise these change 'spaces' into 'places': for example, as the themes (see Chapter 6). Norberg-Schulz (1 971 , epicentre of the Velvet Revolution, Wenceslas p. 25) argued that 'to be inside' was 'the primary Square is particularly meaningful to the citizens of intention behind the place concept'. Similarly, Ior Prague. Relph (1 976, pp. 111-12) the 'essence of place' lay Concepts of 'place' often emphasise the impor­ in the, occasionally unconscious, experience of an tance of a sense of 'belonging', of emotional attach­ 'inside' as distinct from an 'outside'. He distin­ ment to place (see Chapter 6). Place can be guished types of place-identity based on notions of considered in terms of 'rootedness' and a conscious 'insiders' and 'outsiders' (see Box 5.1 ). sense of association or identity with a particular place. Rootedness refers to a generally unconscious Territorio.lity a.nd persona.lisa.tion sense of place: Arefi (1 999, p. 184) suggests it is 'the most natural, pristine, unmediated kind of people­ The concept of inside-outside is most easily under­ place tie'. For Relph (1976, p. 38) it meant having 'a stood in terms of 'territoriality', people's definition secure point from which to look out on the world, a and defence of themselves - physically and psycho­ firm grasp of one's own position in the order of logically - by the creation of a bounded, often 98 Public Places - Urban Spaces

exclusive, domain (Ardrey, 1967). Suggesting that however, more than this. Lynch (1 960, p. 6) defines people structure groups and define each other by 'identity of place' simply as that which provides distinguishing between 'insiders' and 'outsiders', 'individuality or distinction from other places ... territoriality is frequently the basis for the 'develop­ the basis for its recognition as a separable entity'. ment of distinctive social milieus' that 'mould the For Relph (1976, p. 45) this merely acknowledges attitudes and shape the behaviour of their inhabi­ that each place has a 'unique address', without tants' (Knox and Pinch, 2000, pp. 8-9). explaining how it becomes identifiable. He argues Individual identity is associated with 'personali­ that 'physical setting', 'activities', and 'meanings' sation', the putting of a distinctive stamp on one's constitute the three basic elements of the identity of environment. Typically this occurs at, and makes places. Sense of place does not, however, reside in explicit, the threshold or transition between public these elements but in the human interaction with (group) and private (individual) domains, where these elements. The Dutch architect Aldo Van Eyck small-scale design details contribute to the symbol­ emphasised this in his famous description of place: ism or delimitation of space. Personalisation of 'Whatever space and time mean, place and occa­ private space expresses tastes and values, and has sion mean more. For space in the image of man is little outside impact. Personalisation of elements place, and time in the image of man is occasion.' visible from the public realm communicates these The impact of occasion on place is dramatically tastes to the wider community. Although generally demonstrated by contrasting a sports stadium full of designed and built by someone else, individuals people at a sporting event, with the same stadium adapt and modify their given environment - rear­ empty (Lawson, 2001, p. 23). ranging furniture, changing the decoration, plant­ Drawing on Relph's work, Canter (1 977) saw ing the garden. places as functions of 'activities' plus 'physical Von Meiss {1 990, p. 162) identified three design attributes' plus 'conceptions'. Building on Relph strategies to assist a sense of identity for people and and Canter's ideas, Punter (1 991) and Mont­ groups: gomery(1 998) located the components of a sense of place within urban design thought (Figure 5.7). Creation of an environment responsive to, and These diagrams illustrate how urban design actions • based on, designers' deep understanding of the can contribute to and enhance sense of place. values and behaviour of the people and groups Any individual's conception of place will have concerned, and the environmental features its own variation of Relph's components. The crucial to their identity. This requires recogni­ significance of the physicality of places is often tion of difficulties posed by the designer-user overstated: activities and meanings may be as, or gap (see Chapter 12). more, important in creating a sense of place. Participation of future users in the design of jackson (1994, pp. 158-9) makes the general • their environment. This, too, requires under­ observation that sense of place in Europe is standing of the designer-user gap. grounded more in the physicality of space than in Creation of environments that users can modify America, arguing that 'the average American still • and adapt. Herman Hertzberger (from Von associates a sense of place not so much with Meiss, 1990, p. 162) advocated an 'architec­ architecture or a monument or a designed space, ture of hospitality' reconciling mass production as with some event, some daily or weekly or with our need for individual identity. This seasonal occurrence which we look forward to or involves issues of robustness, and of the differ­ remember and which we share with others'. Seen ing time frames of change for relatively perma­ from a temporal perspective, the physical dimen­ nent, and for shorter-term, urban sions of places are most salient in the short-term, environmental elements (see Chapter 9). It also being displaced in the longer-term by sociocul­ demands that the potential for group and indi­ tural dimensions. vidual personalisation be considered within the Successful places typically have animation and design process (see Bentley et a/., 1985, vitality, an 'urban buzz'. jacobs (1 961) argued that pp. 99-1 05). bringing people onto the street created animation and vitality: Personal or group engagement with space gives it meaning as 'place', at least to the extent of differ­ we may fa ncifully call it the art form of the city entiating it from other places. Sense of place is, and liken it to a dance - not to a simple-minded The perceptual dimension

'99

Land uses Townscape Pedestrian flow Activity Physical Built form Behaviour setting Permeability Patlterns Landscape Noise and smell Furniture Vehicle flow Sense of place

Meaning

=Legibility Cultural associations Perceived functions, attractions Qualitative assessments

Scale Diversity, Intensity vitality, Permeability street life, Activity Form Landmarks people Space to building watching, ratios, stock cafe culture, (adaptability and events and range) local Vertical grain, traditions/ public realm pastimes, (space systems) opening hours, flow, attractors, Image transaction (cognition, perception base, fine and information) grain FIGURE 5.7 economy These diagrams by John Punter (1 991 ) and John = Symbolism and memory Montgomery (1 998) lmageability and legibility illustrate how urban Sensory experience and associations design actions can Knowledgeability contribute to and Receptivity enhance the potential Psychological access sense of place (source: Cosmopolitan/sophistication Montgomery, 1998) Fear

precision dance with everyone kicking up at the Successful public spaces are characterised by the same time, twirling in unison and bowing offen presence of people, in an often self-reinforciing masse, but to an intricate ballet in which indi­ process. Public spaces are essentially discretionary vidual dancers and ensembles all have distinc­ environments: people have to use them atnd tive p01ts which miraculously reinforce one conceivably could choose to go elsewhere. If they another and compose an orderly whole. are to become peopled and animated, they must 100 Public Places - Urban Spaces offer what people want, in an attractive and safe The presence, size and specialisms of street • environment. The Project for Public Space (1 999) markets; identified four key attributes of successful places: Availability of cinemas, theatres, wine bars, • comfort and image; access and linkage; uses and pubs, restaurants and other cultural/meeting activity; and sociability (see Table 5.1 ). places, offering service of different kinds, prices For Montgomery (1998, p. 99), the key to a and quality; successful public realm is the 'transaction base', Availability of spaces, including gardens, • which should be 'as complex as possible', 'without a squares and corners, enabling people-watching transaction base of economic activity at many differ­ and activities such as cultural animation ent levels and layers, it will not be possible to create programmes; a good urban place'. As not all transactions are Patterns of mixed land use enabling self­ • economic, urban areas and cities must also provide improvement and small-scale investment in space for social and cultural transactions. Mont­ property; gomery lists a number of key indicators of vitality: Availability of differing unit sizes and costs of • property; The extent of variety in primary land uses, • The degree of innovation and confidence in including residential; • new architecture, providing a variety of build­ The proportion of locally owned or indepen­ • ing types, styles and designs; dent businesses, particularly shops; The presence of an active street life and street Patterns of opening hours, and the existence of • • frontages. evening and night-time activity;

TABLE 5.1 Key attributes of successful places

KEY ATTRIBUTES INTANGIBLES MEASUREMENTS

COMFORT AND safety sittability crime statistics IMAGE charm walkability sanitation rating history greenness building conditions attractiveness cleanliness environmental data spirituality ACCESS AND LINKAGE readability proximity traffic data walkability connectedness mode split reliability convenience transit usage continuity accessibility pedestrian activity parking usage patterns USES AND ACTIVITY realness activity property values sustain ability usefulness rent levels specialness celebration land-use patterns uniqueness vitality retail sales affordability indigenousness local business ownership fun 'homegrown' quality SOCIABILITY co-operation gossip street life neighbourliness diversity social networks stewardship storytelling evening use pride friendliness volunteerism welcoming interactivity number of women, children and elderly

(Source: adapted from Project for Public Space, 1999). The perceptual dimension 101

While urban designers cannot make places in any can move all over the world, deserting problematic simplistic or deterministic manner, they can places and populations at will.' The fate of local increase 'place potential' - the likelihood that place is increasingly determined from afar, by people will consider the space a significant and anonymous and impersonal economic forces. meaningful place. The social and functional dimen­ Globalisation has differing effects. Entnikin sions of place are discussed in Chapters 6 and 8. (1 991) suggests two possible scenarios: 'conver­ gence', where sameness through the standardisa­ tion of landscapes is emerging, and 'divergence' Placelessness where disparate elements maintain cultural and Whereas constituting a sense of place tends to be spatial distinctiveness. The situation is perhaps associated with something of intrinsic value, place­ more complex: King (2000, p. 23) argues that lessness is generally viewed negatively. Gertrude because it is embedded in local context, urban Stein's dismissal of Oakland, 'There's no there there', design is 'torn between the representation, and aptly captures this. Nonetheless, appreciation of the even celebration, of the global and the enhance­ concept of 'placelessness' can provide a frame of ment and often rescue of the local'. He further reference for urban design. Relph (1 976, p. ii) notes how global trade depends on 'the riches of considered investigation of place 'unrealistic' with­ local culture that it threatens to commercialise, out consideration of 'placelessness', which he degrade, swamp, and eventually destroy' (King, defined as the 'casual eradication of distinctive 2000, p. 23). Dovey (1999, pp. 158-9), however, places' and the 'making of standardised landscapes'. argues that, because local differences of urban Placelessness tends to signify absence or loss of culture are attractive to global marketing strateg�ies, meaning. Embedded within a 'narrative of loss' globalisation 'does not simply iron out differences (e.g. Arefi, 1999; Banerjee, 2001 ), there has been between cities, it also stimulates them'. growing concern about its consequences. Various factors are considered to contribute to the contem­ (ii) Mass culture porary phenomenon of placelessness, including the With globalisation has come 'mass' culture, emerg­ market and regulatory approaches (see Chapters 3, ing from the processes of mass production, marlket­ 1 0 and 11). Three interrelated processes will be ing and consumption, which homogenise and discussed here: globalisation; the emergence of standardise cultures and places, transcending, mass culture; and the loss of the social and cultural crowding out, even destroying, local cultures. relations embedded in specific places/territories. According to Crang (1 998, p. 115), much of the worry over placelessness can be interpreted as ifear (i) Globalisation that local, supposedly 'authentic' forms of culture ­ Many trends towards homogenisation of, and loss made from, and making, local distinctiveness - are of, meaning in places relate to processes of global­ being displaced by mass-produced commercial isation and the creation of global space, through forms imposed on the locality. In Relph's (1 976, improved communications (both physical and elec­ p. 92) view, these 'are formulated by manufactur­ tronic). G�obalisation is a multi-faceted process in ers, governments, and professional designers, and which the world is becoming increasingly intercon­ are guided and communicated through mass nected, with centralised decision-making exploit­ media. They are not developed and formulated by ing economies of scale and standardisation. The the people. Uniform products and places are changing, and problematising, of relationships created for people of supposedly uniform needs between local and global has significant implica­ and tastes, or perhaps vice versa.' tions for what constitutes the meaning of place. Castells (1 989, p. 6) described the effects of infor­ (iii) Loss of (attachment to) territory mation technology in the creation of a 'space of Placelessness is also a reaction to the loss, or flows' which 'dominates the historically absence, of environments we care about. Such de­ constructed space of places'. For Zukin (1 991 , territorialised places promote what Relph termed p. 15), there is a fundamental tension between 'existential outsideness': because people do not 'global capital' that can move and 'local commu­ feel they belong, they no longer care for their envi­ nity' that cannot, while Harvey (1997, p. 20) ronment (Crang, 1998, p. 112). Auge (1 995, observes that capital is no longer concerned about p. 94) contrasts 'non-places' dominated by place: 'Capital needs fewer workers and much of it 'contractual solitariness' - where individuals or 102 Public Places - Urban Spaces

small groups relate to wider society through The influence of theme parks and invented places specific, limited interactions - with 'places' where is widespread and pervasive. The manufacture of there is 'organic sociality', where people have long­ 'places' and place values, drawing on the tech­ term relationships and interactions serving more niques of theme parks - usually to further the than immediate functional purposes. purposes of consumption - occurs in a variety of In considering the development of a 'placeless' settings, including shopping malls, historic districts, society, Meyrowitz (1985) highlighted the shift urban entertainment districts, central city redevel­ from cultures inhabiting specific areas, to a more opments and tourist destinations (see Relph, 1976; mobile society. Mobilityand communication tech­ Zukin, 1991; Hannigan, 1998). Crang (1 998, nology have unprecedented implications for p. 126) argues that, while shopping malls may concepts of 'place' and 'community', as communi­ destroy sense of place through their 'replication of ties of 'interest' supplant place-based ones (see anonymous, universal patterns' and by isolating Chapter 6). Crang (1998, p. 114) suggests that few consumers from the outside world, many have cultures today remain 'place-bound', and that past specific place references in their design. West geographic links may have been due more to limi­ Edmonton Mall, for example, has parts themed on tations of communications and transport than to 'Old Orleans' and on simulated Parisian boulevards. any more fundamental connection. If this is the It is nevertheless all manufactured and contrived, case, he concludes, 'loss of place' does not really which, Shields (1 989) suggests, actually creates a matter. sense of 'elsewhereness'.

'Invented' places

One response to the standardisation of place is a deliberate 'manufacturing' of difference - in terms more specific to urban design, the 'invention', sometimes 'reinvention', of places. Crang {1 998, pp. 116-1 7) notes an industry 'that sets out to "imagineer" places, to create "uniqueness" in order to attract attention, visitors and - in the end - money. Landscapes can be engineered, their culture commodified for financial gain. If places are becoming increasingly alike, the rewards for stand­ ing out are increasing.' Invented places spring from the creative minds of authors, artists, architects, designers and imaginers (Figure 5.8). 'Reinvented places' start from a basis in reality, but generally involve a significant degree of change, distortion and loss of authenticity (see below and Figure 9.1 ). For Sircus (2001, p. 30), Disneyland is the quintes­ sential invented place:

It creates reality out of fantasy in ways that are often symbolic and subliminat digging deep into the user's psyche, connecting with cross­ cultural images and multi-generational, hard­ wired memories. It is successful because it adheres to certain principles of sequential expe­ rience and storytelling, creating an appropriate and meaningful sense of place in which both FIGURE.5.8 activities and memories are individual and Universal Studio's CityWalk, Los Angeles (USA), is a shared. quintessentially invented place The perceptual dimension 103

In their purest forms, invented places depend on creation of people places. The concept, therefore, a high degree of control - particularly of context ­ raises a number of urban design issues. and on a certain scale of operation. Graham and Marvin (2001, p. 264) refer to the contemporary (i) Superficiality phenomenon of 'bundled' urban environments - There are various criticisms of the apparent super­ 'invented street' systems within shopping malls, ficiality and 'depthlessness' of much postmodern theme parks and urban resorts, often with strong architecture and urban development. The attention tie-ins to leading transnationals (Disney, Time­ postmodernism pays to place is (say some critics) Warner, Nike, etc.), to exploit merchandising spin­ superficial, undermining the real, or unique identity offs. Such developments cover increasingly large of places. Dovey (1 999, p. 44) observes how the 'footprints' as developers attempt to bundle 'currency and intangibility' of 'sense of place' has together the maximum number of 'synergistic' been 'widely exploited by the market to legitimise uses within single complexes - retailing, cinemas, design projects ... [but in so doing, it] . . . is IMAX screens, sports facilities, restaurants, hotels, reduced to scenographic and rhetorical effect as a entertainment facilities, casinos, simulated historic cover for place destruction'. Huxtable (1 997, p. 3) scenes, virtual reality complexes, museums, zoos, complains that 'themed parodies pass for places bowling alleys, artificial ski-slopes, etc. ... even as real places with their full freight of art In his book Fantasy City: Pleasure and profit in and memories are devalued and destroyed'. the postmodern metropolis (1_998), John Hannigan Similarly, in his polemic introduction to Varia­ discusses a particular kind of bundled or invented tions on a Theme Park: The American City and the place - the urban entertainment destination End of Public Space, Sorkin (1 992, p. xiii) argues (UED). He states that the typical UED or 'Fantasy that contemporary urban developments have - City' is: replaced the 'anomaly and delight' of real places with 'a universal particular, a generic urbanism theme-·o-centre: 'everything from individual inflected only by applique', and that the profession • entertainment venues to the image of the city of 'urban design' is almost wholly preoccupied with itself conforms to a scripted theme, normally the 'creation of urbane disguises': drawn from sports, history or popular enter­ Whether in its master incarnation at the ersatz tainment'; Main Street of Disneyland, in the phoney 'aggressively branded': 'Urban entertainment • history of a Rouse market place, or the gentri­ destinations are not financed and marketed fied architecture of the 'reborn' Lower East Side, exclusively on the basis of their abilityto deliver this elaborate apparatus is at pains to assert its a high degree of consumer satisfaction and fun ties to the kind of city life it is in the process of but also on their potential for selling licensed obliterating . . . The architecture of this city is merchandise on site'; almost purely semiotic, playing the game of open day and night, reflecting 'its intended • grafted signification, theme-park building. market of "baby boomer" and "generation X" Whether it represents generic historicity or adults in search of leisure, sociability and enter­ generic modernity, such design is based on the tainment'; same calculus as advertising, the idea of pure modular, 'mixing and matching an increasingly • imageability, oblivious to the real needs and standard array of components in various traditions of those who inhabit it. (p. xiv) configurations'; solipsistic: 'isolated from surrounding neigh­ Crang (1 998, pp. 116-1 7) comments on 'manu­ • bourhoods, physically, economically and factured difference', which 'takes the form of socially'; fa�ades placed over standardised substructures - postmodern: 'insomuch as it is constructed designed to tone in with an area or to distinguish • around technologies of simulation, virtual real­ an otherwise ordinary building'. A significant impli­ ity and the thrill of the spectacle'. cation of Venturi's 'decorated shed' was that a standard box could be 'wallpapered' to take on a While there has been much criticism of invented variety of meanings. Dovey (1 999, p. 34) notes places (Harvey, 1989; Sorkin, 1992; Crawford, how the 'detachment of form from social liife' 1992; Boyer, 1992, 1993; Huxtable, 1997), they allows a 'commodification of meaning under the provide opportunities for urban desi9n and the aesthetic guise of a revival of meaning'. Some �;ee 104 Public Places - Urban Spaces

this 'superficiality' as a defining characteristic of or "rehabilitated" to correspond to ideal visions of postmodernism. jameson (1 984), for example, crit­ the past and to satisfy contemporary needs and icises the 'depthlessness' of postmodern architec­ tastes'. However, she notes that this may also ture - indeed, of postmodern culture generally. In represent 'a welcome corrective to Modernism's some respects, this becomes a form of architectural obsession with forgetting the past and starting over 'fetishism', which, Harvey (1 989a, p. 77) suggests, on a clean slate' (Ell in, 2000, p. 1 04). involves a 'direct concern with surface appearances Discussing the 'real' and the 'simulation', that conceal underlying meanings'. Baudrillard (1 983, from Lane, 2000, pp. 86-7) argues that there are three levels of simulation: (ii) Other-directedness - created from without rather than from within First-order simulations are obvious copies of • As their symbolism tends to come from outside reality. rather than 'inside', invented places are, in Relph's Second-order simulations are copies that blur • term, 'other-directed'. Rather than autonomous the boundaries between reality and representa­ expressions of the local culture, meanings and tion. place associations are 'outside inventions'. In Third-order simulations - 'simulacra' - are • Habermas' terms, they are instances of the system imitations of things that never actually existed. invading and colonising the life-world, whereby, as Dovey (1 999, pp. 51-2) explains, 'places of every­ Third-order simulation generates what Baudrillard day life become increasingly subject to the system called 'hyper-reality' - a world without a real origin. imperatives of the market and its distorted commu­ He argues that hyper-reality will eventually be the nications, advertising and constructions of mean­ dominant way of experiencing the world. In first­ ing'. Here, 'economic space' invades 'lived space', order and second-order simulation, the real still and the life-world is less an end in itself and increas­ exists and the success (or otherwise) of simulation ingly becomes a means to the system's ends. This can be measured against - or, at least, distin­ 'commodification of place', making its exchange guished from - it. With third-order simulation, the value its primary quality, has attracted many real does not exist. Baudrillard regards Disneyland comments (for example, Harvey, 1989; Zukin, as a third-order simulation. While Disneyland's 1991; Sorkin, 1992; Crawford, 1992; Boyer, 1992, 'Main Street USA' is meant to evoke a typical main 1993; Huxtable, 1997; Dovey, 1999). street anywhere in the USA, it is not actually from anywhere: 'It mobilises images people already have (iii) Lacking authenticity about what typical America was like' (Crang, 1998, Relph (1 976, p. 113) recognised that sense of place p. 126). may be 'authentic' and 'genuine' or 'inauthentic', In his review of Huxtable's The Unreal America 'contrived' or 'artificial'. Use of the terms 'authen­ (1 997), Rybczynski (1 997, p. 13) comments that tic' and 'inauthentic' is often slippery and contin­ her analysis presumes the public cannot distinguish gent - authentic being what particular critics like. between what is real and what is not. He contends Nonetheless, many critics regard contemporary that people watching the erupting lava outside the urban development that copies or draws explicit Mirage in Las Vegas do not mistake it for a real reference from historical precedent as 'false' and volcano, just as commuters using the neo-classical lacking 'authenticity'. For Boyer (1 992, p. 188), concourse of the old Pennsylvania Station knew recent development at New York's Union Square, they were not in ancient Rome. He asserts that 'the Times Square and Battery Park City involve 'the relationship between reality and illusion has always reiteration and recycling of already-known been blurred; Pennsylvania Station was simultane­ symbolic codes and historic forms to the point of ously a surrogate Baths of Caracalla and a real cliche'. She argues that historic preservations and place' (Rybczynski, 1997, p. 13). While it is of 'retro urban designs' are literal representations of concern that Disney's Main Street USA may be the past designed for 'inattentive viewers'. Simi­ mistaken for a 'real' main street, the danger is that, larly, Ellin (1 999, p. 83) argues that, although increasingly, people do not have a real main street ostensibly 'preserving' the past, both preservation­ - or, indeed, real places - to compare it against. ists and gentrifiers could 'be more accurately For Fainstein (1 994, p. 231 ), Disney World, 'is described as rewriting or inventing the past since an authentic reflection of underlying economic and buildings and districts are "renovated", "restored", social processes ... It is the genuine.' Commenting The perceptual dimension 1105 on the 'exaltation of authenticity', she notes diffi­ to make places by observing existing places and by culties of the 'implied definition' of authenticity establishing a dialogue with their users and stake­ used to denounce new projects: 'Although the crit­ holders (see Chapters 8 and 12). ical literature is replete with accusations of fakery, the nature of the authentic, late twentieth-century CONCLUSION design is rarely specified' (p. 230). The dismissal as inauthentic presupposes that there was, is, or can This chapter has discussed the perceptual dimen­ be, a more authentic urbanity, but she goes on to sion of urban design, focusing on environmental argue that authenticity is not the appropriate value perception and on the construction of place. The to apply because 'deconstruction of the urban envi­ value of this dimension of urban design is the stress ronment reveals a reasonably accurate portrayal of on people and how they perceive, value, draw the social forces underlying it' (p. 232). Fainstein meaning from, and add meaning to, the urban argues that, while a 'deeper critique' of supposedly environment. Places that are 'real' to people, invite artificial environments should demonstrate how and reward involvement - intellectual and/or they fail to satisfy important human needs, critics emotional - and provide a sense of psychologlical seem reluctant to do this because it puts them on connectedness. Although urban design as a process the 'thorny ground of explicating exactly what inexorably invents and reinvents places, with a activities afford genuine as opposed to false satis­ greater or lesser degree of finesse, contrivance and faction'. Similarly, Ellin (2000, p. 1 0�,) argues that authenticity, it is people who make places and �Jive although themed environments are criticised for them meaning. Thus, just as messages are 'sent', being contrived and 'artificial', these might be the they are also 'received' and interpreted: it is for qualities people actually like: individual users to determine whether a place is Accused of distracting people from the injustices authentic or not, and the quality and meaning of and ugliness of their lives, of placating them, their experience there. Rather than a duality of and of being places of 'spectacle and surveil­ 'authentic' and 'inauthentic', it is necessary to lance', themed environments might also be consider degrees of authenticity. applauded for the diversion they offer, fo r Contrary to what some critics may suggest, simply providing places in which people can people are not necessarily concerned about relax and have fun in the company of fa mily authenticity - at least, they care less about it than and friends. whether or not they like a place. It is people's perceptions that are important. Nasar (1 998, Criticism of invented places provokes the question: p. 69) asserts that: 'Historical content may be Why shouldn't urban design produce places that authentic or not. If observers consider a place people like and enjoy? Fainstein (1 994, p. 232) historical, it has historical content to them.' Thus, observes that the popularity of many out-of-centre as Sircus (2001, p. 31) argues: shopping complexes and revitalised areas appears to drive 'the cultural critics into paroxysms of annoy­ Place is not good or bad simply because it is ance as they attempt to show that people ought to real versus surrogate, authentic versus pastiche. be continually exposed to the realities of life at the People enjoy both, whether it is a place created lower depths'. Ultimately, people make places and over centuries, or created instantly. A successful imbue them with meaning and value. Furthermore, place, like a novel or a movie, engages us most places are discretionary environments and actively in an emotional experience archeS·· people must actively choose to use them for them trated and organised to communicate purpose to be successful. Urban designers need to learn how and story. The social dimension

INTRODUCTION a determining influence on human behaviour. By negating the role of human agency, it assumes that This chapter discusses the social dimension of environment-people interaction is a one-way process. urban design. Space and society are clearly related: People are not passive, however; they influence and it is difficult to conceive of 'space' without social change the environment, as it influences and content and, equally, to conceive of society with­ changes them. It is, therefore, a two-way process. out a spatial component. As is discussed in this While physical factors are neither the exclusive nor chapter, the relationship is best conceived as a necessarily the dominant influence on behaviour, continuous two-way process in which people (and environmental opportunities clearly affect what societies) create and modify spaces while at the people can and cannot do: a window in an otherwise same time being influenced by them in various solid wall allows one to see out, while a continuous ways. Dear and Walch (1989) argue that social wall does not afford that opportunity. Human behav­ relations can be: constituted through space (e.g. iour is therefore inherently 'situational': it is embed­ where site characteristics influence settlement ded in physical - and also in 'social', 'cultural' and form); constrainedby space (e.g. where the physical 'perceptual' - contexts and settings. environment facilitates or obstructs human activ­ In addition to determinism, there are two other ity); and mediated by space (e.g. where the 'friction main viewpoints on the degree of environmental of distance' facilitates or inhibits the development influence on people's actions: 'environmental of various social practices). Hence, by shaping that possibilism' (i.e. people choose among the envi­ built environment, urban designers influence ronmental opportunities available to them) and patterns of human activity and social life. 'environmental probabilism' (i.e. in a given physi­ This chapter focuses on five key aspects of urban cal setting some choices are more likely than design's social dimension. The first is the relation­ others) (Porteous, 1977; Bell et a/., 1990). The ship between people and space. The second is the latter is illustrated by a simple example (from Bell interrelated concepts of the 'public realm' and et a/., 1990, p. 365). At a seminar involving a few 'public life'. The third concerns the notion of neigh­ people in a large room with a formal layout of bourhoods. The fourth concerns issues of safety chairs and tables, there is minimal discussion. and security. The fifth is the issue of accessibility. When the chairs and tables are arranged differ­ ently, there is more discussion - that is, when the environment is changed, behaviour also changes. PEOPLE AND SPACE This outcome is not inevitable: had the seminar been scheduled late in the day, or the convenor An understanding of the relationship between people failed to motivate participants, the rearrangement ('society') and their environment ('space') is essential might have been no more successful than the orig­ in urban design. The first idea to be considered here inal layout. The example shows that design matters is that of architectural or environmental determinism, but not absolutely. What happens in any particular where the claim is that the physical environment has environment depends on those using it.

106 The social dimension 11D7

In this respect, Gans (1 968, p. 5) drew a valu­ able distinction between 'potential' environments, which provide a range of environmental opportu­ nities; and the 'resultant' or 'effective' environ­ ments created by what people actually do within that setting. Hence, while urban designers might create potential environments, people create effec­ tive environments. Rather than determining human actions or behaviour, urban design can be seen as a means of manipulating the probabilities of certain actions or behaviours occurring. Taking a proba­ bilist or possibilist perspective, it can credibly be argued that environments with, for example, a high concentration of street-level doors, are more conducive to social interaction than those charac­ terised by fortress-like structures with blank walls; similarly, residential neighbourhoods where houses have front porches present a more gregarious setting than those where three-car garage doors face onto public space (Ford, 2000, p. 13). Hence, as discussed in the previous chapter, while urban designers cannot 'make' places, they can create more 'place potential' (see Box 6.1 ). The choices made in any particular setting depend partly on each individual's own situation and characteristics (their ego, personality, goals and values, available resources, past experiences, life stage, etc.): in an analogy with computer science, these characteristics are 'hard wired'. Despite the seemingly individualistic and complex demands of human values, goals and aspirations, the existance of an overarching hierarchy of human needs has been proposed by several authors. Such hierarchies often follow the original work on human motivation by Maslow (1 968), who identi­ fied a five-stage hierarchy of basic human needs:

physiological needs: for warmth and comfort; • safety and security needs: to feel safe from • harm; affiliation needs: to belong - to a community, • for example; esteem needs: to feel valued by others; • society is one that attempts to meet all the human self-actualisation needs: for artistic expression • needs concurrently. and fulfilment. The choices people make in any given setting are also influenced by 'society' and 'culture', involving The most basic physiological needs must be satis­ characteristics which are learnt or, continuing the fied before progress can be made to the higher­ computer science analogy, 'soft-wired'. Society can order ones; for example, self-actualisation: be considered to be as any self-perpetuating human However, although there is a hierarchy, the differ­ grouping occupying a relatively bounded territory, ent needs are related in a complex series of inter­ interacting in a systematic way, and possessing its linked relationships (Figure 6.1 ). Furthermore, it own more or less distinctive culture and institutions. might be argued that the true test of a 'civilised' Culture is probably best understood in an 'anthro- 108 Public Places - Urban Spaces

NON·MATEmAl REWARDS J, ACHIEVEMENTS J RECOGNITION

FIGURE 6.1 ACTING Hierarchy of human needs (source: Lang, 1987, p. 1 0) pological' sense, as a 'particular way of life, which tions where we queue there are also token expresses certain meanings and values not only in signals from the physical environment that we art and learning, but also in institutions and ordi­ should behave in this highly artificial way. The nary behaviour' (Williams, 1961 , p. 41 ) . rope barriers sometimes used to form queues in Lawson (2001, pp. 2-3) argues that people public places are hardly able to contain a crowd collectively inhabiting an area tend to make 'rules' physically, and yet without them the crowd governing their use of space. While some rules are a would probably push and shove in a chaotic matter of local social and cultural convention, many and possibly aggressive manner. Our civilisa­ reflect deep-seated needs of the psyche and charac­ tion and our culture enables us to be remark­ teristics of human beings. He suggests (pp. 7-8) that ably co-operative, even when we are actually the queue typifies conventionalised behaviour trig­ competing for limited tickets at the theatre or gered by signals from the designed environment: sale bargains in a shop (pp. 7-8). When someone pushes in front of you in a Recent years have, however, witnessed a decline in queue, you feel offended not just because you the apparent civility of public space, and in respect­ are one place further back but also because ful behaviour towards other space users. Although they failed to respect the rules. In most situa- this suggests a 'golden age' when public order was The social dimension 141)9 of a higher order, it is also an extremely common ping concept of 'public life' - require further observation (see Lofland, 1973; Milgram, 1977; consideration. 'Public' must be understood vis-a-vis Davis, 1990; Carter, 1998; Fyfe, 1998). While 'private': in broad terms, as Loukaitou-Sideris and designers can attempt to manipulate functional Banerjee (1 998, p. 175) observe: 'Public life and cognitive cues to increase the probability of involves relatively open and universal social better behaviour in public spaces, there are limits contexts, in contrast to private life, which is inti­ to what they can achieve. Many urban design prac­ mate, familiar, shielded, controlled by the indiviid­ titioners are, nevertheless, optimistic about the ual, and shared only with family and friends.' probability of particular behaviours in certain envi­ The public realm has 'physical' (space) and ronments and advocate good design as a means to 'social' (activity) dimensions. The physical public achieve certain desirable outcomes. As Ford (2000, realm is understood here to mean the spaces and p. 199) argues, writers such as jane jacobs and settings - publicly or privately owned - that William H. Whyte believed that: 'Good streets, side­ support or facilitate public life and social interac­ walks, parks, and other public spaces bring out the tion. The activities and events occurring in those best in human nature and provide the settings for spaces and settings can be termed the sociocultural a civil and courteous society. Everything will be fine public realm. if we can just get the design right.' Others, holding a much more pessimistic view of contemporary urban society, argue that, for example, small parks The function of the public realm will inevitably attract undesirables, front porches will attract nosy neighbours, grid street patterns Defined as the sites and settings of public life, and will invite strangers into the neighbourhood, and including some notion of 'public space', the public benches in public spaces will encourage vagrants. realm ideally functions as a forum for political Such pessimistic attitudes - combined with prob­ action and representation; as a 'neutral' or lems of liability and responsibility for anything that common ground for social interaction, intermin­ may happen in a public place - often translate into gling, and communication; and as a stage for social highly risk-averse approaches that discourage all learning, personal development, and information activity rather than risk anti-social behaviour. Such exchange (Loukaitou-Sideris and Banerjee, 1998, attitudes frequently result in hostile and anti-social p. 175). Although these functions are rarely (if environments that paradoxically seem to encour­ ever) wholly attained in practice, their definition age anti-social behaviour. provides a measure of the degree to which 'real' While needing to counter pessimistic views and public realms fall short of the ideal state. The attitudes, overoptimistic claims by urban designers second and third of these dimensions are discussed invite accusations of environmental determinism. later; the first requires further explanation here. Claims, for example, that if houses have front As a political stage, the public realm (sometimes porches, then residents will be more neighbourly referred to as the 'democratic' public realm) and eventually form communities, may be borne involves and symbolises activities important to 'dti­ out, or, equally, may not. In fact, both optimistic zenship' and the existence of a civil society (i.e. and pessimistic views stray into architectural deter­ social relations and public participation, as against minism: if public benches are provided, vagrants the narrower operations of the state or the market) may sleep on them, but this is not inevitable and if (Figure 6.2). Although not necessarily predicated they are not provided, the problem is avoided at on the existence of public space, the concept of a the expense of people not having somewhere to sit 'political' public realm has interested many writers. down. As urban design should be an activity that Hannah Arendt (1 958) conceived of the city as a provides people with choices rather than denying 'polis', a self-governing political community whose them choice, it is preferable to provide the oppor­ citizens deliberate, debate and resolve issues. She tunity, and then to manage its use. saw the public realm as satisfying three criteria: by outlasting mortal lives, it memorialised the society and thereby conveyed a sense of its history; it was THE PUBLIC REALM an arena for diverse groups of people to engage in debate and oppositional struggles; and it was Frequently evoked in discussions of urban design, accessible to, and used by, all (from Ellin, 1996, the 'public realm' - and the related and overlap- p. 126). Existing between the domain of the state 110 Public Places - Urban Spaces

FIGURE 6.2 Old Market Square, Nottingham, UK. Public space offers the opportunity for political display and canvassing - activities rarely allowed in quasi-public space or government, and the private domain of the indi­ spaces have been transferred to private realms - vidual and the family, Habermas' (1 962) concept of leisure activities, entertainment, gaining informa­ the 'public sphere' relates to the discussion of tion, and consumption, for example, can increas­ public affairs. His ideas are based on the develop­ ingly be undertaken at home through television ment of various spaces - coffee houses, salons, etc. and the Internet. Activities that were once only - together with newspapers and periodicals in available in collective and public forms have eighteenth century Europe, which encouraged new increasingly become available in individualised and forms of reasoned argumentation. In contemporary private forms, while the use of public space has society, rather than a 'unitary' polis or public been challenged by various developments and sphere, it may be better to conceive of a series of changes, such as increased personal mobility - separate yet overlapping spheres involving, for initially through the car and subsequently through example, different social-economic, gender and the internet (see Chapter 2). As discussed in Chap­ ethnic groups (Calhoun, 1992; Boyer, 1993; ter 4, social interaction today is also affected by Sandercock, 1997; Featherstone and Lash, 1999). conflict within public space between the demands Boyer (1 993, p. 118), for example, argues that: of social space and those of mechanised move­ 'Any contemporary references to the "public" is by ment. Cars also facilitate an essentially private nature a universalising construct that assumes a control over public space. collective whole, while in reality the public is frag­ More generally, the disengagement from public mented into marginalized groups, many of whom space and public facilities has been both a cause have no voice, position or representation in the and a consequence of the trend towards privatisa­ public sphere.' tion. In The Fallof Public Man, for example, Sennett (1 977) documented the social, political and economic factors leading to the privatisation of The decline of the public realm people's lives and the 'end of public culture'. Simi­ Many commentators have observed the declining larly, Ellin (1 999, pp. 167-8) observed how, as the significance of the public realm, attributed in part public realm has grown increasingly impoverished, to the reduced availability of, and significance 'there has been a corresponding decline in mean­ attached to, public space and public life. Ellin ingful space, and a desire to control one's space, or (1 996, p. 149) observes that many social and civic to privatise'. For Ellin, the 'privatisation impulse' is functions that traditionally occurred in public epitomised by the appropriation of public space by The social dimension 111 private agencies such as 'the inward-turning shop­ External and internal quasi-' public' space: • ping mall which has abandoned the central cityfor although legally private, places such as univer­ the suburbs and which turns its back entirely on its sity campuses, sports grounds, restaurants, surroundings with its fortress-like exterior cinemas, shopping malls, also form part of the surrounded by a moat-like car park'. Observing the public realm. This category also includes what process of privatising and selling off standardised are commonly described as 'privatised' (often infrastructural systems, Graham (2001, p. 365) but not exclusively external) public spaces. As suggests that this is most familiar and widespread the owners and operators of all these spaces in the domain of public streets: 'The municipally­ retain rights to regulate access and behaviour controlled street systems, that once acted as effec­ there, they are only nominally public. Sorkin tive monopolies of the public realm in many cities, (1 992) refers to this pejoratively as 'pseudo­ are being paralleled by the growth of a set of public' space. shadow, privatised street spaces.' Nevertheless, some commentators (e.g. Brill, It is clear that there is a spectrum of 'public-nE!SS' 1989; Krieger, 1995) argue that the public realm's with regard to the public realm. As well as issues of apparent decline is based on a false notion and space, issues of access and accessibility, and of that, 'in reality, it has never been 'as diverse, dense, whether - and in what sense - the setting consti­ classless, or democratic as is now imagined' tutes 'neutral' ground, must be considered. While, (Loukaitou-Sideris and Banerjee, 1998, p. 182). in urban design terms, 'accessibility' is the capacity Others note resurgence in the use of public space to enter and use a space - as is discussed later in and see it in a process of sociocultural transforma­ tion. Carr et a/. (1 992, p. 343) argue, for example, that the relationship of public space to public life is dynamic and reciprocal and that new forms of public life require new spaces. Use of the public realm is also a function of its quality as a support­ ive and conducive environment (Gehl, 1996). There is, nevertheless, the possibility of a vicious spiral: if people use public space less, then there is less incentive to provide new spaces and maintain existing ones. With a decline in their maintenance and quality, public spaces are less likely to be used, thereby exacerbating the vicious spiral of decline.

The physical and sociocultural public realms

In broad terms, the public realm includes all the spaces accessible to and used by the public, includ­ ing:

External public space: pieces of land that lie • between private landholdings. In urban areas, these are public squares, streets, highways, parks, parking lots, etc., and in rural areas they are stretches of coastline, forests, lakes, rivers, etc. Accessible to all, these spaces constitute public space in its purest form (Figure 6.3). lnternal 'public' space: public institutions such as • FIGURE 6.3 libraries, museums, town halls, etc., plus public Public space is used for a variety of different activities. In transport facilities such as train or bus stations, Dolgellau, North Wales, UK, the public space is airports, etc. occasionally used for a livestock market 112 Public Places - Urban Spaces

FIGURE 6.4 Castlefields, Manchester, UK. Street cafes provide an example of informal public life

FIGURE 6.5 Informal use of space on the banks of the Seine, Paris, France The social dimension 1'13 114 Public Places - Urban Spaces

this chapter, not all public spaces are 'open' to everyone. Given that public space, quasi-public space, and

the boundary between them, are often difficult to AREA IN OPEN DEVELOPMENT define precisely, Banerjee (2001, p. 19) recom­ PREFERABLY ACRES - IN ANY CASE 160IT SHOULD HOUSE ENOUGH PEOPLE TO mends that urban designers focus on the broader REQUIRE ONE ELMENTARY SCHOOL - EXACT SHAPE NOT concept of 'public life' (i.e. the sociocultural public ESSENTIAL BUT BEST ALL SIDES ARE fAIRLYWHEN realm of people and activities), rather than the EQUIDISTANT FROM CENTER /" narrower one of physical 'public spaces' (Figures 6.4 and 6.5). He argues that, while planners have tradi­ / / tionally associated it with public spaces, increasingly public life is 'flourishing in private places, not just in corporate theme parks, but also in small businesses such as coffee shops, bookstores and other such third places' (Banerjee, 2001, pp. 19-20). The concern in urban design is therefore usually with 'social space' (i.e. spaces that support, enable or facilitate social and cultural interaction and public life) regardless of whether it is genuinely 'public' space or private space that is publicly accessible. Public life can be broadly grouped into two interrelated types: 'formal' and 'informal'. Of most interest in urban design is informal public life, which occurs beyond the realm of formal institu­ tions and entails choice. Many parts of the public realm are discretionary environments, which people choose whether or not to use: for example, there are often alternative routes for getting from one point to another, with choice made on inter­ related grounds of convenience, interest, delight, safety, etc. Oldenburg's concept of the 'third place' provides a useful way of enhancing understanding of informal public life and its relation to the public realm (see Box 6.2).

NEIGHBOURHOODS

The essence of neighbourhood design is that, as successful and desirable neighbourhoods already exist, it should - in principle - be possible to create similar ones. There is a well-developed tradition of neighbourhood design. The most significant idea was Clarence Perry's neighbourhood unit, devel­ oped in the US during the 1920s (Box 6.3), as a means of systematically organising and developing city areas. Incorporated within the physical design and layout of the neighbourhood were social However, the concept went out of favour in the objectives such as neighbour interaction, the mid-1 950s with the plan for Cumbernauld, for creation of a sense of community, neighbourhood example, delivering increased 'urbanity' through identity, and social balance. higher densities and centralisation. Subsequent In the UK, the first generation of post-war new new towns returned to a limited notion of the towns (e.g. Stevenage) drew on Perry's ideas. neighbourhood concept. Thus, the network road The social dimension 115 grid at Milton Keynes enclosed (approximately) While some critics presume that all attempts to one-kilometre squares, each incorporating a design better neighbourhoods ipso facto aim to 'village' which, while no longer regarded as the create communities, some advocates of neighbour­ prime social focus, provided an area of identity. hood planning expose themselves to criticism by Three interrelated strands of thinking have claiming that certain design strategies will inex­ informed neighbourhood design. First, neighbour­ orably create a sense of community. In making hoods are seen as providing identity and character, such claims, for example, some New Urbanists creating or enhancing a sense of place. While this have overreached themselves. may be a relatively superficial sense of identity with Talen (2000, p. 179) advises 'steering away' the area's physical character, it may also provide a from the term communityin connection with phys­ deeper and more meaningful sense of identity with ical design and suggests that using specific the place's sociocultural character (i.e. through elements of community makes better sense in the time-thickened experience of that place). context of urban design. 'Resident interaction', for Second, neighbourhoods provide a relatively example, can be influenced by provision of oppor­ pragmatic way of planning urban areas (with or tunities for increased visual and eye contacts. Visual without associated social objectives). Rather than a contacts, however, stimulate a relatively superficial highly atomised development, there are attempts form of social interaction. For more in-depth, to contribute to something larger - a mixed-use or enduring interaction, those involved must have 'balanced' area rather than a mono-functional 'something in common''. As Gans (1961 a; 1961 b) housing estate. Increasingly the pursuit of more noted in his studies of residential environments, sustainable modes of development has justified while propinquity may initiate social relationships such approaches: neighbourhoods can, for exam­ and maintain less intensive ones, friendships ple, be designed to be more self-sufficient, reduc­ required social homogeneity. ing the need to travel by encouraging Recent developments of the concept of nei9h­ opportunities for work and recreation closer to bourhood design have consistently emphasised the home. principle of mixed use, which is considered valu­ Third, and somewhat more controversially, able for environmental and social sustainabiHty neighbourhoods can be seen as a means of creat­ purposes (Figure 6.6). Leon Krier (1 990), for exam­ ing areas of greater social interaction. Neighbour­ ple, argued that zoning resulted in mechanical hood design has often been associated with the segregation of urban functions rather than their environmentally determinist idea that certain organic integration (see also Chapter 8). Based on layouts, forms and land uses assist the creation of his proposals for the reconstruction of the 'Euro­ 'communities'. The fallacy of conflating the idea of pean city', he argued that there should only be 'physical' neighbourhoods (defined by territory or mixed-use urban quarters, integrating all the daily boundaries.) with 'social' communities (defined by functions of urban life (dwelling, working, leisure) relationships, associations, etc.) has, however, been within a territory not exceeding 35 hectares and increasingly exposed. Blowers (1 973) identified five 15 000 inhabitants. types of neighbourhood. While each is recognis­ Originating with the Birmingham BUDS pllan able as such, only the final one has the attributes of (Tibbalds et a/., 1990), and drawing upon prece­ a community: dents in US cities such as Seattle and Portland, the concept of mixed-use 'urban quarters' and distinc­ 'Arbitrary' neighbourhoods, where the only tive neighbourhoods has influenced a series of city • common feature is spatial proximity. centre urban design plans in the UK (including 'Ecological' and/or 'ethnological' neighbour­ those for Glasgow, Leeds, Sheffield and Leicester). • hoods, with a common environment and iden­ These aim to identify and reinforce areas of exist­ tity. ing character and highlight opportunities to intro­ 'Homogeneous' neighbourhoods, inhabited by duce new character. The concept of urban quarters • particular socio-economic or ethnic groups. also resonated with the Urban Villages Forum in the 'Functional' neighbourhoods, derived from the UK, established to promote the development of • geographical mapping of service provision. 'urban villages' (Aldous, 1992), while traditional 'Community neighbourhoods', in which a neighbourhood development (TND) has been a • close-knit, socially homogeneous group key element of the US-based New Urbanism (see engages in primary contacts. Chapter 2) (Box 6.4). 116 Public Places - Urban Spaces

i 'S .!. FIGURE 6.6 'S Mixed-use e Mixed areasworl

Some central issues regarding neighbourhood social relations, nor do residents necessarily design concepts can usefully be discussed under perceive a neighbourhood unit as such. Concep­ the headings of size, boundaries, social relevance, tions of neighbourhood and community are often and social mix. top-down constructions, with little meaning when viewed from the bottom up. Gans (1 962, p. 11), (i) Size for example, found that patterns of activity within There has been considerable debate over the opti­ his Boston West End neighbourhood were so mal neighbourhood size. The concept is usually diverse that only outsiders ever considered it a expressed in terms of population (sometimes that single neighbourhood. Lee (1965) identified three of a school's catchment area); of area (often what neighbourhoods that residents themselves is seen as comfortable walking distance); of a perceive: the 'social acquaintance' neighbourhood; combination of both; or as a derivation of - the 'homogeneous' neighbourhood (i.e. people in supposedly more social - communities found in homes like ours); and the 'social provision', or unit, small towns and villages. jane jacobs (1961 ), neighbourhood. Most congruent with people's however, highlighted the fallacy of trying to estab­ social relations was the social acquaintance neigh­ lish a rigid threshold population, one of 1 0 000 in bourhood: 'The schema includes a small physical a large city, for example, would lack the innate area, perhaps half-a-dozen streets containing only cross-connections occurring among the same houses, apart from the few corner shops and pubs population in a small town. She argued that only that invariably go with them. Sheer propinquity three kinds of neighbourhood were useful: the city produces a state of affairs in which the family as a whole; city districts of 1 00 000 or more (i.e. knows everyone else.' large enough to be politically significant); and the street-neighbourhood. (ii) Boundaries Research has shown that identifiable neighbour­ Another prevalent idea has been that clear bound­ hoods do not necessarily correspond with people's aries defining a distinct territory enhance the devel- The social dimension 1 '1 7 118 Public Places - Urban Spaces

opment of functional and social interaction, a sense hoods and communities (Banerjee and Baer, 1984). of community, and identification with the area. Some element of social mix is, nevertheless, gener­ However, Jacobs (1 961) argued that neighbour­ ally desirable, and various benefits stem from hoods that worked best had no beginnings or ends mixed and (better) balanced neighbourhoods. - a major part of their success depended on their Both the Urban Villages Forum and the New overlapping and interweaving. In his seminal essay Urbanists emphasise the need for variety in house 'A City is Not a Tree', Christopher Alexander (1965) prices and tenures. English planning guidance criticised the definition of neighbourhoods as (DTLR/CABE, 2001, p. 34) lists the following discrete units within the city. His argument advantages: concerns the properties of 'tree' and 'semi-lattice' structures as ways of combining a number of small providing a better balance of demand for systems into larger and more complex ones. While • community services and facilities (e.g. schools, tree structures consist of separate systems organ­ recreation facilities, care for elderly people); ised into hierarchies, in semi-lattice structures - providing opportunities for 'lifetime' communi­ • Alexander's preferred structure - systems are ties, where people can move home within a complexly related and overlapped. Accordingly, neighbourhood; Alexander condemned city plans that established making neighbourhoods more robust, by • bounded neighbourhoods and/or functionally avoiding concentrations of housing of the same zoned areas. Similarly, Lynch (1 981, p. 401 ) type; argued that planning a city as a series of neigh­ enabling community self-help (e.g. with • bourhoods was either 'futile' or would 'support arrangements for childcare, shopping, garden­ social segregation', because 'any good city has a ing, or coping with a winter freeze); continuous fabric, rather than a cellular one'. assisting surveillance, by people coming and • going throughout the day and evening. (iii) Social relevance and meaning The idea of self-sufficient neighbourhoods has also Mixed neighbourhoods also provide greater diver­ been criticised for its limited relevance to contem­ sity of building form and scale, making the area porary society, particularly considering increased (potentially) more visually interesting, with greater (especially car-based) mobility, and electronic scope for local distinctiveness and character. communications. While communities of place still Achieving social mix is often problematic. Given exist, they have been supplemented, often a relatively free property market, and contempo­ supplanted, by 'communities of interest' detached rary desires to live with people 'like us', it is difficult from any specific geographic locale. Common terri­ for adverse social mix to be achieved or sustained: tory is, therefore, no longer a prerequisite of neighbourhoods that start out diverse will evolve community and social interaction. In a highly towards greater social homogeneity. The tendency mobile age, it is argued that people no longer want is nevertheless exacerbated by certain development or need the previous sense of community and patterns and design strategies. In residential devel­ neighbourliness: they can now choose from the opment, a high degree of market segmentation entire city (and beyond) for jobs, recreation, can be obtained by dividing developments into friends, shops, entertainment, etc. - and in the separate 'pods', each designated for one type of process form communities of choice. The issue, dwelling, occupant and price bracket (see Chapter though, is not one of an either/or choice between 4). Observing a suburban landscape composed of mobility with spatially diffuse contact networks or such pods, Duany et a/. (2000, p. 43) commented spatially proximate contact networks. Instead, it is on the 'ruthless segregation by minute graduations one of providing opportunities for both, and allow­ of income': 'There have always been better or ing people to find their own balance. worse neighbourhoods, and the rich have often taken refuge from the poor, but never with such (i\') Sodal mix and 'balanced' precision.' communities Conversely, certain patterns of development can While a general criticism of all attempts at creating provide an element of exclusivity without resulting neighbourhoods/communities, the charge of social in strict separation. In traditional neighbourhoods, engineering has particularly been levelled at house prices and types may vary considerably from attempts to create socially 'balanced' neighbour- street to street, with the transition typically occur- The social dimension 119 ring mid-block, where backyards and gardens successful urban design. Increased security has, meet. Recent research on mixed tenure develop­ however, often been attained by privatisation, and ment in the UK (Jupp, 1999) has shown, however, retreat from the public realm. In urban design that it is only by mixing tenures within streets, terms, privatisation usually entails the control of rather than street by street or block by block, that certain territories or spaces by means of segrega­ benefits in terms of cross-tenure social networks tion (such as physical distance, walls, gates and less occur - indicating, inter alia, that the street is the visible barriers to exclude the outside world and its strongest social unit. perceived threats and challenges) and also by These criticisms do not negate the value of means of policing strategies and the use of surveil­ neighbourhood design patterns, but merely qualify lance cameras. their use. Most principles of neighbourhood design Privatisation is akin to 'voluntary exclusion' - an (such as those advocated by the Urban Villages activity described as the 'succession of the success­ Forum and the New Urbanists) also support ful' and explored in Christopher Lasch's book, The sustainable design. Whether neighbourhoods have Revolt of the Elites and the Betrayal of Democracy certain social characteristics or not, they are places (1 995). Generally involving affluent groups choos­ with distinct characters that residents can identify ing to live separately from the rest of society, it can with, and that offer a sense of belonging. Problems be manifested in a variety of ways, including opting often stem from over-rigid application of principles out of public education and health systems. This of better neighbourhood design. Lynch (1 981, withdrawal often turns otherwise - or originally - p. 250), for example, concluded that it was 'the 'public goods', into 'club goods'. concept of the large, autonomous, sharply defined, Gated communities provide an explicit example and rigid neighbourhood unit of a standard size, to of voluntary exclusion. In their book Fortress Amer­ which all physical and social relations are keyed, ica (1 997), Blakely and Snyder chronicle how, in that seems to be inappropriate for our society'. attempting to find like-minded neighbours, secure Rather than dogma, neighbourhoods are merely a property values, and escape crime, communities set of generally desirable design principles to be erect walls and gates controlling who can - and, adapted in the light of local context and prevailing more importantly, who cannot - enter. In contrast social, economic and political realities. to apartment blocks with entry control systems preventing public access to lobbies, halls and park­ ing lots, the gated community prevents public SAFETY AND SECURITY access to streets, parks, beaches, trails, etc., which would otherwise be shared by all local citizens. People face a variety of threats in the urban envi­ Rather than being public or 'quasi-public' goods, ronment: crime, terrorism, fast-moving vehicles, air they become private 'club' goods, with explicit pollution, water contamination, and so forth. In criteria of membership (usually the ability to pay) some places the threat of natural disasters is an determining their use. Their gates form a dramatic everyday fear to be faced in the design of buildings and highly visible manifestation of social fragmen­ and settlements. In most Western societies, tation and polarisation. although many 'natural' threats are now Gating, however, does little to address the cause adequately managed, other 'human' threats - real of the problems it is a response to: the neighbour­ or imagined - are seemingly on the increase. These hood remains embedded within a wider society, include road safety and fear of crime. As the issue which it cannot wholly escape or insulate itself of road/pedestrian safety was discussed in Chapter from. Blakely and Snyder (1 997, p. 173) argue that 4, this section deals principally with crime, safety the entire public realm should be considered when and security, and their relationship to the public gating. Furthermore, the supposed safety advan­ realm. tages of gating are gained at the expense of those Security relates to the 'protection' of oneselt left outside 'the relatively influential and law-abid­ one's family and friends, and individual and ing citizens on the inside are no longer motivated communal property. Lack of security, perceptions or, probably, even able to make any contribution of danger, and fear of victimisation, threaten both to the safety, or the sense of safety of conditions the use of the public realm and the creation of outside' (Bentley, 1999, p. 163). The gates are, iin successful urban environments. A sense of security fact, a private solution that imposes significant and safety is, therefore, an essential prerequisite of public and social costs. 120 Public Places - Urban Spaces

Fear of victimisation ment: hence, fear of victimisation can cause exclu­ sion not just from particular places, but from much Fear of victimisation is a major factor in the creation of the public realm. of the contemporary urban environment (see Ellin, 1997; Oc and Tiesdell, 1997). If people do not use a place because they feel uncomfortable or afraid Approaches to crime prevention there, the public realm is impoverished. Such avoidance is often due to fear of certain environ­ The two main approaches to crime prevention are ments - dark alleys, deserted areas, or ones the 'dispositional' - removing or reducing an indi­ crowded with the 'wrong kind of people' - as well vidual's motivation to commit crimes, through as of particular incidents. Many people dislike situ­ education and moral guidance, sanctions and ations that offer no alternatives, for example, penalties, and/or social and economic develop­ subways as the only means of crossing busy roads, ment - and the 'situational' approach, whereby or narrow pavements and entrances, particularly once an offender has made the initial decision to those obstructed by 'people who create anxiety' offend, certain techniques make the commission of such as winos, beggars, or rowdy youths. Similarly, that crime in that particular place more difficult. signs of physical and social disorder, such as graf­ Principally developed and codified by Ron Clarke fiti, litter, or vandalised public property, suggest an (1 992, 1997), the situational approach focuses environment out of control and unpredictable. attention on the opportunity for crime. As Clarke Considerations of safety are related to - but (1 997, p. 4) explains: 'Proceeding from an analysis distinct from - concerns about crime. Crime is of the circumstances giving rise to specific kinds of about offenders and offences; safety is about crime, situational crime prevention introduces victims and the fear of victimisation. Distinction discrete managerial and environmental change to should also be made between 'crime' and 'incivili­ reduce the opportunity for those crimes to occur. ties': whereas crime generally involves transgres­ Thus, it is focused on the settings for crime, rather sion of a formally constituted law, much of the than upon those committing criminal acts.' It is, behaviour which provokes anxiety and apprehen­ therefore, not necessary to understand precisely sion and deters people from using the public realm what motivates an individual, merely to recognise is not technically crime. It is, however, usually that some people are criminally motivated. Situa­ termed incivilities or, sometimes, 'quality of life' tional measures manipulate the physical, social and crime: jane jacobs (1 961, p. 39) aptly referred to it psychological setting for crime, using four overar­ as 'street barbarism'. ching opportunity reduction strategies: Distinction should also be made between 'fear' and 'risk', the difference between 'feeling safe' and Increasing the perceived effort of the offence; • actually 'being safe'. In general, women are more Increasing the perceived risk of the offence; • fearful of victimisation than men (though the gap Reducing the reward from the offence; and • narrows somewhat with increasing age). Fear of Removing excuses for the offence. (Clarke, • victimisation may be disproportionate with risk: in 1997) the UK, for example, young males are, statistically, most at risk, while those who exhibit most fear are There is continuing debate regarding which women, the elderly and ethnic minorities. There is, approach is most effective. In theory, reducing the however, a convincing explanation. Being more motivation to offend is innately superior, but, risk averse, vulnerable people take precautionary because this is often difficult to effect, opportunity measures and are therefore less likely to be reduction measures are justified on practical victimised. grounds. While design may affect crime and/or In terms of the impact of crime, perception of it perceptions of safety, it can only create the precon­ (i.e. fear) is as important as its actuality (i.e. statis­ ditions for a safer environment: it is not a substitute tical risk). Perceptions come from many sources: for changing the conduct or reducing the underly­ press reports of crime, for example, can sustain ing motivation of offending individuals. mis- or half-truths in the popular imagination. Dispositional and situational approaches may Responding to fears of victimisation, many people produce radically different environments. Bottoms take precautionary actions to avoid risk, or at least (1 990, p. 7) uses an analogy with child-raising: to reduce their exposure through risk manage- 'some parents might lock cupboards or drawers to The social dimension 1:!1 prevent their children from helping themselves to Opportunity reduction methods developed loose cash, chocolates and so forth (opportunity within the mainstream urban design literature and reduction); others will prefer . . . not to lock up involve key themes of activity, surveillance and anything in the house but so to socialise their chil­ territorial definition and control (see Table 6."1 ). dren that they will not steal even if the opportuni­ Originating with jane jacobs (1 961 ), these ideas ties are available'. Dispositional approaches are, were developed through Newman's ideas of however, generally outside the scope of urban 'defensible space' and the CPTED approach. More design action, and hence outside the remit of this recently, Bill Hillier has offered a perspective on book. crime and safety that re-engages with jacobs.

TABLE 6.1 Situational approaches

JANE JACOBS OSCAR NEWMAN CPTED BILL HILLIER

CONTROL Clear demarcation Territoriality - Natural access Spaces integrated OF SPACE/ between public and capacity of the control aimed at with other spaces, TERRITORIALITY private space. physical reducing so that pedestrians environment to opportunities by are encouraged to create perceived denying access to see into and move zones of territorial the crime target. through them. influence (including Territorial mechanisms reinforcement - symbolising physical design boundaries and strategies creating defining a hierarchy or extending a of increasingly sphere of influence private zones). so that users of a property develop a sense of proprietorship.

SURVEILLANCE Need for 'eyes upon Surveillance - Natural surveillance Surveillance the street' belonging capacity of physical as a result of the provided by people to street's 'natural design to provide routine use of moving through proprietors' (both surveillance property. spaces. residents and users). opportunities for Enhanced by a residents and their diversity of activities agents. and functions that naturally create peopled places.

ACTIVITY Sidewalks need 'users Rejects the Argues for reduced As feeling safe on it fairly argument that more through-movement depends on areas continuously, both to activity on the and hence reduced being in continuous add to the number of street and the levels of activity. occupation and use, effective eyes on the presence of areas should be street and to induce commercial uses designed to enable people in buildings necessarily reduces this (e.g. by makin9 along the street to street crime. them better watch the sidewalks in inte9rated with sufficient number'. regard to the movement system). 122 Public Places - Urban Spaces

jacobs stressed the need for activity to provide approaches in the UK (BRE, 1999) and the US surveillance, and for territorial definition to distin­ (Sherman et a/., 2001) provides a strong basis for guish between 'private' and 'public' space. For place-specific physical interventions, including jacobs (1 961 , p. 40), a prerequisite of a successful defensible space principles. neighbourhood was that 'a person must feel The emphasis on territorial definition in personally safe and secure on the street among all Newman's and the CPTED approaches has tended these strangers'. Rather than by the police, she to support hierarchical (i.e. segregated) and argued that the 'public peace' was kept by an intri­ discontinuous road layouts such as cui-de-sacs. cate network of voluntary controls and standards, These deter burglary because (it is argued) crimi­ with sidewalks, adjacent uses and their users nals avoid streets where they might get trapped becoming 'active participants' in the 'drama of (Mayo, 1979). Segregated residential areas include civilisation versus barbarism'. jacobs (1 961, p. 45) two broad groups: those where the means of argued that 'the streets of a city must do most of segregation are relatively implicit (i.e. 'strangers' the job of handling strangers, for this is where are passively deterred from entering, perhaps strangers come and go. The streets must not only because they feel conspicuous) and those where it defend the city against predatory strangers, they is explicit and physical (i.e. strangers are actively must protect the many, many peaceable and well­ prevented from entering, such as gated develop­ meaning strangers who use them ensuring their ments). safety too as they pass through.' Hillier (1 988, 1996a) criticised defensible Oscar Newman developed some of jacobs' ideas enclaves that prevent the natural movement of further, emphasising surveillance and territorial people by excluding all strangers, regardless of definition. Based on a study of the locations of whether they are predatory or peaceable. He crimes in housing projects in New York, Newman, argued that the presence of people enhances the in his book Defensible Space: People and Design in feeling of safety in public space and provides the the Violent City (1 973), proposed restructuring primary means by which a space is naturally urban environments 'so that they can again policed. The more the natural presence of people become liveable and controlled not by police but is eliminated, the greater the danger. In his studies by a community of people sharing a common of the relationship between spatial configuration terrain'. Newman identified three factors associated and movement, Hillier (1 996a, 1996b) argued that with increases in the rate of crime in residential certain spatial characteristics increase the likely blocks: anonymity (people did not know their presence of people, and thus enhance feelings of neighbours); a genera/ Jack of surveillance within the safety (see Chapter 8). Research has also shown building, making it easier for crimes to be commit­ that burglary rates for locations that are 'less inte­ ted unseen; and the availability of escape routes, grated' are higher than for dwellings in 'more inte­ enabling criminals to disappear from the scene. grated' locations (Chih-Feng Shu, 2000). From these he developed his concept of 'defensible There is a basic contradiction therefore between space': 'the range of mechanisms - real and design strategies advocating people presence and symbolic barriers, strongly defined areas of influ­ 'eyes on the street' to ensure the safety of people ence, and improved opportunities for surveillance ­ and property and design strategies restricting that combine to bring an environment under the access and permeability in order to ensure the control of its residents' (Newman, 1973). safety of people and property within defined areas. The Crime Prevention Through Environment While both ideas have their merits and applica­ Design (CPTED) approach has many elements in tions, the crucial issue concerns the density of common with Newman's concept. The main idea pedestrian movement. To act as a deterrent, suffi­ is that the physical environment can be manipu­ cient surveillance is needed. Integrated layouts lated to reduce the incidence and fear of crime, by require a certain density of movement to increase reducing the support it provides for criminal surveillance, which high density, mixed-use urban behaviour (Crowe, 1991, pp. 28-9). 'Secured by areas may provide. If this level of pedestrian move­ Design' approaches, widely adopted by police ment is unlikely, as in low-density mainly residen­ agencies around the world, are similar to those of tial 'dormitory' communities, then defensible space CPTED. In the UK, for example, most police design may be more useful. It should also be noted authorities ensure that such principles are adopted that these strategies are not necessarily mutually in new developments. Analysis of these exclusive. The social dimension 1.23

Related debates concern the relative merits of visibly and primarily engaged in other functions, is surveillance strategies and of strategies that prevent also engaged in the maintenance of order'. The or obstruct access. Although often considered overall effect is to embed the control functions unneighbourly, high, impermeable fences reduce into the 'woodwork'. Shearing and Stenning arg�ue access to the private space surrounding a dwelling, that Disney Productions' power rests both in the and thus to the dwelling itself. Fences around such physical coercion it can bring to bear - if and private spaces are common in Europe, where typi­ when it needs to - and in its capacity to induce co­ cally they are much higher at the rear than to the operation by depriving visitors of a resource they front, allowing interaction, including 'eyes on the value. As a consequence, control becomes consen­ street', between the dwelling and the street. sual. However, because they hide suspicious activity, Second, it is argued that restricting opportuni­ fences can hinder policing. Where private spaces ties for crime in one location may simply redistrib­ are open and unfenced - an approach common in ute it. Displacement may take different forms: parts of the US - break-in attempts are open to view. This approach, however, reduces the privacy geographical displacement: the crime is moved • of the backyard through exposing all fa�ades of the from one location to another; dwelling. As well as security issues, there may also temporal displacement: the crime is moved from • be aesthetic preferences for one type of arrange­ one time to another; ment or the other. target displacement: the crime is moved from • Opportunity reduction approaches are criticised one target to another; on two main grounds. First, express concerns for tactical displacement: one method of crime is • security and protection have resulted in some substituted for another; highly defensive urbanisms. Sorkin (1 992, crime type displacement: one kind of crime is • pp. xiii-xiv) notes an 'obsession with "security", substituted for another (Felson and Clarke, with rising levels of manipulation and surveillance 1998, p. 25). over its citizenry and with a proliferation of new modes of segregation'. The features of what Soja As displacement takes place in various ways, termed the 'carceral city' (see Chapter 2) are conclusive demonstrations of its absence are explored in Mike Davis' City of Quartz (1 990) and extremely elusive, and the possibility of displace­ include panopticon-like shopping centres with ment can never be precluded by research. Equally, advanced forms of spatial surveillance; 'smart' it is probable that the frictional effect of displace­ office buildings impenetrable to outsiders; 'bunker' ment dissipates at least some criminal energies and and 'paranoid' architecture; armed police and that motivation, and the degree of displacement home owners; and 'sadistic' streets with razor­ correlates with the availability of alternative targets, protected trash bins, and park benches designed to and with the offender's strength of motivation. prevent indigents sleeping on them. Public spaces Displacement does not, however, provide a that are made safe, but intimidate potential users, compelling argument against opportunity reduc­ defeat their very raison d' etre, while expressly tion measures. Barr and Pease (1 992) usefully policed environments may reassure some, but be distinguish between 'benign' displacement, which oppressive to others. involves a less serious offence being committed, Opportunity reduction methods can be subtler and 'malign' displacement involving a shift to a in their application. It is instructive to consider the more serious offence or to offences that have worse controls that operate in theme parks. Disneyworld, consequences. Though the aim is crime reduction, for example, handles 1 00 000 visitors per day in benign is generally preferable to malign displace­ an orderly fashion enhanced by constant instruc­ ment. Evidence indicates that integrated tion and direction, by physical barriers that approaches to crime prevention through design severely limit the choice of available actions, and can reduce displacement to neighbouring areas, by the surveillance of 'omnipresent employees and improve residents' perceptions of their areas who detect and rectify the slightest deviation' (Ekblom et a/., 1996). (Shearing and Stenning, 1985, p. 419). The Synthesising opportunity reduction approaches control strategies are embedded in both the envi­ with more general urban design ideas, Oc and Ties­ ronmental design and its management: every dell (1 999, 2000) identify four urban design Disney Productions employee, for example, 'while approaches to creating safer environments: 124 Public Places - Urban Spaces

The fortress approach involves walls, barriers, public-ness is compromised. While design strate­ • gates, physical segregation, privatisation and gies can enable and enhance both exclusion and control of territory, and strategies of exclusion. inclusion, the idea that environments should Th e panoptic approach (or 'police state') increase choice and be inclusive is central to much • involves explicit control and/or privatisation of urban design thinking. public space, the presence of explicit Carr et a/. (1 992, p. 138) identify three forms of police/security guards, CCTV systems as tools access: of control, covert surveillance systems, and exclusion. Visual access (visibility): if people can see into a • The management or regulatory approach (or space before they enter it, they can judge • 'policed state') involves the management of whether they would feel comfortable, welcome public space, explicit rules and regulations, and safe there. temporal and spatial regulations, CCTV as a Symbolic access: cues (symbols) can be animate • management tool, and city centre representa­ or inanimate. For example, individuals and tives in public space. groups perceived either as threatening, or as The animation or 'peopling' approach involves comforting or inviting, may affect entry into a • people presence, people generators, activities, public space, while elements such as particular a welcoming ambience, accessibility and inclu­ kinds of shops may signal the type of people sion. that are welcome there. Physical access concerns whether the space is • These are not exclusive approaches: in any particu­ physically available to the public. Physical lar situation, the approach adopted depends on the exclusion is the inability to get into or to use local context and may combine different elements the environment, regardless of whether or not of all four. The appeal of fortress and panoptic it can be seen into. approaches is that they are positive actions, some­ thing is being seen to be done. Essentially private­ Accessibility and exclusion can be discussed in minded, however, they result in increased safety for terms of management of the public realm (i.e. some, but possibly decreased safety for others. In prevention or exclusion of undesirable/undesired effect, individual solutions of this nature inhibit social behaviour). Managers and owners of quasi­ collective solutions and may result in situations that public space have various motives for controlling are less good for everyone. While elements of these activity, such as their responsibility for mainte­ strategies may have their place, there are more nance, liability for what may happen within the positive ways of making urban places feel safer. The space, and concern for marketability. Exclusion of management and animation approaches, for certain behaviours/activities can be a function - example, offer inherently more expansive and posi­ even an objective - of the management or control tive notions of urban areas and public spaces. regime. Murphy (2001 , p. 24) highlights the prolif­ eration of 'exclusion' zones designed to be free of undesirable social characteristics. This is a broad ACCESSIBILITY AND EXCLUSION phenomenon: it includes zones free from, for example, smoke, political campaigning, skate­ A key element of any discussion of the public realm boards, mobile phones, alcohol, cars, and so forth. is accessibility. While by definition, the public realm should be accessible to all, some environments are Management and the public realm - intentionally or unintentionally - less accessible to certain sections of society. Exclusion often estab­ The public realm often needs to be managed to lishes or reinforces connotations of 'exclusivity' or balance collective and individual interests. This (as discussed in the previous section) 'security'. In inevitably involves finding a balance between free­ essence, it is a manifestation of power through the dom and control. Discussing accessibility in the control of space and access to it. Various forces in sense of being 'open', Lynch (1 972a, p. 396) society purposefully reduce accessibility in order to argued that this meant 'open to the freely chosen control particular environments, often to protect and spontaneous actions of people'. He subse­ investments. Nevertheless, if access control is prac­ quently argued that, while the free use of open tised explicitly and widely, the public realm's space may 'offend us, endanger us, or even The social dimension 125 threaten the seat of power', it was also one of our 'essential values': 'We prize the right to speak and act as we wish. When others act more freely, we learn about them, and thus about ourselves. The pleasure of an urban space freely used is the spec­ tacle of those peculiar ways, and the chance of an interesting encou nter' (Lynch and Carr, 1979, p. 41 5). Freedom of action in public space is, nevertheless, necessarily a 'responsible freedom'. According to Carr et a/. (1 992, p. 152), it involves 'the ability to carry out the activities that one desires, to use a place as one wishes but with the recognition that a public space is a shared space'. Even benign management of public space is complex. Lynch and Carr (1 979, p. 41 5) argue that it involves:

Distinguishing between 'harmful' and 'harm­ • less' activities, and controlling the former with­ out constraining the latter. Increasing general tolerance toward free use, • while stabilising a broad consensus of what is permissible. Separating - in time and space - the activities • of those groups with a low tolerance for each other. Providing 'marginal places' where extremely • free behaviour can go on with little damage.

Although public spaces may be regulated through bylaws, etc, explicit controls on behaviour and FIGURE 6.7 activity are more pronounced and evident in quasi­ Restrictions in quasi-public space illustrating its public space (Figure 6.7). Ellin (1 999, pp. 168-9) compromised nature illustrates the potential intensity of regulation by reference to a sign that used to hang at the entry to Universal Studio's CityWalk, Los Angeles, warn­ them subject to the issue of permits, program­ ing visitors against: ming, scheduling or leasing. 'Soft' (passive) control focuses on 'symbolic • obscene language or gestures, noisy or boister­ restrictions' that passively discourage undesir­ ous behaviour, singing, playing of musical able activities, and on not providing certain instruments, unnecessary staring, running, facilities (e.g. public toilets). skating, roller-blading, bringing pets, 'non­ commercial expressive activity', distributing Whatever the control strategy, if public spaces are to commercial advertising, 'failing to be fully be successful as people places, they must be attrac­ clothed�. or 'sitting on the ground more than tive (Figure 6.8). Equally, control strategies are part of five minutes'. (Figure 6. 7) the appeal. The common reality, however, is that many open spaces are not designed as public places, Loukaitou-Sideris and Banerjee (1 999, pp. 183-5) and are often intended (merely) to show off a build­ note two types of control: ing or to appeal to a select group of people. In public realm management, it is important to note the often 'Hard' (active) control uses private security offi­ subtle distinction between the creation of a socially • cers, surveillance cameras, and regulations authoritarian 'police state', and a more tolerant either prohibiting certain activities, or allowing 'policed state' that protects the freedoms of its citi- 126 Public Places - Urban Spaces

FIGURE 6.8 The recently redeveloped Peace Gardens in Sheffield, UK, provide a lively and vibrant place for people. On the first sunny weekend after its opening Sheffield people used it more like a beach than a traditional European square. Management staff considered how to regulate its uses but quickly appreciated that provided the square was not being damaged such free behaviour suggested a feeling of ownership and affinity with the space

zens. While many may favour greater regulation of Hence, 'undesirable' individuals or groups, such as the public realm in the interest of public order and those whose mere presence creates anxiety in safety, the danger exists of progression from rules others, may be excluded both for the well-being enacted in the wider public interest, to rules prohibit­ and security of others, and to further profit-making. ing behaviours objectionable to dominant groups, for Access control of this nature is usually risk-averse, reasons such as profitability or marketability. The tending to exclude too many rather than too few. latter provides much of the rationale for reduced Seen positively, such strategies are based on 'profil­ accessibility within the public realm. ing', on identification of the characteristics of groups or individuals deemed likely to contravene desired behaviours, so that attention can be Exclusion and the public realm concentrated there; seen negatively, it amounts to Rather than particular behaviours, some strategies stereotyping and even discrimination. seek to exclude particular individuals or social Exclusion can be practised through physical groups. A principal right of private ownership is design strategies. Based on observations in Los that of excluding and/or preventing access. Unless Angeles, Flusty (1 997, pp. 48-9) distinguished five a special order has been created, one cannot - in types of space designed to exclude by a combina­ principle - legally be excluded from true public tion of their function and cognitive sensibilities: space. The public realm, however, includes spaces that are publicly accessible but privately owned; for 'Stealthy' space cannot be found, it is camou­ • example, those given as a public contribution (e.g. flaged or obscured by intervening objects or through density bonuses, or direct financial subsi­ level changes. dies) on condition that they are publicly accessible. 'Slippery' space cannot be reached due to • Commenting on the design of such spaces, Baner­ contorted, protracted or missing paths of jee (2001, p. 12) observes that, while the public is approach. welcome as patrons of shops and restaurants or as 'Crusty' space cannot be accessed, due to • business workers or clients, access to and use of the obstructions such as walls, gates, and check­ space remains a privilege rather than a right. points. The social dimension 1 -:.!7

'Prickly' space cannot be comfortably occupied the choices available to certain social groups, such • (e.g. ledges sloped to inhibit sitting). as those with disabilities, women and the elderly, 'jittery' space cannot be utilised unobserved and those without access to cars and reliant on • due to active monitoring by roving patrols walking or public transport. and/or surveillance technologies. Disability, accessibility and exclusion In evaluating Security Pacific, Noguchi and Citicorp plazas in central Los Angeles, Loukaitou-Sideris and For the disabled, the elderly, those with young chil­ Banerjee (1 998, pp. 96-7) found 'introversion' and dren in pushchairs, pregnant women, etc., various a 'deliberate fragmentation' of the public realm. physical barriers inhibit their use of the public Each plaza was designed to inhibit visual access realm. Hall and Imrie (1 999, p. 409) observe that and, thereby, to be exclusive (stealthy space). The disabled people tend to experience the built envi­ exteriors give few clues to the space within, while ronment as a series of obstacle courses: certain design strategies - isolation from the street, Most buildings are not wheelchair accessible de-emphasis of street-level access, major entrances and few contain sufficient tactile colouring or through parking structures, etc. - achieved an colour contrasts to enable vision-impaired inward orientation of the spaces: 'These defensive people to navigate with ease. Th e design of design postures insulate the space from the outside specific items, such as doors, handles, and environment, thereby fragmenting and disconnect­ toilets, are also standardised to the point ing the space from the surrounding city fabric.' whereby many people with a range of physio­ A different form of direct exclusion is effected logical and/or mental impairments, find them by charging an entry fee, where the entrance impossible to use. ticket contains an undertaking to obey the rules (or be ejected from the place). While common in There are two main models of disability. The some parts of quasi-public space (cinemas, 'medical model' defines it in terms of a medical theatres, etc.), this is less common in other parts, condition (e.g. a person is 'arthritic' or 'epileptic'): such as public parks and civic space. Nevertheless, the disabling factors are placed on the individual, Disney's proposed redesign of a civic centre in without reference to social context. The 'social Seattle would have made an entrance fee model' focuses on the barriers imposed by a inevitable (Warren, 1994). disabling society/environment unable to make A subtler form of exclusion is practised through adjustments: this, rather than personal impairment, visual cues symbolising and communicating the is the disability factor. In this model, people have ability to pay (or, more precisely, to consume). impairments, environments are disabling. Those lacking appropriate cues may be treated Imrie and Hall (2001, p. 1 0) argue that design with suspicion, made to feel unwelcome, or and development processes are both disabling and refused entry, while a sufficiently prosperous disabilist and that inclusive design is about atlti­ appearance ensures access. As people conform to tudes and processes as much as about products. the expected behaviour and dress norms, the Most built environment professionals have little regulation is self-enforcing. Observing the 'spatial awareness of disabled people's needs, reacting to apartheid' in Detroit's Renaissance Centre, for them only when forced to do so by legislation. lin example, Boddy (1 992, p. 141) highlights 'the such a context, features for the less able-bodied 1in very conservative and very expensive clothes worn society are regarded as 'add-ons', an extra cost to by young black men, even those who are clerks, be resisted. Unsurprisingly, people with disabilities messengers, and trainees. One soon starts to are often alienated from the built environment, as wonder whether the overdressing is a survival well as from the social and developmental strategy, the entrance ticket to the new fortified processes underlying it. urban encampments.' In practice, narrow perceptions of disability and the needs of disabled people often mean that 'disabled provision' is geared only to the needs of EQUITABI.E ENVIRONMENTS wheelchair users. The UK 1995 Disability Discrimi­ nation Act contains a much broader definition: •'a The design of the urban environment can also be physical or mental impairment which has a considered in terms of the ways in which it reduces substantial and long-term adverse effect on a 128 Public Places - Urban Spaces

person's ability to carry out day-to-day activities'. rity and in some respects, 'women's "emancipa­ To be regarded as disabled for the purpose of the tion" has been predicated on the automobile. Cars Act, a person must be affected in at least one of the afford many women a sense of personal freedom following respects: mobility; manual dexterity; and a relatively secure form of travel in which fami­ physical co-ordination; continence; ability to lift, lies and objects can be safely transported, and frag­ carry or otherwise move everyday objects; speech, mented time-schedules successfully intermeshed' hearing or eyesight; memory or ability to concen­ (p. 749). This flexibility and freedom is, neverthe­ trate, learn or understand; and/or perception of risk less, itself necessitated by automobility: many of physical danger. Recognition of this range people's work and private lives could not be under­ expands our appreciation of ways in which the taken without the car and its 24-hour availability built environment is disabling: for example, just (p. 744). Urry (1 999, pp. 13-1 4) contends that, in 4 per cent of the population with disabilities in the reality, the flexibilityof the car is 'coerced', because UK are wheelchair users, yet the stereotypical automobility supports an ever-increasing spatial disabled person is a wheelchair user (Imrie and separation of uses, necessitating ever greater use of Hall, 2001 , p. 43). the car to recombine the separated facilities. Thus, In an urban design context, addressing environ­ despite the 'widespread depiction in advertising mental disability involves: and the media of cars as "harbingers of unprob­ lematic liberation" ', mass mobility does not gener­ understanding social disability and the ways in ate mass accessibility. • which the environment is disabling; While the particular advantage of car use is the designing for inclusion rather than for exclusion making of (virtually) 'seamless' journeys with, in • or segregation; and principle, a high degree of personal safety, provi­ ensuring proactive and integrated considera­ sion for the car has often interrupted and/or • tion, rather than reactive 'tacked-on' provision. severed linkages that made other forms of trans­ port possible. Compared to seamless car journeys Attention specifically to disability can, however, other modes of travel seem fragmented and incon­ obscure the fact that good access and design venient - gaps occur, for example, in the walk to features make buildings easier to use for everyone. the bus stop; the wait there; the walk from the bus The overarching argument, therefore, is that the station to the train station; the wait on the station needs of those with disabilities should be consid­ platform; etc. (Sheller and Urry, 2000, p. 745). ered an integral part of the design process, since Each gap is a source of uncertainty, inconvenience, barrier-free buildings and environments will then perhaps danger. Although gaps exist in car jour­ perform better for all users. neys (e.g. in using a multi-storey car park), they are 'much less endemic' than in other travel modes. Mobility, accessibility and exclusion Accessibility can also be discussed in terms of trans­ Social segregation and fragmentation port. Environments are inaccessible if their use depends on private (usually car) travel. Inclusive With widespread prevalence, strategies of exclusion urban design relies partly on spatial concentration lead to social segregation and fragmentation. of different land uses, making places and facilities While there is considerable debate about the merits accessible, and public transport viable. of 'integration' versus 'segregation' in the layout of Accessibility is related to mobility: women and urban areas (see below and Chapter 4), the trend lower income groups, for example, tend to have today is towards segregation. reduced mobility and access because they rely on Segregation compromises the public realm's public transport. Today, 'automobility' - meaning third function, that of social learning, personal car-based mobilityplu s the economic and political development and information exchange. It begets systems supporting car-based society - is especially ignorance, and thus fear, regarding social differ­ privileged, resulting in a prevalence of car-depen­ ences (EIIin, 1996, pp. 145-6). Within the urban dent environments. On the positive side, as Sheller design literature - especially that of the US - the and Urry (2000, p. 743) argue, automobility is a social segregation of urban space, and the damag­ 'source of freedom', enabling car users to travel ing effects of exclusion, are receiving increasing fast, at any time, anywhere. Cars also provide secu- attention. The social dimension 1 :Z9

Social segregation has been central to Richard CONCLUSION Sennett's work (1 970, 1977, 1990). Sennett (1 990, p. 20) argues that people living in 'sealed commu­ More than any other dimension of urban desi9n, nities' are "diminished in their development': 'The the social dimension raises issues concerning wounds of past experience, the stereotypes which values, and difficult choices with regard to the have become rooted in memory, are not effects of design decisions on individuals and confronted. Recognition scenes that might occur at groups in society. Furthermore, the role of design borders are the only chance people have to is delivering particular social goals, which is confront fixed, sociological pictures routinised in inevitably limited (although important), and urban time.' Echoing Sennett's arguments, Duany et a/. designers will need to work with a wide range of (2000, pp. 45-6) argue that the segregationist other public and private stakeholders to effect pattern is self-perpetuating: children raised in significant sound benefits. Although 'public space' homogeneous environments are 'less likely to has never been truly 'public', the 'public' space develop a sense of empathy for people from other network of many cities is giving way to walks of life and [are] ill-prepared to live in a diverse instrumental quasi-public spaces geared over­ society. The other becomes alien to the child's whelmingly to consumption and paid recreation experience,. witnessed only through the sensation­ by those who can afford it and who are deemed alising eye of the television.' to warrant unfettered access ... In many cases Desire for a more inclusive public realm can be 'p ublic space' is now under the direct or indirect thwarted in various ways, not least by the demand control, of corporate, real estate or retailer for exclusive spaces. Discussing public space in groups, which carefully work with private and southern California, Loukaitou-Sideris and Banerjee public police and security forces to manage and (1998, p. 299) argue that such spaces reflect a desire out any groups or behaviour seen as 'collective apathy and reluctance' to create inclusion: threatening . . . This generally amounts to the Th e introverted, enclosed, controlled, escapist, recreation, consumption and spectacle of middle­ commercial, and exclusive nature of these class shoppers, office workers and tourists. settings cannot be attributed simply to the (Graham and Marvin, 2007, p. 232) whims of private enterprise or to the collective Don Mitchell (1 995, p. 110) asks whether, as a imagination of architects, planners, and urban result, we have reached the 'end of public space': designers. There is clearly a demand for the 'Have we created a society that expects and desires settings of the new downtown from the parts of the public sector that are threatened by the only private interactions, private communications, presence of other groups and are willing to pay and private politics, that reserves public spaces, solely for commodified recreation and spectacle?' It for more privacy and seclusion. is clear that the social dimension involves some What is witnessed here is both express desires for difficult and challenging questions for urban exclusiveness and segregation, and the ability of designers. While arguably the aim should be the urban design - and urban designers - to respond provision of an accessible, safe and secure, equi­ to those needs. This raises important ethical issues table public realm for all, economic and social in urban design, concerning, in particular, the need trends in many parts of the world are making this to balance collective and individual interests. increasingly difficult to deliver. The visual dimension

INTRODUCTION spaces that we are designing, the smells that will be given off by the materials or the activities that In this chapter, the visual - or, more precisely, the will take place there, the tactile experience that visual-aesthetic - dimension of urban design is they will arouse.' discussed. Architecture and urban design are often Visual appreciation of urban environments is also described as the only truly inescapable, and there­ a product of perception and cognition - that is, fore public, art forms. Nasar (1 998, p. 28) notes what stimuli we perceive, how we perceive them, that while observers can choose whether or not to how we process, interpret and judge the informa­ experience art, literature and music, urban design tion gathered, and how it appeals to our mind and does not afford such a choice: 'In their daily activ­ emotions (see Chapter 5). Such information is ities, people must pass through and experience the inseparable from, and significantly influenced by, public parts of the city environment.' Thus, while how we feel about the particular environment we may 'accept the idea of "high" visual arts that (whether we care about it) and what it means to us appeal to a narrow audience who choose to visit a (how we value it). As well as a significant personal museum, city form and appearance must satisfy component, aesthetic appreciation also has socially the broader public who regularly experiences it' and culturally learnt components that go beyond (p. 2). simple expressions of individual taste. As notions of The chapter focuses on four key issues. The first 'beauty' are socially and culturally constructed (at part concerns aesthetic preferences. The second least in the aggregate), then beauty must reside - concerns the appreciation of space and the at least in part - in the object, rather than simply aesthetic qualities of urban spaces and townscape. in the mind of the beholder. The third and fourth concern the design of Although this chapter focuses on the visual elements that define and occupy urban space -the dimension of urban design, it is important to architecture, and the hard and soft landscaping. recognise that the general public's liking for partic­ ular environments is much broader than aesthetic criteria. jack Nasar (1 998) identified five attributes of 'liked' environments. Disliked environments AESTHETIC PREFERENCES tended to have the opposites of these. In each case, it was the observer's perception of the Aesthetic appreciation of the urban environment is attribute that was important. The attributes trans­ primarily visual and kinaesthetic (i.e. involving late into a series of very generalised preferences: awareness of movement of all parts of the body). Experiencing urban environments nevertheless Naturalness: environments that are natural or • involves all our senses and in some situations, hear­ where there is a predominance of natural over ing, smelling and tactility can be more important built elements. than vision. As Von Meiss (1 990, p. 15) urges Upkeep/civilities: environments that appear to • designers: 'Let us try to imagine the echo in the be looked after and cared for.

130 The visual dimension 1 �n

Openness and defined space: the blending of repetition. Visual pleasure, for example, derives • defined open space with panoramas and vistas from rhythmic elements varying from the of pleasant elements. simple binary kind to more complex repeated Historical significance/content: environments subsystems (Smith, 1980, p. 78). Rhythm is • that provoke favourable associations. produced by the grouping of elements to Order: in terms of organisation, coherence, create emphasis, interval, accent and/or direc­ • congruity, legibility, clarity (see Nasar, 1998, tion, etc. (Figure 7.3). To avoid monotony, pp. 62-73). contrast and variety are essential in achieving interesting rhythms. 3. Recognition of balance: While we can generally PATTERNS AND AESTHETIC ORDER conceive visual 'balance', it is difficult to define precisely. Balance is a form of order As we always experience the 'whole' rather than generally related to 'harmony' among the any single part in isolation, we appreciate environ­ parts of a visual scene or environment. It can ments as ensembles. To make them more ordered, also be recognised in scenes that are complex visually coherent and harmonious, however, we and seemingly chaotic - in some cases, it is select and choose some features. Gestalt psycholo­ rarely immediately obvious and may only gists have argued that aesthetic order and coher­ become apparent over time. Smith (1 980, ence comes from the grouping and recognition of p. 79) suggests that a major attraction of patterns, and that to make environments more historic towns is the discovery of views where coherent visually we use principles of organisation everything suddenly seems to cohere into or groupinq to create 'good' form from the parts perfect balance - an important aspect of this (Arnheim, 1977; Von Meiss, 1990). Based on is the surprise element. Although symmetry Gestalt theory, Von Meiss (1 990, p. 32) argues can be a powerful tool in achieving balance, that: 'Part of the pleasures and difficulties we expe­ symmetrical compositions can appear rience with the built environment can be explained mechanical and leaden. Asymmetrical compo­ by our ease or difficulty in mentally grouping differ­ sitions may also use elements of symmetry to ent elements from the visual field into synoptic achieve visual balance but in more complex units.' Some fundamental 'factors of coherence' or and potentially interesting ways. Balance can principles of grouping have been identified (see also be perceived in highly complex organisa­ Figure 7.1 ). As pure situations are rare, in most tions of colours, textures, and shapes, which environments several principles come into play cohere into a state of balance. Different types simultaneously, although sometimes one principle of balance also exist: in Georgian neo-classical is dominant. townscapes, for example, there is usually a More generally, Smith (1 980, p. 74) argues that 'static' form, where all elements contribute our intuitive capacity for aesthetic appreciation has and are subservient to the greater whole. In four distinct components that transcend time and Victorian neo-Gothic townscapes, the culture: elements often compete, giving a more 'dynamic' balance. 1. Sense of rhyme and pattern: Rhyme involves 4. Sensitivity to harmonic relationships: Harmony some similarity in the elements, and presup­ concerns the relationships between different poses the simultaneous existence of complexity parts, and how they fit together to form a (i.e. a mass of visual detail and information) coherent whole. Certain relationships, such as and patterns. Over time, as the mind 'organ­ those of the Golden Section, also contribute to ises' and makes sense of the information, the the quality of harmony. Gifted designers often patterns become more dominant, in subtle manipulate proportions to achieve more ways. Smith (1 980, p. 74) argues that, rather harmonious results. Perspective effects, for than simple repetition (as in wallpaper), these example, may be used to suggest that building rhyme patterns comprise a system in which elements are taller, more slender, or more there is 'substantial affinity' rather than 'point­ elegant than they actually are, while deliberate to-point correspondence' (Figure 7.2). strategies of distraction may concentrate atten­ 2. Appreciation of rhythm: Differing from rhyme, tion on some aspects of the design rather than rhythm relies for its impact on a stricter others. 132 Public Places - Urban Spaces

(i) The principle of (ii) Th e principle of similarity, which enables proximity, which enables recognition of similar or elements that are spatially identical elements amid closer together to be read others - repetition of as a group and to be forms or of common distinguished from those characteristics (e.g. that are further apart. window shapes). o c:::J Ot:J

:() -----. 0 d"#:�'t�: oLD �

I> l:!:!J()0 • 00

(iii) The principle of common ground and common (iv) The principle of orientation, whereby elements are enclosure, whereby an enclosure or a ground defines a grouped through their common orientation, either field or group. Those elements within the field or through parallelism or convergence towards a void or ground are distinguished from what lies outside. solid.

(v) The principle of closure, (vi) The principle of which enables recognition continuity, which enables ):! of incomplete or partial recognition of patterns elements as wholes. that may not have been � cu intended that way. n 0

Ib p d1

FIGURE 7.1 Principles of organisation and coherence (source: adapted and extended from Von Meiss, 1990, pp. 36-8)

One of the overarching issues in the work of Gestalt ence increases only up to a point, beyond which it psychologists and in Smith's four components, is decreases. the apparent need for a balance between order Discussing issues of 'surprise' and 'mystery' in and complexity in environments - a balance that environments, Kaplan and Kaplan (1 982) devised changes over time and with familiarity. There is, an 'environmental preference framework' that however, often a fine line between the richness of relates issues of 'making sense' (i.e. order) and diversity and the bewilderment of visual chaos. As 'involvement' (i.e. complexity) with a time dimen­ Cold (2000, p. 207) observes, we desire 'an envi­ sion (Box 7.1 ). They argue that making sense of ronment with a richness of detail that is larger than environments is not sufficient: over time, we also our immediate ability to process it'. Similarly, Nasar seek to expand our horizons, cherishing the poten­ (1 998, p. 75) observes that, while interest increases tial for involvement and engagement. Similarly, with the complexity of an environment, our prefer- reflecting on the limitations of his concept of legi- The visual dimension 1

:B

FIGURE 7.2 Colonnades provide rhyme and pattern, contributing to character and identity, in Central Bologna

FIGURE 7.3 Fa�ade rhythms in San Marco's Piazza, Venice, Italy. Rhythm requires a stricter repetition than rhyme 134 Public Places - Urban Spaces

COHERENCE COMPLEXITY Environments easy to organise or Environments with enough in the structure. present scene to keep one occupied.

LEGIBILITY MYSTERY Environments suggesting they could Environments suggesting that, if they be explored extensively without were explored further, new getting lost. information could be acquired.

bility, and noting that we are 'pattern makers' not 'existing view', there are also hints of a different 'pattern worshippers', Kevin Lynch (1 984, p. 252) 'emerging view'. As well as a sense of being in a argued that the 'valuable' city was not an ordered particular place ('here'), there may also be an one, but one that could be ordered: while 'some equally strong sense that around and outside it are overarching, patent order' was necessary for the other places ('there'). Cullen saw particular signifi­ 'bewildered newcomer', there should also be an cance in the tension between 'hereness' and 'there­ 'unfolding order': 'a pattern that one progressively ness' (Figure 7.5). He considered that the urban grasps, making deeper and richer connections. environment should be designed from the point of Hence our delight ... in ambiguity, mystery and view of the moving person, for whom 'the whole surprise, as long as they are contained within a city becomes a plastic experience, a journey basic order, and as long as we can be confident of through pressures and vacuums, a sequence of weaving the puzzle into some new, more intricate exposures and enclosures, of constraint and relief' pattern.' (1961, p. 12). The development of new modes of travel has provided additional ways of seeing, engaging with THE KINAESTHETIC EXPERIENCE and forming mental images of urban environ­ ments, seen at different speeds and with different As our experience of urban environments is a levels of engagement and focus. The pedestrian dynamic activity involving movement and time, viewpoint is accompanied by the freedom to stop the kinaesthetic experience of moving through and engage with one's surroundings. Drivers see space is an important part of the visual dimension the urban environment at speed and through a of urban design. Environments are experienced as windscreen, while concentrating on the road, traf­ a dynamic, emerging, unfolding temporal fic, and any signs or directions. Although they also sequence - to describe the visual aspect of town­ view at speed and generally through glass, passen­ scape Gordon Cullen (1 961) conceived the gers have greater scope to observe the environ­ concept of 'serial vision' (Figure 7.4). Cullen argued ment than the driver but, equally, are unable to that the experience is typically one of a series of fully engage with it. By viewing the process on film jerks or revelations, with delight and interest being in slow motion, Donald Appleyard, Kevin Lynch stimulated by contrasts, by the 'drama of juxtapo­ and Richard Myer explored and described the sition'. In addition to the immediately present motorist's visual experience in their book The View The visual dimension 135

FIGURE 7.4 Gordon Cullen's serial vision (source: Cullen, 1961 , p. 17)

from the Road (1 964). Played at faster projection pedestrians should be designed for the pedestrian's speed, some passages of the film stood out, show­ more discerning and prolonged attention. ing a rhythmic spacing of bridges and overpasses. Noting Cullen's (1 961 ) and Bacon's (1 974) work Based on the experience of driving along the 'strip' showing how movement can be read as a pictorial with its billboards and neon signs, Robert Venturi sequence, Bosselmann (1 998, pp. 49-60) des­ et a/., in their book Learning from Las Vegas (1 972), cribed the rich and varied experience of a walk - highlighted how that environment was designed to measuring 350 m and taking about four minutes - suit car-based observers (e.g. quickly read signs). from the Calle Lunga de Barnaba to the Rio de Ia The overarching lesson, however, is that, while Frescada in Venice. He showed how our perception environments seen only from cars can - and of time passing and distance travelled differs from perhaps should -be designed to suit motorists and reality, and is partly a function of the visual and passengers, those seen by both motorists and experiential qualities of the environment we are 136 Public Places - Urban Spaces

FIGURE 7.5 The juxtaposition of 'here' and there' in Budapest, Hungary

moving through. Noting that the walk in Venice thirty-nine drawings of unequal spacing to explain seemed to be longer and take more time than it it; most of the other walks required far less. actually did, he assessed the aesthetic experience of james (1 892, p. 150, from Isaacs, 2001, p. 110) the same length of walk in fourteen other cities identifies a similar paradox to that of the Venice (Figure 7.6). In most, the same distance appeared walk: 'a time filled with varied and interesting expe­ to take less time; in a few it appeared almost the riences seems short in passing, but long as we look same. Bosselmann (1998, p. 90) argued that back. [Equally] ...a tract of time empty of experi­ people measure their walks in terms of 'rhythmic ences seems long in passing, but in retrospect spacing' related to visual and spatial experiences. short.' Isaacs (2001 , p. 110) explains this paradox: The Venice walk had frequent and different types when walking through an environment that of rhythmic spacing, while other environments had engages the mind, one is less aware of the passing fewer types, and their visible information engaged of time, but when one reflects on that experience walkers less frequently. The walk in Venice needed and the variety of sensations contained within it, The visual dimension 137

_ _ --- oo - __ __ 1 _ ·-· -�- ___j!L � · . JL------· --� -- .!!�---� . 1� � --��� -�0

(i) Rome (ii) London

Ir:� liB

---�---·------��-- - - · ------' ·- ·�O r.!e!el' -- -- · ___ _ ·------L.. . -- ... ____]--- --�r- ----�� ______j!!--- - � L_�-----� --�--� � � .5!

(iii) Copenhagen (iv) Kyoto

FIGURE 7.6 Four of Bosselmann's walks in (i) Rome, Italy; (ii) London, UK; (iii) Copenhagen, Denmark; and (iv) Kyoto, japan. The walks illustrated are the same length in terms of distance but the perception of time taken and the experience of the walk vary. Drawn at a consistent scale and read as a set, these diagrams are tissue studies illustrating the different textures; block size and urban grains of each city (source: Bosselmann, 1998, pp. 70, 76, 79 and 81) 138 Public Places - Urban Spaces

one assumes more time must have passed. Conversely, in an environment that does not engage the mind one is more aware of the passing of time, but in retrospect the absence of sensations leads to the belief that less time passed. Having discussed some of the different aspects of our general visual-aesthetic appreciation of urban environments, the following parts of the chapter concern components of the urban envi­ ronment.

URBAN SPACE

Positive and negative space Outdoor space can be considered in terms of 'posi­ tive' and 'negative' spaces: FIGURE 7.7 Positive, relatively enclosed, outdoor space has This diagram illustrates the principle of figure-ground • a definite and distinctive shape. It is 'conceiv­ reversal. Depending on which is the 'figure' and which able', can be measured, and has definite is the 'ground', the image is either a vase or two faces. 'Positive' and 'negative' types of space can be boundaries - we could imagine it being filled distinguished through figure-ground reversal. Where with water, which subsequently runs out rela­ outdoor spaces are negative, the buildings are the figure tively slowly. It is discontinuous (in principle), and outdoor space is the ground, but it is not possible closed, static, but serial in composition. Its to see the outdoor space as figure and the buildings as ground. Where outdoor spaces are positive, figure­ shape is as important as that of the buildings ground reversal is possible and the buildings can be surrounding it. considered as figure or ground Negative space is shapeless, e.g. the amor­ • phous residue left over around buildings which are generally viewed as positive. It is 'incon­ ceivable' - continuous and lacking in perceiv­ able edges or form. It is difficult to imagine I such space being filled with water because - quite simply - it is difficult to conceive of the I space (Alexander et a/., 1977, p. 518; Paterson, I 1984, from Trancik, 1986, p. 60) (Figure 7.7). I I The difference between 'positive' and 'negative' outdoor spaces can also be considered in terms of I their 'convexity' (Figure 7.8). I In discussing urban space, Trancik (1 986, p. 60) FIGURE 7.8 makes a useful distinction between 'hard space', A space is 'convex' when a line joining any two points principally bounded by architectural walls, and the inside the space lies totally within the space. The 'soft space' of parks, gardens and linear greenways, irregular rectangular space (left) is convex and, which have less enclosure or defined boundary and therefore, positive. The L-shaped space (right) is not convex because a line joining two points cuts across the are dominated by the natural environment. This corner and therefore goes outside the space. According section primarily discusses hard space. to Alexander et a/. (1 977, p. 51 8), 'positive' spaces are enclosed - at least to the extent that their areas seem bounded (i.e. the 'virtual' area is convex). The L-shaped Creating positive space space, therefore, contains two large virtual spaces (thereby, adding to its interest). 'Negative' spaces are For all 'hard' urban spaces, three major space­ often so poorly defined that it may not be possible to defining elements exist: the surrounding structures; identify their boundaries The visual dimension 11 39 the floor; and the imaginary sphere of the sky over­ preventing or limiting views into or out of the head; which Zucker (1 959) argues is usually space (Figure 7.9e). When the building walls turn perceived at three to four times the height of the the corner, keeping views within the central space, tallest building. Enclosure and spatial containment a much stronger sensation of enclosure is created must therefore be considered in both plan and (Figure 7.9f). vertical section. If the whole space can be easily observed, it The amount of enclosure, and the resulting does not invite further involvement. It may also lack degree of containment, partially depends on the subspaces and implied movement. Given a more ratio of the width of the space to the height of the varied and complex perimeter, with indentations enclosing walls. The most comfortable viewing and projections in the building fac;:ades, the result­ distance for a building is from a distance of about ing space can have a richer quality, with a number twice its height, but although not all buildings are of hidden or partially disguised subspaces creating - or should be - designed to be seen in a single a sense of 'mystery' or 'intrigue' (Figure 7.9g). view. Greater variety in visual experience can be However, as a simple urban space becomes more created by spaces that, in different ways, restrict complex, there is a danger of it perceptually break­ views of the surrounding structures. ing apart into a disjointed series of separate spaces The plan arrangement is important in creating a (Figure 7.9h). A dominant spatial volume helps sense of spatial containment. Booth (1 983) establish a focus for the composition, the smaller discusses the quality of enclosure through a series subspaces being unable to compete with the major of simple diagrams. A single building of relatively space. Alternatively, the spaces might be organised simple form does not define or create space, but is on an axis, or by a single dominant building. simply an object in space (Figure 7.9a). The weak­ A further key factor in creating a strong sense of est definition of space typically occurs when build­ enclosure is the design of openings into the space. ings are organised in a long row or sited Booth (1 983, p. 142) refers to the 'windmill' or indiscriminately with no effort to co-ordinate rela­ 'whirling' square, while Camillo Sitte (1889) refers tionships between them (Figure 7.9b). In these to a 'turbine' plan: here, as the streets do not pass situations, the buildings are individual, unrelated directly through the space, it has a strong sense of elements surrounded by 'negative' space without containment. Not only does this organisation containment or focus. contribute to strengthening the enclosure of the One of the simplest and most commonly used spaces, it also forces pedestrians entering to expe­ means of achieving compositional order is the rience the space, since they are encouraged to walk siting of buildings at right angles to one another. If through - rather than by - it (Figure 7.9i). overused, however, this easily becomes monoto­ The ideas set out here are schematic. Real nous (Figure 7.9c). Building-to-building association squares have a high degree of complexity and can be strengthened by relating built forms and subtlety. Geoffrey Baker's splendidly illustrated lines: for example, by extending imaginary lines book, Design Strategies in Architecture (1 996), for from the edge of a building and aligning them with example, provides a thorough analysis of the the edge of one nearby (Figure 7.9d), though this spatial qualities of the Piazza San Marco, Venice, also risks appearing contrived. An alternative to the and the Campo in Siena. rigidity of a rectilinear layout is where some of the While it is commonly argued that people prefer building masses are at varying angles to each a sense of enclosure, the value of enclosure must other, introducing a degree of variety into the be discussed further. Questioning why people feel layout. comfortable in a space that is at least partly When several buildings or urban blocks are clus­ enclosed, Alexander et a/. (1 977, pp. 520-1 ) noted tered together in a more organised manner, 'posi­ this is not always true: for example, people feel tive' spaces can be created. The most comfortable on an open beach. Nevertheless, in straightforward means of creating a sense of spatial smaller outdoor spaces - gardens, parks, walks, containment is to group buildings around a central plazas - enclosure seems to create a feeling of secu­ space, enclosing it within a wall of fac;:ades. Where rity: 'when a person looks for a place to sit down the corners of the space are open, forming street outdoors, he rarely chooses to sit exposed in the intersections or a gap between two buildings, middle of an open space - he usually looks for a space leaks out through the corner openings. To tree to put his back against; a hollow in the better contain it, fac;:ades can be overlapped, ground, a natural cleft which will partly enclose 140 Public Places - Urban Spaces

(e)

(a)

(f)

(c)

(d) (i)

FIGURE 7.9a-l• Principles of spatial contmn. ment and enc osu re (source.. a dapted from Booth, 1983)

1 The visual dimension 1141 and shelter him'. While noting people's apparent environmental preference for openness, Nasar (1 998, p. 68) cites research that indicates prefer­ ences for 'defined openness', in other words for 'open but bounded spaces'. In his book, City Planning According to Artistic Principles, Camillo Sitte (1 889; Collins and Collins, 1965, p. 61 ) argued that: 'The ideal street must form a completely enclosed unit! The more one's impressions are confined within it, the more perfect will be its tableau: one feels a):.ease a space where the gaze cannot be lost in infinity.' Ratio approx. 1:3 Drawing on his analysis of a number of European�n squares, however, he showed that those that were well used tended to be partly enclosed, but also open to one another so that each led into the next. Suggesting that Sitte made a 'highly selective reading of the pre-capitalist city', Bentley (1 998, p. 14) argues that while Sitte considered a sense of enclosure to be the most important quality of public space and stressed the medieval street system's spatial enclosure, its more valuable qual­ Ratio approx. 1 :5 ity was actually its 'integrated continuity'. In this respect, Cullen (1 961, p. 1 06) made a valuable FIGURE 7.10 distinction between 'enclosure' and 'closure'. Widthcto-length ratios help distinguish between 'street' Enclosure, he argued, provided a -eomptete spaces and 'square' spaces. If the ratio of width-to­ 'private world' that is inward-looking,' static and length is 2:3 neither axis dominates. Ratios of about 1 :3 begin to form the transition between 'street' and self-sufficient. By contrast, closure involved the 'square', as one axis begins to dominate. Where the division of the urban environment into a series of ratio of width-to-length is 1 :5, one axis clearly visually digestible and coherent 'episodes' retain­ dominates and movement is suggested along that axis. ing a sense of progression. Each episode is effec­ Width-to-length proportions of more than 1 :5 suggest a tively - sometimes surprisingly - linked to others, street (i.e. a dynamic space that implies movement) making progress on foot more interesting. The conclusion is that a degree of, rather than complete, enclosure is required. A balance must also be struck between achieving enclosure, and ratio defines the upper limit for the proportions of considerations such as permeability and legibility, a square and, by inference, the lower limit for a which importantly influence how well the space is street (Figure 7.1 0). used (see Chapter 8). Streets and squares can be characterised as either 'formal' or 'informal' (Figure 7.1 1 ). Formal spaces typically have a strong sense of enclosure; Streets and squares orderly floorscape and arrangement of street furni­ Although positive urban spaces come in a variety of ture; surrounding buildings that enhance the different sizes and shapes, there are two main formality; and often a symmetrical layout. Informal types: 'streets' (roads, paths, avenues, lanes, boule­ squares typically have a more relaxed character, a vards, alleys, malls, etc.) and 'squares' (plazas, wide variety of surrounding architecture, and an circuses, piazzas, places, courts, etc.). In principle, asymmetric layout. Neither is necessarily more streets are 'dynamic' spaces with a sense of move­ appropriate than the other. A definite geometrical ment, while squares are static spaces with less discipline to a space is, however, less ambiguous; sense of movement. Width-to-length ratios on plan for example, on sites surrounding such spaces, of greater than 1 :3 begin to suggest dynamic developers and their designers are more likely to movement as one axis begins to dominate. This respect, or be required to respect, the boundary. 142 Public Places - Urban Spaces

Formal space reinforced by Formal space contrasted with Informal space and formal buildings informal buildings buildings

FIGURE 7.11 Formal and informal spaces (source: EPOA, 1997, p. 24)

The square Enclosure: For Sitte, enclosure was the primary • feeling of urbanity, and his overarching princi­ A 'square' usually refers to an area framed by build­ ple was that 'public squares should be enclosed ings. Distinction should be made between squares entities' (Figure 7.1 3). Design of the intersec­ primarily designed for grandeur and/or to exhibit a tion between side streets and square was one particular building, and those designed as 'people of the most important elements: it should not places' (i.e. settings for informal public life) (see be possible to see out of the square along more Chapter 8). This distinction is not absolute: many than one street at a time. One means for public spaces function as both, though if we judge achieving this was the 'turbine' plan. one type in terms of the other, difficulties may Freestanding sculptural mass: Sitte rejected the • arise. Spaces designed to show off a particular concept of buildings as freestanding sculptural building or for certain civic functions, for example, objects. For Sitte, a building's principal may be unsuccessful as people places, but success­ aesthetic was the manner in which its fac;:ade ful in their more formal roles. defined space, and was seen from within that To better appreciate the aesthetic qualities of space. In most squares, observers can stand squares, the ideas of Camillo Sitte and Paul Zucker sufficiently far back to appreciate a fac;:ade as a are of particular value. Rob Krier's typology of whole, and to appreciate its relation -or lack of urban spaces (see Chapter 4) is also useful. While relation - with its neighbours. To create a Krier's was a morphological structuring based on better sense of enclosure, Sitte argued that geometric patterns, both Sitte and Zucker focused buildings should be joined to one another on aesthetic effect. rather than being freestanding. Shape: Arguing that squares should be in • proportion to their major building, Sitte identi­ Camillo Sitte fied 'deep' and 'wide' types, depending on Camillo Sitte (1 889) advocated a 'picturesque' whether the main building was long and low or approach to urban space design. Collins and tall and narrow. The depth of a square was best Collins (1 965, p. xii) contend that Sitte meant related to the need to appreciate the main 'picturesque' in a pictorial rather than romantic building (i.e. between one and two times the sense: that is, 'structured like a picture and possess­ main building's height), while the correspond­ ing the formal values of an organised canvas'. From ing width depended on the perspective effect. analysis of the visual and aesthetic character of the In terms of plan shape, Sitte recommended squares of a range of European towns, particularly that no relationship should be more than three - although not exclusively - those resulting from to one. Sitte also favoured irregular layouts, incremental or 'organic' city growth, Sitte derived rejoicing in the variety of combinations found a series of artistic principles (Figure 7 .12): in medieval and renaissance towns. His obser- The visual dimension 143

FIGURE 7.12 (i) Camillo Sitte's principles: (i) the turbine plan (Piazza del Duma, Ravenna); (ii) the 'deep' I type (Piazza Santa l:ll!ilf::Uif Croce, Florence), and (iii) the 'broad' type !Ill fll (Piazza Reale, Modena) a B Ill (source: Collins and I Ill II Collins, 1965, pp. 34, 39 '1:1 1!!1 and 40) Cl ill Cl !!!I I! II 1!1 D I CII C!IIJG Q 0 D 1l I I a.aVBA� J (ii) ...... ; ; .I (iii)

FIGURE 7.13 A good sense of contained and enclosed space - Piazza Santa Croce, Florence, Italy

vations relate to Von Meiss's concept of object­ monuments was his book's raison d'etre. With fa�ades projecting a sense of 'radiance' that regard to placement, Sitte made an analogy helps create a sense of space. between children's siting of snowmen on the Monuments: Although Sitte's general principle islands left by paths through the snow and the • was that the centre of the square should be placing of monuments so as to avoid the kept free, he recommended supplying a focus, natural routes through the space. While such preferably off-centre or along the edge. Collins positioning of monuments had an underlying and Collins (1 965, p. ix) note that concern with functional logic, he argued that it was also the proper placement of public statues and aesthetically pleasing. 144 Public Places - Urban Spaces

Paul Zucker impact of any other work of art' (p. 1 ) . For Zucker, In Town and Square (1 959), Paul Zucker discussed the visual and kinaesthethic relations determined 'artistically relevant' squares which represented whether a square was a 'whole' or merely a 'hole'. 'organised' and contained space. He argued that Zucker outlined five basic types of 'artistically many squares - for example, Piazza San Pietro, relevant' urban squares (see Figure 7.14): Rome, and Piazza San Marco, Venice - were

'undoubtedly art', because the 'unique relationship 1 . The closed square - space self-contained: A between the open area of the square, the closed square is a complete enclosure, inter­ surrounding buildings, and the sky above creates a rupted only by the streets leading into it and genuine emotional experience comparable to the exhibiting regular geometric forms and,

Closed Dominated

Nuclear Grouped

FIGURE 7.14 Zucker's typology of urban squares. Note that it is not possible to convey the key attributes of Zucker's amorphous square through a simple sketch. Note also that the surrounding enclosure for the nuclear and dominated types is shown as a broken line. Although the continuity of the enclosing elements may have weaknesses, Zucker (1 959, pp. 2-3) argues that, when considered as a work of art, it is not important whether the boundaries of the 'space' are tangible or partially imagined (i.e. there is a virtual space) The visual dimension 1145

usually, repetition of architectural elements developed fountain (Piazza di Trevi, Rome), around the periphery (e.g. Place des Vosges, provided a sufficiently strong sense of space Paris). This represents 'the purest and most was created. immediate expression of man's fight against 3. The nuclear square - space formed around a being lost in a gelatinous world, in a disorderly centre: Here a central feature - a vertical mass of urban dwellings'. Important elements nucleus - is sufficiently powerful to create a are the layout on plan and the repetition of sense of space (radiance) around itself, charg­ similar buildings or fac;:ade-types (Figure 7 .15). ing the space with a tension that keeps the Often a rhythmic alternation of two or more whole together. The force exerted by the types is employed, with richer treatments nucleus governs the effective size of such concentrated on the corners or at the centre of spaces. each side (e.g. Place Vend6me, Paris), or fram­ 4. Grouped squares -space units combined: Zucker ing the streets entering the square (e.g. Place compared the visual impact of a group of des Victoires, Paris). aesthetically related squares with the effect of 2. The dominated square - space directed: Recog­ successive rooms inside a Baroque palace, nising that some buildings create a 'sense of where the first room prepares for the second; space' (Von Meiss's 'radiance') in front of them, the second for third.: etc., with each being both Zucker's dominated square is characterised by a meaningful link in the chain and having addi­ a building or group of buildings towards which tional significance because of it. Provided the the space is directed, and to which all successive mental images can be integrated surrounding structures are related. Although into a greater whole, individual squares can be typically the dominant feature is a building, it linked organically or aesthetically, for example could, for example, be a view (as in the Piazza by means of an axis (e.g. the Place Royale, del Campidoglio, Rome) or an architecturally Place de Ia Carriere and the Hemicycle in

FIGURE 7.15 The Place des Vosges, Paris, France, provides a good illustration of Zucker's closed square 146 Public Places - Urban Spaces

Nancy) or by being grouped around a domi­ emphasis in the street wall checks the horizontal nant building (e.g. Piazza San Marco, Venice). flow of space (horizontal emphasis tends to 5. Th e amorphous square - space unlimited: Amor­ increase it); irregular skylines slow eye incidents; phous squares do not fall into one of the above setbacks break down converging perspectives; categories, but display at least some of their space may be modulated into a number of discrete necessary qualities, even if - on further analysis sections or 'episodes', or given elements (e.g. street - they appear unorganised or formless. For termination features) that punctuate the flow of example, in London's Trafalgar Square, neither space. the nuclear character suggested by Nelson's In streets with strong physical character, their column nor the apparently dominating effect of volume generally takes a positive form and the National Gallery, are sufficient to create a possesses a strong sense of enclosure. The continu­ sense of space that relates to the size of the ity of the street wall and the height-to-width ratio square, while the fas;ades of the surrounding determine the sense of spatial enclosure, while the buildings fail to provide a sufficient sense of width determines how the surrounding architec­ closure. ture is seen (Box 7.2). In narrow streets, vertical features become more prominent, projections are Squares rarely represent one pure type, and exaggerated, and eye-level details more important. frequently bear the characteristics of two or more. The observer sees fas;ades at acute angles and, Zucker (p. 8), for example, noted how Piazza San when facing along the street, only sees parts of Marco in Venice might be regarded as primarily a them. In broad streets, the observer is sufficiently closed square or, equally, as one element of a set removed to see the surrounding fas;adesas wholes, of grouped squares. He also noted that the specific and their relationship - or lack of it - becomes function of a square did not automatically produce evident, while the floorscape and skyline become a definite spatial form, and that each function important elements contributing to the street's could be expressed in many different shapes. character. Streets that wind or have irregular frontages enhance their sense of enclosure, and provide a The street constantly changing prospect for the moving observer. Many commentators (e.g. Sitte, 1889; Streets are linear three-dimensional spaces Cullen, 1961) express a preference for such streets, enclosed on opposite sides by buildings. They may arguing that while straight ones have their place, or may not contain roads. As discussed in Chapter their selection is often made without sufficient 4, a 'street' is distinct from a 'road': the primary consideration of the terrain, circumstances, town­ purpose of the latter being a thoroughfare for scape effect, and the potential for visual delight vehicular traffic. Street form can be analysed in and interest in the local context. terms of polar qualities, the combination of which For Le Corbusier (1 929, p. 5), straight roads gives scope for great diversity: visually dynamic or were the 'way of man' because man had a purpose static; enclosed or open; long or short; wide or and therefore took the shortest route. By contrast, narrow; straight or curved; and with regard to the the winding way was the 'way of the pack-donkey' formality or informality of the architectural treat­ who 'zigzags to avoid the larger stones, or to ease ment. To these might be added considerations the climb, or to gain a little shade; he takes the line such as scale, proportion, architectural rhythm, and of least resistance'. Le Corbusier, therefore, connections to other streets and squares. Allan dismissed Sitte's book as a 'most wilful piece of jacobs' book Great Streets (1993) provides useful work', a 'glorification of the curved line' and a illustrations of different streets types, including 'specious demonstration of its unrivalled beauty' scale drawings. (p. 13). As Broadbent (1 990, p. 130) comments, Unlike urban squares - where the degree and however, Corbusean man would clearly 'hack away nature of enclosure usually gives a visually static the stones, scrambling upwards in a straight line, character - most streets are visually dynamic, with whatever the gradient whilst eschewing any shade a strong sense of movement. As horizontal lines are to lighten his physical labours!' visually faster than vertical lines, the character of The (in visual terms) successful design of straight streets (as of squares) can be modified to make streets generally depends on such factors as good them more or less dynamic: for example, vertical proportions between length and width; the kind of The visual dimension 147

concerned with their connection to form social space and movement systems. The public space network (see Chapter 4) creates a series of town­ scape effects, involving, for example, changing views and vistas; the interplay of landmarks, visual incidents and design features; and changes and contrasts of enclosure. In broad terms, townscape results from the weaving together of buildings and all the other elements of the urban fabric and street scene (trees, nature, water, traffic, advertisements, etc.) so that - in Gordon Cullen's phrase - visual drama is released. Although the term 'townscape' was first used in Thomas Sharpe's 1948 study of Oxford, a self­ consciously 'picturesque' approach to townscape had already been evident in the work of john Nash in the early nineteenth century and in the views of Camillo Sitte at the century's end. Sitte's lead was developed in the work of Barry Parker and Ray Unwin, Clough Williams-Ellis and others in the early twentieth century. While a number of writers have made significant contributions to contemporary townscape theory (e.g. Gibberd, 1953; Worskett, 1969; Tugnutt and Robertson, 1987), the modern 'townscape' philosophy has always been closely associated with Gordon Cullen. His beautifully illlus­ trated essays on the subject appeared in the Archi­ tectural Review during the mid- and late 1950s, and were published in book form as Townscape (1 961 ), republished in amended form as The Concise Town­ scope (1 971 ). Cullen's (1 961, p. 1 0) main contention was that buildings seen together gave a 'visual pleasure which none can give separately'. One building standing alone is experienced as architecture, but several together make possible an 'art other than architecture', an 'art of relationship'. Cullen's argu­ ment was essentially a contextualist one: each building should be seen as a contribution to a larger whole. He also suggested a vocabulary of terms to describe particular aspects of townscape, a selection of which is illustrated (Figures 7.16-7.1 9). Cullen argued that townscape could not be appreciated in a technical manner, but needed an structures of which they are composed; and their aesthetic sensibility. Although primarily visual, it visual termination on a building or other feature also evoked memories, experiences and an that brings the eye to rest. emotional response. As most towns are of old foun­ dation, their fabric shows evidence of differing peri­ ods in their architectural styles, 'accidents of Townscape layout', and mixture of materials and scales. He As well as with the spatial properties and qualities argued that if we could start again, we might think of streets and squares, urban designers are of getting rid of this 'hotchpotch' and making all 148 Public Places - Urban Spaces

FIGURE 7.16 FIGURE 7.17 Cullen's 'closed vista': 'which puts a building down and Cullen's 'deflection': 'in which the object building is then invites you to stand back and admire it'. Vienna, deflected away from the right angle, thus arousing the Austria expectation that it is doing this to some purpose'

FIGURE 7.18 Cullen's 'projection and recession': 'Instead of the eye taking in the street in a single glance, as it would in a street with perfectly straight fas;ades, it is caught up in the intricacy of the meander.' Shrewsbury, UK The visual dimension 149

While Cullen's concept of townscape is a useful means of analysis and appraisal, it is difficult to translate into a design method. Indeed, it might be better not to attempt that translation. Townscape was primarily criticised for its tendency to isolate, even to overemphasise, the visual dimension of urban design. This trivialises Cullen's ideas. Never­ theless, in his 'Introduction' to The Concise Town­ scope, Cullen himself lamented that it had resulted in 'a superficial civic style of bollards and cobble­ stones'. The essence of Cullen's argument was that, as well as aiding appreciation of established town­ scapes, his ideas could also inform the design of new, and interventions into existing, townscapes.

URBAN ARCHITECTURE

The visual-aesthetic character of the urban envi­ ronment derives not only from its spatial qualities, but also from the colour, texture and detailing of its defining surfaces. For example, warm colours seem to advance into a space, which thus tends to feel smaller, while cool colours retreat, giving a more spacious feel. A space can also feel harsh and inhuman if its surfaces lack fine detail and interest at human scale. Activities occurring within and FIGURE 7.19' around a space also contribute to its character and Cullen's 'narrows': 'The crowding together of buildings forms a pressure, an unavoidable nearness of detail, sense of place (see Chapters 6 and 8). This and the which is in direct contrast to the wide piazza.' Shad following section consider the main elements Thames, London, UK contributing to the visual-aesthetic character of urban space: its architecture and its landscaping. For the purpose of this discussion, 'urban' archi­ tecture means architecture that responds and 'new and fine and perfect': 'We would create an contributes positively to its context and to the defi­ orderly scene with straight roads and with build­ nition of the public realm. This excludes freestand­ ings that conformed in height and style. Given a ing buildings, except as an occasional element. The freehand that is what we might do . . . create issue of 'object buildings" and 'textures/fabrics' (i ..e. symmetry, balance, perfection and conformity' building mass) was discussed in Chapter 4. Von (p. 13). Questioning what 'conformity' meant, Meiss (1 990, p. 75) suggests that, while the build­ Cullen sugg�ested an analogy with a private party of ing fabric gives an 'image of continuity, of expan­ half a dozen people who are strangers to each siveness, stretching to infinity', the object is 'a other. At first, polite conversation on general closed element, finite, comprehensible as an subjects provides an 'exhibition of manners', of entity'. Standing out against a background, it how 'one ought to behave'. For Cullen, this was concentrates visual attention. Where buildings are boring conformity. Later, however, as the ice embedded within urban blocks, the front fa�ade begins to break, out of the 'straitjacket of orthodox may take on an object role, forming an object­ manners and conformity real human beings begin fa�ade. Von Meiss (p. 93) used the concept of to emerge'. Miss X's sharp but good-natured wit is 'radiance' to discuss spatial impact: 'A freestanding the ideal foil for Major Y's somewhat simple sculpture or buildings exerts a radiance which exuberance,; and so on. It begins to be fun: defines a more or less precise field around it. To 'Conformity gives way to the agreement to differ enter the field of influence of an object is the within a recognised tolerance of behaviour' (p. 14). beginning of a spatial experience.' While the 150 Public Places - Urban Spaces

object-fa�ade has a radiance onto public space, the Have decoration that distracts, delights and • building's other (three) sides are embedded in the intrigues. general fabric. The extent of radiance depends on the nature and size of the object or fa�ade; the Attempting to understand what makes a 'good context; and/or the design of the surrounding building', the Royal Fine Art Commission (RFAC) space. identified six criteria (Cantacuzino, 1994). In this Freestanding buildings are also more difficult to area, there is a particular need to avoid turning design successfully than buildings which present desirable principles into dogmatic imperatives as only their main fa�ade to public space, since they strict adherence to 'the rules' often leads to medi­ are viewed, and therefore subject to aesthetic ocrity and uniformity. The RFAC, for example, was critique, from many points. Rejecting the concept careful to stress that a building could embody of buildings as freestanding sculptural objects, Sitte every criterion and still not be 'good', and vice saw a building's principal aesthetic concern as the versa. Moreover, 'good' designers may successfully manner in which its fa�ade defined the limits to a break 'the rules' and still create good architecture. space and how it was seen from within the space. The criteria discussed below are therefore best Since freestanding buildings would inevitably be understood as a means of structuring and inform­ overexposed, like a 'cake on a serving-platter', and, ing an appreciation of urban architecture. moreover, would involve the additional 'expense of finishing lengthy fa�ades', he argued that it was 1. Order and unity: The first criterion was the 'satis­ greatly to the client's advantage for the building to fying and indivisible unity', created as a conse­ be embedded within an urban block, since its quence of the 'search for order'. In terms of main fa�ade 'could then be carried out in marble building elements and fa�ade design, order is from top to bottom' (Sitte, from Collins and manifested through such means as symmetry, Collins, 1965, p. 28). As the aesthetic effect of balance, repetition, the grid, the bay, the struc­ object buildings works by contrast with the fabric tural frame, etc. At street level, unity may come (i.e. the object needs a ground to stand out from repetition of an architectural 'style', or, against), the design of buildings as freestanding less formally, from common underlying design objects in space should therefore properly be occa­ patterns or motifs, or unifyingelements such as sional exceptions. building silhouette; consistent plot widths; This section concentrates on the design of fenestration patterns; proportions; massing; the fa�ades - some of which, depending on their radi­ treatment of entrances; materials; details; etc. ance or purpose, can be seen as object-fa�ades. 2. Expression: The second criterion was 'the apt Recognising the problem of 'repetitive, boring expression of the function of a building which elevations, prefabricated for speedy erection', enables us to recognise a building for what it is' Buchanan (1 988b, pp. 25-7) argued that they (Cantacuzino, 1994, p. 70). While subject to should: debate, symbolic appropriateness is often considered a key requisite of good architecture: Create a sense of place. a house or church, for example, should • Mediate between inside and out and between communicate its function. Symbolic differentia­ • private and public space, providing gradations tion produces a hierarchy of building types between the two. which increases the legibility of urban areas. Have windows that suggest the potential pres­ Public buildings have traditionally proclaimed • ence of people and that reveal and 'frame' their significance through increased scale, internal life. contrasting style, lavish detail and high quality Have character and coherence that acknowl­ materials, providing 'landmarks' in the street • edge conventions and enter into a dialogue scene: to aid this, most private buildings in a with adjacent buildings. townscape should be 'backcloth' buildings. At Have compositions that create rhythm and a different scale, we need clues not only to a • repose and hold the eye. building's function, but also in terms of its func­ Have a sense of mass and materials expressive tionality (e.g. locating its main entrance). • of the form of construction. 3. Integrity: Integrity results from 'a strict adher­ Have substantial, tactile and decorative natural ence to principles of design, not in the sense of • materials, which weather gracefully. rules which may determine the design of a The visual dimension 151

classical fac;ade, but in the sense that Gothic fac;ade addresses - indeed, reconciles - the architecture embodies principles of construction street in front and the plan and section that lie which are quite different to the principles of behind. Second, the relationship of section, Classical architecture' (Cantacuzino, 1994, plan and local context is fundamental in terms p. 71 ). Through their form and construction, of the volume of development a site can buildings should express the functions they and accommodate (i.e. the plot ratio). Instances their individual parts fulfil; spaces should reflect where this relation is false or weak are usually their purpose and express the structure and known as fac;adism, displayed where there is a construction methods. Buildings should be visu­ functional and structural 'dishonesty' between ally appropriate in their form and construction. a building's interior and exterior (Figure 7.20), This principle can, however, be taken too far - or where there is new building behind a see David Watkin's Morality and Architecture retained historic fac;ade (see Figures 7.21 and (1 984). Brolin (1 980, pp. 5-6), for example, 7 .22). This is often a controversial issue in argues that 'no virtue or higher morality is urban design and conservation. served by expressing interior uses "honestly" on 5. Detail: As detail is what holds the eye, lack of the exterior. This is one moral preoccupation of detail 'impoverishes architecture and deprives Modernism which should be less important us of a layer of experience that brings us into than the visual relationship between the build­ close contact with a building where we can ing's exterior and its architectural context.' admire the beauty of the materials and the skill 4. Plan and section: This criterion concerns the of the craftsman or engineer' (Cantacuzino, building as a whole, and the need to consider 1994, p. 76). Fac;ades can be appreciated in not only its elevations but also its plan and terms of their visual 'richness' (the interest and section. Interest merely in fac;ades relegates complexity that holds the eye) and 'elegance' (a the design of buildings (and spaces) to the function of the proportions that the eye finds level of two-dimensional stage set design - pleasing and harmonious). Although some while stage sets are a kind of architecture, fac;ades have both, on elegant fac;ades detail is architecture is more than a stage set (Von normally used sparingly - this does not, Meiss, 1990). There should be a positive rela­ however, necessarily hold the eye, and can be tionship between a building's fac;ade and its seen as lacking visual interest, even boring. plan and section (i.e. between interior and Detail and visual interest help humanise envi­ exterior) for two main reasons. First, a build­ ronments. As buildings are seen in different ing is designed as a totality in which the ways - near and far, straight on or obliquely -

FIGURE 7.20 Richmond Riverside, London. Although the fa�ade suggests a number of separate buildings, this development actually consists of a few large office buildings with open office floors extending across what we are led to assume are party walls 152 Public Places - Urban Spaces

FIGURES 7.21 and 7.22 These examples of fa�adism in Toronto, Canada, and Hong Kong raise serious questions about the value of retaining the fa�ade of an older building. Where new buildings are placed behind retained fa�ades, the new building's height generally needs to be similar to that of the building being replaced

detail is required at varying scales, depending Square as a 'monstrous carbuncle' on the face on their position in the townscape. Small-scale of a 'much-loved friend'. Stressing his own detail is especially important at ground floor basic principle that 'places matter most', Fran­ level to provide visual interest for pedestrians, cis Tibbalds (1 992, p. 16) argued that, in most while larger-scale detail is important for viewing instances, individual buildings should be over longer distances (Figures 7.23, 7.24 and subservient to the needs and character of the 7.25). Typically, detail intensifies about place as a whole: 'If every building screams for windows and doorways and at building corners, attention, the result is likely to be discordant while appropriate emphasis of entrances allows chaos. A few buildings can, quite legitimately, users to 'read' the fa<;ade, facilitating movement be soloists, but the majority need simply to be from the public to private realm (Figure 7.26). sound, reliable members of the chorus.' While 6. Integration: Integration involves the harmonisa­ there are occasional needs for a 'prima donna', tion of a building with its surroundings, and the 'the greater need is for a better vocabulary of qualities needed for this. It is a more problem­ well-designed, interesting "back cloth" build­ atic area of urban design. During the late ings'. 1980s, HRH, the Prince of Wales (1 988, p. 84) famously described a proposal for extending Integration - sometimes disparagingly (and incor­ the National Gallery in London's Trafalgar rectly) called 'fitting in' - does not require slavish The visual dimension 153

FIGURES 7.23, 7.24 and 7.25 This building in central Edinburgh, UK, is richly detailed at a series of different levels. At a distance only the main elements of the fa<;:ade are apparent. Coming closer other major elements, including the fenestration pattern, become apparent. Closer still, materials and constructional detailing are apparent with additional detail at ground level and at higher levels 154 Public Places - Urban Spaces

adherence to an architectural style. The stylistic approach is eminently capable of 'a disastrous dimension is only one aspect of fitting in. Too result in the form of arrogant exhibitionism' (Wells­ much emphasis on this element denies the oppor­ Thorpe, 1998, p. 113). Between these two posi­ tunity of innovation and excitement: visual criteria tions lies that of continuity, involving interpretation such as scale and rhythm are often more impor­ - rather than simply imitation - of local visual char­ tant. Many of the most successful groups of build­ acter. Typifying postmodern architectural design, ings are of dramatically different materials and this approach reflects a desire for new development styles (e.g. those around the Piazza San Marco, to reflect and develop the existing sense of place. Venice). Wells-Thorpe (1 998, p. 113) suggests that when A continuum of three basic approaches to creat­ a more contextualist approach is appropriate, the ing harmony with the existing context can be iden­ following qualities of the 'old surroundings' should tified. Each represents a different design be considered: (i) the extent; (ii) the worth/quality; philosophy. At one extreme, stylistic uniformity (iii) the consistency/homogeneity; (iv) the unique­ involves imitating the local architectural character ­ ness/rarity; (v) the proximity (i.e. whether seen in a and in the process, possibly diluting the qualities single sweep of the eye). Whether or not a building desired to be retained. At the other extreme, juxta­ harmonises with its context is, however, ultimately position or contrast involves new designs, making a matter of personal judgement. Pearce (1 989, few concessions to the existing architectural char­ p. 166) succinctly encapsulates the challenge: 'All acter (Figure 7.27 and 7.28). While this can that is required for the rewarding addition of a new produce vibrant and successful contrast, the building in an old setting is the genius of the place

FIGURE 7.26 Glasgow, UK. Many traditional urban fa<;:adesare organised into three elements (i.e. 'base', 'middle' and 'top'). The ground floor is often more richly decorated as this is the part that pedestrians are better able to see and appreciate; the middle is often more visually restrained, while the top and skyline are again more visually complex to detain the eye. Although this practice is rarely followed in contemporary development, this building has been designed in the traditional manner The visual dimension 155

FIGURE 7.27 The Glass Pyramid at Le Louvre, Paris, France, represents an excellent example of the integration of a new building into an established historical context. The juxtaposition of old and new enhances both

FIGURE 7.28 Contextual juxtaposition - 'Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire building', Prague, Czech Republic

to be complemented by the genius of the architect.' creation of visually interesting street scenes, certain By definition, however, genius is rare. principles apply that enable new buildings to Given that areas of homogeneous architectural harmonise better with the existing context. The character are unusual, most contexts, being already RFAC (Cantacuzino, "1 994, pp. 76-9) identify six varied, allow for contemporary design. Neverthe­ criteria for the harmonious integration of new less, while variety has particular value in the buildings into existing contexts (see Box 7.3). 156 Public Places - Urban Spaces The visual dimension 1�i7

I:Jtliil¢1iriQ with

at ChCllCe' (it,'m,,, t.>ri;ol< also 'l!>eiToJhs otijeJ;;\I:I iffere hces, various juou<;;J<:>us us e of betwee n 158 Public Places - Urban Spaces The visual dimension 1.59

HARD AND SOFT LANDSCAPING gral part in an overarching urban design frame­ work. With a narrower meaning than 'landscape', 'land­ scaping' is used here rather than 'landscape' because of its more limited visual connotations. Floorscape Landscaping is frequently an afterthought in urban design - something to be added if the budget Floorscape is an important part of a harmonious allows and once the major decisions have been and integrated whole. There are two main types of taken, to hide poor quality architecture; and/or as flooring in urban areas - 'hard' pavement and 'soft' a way of filling left-over space. While well-designed landscaped areas: the focus here is on the former. landscapin'g adds quality, visual interest and colour, A floorscape's character is substantially determined poorly designed landscaping detracts from other­ by the materials used (e.g. brick, stone slabs, wise well-designed developments. cobbles, concrete, macadam), the way they are The broader landscape - and, by inference, used, and how they interrelate with other materials landscape design - involves not only visual aspects, and landscape features (Figure 7.34). Edging detail but also fundamental concerns for ecology, hydrol­ is important in visually linking with the fas;ades ogy and geology. Although not discussed here, it is defining the space, aiding the transition from the important to reiterate that urban designers should horizontal to the vertical plane. Requiring careful be concerned with underlying natural processes as consideration, this transition is often an indicator of much as with the problems and opportunities of the quality of a paving design. particular sites (see Chapter 3). The 'greening' of The patterning of the floor of urban spaces towns and cities represents a key sustainability results from utilitarian considerations, which may objective. Trees and other vegetation can be also have an aesthetic effect, and/or from attempts particularly effective in reducing carbon dioxide to organise the space aesthetically. The primary build-up and restoring oxygen; reducing wind function of any paved area is to provide a hard, speeds in urban spaces; acting as shelterbelts; and dry, non-slip surface to carry the traffic load. Differ­ filtering dust and pollution. A positive approach to ent traffic loads can be reflected in different floor­ landscaping is therefore needed, in which its ing materials and construction methods, which also contribution to the totality of the urban environ­ indicate where different types of traffic should ment is considered. Hence, landscape design The junctions between materials are often articu­ strategies should be developed before or in parallel lated. In traffic-calmed environments, tarmac�JO. is with the building design process and play an inte- usually used to indicate where cars may go, and

FIGURE 7.34 Telc, Czech Republic. Unity of materials and design between the floorscape and the surrounding architecture adds to a more harmonious townscape 160 Public Places - Urban Spaces

brick or stone for pedestrian areas. The most common edge between vehicular and pedestrian traffic is the ubiquitous granite or concrete kerb with a shallow step from pavement to road. Using materials to add further parallel lines gives greater definition to the change of function, and has a decorative effect. A change of flooring material can indicate a change of ownership (e.g. from public to private space), indicate potential hazards, or provide a warning. Textured pavements at road crossing points, for example, assist those with sight impair­ ments, while lines across otherwise monolithic surfaces give strong directional qualities. Direc­ tional paving may also have a purely aesthetic func­ tion, being used simply to reinforce a linear form and thus enhance the sense of movement. Floorscape can be expressly designed to enhance the aesthetic character of a space - for example, introducing scale (both human and generic), modulating the space by organising it into a series of hierarchical elements, reinforcing existing character, or aesthetically organising and unifying it. A sense of scale in floorscape can derive from the scale of the materials used, from the patterning of different materials, or from a combi­ nation of both. Sized to permit easy handling, stone paving slabs generally give a human scale to urban spaces. In smaller spaces, often no additional patterning is required: larger spaces generally need FIGURE 7.35 A vibrant street floor pattern in Macao some form of pattern to provide a sense of scale. Floorscape patterns often perform the important aesthetic function of breaking down the scale of large, hard surfaces into more manageable, human Parallel lines following the length of the street rein­ proportions. Floorscape (like fac;:ades) can be force the sense of movement, while non-linear enriched by repeating and echoing particular paving tends to slow the visual pace and to rein­ motifs or themes, by emphasising changes of force qualities of a place to stop or linger. Interplay materials, and/or by dramatising the edge of an between floor patterns alternating between move­ area. In the Piazza San Marco, Venice, for example, ment and rest brings qualities of rhythm and scale the scale of the space is modulated and humanised to the urban scene. by a simple grid of white travertine and black Floorscapes designed to provide a sense of basalt. Floorscape patterns can also be used to repose are usually associated with areas where manipulate the apparent size of the space: the people stop and rest (i.e. with urban squares). The addition of detail and modulation tends to make a floorscape pattern of squares can perform a number big space seem smaller, while a simple and rela­ of functions: providing a sense of scale; unifying the tively unadorned treatment has the reverse effect. space by linking and relating the centre and edges; Floorscape patterns can reinforce the linear char­ and bringing order to what might otherwise be a acter of a street, emphasising its character as a disparate group of buildings. In the latter case, a 'path' by providing a sense of direction with a visu­ strong and simple geometric figure (rectangle, ally dynamic pattern. Alternatively, they can check circle or oval) might organise the centre of the the flow of space by emphasising its character as a space, allowing the irregular line of surrounding 'place', or by suggesting a feeling of repose with a buildings to form localised relations with the edge visually static or contained pattern (Figure 7.35). (Figure 7.36); thus helping to organise the square The visual dimension u;1

FIGURE 7.37 Campidoglio, Rome, Italy. The Campidoglio's floor pattern consists of a pattern expanding out from the FIGURE 7.36 base of the equestrian statue. The sunken oval A simple geometric floorscape unifies and organises the containing the pattern reinforces the centrality of the irregular trapezoidal space of the Piazza Giuseppe space while the expanding ripples of the central pattern Tartini, Pirano, Slovenia (source: Favole, 1997) emphasise movement to the edge. As the pattern constantly and repeatedly links the centre and the ed!Je, it unifies the spaces and its enclosing elements (source: Bacon, 1978, p. 119)

into a single aesthetic whole. Michelangelo's street furniture and other paraphernalia that floorscape design for the Campidoglio in Rome detracts from an urban scene. Street furniture can achieves all of these functions (Figure 7.37). also set quality standards and expectations for development in an area. Although integral - and mostly necessary - to Street furniture the public realm, the myriad items of street furni­ Street furniture includes hard landscape elements ture are often distributed with little concern ·for other than floorscape: telegraph poles, lighting their overall effect, resulting in a visually and func­ standards, telephone boxes, benches, planters, tionally cluttered urban scene. In their Glasgow City traffic signs, direction signs, CCTV cameras, police Centre Public Realm, Strategy and Guidelines, Gille­ boxes, bollards, boundary walls, railings, foun­ spies (1 995, p. 65) offers a set of six general prin­ tains, bus shelters, statues, monuments, etc. Public ciples: art is also form of street furniture (Figures 7.38 .a and 7.39). In addition to contributing to identity Design to incorporate the minimum of street • and character, the quality and organisation of furniture. street furniture are prime indicators of the quality Wherever possible, integrate elements into a • of an urban space. Frequently the result of single unit. unknowing urban design, it is often the clutter of Remove all superfluous street furniture. • 162 Public Places - Urban Spaces

Consider street furniture as a family of items, • suiting the quality of the environment and helping to give it a coherent identity. Position street furniture to help create and • delineate space. Locate street furniture so as not to impede • pedestrians, vehicles or desire lines.

The most basic street furniture comes 'off-the-peg', selected from manufacturers' catalogues. Standard items may be customised to give some degree of local identity, and identity can be further devel­ oped by the design of a suite of items specific to a particular locality. For locations where a particularly strong design character is desired, artists might be invited to design a range of street furniture (Gille­ spies, 1995, p. 67).

Soft landscaping

Soft landscaping can be a decisive element in creat­ ing character and identity. 'Oak Street', for exam­ ple, has a different character to 'Pine Street'. Trees and other vegetation express the changing seasons, enhancing the temporal legibility of urban environ­ ments. Thus, if deciduous trees are used, the FIGURE 7.38 containment and character of the space will change jonathan Borofsky's Hammering Man, Seattle Art with the seasons. Landscaping also often plays an Museum, Seattle, Washington, USA important aesthetic role in adding coherence and

FIGURE 7.39 Public art in Bratislava, Slovakia. Humour is a feature of much public art The visual dimension 163 structure to otherwise disparate environments. Trees and other veg�etation provide a contrast Much of the appeal of mature 'garden' suburbs, for with, and a foil to, hard urban landscapes, and add example, derives from the continuity of the land­ a sense of human scale. In some streets, trees rein­ scape structure, which enables a diversity of archi­ force or provide a sensE� of enclosure and continu­ tectural treatments to work harmoniously. In this ity, but in all urban environments trees need to be context, the landscaping plays a crucial role in 'join­ sited positively. Robinson (1992, pp. 41-81 ), for ing up' the environment. example, outlines a theory of visual composition

The choice and positioning ofgroups of trees

is more

are followed

AVENUE URBAN GROUP

SINGLE SPECI�1EN RURAL INFORMALITY

FIGURE 7.40 Design strategies for street trees. Trees are not always appropriate in urban areas and, where used, should be chosen and located in relation to the overall townscape effect (source: English Heritage, 2000, p. 49) 164 Public Places - Urban Spaces and making spaces with plants that is as sophisti­ Avoid clutter, by keeping signage to a mml­ • cated as that associated with buildings and urban mum and using existing posts or wall mount­ space. Given a formal setting, siting may involve a ings. degree of regimentation, with trees planted in Have a concern for pedestrians: through a • straight lines or formal geometric patterns rather welcoming atmosphere and clear directional than picturesque groups. signage. Much of the floorscape pattern - and, indeed, Have a concern for people with disabilities: for • the three-dimensional effect of urban space - can safety, convenience and removal of obstacles. be enhanced by tree planting, which may reinforce Traffic and related matters: consider public • or complete a sense of spatial containment, or transport, cyclists, and the comfort and safety create a 'space within a space'. Street trees can, of pedestrians crossing the carriageways. however, be overdone. In order to give a greater emphasis to the landscaped garden squares, Geor­ gian streets rarely contained trees, while Camillo CONCLUSION Sitte calculated that the boulevards of nineteenth century Vienna contained enough trees to form an This chapter has emphasised the necessity for urban entire forest, and, in his view, they would have been designers to consider the whole context in which better deployed in two or three parks. Similarly, in they approach the visual aspect of additions to the their publication Streets for All, aimed at guiding the urban environment. It is important to avoid over­ management of London's streets, English Heritage stating the importance of architecture and architec­ (2000, p. 48) argue that soft landscaping in urban tural considerations in creating successful urban areas is not always appropriate and that where places. However, while stressing that urban design used, it should be chosen and located in relation to is not a question of architectural style, Montgomery the overall townscape effect (Figure 7.40). For all (1 998, pp. 112-1 3) accepts that architectural style landscape schemes - hard or soft - English Heritage is 'not unimportant', for it conveys meaning, iden­ suggest an eight-part strategy: tity and image. Furthermore, urban designers must be careful to avoid equating consideration of the Appearance: have regard for historic context visual dimension of urban design with considera­ • and local distinctiveness. tions of architectural design. Such an equation Consider the suitability of materials and their would emphasise a part to the probable detriment • combination for the tasks they perform. of the whole, neglecting Tibbalds' golden rule for Design for robustness in terms of long-term urban design - 'places matter most'. Buildings, • maintenance. streets and spaces, hard and soft landscaping and Cleansing: consider ease of refuse collection, street furniture should be considered together, to • sweeping, washing, and specialist cleansing of create drama and visual interest and to reinforce or graffiti and gum. enhance the sense of place. The functional dimension

INTRODllJCTlON ican Cities, 1961) in North American cities; jan Gehl's (Life Between Buildings, 1971) in Scandinavia; This chapter focuses on the functional dimension of and William H Whyte's (The Social Life of Small urban design, which involves how places work and Urban Spaces, 1980) in New York. To these can be how urban designers can make 'better' places. The added Clare Copper Marcus and Wendy Sarkiss­ 'social usage' and 'visual' traditions of urban design ian's Housing As If People Mattered (1 986) and lthe thought each had a 'functionalist' perspective. That Project for Public Space's How to Turn a Place of the former concerned the functioning of the Around: A Handbook for Creating Successful Public environment in terms of how people used it, while Places (1999). These works are all rooted in obs,er­ in the latter, the human dimension was often vations of the relationship between activities and abstracted out and reduced to aesthetic or techni­ spaces. As the Project for Public Space (PPS, 1999, cal criteria such as traffic flow, access or circulation. p. 51) advise: 'When you observe a space you learn This chapter is concerned with these two sets of about how it is actually used, rather than how you functional considerations, taking the former first. think it is used.' The chapter is in four parts. The first part concerns Based on a synthesis of research and ideas on the the use of public spaces, the second concerns use and design of public space, Carr et a/. (1 992) mixed uses and density considerations, the third argued that, as well as being 'meaningful' (i.e. environmental design, and the fourth aspects of allowing people to make strong connections the capital web. between the place, their personal lives, and the larger world) (see Chapter 5), and being 'democra­ tic' (i.e. protecting the rights of user groups, being PUBLIC SPACE AND THE accessible to all groups and providing for freedom PUBLIC/IPRIVATE INTERFACE of action) (see Chapter 6), public spaces should also be 'responsive' - that is, designed and managed to As successful places support and facilitate activities, serve the needs of their users. They identify five the design of urban spaces should be informed by primary needs that people seek to satisfy in public awareness of how people use them. Accomplished space: 'comfort'; 'relaxation'; 'passive engagement urban designers generally develop a detailed with the environment'; 'active engagement with knowledge of urban spaces, places and environ­ the environment'; and 'discovery'. Good places ments, based upon first-hand experience. Bacon frequently serve more than one purpose. (1 974, p. 20), for example, asserted that only through 'endless walking' could designers 'absorb (i) Comfort into their being' the true experience of urban Comfort is a prerequisite of successful public spaces. space. Many of the best commentaries on the use The length of time people stay in a public space i:s a of the public realm are based on first-hand obser­ function and an indicator of its comfort. The dimen­ vations: jane jacobs' (Death and Life of Great Amer- sions of a sense of comfort include environmental

165 166 Public Places - Urban Spaces

factors (e.g. relief from sun, wind, etc.) (this is 'the need for an encounter with the setting, albeit discussed later in this chapter); physical comfort without becoming actively involved' (Carr et a/., (e.g. comfortable and sufficient seating, etc.); and 1992, p. 1 03). Perhaps the prime form of passive social and psychological comfort. The latter is engagement is people-watching: Whyte (1 980, dependent on the character and ambience of the p. 13), for example, found that what attracts space. Carr et a/. (1 992, p. 97) argued that this is 'a people is other people and the life and activity that deep and pervasive need that extends to people's they bring. The most used sitting places are gener­ experiences in public places. It is a sense of security, ally adjacent to the pedestrian flow, allowing a feeling that one's person and possessions are not observers to watch people while avoiding eye vulnerable.' The sense of comfort may also be contact (Figure 8.1 ). Opportunities for passive enhanced by the physical design of the space and/or engagement are also provided by fountains, views, by its management strategies (see Chapter 6). public art, performances, and so forth (Figure 8.2).

(iv) Active engagement (ii) Relaxation Active engagement involves a more direct experi­ While a sense of psychological comfort may be a ence with a place and the people within it. Carr et prerequisite of relaxation, relaxation is a more a/. (1 992, p. 119) noted that, although some developed state with the 'body and mind at ease' people find sufficient satisfaction in people-watch­ (Carr et 1992, p. 98). In urban settings, natural ing, others desire more direct contact, whether with elements - trees, greenery, water features - and friends, family or strangers. Although urban design­ separationof., from vehicular traffic help accentuate ers may imagine otherwise, the simple proximity of the contrast with the immediate surroundings and people does not mean spontaneous interaction. make it easier to be relaxed. The features that make Whyte (1 980, p. 19) found that public spaces were a pleasant sanctuary may, however, also obstruct 'not ideal places' for 'striking up acquaintances', visual access (visual permeability), creating safety and that, even in the most sociable of them, there problems and discouraging use. As in all aspects of was 'not much mingling'. The coincidence of design, it is necessary to achieve a balanced whole. people in space and time does, nevertheless, provide opportunities for contact and social interac­ (iii) Passive engagement tion. In his discussion of how the design of public While passive engagement with the environment space supports interaction, Gehl (1 996, p. 19) refers can lead to a sense of relaxation, it also involves to the 'varied transitional forms between being

FIGURE 8.1 Wenceslas Square, Prague, Czech Republic. Street entertainment can enhance the animation and vitality of public spaces The functional dimension 167 alone and being together' and suggests a scale of Design of the public realm can create or inhibit 'intensity of contact' ranging from 'close friend­ opportunities for contact. Unusual features or ships' to 'friends', 'acquaintances', 'chance con­ occurrences can result in what Whyte (1 980, tacts' and ·'passive contacts'. If activity in the spaces p. 94) calls 'triangulation': 'the process by which between buildings is missing, then the lower end of some external stimulus provides a linkage this contact scale also disappears: 'The boundaries between people and prompts strangers to talk to between isolation and contact become sharper - other strangers as if they knew each other'. In people are either alone or else with others on a rela­ public spaces, the arrangement of different tively demanding and exacting level' (Gehl, 1996, elements - benches, telephones, fountains, sculp­ p. 19). Successful public spaces provide opportuni­ tures, coffee carts - can be made more, or less, ties for varying degrees of engagement, and also for conducive to social interaction (Figure 8.3). The disengagement from contact. Project for Public Space (1 999, p. 63) obsertes

FIGURE 8.2 Piazza SS Annunziata, Florence, Italy. Steps and other sitting places provide opportunities for passive engagement in public space

FIGURE 8.3 Government Square, Boston, Massachusetts,. USA. The design of some public spaces does not help their function as people places 168 Public Places - Urban Spaces

FIGURE 8.4 Chicago, Illinois, USA. Public art helps the process of triangulation in public space

how triangulation occurs spontaneously where The social use of space there is something of interest, such as the life-size fibreglass cows painted by artists and set up on The work of William H. Whyte (1 980, 1988) is of Chicago streets as public art: 'The cows created particular interest with regard to how people use an excuse for people who didn't know each other public spaces. Using photographic studies of a range to talk to one another' (Figure 8.4). of New York's open spaces, Whyte noted that many such spaces appeared little used, apparently failing (v) Discovery to justify the extra floorspace given to developers as Representing desire for new spectacles and plea­ part of the city's incentive zoning regulations. surable experiences, 'discovery' depends on variety Initially published as The Social Life of Small Urban and change. While these may simply come with Spaces (1980), Whyte's work was reissued as a more the 'march of time' and the cycle of the seasons, substantial book, City: Rediscovering the Centre they may also result from the management and (1 988). The Project for Public Space, established in animation of public space. Involving a break from 1975, has continued his work (see .pps.org), www the routine and the expected, discovery may and has pioneered the use of video cameras to require some sense of unpredictability, and even analyse patterns of space usage over time. (real or imagined) danger. Lovatt and O'Connor Whyte considered off-peak use provided the (1995), Zukin (1 995), and others, have written best clues to people's preferences. When a place about 'liminal' spaces - those formed in the inter­ was crowded, people sat where they could rather stices of everyday life and outside 'normal' rules - than where they most wanted to. Later, some parts where different cultures meet and interact. Discov­ emptied while others continued to be used. He also ery might also involve programmes of animation, found that most spaces contained well-defined involving, for example, lunch-time concerts, art subplaces - often around the edge - where people exhibitions, street theatre, festivals, parades, preferred to be, and arranged to meet. Whyte markets, society events and/or trade promotions, noted that, in general, women were more discrim­ across a range of times and venues. Such inating in their choice of space and, therefore, that programmes of animation may also include annual a low proportion of women generally indicated events, such as the Edinburgh Festival, London's that something was wrong. Women also sought a Notting Hill Carnival, and New Orleans' Mardi­ greater degree of privacy than men, who tended to Gras. prefer more prominent seating. The functional dimension 1169

Whyte noted that the most sociable spaces usually possessed the following features:

A good location, preferably on a busy route and • both physically and visually accessible. Streets being part of the 'social' space - fenc­ • ing off a space from the street isolated it and reduced its use. Being level or almost level with the pavement • (spaces significantly above or below this were less used). Places to sit - both integral (e.g. steps, low • walls); and explicit (e.g. benches, seats, etc.). Movable seats, enabling choice, and the • communication of character and personality. ' Less important factors included sun penetration, the aesthetics of the space (what mattered was how people used it), and the shape and size of spaces.

Movement

Movement through public space is at the heart of the urban experience, an important factor in generating life and activity (Figure 8.5). As discussed previously, where people choose to sit or linger in public space is often based on opportuni­ ties for people watching, and therefore related to desire lines and an appreciation of the activity and FIGURE 8.5 Chester, UK. Pedestrian flows and movement through through-movement within the space. Similarly, public space are both at the heart of the urban definition of prime retail locations in urban areas experience and important factors in generating life and (as opposed to out-of-town locations) is based on activity assessments of pedestrian footfall, a function of pedestrian movement between places. Duany et a/. (2000, p. 64) assert that, 'pedestrian life cannot exist in the absence of worthwhile destinations that destination are preferred (i.e. a 'park once' strat­ are easily accessible on foot ... Otherwise, there is egy). Furthermore, trips may often involve climb­ no reason to walk, and the streets are empty.' ing into a car at home, travelling, then getting out While there is a basic truth to this assertion, it is in the secure car park of the final destination (i.e. actually more complex than this (see below). transferring from the sanctuary of the personal To design successful public spaces, it is essential private realm, to that of private, self-contained to understand movement, especially that of pedes­ attractions - malls, theme parks, multiplex cine­ trians; however, origin-destination studies, used to mas, sports stadia, etc.). As the urban experience is trace car movement, are less appropriate for pedes­ essentially discontinuous, primarily involving arrival trian movement. Because interrupting a journey is at - rather than the experience of travel between - a major inconvenience for car drivers, the social particular destinations, the continuity of urban experience of getting from A to B is less important space is less important for car drivers. and most car-based movement is pure circulation For pedestrians, the connection between 'places' (Lefebvre, 1991, pp. 312-1 3). Opportunities for is important and successful public spaces are gener­ social interaction only occur once the car has been ally integrated within local movement systems. parked. As breaking a journey can be inconvenient Used to study pedestrian movement, origin-desti­ and time-consuming, direct journeys to a single nation surveys ignore an essential component of the 170 Public Places - Urban Spaces

FIGURE 8.6 Retail developers and designers are skilled in exploiting shopper psychology and manipulating shopper movements within shopping centres. In the simplest form of centres, the 'magnet' stores are located at either end of a central mall lined with smaller stores. The magnet stores attract shoppers to the mall. As shoppers enter the mall, they are drawn towards the magnet stores and in the process pass the smaller stores, thereby, generating footfall and potential trade for those smaller stores. If shoppers enter through one of the magnet stores, the other magnet stores provide the stimulus for movement along the mall. This is admittedly a simplified account of movement. The magnet stores attract people in the aggregate; they may not attract any particular individual. Equally, it may be the ambience and character of the mall's 'public' spaces that are the real attraction

experience. In an urban setting, a pedestrian jour­ ney is rarely single purpose: on the way to some­ where else, we stop to buy a newspaper, talk to a friend, enjoy a view or watch the 'world go by'. Bill Hillier (1 996a, 1996b) terms the potential for such optional activities the 'by-product' of movement - that is, the potential for other (optional) activities in addition to the basic activity of travelling from origin to destination. Thus, as Hillier (1 996b, p. 59) argues, by ensuring that origin-destination trips take place past outward-facing building blocks, the traditional 'urban grid' represents a 'mechanism for generating contact', allowing maximisation of the by-product effect. The impact and value of the by­ product of movement can be illustrated through its exploitation in the design of shopping centres (Figures 8.6 and 8.7).

FIGURE 8.7 San Diego's Horton Plaza is an excellent example of the notion of public spaces as discretionary environments. Although the public spaces of shopping malls may be considered to be a by-product of the retail offer, it may also be that the supposed by-product is actually the primary attraction - although the public spaces do not produce revenue directly, they attract people to the retail on offer The functional dimension 171

With collea9ues at University College London's from analysis of the structure of the urban grid. The Space Syntax Laboratory (www.spacesyntax.com), analytic process involves what Hillier terms 'natural Hillier (Hillier and Hanson, 1984; Hillier, 1988, movement' - the proportion of movement deter­ 1996a, 1996b; Hillier et a/., 1993) has extensively mined by the structure of the urban grid rather than explored and theorised the relationship between by, for example, magnet land uses. Using complex (mainly pedestrian) movement and the configura­ mapping and mathematical techniques, Hillier's tion of urban space and also between pedestrian analysis is based on key geometric properties of the densities and land uses. He argues that the config­ spatial configuration (i.e. network/grid of spaces) of uration of space, particularly its effect on visual urban areas. These are conceptualised as a series of permeability, is important in determining move­ 'convex' spaces linked by straight 'axial' lines ment densities and encounter rates. His work chal­ (Figures 8.8 and 8.9). From the network of axial lenges urban designers to think critically about the lines, each line's 'integration value' (its position with relationship between space configuration, move­ respect to the system as a whole) can be calculated. ment and land uses. Although his work is a form of The integration value is regarded as a good predic­ urban morphology (see Chapter 4), it is discussed tor of natural movement: the more integrated the here because it concerns how people use urban line, the more movement along it, the less inte­ space. grated, the less that route is used. Hillier's empirical research supports his idea that Hillier argues that the reason why his analysis movement: densities can accurately be predicted gives a 'true-to-life functional picture' of movement

FIGURE 8.8 FIGURE 8.9 A shape is convex if all points within the shape can be Axial map of Rothenburg. In an axial map, the plan seen from all other points within that shape (i.e. a view of the study area is drawn with axial lines ensuring straight line drawn between any two points within the that all the convex spaces are linked (i.e. integrated). shape lies wholly within the shape). Related to this is Straight or axial lines are important because, for Hillier, the 'convex isovist' - the shape defined by all the points people move along lines and, furthermore, need to be that can be seen from any point within the convex able to see along lines in order to know where they can space. As si9ht lines are considered to be important in go. Hillier notes that longer lines tend to strike fa\;ades terms of influencing movement, the convex isovist at an open angle (i.e. suggesting further movement), represents the opportunity space that a pedestrian in while shorter lines tend to strike them at angles closer the convex .space can see and could move to. The to a right angle, thereby, reducing the potential for diagram shows the convex element (the darker shading) movement in that direction. He also notes that patterns and the strategic isovist (the lighter shadin9) for The of land uses generally change slowly along lines of Green - an historic but underused space in the centre of movement and more sharply with the increasing angle Aberdeen. Close to the main pedestrian thoroughfare of of turn onto different lines Union Street, it is not visually linked to it 172 Public Places - Urban Spaces

densities is due to the influence that natural move­ ties: for example, closing streets to cars results in ment has had on the evolution of urban patterns their more intensive use by greater numbers of and distribution of land uses. The by-product pedestrians. Hillier's theory also does not consider concept also enables Hillier to explain how the the design of space as involving more than spatial land-use pattern derives from that of natural move­ configuration. Issues of accessibility and of the ment, rather than - as might intuitively be character of urban places are also important: for expected -the other way round. Hillier argues that example, an unfriendly environment's pedestrian every trip in an urban system has three elements: flow may be increased significantly if the space an origin (A), a destination (B), and a series of becomes more pedestrian friendly (Hass-Kiau et a/., spaces passed through on the way from one to 1999; Gehl and Gemzoe, 2000). another (the 'by-product'). Regardless of the Second, although movement comes first in specific locations of A and B, some routes have Hillier's system, it is unrelated to specific purpose. more potential to generate contact than others, The assumption is that movement between any two because they have more by-product. Hence, spaces points is as likely as movement between any other prioritised by the grid configuration for through­ two. This ignores the purpose of the movement (i.e. movement are - and have been - selected as good the importance of the destination), which is usually locations for 'passing trade' land uses. related to land use: movement is more likely in Hillier acknowledges the potential for confusion, connection with some destinations (e.g. public between the effects of spatial configuration and of buildings) than others (e.g. a private house). particular land uses on movement. While accepting Although Hillier considers the configuration of that particular uses can attract people, he argues that space to be more important than land uses in the this is actually a multiplier effect: uses cannot change generation of movement, land uses (particularly the line's integration value. In other words, patterns 'people attractors' or magnet land uses) will affect of natural movement and of space come before land movement through, within and to a public place. uses; land uses merely reinforce the basic movement Destination, as well as by-product, ought - at least pattern. Hillier (1 996a, p. 169), argues that: in theory - to matter. Hillier's analysis therefore potentially understates the significance of destina­ It is this positive feedback loop built on a foun­ tions. As well as being animated through the by­ dation of the relation between the grid struc­ product of movement to other places, many spaces ture and movement which gives rise to the are destinations in their own right. Hillier's argu­ urban buzz, which we prefer to be romantic or ment is that, initially and over time, the by-product mystical about - but which arises from the co­ of movement is more important than its origin or incidence in certain locations of large numbers destination. Nevertheless, as land uses and the of different activities involving people going purpose of movement are entwined, the determin­ about their business in different ways. istic role ascribed to configuration and natural Hillier (1 996a, p. 169) suggests that this may be movement remains problematic as land uses give illustrated by London's South Bank, where despite purpose for movement, changing their location the co-existence in a small area of many functions, changes the pattern of movement. Over time, this there is little 'urban buzz'. Hillier attributes this to will also change the land use pattern in a two-way the configuration of space, which fails to bring the interactive process. It must, however, be acknowl­ different groups of space users into patterns of edged that although Hillier's theory might be based movement that prioritise the same spaces - groups on a rather mechanistic view of people and their move through the area like 'ships in the night'. behaviour, it supports predictions that correlate There are two key areas of difficulty in Hillier's highly with observed patterns of movement. work. First, his method is based on the deformed Space syntax has nonetheless been widely grid of the 'organic city', which evolved through accepted as a useful tool for analysing places. In pedestrian movement. It is debatable whether the particular, it reminds urban designers of the impor­ method works as well for planned urban areas, or tance of permeability, and of the overarching need for those designed from the outset to accommo­ to consider movement (especially pedestrian move­ date vehicular travel, where pedestrian freedom of ment) in the design of urban areas. The key movement is restricted and path dependent. message is that well-connected places are more Restrictions on the freedom of various modes of likely to encourage pedestrian movement and to travel can have major effects on movement densi- support a vital and viable range of uses. The functional dimension 173

The shape, centre and edge of public choose something to stand roughly in the middle: spaces a fountain, a tree, a statue, a clock-tower with seats, a windmill, a bandstand ... Leave it exactly As well as ideas about the aesthetically desirable where it falls, between the paths; resist the impulse shape and configuration of public spaces (see to put it exactly in the middle' (Alexander et a/., Chapter 7), consideration of how design features 1977, pp. 606-8). As well as providing a sense of support use and activity is also important. In partic­ identity and character, such features can also ular, and as discussed above, Hillier (1 996a, 1996b) prompt triangulation. contends that various functional considerations Design of the edge is, however, the most impor­ related to movement need to be taken into tant element for a successful urban place. Alexan­ account. He argues that attempts to account for der et a/. (1 977, p. 600) argue that the life of a the pattern of well- and poorly used informal public square forms naturally around its edge, to spaces in the City of London, which have failed to which people gravitate rather than linger out in the acknowledge the role of movement, have been open. 'If the edge fails, then the space never singularly unsuccessful. Thus, spaces hemmed in by becomes lively ... the space becomes a place to the traffic are often better used than adjacent walk through, not a place to stop.' They recom­ spaces; exposed spaces often perform better than mend that, rather than treating the edge of a space enclosed spaces (Hillier, 1996b, p. 52). Hillier as a 'line or interface with no thickness', it should argues that the only variable that correlates consis­ be conceived of 'as a "thing", a "place", a zone tently with the degree of use is what he calls the with volume to it' (p. 753). As a support for 'strategic value' of the isovist (a measure of the people-watching, the edge of a space can be visual permeability of a space, calculated by enhanced through the provision of formal or infor­ summing the integration values of all the axial lines mal places to sit. If these are at a slightly higher that pass through it). He argues that this makes level than the space, and partly protected from the

intuitive sense -· if the primary activity of those who weather (e.g. by an arcade), then both the stop to sit in urban spaces is people-watching, then prospect and the potential for people-watching are 'strategic spaces with areas close to - but not actu­ enhanced. Alexander et a/. (1 977, pp. 604-5), for ally lying on - the main lines of movement are opti­ example, observe that the most inviting spots are mal' (1 996b, p. 52). those high enough to provide a vantage point, but For Hillier Cl 996a, p. 161 ), the main fault in low enough to be used. many contemporary public spaces is the prioritising Building fas;ades should be designed so that of a sense of enclosure over visual permeability into buildings reach out to the street and offer an them. The key quality with respect to pedestrian 'active' frontage onto public space, adding interest use of public spaces is their 'connectedness' - in and vitality to the public realm. As windows and Hillier's term, integration. Hillier (1 996a, p. 161) doorways suggest a human presence, the more argues that if design is overlocalised (i.e. not well doors and windows onto public space the better. integrated), the natural movement pattern is The interface needs to enable indoor and 'private' disrupted, and the space tends to be underused. activities to exist in close physical proximity with His essential point is that urban designers must outdoor and 'public' ones. Views into buildings understand movement and design 'movement provide interest to passers-by, while views out put systems' - and therefore places - that are 'eyes on the street' and contribute to its safety. The connected: 'Places are not local things. They are number of doors/entrances generating activity moments in large-scale things, the large-scale directly visible from public space is a good indica­ things we call cities. Places do not make cities. It is tor of the potential for street life. Llewelyn-Davies cities that make places. The distinction is vital. We (2000, p. 89), for example, provide a scale to judge cannot make places without understanding cities' the performance of designs according to the inten­ (1 996b, p. 42). sity of active frontage (Box 8.1 ). The design and use of public space can also The antithesis of active frontage is blank usefully be considered in terms of the 'centre' and frontage. Whyte (1 988) railed against the blank the 'edge'. Alexander et a/. (1977, p. 606) assert walls, designed as such, which he felt were becom­ that a public space 'without a middle is quite likely ing the dominant townscape feature of US cities: to stay empty' . They recommend that between 'They are a declaration distrust of the city and its 'the natural paths which cross a public square ... streets and the undesirables who might be on of 174 Public Places - Urban Spaces

them.' While a 'technical explanation' (e.g. the intimidate.' Blank frontages not only deaden part need for consistent light levels) might be offered, of the street, they also break the continuity of expe­ this is rarely the real reason - blank walls are an end rience that is vital for the rest of it (Figures 8.1 0 and in themselves: 'They proclaim the power of the 8.1 1). institution, the inconsequence of the individual, Issues of active and blank fac;ades also feature in whom they are clearly meant to put down, if not residential design. Southworth and Owens (1 993,

FIGURE 8.10 Although residential uses bring life and activity to city centres, the configuration and integration of such developments affect the public realm's vitality. This residential development in Denver consists of a parking structure providing the street edge and frontage with a residential tower block above. Presenting a blank frontage to much of the public realm, the parking structure has a deadening effect on the city centre. A spatial concentration of such developments would undermine both activity and vitality and safety and security in the city centre The functional dimension 175

FIGURE 8.1 1 This house in East London, was deliberately designed with no windoUK, ws facing onto the street. The fat;:ade is regularly covered in graffiti pp. 282-3) note how, in the US, the role and posi­ three bays. As lots narrowed, it moved in front of tion of the garage usurped that of the porch, in a the house, displacing the front porch from its tradi­ transformation highlighting social changes and tional dominant position, and becoming a primary symbolising the primacy of the car in residential streetscape element and place of access. As lots environmental design. Originally, the porch narrowed further, front entry and porches disap­ enabled and symbolised 'entry', contributing peared, relegating pedestrian access to the house formally and functionally to a human scale street, to a narrow alley along the garage to a side door. while the qarage was a small structure towards the Southworth and Owens also note how - somewhat back of the plot. Gradually the garage came ironically - some residents had begun to use their forward to a position of prominence next to the garages as social spaces, equipping them with lawn house, and expanded from one to two or even chairs, radios and televisions, and treating them in

FIGURE 8.12 The garage door has become a dominant feature of the street scene of many residential developments. During the winter or the heat of the summer, the garage is undeniably a useful covered space for unloading groceries and for children's play space 176 Public Places - Urban Spaces

FIGURE 8.13 Seaside, Florida: New Urbanists have both reasserted the importance of the front porch and have returned the garage to the rear of the plot serviced from alleys. Unless the porch reclaims its functional role as the point of entry and of the transition between public and private realms, however, this may simply be a symbolic gesture a manner analogous to the old front porch. Unlike small-scale offices and shops; and small-scale indus­ the porch, however, these 'human' qualities are try. At the other end were car parking; warehouses; only conveyed when the garage door is open. large-scale industry; large-scale offices; blocks of When closed, it becomes a blank fa�ade. (Figures flats and supermarkets (Figure 8.14). 8.12 and 8.1 3). The public edge of buildings should also house activities that benefit from interaction with the public realm and contribute to vitality there. Richard MacCormac (1 983) discussed the 'osmotic' proper­ ties of streets: the way activities within buildings percolate through and infuse the street with life. Some land uses have very little relation to people in the street, while others involve and engage people. MacCormac characterised the activity generated by different land uses as their 'transactional' quality, and distinguished between 'local transactions', which are peculiar to place, sensitive to change, have active frontages and significant impact on street life, and generate many comings and goings; and 'foreign transactions', which can locate anywhere since they are carried out on a regional or national scale, and have frontages with very little impact on street life because their activity is inter­ nalised. This does not suggest that some uses have no place within an urban area, merely that they should have less claim to key street frontage and public space. To ensure busier, livelier spaces, more interactive uses must be adjacent to them. MacCormac established a spectrum of uses support­ ive of an animated public realm. At the greater FIGURE 8.14 interaction end of the spectrum were street Prague, Czech Republic. Street markets provide an markets; restaurants, cafes, bars, pubs; housing; intense series of local transactions The functional dimension 177

.• --"1 ------�------,

(i)

I ��� �� � � �- � �=��-� �-��-:I��=�� I' I

I I.

!.. ••. .

----; I

(ii)

FIGURE 8.1S FIGURE 8.16 Although a foreign transaction, London's Coliseum Designing for 'big box' retail. (i) Where big box sheds Theatre avoids causing a deadening effect on local are surrounded by parking, the potentially active street life by being embedded in the core of the street frontage is projected into the car park, rear elevations block, and partly surrounded by a perimeter of local are exposed and the streetscape is undermined; (ii) by transactions. The foreign transaction attains civic turning the sales floor through 90 degrees and inserting presence by appearing emblematically on the skyline. the building into a perimeter block, access is provided While the theatre is a foreign transaction, the front of from both sides, while creating active street frontage; house, box office and bar are all potentially local and (iii) to create active frontage, big box sheds can be transactions that will benefit the street edge surrounded by smaller units (source: adapted from Llewelyn-Davies, 2000, p. 43) 178 Public Places - Urban Spaces

Large buildings utilising a single entrance can others on the control of interaction. Each may have a particularly deadening impact on streets. In require its own design response or support. many urban environments, large firms and offices In urban design terms, 'privacy' is usually have usurped smaller traders and obtained presti­ defined in terms of selective control of access (to gious locations on the street frontage, where they individual or group) and of interaction (especially often offer little sense of activity relevant to the that which is unwanted). Need for privacy and public outside. In traditional urban environments, interaction varies among individuals, with respect large buildings with little to contribute to street life to personality, life stage, etc., and across different - such as law courts, churches and theatres - were cultures and societies. In many eastern cultures, often embedded in the urban fabric, with a limited concern for privacy has often been a major struc­ presence on the street frontage (MacCormac, turing element of urban areas. 1987). Appearing emblematically on the skyline, Privacy can be attained in a number of ways, such buildings freed the frontage for uses that including behavioural/management mechanisms interacted better with the street (Figure 8.1 5). This and strategies involving physical distance or the use traditional development pattern suggests a way of of visual or sonic 'screens'. Built-form influences on incorporating foreign transactions - e.g. 'big box' privacy take two forms: more or less permanent retail developments, which often stand alone with 'barriers' and 'filters' which allow individual control exposed 'dead' frontages - into urban settings, of privacy/interaction. In functional terms, privacy without having a deadening effect on local street can usefully be discussed in terms of 'visual' and life: the core of the development contains the 'aural' privacy. foreign transaction, while the perimeter houses local ones (Figure 8.16). For office buildings, locat­ Visual privacy ing active uses at the ground floor level can over­ come their deadening effect on the street. Issues of visual privacy typically relate to the inter­ face between the public and private realms and, in particular, the physical and visual 'permeability' PRIVACY between these realms. Rather than a simple duality of privacy/no privacy, there is a spectrum of privacy The edge of the public space network provides the needs. Chermayeff and Alexander (1 963, p. 37), interface between public and private realms and for example, argued that 'to develop both privacy needs to both enable interaction and protect and the true advantages of living in a community, privacy. As discussed in Chapter 4 and based on an entirely new anatomy of urbanism is needed, the public/private interface, all developments built of many hierarchies of clearly anticipated should have a 'front' onto public space. In terms of domains'. Designers must enable the requirements layout, the public fronts should face onto other of each privacy domain, while balancing these with fronts and onto public space, while the private opportunities for interaction. In domestic space, 'backs' should face onto private space and other privacy levels typically structure the position of backs. Used consistently, such a strategy reduces rooms, grading from the most accessible public the need for blank walls (i.e. instances where spaces such as the entrance hall, to the least acces­ private uses front onto public space). sible and most private spaces (e.g. bedrooms and Privacy is a complex concept. Westin (1 967, bathrooms) an ordering which relates to the posi­ from Mazumdar, 2000, p. 161) distinguished four tion of outdoor public space and access to the types: (1) 'solitude' (being alone); (2) 'intimacy' dwelling (Figure 8.1 7). (when a small number of people are together, Rather than a hard and impermeable interface undisturbed); (3) 'anonymity' (interaction with between public and private realms, a softer and others without being identifiable or accountable); more permeable one is often desirable. Activities in and (4) 'reserve' (the limiting of communication private space are not all equally private, and 'softer' about oneself). Mazumdar (2000, p. 161) added interfaces may create important interstitial or tran­ three further types: (5) 'seclusion' (being out of the sitional spaces (e.g. pavement cafes, or places way and difficult to find); (6) 'not neighbouring' where internal activities can be seen from outside). (avoiding contact with neighbours); and (7) 'isola­ While visual permeability can enrich the public tion' (being away from others). Some of these realm, if used wrongly, it can confuse the vital types of privacy are based on physical distance, public/private distinction. The permeability of the The functional dimension 1', 79

,. �

'l"" :>-

u <2 >�

FIGURE 8.17 � Positive privacy gradients maintain and ) \. respect the public/ PUBUC PRIVATE private distinction FRONT 1ll PRIVACY BACK (source: Bentley, 1999) �

public/private interface should be controlled by contexts in which it occurred that determined private users. In practice, however, the necessary whether it was intrusive. Furthermore, rather than degree of control is often absent: instead of the inability of people to adapt, psychic costs are enabling users to choose how much privacy they the major source of noise-induced problems. want through the use of adjustable 'filters', by Research, for example, has indicated that continual making permanent physical and visual barriers, exposure to background noise such as that found designers often decide for them. in relatively noisy neighbourhoods, can lead to At a development-wide scale, the overly-rigid raised blood pressure, heart rates and stress in chil­ use by planners of 'space between dwellings' stan­ dren, reducing maturation and leading to 'learned dards to ensure privacy is also to be avoided helplessness syndrome' (Evans et a/., 2001 ). because of the tendency to deliver both regi­ Design strategies can combat noise nuisance. A mented and monotonous layouts and low densities broad distinction can be made between noise­ with high land take. Designers should therefore generating activities (cafes, bars, night-clubs, traf­ balance distance with designed-in privacy strategies. fic, amplified music, etc.) and noise-sensitive uses such as housing. Measures can be taken to prevent or reduce the 'breakout' of noise, and/or separate Aural privacy it from noise-sensitive uses, by physical distance, Undesired sounds - usually termed 'noise' - can sound insulation, or the use of screens and barriers. disturb and invade privacy and activities. Although Within buildings, noise-sensitive uses can be noise can be considered to be 'unwanted' sound, it located away from noise sources, for example. As raises issues of unwanted by whom: one person's change may be unpredictable and impossible to music is another's 'unwanted sound'. Lang (1 994, control, a necessary precautionary principle should p. 226) notes that 'sonic comfort' depends not be to ensure that appropriate insulation is provided only on the decibel level of sound, but also on its for noise-sensitive uses from the start. As physical pitch, its source, and perceptions of the degree to distance from the noise source is often impractical, which hearers have control over it. While people the other main means to obstruct the sound path can adapt to extraordinarily noisy environments, is by solid screening (i.e. solid fencing) or earth­ sonic pollution is an increasing concern. Noise bunds (trees and tree belts have very little effect). disturbance also has a temporal dimension: a given type and level of sound is more acceptable at some times of the day or week than at others. MIXED USE AND DENSITY Glass and Singer (1 972, from Krupat, 1985, p. 114) found that, rather than the physical char­ A sufficient density of activity and people has often acteristics of noise, it was the social and cognitive been regarded as a prerequisite of vitality, and for 180 Public Places - Urban Spaces

creating and sustaining viable mixed use. jane jacobs (1 961 , p. 163) argued that city life has much to do with density. For her, New York's Greenwich Village, with densities ranging from 31 0 to 500 dwellings per net hectare, was the optimum environment (p. 216). Similarly, the UK's Urban Task Force (1 999, p. 59) noted that Barcelona - described as the 'most compact and vibrant Euro­ pean city' - has an average density of about 400 dwellings per hectare. Another key aspect of creating a lively and well­ used public realm is the spatial and temporal concentration of different land uses and activities. In response to the sterility produced by the func­ tional zoning policies and practices of much post­ war planning and urban development, the mixing of uses has become a widely accepted urban design objective. Areas may have mixed uses in either or both of two ways: by having a mix of single-use buildings or by having buildings which each contain a mix of uses (e.g. living over the shop). The latter is generally preferable.

Mixed uses

Although a fundamental part of Modernist urban design (see Chapter 2), functional zoning approaches have been much criticised. jacobs (1 961 , p. 155), for example, argued that the vital­ ity of city neighbourhoods depends on the over­ lapping and interweaving of activities, and that understanding cities requires dealing with combi­ nations or mixtures of uses as the 'essential phenomena'. She outlined four conditions indis­ pensable to the generation of 'exuberant diversity' in a city's streets and districts:

The district ... must serve more than one • primary function; preferably more than two ... Most blocks must be short; that is, streets and • opportunities to turn corners must be frequent. The district must mingle buildings that vary in • age and condition ... (iii) There must be a sufficiently dense concentration • of people, for whatever purposes that may be FIGURE 8.18 Designing for mixed uses. (i) If all the potential there. (Jacobs, 1961, pp. 162-3) (Figure 8.1 8). 'mixed-use elements' are located at the edge of the development, it undermines the role of the centre; (ii) It is not necessarily zoning per se that is problem­ although geographically proximate, the uses are still atic, but the type of zoning and how it is applied. zoned with roads forming the boundaries between uses; Leon Krier (1 990, pp. 208-9) illustrates two types: and (iii) more vibrant and sustainable neighbourhoods and areas result from the complex interweaving of uses 'inclusive' zoning, where 'all is permitted and and by blurring the distinctions between uses (source: promoted that is not strictly forbidden'; exclusion adapted from Llewelyn-Davies, 2000, p. 39) The functional dimension 181 is based on environmental 'nuisance' or incompat­ ibility ('bad nei9hbours') and - in principle - vari­ ous uses can occupy the same area. By contrast, in the case of 'exclusive' zoning, 'all that is not specif­ ically obligatory is strictly forbidden'. This is often zoning for its own sake, a routine and largely unquestioned process of mechanical separation of differing land uses and functions for no real purpose other than a misguided sense of order. Criticisms of functional zoning do not, however, Type I invalidate the mechanism of zoning. Kropf (1 996, p. 723) argues that, rather than the general princi­ ple of defining areas controlled by particular regu­ lations, what is important is the specific content of zoning ordinance. Some commentators suggest shifting the emphasis from 'use' to 'form' (e.g. from functional to 'typo-morphological' zoning) (Moudon, 1994). In practice, however, conven­ tional systems of land use zoning have often regu­ lated form as well as use. Over the past decade a Type II more explicit use of form-based zoning has been used in some urban design work, notably that of the New Urbanists (Figure 8.19). In many countries, post-war functional zoning policies have increasingly been abandoned. Never­ theless, although the original need - to separate noxious industries from housing - has now largely gone, the rnindset that uses should be neatly sepa­ rated has proved more enduring. Social, institu­ tional, financial and political conservatism, together with interests such as discrimination, market Type IV segmentation, product differentiation, and protec­ tion of property prices, also perpetuate and support FIGURE 8.19 Duany and Plater-Zybeck (DPZ) developed the master functional zoning. In many parts of the US, for plan and the urban and architectural codes for Seaside example, strict segregation is now applied to every (Florida, US) - a seminal New Urbanist project. The use, with typical zoning codes having several dozen development is typologically rather than functionally land-use designations, and producing an extremely zoned and trades 'uniformity of function within a zone' for a 'variety of building types within a neighbourhood' segregated environment - both physically and (Kelbaugh, 1997, p. 1 06). Nine different types of socially - which both derives from, and appeals to, development were defined. Within an overall the self-interest of many local property owners. conception of the desired three-dimensional form, the Market !factors may also result in mono-func­ master plan allocates each development site a particular tional areas. Because all developers and property development type. The diagrams show the location of Types I, II and IV (source: Mohney and Easterling, 1991, owners seek to develop or utilise their property in pp. 1 01 -2) its 'highest and best' possible use, there is a tendency for areas to be mono-functional. This tendency is reduced where secondary uses have a symbiotic relation with the area's dominant one. Where it has sufficient powers, the public sector More convenient access to facilities. • can intervene to limit the area that can be devel­ Minimising travel-to-work congestion. • oped for the primaryuse, and/or to protect certain Greater opportunities for social interaction. • sites for other uses. Socially diverse communities. • Llewelyn-Davies (2000, p. 39) identifies the A greater feeling of safety through more 'eyes • following benefits of mixed-use development: on the street' . 182 Public Places - Urban Spaces

Greater energy efficiency and more efficient use or even within buildings - although, equally, such • of space and buildings. requirements might make development unviable. More consumer choice of lifestyle, location and Market volatility provides a rationale for mixed­ • building type. use developments. Primary office locations are Greater urban vitality and street life. likely always to be fully let. In secondary locations, • Increased viability of urban facilities and however, office property markets are more volatile • support for small business. and the effects of recessions and downturns are keenly felt. All or part of office buildings in these While functional zoning and mono-functional locations may periodically be vacant, and it may development often create or exacerbate car-depen­ produce a better overall return to have a mix of dency and reduce choice, mixed-use developments office and residential uses, because the building generally enable walking or, at least, choice in may be let more readily for residential use (albeit at travel mode, and are therefore more sustainable. a lower return). Thus, in a secondary location, a They also offer more lifestyle choices. Duany et a/. mixed-use building with flexibility between land (2000, p. 25) argue, for example, that because one uses may spread the risk of vacancy. can live above the store, next to the store, five Although the mixing of uses may occur sponta­ minutes from the store, or nowhere near the store, neously through market action, appropriate physi­ the traditional neighbourhood provides for an array cal provision of robust buildings or development of lifestyles. By contrast, they argue that suburbia patterns increases the possibility of a mix emerging offers only one lifestyle - to own a car and to need over time. If no provision is made, this is unlikely to it for everything. occur. The need, therefore, is to design for the Despite general support for the principle of possibility. Creation of mixed uses in existing areas mixed-use buildings, developments and areas, the often involves introducing residential uses into non­ property industry in general, developers, investors residential areas (e.g. the CBD or city centre) or and some occupiers, are averse to mixed uses non-residential uses into residential areas (e.g. within the same building. Several interrelated suburbs). The design challenge is to gain the factors account for this: synergy and benefits of mixed uses, while avoiding bad neighbour situations. In examining the land­ Development: the additional costs of developing use pattern of traditional urban neighbourhoods, • mixed-use buildings (for different fire escape MacCormac (1 987) noted the tendency for symme­ requirements, etc.); and the institutional struc­ try of land uses across spaces, and asymmetry across ture of the development industry, with devel­ blocks. This suggests ways of incorporating different opers tending to specialise in a particular uses into an area while reducing the potential for development type (residential, commercial, negative or bad neighbour effects. There might, for etc.). example, be a grading of uses across a series of Management: occupiers not wanting certain blocks, with intermediary uses between any that • other users of the building for reasons of would be incompatible as direct neighbours. incompatibility or security; and additional costs Another useful development pattern is that of involved in having multiple users, due to differ­ perimeter blocks, which can accommodate a mix of ent leasing, safety or environmental health uses in a number of different ways: for example, by requirements. insertion of managed workspaces or compatible Investment: different leasing periods reduce the employment uses into the backland or block inte­ • liquidity, and therefore the value, of the devel­ rior; introduction of a mews line through the block opment. accommodating single-aspect offices, workshops or studios; and/or placing a residential mews within a There may also be physical, legal or financial obsta­ commercial block (Liewelyn-Davies, 2000, p. 96). cles that prohibit or increase the cost of accommo­ dating different land uses within one building. The need, therefore, is to find ways of providing or Density enabling mixed uses through persuasion, regula­ tion, or financial incentives. Planning policies, Recent debates about the creation of more sustainable master plans, or urban design frameworks could and compact towns and cities have led to a renewed require an element of mixed uses in developments focus on issues of density, especially residential density The functional dimension 1U3

(e.g. Urban Task Force, 1999). The argument is that Social: encouraging positive interaction and • compact cities can offer a high quality of life while diversity; improving viability of and access to minimising resource and energy consumption. Achiev- community services. ing higher densities than has been the norm in the Economic: enhancing the economic viability of • latter part of the twentieth century in the UK and the development and providing economies of infra­ US, for example,. is regarded as fundamental to the structure (e.g. basement car parking). creation of more sustainable environments - as Transport: supporting public transport and • discussed in Chapter 2, the study by Newman and reducing car travel and parking demand. Kenworthy (1 989) showed the relationship between Environmental: increasing energy efficiency; • density and gasoline consumption for several cities decreasing resource consumption; creating less throughout the world. Llewelyn-Davies (2000, p. 46) pollution; preserving, and helping fund the suggests a range of benefits from higher densities of maintenance of, public open space; reducing development: overall demand for development land. 184 Public Places - Urban Spaces

Although more compact and higher density devel­ ies showed that density must be considered in opment is currently encouraged, it often conflicts terms of the configuration of urban form - that is, with sociocultural preferences for lower density as a product rather than a determinant of design. environments and for car-based mobility (see Box 8.2 shows three configurations of urban forms: Breheny, 1995, 1997). While lower density was a single point block; a traditional street layout and initially a response to conditions within the indus­ a perimeter block enclosing an open space. Each trial cities of the nineteenth century, during the has the same density (75 dwellings per hectare) but twentieth century it became an objective in its own a different arrangement of public and private space. right, backed by various regulations that effectively Despite an overarching preference for higher prohibited higher density development, and thus densities, jacobs (1 961, p. 221 ) concluded that virtually mandated suburban sprawl. In his review 'proper' city densities were a 'matter of perfor­ of twentieth century British housing design, mance' and could not be based on abstractions Scoffham (1 984, p. 23) notes how density zoning, about the quantity of land needed for X number of road widths, sight lines, the space required for people. Similarly, Llewelyn-Davies (2000, p. 46) underground services, street by-laws and daylight­ suggests the aim should be to generate a critical ing angles were all to blame for pushing buildings mass of people able to support urban services such further and further apart. as local shops, schools and public transport. While higher densities are sometimes equated Research by Owens (from P. Hall, 1998, p. 972) also with poor quality environments, high quality urban suggests that there is no need for very high densi­ design is - in principle - achievable at all densities. ties. Twenty-five dwellings per hectare, for example, At higher density levels, however, good design would allow facilities with a catchment area of 8000 becomes essential to protect amenity (particularly people to be within 600 metres of all homes, while privacy standards) and to provide liveable environ­ a pedestrian scale cluster of 20 000-30 000 people ments. Preconceptions of high density development would provide a sufficient threshold for many facil­ can elicit concerns: however, studies by Elizabeth ities without resort to high densities. Denby (1 956) showed that the densities of highly Considerations of density - and particularly of desirable Georgian and early Victorian terraces were the density required to make public transit schemes often much higher than those achieved by high­ viable - have often formed the basis of neighbour­ rise, supposedly high density, housing develop­ hoods designed for sustainability; for example, ments. Studies by Martin and March (1972) and Calthorpe's (1 993) idea of transit-oriented devel­ March (1 967) also dispelled some of the precon­ opment (TOD) (Figure 8.20). Research in the UK ceptions about density (see Chapter 4). These stud- suggests that net densities of 1 00 persons per

Secondary Area .

FIGURE 8.20 Transit-Oriented Development (TOO) (source: Calthorpe, 1993) The functional dimension 18!) hectare (approximately 45 units/ha) are necessary The positioning of access roads and pedestrian • to sustain a good bus service, while, in more paths, trees and other vegetation, walls, fences central locations, a net density of 240 persons/ha and other obstructions. (or 60 units/ha) will sustain a tram service (Liewe­ The orientation of internal and external spaces • lyn-Davies, p. 47). The argument is that if and far;:ades with respect to the direction of neighbourhoods are built at low den:;ities, it is sunlight and shade. unlikely that:woo, public transit systems will ever The massing, grouping, and space between • become viable. This reflects Lang's pragmatic prin­ buildings. ciple of urban design: if travel options are consid­ The wind environment. • ered in terms of providing choice, then flexibility The positioning of main entrances and other • should be built in for the possibility of relative travel openings acting as transitions between inside costs changiing in the future. and outside conditions. Landscape, planting and pools/fountains to • enhance natural cooling. ENVIRONMENTAL DESIGN Environmental noise and pollution. (Pitts, • 1999) An essential part of urban design is the need to provide comfortable conditions within public Responding to both the local and global contexts, spaces: if spaces are not comfortable, they are the need is for 'climate sensitive design'. Whi1le unlikely to be used. Levels of sunli9ht, shade, traditional designs were necessarily well suited to temperature, humidity, rain, snow, wind and noise the local climate, in many countries this close asso­ have an impact upon our experience and use of ciation between climate and design has been urban environments. A number of design actions severed by the use of rapid construction tech­ can help to make conditions more acceptable, niques, and the availability of fuels and building including the configuring of space, and use of services systems to overcome any detrimental buildings, walls, trees, canopies and arcades for effects. The vogue for an architectural International shade and shelter. Desirable conditions vary by Style also resulted in the inappropriate translation season, and by the activities taking place. of building designs from one region to another, The following sections concern environmental without regard to the local climate. conditions in public spaces and around buildings, in terms of microclimate, sunlight and shelter, air movement about buildings, and lighting. Designing for sun and shade

Sunlight penetration into urban places and into The microclimate buildings helps to make them more pleasant places. It also encourages outdoor activities; reduces mould Microclimate is often neglected in urban design. growth; improves health by providing the body Designers can have little influence on the overall with vitamin E; encourages plant growth; and macroclimatic situation and, except on very large provides a cheap, readily available source of energy sites or in designing new settlements,. they often for passive and active collection. The value of have only a limited effect on features affecting the sunlight penetration varies over the seasons and, climate at the meso-scale. Such features include the while places in the sun are desirable at some times nature of the surroundings and topographical of year, at other times shade is preferred. elements such as hills and valleys which affect Two major issues are of concern: orientation -· in exposure to wind. Design decisions have, however, northern latitudes, for example, south-facing eleva­ an important influence in modifying the impact of tions receive the maximum sunlight and north­ the microclimate to make spaces more comfort­ facing elevations the least - and overshadowing able. Relevant factors at this scale include: and shading. In terms of the latter, the following should be considered: The configuration of the proposed develop­ • ment, and its effect on and relationship to The sun's position (altitude and azimuth) rela­ • buildings and other influences at the site tive to public spaces and to the principal boundary. far;:ades of buildings. 186 Public Places - Urban Spaces

TABLE 8.1 Windspeed and effects

SITUATION WINDSPEED (MIS) EFFECT

Calm, light air 0-1 .5 Calm • No noticeable wind effect • light breeze 1.6-3.3 Wind felt on face • Gentle breeze 3.4-5.4 Wind extends light flag • Hair is disturbed • Clothing flaps • Moderate breeze 5.5-7.9 Raises dust, dry soil, loose paper • Hair disarranged • Fresh breeze 8.0-1 0.7 Force of wind felt on body • Drifting snow becomes airborne • Limits of agreeable wind on land • Strong breeze 10.8-1 3.8 Umbrella used with difficulty • Hair blown straight • Difficult to walk • Wind noise on ears unpleasant • Wind-borne snow above head height (blizzard) • Near gale 13.9-1 7.1 Inconvenience felt when walking • Gale 17.2-20.7 Generally impedes progress • Great difficulty with balance in gusts • Strong gale 20.8-24.4 People blown over by gusts •

(from Penwarden Wise (1975), from Bentley 1985, 75)

& et a/., p.

Site orientation and slope. within public spaces and around building • Existing obstructions on the site. entrances and the activities that might occur there • The potential for overshadowing from obstruc­ (Table 8.1 ). If the wind effect is to be minimised • tions beyond the site boundary. (as is usually the case), the following factors should The potential to overshadow nearby buildings be considered: • and spaces. (Pitts, 1999) Building dimensions should be kept to a mini­ • Solar access can be evaluated by the use of charts mum to reduce wind pressures. such as a stereographic sun chart. As well as graph­ The larger building dimension should not face • ical and computer prediction techniques, physical into the predominating wind (i.e. the long axis models can be tested using a heliodon. If over­ should be parallel to it). shadowing is to be avoided during winter months Building layouts should avoid creating tunnel • (when solar gain is most advantageous), the spac­ effects (e.g. long parallel rows of relatively ing between buildings is very significant. Trees will smooth-faced buildings should be avoided). also provide obstructions to solar access. If decidu­ As sheer vertical faces to tall buildings can • ous, they will perform the dual function of permit­ generate substantial down draughts, the ting solar penetration during the winter and a fac;:ades of tall buildings should be staggered degree of shading in the summer. The spacing and stepped back with increasing height away between tree and building is again critical. from the prevailing wind (i.e. tending towards a ziggurat form). Protection of pedestrians by the use of canopies • The wind environment and podiums, which reduce down draught at ground level. Wind flow has a substantial effect on the comfort Buildings should be grouped in irregular arrays, • of pedestrians, the environmental conditions but within each group, the heights should be The functional dimension llll7

similar and the spacing between them kept to vegetation. To dissipate air pollution, good air a minimum .. circulation about buildings and within urban Shelter belts (trees, hedges, walls, fences, etc.) spaces is required - which may conflict with • can provide a degree of protection for buildings aesthetic desires for a sense of enclosure in urban and pedestrians. They are most effective when spaces (see Chapter 7) (Figure 8.21 ). correctly oriented and with a permeability to Airflow inside buildings can be created by airflow of about 40 per cent, allowing wind to natural ventilation or by artificial mechanical venti­ be diffused rather than forced over the obstruc­ lation or air conditioning. In general, designers tion which causes increased turbulence. (BRE, should seek to minimise the need for artificial 1990; Pitts, 1999) systems. If airflow is to provide natural ventilation and cooling, the plan form needs to be relatively In very humid climates, external spaces may need shallow. For successful cross-ventilation, the cross­ to be designed to encourage a greater through­ sectional depth should be a maximum of five times flow of cooling air. In more arid climates, fountains the floor-to-window head height (see Chapter 9). and water features in public spaces help cooling through the evaporation of water vapour. Lighting Air quality is an increasingly important consider­ ation in urban areas. Trees and other vegetation Natural lighting makes an important contribution tend to filter air, while rainfall scrubs it. In high to the character and utility of public space, and the concentratiions, pollution will tend to kill natural play of light in urban spaces also has aesthetic dimensions. Louis Kahn wrote that: 'The sunlight did not know what it was before it hit a wall' (in von Meiss, 1990, p. 121 ). The amount of visible sky - particularly overhead, where it is brighter than at the horizon - is crucial to the quality of daylight­ ing. Except where particularly tall or large buildings surround the space, adequate daylighting - as distinct from direct sunlight - of an urban space is rarely a problem. A basic rule of thumb, used in the UK, is that obstructions which subtend an angle of less than 25 degrees to the horizontal will not usually interfere with good daylighting, while greater obstructions need not interfere provided they are relatively narrow (Littlefair, 1991 ). The riUie will change with relative latitude. In general, buildings should make as much beneficial use of natural light as possible. The qual­ ity of the daylighting in a room depends on the design and position of fenestration relative to the depth and shape of the room, and on whether surrounding buildings obstruct light penetration. Shallower plans will be better lit than deeper ones (see Chapter 9). Although artificial lighting can make a positive contribution to the character and utility of urban spaces, it is often designed with only vehicular traf­ FIGURE 8.21 fic in mind and tends to be inefficient in energy use, Air quality at street level. Street canyons lined with resulting in light pollution. It has two key functions: buildings of similar height, oriented perpendicular to the wind direction (upper diagram) tend to have poorer air 1. 'Statutory lighting' - provides basic lighting circulation than street canyons lined with buildings of levels, to aid pedestrian way-finding and the different hei·ghts and interspersed with open areas (lower diagram) (source: Spirn (1 987, pp. 31 1-12) from secure use of the public realm at night, and the Vernez-Moudon, 1987, p. 31 1) safe passage of vehicles. 188 Public Places - Urban Spaces

2. 'Amenity lighting' - which enhances the developments, with aspirational targets in areas streetscene through flood, feature and low­ with little existing provision. Rather than being an level lighting; and gives night-time colour and afterthought - as a use for Space Left Over After vitality through signs, shop-lighting and Planning (SLOAP) - open space should be an inte­ seasonal lighting. grated and important part of the urban design vision for a place, often as a key focus for public life. In practice, the lighting of streets at night derives A number of towns and cities, including the British from a wide range of sources - street lamps, New Towns, have developed sophisticated open borrowed light from buildings, shop signs, etc. - space frameworks creating 'green' corridors and the ensemble needs careful consideration to through urban areas for recreational purposes and meet both statutory and amenity needs. To achieve for wildlife. Integration of natural and built envi­ this and to enhance the night-time economy, a ronments is a key objective of sustainable develop­ number of towns and cities, such as Croydon ment. (London) and Edinburgh (Scotland), have adopted comprehensive lighting strategies. Well-lit streets and spaces are particularly important in making Road and fo otpath design users feel safe and secure (see Chapter 6). The requirements of cars rather than people often dominate the design of urban environ­ THE CAPITAL WEB ments. If vehicular speeds can be lowered - by controls and regulations, by speed bumps or As discussed in Chapter 4, the capital web is made other obstacles, or, more subtly, by manipulating up of the above and below ground elements of the and configuring sight lines - then car-oriented city's infrastructure. The major capital web consid­ standards can be lowered as well. As discussed in erations in urban design are: the provision of public Chapter 4, post-war concern for segregation of open space; road and footpath design; parking and pedestrian and vehicular traffic, initially on the servicing; and other infrastructure. While these grounds of personal safety, often meant pedestri­ apply in most developments, this list is neither ans could only cross busy roads by underground exclusive nor comprehensive. subways or overground foot bridges. Car-free pedestrian precincts have been used, with mixed success: some are almost deserted outside office Public open space hours, while others are very successful. Detailed analysis is necessary to determine why some are Public open space offers recreational opportunities, successful and others are not, but the mix of uses wildlife habitats, venues for special events, and the and the opportunity they provide for activity at opportunity for the city to breathe. At the larger different times of the day is likely to play a major scale, areas of public open space should link into a part. network giving opportunities for the movement of In general, the contemporary ethos is to design people and wildlife between them. At a smaller pedestrian-dominant rather than car-dominant scale, standards are often set by public authorities environments: without banishing the car, such to ensure minimum provision: in the UK, the approaches give priority to pedestrians. This has National Playing Fields Association requires 2.4 seen extensive pedestrianisation of city centres; hectares (6 acres) per thousand population pavement widening/road-narrowing schemes; and (1 .6-1 .8 hectares for outdoor sport, plus 0.6-0.8 the closing of subways and reintroduction of hectares for children's playing space). Such provi­ surface level crossings. Many residential streets sion should be locally accessible, within easy walk­ have been traffic-calmed: the Dutch, for example, ing distance of all homes. The NPFA (1 992) also have employed the concept of the woonerf(home­ suggest Local Areas of Play (LAPs) within 1 00 m of zones in the UK). At a larger scale, there have been homes, and larger Locally Equipped Areas for Play schemes to introduce road pricing, and - typically, (LEAPs) within 400 m. in historic European cities - the banning of all cars The provision of open space is particularly from city centres. important in higher density environments. Appro­ Road and footpath design has a set of basic priate standards should be established in all new requirements: The functional dimension HS9

maintain safety and personal security through design guidance proposes that highway considera­ • reducing vehicle speeds, discouraging road and tions should move beyond matters of safety and footpath separation and increasing passive vehicle flow efficiency, to encompass concern for surveillance; environmental quality, pedestrian permeability and increase permeability and access by all modes three-dimensional space design (Carmona, 2001, • of travel but particularly by foot; p. 283). Advice in the 1997 'Essex Design Guide' encourage directness by acknowledging and (Essex Planning Officers Association, 1997), for • emphasisin9 'desire lines' in development (i.e. example, suggested: the most convenient route to where people wish to go) and roads that are well connected spaces should come first, with buildings • to their surroundings; arranged to fit the context and roads design in sympathy with the local context, to 'plumbed' in later (see Figures 8.22 and 8.23); • ensure an attractive development in which designating 20 mph zones in residential areas; • clearly defined spaces, landscaping and build­ adopting a network of spaces rather than a • ings dominate, rather than roads or cars; hierarchy of roads; increase legibility through the design of layouts adopting a sustainable movement framework • • in which the overall structure and local visual well related to public transport and an inte­ references are clear. grated mix of uses; and using 'connected' rather than cul-de-sac road • These requirements must be reconciled with the layouts (Carmona, 2001 , p. 306). needs and efficiency of the road network. The interests of the highways engineer in attaining road The overall need is to create pedestrian-dominant safety and efficiency may, however, conflict with environments that offer a choice of modes of travel. the broader aim of overall environmental quality. There will inevitably be areas where cars dominate, Frequently, local authorities have adopted a hierar­ and areas where pedestrians dominate. In resolving chy of highway standards which have led to over­ competing claims for space, the aim must be to engineerin9 of many (particularly residential) avoid car-dependent environments, because that environments, and over-reliance on simple stan­ dependency reduces the potential to be sustainable. dards to design new road systems. Increasingly, Cars can be reconciled to systems designed to give traffic-calming methods are being used, and more pedestrians, cycling and public transport priority, sophisticated design guidance from local authori­ but it is difficult for other modes of travel to fit into ties is abandoning hierarchical approaches to systems designed for cars. The priorities for move­ designing road layouts which now appear oversim­ ment should therefore be: first by foot and cyc le, plistic and encouraging car-dominance. The new then public transport and, finally, by car. This

FIGURE 8.22 Many housing developments are laid out around roads without consideration of the spaces that are created between the individual (usually standard) housing units. This can be characterised as a 'roads first, houses later approach' - a form of road-dominated design that neglects other important elements of the residential environment (source: DETR, 1998, p. 23) 190 Public Places - Urban Spaces

FIGURE 8.23 'Tracking' is the provision of the required carriageway width for vehicle movement within the overall width of the street. The idea is an attempt to suggest alternatives to the 'roads first, houses later' approach to residential design. Instead of taking the highway engineering requirements as the starting point for design (i.e. a 'roads first' approach), the arrangement of buildings and enclosure is considered first and the roads are plumbed in later (i.e. a 'spaces first' approach). In the first diagram, buildings are arranged to form street enclosure. In the second, footways are laid out in front of buildings to reinforce the space and enclosure. In the third, the carriageway width is checked by plotting vehicle-tracking paths (source: DETR, 1998, p. 55)

requires routes for pedestrians or cyclists being built Where locations are well served by public trans­ into the plan from the outset, because fitting them port, the required parking standard may be in later will be difficult, if not impossible. reduced. Establishing maximum rather than mini­ mum parking standards can discourage car use - although problems of overspill onto adjacent Parking and servicing streets must be considered. Car-free housing, where residents contract not to own cars, has been Despite well-aired arguments for reducing reliance developed in a few locations that are well on private cars, parking is a requirement of connected with public transport, while some other contemporary living that is likely to remain for the developments require purchasers to make addi­ foreseeable future. Indeed, space for parking is tional payments for a parking space. Some cities required within all environments, urban, suburban and developments have car club and car pool or rural. A particular problem, however, is that of schemes, where a range of cars - from people integrating parking successfully into the streetscene carriers and four-wheel drive vehicles to small city and nearby developments. Parking needs to be: 'run-arounds' - is owned and used collectively by members. Car clubs are well established in several sufficient to cater for contemporary needs; northern European countries. In Germany, for • convenient (i.e. located close to destinations) example, a club called StattAuto has 20 000 • for all users, including those with disabilities; members and serves 18 cities with 1 000 cars of attractive by limiting its visual intrusion (use of varying sizes (Richards, 2001, pp. 122-3). In the • landscaping and quality materials can success­ US, some mortgage companies have experimented fully integrate on- and off-street parking); and with location specific mortgages. Where a property safe and secure. is being bought in a location well served by public • The functional dimension 1 !�1 transit, the mortgage loan may be higher than framework; any public transport network and inflra­ normal on the basis that the buyer does not have structure; public facilities (e.g. shops) and services the expense of owning and running a car. (e.g. schools). Below ground it incorporates walter Contemporary developments also require space supply networks; sewage disposal systems; electric for servicing, including business deliveries; waste grids; the gas supply networks; telephone disposal, storage and collection; recycling points; networks; cable networks; combined heat and lig1ht emergency access; removals; cleaning and mainte­ systems; and underground transit systems. nance; and utilities access. However, many of these Infrastructure networks are becoming increas­ elements can be very disruptive in the streetscene. ingly important in, and as a key generative element Due to their scale, service vehicles, for example, of, the development of urban areas (Mitchell, require wider streets, larger setbacks, open service 1994, 1999; Horan, 2000; Graham and Marvin, yards and �Japing service bays. In residential areas, 2001 ). Unless there is ubiquitous provision, the in particular, intimacy and variety in the streetscene network inevitably advantages one location over can be disrupted by the requirements of service another, and the pattern of infrastructure is a vehicles including the statutory requirement for significant factor in determining where develop­ adequate access provision to be made for emer­ ment occurs. Graham and Marvin (2001, p. 1 :B), gency vehicles. But servicing arrangements can be however, note how architects, planners and urban integrated with care and should not dictate the designers have 'tended to neglect networked infra­ overall layout o1r character of an area. structures and the flows and mobilities that they support ...the networked infrastructures that knit buildings together, binding and configuring the Infrastructure broader spaces of metropolitan life'. Until relatively recently, traditional street systems An area's infrastructure -above and below ground have adapted well to the requirements for below - has usually been built up over many centuries. ground infrastructure. However, incremental and With each urban intervention, it is adapted or ad hoc provision has overloaded many streets, and extended. Above ground, the capital web incorpo­ causes conflicts - as shown by the poor state of rates the public space network and landscaping many street trees whose root systems have been

FIGURE 8.2·4 Intensification around suburban railway stations can introduce new residential and commercial uses on previously underused sites, thereby increasing an area's vitality and allowing residents on the surrounding (unchanged) suburban streets to meet more of their everyday needs locally (source: CPRE, 2001 ) 192 Public Places - Urban Spaces

damaged. In general, there is a need to consider of isolating it from its context and from its contri­ the seen and unseen capital web in the design bution to the greater whole. Discussing the design process; to plan for flexibility and future of speed humps from the perspective of engineers changes/additions; and to integrate development and of urban designers, for example, Appleyard in a sustainable manner, minimising the need for (1 991 , pp. 7-8) argued that: new infrastructure and reducing disruption to that The engineer will tend to design a speed hump which exists (see Graham and Marvin, 1996, solely for the purpose of slowing the traffic in a 2001 ). New elements, especially public transport, safe. and cheap way. These humps can be quite are also a means to improve the public realm (see ugly - lumps of asphalt that convey a negative Richards, 2001) (Figure 8.24). controlling impression to the drivers. The urban designer favours more pleasant humps, perhaps made of bricks, that can also serve as CONCLUSION raised crosswalks fo r pedestrians. This chapter has discussed the functional dimen­ The latter is a multi-dimensional rather than a uni­ sion of urban design, reinforcing the notion of it as dimensional solution. Appleyard (1 991 , p. 8), a design process. As discussed in Chapter 3, the therefore, argues that while the economist may see criteria of good design - 'firmness', 'commodity', the resolution of differences in terms of 'compro­ 'delight' and 'economy' - must be satisfied simul­ mise' and 'trade-offs', the urban designer offers taneously. In any design process, there is a danger creative ingenuity and adds value through the reso­ of narrowly prioritising a particular dimension - lution of the differences - in the example, combin­ aesthetic, functional, technical or economic - and ing functionality with visual and social objectives. The temporal dimension

INTRODUCTION ments that can accommodate the inevitability of time's passage. Third, urban environments change This chapter concerns the temporal or 'time' over time, and urban design projects, policies, etc., dimension of urban design. Although sometimes are implemented over time. considered to be a matter of working in three dimensions, urban design is four-dimensional: the fourth dimension being time. As time passes, TIME CYCLES spaces become lived-in places, made more mean­ ingful by their time-thickened qualities. As Kevin The first way in which we know that time has Lynch (1 972, p. 65) observes, we experience the passed is through rhythmic repetition. The main passage of time in the urban environment in two time cycles are based on natural cycles, the domi­ ways: through 'rhythmic repetition': 'the heart­ nant one being the 24-hour circadian cycle that beat, breathing, sleeping and waking, hunger, the results from the Earth's rotation, and affects sleep­ cycles of sun and moon, the seasons, waves, tides, ing and waking and other bodily cycles. Working clocks'; and through 'progressive and irreversible and leisure time, mealtimes, and so on, are overlain change': '�Jrowth and decay, not recurrence but on this basic cycle. The cycle of the year and the alteration'. Time and space are intimately related. changing seasons are also rooted in the period of In his excellent overview of the relationship the Earth's rotation around the sun. The tilt in the between ti1me and the built environment, What Earth's axis changes the angle of the sun relative to Time Is Th is Place?, Kevin Lynch (1 972b, p. 241 ) the Earth's surface, thereby varying the length of argued that space and time 'are the great frame­ sunlit daytime through the year and creating the work within which we order our experience. We cycle of the seasons. Moving away from the equa­ live in time-places.' For Patrick Geddes, a city 'is tor, the effect of the different seasons becomes more than a place in space, it is a drama in time' increasingly pronounced: in more northerly (or (from Cowan, 1995, p. 1 ). southerly) latitudes, winter days are much shorter In this chapter, three key aspects of the tempo­ and summer days much longer. ral dimension of urban design are discussed. First, Facilitating and encouraging the use of urban as activities are fluid in space and time, environ­ spaces requires an understanding of the effects of ments are used differently at different times. Urban the cycles of day and night, the seasons, and designers need to understand time cycles and the related cycles of activity. At different times of the time management of activities in space. Second, day and night, the urban environment is perceived although environments relentlessly change over and used differently. It can be a rewarding and time, a high value is often placed on some degree enlightening experience for urban designers to of continuity and stability. Urban designers need to observe a 'life in a day' of a public space, or the understand how environments change, what stays same space over the course of the seasons: that is, the same and what changes over time. They also to study its social anthropology and notice, lfor need to be able to design and manage environ- example, its changing rhythms and pulses - now

193 194 Public Places - Urban Spaces

busy, now quiet - and the different people using according to 'mechanical time'. We no longer, for the space - more women at some times, more men example, rise with the dawn and retire to bed at at others. sunset. Zerubavel suggests that we are 'increasingly Cycles of activity are also grounded in the detaching ourselves from "organic and functional changing seasons. During the winter in northern periodicity" which is dictated by nature and are temperate climates, for example, even at noon, the replacing it by "mechanical periodicity" which is sun is low in the sky. Days are typically grey, wet, dictated by the schedule, the calendar and the windy and cold. People may use external spaces clock'. Despite its historical - and decreasingly rele­ only when necessary. In the spring, leaves start to vant religious and economic - basis, the rhythm of appear on trees, and people begin to linger in the week is highly artificial. urban spaces, enjoying the warmth of the sun. In Krietzman (1 999, p. 2) argues that the grip of summer, the trees are in full leaf, the sun is high in the old discipline of time and time constraints is the sky, days are long and light, and people opt to weakening. While this has been a historical process stay longer in urban spaces. In the autumn, the - for example, candles, gas lamps, and then elec­ leaves turn rich reds and browns and eventually fall tric light, all extended the useful hours of the day from the trees. People may linger in urban spaces - the pace of change is accelerating. Krietzman to enjoy the last warmth of the sun before the (1 999, p. 2) argues that although an exaggeration, onset of winter. the term '24-hour society' is a useful shorthand for Urban designers may deliberately exploit the the changes under way and serves as a metaphor changing day and the changing seasons to bring for a 'different type of world'. This trend is more greater variety and interest to urban spaces. Envi­ pronounced in certain cities in certain countries: for ronments designed to reflect and enhance the example, Krietzman (p. 1 0) shows how the UK is changing day and season add to the richness of the becoming a 24-hour society by noting how, since urban experience. In addition to light and ventila­ the late 1980s, the National Grid has recorded an tion, windows allow occupants to maintain contact increase in electricity usage between 1800 and with the world outside, to be aware of weather and 2200 hours, attributed to shops staying open later of the time of the day through the movements of and staying lit, while telephone companies have the sun - an awareness that is both highly valued noted an increase in night-time telephone traffic. and psychologically necessary. Features highlight­ The 24-hour society is emerging from the weak­ ing the passing of the seasons add to the temporal ening and breakdown of time structures which, in legibility of urban spaces. the modern period at least, constrained and regi­ In many places it is particularly important to mented our lives. As a consequence, the use of exploit the period when outdoor life and activity time, and the pattern of activities, is being variously are possible. Discussing how 'winter Copenhagen' stretched and squeezed. Krietzman (p. 2) argues and 'summer Copenhagen' are very different cities, that: 'By colonising the night through the 24 Hour Gehl and Gemzoe (1 996, p. 48) observe how, in Societywe cannot create time but we can provide winter, people's stride is generally brisk and the means to use the available time more effec­ purposeful; their stops few, brief and of necessity. tively so that we can free ourselves from the coiled During the summer, more people walk, and strides grip of the time squeeze.' While this offers new are slower and more leisurely. More strikingly, freedoms and opportunities, the costs and benefits people stop more frequently, sit down, and gener­ fall differentially: those at the top have more free­ ally spend time in the city. Twice as many people dom and flexibility; those at the bottom increas­ walk in the city centre in the summer as in the ingly work longer shifts, often at unsocial hours. winter, and each spends - on average - four times In the same way that electronic communication as much time there: the people density is therefore has freed us from the constraints of space, there is eight times that of the winter, which explains why also greater freedom from the constraints of time. the quiet winter streets and squares swarm with If the distinctions between night/day and week­ people in summer (Gehl and Gemzoe, 1996, end/weekday are increasingly being eroded, what p. 48). does this mean for the ways in which people use Some of the time cycles by which we structure their time? In the short-term at least, it results in our lives have less relation to natural cycles. greater freedom and diversity and, at least initially, Zerubavel (1981, from Jackson, 1994, p. 160) greater uncertainty. In a 24-hour society, patterns argues that much of our daily lives is structured of use and activity are less regimented, more The temporal dimension 1�95 responsive to individual needs and preferences, ity spacing', it is less often 'consciously manipu­ and less predictable. Among other effects, it allows lated': 'We have tended towards a greater precision individuals to avoid peak times, thereby reducing of activity timing, and greater time specialisation: congestion. weekends, office hours, peak travel, and the like. Many spaces are used intensively for certain peri­ ods, and then stand empty for longer times.' THE TIME MANAGEMENT OF PUBLIC One of jacobs' conditions for the generation of SPACE 'exuberant diversity' was that 'On successful streets, people must appear at different times' Mixed uses have generally been advocated on the (Jacobs, 1961, p. 162). However, the timing of basis that they create more life and activity in a activities needs to be managed. Lynch (1 981, location. While a key element of this is the spatial p. 452), for example, recognised that activities may concentration of different land uses (see Chapters be prohibited at certain times to prevent conflicts; 6 and 8), activity must also be considered in be separated in time to alleviate congestion; or be temporal terms. Mono-functional areas tend to be brought together in time to allow connections and narrowly tiime specialised. While housing is often a sufficient density of use (e.g. on market days). thought of as a land use providing 24-hour activ­ Urban places that are well peopled enable comple­ ity, this is - more precisely - a function of occu­ mentary activities to overlap in space and pancy. A high proportion of retired people and complexly interrelate, resisting the narrow time families, for example, may generate good day-time specialisation that fragments and compartmen­ levels of activity, while occupancy mainly by work­ talises activities. ing people may result in lower levels during the Describing single-use buildings and single­ working day, but more in the evening and at night. purpose spaces occupied between certain hours A downside of the 24-hour society is that it and empty the remainder of the time as 'mono­ reduces the likelihood of the coincidence of people chronic', Krietzman (1 999, p. 146) argued that in a in time and space. This raises the spectre of the 24-hour society buildings and spaces need to be increasing atornisation of society, with a loss of the 'poly-chronic'. While public space is often naturally social bonding that occurs through shared events animated by the ebb and flow of people going that bring people together and give them some­ about their everyday business, Montgomery (1 995, thing in common. jackson (1 994, p. 161), for p. 1 04) argued that this can also be stimulated example, refers to the 'periodicity' provided by the through planned programmes of 'cultural anima­ arrival of trains in the towns of the great plains of tion' across a range of times and venues, encour­ North America, which represented 'a decisive influ­ aging people to visit, use and linger in urban ence in the patterns of social and working contacts spaces. Programmes usually involve a varied diet of in the small railroad towns'. Similarly, Zerubavel events and activity. Therefore, as people visit an (1 981, from jackson, 1994, pp. 161-2) describes area to see what is going on, urban vitality is the social consequences of the sharing of sched­ further stimulated and the public realm becomes ules, calendars and routines: 'A temporal order that animated by having more people on the streets is commonly shared by a social group and is and in cafes, etc. Montgomery stresses that atten­ unique to it [as, for example, in a religious calen­ tion to the 'soft' infrastructure of events, dar] ... contributes to the establishment of inter­ programmes and activities is as important for group boundaries and constitutes a powerful basis successful urban animation as the 'hard' infrastruc­ of solidarity within a group.' Efficiencies and ture of buildings, spaces, street design, etc. economies in the supply of services will, however, For people to choose to use the public realm, it qualify and constrain the new freedoms: because must not only offer what they want but also do so shops, cafes, etc., can open 24 hours per day, it in an attractive and safe fashion. As discussed in does not follow that they will. Chapter 6, safety is a prerequisite of a successful Urban designers need to understand activity urban place. Peopled places are often safer places, patterns, how to encourage activities through while the areas that people are most concerned different time periods, and how to achieve syner­ about are those that are deserted or crowded with gies from activities happening in the same space the 'wrong kind' of people. and time. Lynch (1 981, p. 452) argues that A widespread problem is lack of activity in the although 'activity timing' is as important as 'activ- public realm during the evening and at night, with 196 Public Places - Urban Spaces

few uses and activities to attract a broad range of the final demolition, environments and buildings social groups. A particular issue is the 'dead' period are shaped and reshaped by technological, in city centres between the end of the typical work­ economic, social and cultural change. Any inter­ ing day and the start of the night-time economy vention into the physical fabric of a place irre­ when people return to the centre in search of versibly changes its history for all time, becoming recreation and entertainment. The '24-hour city' part of that history. All urban design actions are and promotion and development of the 'evening therefore contributions both to broader, open and economy' are relatively new approaches to revital­ evolving systems and to a greater whole. Knox and ising city centres (Bianchini, 1994; Montgomery, Ozolins (2000, p. 3), for example, argue that 'a 1994). They also form responses to the functional building or other element of the built environment zoning policies and the 'hollowing out' of city of a given period and type tends to be a carrier of centres that have occurred since the late 1960s. the zeitgeist or "spirit" of its time. Every city can The evening economy and 24-hour city therefore be "read" as a multi-layered "text", a concepts are influenced by cities in continental narrative of signs and symbols ... the built envi­ Europe that are inherently 24 hour, and those that ronment becomes a biography of urban change' since the 1970s have developed cultural policies to (Figure 9.1 ). revitalise their urban night-life. The 24-hour Until the Industrial Revolution, and except when concept has also been adopted as a means of natural forces or war wreaked wholesale destruc­ regenerating and creating safer city centres (Heath tion, change in the urban fabric was both gradual and Stickland, 1997, p. 170). Unless evening econ­ and relatively small scale. Cities evolved 'organi­ omy and 24-hour citystrateg ies are broadly based, cally' over time, through seemingly 'natural' they are susceptible to criticism of being male­ processes. Successive generations derived a sense oriented and alcohol-fixated with 'nothing to offer of continuity and stability from their physical those workers with "carer" responsibilities who surroundings. Since the Industrial Revolution, the have no time to stay on in the town centre drink­ pace and scale of change have increased as both ing the night away, as they have to get back home the processes of change, and the impact of those and start on the "second-shift" of cooking, house­ processes, have radically altered. City growth has work and childcare' (Greed, 1999, p. 203). The become mechanical and artificial. Modernists need is for evening economies based on encourag­ argued that the means of controlling and directing ing 'entertainment' (rather than 'alcohol') and processes of change needed to be radically activities for a wide range of social and age groups. rethought: societies needed large-scale social and There are also micro-management issues relating to economic organisation, harnessing the benefits of conflicts between, for example, noise-generating science, technology and rationalism. activities (e.g. cafes, bars and music venues) and One consequence of Modernism's enthusiasm noise-sensitive activities (e.g. city centre residential for the zeitgeist was emphasis on the differences uses). from, rather than the continuities with, the past. The legacy from the past was seen as merely a hindrance to the future. The pioneer Modernists The march of time visualised sweeping away the cramped and unhealthy cities of their time, and replacing them As well as through the repetitive rhythms of time, with a radically different environment of high-rise we also know that time has passed through buildings standing among trees and vegetation. evidence of progressive and irreversible change. In The clean sweep mentality led to a preference for a very real sense, the past is fixed and the future comprehensive redevelopment schemes rather open. While we may yearn to return to the city we than more incremental - and arguably more sensi­ knew as a child, or relive a wonderful moment, we tive - ones. It was also confidently argued that are unable to do so. This is the relentless 'march of comprehensive redevelopment would provide time'. The immediate kinaesthetic experience of significant physical improvements and was further urban space was discussed in Chapter 7. The long­ justified by claims and desires for progress and term experience and passage of time within places modernity. The opportunity to develop such ideas will be discussed here. came after 1 945 in the reconstruction of war­ Urban environments are continuously and inex­ damaged cities in Europe, and subsequently orably changing. From the first design drawing to through slum clearance programmes and road- The temporal dimension 197

FIGURE 9.1 Sacramento Old Town, Sacramento, California, USA. Except as museums - and increasingly as simulacra - of themselves, what is the future of such places?

building schemes. The post-war period therefore 1970s, and conservation became an integral! - saw a dramatic acceleration in the pace and physi­ rather than peripheral - part of planning and devel­ cal scale olf the cycle of demolition and renewal in opment, provoking a fundamental re-evaluation of most cities in the developed world. Ashworth and ideas in architecture, planning and urban develop­ Tunbridge (1 990, p. 1) note how this period 'led to ment. an abrupt break in the centuries-long evolution of the physical fabric of cities. The past and its values were rejected in favour of a "brave new world" Conservation whose creation threatened to destroy all trace of preceding archiitectural achievement.' Lynch (1 972, pp. 35-6) outlined a series of ques­ Although for most of the post-war period, tions that encapsulate various debates about the destruction of much of the physical, social and purpose and practice of conservation: cultural fabric of central and inner city areas was Are we looking for evidence of climactic accepted without serious question, by the mid- moments or for any manifestation of tradition 1960s the social effects of this were becoming we can find, or are we judging and evaluating evident. Frequent and increasingly widespread the past, choosing the more significant over the public protest ushered in increased public consen­ less, retaining what we think of as best? sus in favour of conservation and a desire to retain existing and fa miliar environments. Policies Should things be saved because they were associ­ protecting historic areas were introduced all over ated with important persons or events? Because the developed world during the 1960s and early they are unique or nearly so or quite the contrary, 198 Public Places - Urban Spaces

because they were most typical of their time? recent. Lefebvre (1 991, p. 360) describes how atti­ Because of their importance as a group symbol? tudes to conservation have typically changed over Because of their intrinsic qualities in the present? time: Because of their special usefulness as sources of countries in the throes of rapid development intellectual information about the past? blithely destroy historic spaces - houses, Or should we simply (as we most often do) let palaces, military or civil structures. If advantage chance select for us and preserve for a second or profit is to be fo und in it, then the old is century everything that has happened to swept away. Later, however . . . these same survive the first? countries are liable to discover how such spaces may be pressed into the service of cultural Accepting that the reasons for conservation of consumption, of 'culture itself', and of the historic buildings and environments are many, and tourism and the leisure industries with their often context and building specific, Tiesdell et a/. almost limitless prospects. When this happens, (1 996, pp. 11-1 7) list the more common justifica­ everything that they had so merrily demolished tions: during the belle epoque is reconstituted at great expense. Where destruction has not been Aesthetic value: historic buildings and environ­ • complete, 'renovation' becomes the order of the ments are valued because they are intrinsically day, or imitation, or replication, or neo-this or beautiful or have scarcity value. neo-that. Value for architectural diversity and contrast: • urban environments are valued for the archi­ Conservation policies and strategies came in three tectural diversity that results from the combi­ waves. The first involved protection of individual nation or juxtaposition of many buildings of buildings and historic/ancient monuments. many different ages. Although this started in many countries during the Value for environmental diversity and contrast: nineteenth century, more consistent and compre­ • within many cities, there is often a stimulating hensive practice developed in the period after contrast between the human scale environ­ 1945. Arising from the realisation that the settings ment of their historic areas and the monumen­ of historic buildings also needed protection, a tal scale of their CBDs. second wave of policies emerged during the 1960s Value for functional diversity: a diverse range of and 1970s. These area-based policies were • different types of space in buildings of varying concerned with groups of historic buildings, town­ ages enables a mix of uses. Older buildings and scape, and the spaces between buildings, and areas may offer lower rents that allow econom­ formed a reaction to the evident social, cultural and ically marginal but socially important activities physical disruption caused by clearance and to have a place in the city. comprehensive redevelopment and by road build­ Resource value: as buildings are committed ing. Rather than being 'preservation' policies • expenditure, their reuse constitutes the conser­ concerned with stopping or limiting change, these vation of scarce resources, a reduction in the were 'conservation' policies about the inevitability consumption of energy and materials in and the management of change. Lynch (1 972, construction and good resource management. p. 233), for example, argued that the key to Value for continuity of cultural memory and conservation was to 'disentangle it from the idea of • heritage: visible evidence of the past can preserving the past'. contribute educationally to the cultural identity In most countries, the change from the protec­ and memory of a particular people or place, tion of individual buildings to conservation areas giving meaning to the present by interpreting rapidly developed from a restrictive concern with the past. preservation to the management of change and Economic and commercial value: older environ­ revitalisation. The third, more fragmentary, wave, • ments provide a distinctive sense of place that therefore, was the development of local revitalisa­ offers opportunities for economic development tion policies, stemming from realisation that once and tourism. historic buildings and areas were protected, they needed to be in active and viable use. While the In most countries, preservation and conservation as initial preservation policies had largely been a widespread and coherent practice is relatively concerned with the 'pastness' of the past, the later The temporal dimension 199 conservation and revitalisation policies were ies the 'memory' of the city (see also Boyer, 1994). increasingly about a 'future for the past' (Fawcett, There are, however, alternative attitudes to the 1976). Having been saved from destruction, the physical continuity of places. Lynch (1 984, p. 451 ), next issue was what had buildings and spaces been for example, notes the imperative that joins change saved for? There was also a simultaneous broaden­ with progress: ing of the llocus of professional concern, from archi­ The fa ilure to respond to change not only tects and art historians to planners, urban makes it impossible to respond to the inevitable designers, economic development specialists and flux of events but it is also a failure to improve. others. Old buildings are generally obsolete buildings: old habits are constrictive. The initial costs and recurring maintenance cost of permanent The con1inuiity of place things far outweigh the resources needed to replace them periodically with new materials. Conservation - and the concomitant concern for Cities should be built of light, temporary struc­ the uniqueness of places and their history - was tures, so that people can easily change them as instrumental in the evolution of the contemporary their lives change. concept of urban design. Many current approaches to urban design attempt to respond to the existing As well as a disdain for much of the built legacy of sense of place,. stressing 'continuity with', rather the past, Modernists embraced ideas about the than a 'break from', the past. In a world of rapid 'impermanence' of buildings - ideas based on the change, visual and tangible evidence of the past is potential of industrial production. Buildings, like valued for the sense of place and continuity it cars, could be mass-produced, and designed to be conveys. Particular value is placed on the sense of discarded once their immediate utility was place and the relative permanence of its character exhausted (see MacCormac, 1983, p. 741 ). Such and identity. Despite constant change, because the attitudes are antithetical both to architecture's elements of the city change at different rates, some traditional place-making and place-defining quali­ essence of its identity is retained. In many cities, for ties, and to considerations of environmental example, street and plot patterns have accommo­ sustainability. dated incremental change. As discussed in Chapter Taken to extremes, however, preservation and 4, Buchanan (1 988, p. 32) argued that the move­ conservation can obstruct and even halt a city's ment network,. and the monuments and civic evolution and development. Emphasising the buildings within and adjacent to it are the relatively necessity of adaptability, Lynch (1 972, p. 39) permanent: parts of the city. Within this more argued that environments that could not be permanent framework, individual buildings come changed 'invited their own destruction': and go. It is the parts that endure over time that We prefer a world that can be modified progres­ contribute to the sense of continuity and progres­ sively against a background of valued remains, sion of time within that place. 'Robust' patterns of a world in which one can leave a personal mark development, therefore, provide stability and alongside the marks of history . . . The continuity of place. management of change and the active use of The relative permanence of an urban space remains for present and future purposes are helps establish its qualities as a meaningful place, preferable to an inflexible reverence for a sacro­ while its physicality provides a tangible record of sanct past. the passage of time and embodies 'social memory'. Focusing on the effect of time on the changing To preserve the capacity for change, the need is fabric of a city, Aldo Rossi (1 966, 1982) discussed for environments capable of evolution: those that the idea of a city's 'collective memory', where can welcome the future and accommodate the urban form was a repository of culture from the present without severing the thread of continuity past and for the future. Rossi argued that the fabric with the past. (Burtenshaw et a/., 1991, p. 159) of the city consists of two elements: the general (Figure 9.2) urban 'texture" of buildings lining streets and The issues are not black and white, however. squares, which changes over time; and 'monu­ Total preservation is rarely completely right or total ments', and large-scale buildings whose presence redevelopment completely wrong. Instead, it is gives each city its particular character and embod- usually a matter of balance. Lynch (1 972, p. 236), 200 Public Places - Urban Spaces

FIGURE 9.2 Older buildings give both material and symbolic stability to an area, together with a sense of history and permanence. New interventions generally reflect progress and advancement. The protected views of St Paul's Cathedral in London are designed to maintain the city'ssense of history with Sir Christopher Wren's dome symbolising the city. This can be contrasted with the demand for new high-rise office development in the Square Mile that reflects the City's contemporary role as a world financial centre

for example, advocated exposing 'successive eras Obsolescence of history' and inserting new material that enhances the past by 'allusion and contrast', with Obsolescence is the reduction in the useful life of a the aim of producing 'a setting more and more capital good. Buildings become obsolescent largely densely packed with references to the stream of due to the inability of 'fixed' urban structures and time rather than a setting that never changed'. locations to adapt to technological, economic, Such approaches emphasise the necessity for new social and cultural change. The typical building, development to express its own zeitgeist. when commissioned, will be constructed to To work within established contexts, urban contemporary standards and will usually be 'state designers need to understand how environments of the art' with regard to its function, and appro­ adapt to change and, more importantly, why some priately located for that function. As the building adapt better than others. It is also important to ages, and the world around it and factors relating distinguish what is fundamental to the sense of to its profitability all change, the building becomes place, and should remain, from what is less impor­ increasingly obsolescent relative to newer build­ tant and can change. The visual and physical conti­ ings. Eventually it falls out of use and is abandoned nuity of valued places relates to issues of the and/or demolished and the site redeveloped. 'obsolescence' of buildings and environments, the There are several interrelated dimensions of time frames of change, and the 'robustness' and obsolescence, some are attributes of buildings 'resilience' of the built fabric and other physical and/or their functions, while others relate to the attributes of that place. Going beyond narrower area as a whole: conceptions of 'conservation', these interrelated concepts are all aspects of the effects of time and Physical/structural obsolescence: the building's • change on buildings and environments. fabric and/or structure deteriorates through the The temporal dimension �!01

effects of time, weather, earth movement, traf­ ing or environment. Conservation of historic areas fic vibration, poor maintenance. and buildings frequently entails keeping them in Functional obsolescence: with regard to contem­ active use, thereby providing the necessary finance • porary standards, the building's fabric is no to maintain the historic fabric. Typically this longer suited for its current use. This can also involves reconciling a mismatch between the arise from external factors on which the use of (historic) 'fabric' and the economic activities to be the building depends (e.g. difficulties of access undertaken there. Remedy can arise from changes in narrow streets or traffic congestion). in occupation with new uses or activities replacing Locational obsolescence: primarily an attribute of the former ones. Alternatively, the fabric itself may • the land use rather than the building, this is be adapted to contemporary requirements through due to its fixed location relative to changes in various modes of renewal, such as refurbishment, wider patterns of accessibility, labour costs, etc. rehabilitation, conversion, or demolition and rede­ Legal obsolescence: for example, when a public velopment. • agency determines certain minimum standards Fitch (1 990, pp. 46-7) identifies a series of levels of functionality that the building does not, or of intervention (types of change) to historic build­ cannot, achieve. The introduction of new stan­ ings: dards of, for example, fire safety, can also render a building obsolete. Preservation: maintenance of the artefact in its • Image/style obsolescence: a product of changing current physical condition. • perceptions of the building. In the immediate Restoration: returning the artefact to the physi­ • post-war period, for example, older buildings cal condition it had at some previous stage of were demolished to build newer ones whose its life. style or image expressed their modernity. As Refurbishment (conservation and consolidation): • values have changed, older buildings have physical intervention in the fabric of the build­ become more desirable (Lichfield, 1988; Ties­ ing to ensure its continued performance. dell et 1996). Reconstitution: piece-by-piece reassembly of a • building, either in-situ or on a new site. Obsolescenceof., is rarely absolute. A further dimen­ Conversion (adaptive reuse): adaptation of a • sion is economic or relative obsolescence - the obso­ building to accommodate a new use. lescence with regard to the cost of alternative Reconstruction: recreation of vanished buildings • opportunities, which includes the competition on their original site. from other bulildings/areas; the cost of alternative Replication: construction of an exact copy of an • development on the site; and/or the cost of devel­ existing building. opment on an alternative site. Fa�adism: preservation of the fa�ade of an • When buildiings are regarded as obsolescent, a historic building, with a new building behind it. distinction should be made between obsolescence Demolition and redevelopment: demolition and • in their current use and that for any use. A ware­ clearance, with new development on the site. house in a city centre might be obsolete in its current use, but convertible to residential use (i.e. While this illustrates the range of options, what is the obsolescence is cured by the change of use). A desirable or possible in any particular situation further distinction should also be made between varies. Nevertheless, as Lowenthal (1 981 , p. 14) 'curable' obsolescence (which is cost-efficient to observes, 'there is little point in "saving" the past if cure) and non--curable obsolescence (which is not what is saved is debased or altered beyond recog­ cost-efficient to cure - at least, at the present time). nition'. Dealing with existing or historic buildings Larkham (1 996, p. 79) notes that conservation and environments is no longer a case of new being controls afford historic buildings an 'administrative better than old, or vice versa, but about the nature layer of protection' - effectively creating a form of of the relationship between the two (Powell, 1999). non-physical resilience (see below) - which In considering the character of existing buildings prolongs their normal life cycle but increases the and environments, there are more permutations likelihood of obsolescence. While conservation than a fawning, restrictive reverence or contemp­ controls may constrain, inhibit or deter rehabilita­ tuous dismissal. Furthermore, as discussed in Chap­ tion and new development, they do so to ensure ter 5, there are also issues concerning authenticity the survival - conservation - of the particular build- and 'reinvented places'. 202 Public Places - Urban Spaces

Time frames of change ventilating, and air conditioning, and moving parts such as lifts and escalators, which are An essential element of urban design's time dimen­ replaced every seven to fifteen years. sion is the need for designers to understand what Space plan: the interior layout (i.e. where walls, • stays the same and what changes over time: that ceiling, floors and doors go) changes according is, the time frames of change. As discussed in to the land use: commercial space changes Chapter 4, Conzen (1 960) emphasised the differ­ more frequently than that of a family house. ence in stability of the major morphological Stuff: chairs, desks, phones, pictures, etc. (i.e. • elements. While street and plot patterns survive a things that move around daily or weekly). long time, buildings and, in particular, land uses, are less resilient. In many places, however, build­ The systems are differently paced: 'site' and 'struc­ ings have lasted for hundreds of years, helping to ture' are the slowest; 'stuff' and 'space plan' the sustain a sense of time within that place - although quickest. The key to robust buildings - those able the uses within them have often changed, their to accommodate change - is to allow the faster­ exterior appearance and form remain. Such build­ paced systems to change without the need for ings have qualities of robustness (see below). The change in the slower-paced systems (i.e. changing survival of what are now seen as historic buildings the services should not require change to the struc­ and environments largely happened prior to the ture). More particularly, the key issue is that in widespread practice of state intervention into the robust buildings, the structure should not impose property market to protect them. Buildings from and restrict the freedom of the more rapidly chang­ the past 'survived fortuitously largely on their own ing systems. Equally, it may be that the building's merits, and chiefly because they continued to serve character is embedded in the slower moving useful purposes' (Burke, 1976, p. 117). While this systems. may have been through simple economic neces­ sity, it also expressed certain aesthetic and cultural values: the urban scene was considered sufficiently Resilience and robustness desirable - culturally, economically, or both -to be retained rather than demolished. The overlapping concepts of 'resilience' and For Duffy (1990), a building can be seen as a 'robustness' are sometimes used interchangeably. series of layers of longevities: the 'shell' or structure There are important differences, however. lasts the lifetime of the building; the 'services' Resilience is the ability to resist change without (cabling, plumbing, air conditioning, elevators, undue deformation: that is, it resists physical and etc.) are replaced every fifteen years or so; the structural obsolescence. Robustness is the abilityto 'scenery' (the layout of partitions, dropped ceilings, accommodate change without significant change in etc.) changes every five to seven years; while 'sets' physical form: that is, it resists functional obsoles­ (the layout of furniture) change over weeks and cence. Robustness is not just about form and func­ months. Brand (1 994, pp. 1 3-1 5) extends and tion, however, as there is usually some additional develops this idea to create a series of six systems: significance deriving from the values, meanings and symbols associated with and embodied by the Site: the legally defined lot, whose boundaries form. Robust buildings also need 'charm'. While • and context outlast generations of buildings. minor - and sometimes major - inconveniences Structure: the foundation and load-bearing may be indulged in buildings with charm, in build­ • elements, whose life ranges from thirty to three ings lacking charm they can often prove fatal hundred years and more. (Figure 9.3). Skin: the exterior surfaces, which - keeping up An early discussion of robustness was by Stan­ • with fashion or technology, or for wholesale ford Anderson in his book On Streets (1978). repair - may change every 20 years or so. (Note Anderson drew on Cans' argument that physical that with load-bearing masonry, the skin is also settings can be interpreted both as 'potential' envi­ the structure, while with cladding systems the ronments providing a range of environmental skin can be unclipped and changed relatively possibilities and opportunities and that, at any easily.) moment in time, what is achieved is the 'resultant' Services: the communications wiring, electrical or 'effective' environment (see Chapter 6). For • wiring, plumbing, sprinkler system, heating, Anderson, the 'latent' environment consisted of the The temporal dimension �!03

FIGURE 9.3 New Concordia Wharf, London, UK. As industrial lofts and warehouses converted to residential apartments connote 'artistic' and 'bohemian' qualities, the desire to FIGURE 9.4 convert such buildings is not just a consequence of the Bankside power station converted to the Tate Modern, building's functionality but also its character London, UK

environmental possibilities (whether recognised or indifference, where 'space' and 'event' are func­ • not) not currently being exploited. For example, tionally independent of one another; when industrial lofts were constructed, their later reciprocity, where spaces and events are inter­ • residential use was not anticipated. Robustness is dependent, fully conditioning each other's exis­ therefore a function of the relationship between a tence; and building's form and the uses it accommodates. conflict, where space designed for one function • Many land uses are relatively adaptable and can be subsequently accommodates a completely accommodated within a variety of forms. Buildings, different one. by contrast, are less flexible and overspecialisation reduces their potential to accommodate changing There is usually some additional meaning derived uses. from the latter: a riverside power station converted Despite Modernist functionalist doctrines that to an art gallery can add new meaning to the 'form follows function', the relationship between artwork displayed (Figure 9.4). activities/land uses and spaces/forms is complex. Although robustness is the quality of averting, Lynch (1 972, p. 72), for example, observed that avoiding or delaying, the loss of vitality occasioned 'Activities shift cyclically and progressively within by the onset of functional obsolescence, functional their relatively unchanging spatial containers. The obsolescence is not solely an attribute of the build­ form of these containers cannot therefore "follow ing: it also relates to external factors, which can function" unless the use of a space is reduced to both create obsolescence and restore the utility of some single, invariant type of behaviour.' Tschumi buildings without changing them. The office stock (1 983, p. 31) identifies three types of relationship of the City of London provides an interesting exam­ between form and function: ple. By the early 1980s, office buildings needed to 204 Public Places - Urban Spaces

handle the additional heat load resulting from nity elsewhere. The sustainable option is to design increased use of personal computers, and the robust buildings with charm and character, built cabling required for increased electronic and elec­ for the long-term. trical servicing of workstations. While new build­ The spiral of decline caused by a spatial concen­ ings could be designed with larger floor to floor tration of buildings falling out of use and being heights to allow for additional cooling equipment abandoned is often precipitous. Rybczynski (1 995, and raised floors, the existing stock faced the p. 42) cites a survey of housing abandonment in the prospect of obsolescence. However, a new genera­ US, which found that the 'tipping point' in a neigh­ tion of personal computers with internal fans, bourhood occurred when just 3-6 per cent of the together with the introduction of fibre-optic cables, structures were abandoned. Abandonment can have extended the useful life of much of the City's office economic and/or physical causes. The best strategies stock, and the anticipated functional obsolescence in terms of the physical fabric are 'preventive main­ did not materialise. Brand (1 994, p. 192) makes tenance' (routinely servicing materials and systems the general point that, because technology in the building, to prevent failure); and/or designing changes faster than buildings and is usually more and constructing the building so as to reduce the flexible, it is better to let the technology adapt to need for maintenance (Brand, 1994, p. 112). The the building rather than vice versa. longer buildings and environments are expected to Robustness embodies the concept of 'long last, the more the maintenance and other running life/loose fit', the designing-in of buildings' capac­ costs will overwhelm the initial capital costs of ity for change and adaptation. The capacity for construction; hence the greater the incentive for change is a function of a building or environment's owners to invest in better construction to reduce adaptivity. Lynch (1 972, pp. 1 08-9) argues that future maintenance costs. This, however, relates to 'environmental adaptivity' can be achieved by: the distribution of costs between the developer and initial funders and subsequent owners, occupants, providing excess capacity at the outset; tenants and users (see Chapter 1 0). • providing generous communication fa cilities; Given the difficulty of predicting changes that • separating those elements likely, from those might occur during a building's expected life, there • unlikely, to change; and is value in learning from buildings that have success­ allowing space for growth at the ends, sides or fully coped with change. Studies by Duffy (1 990), • within sectors. Bentley et a/. (1 985), Moudon (1987) and Brand (1 994) identify three key factors that influence the Brand (1 994, p. 174) argues that, as the evolution long-term robustness of buildings - cross-sectional of organisations and buildings is 'always and neces­ depth, access, and room shape. In Brand's hierar­ sarily surprising', adaptivity cannot be predicted or chy, these are all essentially aspects of 'structure'. controlled and that, in practice, 'All you can do is make room for it - room at the bottom.' As the future is unknowable, the lifetime of (i) Cross-sectional depth buildings is also unknowable: those intended only This has a critical impact on the need for artificial for the short-term often survive into what becomes lighting and ventilation, which in turn affects the the long-term; buildings intended for the long­ variety of uses that can be accommodated. As most term sometimes only survive a short time. The uses require natural light and ventilation, buildings choices are to design environments and buildings that are too deep cannot easily change use. Llewe­ for the short term - either through what Lawson lyn-Davies (2000, p. 94) outlines the implications (2001, pp. 194, 195) terms 'non-committal' design of different depths: which tends to produce bland, neutral results, or 'throwaway design' meant for the present only, depths of less than 9 m provide the potential • with obsolescence built in and the designed object for good daylighting and ventilation, but are intended to be thrown away and replaced with a usually too shallow for a central corridor and more up-to-date version - or to design for the have limited flexibility in internal planning; long-term. The former suggests a fundamental lack depths of between 9 and 1 3 m provide natu­ • of commitment to place - the light (and fleeting) rally lit and ventilated space and the opportu­ touchdown of global capital as it arrives in a local­ nity for a central corridor (and, therefore, ity, while constantly looking for a better opportu- optimum robustness); The temporal dimension

2!05 depths of between 14 and 15 m allow for event the next, and quiet contemplation or car • subdivision,, but some artificial ventilation and parking thereafter. lightin9 is usually required; Comfortable - responsive to differing microcli­ • depths greater than about 16 m are more matic and weather needs - offering shelter, but • energy intensive, requiring increasing amounts also access to the sun when required (see of artificial ventilation and lighting. Chapter 8). Sociable - supporting the diffe rent types and • patterns of social activity. (ii) Access As all buildings need some links to the outside Not only must sustainable environments be world, the number of access points - and egress designed for robustness, they must also facilitate points, in case of fire - governs how readily a build­ maintenance. While high quality materials help, ing can adapt to a variety of uses. Building height their detailing and maintenance reg imes are also is a particular constraint in this respect. In a tall important. Francis Tibbalds (1 992, p. 72), for building, the upper floors have restricted links to example, warned that: 'unlike a landscape that will the outside, making them less suitable for a wide mature over time, a building, unless well cared for, range of uses. will do the exact opposite - it will deteriorate'. In this respect, urban designers can learn from land­ (iii) Room sh,ape and size scape designers, who are necessarily acutely For robustness, room sizes need to accommodate a conscious that design is a matter of directing a broad ran!�e of activities and be capable of subdi­ process of continuous change, where success vision (which may relate to window positions) or depends on carefully managing what has been connection to create larger spaces. In domestic created. buildings, for example, rooms that are 1 0-1 3 square metres in area can serve as bedrooms, kitchens, living rooms or dining rooms. Dwellings THE MANAGEMENT OF CHANGE with rooms of this size prove relatively robust in changing from, for example, family houses to a Involving interventions into existing places, the number of smaller flats (Moudon, 1987). Brand creation of new places, and management and (1 994, p. '1 92) also contends that the rectangle is stewardship, urban design operates across a the only configuration of space that grows well, number of time frames -- almost all of which neces­ subdivides well and is efficient to use. sitate a long-term perspective. While designers may have a relatively short-term involvement in particu­ Building configurations that support robustness lar development projects, the created environ­ thus tend Ito be shallow in plan, relatively low-rise, ments tend to be used over the long-term. with many points of access, and regularly shaped Decisions have potentially long-lasting implications rooms or spaces. While not all buildings can take and effects. Furthermore, given the short-termism this form, much of the building stock in a locality of markets and market behaviour, urban designers can. Few land uses have highly specialised require­ must consider long-term issues relating to, for ments, and even those that do, usually have less example, environmental sustainability. specialised parts. Rather than change itself - which people expect, Urban space should also be robust and resilient. anticipate and often welcome - it is its pace and A set of key properties can be identified: scale, and the sense that it is not amenable to local control, that may present problems. Control Open - not filled with 'paraphernalia', immov­ requires the involvement of key stakeholders, and • able landscaping, or needless subdivision into the development of processes of involvement and small single-use areas. consultation (see Chapter 12). As personal associa­

Flexible - capable of subdivision, or use as a tions with our immediate environment are valued • large space for a variety of uses/events. and we draw comfort from its stability, the loss of Varied -- not dominated by one mode of travel familiar surroundings can be distressing, particu­ • (e.g. roads),. by infrastructure requirements, or larly when experienced over a short period and on by a single use. Many market squares, for a large scale. The comprehensive redevelopment example, cater for a market one day, a special that was common practice from the late 1940s to 206 Public Places - Urban Spaces the mid-1 970s wreaked havoc in many cities, alien­ more realistic view that mistakes are inevitable ating many people from their communities and ... Piecemeal growth is based on the assump­ destroying cherished places and environments. tion that adaptation between buildings and Although that era has passed, the continuing trend their users is necessarily a slow and continuous towards large-scale rather than incremental growth business which cannot, under any circum­ has led, in some places, to the development of an stances, be achieved in a single leap. (Alexan­ increasingly controlled and monotonous urban der, 7 975, pp. 77-9) fabric - lacking the diversity and character of places It is clear that many of the most successful devel­ that have developed incrementally. Alexander's opments of the 1990s represent reactions to the starting point in his essay 'A City is Not A Tree' well-documented mistakes of the 1960s. Further­ (1 965), for example, was that 'artificial' cities (i.e. more, although cycles of growth and decline still those with tree-like structures), do not have the mark eras of investment and stagnation, the pace complexity, life and vitality of 'natural' cities (i.e. of change has quickened to such a degree that those with semi-lattice structures). much of what was built in the 1960s and 1970s has In small-scale, incremental change, 'mistakes' already been redeveloped. are small and can be corrected relatively easily. In Many urban design commentators have asserted essence, this is how older urban environments have the value of incremental and small-scale change. developed. joel Garreau (1 999, p. 239) noted how, Kevin Lynch (1 972), for example, argued that: 'If throughout the 8000 years that humans have been change is inevitable, then it should be moderated building cities, development has followed the same and controlled so as to prevent violent dislocation basic pattern: and preserve a maximum of continuity with the First there's a wild, enthusiastic wave of past.' Distinguishing between 'cataclysmic money' growth. Then there's a bank collapse. During and 'gradual money', jane jacobs (1 961 , p. 307) the collapse, people figure out which were the noted that cataclysmic money was destructive and horrible mistakes they made and promise to fix 'behaved like manifestations of malevolent climates them if the banks ever open again. Sooner or beyond the control of man -affording either sear­ later the gods relent and the banks reopen, and ing droughts or torrential, eroding floods'. By there's a second wave of growth that heads off contrast, gradual money behaved like 'irrigation in the newly enlightened mode. That is followed systems, bringing life-giving streams to feed steady by another bank collapse, during which new continual growth'. Similarly, Tibbalds (1 992, p. 77) wisdom is concocted. Seven or so cycles and argued that if contemporary development occurs several centuries into this process and you end incrementally - 'healing or mending the edges as it up with Paris or Manhattan. The reason old goes' - then it is likely to be found to be more cities look so good is that you see few of the acceptable. preceding mistakes. They've been torn down or When changes take place over a longer period ri covered by ivy or marble. of time and in an incremental ma ner, mixing the new and unfamiliar with the old and familiar, they By contrast, in large-scale development, every are often seen as exciting, but also comfortable and effort must be made to eliminate 'mistakes' acceptable. Lowenthal (1 981, p. 16), for example, because they are much more difficult to correct. argued against 'over-abrupt change' in the physi­ Mistakes are inevitable, however, and often have to cal environment and in favour of 'anchoring' the be lived with. In The Oregon Experiment, Christo­ 'excitement of the future' in the 'security of the pher Alexander (1 975, p. 77) argued that 'large­ past'. Such processes replicate the historic devel­ lump' development was based on the idea of opment of older towns and cities that have grown replacement, while piecemeal growth was based on slowly and organically. Tibbalds (1 992, p. 78) repair. As replacement meant consumption of recommended incremental development as a way resources, he argued that repair was better ecolog­ of ameliorating the 'pain of change': ically. There were, however, more practical differ­ Blood transfusions, rather than organ trans­ ences: plants, are required . . . an approach charac­ Large-Jump development is based on the fa llacy terised by a more contextual organic, that it is possible to build perfect buildings. incremental and sensitive way of thinking and Piecemeal growth is based on the healthier and designing. We need, then, to encourage the The temporal dimension

2�07 development of smaller sites, set limits on the extent of site assembly and break up the larger sites into more manageable components.

In A New Theory of Urban Design, Alexander et a/. (1987) attempted to theorise and systematise processes of urban development with a focus on incremental change. They argued that the organic quality of older towns and cities does not and cannot exist in those being built today and that what is required, therefore, is a process that creates 'wholeness in urban development': 'it is the process above all which is responsible for wholeness ... not merely the form. If we create a suitable process there is some hope that the city might become whole again. If we do not change the process, there is no hope at all' (p. 3). They argued that there are fundamental rules in any process of growth that achieves organic development:

the whole �Jrows piecemeal, bit by bit; • the whole is unpredictable: when it starts • coming into being, it is not clear how it will develop or where it will end; the whole and its parts are coherent and truly • whole, not fragmented; the whole inspires feeling: it has the power to • move us. (p. 14)

They argued that contemporary towns and cities follow a completely different development pattern to that OnJanic development, where, while growth might be piecemeal, the different elements remain fragmentedof and unrelated to a growing whole. A single overriding rule was, therefore, formulated: 'Every increment of construction must be made in such as way as to heal the city' (p. 22). Seven intermediate principles were developed for implementing this rule (see Box 9.1). While the thrust of Alexander's rules is wholly laudable, whether regulatory and development interests could be persuaded to follow them is highly debatable. Despite the above views and opinions, economic and political realities make large-scale developments inevitable. Dovey (1990, p. 8) argues that the economic context often favours 'mega-projects' bringing massive one-off investments, jobs and political kudos. The flexibility of capital investment by multinational corporations order to secure the investment. Furthermore, enables them to play cities off against each other. despite the emphasis in the urban design literature Governments are induced to compete for projects on small-scale incremental change, there are occa­ on an 'ali-or-nothing' basis, often overruling - and sional needs for 'big bang' developments with undermining - regulatory and design processes in sufficient size and scale to change fundamentatlly 208 Public Places - Urban Spaces

FIGURE 9.5 Brindleyplace, Birmingham, UK, is a 'big bang' development - a project with sufficient critical mass to fundamentally change the nature and economy of an area in ways that would not happen incrementally. Through the use of a detailed master plan, issues of place-making were addressed in a coherent and joined-up manner. The resulting development is more than the sum of its individual parts

the nature and economy of a place in ways that (1987, p. 188) emphasised the importance of the could never happen incrementally. Such develop­ pattern of landownership in enabling incremental ments also have the potential to address issues of change. Small lots enabled constant fine-grain place-making in a coherent and joined-up manner, adaptation instead of the sudden and potentially and to fund the provision of major new elements devastating changes that come with large parcels. of the capital web, including new urban spaces (see Smaller lots also gave greater individual control and Chapter 10) (Figure 9.5). greater variety - the more owners, the more grad­ A public authority providing - or developers ual and adaptive the ongoing change: 'the place agreeing on - a master plan, urban design frame­ looks a little different every year, but the overall feel work or urban design code, can provide a way of is the same from century to century' (Brand, 1994, relating individual developments and decisions (see p. 75). It can also be argued that sustainability Chapters 1 0 and 11) . Nevertheless, such develop­ requires a capacity for organic development, ments need to be designed and managed to allow rendering clean-sweep redevelopment unnecessary. for subsequent incremental change. Large devel­ Given the dangers of disjointed incrementalism, opments often need the landownership to be it is important that some overall vision or set of consolidated into a single body, but, to allow for rules is available to guide developments towards the subsequent incremental change, for that agreed objectives - however broadly defined - landownership to be broken down. jacobs (1961, giving the confidence necessary to attract invest­ p. 307), for example, warned that: 'All city building ment and ensuring that the individual increments that retains staying power after its novelty has gone will result in a coherent whole. In effect, this is what ... requires that its locality be able to adapt, keep Alexander's seven rules sought to achieve. A key up to date, keep interesting, keep convenient, and skill of urban designers is the creation of a vision this in turn requires a myriad of gradual constant, exploiting the opportunities presented by a site or close-grained changes.' The ongoing single control context, and the development of plans and strate­ regime of large lun:p developments may be stulti­ gies capable of being implemented successfully. fying, and - because it lacks the internal capacity The activity of urban design is always open-ended and stimulus for creativity, innovation and devel­ and evolving, which makes interventions in and opment - may only result in a slow managed contributions to other dynamic systems. It is there­ decline. fore naive to consider any design proposal, inter­ From her studies of change and stability in San vention or action as producing an end state or Francisco neighbourhoods, Anne Vernez Moudon finite solution. The temporal dimension 209 210 Public Places - Urban Spaces

Given commitment to its aims and objectives, an Due to the success of previous measures, it • urban design framework or master plan provides became easier for the city's politicians to take certainty in the longer-term, thereby reducing further incremental decisions about pedestrian­ development risk. It should also retain sufficient isation schemes. flexibility to adapt to underlying and evolving processes of change. Visions and implementation Gehl and Gemzoe concluded that the city centre's strategies typically form a series of projects, over gradual transformation from 'car culture' to 'pedes­ different time frames, with short-term, medium­ trian culture' had made possible an equally gradual term and long-term actions and objectives. If the development of city life and city culture: radical short- and medium-term actions do not work, change had happened gradually and with public however, the long-term position will not be consent and approval. achieved. An overarching lesson seems to be that, while radical change can still happen, it should - where CONCLUSION possible - happen incrementally and at a pace that allows people to adapt and respond. The well-docu­ When considering the temporal dimension of mented experience of pedestrianisation in Copen­ urban design, the overarching need is for urban hagen is instructive (Gehl and Gemzoe, 1996, designers to understand the implications and 2001 ). The programme began in 1962 with the impact of time on places. Time involves both pedestrianisation of the city's main street, Stroget ­ change that happens in cycles and change that a pioneering experiment that aroused much public occurs in progressive, unfolding and irreversible debate. By 1973, pedestrianisation had been ways. Change itself both responds to and shapes completed, and subsequent efforts concentrated on further change. Urban designers need an aware­ reclaiming and improving city squares (Box 9.2). ness of potential change and of opportunities and For Gehl and Gemzoe (2001, pp. 55-9), the grad­ constraints that may arise; of how change can be ual expansion of the city's system of car-free and managed; how places change over time; how to almost car-free spaces had three main advantages: anticipate the impacts of actions; how and why development will occur; and even how materials City residents had time to develop a new city will weather. Kevin Lynch (1 972, p. 240), for • culture and to discover and exploit the oppor­ example, argued that 'effective action' and 'inner tunities. well-being' depend on 'a strong image of time: a People had time to change their travel prac­ vivid sense of the present, well connected to future • tices. Parking in the city centre was reduced by and past, perceptive of change, [and] able to 2-3 per cent per year, and car owners gradu­ manage and enjoy it'. The final part of this chapter ally became accustomed to the idea that has already anticipated the discussion in the third driving and parking in the city centre were part of this book, which concerns the key processes more difficult, while cycling and using public of urban design - development, control and transport became much easier. communication. I

IMPLEMENTING URBAN DESIGN

·rhe development process

INTRODUCTI!ON value to them. In property development, entrepre­ neurs are usually known as developers, and the Awareness of the development process, particularly product is a change of land use and/or a new or of the balance between risk and reward that drives altered building, intended to have a higher value it, helps urban designers gain a deeper under­ than the cost of the transformation. Ambrose standing of both the context in which they operate (1 986) sees the process as a series of transforma­ and the forces acting upon the process by which tions: capital is converted into raw materials and their design policies, proposals and projects origi­ labour bought as commodities in the market place; nate and are implemented. Urban designers lack­ these are converted into another saleable commod­ ing such an awareness and understanding are at ity (i.e. a building); which is then converted back the development industry's mercy. Furthermore, as into money (i.e. capital) by selling the commodity they frequently need to argue the case for urban in the market place. For the process to be prof­ design and, more particularly, the case for better itable, the amount received from sales must be quality urban design, their arguments can be more greater than the cost of production. A calculus of persuasive if informed by this awareness. reward, mediated by the risk of achieving that Focusin9 on the role of urban design and the reward, therefore, drives the process. urban designer in the development process, this Rather than a one-off sequence of transforma­ chapter is in four main sections. The first outlines tions, for most developers the process is one of a the principles of property development and the recurring cycle. There is also an important time development process. The second concerns the dimension: rapid turnover of capital in develop­ 'pipeline' model of the development process. The ment projects allows it to be recycled more quickly, third concerns roles and relationships in the devel­ generating profits more rapidly and reducing risk. opment process and the fourth issues of urban The process of designing and producing the design quality. Although discussion focuses on built environment involves a variety of 'actors' or urban design practice in terms of urban develop­ decision-makers, each with their own objectives, ment design, this necessarily includes the interface motivations, resources and constraints, and with design policies, guidance and control, which connected in various ways. As Michael Ball (1 998, are the specific focus of Chapter 11. Ball et a/., 1998) has argued, the development process is a function of social relations specific to time and place, involving a variety of key actors LAND AND PROPERTY DEVELOPMENT (e.g. landowners, investors, financiers, developers, builders, various professionals, politicians,

The land and property development process consumers, etc.). The state - local and national -· is involves the combination of various inputs - land, also an important actor, both in its own right and labour, material:> and/or finance (capital) - in order as a regulator of the other actors. These sets of rela­ to achieve an output or product. Classically it is the tions represent what Ball terms the 'structures of 'entrepreneur' who brings these together and adds building provision'. Ball argued that these need to

2113 214 Public Places - Urban Spaces

be seen in terms of their specific linkages - func­ Event-sequence models - derived from estate • tional, historical, political, social and cultural -with management, these focus on the management the broader structural elements - economic and of stages in the development process. institutional - of the political economy. Agency models - derived from behavioural or • To facilitate understanding of the development institutional explanations, these focus on the process, several models have been devised. These actors and their relationships in the develop­ have been grouped as follows: ment process. Structure models - grounded in political econ­ • Equilibrium models - derived from neo-classical omy, these focus on the way markets are struc­ • economics, these assume that development tured, the role of capital, labour and land in the activity is structured by economic signals about development process, and the forces that effective demand, as reflected in rents, yields, organise the relationships and drive the dynam­ etc. ics of the process. The development process 215

Institutional models - these describe events and focuses principally on private sector development, • agencies, and explain how they relate to the stages and principles are broadly similar regard­ broader structural forces (Healey, 1991 ). less of whether the developer is the public sector or a non-profit organisation. Table 10.1 summarises The followiing outline of the development process urban designers' roles at each stage. is based on an event-sequence model. While such models provide a good introduction to the devel­ Development pressure and prospects opment process, they tend to understate aspects that other models emphasise, such as the differen­ External influences - economic growth, fiscal poli­ tial power of the various actors and institutions cies, the impact of long-term social and demo­ involved. Furthermore, they do not explain why graphic trends, technological developments, urban development takes the form it does. market restructuring, etc. - create development pressure and prospects, which trigger activity within the pipeline. When development opportuni­ THE DEVELOPMENT PIPELINE MODEL ties arise, appropriate sites are sought, with activity really beginning when a development proposal Barrett, Stewart and Underwood's 'development finds an appropriate site, or a development site pipeline' rnodell - an event-sequence model - is finds a suitable proposal. shown in Box 1 0.1 and discussed below (adapted Initiation of development may come from a from Adams, 1994). Although the discussion developer or third party (including the public

TABLE 10.1 Development process and urban designers

URBAN DESIGNER'S ACTIVITIES

STAGE ACTINGFOR DEVELOPER ACTING FOR PUBLIC SECTOR

DEVELOPMENT Spots 'opportunity' Anticipates development • • PRESSURE AND Identifies suitable sites pressure/opportunities • PROSPECTS Provides 'vision' Spots and promotes development • • Prepares brief/master plan for site opportunities • Prepares planning policy framework • Provides 'vision' • Prepares development framework/ • development code Prepares development brief for • site/master plan for area Directs/attracts development to • suitable sites Influences developer's brief for the site •

DEVELOPMENT Carries out feasibility study Negotiates with developer • • FEASIBILITY Provides advice Provides advice • • Prepares design proposals Comments on design proposals • • Negotiates with planning authority Makes decision/recommendation on • • Prepares and submits planning planning application • application

IMPLEMENTATIION Quality of scheme may seal Ensures quality of development • • commitment with funders Influences management of • Ensures quality of development development • Influences management of • development 216 Public Places - Urban Spaces

sector) anticipating demand for a certain type of are assessed (e.g. ground levels, soil structure, development and seeking an appropriate site. It levels of contamination). As physical constraints may also come from the site owner (or third party) can normally be expressed in terms of extra costs who envisages a higher value use for an existing (i.e. additional preparation, design, or construction site. In both cases, urban designers may be costs), they do not necessarily prevent develop­ involved in demonstrating the site's potential. To ment. As well as the site's physical conditions, its direct or attract development to particular sites or physical capacity (subject to criteria of 'good' areas (or direct it away from others), a planning urban form) to accommodate satisfactorily the authority might establish a planning policy frame­ intended volume of development will also be work, and/or prepare a development brief, master assessed. This is intrinsically a design issue. Design plan or development framework (see Chapter 11). proposals start as a concept sketch, getting Development frameworks or briefs might be progressively more detailed as the development produced either proactively to encourage interest in proposal increases in certainty, and ultimately a development site or reactively following a devel­ having sufficient detail for the development to be oper's interest in it. To expedite the process, they built. Considerations of good urban form might be may be produced by developers. internal and might limit or determine density, As well as identifying a site and a development massing and/or height, guided by, for example, proposal, this stage is also likely to include initial the developer's concern to build a certain quality of ideas about the form the development might take development. Most schemes have a client or and an outline financial appraisal. In essence, this is project brief, prepared by the developer for the a 'back of an envelope'-type analysis, combining a architect and other designers, setting out the broad assessment of the likely costs and subsequent design parameters, the GFA (gross floor area) of value, with a more subjective judgement based different uses, and the indicative budget. Alterna­ upon experience and feel for the market. If the tively, considerations of site capacity may be exter­ proposed development is worth pursuing further, nal and may, for example, be imposed through the feasibility stage - the second part of the pipeline planning policies, a zoning ordinance, a develop­ - develops this initial assessment in more detail. ment brief, an urban design framework or a master plan. Development feasibility (iii) Public procedures In the pipeline model, feasibility is tested in five All legal and other public procedure issues relating ways, each relating to a particular set of influences to the site and/or the proposed development must or constraints. For development to occur, all five be assessed, including the likelihood of obtaining streams must be successfully negotiated. If the planning/development consent. While not always development is not feasible, it will be changed or affecting the principle of development, legal abandoned. Successful developers are, nonetheless, and/or planning constraints usually affect its skilled in confronting and overcoming constraints. design, layout and cost. In countries with zoning systems (e.g. the US and many parts of Europe), (i) Ownership constraints provided the proposed development accords with Prior to development, developers need to know the zoning ordinance, there is automatic planning whether they will be able to acquire the site, or consent - a 'development permit' may also be rights over it. Land availability is often restricted by required. Zoning systems may be supplemented by planning, physical, valuation or ownership a design review panel focusing on the design constraints (Adams et a/., 1999). Multiple owner­ proposals. In the discretionary planning system in ship, for example, may req uire land assembly or the UK, acts of 'development', including material the development of a partnership to carry out the changes of use, require the planning authority's project. In some cases, public sector compulsory formal consent. A separate building regulation purchase or acquisition powers can be used to facil­ consent is also required. Consents may also be itate land assembly. required for a range of issues pertaining to land and property ownership; conservation and/or (ii) Physical conditions historic preservation; diversion or closure of rights To determine whether the site can accommodate of way, light, and support; actions necessary to the proposed development, its physical conditions connect with main services and infrastructure; etc. The development process 217

- all of which may incur cost or delay to the devel­ developer cannot achieve the desired level of opment process (see Chapter 11). profit, other sites and developments may be more attractive. For a development to be viable, its

i (iv) Market conditions expected value must be greater (at least to the Appraisal of market conditions assesses whether extent of the required profit), than the costs of j there is demand both now and in the future for the development and land acquisition. proposed development. Forecasting future A common method of appraisal is the 'residual demand involves considerations of risk and uncer­ method'. At it simplest, this involves subtracting the tainty. As market conditions may change during total projected development costs (e.g. building the development process, it is a matter of risk costs, legal and agents' fees, professional fees, costs whether demand at the time of completion will be of borrowing, developer's profit, etc.) from the esti­ strong enough to make the development viable. To mated capital value of the completed development reduce exposure to risk, developers often arrange a to establish the residual value of the land (i.e. what pre-let or pre-sale, tying in a future occupier or the developer can afford to pay for the land to purchaser at an early stage. In a fragile market, enable a reasonable return). Alternatively, if the land development is unlikely to commence without this, price is held constant, the method can be used to since it may be necessary to secure funding for deterrnil}e whether a target rate of profit can be development. In markets with strong demand, achieved. Other than by shaving profit margins, developers may be less concerned with securing a developers cannot absorb additional or unexpected pre-let because it could reduce their return. They, costs. If they create additional value, additional therefore, trade off between risk and reward. costs can be passed onto the purchaser or occupier; Market conditions are monitored throughout if they do not create additional value, the developer development, so that, where possible, changes can reduces the price offered to the landowner. As be made in order to maximise the return on the landowners often refuse to sell their land at a lower finished product. In a difficult economic climate, price, developers usually have to find development while design quality is often a first casualty as proposals offering a higher end value. If they are developers try to cut costs, some developers delib­ unable to do so, the project becomes unviable. erately invest more in design in order to differenti­ The residual method has two basic weaknesses. ate their product. Conversely, in a developers' - First, by assuming that costs will be spread evenly rather than buyers' - market, tenants and over the development period, it is not sensitive to purchasers (investors) often have to take what is the timing of expenditure and revenues. Cash flow available and design issues may become less impor­ appraisals can overcome this. Second, by relying tant in their decision-making. on single figure 'best estimates', it hides uncer­ tainty and risk. Sensitivity analysis, which looks at a (v) Project viability range of possible outcomes and then narrows them Project viability assesses whether demand can be down to probable outcomes, can remedy this. met at the desired rate of profit. For private sector Design and costing of development proposals development, this assessment includes analysis of occur in parallel, and in increasing detail as the the market (i.e. the likely demand) for the scheme progresses. Viability studies may, for proposed development and the potential returns in example, highlight the need for design modifica­ relation to the costs and the risk to be borne. In the tion, to increase the land uses likely to produce public sector, it assesses whether appropriate forms most revenue. To be financially viable, a site may of cost recovery are available, whether the devel­ require a greater volume or intensity of develop­ opment constitutes an appropriate use for public ment than it appears able to accommodate. Urban money (relative to other purposes for which the design skills may be needed to put the volume of money could be used), whether it provides value development required for financial viability onto for money, and accords with any cost yardsticks or the site, while retaining the development's quality. benchmark costs for similar developments. Design is, however, intrinsically limited and cannot In simple terms, appraisals consider four related totally overcome disadvantages of a poor location factors: the end or expected value of the devel­ or lack of (economic) demand (Cadman and opment; land acquisition costs; development Austin-Crewe, 1991, p. 19). costs; and the developer's profit or required level If development appears to be viable, funding of profit. The latter is important because, if the must be sought. Project viability therefore also 218 Public Places - Urban Spaces assesses whether the developer can obtain the was completed before the surrounding office necessary finance and on what terms. The terms blocks (Figures 1 0.1 and 1 0.2). If the initial phases involve certain risks for the developer: when funds of a development prove to be unsuccessful, the are borrowed and interest charged, steep rises in decision may be taken not to complete the devel­ interest rates, for example, may cause development opment or to change the design of later phases. projects to be postponed or abandoned. Develop­ Equally, if the initial phases are successful, subse­ ers normally arrange two types of finance: short­ quent phases may be changed in order to term finance - development funding - to cover costs maximise more successful, and minimise less during the development period, and longer-term successful, elements. Phasing considerations also finance - investment finance - to cover the cost of affect design: if the development is to be let or sold holding the completed development as an invest­ in phases, each one must be designed to appear ment (whereby, the developer becomes an complete, and tolerably self-sufficient. investor) or, alternatively, to find a buyer (or investor) for the completed scheme. These are discussed later in the chapter. Implementation To reduce exposure, help cash flow, and/or acquire greater operational flexibility, developers - The developer's ultimate aim is to produce a where possible - phase development so that some marketable development: that is, one for which parts are finished and earning income before the occupiers and/or purchasers (investors) are willing whole is complete. Developments may also be and able to pay a rent and/or purchase at a price designed so that non-revenue-generating elements that at least covers development and site acquisi­ occupy the later phases. In a residential develop­ tion costs. The final, implementation, stage ment, for example, the developer might build the includes both construction and sale or letting. If the houses first, leaving the community centre and developer retains the project for letting, then open space until later. This logic can also be his/her role changes to that of an investor (see reversed: if the non-revenue generating elements below). Once implementation starts, developers help sell or let the revenue-generating elements, lose their flexibility of action. The main task is to they may be built at the same time, or even before ensure that work is carried out at the appropriate the other elements. At Brindleyplace in Birming­ speed, cost and quality. Developers are particularly ham (UK), for example, the central public space reliant on their builders, and expect their profes-

FIGURE 10.1 If non-revenue generating elements enable early sales or lets of revenue-generating elements, they may be built at the same time or even in advance of other elements. At Brindleyplace (Birmingham, UK), the central public space was completed before the surrounding office blocks The development process 219

FIGURE 10.2 A development's design, or particular aspects of it, facilitate its marketing. At Bindleyplace (Birmingham, UK), the design included a tower that does not provide usable office space, but which enabled the development to be seen from the city centre

sional team to monitor the builder's performance, relative to each other, their motivation for involve­ and be concerned simultaneously about time, cost, ment in the development process and, more and quality. In the short-term, time and cost can generally, why they might pursue - or be crowd out concerns for quality, but in the long­ persuaded to provide - higher 'quality'. In this and term they recede in importance relative to quality. the following section, the event-sequence model is extended by considerations of 'agency' and 'struc­ ture' (adapted and extended from Henneberry, DEVELOPME.NT ROLES AND ACTORS 1998). Agency is the term for the way in which development actors define and pursue their strate­ To more fully understand the development gies, interests and actions (Adams, 1994, p. 65). It process, it is necessary to identify the key actors, is set within a broader context, or 'structure', their motivations and objectives, their relationships consisting of the economic and political activity, 220 Public Places - Urban Spaces

and prevailing values, that frame individual deci­ limits on the rents that can be achieved in • sion-making (e.g. market and regulatory frame­ particular locations; works). the short-termism often inherent in investment • Different actors perform different roles in the decisions (longer-term exposure increases the development process. Although, for the purpose of risk involved). analysis, roles are considered individually, in prac­ tice a single actor often performs several roles. Successful developers and urban designers are, Volume housing developers, for example, typically however, skilled in confronting and overcoming combine the roles of developer, funder and builder. constraints and obstacles. As well as identifying actors and the roles they perform, it is also necessary to understand the Developers reason for their involvement (i.e. their motivation). Each development role can be considered in terms The term 'developer' embraces a wide range of of five generalised criteria: agencies, from, for example, volume house builders to small local house builders and self­ Financial objectives - whether the actor's builders, and with levels of profit motivation rang­ • primary concern is for cost minimisation or for ing from the most profit-driven private sector profit maximisation. developers, through central and local government, Time-span - whether the actor's involvement to non-profit organisations, such as housing associ­ • and interest in the development is primarily ations. Some developers specialise in particular short- or long-term. market sectors such as retail, office, industrial or Design: functionality - whether an actor has a residential, while others operate across a range of • specific concern for the development's ability to markets. Some establish a niche market, such as serve its functional purpose (i.e. to be used as the conversion of historic buildings. Some concen­ an office). trate upon projects in or around a particular town Design: externalappearance - whether an actor or city, while others operate regionally, nationally • is primarily concerned with the development's and internationally. external appearance. Based on how they operate, Logan and Molotch Design: relation to context - whether a develop­ (1987, from Knox and Ozolins, 2000, pp. 5-6) • ment's relation to its context is a primary identified three types of developers: concern to the development actor. 'Serendipitous entrepreneurs' who acquire land • These are summarised in Table 10.2 and 1 0.3. and property in various ways (perhaps through While each actor internally trades off between inheritance or as a sideline to their regular busi­ criteria, the interactions and differential power of ness) and then find that it would be more valu­ actors also mean that criteria are traded off between able sold or rented for some other use. actors. Achieving high quality urban design may not 'Active entrepreneurs' who anticipate changing • be a criterion shared by all participants in the patterns of land use and land values, and buy process, while 'quality' may mean different things and sell land accordingly. to different actors. The objective can be constrained 'Structural speculators' operate strategically, • by a wide variety of factors, many of which lie anticipating changing patterns and seeking to outside the designer's or developer's sphere of influ­ influence or engineer change for their own ence. These factors might include. benefit (e.g. by influencing the route of a road, changing the zoning ordinance or develop­ the requirements and preferences of ment plan, or encouraging public expenditure • clients/customers, which may conflict with in certain locations). those of the wider community; market conditions; All developers are motivated by the opportunity to • limitations and costs imposed by the site; appropriate the development value of sites. Devel­ • the need for various consents (legal, planning, opment value is a function of the gap between the • development, highways adoption, etc.), and value of the property and/or land in its existing use, public sector regulatory and statutory require­ and its value in a 'higher and better' use, less the ments; costs of acquiring the land and producing the higher 11 r TA�I r 1ft• IADLI:. IU ..O: Motivation of 'demand side' development actors (i.e. those who, in some way, 'consume' the development)

FA CTORS OF MOTIVATION PRICE DESIGN ISSUES DEVELOPMENT ROLE Time scale Financial strategy Functionality External appearance Relation to context

INVESTORS Long-term Profit maximisation Yes Yes Yes (Investment funding) But primarily as means to But primarily as means to To extent that there are financial end. financial end. benefits to making positive connections.

OCCUPIERS Long-term Cost minimisation Yes Yes Yes But only to extent that To extent that there are external appearance benefits to making symbolises/ represents positive connections. them and their business.

PUBLIC SECTOR Long-term Neutral Yes Yes Yes (Regulation) (in principle). To extent that it forms To extent that it forms part of a greater whole. part of a greater whole.

ADJACENT Long-term Protect property values No Yes Yes LANDOWNERS To extent that new To extent that new development has positive development has positive or negative externalities. or negative externalities.

GENERAL PUBLIC Long-term Neutral Yes Yes Yes To extent that buildings To extent that it defines are used by general and forms part of public public. realm.

(Source: adapted and extended from Henneberry, 1998) TABLE 10.3 Motivation of 'supply side' development actors (i.e., those who, In some, way, 'produce' the development or contribute to its production)

FA CTORS OF MOTIVATION PRICE DESIGN ISSUES DEVELOPMENT ROLE Timescale Financial strategy Functionality External appearance Relation to context

LANDOWNER Short-term Profit maximisation No No No

DEVELOPERS Short-term Profit maximisation Yes Yes Yes But only to financial end. But only to financial end. To extent that there are positive or negative externalities.

FUNDERS Short-term Profit maximisation No No No (devt finance)

BUILDER Short-term Profit maximisation No Yes No

ADVISER I Long-term Profit Yes Yes No EG Man Agent maximisation/seeking But primarily to financial end.

ADVISER II Short-term Profit Yes Yes No EG Architect maximisation/seeking But indirectly, to extent that external appearance reflects on them and their future business.

(Source: adapted and extended from Henneberry, 1998) The development process 2:B value use. Rather than being fixed to a particular site flexibility of building and site layout to meet • or piece of land, development value often 'floats' changing circumstances; over a wider area and may 'shift' from one site to buildability; • another. As Reade (1 987, p. 16, from Adams, 1994, cost efficiency and value for money; visual • p. 35) notes, if a steadily expanding city is impact (including the image of the develop­ surrounded on all sides by agricultural land, all ment as an aid to sale or letting); owners may hope to sell land at a price higher than and management implications (including the • its value in agriculture (i.e. there is a 'hope value'). development's 'running costs') (Rowley, 1998, In practice, only a few owners can (at this moment p. 163). in time) selll their land for development. Develop­ ment value, therefore, 'floats' over an extensive area, While there is often demonisation and stereotyping but settles on only a small part of it. Similarly, while of developers, their thinking is often broader than there might., for example, be several possible sites for the stereotype suggests. Individual developers are a multi-screen cinema complex within a city centre, often very concerned with the quality of the devel­ the development value may largely be appropriated opment and strongly support urban design guide­ by the first one to be completed: any subsequent lines where their value in maintaining developments must compete with it. Provision of environmental quality - and thereby property new infrastructure or development will also 'shift' values - is clear. Some developers look beyond the development value from one site to another. immediate market pressures and consider broader Planning controls shift value by giving land a partic­ civic responsibilities and obligations. Many derive ular designation (e.g. housing or agricultural) and, in psychic benefits through their close association discretionary planning systems, by granting - or with certain buildings and developments. Further­ refusing - planning consent. more, due to the discipline of operating in a market In general, the developer aims to appropriate economy, developers may often have a greater the development value by meeting an unmet awareness of consumers' needs and preferences demand for development. Developers therefore than many designers. orchestrate the assembly of inputs (sites, finance, professional advice, construction, etc.) and seek to make a profit by selling the completed develop­ ment at a price greater than the cost of producing Landowners it. A calculus of reward mediated by the risk of achieving that reward therefore drives the process. Landowners own land prior to the commencement In the main, developers' objectives are short-term of development. With the exception of those hold­ and financial - they are interested in design to the ing land in expectation of developing it, such as extent that it serves financial ends. builders or developers with land banks, land­ In the private sector, as their primary concern is owners do not normally take an active role in the a marketable product, developers (the supply side) development process, and simply release land for must anticipate the needs and preferences of development when offered a sufficient price investors and occupiers (the demand side). In prin­ (Adams, 1994). Their objectives are therefore ciple, occupiers make demands of building owners usually short-term and financial. (i.e. investors), who make demands of developers, Every parcel of land is unique - at least by dint who set the brief for building designers. The possi­ of its location. As location is fixed, ownership is a ble occurrence of producer-consumer gaps is source of power, particularly where spatial monop­ discussed below. In responding to, and balancing olies can be created. Housing developers, for exam­ the needs of, investors and occupiers, developers ple, compete for land in particular locations. Where tend to see 'design' as essentially a means to a readily developable land is in short supply, once a financial end rather than as an end in itself. Their developer has acquired the land or purchased an general design concerns include: 'option' - an agreement to buy the land at a spec­ ified price before a specified date or upon some investor and occupier requirements, prefer­ specified event occurring - and has gained consent • ences and tastes, and, in particular, the 'price' for development, s/he effectively has a local to be achieved for a product responding to monopoly, providing greater freedom to set qual­ these; ity levels and prices in their own interest. 224 Public Places - Urban Spaces

Landowners influence the outcome of the develop­ 4. Through leasing rather than selling land: Due to ment process in four main ways. their long-term interest in the land, freeholders granting leases are often concerned with the 1. By releasing or not releasing land: Adams (1994) quality of what is built there. As Sudjic (1992, distinguishes between 'active' and 'passive' pp. 34-5) observes, in this sense development landowners. Active landowners develop their is closer to farming than to trade. Aiming to own land (i.e. become developers), enter into produce a regular income rather than accumu­ joint venture developments, or make their land late capital by selling assets entails taking a available for others to develop. They may try to longer-term view on the economic health of overcome site constraints to make their land the properties, and the careful management .of more marketable or suitable for development. tenants and the uses to which they put their Passive landowners, by contrast, take no partic­ premises. The intention is to build a continuing ular steps to market or develop their land, relationship rather than a one-off transaction. rarely attempt to overcome site constraints and Contractual provisions in leaseholds, for exam­ may - or may not - respond to offers from ple, were responsible for the form of much of potential developers. There may often be Georgian London. sound reasons for this passivity: they may, for example, wish to prevent development, or to retain the land for later use. If owners of land Adjacent landowners with development potential are unwilling to sell, passive ownership may become a major Owners of land, sites or buildings adjoining or close constraint to development. Where public to a development site seek to ensure that any authorities are involved in or support the prin­ development of that site does not reduce - and ciple of development, powers of compulsory preferably increases - their property values. A purchase or 'vesting' can be used - although building's relation to its context - and, indeed, its this is typically time-consuming and costly. If external appearance - can be considered as land is not freely available, development may spillover effects. Buildings are interdependent take the form of 'scattered' growth, where, assets: their value is in part a function of the value rather than growing incrementally outward of the neighbourhood, which in turn derives - from a centre, it leapfrogs land that is not avail­ again, in part - from the value of each building. All able. developments contribute to a neighbourhood's 2. Through the size and pattern of the land parcels composite value. There can be positive neighbour­ released, which have a major impact on the hood effects, where the value of the neighbouring subsequent pattern of development: Knox and buildings increases the value of a development, Ozolins (2000, p. 5), for example, contrast the and negative neighbourhood effects. New devel­ large ranchos and mission lands around Los opments, therefore, either enhance or detract from Angeles that formed the basis of extensive the neighbourhood's composite value. Adjacent tracts of uniform suburban development, with owners' objectives are therefore long-term, finan­ East Coast cities where the early pattern of land cial and design-related in terms of external appear­ holdings was fragmented and subsequent ance and relation to context. development more piecemeal. 3. Th rough any conditions imposed on the subse­ quent nature of development: Landowners may Funders and investors release parcels of land with contractual provi­ sions or restrictive covenants limiting the nature Unless developers use their own capital, they must of development (Knox and Ozolins, 2000, arrange finance on the most favourable terms avail­ p. 5). They may set down a site plan (in two able, with regard to cost and flexibility. When dimensions) or an urban design framework (in borrowing money, they must take lenders' three dimensions) that influences or controls concerns into consideration. Those investing development. Urban morphologists have resources in urban development do so for their shown that platting or subdivision of land for own purposes, which are usually concerned with the purpose of sale or development has a major making profits. If acceptable profits are not influence on its development (see Chapter 4). achieved, they will invest elsewhere. The development process 2:Z5

Developers normally arrange two types of insurance companies and pension funds. For resi­ finance: short-term development funding, and dential development they are owner-occupiers. longer-term investment finance. Investors generally look for investment opportu­ nities that satisfy the following criteria: Funders Security of capital and income (i.e. low risk) - in Short-term finance - development funding - is • needed to cover costs during the development general, the more secure an investment, the period (i.e. costs associated with land acquisition, lower the risk that capital invested will be lost, construction and professional services). The princi­ or that expected income will not arise. Investors pal short-term funders are clearing and merchant may diversify their investment through the banks. On completion, when long-term finance is development of portfolios that balance risk. raised, the development finance is repaid. Funding Potential growth of income and capital (i.e. high • for a development is typically raised through a returns) - although high returns may be combination of equity and debt finance. Lenders of achieved through income growth, capital debt finance will, however, be repaid with interest, growth, or both combined, capital growth and but do not normally have a legal interest in the high overall returns ultimately depend on the project (except as security in the event of default) prospects for income growth (i.e. from user or an entitlement to share in profits. Lenders of rents). equity finance participate in the risks and rewards Flexibility (i.e. high liquidity) - investors look for • of development, are entitled to share in profits, and the ability to change their investments to have a legal interest in the project. produce the best returns. Liquidity depends on To assist their funding package, developers such factors as the existence of potential sometimes seek government or other subsidy purchasers, transfer costs, the investment's schemes, which often take the form of low interest overall size and its capacity for subdivision; in loans, grants, subsidies, or - less commonly - joint general, the more liquid an investment, the ventures. grants and subsidies are typically used easier it is to sell, in whole or in part. (Adams, to make socially desirable but economically 1994) marginal Asprojec ts viable, eligibility for support is usually couched in terms of 'social' rather than In practice, no investment offers complete security, 'economic' objectives. Although developers are perfect liquidity and guaranteed profitability. As often astute in arguing that their projects are each investment represents a different combination socially desirable and non-viable without gap fund­ of these attributes, investors trade off among them. ing, the intention is not to subsidise developers' Higher expected returns are required from higher­ profit. risk investments (i.e. the investor sacrifices security The objectives of development funders are typi­ in pursuit of greater return). Institutions have tradi­ cally short-term and financial. Their interest in tionally adopted a risk-averse approach to property design is primarily as a means towards a financial investment, concentrating funds on what appears end. Lenders of equity finance have more interest to be the most secure, liquid and profitable 'prime in the totality of the development, including its property' (i.e. property in the best locations, let on design. long leases to tenants of 'unquestionable' covenant). Investors As a type of investment opportunity, property The second type of finance is longer-term, covering has characteristics that distinguish it from other the cost of holding the completed development as forms of investment such as stocks, shares and an investment. Investors are the purchasers (and government bonds. Property investments are, for subsequently sellers) of completed schemes. As example, fixed in their location, heterogeneous, investment essentially requires foregoing the generally indivisible and entail responsibilities for current use of resources for enhanced benefit at a management (e.g. collecting rents, dealing with later date, investors in property are primarily inter­ repairs and renewals and lease negotiations). It also ested in the (potential) income flow from user takes a large amount of capital to buy a small rents, which is capitalised into the property's amount of property, and there tend to be high exchange or investment value. For commercial and costs involved in the transfer of property holdinl�S. industrial development, the principal investors are Property investments are, nevertheless, generally 226 Public Places - Urban Spaces

durable and typically provide a source of income. design practitioners - earn one-off profits in the The total supply of land (and property) is also fixed; form of fees, and may also use the completed the supply in a particular land use can change, but project as an advertisement for their services. They is relatively fixed in the short term. may also derive significant psychic benefits from Investors often use yield as a means of gauging their involvement in the project. Their objectives the performance of investments and to balance risk are therefore typically long-term, financial and with return. In markets that exhibit significant design-related. uncertainties, investors generally seek develop­ ments that deliver a high yield and a quicker turn­ around on their investments. In buoyant markets, Builders with significant competition between investors for investment opportunities, yields will generally fall. Builders - or contractors (and subcontractors) - A low yield therefore indicates a healthy investment seek to make a profit by constructing the develop­ market and high capital values. Such circumstances ment at a cost lower than the price paid by the will generally promise that profits will increase in client for the work and materials involved. Their the near future as rents rise to reflect new capital objectives are primarily short-term and financial. As valuations. builders may also use the development as an adver­ As their return takes the form of present and tisement for their services, they have an interest in future rental income and capital appreciation, the its design. Many builders also engage in develop­ objectives of investors are typically long-term, ment, operating as developers. financial and design-related to the extent that this achieves financial ends (see below). Acquisition policies of large, property investment companies, Occupiers for example, tend to be risk-averse: that is, they seek properties that will minimise their risks (e.g. of Occupiers - those who rent or buy space - derive being unable to dispose of a property at a target direct use and benefit from completed develop­ price or unable to let it at a target rental level). The ment. They are primarily interested in its use value, properties they seek therefore need to produce an especially in matters affecting business productivity increasing rental income over a long period of and operating costs, such as appearance, comfort, time; be flexible and easily adapted to alternative convenience and efficiency. Their objectives are occupiers; be acceptable to tenants with sound typically long-term, financial and design-related credit ratings; and be acceptable to other investing with respect to functionality and perhaps also to institutions (Rowley, 1998, p. 164). The acquisition external appearance (see below). policies of smaller property companies may, As the utilisation of property depends on both its however, differ from this; such companies often price and its physical qualities, occupiers trade off play an important role in urban regeneration (see between financial (e.g. rent levels) and physical Guy et a/., 2002). (e.g. quality, character, neighbourhood) attributes. Although occupiers normally treat the space they rent as one of the factors necessary for the produc­ Development advisers tion or delivery of their goods or services and assess its contribution to this aim, they may also be Advisers provide professional advice and services concerned with what the building represents or to developers and other development agents. symbolises (e.g. status, solidity, quality). To They include marketing consultants, estate agents, communicate certain messages, companies may solicitors, planners, architects, engineers, facility commission 'trophy' buildings, or seek out existing managers, site agents, quantity surveyors, cost buildings and/or locations based on the image of consultants, etc. As most advisers earn one-off their firm and the self-images of their staff and profits in the form of fees, their objectives are typi­ potential staff. External appearance or image may cally short-term and financial. Some advisers - be important to an occupier or investor, but its such as management agents of investment prop­ value - or, more precisely, its 'worth' to a particu­ erties - earn fees for continuing involvement: their lar owner or occupier - is relatively 'intangible' and objectives are typically long-term, financial and hard to price. Furthermore, although a company's functional. Some - such as architects and urban buildings might once have been an element of its The development process 2:Z7 marketing strategy, as the scale of markets increases that element becomes decreasingly important. Although a company's buildings might now be considered less important than its website, major firms continue to invest in high quality buildings, often by commissioning their own, giving them a more commanding role in the development process (see example one in Box 1 0.2). While in part this is a strategy to reinforce brand identity, it is increasingly an attempt to attract and retain key workers by providing working environments that inspire creativity and reduce absenteeism. This suggests recognition of and concern for buildings' functionality and their contribution to employee satisfaction. The concern may extend to spaces surrounding the building. Research by Carmona et a/. (2001 ), for example, identified a strong occu­ pier-driven demand for better quality environ­ ments.

The public st�ctor

The public sector (government bodies, regulatory agencies and planning authorities) seeks to regu­ late the development and use of land through the planning system, other means of regulation, provi­ sion of infrastructure and services, and involvement in land assembly and development. In general, it does not act directly on private sector actors (developers, landowners, etc.), but by establishing the public policy and regulatory framework, it provides the context for private sector investment decision-makin�J, it influences the incentives and sanctions available, thus making some actions more likely than others. Public sector bodies generally negotiate with developers ove1r the principle and detail of devel­ opment proposals. As well as meeting the plan­ ning authority's, basic requirements (those that are process to influence the design and quality o1f a non-negotiable), there will often be scope for proposed development (e.g. by encouraging negotiation and bargaining. The planning author­ and/or requiring the developer to invest more ity might require certain 'planning gains' (e.g. time or money in improving quality). In the UK, public open space, or contributions to infrastruc­ design is a material consideration in development ture), while the developer might offer certain gains control decisions: a planning authority can - in to make the scheme more acceptable to the principle - reject a proposal solely on design authority and/or the local community. In some grounds. As refusal of planning consent, and the countries planning gains are a legal requirement probable need to go to appeal, costs the devel­ (e.g. through exaction fees), compensating the oper both time and money, it is extremely unde­ local community for the development's negative sirable. Developers therefore generally negotiate spillover effects. Negotiation provides opportuni­ with planning authorities to ensure that consent ties for urban designers on both sides of the for the development is likely to be forthcoming, 228 Public Places - Urban Spaces

while planning authorities can encourage develop­ DEVELOPMENT QUALITY ers to make changes at the risk of not receiving consent. This empowers the planning authority's In considering issues of development quality, we urban designers in their negotiations with devel­ must consider the relationships between different opers. actors. In most economies they are related through Although planning controls are often seen as market processes and market structures. Given the constraints on development, this is a narrow view. discipline of a market economy, actors only While they may reduce the reward for the devel­ become involved in the development process to opment of a particular site, they protect the the extent that it contributes to achievement of context and composite property values of the area their objectives. Two issues follow from this: the or neighbourhood, and provide a more secure characteristics of a proposed development will be investment environment (i.e. by limiting what can assessed according to the degree to which they be done to adjacent sites). Typically, developers contribute to each actor's objectives; and, as actors favour planning controls but - to reduce their may have different objectives for the same devel­ development risk- want greater certainty and clar­ opment, there may be conflict and negotiation ity in their operation. Environmental improve­ between them (Henneberry, 1998). Three key ments also create a more secure investment issues arise: the possibility of a gap, or gaps, environment. between the producer and consumer sides of the In principle, the public sector acts in the collec­ development process; the role of the urban tive or public interest. In practice, however, it may designer within the producer side of the develop­ be difficultto discern what this is, while the various ment process; and considerations of urban design levels of government and other public agencies quality over and above those of development qual­ may frequently act in their own, narrower self­ ity. interest. The role of the public sector is discussed more fully in Chapter 11. In relation to any partic­ ular scheme, the public sector's objectives are typi­ The producer-consumer gap cally long-term, functional and design-related. The costs and benefits of any particular element of a development project are not neutral in their The community (general public) (perceived) impact on the development actors (Henneberry, 1998). For example, high quality, low The community at large - residents, businesses and maintenance materials increase initial development general public - consume the products of the costs, reduce long-term occupation costs and development process directly and indirectly (i.e. to enhance long-term functionality: the costs are the extent that the development is visible from or borne by the developers, but the benefits accrue to is part of the public realm). They therefore repre­ the occupier. To the extent that increased costs are sent a further part of the demand side of the devel­ passed on in the purchase price, investors bear opment process. As they consume developments in higher costs, recouped from occupiers through aggregate (i.e. across property lines), concern is for higher rental levels: to the extent that lower occu­ each development's contribution to the greater pation costs and greater functionality increase rental whole. The community's objectives are typically and capital value, higher returns are achieved. What long-term and design-related in terms of external is significant in Tables 10.2 and 10.3 is that supply­ appearance and contribution to context. side actors tend to have short-term and financial As well as being (passive) recipients of the prod­ objectives (i.e. the development is a financial ucts of the development process, the community commodity), while demand-side actors tend to and individuals thereof may actively affect the have long-term and design objectives (i.e. the development process through, for example, development is an environment to be used). protests over specific development projects, partic­ Where differing objectives and motivations must ipation or consultation on particular projects, be traded off between roles played by one actor or and/or involvement in interest groups and organi­ organisation (as developer, funder, investor and sations. Through the democratic process, they - occupier), conflict is internalised and can be traded indirectly, and perhaps in principle only - control off to produce the most satisfactory outcome, the public sector side of the development process. subject to budget constraints. Where differing The development process 2.29 objectives and motivations must be reconciled that high quality helps generate long-term externally (through market transactions), there is commercial success: this is termed the 's ustain­ scope for mismatches or gaps between supply and able' quality view. demand (i..e. a producer-consumer gap) (see Box 1 0.2). Because user/owners are unknown and If a higher quality building is produced than occu­ unable to directly inform the design and develop­ piers and investors are prepared to pay for, the ment process, producer-consumer/user gaps are extra costs incurred must be met by the developer. features of all speculative developments. The lack In short, there is over-specification. Prudent and of direct consumer input, combined with profit-maximising developers therefore attempt to consumers having to buy what is offered for sale, match closely the quality sought by the consumer, means that developers can produce 'poorer qual­ with the quality of the product supplied: in other ity' developments/environments which serve words, developers build developments at sufficient narrow financial purposes only. Thus, although the or appropriate levels of quality where 'sufficient' supply side (the developer) has to anticipate the and 'appropriate' are judged against short-term demand side's needs and requirements, it tends to criteria. In principle, the higher the specifications, produce, ilf possible, a product that suits its own the greater the risk that buyers cannot be found at objectives. In g�eneral, better quality development the price required to cover the additional costs is more likely when development roles are (Rowley et a/., 1996). combined in ways that bridge the producer­ This argument, however, assumes that there is a consumer 9ap. Although professionals, such as real cost involved in producing higher quality develop­ estate agents, often act as proxies for the occu­ ments. While this may be true where better piers, this may present other problems because the 'design' is seen primarily as a function of higher interests of the proxy can never correlate exactly specification or better quality materials, it is less with those of the actual occupants. true where it is seen in terms of, for example, better Where producer-consumer gaps occur, the layouts and configurations of buildings and spaces achievement of a balance of costs and benefits (i.e. those that have better links and connections among all actors is critically dependent on supply­ with the surrounding context). In this respect, side actors being convinced that providing benefits better urban design may involve no additional will result in hig�her prices/values or, at least, enable costs and may add value (Carmona et a/., 2001 ). cost recovery (Henneberry, 1998). If occupiers do not recognise or appreciate the benefits of particu­ lar design elements by being prepared to pay the The urban designer's role higher prices/rents for them, then developers (especially) and funders/investors (generally) are Given the prevalence of producer-consumer gaps unlikely to provide or fund them. and the structural estrangement of developers This issue can be considered in terms of 'appro­ (producers) and users (consumers) in the develop­ priate quality' and 'sustainable quality'. While, in ment process, it is necessary to look more closely at theory, 'good' (urban) design should add value to the producer side, and in particular at the urban property development, Rowley (1 998, p. 172) designer's role within it. In practice, there is usually suggests that, 1in the UK at least, the notion that no single producer: the 'producer' side typically 'better buildings mean better business' is both new consists of a number of actors with differing objec­ and debatable: tives. While Tables 10.2 and 10.3 summarise how development actor's motivations vary, McGlynn's The dominant attitude in private-property deci­ (1 993) powergram illustrates the powers of the sion making is still the 'appropriate' quality various actors (see Figure 1 0.3). She draws basic view: this holds that high-quality development, distinctions between actors who can exercise power however defined, is unnecessary so long as to initiate or control development; those with a there is some sort of market for the develop­ legal or contractual responsibility towards some ment at a lower standard; which may be easier aspect of development, and those with an interest to maintain, at least in the short-term; which or influence in the process. may demand less skill and care to produce; and Although broad brush, the powergram graphi­ which, it is assumed, can be delivered at a cally illustrates how power is concentrated among lower initial cost . . . The opposing attitude is those actors (i.e. developers and funders) able to 230 Public Places - Urban Spaces

Actors Producers Local authority Elements of the Land Funder Developer Architects Urban Everyday Suppliers Consumers built environment owner Planners Hi9.hway designers users engmeers

Streetpattem -

Blocks ------

Plots - subdivision 0 0 •- - 0 0- amalgamation 0 LanciJbuilding use • • • 0 0 Building& form (in U.K.) - - - heighVmass • • • • -$- 0 0 0 - orientation to public space - •- • • - -$-- 0 0

- elevations -- - 0 -$- 0 0 - elements of construction - 0 0 • - -$- 0 0 (details/materials) 0 • -$- -$- 0 0 KEY: Power-eitherto initiate orcontrol Responsibility -legislative or FIGURE 10.3 e contractual McGlynn's powergram -$- lnteresVinfluence - by argument or (source: McGlynn and participation only Murrain, 1994) 0- No obvious interest

initiate and control development directly. It also control. The overstating of the role played by archi­ shows the wide-ranging interest of designers (but tects and other professionals has been termed a also their lack of any real power to initiate or 'fetish ising' of design (Dickens, 1980), whereby the control development), and the lack of power focus on 'buildings' and 'architects' radically under­ wielded by the users of development, including the states the broader context of social and economic local community. Actors on the right-hand side of processes surrounding the urban environment's the powergram (designers and users) therefore rely production. primarily on argumentation, alliances and partici­ pation to influence the process. (ii) Master and servant The powergram also shows the apparent corre­ This suggests that development form is determined spondence between the objectives of the designer by power plays between the various actors in and those of users and the general public. Urban which those with the most power can issue orders designers are therefore indirectly charged with to those with less: that is, developers make the representing users' and the general public's views main decisions, for which designers merely provide within the producer side of the development 'packaging'. It nevertheless understates the role of process. In looking more closely at the designer's designers and other built environment professions. role, Bentley (1 999) suggests a series of metaphors Bentley (p. 32) suggests the prevalence of this idea -'heroic form-giver', 'master and servant', 'market may be because it enables less powerful actors to signals', and 'battlefield' -to describe the relation­ adopt positions of resignation or compliance, ship between actors. simply doing the developer's bidding rather than struggling to achieve better outcomes. (i) Heroic fo nn-giver This suggests that the form of a development is (iii) Market signals generated through the creative efforts of particular This suggests that, rather than being forced into actors (e.g. architects) and that built environment line, resource-poor actors passively respond to professionals are the main agents in shaping urban market signals: while they have the scope to space. Bentley (p. 30) argues that this is a 'power­ disagree, they appreciate who is paying their ful myth', which overstates the role of designers, salaries/fees, and do their bidding without question. exposing them to criticism for developments (or For Bentley, this understates or ignores the practical aspects of development) that are beyond their difficulties of controlling the development 'team' The development process 2�31 and the inherent uncertainty in the development from planning and public authorities in terms of process. Where complex knowledge is used, changing developer's attitudes and expanding detailed control of experts requires equally well­ the field for design. It has also been argued that, qualified controllers. As the transaction costs of such without the constraints provided by the context, controls and supervision are frequently prohibitive, budget, policy framework, etc., there is little for professional autonomy is unavoidable and is not designers to respond to in generating design necessarily checked by actors knowing 'on which ideas. Kevin Lynch (1 972, p. 38) argued that: side their bread is buttered'. Bentley (p. 35) also 'Designers are aware that it is easier to plan alludes to problems arising from members of the where there are some commitments than it is development/design team having incentives to when the situation is completely open ... The emphasise and differentiate their contributions, fixed characteristics restrict the range of possible working according to their own value-systems - solutions and therefore ease the agony of the architects stressing the 'art' dimension, surveyors design search.' the 'financial' dimension - and having objectives Internally, the client's (developer's) brief sets that may conflict with those of their clients. In the the initial agenda and broad parameters for latter case,. it is even more difficult for the developer design. Providing the starting point for discussion to exercise close control. Designers can act not only and negotiation, it contains some elements that against the interest of their client, but also against are negotiable and others that are not. Designers the interests of society at large. Concluding that this may have a great deal of freedom to interpret the situation seems fraught with potential disaster for all brief or, alternatively, may be asked merely for concerned - clients/developers do not have the 'packaging' or 'styling' (i.e. because all the funda­ knowledge to design buildings themselves, while mental design decisions have been made accord­ their professional advisers are difficult to control - ing to a preset formula or design brief or because Bentley (p. 36) suggests the situation is better the design exercise consists of laying out standard conceived as a 'battlefield' than as a 'friendly and units. Discussing the phenomenon of 'developers' bustling' market place. vernacular', Rabinowitz (1996, pp. 34-6) observed how significant design decisions were often made (iv) The battl!elield before projects reached the designer, and that This suggests that actors negotiate, plot and scheme because they had been shown to 'work' and were to achieve the development form they want. For based on the 'needs of the market place', the Bentley, this is the most convincing metaphor. The more prescriptive parameters in the client's brief opportunity space for negotiation is set by internal were neither 'arbitrary nor capricious'. Such and external constraints - or 'rules' - on the devel­ approaches constrain the ability of designers to opment actors. For private sector developers, the respond to the local context, and frequently result 'rules' relate to budget constraints, appropriate in formulaic and standardised designs unrelated to rewards and the amount of risk to be incurred: exter­ the locale. In considering fields of opportunity, nally enforced through sanctions such as bank­ there is value in designers attempting to extend ruptcy, such rules are not optional and cannot the accepted field for design. It is by extending the simply be ignored. The various webs of rules create field of opportunity that innovation occurs. If 'fields of oppo1tunity' within which all actors oper­ successful, it is incorporated into, and extends, ate. In negotiating effectively, the difficulty lies in mainstream practice. knowing the limits of other actors' opportunity In discussing how architects negotiate with fields. A key question for the designer, for example, clients/developers about design - and implicitly, is how far developers can be pushed. Bentley (p. 39) therefore, about design quality - Bentley (p. 37) argues that the more actors understand other actors' identifies three types of power that designers opportunity fields (e.g. if designers understand deploy: financial feasibility calculations), the more effectively they can target their own resources. through knowledge and expertise, which iis a • Through the need for planning/development product of their learning, research, professional consent, both the designer's and the developer's experience, and awareness of precedents; opportunity space will be externally constrained through their reputation, which is why they • by public sector requirements. Some designers have been hired, and which endows them with working for developers acknowledge support 'cultural capital'; 232 Public Places - Urban Spaces

through initiative, because it is usually only autonomous logic, real estate markets slice up and • 'designers' who make proposals for physical sub-divide the urban environment into self­ designs. contained compartments, generating cities that are incoherent and fragmented.' Each type involves power to influence, rather than The Project for Public Space ( .pps.org, compel, outcomes. In essence, designers need to accessed December 2001) argues thatwww the typical argue that good design is in developers' self-inter­ development process is flawed because it focuses est: providing a higher quality product should have on 'projects' and 'disciplines'. As a result: financial benefits for the developer and, indeed, benefits to other actors (see Carmona et a/., 2001, Its goals are narrowly defined. • p. 29) (Table 1 0.4). It may, for example, enable It is only capable of addressing superficial • higher returns (i.e. the design of a higher quality design and superficial political issues. housing development without incurring extra cost Its scope and assessment are defined by the • improves the cost/value balance, allowing units to boundaries of disciplines. be sold for a higher price and/or more quickly). It imposes an external value system. • Good design exploits a site's positive features, or It relies on professionals and 'experts'. • minimises the effect of negative ones. It may also It is expensive and is funded by government, • convince the planning authority of the acceptabil­ developers, corporations, etc. ity of a greater volume of development on the site It sets up the community to resist changes. • than had originally been envisaged (Table 1 0.4). Its solutions are centred around static design • and are unresponsive to usage. It results in a limited experience of place, and • Urban design quality limited civic engagement in the public realm.

Improvements in the quality of individual develop­ The essential need is for ways of encouraging - or ments are a necessary but not sufficient condition compelling - developers to see their development for 'good' urban design. Developers responding to in the wider context, to look across site boundaries, the needs of occupiers and investors can still and to contribute to the making of places. The exclude the needs of the general public and of soci­ Project for Public Space (2001 ), for example, ety at large. Segregated housing estates - in suggests recasting the development process to extreme form, gated communities - and inward­ focus on 'places' and 'communities'. It claims that focused developments provide what purchasers and such a development process would: occupiers purportedly want, but contribute little to the public realm. Such developments lack connec­ Grow out of a place and its potential for civic • tions to and integration with the local context. engagement. From an urban design perspective, it can be Allow communities to articulate their aspira­ • argued that the process and product of develop­ tions, needs and priorities. ment is often flawed because it is essentially Provide a compelling shared vision that would • concerned with individual developments rather attract partners, money and creative solutions. than the creation of places. Sudjic (1 992, Encourage communities to work collaboratively • pp. 44-5), for example, observes how developers and effectively with professionals. are considered to have no interests in the public Design would become a secondary tool to • realm and, instead, concentrate on 'creating support the desired uses. manageable chunks of development' - an office Solutions would be flexible and build on exist­ • building, shopping centre, or industrial park. In ing successes. Christopher Alexander's terms, these developments Commitment would grow as citizens are • are 'objects' rather than 'relationships'. This can be empowered to actively shape their public realm. seen as an inevitable outcome of market-driven development and reiterates the role of urban Managing, guiding or controlling the development design as a means of joining up otherwise frag­ process can be done in ways that both recognise mented environments. As discussed in Chapter 1, the collective interest and exploit the self-interest of for example, Sternberg (2000, p. 275) argues that: developers. Buildings are interdependent assets, 'Operating according to an impersonal and and developers typically attempt to benefit from a The development process 233

TABLE 10.4 Beneficiaries of value in urban design

STAKEHOLDERS SHORT-TERM VA LUE LONG-TERM VALUE

Landowners Potential for increased land values •

funders Potential for greater security of investment • (short-term) depending on market

Developers Quicker permissions Better reputation • • Increased public support Future collaborations more likely • • Higher sales values • Distinctiveness • Increased funding potential • Allows difficult sites to be tackled •

Design Increased workload and repeat Enhanced professional reputation • • professionals commissions for high quality, stable clients

Investors Higher rental returns Maintenance of value/income • • (long-term) Increased asset value Reduced maintenance costs • • Reduced running costs Better resale values • • Competitive investment edge Higher quality, longer-term tenants • •

Managin9 Easier maintenance if high quality • agents materials

Occupiers Happier workforce • Better productivity • Increased business confidence • Fewer disruptive moves • Greater accessibility to other • uses/facilities Reduced security expenditure • Increased occupier prestige • Reduced running costs •

Public int,erests Regenerative potential Reduced public expenditure • • Reduced public/private discord More time for positive planning • • • Increased economic viability for neighbouring uses/development opportunities Increased local tax revenue • More sustainable environment •

Community Better security and less crime • interests Increased cultural vitality • Less pollution • Less stress • Better quality of life • More equitable/accessible • environment Greater civic pride • Reinforced sense of place • Higher property prices •

(Source: adapted from Carmona

et a!., 2001 , p. 29). 234 Public Places - Urban Spaces

neighbourhood's positive externalities (e.g. pedes­ in the land (i.e. through restrictive covenants trian flows or particular views) and avoid negative attached to the sale of the land). This would ones (e.g. poor views, noise). In practice, however, typically deal with issues of place making, over­ they have often been more concerned about the all coherence and the relation between the negative externalities, and have created inward­ parts and the whole, and with problems at the focused developments where the milieu is transition between the area of development amenable to control. Such developments detract and the wider local context. from their context, and reduce its value - provid­ 2. A public authority can perform the same role in ing a justification for further inward-focused devel­ terms of establishing a master plan, develop­ opments and engendering a vicious spiral where ment framework, or development code, which each succeeding increment of development further would - by private agreement or through statu­ reduces the incentive for successive developments tory powers - be binding on all developers oper­ to contribute to that context. If urban design is to ating in the locality. In this instance, the public be a process of making better places, this spiral authority has a leading and co-ordinating role must be arrested and reversed. If there is to be a and, in principle, acts in the collective interest. It virtuous circle, then every increment of develop­ may also develop the master plan in consultation ment must contribute to a greater whole. For this or collaboration with local stakeholders. to come about, developers have to respect and 3. Rather than 'command and control' models, have confidence in the context, and in the rules the third model is more collaborative and that control development in that area, or in some voluntary. Various developers, landowners, kind of self-binding set of 'rules'. This happened to community groups and other stakeholders a degree in the past through the limitations of come together and agree a 'vision', a master available building materials and construction tech­ plan, development framework, development niques and the limited power to initiate develop­ code, etc., and the method of realising it, ment. This is also what, in effect, Alexander et a/. which would be binding on all. proposed in their A New Theory of Urban Design (1 987) (see Chapter 9). These are ideal situations, however - not least While there may be collective benefits in creating because it is rarely possible to get all (potential) a positive context and outward-oriented develop­ developers and (potential) stakeholders together at ments that benefit from and enhance their context, the same time, or to achieve a mutually beneficial individual developers may not be willing to do this. consensus. In each case, the plan or vision is not The neighbourhood effect works in both directions: intended to be immutable. Inevitably it is made at it does not, for example, benefit any individual one point in time, and reviewed/revised later. The property owner to improve their property (and, advantages of master plans, development frame­ thereby, the context) unless all other property works or development codes are to ensure and owners do the same. In essence, there is a collective enhance the composite value of all investments in action problem, whereby individuals acting in what the area and to reduce development risk. These they perceive to be their own self-interest produce also provide incentives for developers to accept the an outcome that is worse for everyone. necessary constraints on their freedom of opera­ Collective action problems can be resolved tion. To be effective, urban design frameworks also through the coercive powers of a higher authority need some degree of consensus about what consti­ (the state or, in some circumstances, the landowner) tutes a 'good' place, and a commitment to achiev­ or through co-operative action. There are at least ing it. Achieving quality in these respects is three ways to achieve the necessary co-ordination probably more difficult than implementing the and to ensure that - in principle - all increments of organisational mechanisms. This also provides a development contribute to a larger whole: justification for public intervention into the private development process (see Chapter 11). 1. Where there is a single overarching landown­ Public authorities can undertake other actions to ership, the landowner can create and impose a help develop a sense of confidence and certainty in master plan, development framework, or a locality. These include: development code (see Chapter 11) to be followed by the landowner undertaking devel­ Investing in flagship projects and/or subsidising • opment, or by developers purchasing interests development: Flagship projects are usually large- The development process 235

scale development schemes, and generally proposals for the Isle of Dogs, in London's have three overlapping purposes: to act as Docklands, which were intended to exploit the demonstration projects showing, for example, potential of the Greenwich Axis as an organis­ the commercial success of that use in that loca­ ing device for new infrastructure and, there­ tion or, more generally, of the location itself; to after, new development (see Gosling and act as exemplar projects setting standards for Maitland, 1984, pp. 147-51 ). subsequent developments; and/or by their scale, to create a critical mass of development, or a particular type of development, within the CONCLUSION area. Investing in area-based improvements: Although Discussion in this chapter has included the land and • key initial and demonstration projects are property development process; development roles necessary, revitalisation frequently needs to be and actors and their interrelation; and the issue of encouraged on a wider basis, with measures to development quality. In the absence of mechanisms improve the area on a comprehensive rather that compel better quality urban design, developers than piecemeal basis - the intention being to (and, more generally, the producer side of the create a widespread positive neighbourhood development process) will only be convinced to act effect. Environmental improvements might be where it can be demonstrated that investment in crucially important in changing the image of an quality will be compensated by additional value. As area. These measures indicate a commitment to argued above, in contrast to higher architectural the area and usually form the basis for 'place quality and better quality materials, better urban marketing' and other promotional campaigns. design may involve no additional costs. Research in Investing in infrastructure improvements: The the UK has shown - albeit tentatively - the llink • provision, pattern and design of new infra­ between better urban design and higher value and structure can often establish design intentions, investment returns (Carmona et a/., 2001 ). Research principles and standards (Figure 1 0.4). This was in the USA (Vandell and Lane, 1989; Eppli and Tu, the essence of David Gosling's unrealised 1999), Europe (Garcia Almerall et a/., 1999) and

FIGURE 10.4 Castlefields, Manchester, UK. The provision of new infrastructure elements can enhance character and set design standards 236 Public Places - Urban Spaces

Australia (Property Council of Australia, 1999) In more productive and contented workforces. • supports this finding. The UK research indicated ten By supporting the 'life-giving' mixed-use • key ways in which better quality design could add elements in developments. value to development: By opening up new investment opportunities, • raising confidence in development opportuni­ In higher returns on investments (good rental ties, and attracting public sector grant funding. • returns and enhanced capital values). By creating an economic regeneration and • In establishing new markets that may not have place-marketing dividend. • previously existed (i.e. for city centre living) and By delivering viable planning gain, and reduc­ • opening up new areas by differentiating prod­ ing the burden on the public purse of improv­ ucts and raising their prestige. ing poor quality urban design. (Carmona et a/., By responding to a clear occupier demand that 2001) • also helps to attract investment. By helping to deliver more lettable area (higher Complementing the discussion in this chapter, the • densities) on sites. next chapter discusses the public sector role in By reducing management, maintenance, securing and maintaining high quality environ­ • energy and security costs. ments. The control process

INTRODTJCTION and requmng high quality development from the private sector. A study of London's urban environ­ This chapter concerns the public sector's role in ment expressed these public sector activities as 'poli­ securing atnd maintaining high quality environ­ cies and processes', 'maintaining influences' and ments. It examines how public agencies use a range 'enabling factors' (Figure 11.1 ). of statutory powers not only to provide a quality Kevin Lynch (1976, pp. 41-55) identified four threshold over which development proposals must modes of action for public authorities: 'diagnosis' pass, but also to guide, encourage and enable (appraisal); 'policy'; 'design'; and 'regulation'. Two appropriate development, and to work towards the further modes can be added - 'education and enhancement of the public realm. In reviewing the participation'; and 'management' (Rowley, 1994, range of mechanisms available to public authorities, p. 189). These six modes are used to organise this particular reference is made to a major source of chapter. Although relating particularly well to urban design action, that of public sector design public sector actions in urban design, most of these control/review. The public sector's role is much modes of action also relate directly to private sector more than that of 'controlling' or 'guiding' design activity. Most of the following discussion on and development. In its various forms, it has the appraisal, design and participation, for example, is potential to influence urban qualitythrough a wide relevant to urban design throughout the public range of statutory and non-statutory functions (see and private sectors. Before discussing the detail of Box 11 .1 ). These enable the public sector to be an the public sector's role, it is necessary briefly to important contributor to the quality of the built envi­ address the broader question of the public sector's ronment both in its own right and by influencing, legitimacy in seeking to intervene.

237 238 Public Places - Urban Spaces

•Structural changes and perceptions (global / national / economic industria! employment environmental) • Reuse contaminated derelict land and buildings • Traffic domination reductionI I I • Provide housing • Urban regeneration (physicalI / social economic) • Tourism • Conservation of naturalI and built environment • Attract investment • Green belts I • Quality pays

Urban management (town centre. Private sector management)

Public sector Traffic management

Government Improved public (national /local / transport agencies)

Upgrading facilities Professional bodies Cleaning and maintenance Environmental bodies Safety crime security Conservation I I bodies Reduce noise smell / air pollution Land and property I owners/developers Utilities and infrastructure

Strong economy (national regional / local) Partnership (public private developers community) Vitality and viability I Healthy retailing baseI I I Concentration development and activities Government policies and initiatives of

FIGURE 11.1 Core contributors to the quality of London's urban environment. The diagram highlights the relationships between public agencies and the private sector, as well as the core qualities each aims to influence (source: Government Office for London, 1996)

PUBLIC SECTOR INTERVENTION as markets fail, so do governments. The presump­ tion that 'good' design guidance and control auto­ Although public intervention and regulation of matically provides 'good' design must therefore be development might seem an appropriate response treated with caution and scepticism. The situation to the dysfunction of (land and property) markets is complex and raises fundamental questions about that results in poor quality design and develop­ the state's role in a market economy. As some ment, this is to assume that the solution to imper­ forms of public sector intervention and regulation fect markets is (perfect) government. However, just are inevitable - there is no such thing as a 'free' The control process 2:19 market - debate is about what type of intervention, both a better-developed understanding of urban and how intervention occurs. It is crucially impor­ design and to move from being unknowing to tant, for example, for urban designers to under­ become knowing urban designers. Urban design stand where public sector interventions into the practitioners therefore have an important role not private sector development process can be most just as advocates but also as educators. effective (i.e. typically before or during the design Carmona (2001, p. 132) argues that the priority stage rather than after it). Rather than controls for given to design by public authorities is evident in the sake of controls, the need is for 'smart' controls. four key ways: through the development of design john Punter (1 998, p. 138), for example, highlights criteria considered relevant to the public interest how public sector control in the UK has changed and appropriate for guidance and control; through from an inherently negative concern with design responses to, and concern for, local context; control to a more positive concern for design qual­ through the value placed on the different mecha­ ity. He argues that the traditional view of design nisms used to control design; and through the has been of a static 'end product' (a piece of built resources devoted to design and to the process of form) rather than a dynamic process (creative securing better quality environments. Taken problem-solving) through which the built form is together, these factors largely define an authority's produced. When considered as a process, Punter approach to design. The more sophisticated argues that notions of design 'control' by a plan­ authorities will typically have: ning authority are 'clearly problematic'. In the UK, government advice has consistently stressed that A broadconception of design, extending beyond • the chief responsibility for design quality rests with 'aesthetics' and basic 'amenity' considerations, the client and the designer, and the notion of to include a concern for environmental quality design 'control' is giving way to that of a collective that encompasses urban design and sustain­ pursuit of quality. The need, therefore, is for ability - economic, social and environmental. controls and interventions that demonstrate under­ An approach to design informed by context, • standing and appreciation of development and based on appraisal of areas and sites and on design as processes (see Chapter 3). public consultation and/or participation. Those proposing and implementing urban An integrated hierarchy of design guidance • design controls or guidelines need a clear idea of extending from the strategic city/district scale the intended outcomes, otherwise the policies and (or beyond), to area-specific guidance for lar9e­ guidelines will operate in a vacuum. This requires scale regeneration, conservation or develop­ either a vision of what good urban form/urban ment projects, to design guidance for particular design is or the means (i.e. the cognitive skills/prin­ sites and development opportunities. ciples) to recognise it when it is presented. In An urban design team with the means and capa­ • noting how practice has changed in the US, Duany bilities to engage in the design process by et a/. (2000, p. 177) note how 'some cities are preparing proactive policy/guidance frame­ emerging from a prolonged crisis of confidence in works and design briefs to identify and guide which they abdicated initiative to market forces development opportunities, and to respond rather than providing a predictable environment positively to development proposals (Carmona, for the market to thrive in'. 2001 , pp. 132-66). Before there can be urban design controls or guidelines, urban design practitioners - and A number of cities -- Birmingham, Portland, perhaps some politicians - operating inside and Barcelona, Amsterdam - already have such around the public sector, must win the political approaches, and others are beginning to develop arguments and persuade politicians and other deci­ them. A range of factors can, however, undermine sion-makers that concern for design quality is bene­ local initiative. These include lack of political will to ficial and worthwhile. If they are to have any engage in design concerns (nationally and locally); impact at all, those with the power to make a the state of local investment and property markets; difference -· the developers, investors and occupiers innate 'conservatism' and anti-development atti­ - must also be persuaded of the benefits of invest­ tudes of local communities; incapacity of the ing in good design (see Chapter 1 0). Given their historic fabric to accommodate change; lack of role in influencing urban quality, practitioners skilled designers (particularly those with urban working in the public sector, and politicians, need design expertise); and unwillingness on the part of 240 Public Places - Urban Spaces

developers and investors to consider issues of, and Environmental audits and ecological and envi­ • invest in, design quality. ronmental inventories, combining visual analy­ sis with quantitative and qualitative environ­ mental measures. DIAGNOSIS AND APPRAISAL SWOT analyses of an area, focusing on • prescription rather than simply description. In Chapter 3, the nature of urban design as a process was discussed and related to the key stages Appraisal at the district/region-wide of an integrated model of design process: setting scale goals; analysis; visioning; synthesis and prediction; decision-making; and evaluation. Appraisal can be Appraisal at this scale ranges from evaluating the considered as both the start (i.e. analysis) and the broad character of the underlying natural land­ end (i.e. evaluation) of the design process. It sets scape, through identifying distinctive areas of the initial parameters from which design proposals _towns and cities (e.g. neighbourhoods or quarters), or policies are developed and feeds back into the to understanding the complex capital web and process as outcomes are evaluated. movement patterns of urban areas. These provide Universal or meta-principles of urban design means to understand urban growth patterns, and provide a framework for action, with each site or to relate new development to existing urban areas locality possessing its own unique set of qualities, in a sustainable fashion (Figure 11.2). opportunities and threats. Private sector develop­ Such large-scale spatial analysis happens most ments and public sector interventions begin with frequently and with greatest sophistication with appraisal as the starting point for the generation of regard to natural (rural) landscapes. One of the design proposals. For the public sector, a system­ largest identified 181 landscape character zones in atic analysis of context has an extra dimension England, each with its own detailed nature conser­ because the wide range of scales at which public vation, landscape character and ecological charac­ authorities operate - district/region-wide, area­ ter descriptions (Countryside Commission wide and site-specific - necessitates differing types English Nature, 1997). On a smaller, but still & of analysis. For all but the largest private sector regional, scale, such analysis has been advocated developments, analysis generally remains at the by a number of influential urban design researchers site-specific scale. (e.g. Lynch, 1976; Hough, 1984). In most countries, public authorities emphasise In many parts of Europe - Germany in particular the importance of respecting the local context. In - landscape/ ecological analysis now forms the the UK, for example, central government design basis for strategic design and planning decision­ advice has consistently emphasised the need to making. This is often directed towards identifying evaluate development proposals by reference to the area's 'landscape capacity' (i.e. the degree of their surroundings. The intangible as well as the modification before it is unacceptably damaged), more ta ngible qualities of place should - where its sensitivity and the potential for new develop­ possible - be the subject of appraisal at the ment to strengthen positive attributes and amelio­ district/region-wide, area-wide, and site-specific rate negative ones. The capacity of settlements to scales. Punter and Carmona (1 997, pp. 117-1 9) accommodate development in a manner that identify the appraisal methods most frequently enhances the established character and ensures used by planning authorities: that growth occurs in a sustainable fashion, should also be a fundamental part of strategic design deci­ Townscape analysis and notations, such as sion-making. • those developed by Gordon Cullen to highlight As tensions between the need for new develop­ the visual and perceptual character of place. ment and the preservation of established character Pedestrian behaviour, accessibility and traffic occur most acutely in historic urban contexts, it is • movement studies. here that work on urban capacity points out a Surveys of public perceptions and the mean­ possible new direction for large-scale spatial analy­ • ings attached to places, including Lynch-style sis. In Chester (UK), for example, much of the city legibility analysis. and its surrounding landscape are of significant Historical and morphological analysis of settle­ conservation importance, making new develop­ • ments, including figure-ground studies. ment extremely challenging, and necessitating a The control process

241 e K�!]• t\'ode.:> Memw'r.!d ¥ · �Pedestriall Estinwtedl.SRC� ·l'l.\'lllllt:d + f-1rm'$

• LmtdmarNeif.!.blmurhoodsks �� \:-.'. ) �G'alf!Wll)\.�11

r.:.)�lh/;• / t:.�'{u.r 0/lt'lt SprK'' SQjl ap e11

Fm'tiJ & l'rtuwrr C!mm'!h.'SfutCt' Sfll!fr-'<'l l!(lllf{ior,\O) 'dc Cmmltlll�l'tl/ EJ fJI\'M.'/11. n;,/kuv(J'jl!mStml � llflrdrljle

EJ t!.�•! 1!..1'/Jf!>il,y}(�«"/lllm'fi.> tu.h•nmlt.«'(l � lf'ttlt'l'

�

FIGURE 11.2 Glasgow city centre: movement patterns, distinctive neighbourhoods and open space structure. GJ't•t>tt the basis for the Ghugt·m,. Or!tl!'Jlr Si!�.lf{/itYIII/Un1.'/J pftrt'(> l'ht.:t•ill (;/U.•JIOthe mostfl':-: preparation of a design­As ���r/f;�.�J;��':/�;.1;:��!:,�;;.':��,,�.,. · based regeneration n.•m•uwl strategy, Glasgow's city centre's spatial character

.I'LWk was mapped in a variety Rlc!Jmmrtl'liru/ttir>IUifi' ICI"rlml /lllrk. .Voll'NO'fJIIil'/11,� of ways (source: ll'IU'/11/f Gillespies, 1995)

strategic conservation-led approach to growth. Area-wide appraisal Linking such a strategy to broader sustainable objectives indicated the necessity of examining the At this scale, appraisal often precedes the formula­ city's carrying capacity and led to a city-wide tion of design policies and guidance. It is, however, assessment encompassing analysis of physical, frequently expensive, time-consuming, dependent ecological and perceptual capacity (Arup Econom­ on skilled manpower (often in short supply in the ics and Planning, 1995, pp. 14-1 8) (Figure 11.3). public sector), and remains generalised in nature. It The analysis formed part of a broader drive to is also most comprehensively undertaken in historic develop strategic guidelines for development. (designated) areas. 242 Public Places - Urban Spaces

clear and concise articulation of character. The objective for urban designers is to develop their own conception based on their knowledge of the relevant issues in an area and the skills and resources available to undertake analysis. The approach might, for example, include analysis of the morphological, visual, perceptual, social, func­ tional, political and economic contexts. In the UK, to provide a systematic approach to area appraisal, the Urban Design Alliance created 'Piacecheck' ( .placecheck.com), a method of www assessing the qualities of a place, showing what improvements are needed, and focusing on people working together to achieve them. It encourages local groups (including local authorities) to come together to ask a series of questions about their city, neighbourhood or street, and to record the answers by a variety of methods including photographs, maps, plans, diagrams, notes, sketches and video. The aim is to develop a better understanding and appreciation of places and to provide a prompt for the production of positive forms of guidance such as urban design frame­ works, codes, briefs, etc. Initially, three key questions are asked: What do you like about this place?; What do you dislike about it?; What needs to be improved? Fifteen more specific questions then focus on who needs to be involved in improving the place, and how it is used and experienced:

Thepeople Who needs to be involved in improving the • place? What resources are available locally to help get • involved? What other methods might we use to develop Management • FIGUREProposals 11.3 our ideas about improvement? How can we make the most of other Methodology for the Chester Environmental Capacity • Study (source: Arup Economics and Planning, 1995) programmes and resources? How can we raise our sights? • What other initiatives could improve the place? • While, in part, this reflects the increased scope for public sector intervention in such areas, it also The place reflects the more comprehensive guidance avail­ How can we make this a special place? • able to practitioners. English Heritage (1 997), for How can we make this a greener place? • example, the body charged with guiding and How can the streets and public spaces be made • administering much of the conservation legislation safer and more pleasant for people on foot? in England - regards appraisal as the basis for How else can public spaces be improved? • conservation and planning action and offers a How can the place be made more welcoming • checklist to guide such analysis (Box 1 1.2). Despite and easier for people to find their way around? approaching appraisal from a historic and predom­ How can the place be made adaptable to • inantly visual perspective, the checklist provides a change in the future? The control process 2�13

How can better use be made of resources? weaknesses, the opportunities that could be • What can be done to make the most of public exploited, and the likely threats. The value of • transport? Placecheck and SWOT techniques is that they How can routes be better connected? (Cowan, move beyond analysis to identify potential courses • 2001 b, p. 1"1) of actions. Both techniques are also appropriate at the site-specific scale. These questions are broken down into over one hundred further questions to provide additional Site-specific appraisal prompts to thinking. Intended to be used in a vari­ ety of ways, the approach has been widely tested In the private and public sectors, site-�pecific theries of pilot projects. A less sophisti­ appraisal is a prerequisite for design and develop­ cated form of analysis - the SWOT analysis - can ment. Lynch and Hack (1 984) argued that each also be used to similar effect. SWOTs involve brain­ context and study inevitably requires the adoption storming and recording a place's strengths and of its own approach to appraisal in order to Public Places - Urban Spaces

244 site-specific appraisal should be to identify both those features worthy of protection, and the potential for improvement, and, as a result, to define principles and proposals that respect or ameliorate these qualities. Chapman and Larkham (1994, p. 44) provide a useful appraisal checklist (Box 11.3). Further techniques for site/area appraisal through graphic representations are discussed in Chapter 12. More extensive discus­ sions of appraisal can be found in the Urban Design Compendium (Liewelyn-Davies, 2000, pp. 18-30) and By Design (DETR/CABE, 2000, pp. 36-40).

POLICY, REGULATION AND DESIGN

Reflecting their joint emphasis (in the public sector context) on guiding and controlling the design of development, these three modes of action can be combined. As direct public sector investment in the creation of new environments is increasingly uncommon, the public sector's role in securing high quality development is often restricted to these functions. Nevertheless, most systems of local governance include extensive urban design powers, usually through interrelated processes of planning, conservation and building control, to ensure that private sector design proposals serve the 'public interest'. Usually based on restrictions of private property rights, controls on design and development invari­ ably arouse great passions and sometimes contro­ versy. Those who perceive themselves to be most directly affected - designers and developers -often make the most strident case against such forms of control or, somewhat paradoxically, manage to hold the inherently contradictory attitude that design controls should apply to everyone other than themselves. Writing in a US context, Brenda Case Scheer (1 994, pp. 3-9) articulated many of the perceived problems with public sector design control/review. She suggests that it is:

Potentially time-consuming and expensive. • Easy to manipulate through persuasion, pretty • pictures and politics. Performed by overworked and inexperienced • staff. Inefficient at improving the quality of the built • develop concepts based on an understanding of a environment. place's distinctive characteristics, coherent The only field where lay people are allowed to • patterns and equilibrium. These may include nega­ rule over professionals directly in their area of tive as well as positive characteristics. The aim of expertise. The control process 2415

Grounded in issues of personal rather than whole. Less emphasis on the soloist and more • public interest, particularly in maintaining on ensemble playing will not be a bad thing. property values. (p. 27 7) Violatinq rights to free speech. • Rewarding ordinary performance and discour­ Although the debates will undoubtedly continue, • aging extraordinary performance. the processes increasingly carry political commit­ Arbitrary and vague. ment and, at least in the West, widespread publlic • Encouraging judgements that go beyond issues endorsement. • outlined in adopted guidelines. Lacking due process (because of the sheer vari­ • ety of issues and processes of control). Policy Failing to acknowledge that there are no rules • to create beauty. Perhaps the most persistent critique of publlic Promoting principles that are abstract and sector attempts to influence design through statu­ • universal, not specific, site-related or meaning­ tory processes has been the charge that, as design ful at the community scale. is essentially a subjective discipline, such attempts Encouraging mimicry and the dilution of the are inevitably highly value-laden and prejudiced - • 'authenticity' of place. or, in Case Sheer's analysis, 'arbitrary, vague and The 'poor cousin' of urban design because of superficial'. In the UK, such charges have long been • the focus on individual projects at the expense the focus of debate on the validity of policy-based of a broader vision. attempts to influence design quality. Government A superficial process. guidance nevertheless shows the emphasis chang­ • ing; such that by 1997 the reference to subjectivity In another contribution to the same book, had disappeared. Rybczynski (1 994, pp. 21 0-1 1) outlined why, despite their perceived faults, processes of design 1980: 'Planning authorities should recognise • control/review continue to command significant that aesthetics is an extremely subjective commitment in public authorities. Given the matter. They should not therefore impose their frequency and ferocity of debates on the issue, he tastes on developers simply because they argued that such processes are 'extremely effec­ believe them to be superior.' (Circular 22/80, tive', reflecting both public dissatisfaction with the para. 19) idea of professional expertise and an apparent lack 1992: 'Planning authorities should reject obvi­ • of consensus in the architectural profession about ously poor designs which are out of scale or what constitutes good design. He suggested that character with their surroundings. But aesthetic review processes should be used to guarantee at judgements are to some extent subjective and least a minimum compatibility between 'new' and authorities should not impose their taste on 'old', and are of particular value because they applicants simply because they believe it to be reflect and promote deeply held public values. superior.' (PPG1, para. A3) Noting that such values have recently had a 1997: 'Local planning authorities should reject • 'nostalgic' rather than 'visionary' flavour, he poor design, particularly where their decisions considers this understandable in an era when new are supported by clear plan policies or supple­ building techniques and materials have unleashed mentary design guidance which has been a multiplicity of design styles and possibilities, subjected to public consultation and adopted many of which contrast unhappily with established by the local planning authority.' (PPG1, para. contexts. He concludes that: 17)

Historic experiences of design review in cities as The change epitomises the evolution of govern­ disparate as Sienna, jerusalem, Berlin, and ment thinking on design -which has also had the Washington D. C., suggest that public discipline development industry's tentative support of building design does not necessarily inhibit (Carmona, 2001 , pp. 176-99). The evolution is the creativity of architects - far from it. What it premised on an acknowledgement that desig1n does have the potential to achieve . . . is a issues can be addressed objectively only on the greater quality in the urban environment as a basis of preconceived policy and guidance, prefer- 246 Public Places - Urban Spaces

ably based on a systematic assessment of character. Project: ------­ It demonstrates a move away from a primary Case File No: emphasis on detailed architectural design (i.e. ------aesthetics) and towards urban design as the focus Date: for guiding design.

The gradual move towards more 'certain', A. PORTLAND PERSONALITY At Integrate the River

policy-based approaches to design control coin­ Emphasize Portland Themes A2 cided with the change to a so-called 'plan-led' 0 0 0 Respect the Portland Block Structures A3 planning system in the UK in 1991 . This modified 0 0 0 Use Unifying Elements A4 0 0 0 Enhance, Embelish, and Identify Areas the discretionary system of development control, A5 0 0 0 Re·useiRehabilitateiRestore Buildings which had offered great flexibility to planning A6 0 0 0 A7 Establish Maintain a Sense of Urban Enclosure authorities (because they were not bound by the & 0 D D AS Contribute to lhe Cityscape, The Stage, the Action & plans they produced), but also greater uncertainty D D D A9 Strengthen Gateways for developers. The plan-led system nevertheless D 0 D D 0 D still features a large degree of discretion because B. PEDESTRIAN EMPHASIS Bt Reinforce Enhance the Pedestrian System the plan is not legally binding and is only one & B2 Protect the Pedestrian (albeit the most important) of a range of 'material D D 0 83 Bridge Pedestrian Obstacles considerations'. The system attempts to balance D D D 84 Provide Shopping Viewing Places & certainty with flexibility. Unfortunately, however, 0 D 0 85 Make Plazas, Parks, Open Space Successful & 0 D 0 66 Consider Sunlight, Shadow, Glare, Reflection, Wind Rain because of the general lack of sophisticated policy & tools and appropriately skilled planning officers 0 0 0 87 Integrate Barrier�Free Design 0 D 0 (particularly in design), frustration continues 0 0 0 C, PROJECT DESIGN because the system often achieves neither C1 Respect Architectural integrity (Carmona et a/., 2001, p. 75). C2 Consider View Opportunijies The UK government's attempt to treat design on 0 0 0 C3 Design for Compatibility 0 0 0 C4 Establish a Graceful Trans on Buildings a more objective basis lags behind practice in other ttl between 0 0 Public Spaces 0 C5 Design& Corners that BulJd Active Intersections parts of Europe and the US. Systems employed in D 0 0 Germany, France, and some American cities, for C6 Differentiate the Sidewalk Level of Buildings 0 0 0 C7 Create Flexible Sidewalk Level Spaces example, are based on a mixture of legally binding D 0 D CB Give Special Attention 1o Encroachments zoning provisions, and design guidance through 0 0 0 C9 Integrate Roofs Use Rooftops & development plans or design codes. In the US, for 0 0 D C1 Promote Permane-nce Quality in Development 0 & example, zoning controls carry the status of police D 0 0 0 D 0 powers. As well as entitlement rights to those wish­ FIGURE 11.4 ing to develop, such powers confer on local author­ Central city fundamental design checklist, Portland, ities legally guaranteed means to control Oregon development. In the US, zoning controls have significant impact on the urban and architectural design of areas - albeit primarily through control­ city with a set of Central City Fundamental Design ling the mix of uses, morphological characteristics Guidelines (see Figure 11.4), which are condensed (e.g. building line, plot depth and width, etc.) and into a design checklist for assessing all projects the three-dimensional form of development (e.g. designed for the city centre (Portland Bureau of height, setbacks, density, etc.). More fundamental Planning, 1992). The aims of the checklist are to: urban design criteria and detailed architectural controls are rarely the subject of zoning. encourage urban design excellence; • Zoning can nevertheless prove a somewhat blunt integrate urban design and preservation of • instrument for influencing the quality of urban heritage into the development process; design. Additional guidance is provided by many enhance the character of Portland's central • municipalities - a well-known and sophisticated districts; example of which is Portland, a city with a reputa­ promote the development of diversity and • tion as one of America's best planned and designed areas of special character; cities (Punter, 1999). In part, this reputation is establish an urban design relationship between • derived from a clear (and effective) policy frame­ the central city districts and the centre as a work combining a spatial design strategy for the whole; The control process 2AJ7

r UDbCt9<1ui& OS. IlDb Cmqui$ 08 l!l:u$.Ancdt!6-1;!,1�1T ll�. Af'tido:'!...... 6-l 'll�!lin6;12ton:f_:Z'f' ��-� ! \8�· i ::'l:>:.. I ;j ;

I ! . - ..

UDb to.Croquis Uluf.ArlidE: 6.3t&a!;l'f"

�:��� --,

UDbCroquis 19 lllull. NUcl4- 7-5.T Illus.Nt�6..Stin.ti � I!obCmqg§Jt. (

FIGURE 11.5 Ville de Montreuil,. Plan d'Occupation des Sols, extract showing three-dimensional siting and height prescriptions (source: Tranche, 2001)

provide for a pleasant, rich and diverse pedes­ and to fail to deliver amenities after taking the • trian experience; bonuses - together with the inherently inequitable provide for humanisation through promotion and time-consuming nature of a system that lacks • of the arts; clear ground rules, and often delivers poor quality assist in creating a 24-hour central city that is public amenities (Loukaitou-Sideris and Banerjee, • safe, humane and prosperous; and 1998). assure that new development is at a human The German and French planning systems • scale and relates to the character and scale of provide for a strategic plan - Fliichennutzungsplan areas and of the central city as a whole. in Germany and Schema Directeur in France - to guide large-scale spatial planning and design deci­ Systems of incentive zoning are widespread in the sions, including those relating to key open space, US, whereby, in exchange for extra floor space, landscape, conservation and infrastructure provi­ developers proviide public amenities such as better sion. This is often supplemented at the local scale design features., landscaping or public spaces. by more detailed plans - Bebauungsplan in Although such bonus systems are effective at deliv­ Germany and Plan d'Occupation des Sols in France. ering public: amenities, their limitations and abuses These are akin to zoning ordinances, in which have discredited them as a means to achieve detailed codes covering layout, height, density, better design (Cullingworth, 1997, pp. 94-9). landscaping, parking, building line and external Problems include the tendency of developers to appearance can be laid out for each zone or plot. see bonuses as 'as-of-right' entitlements; to Detailed design guidance is also now common in increase building floorspace, height and volume; both countries (Figure 11.5). 248 Public Places - Urban Spaces

Experience in Europe and parts of the US helps OBJECTIVES to demonstrate the value and utility of well­ conceived policy and guidance mechanisms in c: c: E .. " � providing the basis for objective public sector inter­ .. iii ·- ... 1990). "' g vention in design (see Hillman, In England, c: "' c:., :.. � c: � .. "' ., �0 E u · :cc.. � where central government largely establishes the FORM 't s-g"'"'·- "' u "' � "ij ..c: .Eo>:o :c ... ·� ., ur: Uw e:= <., < c., w planning agenda for interpretation by local plan­ Layout: "' c. "' ., " -� !E ning authorities, the government's recent conver­ Structure -' sion to the cause of urban design quality has been Layout: epitomised by the publication of By Design: Urban Urban Grain

Design in the Planning System: Towards Better Prac­ Density tice (DETR/CABE, 2000). The guidance argues that, while the planning system holds the key to deliver­ Scale: Height ing good urban design, this can best be achieved Scale: through the provision of a policy framework based Massing on a clear set of objectives. Seven general principles Appearance: are identified (see Chapter 1) which, the guide Details argues, should be interpreted through design pearance: �aterials policy. In the UK context, the most important tool for this is currently the development plan, which - Landscape in principle - should clearly set out the design prin­ ciples against which development proposals will be FIGURE 11.6 assessed. Although not included in the final version of By Design, Reflecting research on design policies in England this 'thinking machine' (or matrix) was developed to (Punter and Carmona, 1997), By Design recognised relate policy objectives to the physical form of development (source: Campbell and Cowan, 1999) that policies are often vague and ill conceived, and suggested that adopted design principles should be based on clear understanding and appreciation of the local context. In the UK, this has usually been response to one or more of the urban design objec­ demonstrated in documents outside the statutory tives will contribute nothing to good urban design. planning process. Local design guides, for exam­ Equally, any policy, guidance or design that is not ple, often address particular contexts (e.g. town expressed clearly in terms of one or more aspects centres, conservation areas, residential areas, rural of development form will be too vague to have any areas) or particular types or aspects of development effect' (Campbell and Cowan, 1999). Although not (e.g. shop fronts, landscape design, housing, mate­ included in the final guidance, the authors devel­ rials). Such guides are usually far more detailed oped a 'thinking machine' (or matrix) as a means than the policies in the development plan. They to link objectives explicitly to form (Figure 11.6). expand and explain policy for their target audi­ Although well-conceived and articulated policies ence, relating general policies to particular areas or should provide a key means for the public sector to developments. Two of the best and most sophisti­ influence and direct urban design policy, the cated examples of local design guides are A Design extent of this influence is limited. It will never, for Guide fo r Residential and Mixed Use Areas (Essex example, substitute for willingness to invest in Planning Officers Association, 1997) and the City design quality by the development industry and by Centre Design Strategy for Birmingham (Tibbalds et government (local and/or national). Arguments for a/., 1990). high - and higher - quality urban design must be To overcome problems of vagueness, By Design won in all arenas. relates policy objectives to the physical form of development. The guide's authors argue that this approach ensures that policy moves beyond gener­ Design and regulation alised aspirations and explains how the principles can be interpreted in the light of particular circum­ As different means to implement broad policy stances. They boldly claim that: 'Any policy, guid­ objectives, 'design' and 'regulation' are considered ance or design that cannot be seen clearly as a together. Design is taken first because, in the The control process 249 public sector context, it offers a refinement of Ensuring that important design issues are • policy mechanisms as well as being the first stage considered. of implementation. Offering a basis frorn which to promote sites • The process of policy writing for development and negotiate on development proposals; plans, zoning ordinances or design guides is part of encouraging collaborative approaches to the wider design process and is a creative problem­ design. solving process in itself. As they relate to future Ensuring that the public interest is considered • development proposals, which at the time of writ­ alongside private interests (particularly the ing are usually unknown, most design policies are levering of public amenities from develop­ abstract in nature. Those in British local plans, for ments). example, are intended to guide development over Offering a quick and straightforward means of • a projected ten-year period. Thus, beyond broad providing greater certainty and transparency in spatial design strategies indicating how an author­ the design decision-making process. ity's plan area will develop over the long-term, development plans have not tended to indicate As design briefs bring public design guidance to its design proposals. To ensure that design principles most prescriptive level,. authorities have to be are considered at the site-specific level, many public aware that - to avoid stifling innovation or creativ­ authorities provide design guidance for particular ity - guidance should be market aware and flexible. sites thrOU!lh the use of design briefs, frameworks Formats vary widely, depending on a site's nature and codes. These are the next stage in a hierarchy and sensitivity, the range of issues to be addressed, of design

Design (development) briefs

In the UK, design briefs are the usual means of providing site-specific design guidance. Depending on local circumstances, briefs may emphasise design Developer"s Design Briefs concerns, broad planning issues, or develop­ Briefs Townscape, ment/management issues. Hence, 'development Financial Design and Land Management Conservator brief' is the generic term for 'design', 'planning' and �ssues !ssues 'development' briefs (Figure 11.7). Design briefs are of particular value in a variety of ways, including:

FIGURE 11.7 Providing a positive and proactive approach to • Types of development briefs (source: Chapman and planning and design. Larkham, 1994, p. 63) 250 Public Places - Urban Spaces

elements (i.e. spelling out the authority's inten­ Procedures for application: e.g. outlining how • tions). They also generally cover the following the guidance is to be used to evaluate schemes areas: and any procedures or additional presenta­ tional and survey requirements. Background and statement of purpose: e.g. the Indicative design proposals: e.g. outlining devel­ • • circumstances under which the guidance is opment possibilities for the site, including phas­ prepared, and its relation to wider design ing requirements, but without providing policy, spatial strategies, and planning gain unnecessary detail or stifling innovation. requirements. Survey and analysis: e.g. of the built and natural • Design frameworks and design codes environment, including identification of any specific constraints or opportunities for devel­ Design frameworks and design codes provide simi­ opment. larly positive planning tools, although neither these Planning and design requirements: e.g. spelling nor design briefs necessarily have to be produced • out in policy form the key criteria against which by the public sector. Design frameworks can be any proposals will be assessed. used to guide major development by co-ordinating Engineering and construction requirements: e.g. its key design features and by setting out a spatial • highways and other infrastructure specifica­ framework for infrastructure, landscape and the tions. distribution of land uses (Figure 11 .8). They are

Pedestrian Opportunities

Primary Pedestrian Movement

Proposed Metro Stations

M Ex�ting Attractions • {ka)' uses / local spaces } Potential Attractions • {l:ey usas / focai SJ)

CONVENTION CENTRE QUARTER FIGURE 11.8 Good examples of design frameworks have been developed from the Birmingham Urban Design Studies as a means to relate the general design principles in the City Centre Design Strategy to the level of individual city quarters, such as the Convention Centre Quarter, Planning and Urban Design Framework (source: Birmingham City Council, 1994) The control process 2�)1 frequently described as master plans, when a clear Zyberk, one of the designers of the Seaside code, three-dimensional vision of future development argues that form is required as well as two-dimensional plans control and freedom can co-exist most effectively and diagrams (see below). when incorporatedin regulations that precede the Design codes tend to be used for larger devel­ act of design, framing parameters of a given opments. lhey establish a set of principles which programme, rather than conflicting in judgement guide development, enabling the detail to be exerted on the completed design. Review without developed later. Often used alongside a master regulations, or some clearly articulated intention, plan, they have reached their greatest degree of is nonsensical, painful at least and often resulting sophistication and simplicity in the planning of in banal compromise as holistic conceptions New Urbanist developments in the US, where submit to fragmented adjustments. (From Case the design code typically consists of one or two Sheer and Preiser, 1994, p. vii) diagrams and charts (Figure 11.9). These (usually private) endeavours - the best known of New Urbanists have developed these policy tools to which is the new settlement of Seaside in Florida include: - offer valuable lessons for the public sector. Established prior to development, the codes are A site layout or plan - usually termed a master • analogous to other site constraints (i.e. they are plan - based on compact, mixed-use neigh­ one of the factors that need to be taken into bourhood principles, and allocating particular account by the designer). Elizabeth Plater- building types to particular sites.

SPECIFICATIONI!I

YARD ·!=--��:::::..�·· ""••Om : ��·"'""

PORCH 1,------1•.• •.•.•.•.• ••• IlL BALCONY ro

OUT­ BUILDING

PARKING CJl

HEIGHT

-.

FIGURE 11.9 The Seaside urban code. Design codes tend to be used for larger developments and establish a set of principles to guide development, enabling the detail of projects to be developed at a later date. Often used alongside a master plan, they have reached their greatest degree of sophistication - as well as simplicity - in the planning of New Urbanist developments. The Seaside code was originally designed with the expectation that most building design would be by plan-smiths rather than by architects (source: DPZ Architects in Duany et a/., 1989) 252 Public Places - Urban Spaces

An urban code that establishes specific street • In common with all design policy instruments, and space sections to encourage pedestrian the most effective briefs, frameworks and codes are movement, and specific building types and promotional and comprehensive; encourage inno­ their relation to the public spaces - including vative design and presented in easily understand­ building lines, heights, parking, outbuildings, able and usable formats for applicants, porches and fences. professionals and public alike; and combine policy­ An architectural code to direct imagery and based information with indicative design ideas. • character in line with a sense of place. Good practice guidance on their preparation is A landscape code to enhance public spaces and available from the Urban Design Group (2002). • the compatibility of new landscape elements with the natural ecosystem. Design review and evaluation

New Urbanist codes are not conventional 'words­ Briefs, frameworks and codes provide means of and-numbers codes' focusing on land uses, road moving broad policy objectives closer to realisa­ layouts, highways standards, etc., while containing tion. They - and the policies on which they build - no vision or expectation about the desired urban fulfil essentially the same function: offering a basis form. Instead, they illustrate graphically and picto­ against which to evaluate development proposals. rially the key principles such as street profiles, build­ Their preparation can be characterised in the form ing volume, and, in particular, the relationship of of a simple equation: buildings to streets (i.e. how private property defines public space). As Duany et a/. (2000, Central government/state and regional/ p. 177) argue, rather than 'specifying what it does strategic policy not want, this code specifies what it does want'. + Typically regulating elements such as roof pitch Local vision (based on design and use of materials, the architectural code is the conception/objectives adopted) most controversial. Duany et a/. (p. 21 1) highlight contradictions in the criticism of such codes: Appraisal +of locality Colleagues who complain to us about Seaside A policy base as a means to objectively usually have two criticisms. Th e first is the review and control design (design policies, restrictiveness of the architectural code, and the ordinances, briefs, frameworks, codes) second is the significant number of over-deco­ rated 'gingerbread' cottages there. Th ey are Once prepared, they provide the means to operate usually surprised to learn that the gingerbread regulatory processes - design review/control - on houses at Seaside demonstrate not the require­ the basis of clearly identified and publicly available ments of the (largely style-neutral) code but the policy objectives. In the US, reg ulation of this code's inability to overcome the traditional nature began with a perceived need to regulate the tastes of the American housing consumer. The aesthetic impact of billboard advertising in the only way to have wiped out the hated architec­ public realm. The aim was to control the potential ture would have been to tighten the hated code. for offence to the visual sensibilities of the average Depending on what level of control is desired, the person - 'safety, morality and decency' were architectural codes can be made more or less controllable within the constitution, while aesthet­ prescriptive. Some architectural codes have exemp­ ics were not (Cullingworth, 1997, p. 1 03). In tions for designs of intrinsic merit or for certain Europe, powers to control design typically devel­ building types (such as public buildings). Some oped from the need to improve basic health and developments have an urban code but not an amenity standards in urban housing, usually as the architectural code. One criticism of the use of New forerunner to comprehensive planning systems. Urbanist codes is that they are treated as 'formulae' In most countries, design review and control are and are thereby considered either to constrain the tied to the broader planning process, successful designer unduly or, conversely, to make the need negotiation of which is needed in order to secure for a designer redundant. Intended as guides rather planning consent or a permit to build. Design than as prescriptions, the codes need to be inter­ review is typically dealt with either as an integral preted by designers. part of planning (i.e. as one part of the wider The control process 253

Design Appeals Process Review

Decision National/State

' Making ' Procedures/Court ' ' ----- �------::;--L���----...,------R"ecamm_e_nd"at"i�n�----- ..-: ; Staffing !.. 7\d'Vi soiY···: .. ... , : Panel

i : Proposal

Decision Making

Recommendation Staffing

Proposal 254 Public Places - Urban Spaces

regulation process) or separately but clearly linked. obtain skilled/specialist advice (e.g. design • These can be considered as 'integrated' and 'sepa­ panel procedures, historic building specialist, rated' models of design review (see Box 11.4). landscape specialists); In some systems, processes of development on the basis of information gathered/received, • and/or design control are tied to a further regula­ negotiate design improvements; tory function of the public sector; that of building consider and negotiate implementation • control. This usually deals with detailed health and requirements (e.g. phasing, planning gain, safety aspects of construction standards and design reserved matters, etc.); realisation of the private realm (e.g. space stan­ finally, make a reasoned recommendation or • dards, ventilation requirements, structural stability). decision to grant, grant with conditions, or In the UK, these aspects are separated from refuse permission. broader urban design and planning processes, and handled through different statutory instruments After a negative decision has been made: and procedures. In Germany, although legislation where necessary, use the information gath­ • distinguishes between planning and building law, ered/received to fight any appeal; the latter is open to local amendment and can have use the appeal decision to monitor evaluation • a much greater impact on architectural design procedures, where necessary revising design through, for example, control of building form and policy and guidance. materials. Whatever the relationship, the interface between such micro-design regulation and the Aftera positive decision has been made (or an appeal macro-design typically dealt with through planning successfully made): processes requires careful co-ordination, particu­ carefully monitor design implementation (if • larly for issues crossing the administrative divide necessary, enforcing decisions/conditions); (e.g. disabled access and energy use/conservation). evaluate design outcomes; • Whatever administrative procedures are adopted use the information collected to monitor wider • to review the design of development, proposals go evaluation procedures, where necessary revis­ through similar processes of design evaluation. ing design policy and guidance (from These include not only formal procedures of appli­ Carmona, 2001 , p. 159). cation presentation and public consultation, but also more informal procedures of appraisal, consul­ In a less structured way, project teams (public or tation with specialists, and negotiation with private sector) evaluate their own projects follow­ controllers (Punter and Carmona, 1997, p. 303). As ing a similar process. Such evaluations include: such procedures rely on a coherent and compre­ hensive policy and guidance base already being in an ongoing process of gathering information to • place, those charged with making decisions about inform designing and decision-making; a proposed development (i.e. planning officers) seeking additional specialist expertise as and • should: when required; evaluation of design proposals against the orig­ • Before an application is received: inal objectives/brief and any new information; enable potential developers to consult the making a decision to: proceed with the scheme • • authority about design proposals; to presentation/implementation; retain certain if necessary, instigate design briefing proce­ aspects of the design for refinement and reject • dures; others for redesign; reject the scheme in its if appropriate, initiate collaborative and/or entirety and redesign; • participative arrangements. the ongoing learning process as schemes are • finished and implemented and new ones After an application has been received: begun, drawing from: experience of the design appraise the site and its surroundings to estab­ process itself; reactions of others (including the • lish the design context; client) to the proposals; and, if implemented, review established design policies for the site; feedback on the scheme's performance. • review the application to ensure design aspects • are clearly and appropriately presented; In addition to the standard public sector project instigate public consultation procedures; evaluations (e.g. assessing schemes against site • The control process 2�i5 appraisals, established policy and guidance, skilled have been achieved (Figure 11.1 0). While stron9ly advice and the results of any consultation activity), supporting the need for collaborative approaches to other techniques are used for the economic and urban design, it also notes that these are not a socio-environmental impact of schemes. Various substitute for good designers, but are essentially 'a cost-benefit analysis and environmental impact way of making space for them to design creatively, assessment techniques are the most frequently and helping them avoid later finding themselves used (Moughtin et a/., 1999, pp. 1 39--49). tripped up by matters of public policy, economics or However, by seeking to measure those aspects that local context which they failed to take into account' are readily quantifiable, particularly in monetary (Campbell and Cowan, 1999). Those charged wiith terms (e.g. employment, traffic impacts, levels of writing and implementing design policy must recog­ pollution), such assessments may oversimplify less nise that regulation will never be a substitute for tangible impacts such as the loss of culturally good design proposals in the first place. important buildings or the positive impact of a well-designed public realm; the value of which can Monitoring and review be underestimated or ignored. Because of the resources they employ, these methods tend to be The final stage in the design process is the feedbaiCk used only on larger schemes - particularly those loop that involves learning from past experience associated with major infrastructure projects. and using the lessons to inform future practice. In By Design (DETR/CABE, 2000), it is argued that Arguing that growth and learning are essential the 'art of urban design' lies in applying good prac­ parts of design, Zeisel (1 981 , p. 16) suggested it is tice principles to the particular conditions of an area 'a process that, once started, feeds itself both by or site. It ar,gues that such principles should be capa­ drawing on outside information and by generating ble of being expressed as performance criteria, additional insight and information from within'. permitting assessment of the extent to which they The more urban designers learn from past experi­ ences, the more likely they are to repeat their successes and avoid mistakes. This also applies at the organisational level, emphasising the impor­ tance of public authorities and consultancies / Thetoolkit systematically monitoring their work and using the ' results to review both their design/management processes and the design outcomes. Hardware.... Software.... All design policy and guidance should be regu­ ... guidingquality ...raising larly monitored to assess how effectively it meets standards its objectives, with the resulting information used to improve the effectiveness of policy and guid­ Developmentplans Proactivem111agement ance frameworks (Punter and Carmona, 1997, pp. 311-14). For urban design schemes, monitor­ IMlandesign frameworkS Developing skills ing should include assessments of completed DevelopmentbriefS COMaborallon projects against the original brief and/or policy Designguides DesignillliatiVes objectives and post-occupancy evaluations. In the Designstatements Quality lllllflls public sector, assessments of the results of plan­ FIGURE 11.110 ning appeals (i.e. how many are won and lost and The policy 'toolkit': Advocated in By Design (DETR/CABE, 2000), the policy toolkit is in two parts: (i) the why) and the quality of planning applications 'hardware' or the means to control and guide design received can also be monitored. Monitoring activ­ utilising policy instruments (e.g. design policies in ity should involve all the actors involved in development plans, supplementary design guides, making decisions - council officers and elected design frameworks, briefs and codes) and (ii) the 'software' or the encouragement of high design planning committee members - as well as the standards through proactive management of the users of the service and final scheme - architects, planning system. The latter involves encouraging the developers, civic and amenity societies and the use of skilled designers (in authorities and by wider community. developers), encouraging effective collaboration As an optional post-implementation activity - between stakeholders, and monitoring outcomes through regular audits (appraisals) of the built and because staff, resources and energies are environment (source: Campbell and Cowan, 1999) usually redirected to new projects - systematic 256 Public Places - Urban Spaces

monitoring is rarely undertaken. Nevertheless, in EDUCATION, PARTICIPATION AND the public sector, increasingly sophisticated meth­ MANAGEMENT ods are employed to monitor public services in order to audit service quality. In the UK, the devel­ The time scale over which such concerns necessar­ opment of performance indicators across local ily operate connects the final two modes of action government services enables comparison of levels -'education and participation' and 'management'. of performance (DETR, 2000). In the US, perfor­ Over the long-term, education and participation mance indicators are a well-established part of the provide the means to inspire greater commitment zoning process (Porter et al., 1988). Performance to environmental quality among the population at indicators often rely, however, on quantitative large, while management represents ongoing stew­ measures of performance (e.g. the speed of ardship of the urban environment, which may help processing planning applications) that only indi­ stimulate feelings of identification with place. rectly measure the qualitative dimensions of urban Long-term commitment to the quality of the design through, for example, measuring the urban environment by the public sector and the number of applications submitted by architects, or local community is essential because - despite the number of design-related planning appeals having moved up the political agenda - issues of won. environmental quality are often sacrificed when By focusing only on aspects amenable to quan­ perceived to be in conflict with economic and titative measurement, decision-making processes social goals. However, as awareness of the link can become distorted. More fundamental between environmental quality and economic approaches to monitoring include quality audit prosperityand social well-being grows, so does the processes (DETR/CABE, 2000, p. 81). These involve demand for a better quality environment. This systematic review of the practices and policies - demand, from across the range of stakeholders, preferably also the outcomes - of public sector stems from a variety of factors, including: services, in order to evaluate their success in meet­ ing clearly defined objectives. Audits of this nature, Companies and individuals having a direct • however, tend to focus on processes rather than financial stake in the environment or property processes and outcomes. they own (for many householders their primary Other approaches to monitoring urban design financial asset is their house). quality include: More people being better travelled, and more • aware of high quality environments to compare establishment of design awards schemes, with their own. • which also provide an incentive to strive for The link between environment, health and • better design; contemporary lifestyles being clearly accepted use of design advisory panels, which can reflect and regularly debated. • on completed schemes as well as on schemes Built environment issues being newsworthy, • seeking planning consent; and nationally and locally. elected councillors and officers touring • completed projects, to consider design issues, The final factor is particularly important in keeping and to show decision-makers the impact of issues of quality high on the political agenda, their decisions. ensuring commitment to public involvement and investment in the processes of urban management As well as formal approaches to monitoring, it is and change. also important to establish informal practices that include monitoring and review processes as an everyday component of working arrangements. Education and participation Such practices can be as simple as making time before beginning a project to research what has For most lay participants, awareness of environ­ worked elsewhere; recording personal impressions; mental quality derives from personal experience or holding informal discussions with colleagues in and the media rather than from formal education. order to feed views back into formal policy review For professionals operating within the urban envi­ procedures or ongoing design and decision­ ronment, it is particularly important to develop a making processes. broad knowledge base covering their own, and The control process 2�i7 other, perspectives on securing environmental rural/suburban authorities largely reliant on non­ quality. In the UK, demand for greater environ­ specialist planning staff to deliver a purely reactive mental awareness and training was a key outcome service. Concurrent work revealed a dearth of of the 'Quality in Town and Country' initiative urban design education for students in professional (DoE, 1996), a national cross-profession consulta­ planning, architecture, surveying, engineering and tion exercise. Perception that the general public landscape design courses, resulting in the continu­ lack taste and visual literacy has long been consid­ ing delivery of young professionals to the job ered an important barrier to achieving a better market without a grounding in cross-professional designed environment by the architectural profes­ urban design (University of Reading, 2001 ). sion, as is the dearth of design skills in planning, Research in both the UK and the US has consis­ and of enlightened patronage in the development tently shown that lay and professional tastes on industry (PIUnter and Carmona, 1997, pp. 338-40) design can be very different (see Nasar, 1998). In (Figure 11 .11 ). any one place, architects' tastes often differ from The Urban Task Force (1 999, pp. 157-68) also those of planners, which differ from those of local identified low levels of urban design skills as a key politicians and the general public. As the design barrier to delivering an Urban Renaissance in disasters of the post-war period remind us, profes­ England. Subsequent Government research (Arup sionals should be extremely wary of dismissing llay Economics and Planning, 2000) found two types of taste. Taking local public opinion on board in urban design skills base in local government. A design projects helps to ensure that proposals are small group of (mainly large) urban authorities supported by those most affected by their impact. employing urban design staff who perform both a Involving end users and local populations in the proactive role in area redevelopment and a reactive design process also offers an effective means for role throug�h the development control process; and pursuing wider design awareness and educational a much larger group of (mainly smaller) often goals. The cross-disciplinary 'Quality in Town and

FIGURE 11.11 Contemporary patterns of patronage (source: Louis Hellman) 258 Public Places - Urban Spaces

Country' consultation exercise clearly indicated a Management processes are central to urban design development industry-wide commitment - at least and particularly to public sector regulatory func­ in principle - to involving local communities in the tions. In a more circumscribed role, they involve design decision-making processes (DoE, 1996, day-to-day management of established environ­ pp. 8-1 0). This commitment is, however, rarely ments, helping to maintain and enhance urban translated into practice beyond token efforts or quality. The public sector has a key part to play minimum statutory requirements. here, particularly through its management of trans­ In the UK, planning authorities are statutorily port, urban regeneration, conservation, and main­ required to consult local residents and interest tenance and cleansing processes - all major groups when preparing development plans contributors to urban quality. (including design policies) and considering plan­ ning applications. They are also encouraged to consult the same groups when preparing supple­ (i) Transport mentary forms of design guidance. As more funda­ Issues of transportation dominate debates about mental forms of participation are not required, the sustainability of urban living patterns. While efforts remain at the level of tokenism (see Chapter easily thought of - at least at the macro scale - as 12), with, for example, consultation on design poli­ someone else's problem, for urban design practi­ cies rarely producing anything beyond broad tioners they are fundamental to decisions about (at expressions of support by amenity and resident one end of the urban design remit) the spatial groups and complaints of overprescription and design of settlements and (at the other end) the inflexibility from designers and developers. As a comfort and liveability of urban space. At the result, despite consultation on development plans macro scale, much debate focuses on political usually being undertaken with considerable rigour, issues of private versus public transport provision, public concerns are rarely mentioned as either on means to move people efficiently around urban explicit or implicit sources of design policy or guid­ areas, and on policy-based means to restrict car ance (Punter and Carmona, 1997, p. 136). Where use. Decisions at the macro scale and within the it does occur, greater public involvement in the political arena will, however, eventually feed development of policy can help to: through to the micro scale. Urban design practitioners have an important develop and refine policies; role to play when designing new environments, in • ensure that the gap between professional and ensuring that vehicular needs are balanced with • lay tastes is minimised; those of other users of space (e.g. pedestrians, build consensus about appropriate levels of cyclists and public transport) (see Chapter 4). • intervention and prescription; Most day-to-day decisions concerning transport give extra weight to policies and guidance in an provision, however, involve the management of • area which is frequently challenged; existing environments - a role central to securing ensure that amenity interests and design and maintaining a high quality public realm. In the • professionals are working towards mutually public sector, the aim should be to encourage agreed goals; and equitable access for all sections of society, for develop a sense of local ownership for policy example by: • and guidance. taming the use of private cars; • For a discussion of more fundamental forms of freeing space for pedestrians and cyclists; • participation, see Chapter 12. reducing auto-dependency, and, where possi­ • ble, providing a choice of travel modes; integrating public transport at local, and wider, • MANAGEMENT scales.

The final element to be dealt with in this chapter concerns the everyday management of the urban (ii) Regeneration environment. As discussed in Chapter 1, the Urban design has the potential to make an impor­ process of urban design has been defined as the tant contribution to urban regeneration. The ongo­ design and management of the public realm. ing processes of adaptation and change The control process 2�;9 presuppose both development and decline - with structure and usually a number of existing build­ the former often dependent on the latter happen­ ings, providing character but also limiting the ing before reinvestment and renewal can occur. possible options. As the terms 'master plan' and The public sector has a key role to play in manag­ urban design or development 'framework' are ing these processes, through planning activity and often used in a loose and interchangeable fashion, urban regeneration policy, including land reclama­ it is necessary to define them more precisely. Both tion, place promotion, direct investment (i.e. in are area-based design guidance: a master plan is infrastructure) and provision of subsidies or starting the more prescriptive and detailed document, capital for revolving funds. In order to manage and explaining how a site or series of sites will be guide the regeneration and revitalisation of partic­ developed, describing and illustrating the ular areas (e.g. historic urban quarters, city centres, proposed urban form in three dimensions, inner city areas, peripheral estates, or whole cities describing how the proposal will be implemented, or regions), ad hoc agencies or partnerships are and setting out the costs, phasing and timing of often created. These may take many forms, and are development. Master plans have been criticised often termed 'growth coalitions', 'growth for inflexibility, and for proposing a greater machines' or public-private partnerships (Logan degree of control than is actually necessary or and Molotch, 1987). Many are three-way partner­ possible. Garreau (1 991, p. 453, from Brand, ships includin9 private, public and voluntary/ 1994, p. 78), for example, defines master plan­ community sectors. ning as 'that attribute of a development in which Partners usually contribute differing resources, so many rigid controls are put in place, to defeat powers and abilities, such as finance (public subsi­ every imaginable future problem, that any possi­ dies and development finance), planning and legal bility of life, spontaneity, or flexible response to - powers (in particular, the ability to acquire devel­ unanticipated events is eliminated'. As a less rigid opment land) and what might be regarded as alternative to the master plan, a design framework community 'consent' or 'approval'. Some partner­ can be used. Design or development frameworks ships/agencies are (more) executive, and carry out generally set out broad urban design policies and development, while others are (more) facilitative, principles rather than more detailed intentions, enabling development by others (usually private providing scope for interpretation and develop­ developers or non-profit organisations). Whatever ment within the framework's parameters. the mechanisms used to deliver regeneration activ­ Urban design master plans or frameworks might: ity - local government, public/private partnerships, voluntary agencies, or government quangos such provide an overall 'vision' or concept to guide • as urban development corporations - it is increas­ development; ingly accepted that effective regeneration requires set standards and expectations of quality; • the creation of sustainable social and economic ensure minimum levels of quality (i.e. prevent a • structures, alongside investment in urban design reduction in potential value by prohibiting poor (Urban Task Force, 1999). quality development); Positive actions on the supply side by local provide degrees of certainty for all parties • authorities, revitalisation agencies and partner­ (investors, developers, occupiers, and the local ships, or others committed to an area, can also be community); and used to stimulate demand. The methods employed provide co-ordination, and ensure that the • include: encouraging or subsidising flagship component parts contribute to a greater whole projects; subsidising development; area-based (e.g. avoid 'bad nei9hbour' developments that improvements; provision of infrastructure; restrict­ reduce amenity) (see Chapter 1 0). ing opportunities for a competitive supply; and/or the development of urban design master plans or As development involves a calculation of reward frameworks. and risk, these actions are intended to reduce risk, An urban design 'master plan' or a 'develop­ and provide a more secure investment environ­ ment framework' can guide new development on ment. Better quality urban design helps ensure that a green field or brown field site or the revitalisa­ regeneration is sustainable, while poor quality tion of a historic area. While green field sites have urban design might reduce the speed at which little or no existing infrastructure, brown field sites regeneration propagates through local economies are likely to have an established pattern of infra- (Carmona et a/., 2001, pp. 76-7). 260 Public Places - Urban Spaces

(iii) Conservation DIVERSITY Cities such as Boston in the US, and Barcelona, Birmingham and Glasgow in Europe, have used high quality design to establish a new image for, and confidence in, their central areas, which has helped to sustain wider regeneration activity. Each city's built heritage and existing character was used as a starting point for regeneration activity. There­ IDENTITY PLACE fore, used positively, conservation can offer a powerful tool to deliver urban regeneration objec­ tives (see English Heritage, 2000, pp. 8-1 0). Although inextricably linked to wider planning and regeneration activity, and largely reliant on private sector investment, conservation represents a further area of public sector activity. It is a key COMMUNITY means of delivering contextually respectful urban FIGURE 11.12 design that builds on established patterns of devel­ Conserving local distinctiveness: the agenda opment and associations with place. In most regu­ latory and planning systems, conservation mechanisms: for assessing character (see Box 11.2) illustrates the scope of the conservation concern. operate through a separate legislative base; • The tensions between economic forces for rede­ look to the past for reference points to anchor • velopment and a widespread desire to maintain and inform the present; established social and physical structures are at look to the future, accepting the inevitability • their greatest in sensitive historic contexts, as are and desirability of change; and tensions between desires for innovation and conti­ link these by 'capturing' and developing what • nuity in design (see Chapter 9). To control these is locally distinctive in the environment to tensions effectively, most conservation controls inform contemporary development. create a two-tier system, with designated buildings and areas subject to a regime of quality control, Conservation activity can thus reflect the wide­ operating in addition to the statutory planning spread public support for preserving the familiar processes operating elsewhere - for example: and cherished local scene. By such means, it can 'listed buildings' and 'conservation areas' in the UK; also avoid the criticism that such activity merely the 'National Register of Historic Places' and panders to an unhealthy obsession with the past historic preservation districts in the US; 'buildings (particularly in the English-speaking world) and to inscrit' or 'classes' and 'Zones de Protection du Patri­ a desire to 'theme park' heritage, preserving phys­ monies Architectural et Urbain' in France. ical artefacts as traces of bygone patterns of life without the activities that gave rise to them in the (iv) Maintenance first place. In a Royal Fine Art Commission study of London, Interpreted broadly, conservation encompasses Judy Hillman (1 988, p. viii) complained that: a wide and forward-looking agenda encapsulating concepts such as diversity, identity, place, commu­ Too much of London has become dirty, degrad­ nity, distinctiveness and sustainability (Figure ing and depressing. Under foot litter abounds, 11.1 2). This notion of conservation can be seen as scattered by people and the wind from pave­ a more forceful application of urban design princi­ ments to streets and forecourts, often dumped ples: one which could be incorporated under most hours in advance of collection or simply left in of Lynch's modes of action. It is included here plastic parcels at the foot of almost any vertical because conservation controls represent an overar­ object. Meanwhile the men, women and chil­ ching management regime applicable to certain dren, for whom the city exists, are squashed environments, which - based on assessment of onto pavements narrowed by guard rails, their value - benefit from additional policy and bollards, grey poles, lampposts, telephone, regulatory mechanisms. English Heritage's checklist Jetter, litter and traffic light control boxes, salt The control process 2�)1 .

and grit containers, bus stops and shelters, of urban management and the emergence of inte­ public conveniences, trees, sometimes in tubs, grated Town Centre Management. In places as and a few plants. Visually streets have become diverse as the centres of major urban conurbations a nightmare, a situation which is compounded and small country market towns, town centre by a proliferation of yellow lines, yellow flash­ managers have been employed to co-ordinate ings, signs, usually dirty, estate agency boards, actions, monitor changes, act as town centre jani­ graffiti and fl:v-posting. tors, promote and market town centres, and advo­ cate and enable programmes of improvement. A Towns and cities across the world display the prob­ Royal Fine Art Commission report produced almost lems Hillman describes. In 1980s London, they ten years after Hillman's proposed a programme of were compounded by lack of resources and action to enhance character and improve conve­ absence of effective urban governance. A lack of nience and, thereby, to breathe new life into urban proper maintenance can easily precipitate a spiral centres (Davis, 1997). The checklist produced not of decline. Wilson and Kelling's (1 982) 'broken only illustrates the diversity of public sector action windows' theory of crime prevention, for example, required, but also the extent of co-ordination argues that if a window in a building is broken and required between public sector agencies and left unrepaired, the rest of the windows will soon between public and private sector interests, in order be broken. They explain that: 'Window-breaking to procure and maintain high quality urban design does not necessarily occur on a large scale because (Table 11.1 ). some areas are inhabited by determined window­ breakers, whereas others are populated by window-lovers. Rather, one unrepaired window is a CONCLUSION signal that no one cares, and so breaking more windows costs nothing.' Wilson and Kelling also In this chapter, the public sector contribution to argued that the failure to deal promptly with minor encouraging, securing and maintaining high qual­ signs of decay iin a community, such as graffiti or ity urban and environmental design has been soliciting by prostitutes, could result in a rapidly presented and discussed. Diverse, all-pervasive and deteriorating situation as hardened offenders move potentially highly positive, this role can be encom­ into the area to exploit the breakdown in control. passed in the six modes of action: Effective maintenance of the public realm requires the creation and preservation of a clean, Appraisal/diagnosis - analysis of context, to • healthy and safe environment. While the public understand the qualities and meanings of place. sector often takes the ultimate responsibility, Policy - provision of policy instruments to • contributions - either positive or negative - are guide, encourage and control appropriate likely to come from a range of public and private design. sources - refuse and environmental health services, Regulation - the means of implementing policy • transport authorities, planning authorities, parks objectives through negotiation, review and and recreation departments, police authorities, statutory processes. statutory undertakers, private businesses, commu­ Design - development and promotion of • nity organisations and the public. Indeed, it is this specific design and development solutions, diversity of interests, and the incremental changes from large-scale infrastructure to site-specific for which they are responsible, which makes the solutions. process of urban management difficult. Education and participation - 'spreading the • The sense of a deterioration in the public realm word' and involving potential users in the to which Hillman refers explains - in part - the process. popularity of out-of-town shopping malls, where Management - the ongoing management and • the retail environment is maintained, designed, maintenance of the urban fabric. policed and regulated by a single, clearly identifi­ able private interest. In the UK, recognition of the As the public sector - like the private sector - rarely competitive threat of out-of-town retail develop­ operates in isolation, it is the successful partnership ments and their effect on the 'vitality and viability' between public and private that, over time, offers of traditional town and city centres during the the greatest potential for successful, sustainable 1980s and (particularly) 1990s, led to a rethinking urban design. 262 Public Places - Urban Spaces

TABLE Improving the high street environment 11.1 QUALITIES ACTIONS TO IMPROVE CHARACTER QUALITIES ACTIONS TO ENHANCE CHARACTER OF OF CONVENIENCE CHARACTER

Welcome Tidy up car park entrances Pavements Specify quality pavements • • Make car park interiors welcoming Reduce street furniture clutter • • Integrate paths to the high street Rationalise traffic street furniture • • Clarify pedestrian direction signs • Shops Improve shop fronts • Reduce impact of vacant shop fronts A cared Eliminate flyposters and graffiti • • Relate shop signs for place Clear litter and rubbish • • Position waste recycling bins Urban Design infill development • • space Create incidental urban space Comfort Calm traffic • • Plant street trees and safety • Introduce seasonal colour • Street life Encourage market stalls and kiosks • Vary activities in urban spaces • Establish special events • Local Accentuate landmarks • landmarks Design paving for special places • Install public lighting • Place art in public places •

(Source: adapted from Davis, 1997). The communication process

INTRODUCTION audience, with presentations regarded as a means to an end, rather than as an end in themselves; the This chapter concerns the communication process end being to achieve something worthwhile on the in urban design. As the fate of urban design ideas ground. and projects is often significantly affected by Communication is not a straightforward process. designers' abilities to convey ideas effectively, Significant issues of power, manipulation, seduc­ urban designers need to represent and communi­ tion and misinformation are involved. In his book, cate ideas -·- both visually and verbally -- clearly and Representation of Places: Reality and Realism in City logically, to a variety of audiences. The best ideas Design, Peter Bosselmann (1 998, p. 202) notes and principles may be of little value if they are not how proponents will show a proposal to its best communicated effectively. Furthermore, as design advantage, with negative impacts played down or is a process of exploration and discovery, drawing omitted, while opponents will be just as selective in and other forms of representation and communi­ highlighting the negative and acknowledging few, cation are an integral part of that process. The if any, benefits. chapter focuses on three main issues. The first is the In principle, there are two fundamental types of act of communication. The second is participation communication: informative communication where as a form of communication. The third is the means the main objective is to furnish information to and methods of presentation. enable a better understanding of a project; and persuasive communication aimed at securing accep­ tance, approval, consent, or funding for it. The COMMUNICATION, PERSUASION AND distinction is somewhat academic - in practice, all MANIPUI�ATION forms of communication are both persuasive and informative. A more important distinction is made When urban designers seek to secure a commis­ between communications that are intentionally sion, gain support for a project, obtain funding, or persuasive, accidentally or unconsciously persua­ secure permission for a development proposal, sive, or deliberately manipulative. While various processes and issues of communication come to techniques can be used to represent the 'reality' of the fore. Designers need to be able to promote schemes, because images can be manipulated, ilt is their services to potential clients, whether private the communicators' choice whether - or to what individuals, companies, government organisations extent - to manipulate 'reality'. or politicians. Every project must be presented to a While persuasion and manipulation are closely variety of audiences, the nature and type of which related, manipulation operates primarily by keep­ will vary from 'client' representatives, to other ing the audience ignorant. Dovey (1 999, p. 11) professionals, representatives from the public suggests that a common practice is where the sector, funding institutions, the local community, representation of design projects is distorted to the media, etc. Communication requires oral and produce a form of 'manipulated consent' from graphic presentation skills tailored to the particular ignorant participants. 'Seduction' is another form 264 Public Places - Urban Spaces

of manipulation. As Dovey (1999, p. 11) explains, ous but unappreciated, reassuring but resented. it is a highly sophisticated practice that manipu­ Where they intend to help, [urban designers] lates the interest and desires of the subject and may instead create dependency and where they entails 'the constructions of desire and self-identity intend to express good fa ith, they may raise ... with significant implications for the built envi­ expectations unrealistically with disastrous ronment'. While seduction is usually positive and consequences. But these problems are hardly manipulation negative, both involve the exercise, inevitable. When [urban designers] recognise and perhaps abuse, of power. The potential for the practical and communicative nature of their manipulation is ever present. In commenting on actions, they can devise strategies to avoid the 'sometimes miraculous images' used to illus­ these problems and to improve their practice as trate development proposals, Biddulph (1 999, well. (Forester, 1989, pp. 138-9) p. 126) notes the difficulty of differentiating between the 'future environment' and 'advertise­ In discussing his concept of the 'ideal speech situ­ ment'. ation', jurgen Habermas (1 979) argued that we Rather than confusing, seducing or manipulat­ expect speech to be comprehensible, sincere, legit­ ing an audience, communications might be used to imate and truthful. Interpreting Habermas' ideas, challenge it, and to expose and reveal new insights. Forester (1 989, p. 144) argued that mutual under­ Designers frequently want to show an audience standing depends on the satisfaction of four something they had not previously considered. To criteria: communicate schemes and ideas, designers may employ metaphors, analogies and/or evoke prece­ Without comprehensibility in interaction, we dents. Trancik (1986, p. 60), for example, notes have not meaning but confusion. Without a that precedents can be an effective tool for measure of sincerity, we have manipulation or communication: 'By demonstrating the intention deceit rather than trust. When a speaker's of a design through example, a designer can claims are illegitimately made, we have the provide an immediately recognisable image, a abuse rather than the exercise of authority. And familiar ambience that explains the goal of the when we cannot gauge the truth of what is proposal.' Precedents and metaphors should be claimed, we will be unable to tell the difference used with caution, however: images of Italian hill between reality and propaganda and fa ct. towns were used, for example, to sell the concept of Cumbernauld new town, sited on an exposed These are 'ideal' conditions. In practice, their value and windswept hill top north of Glasgow. may be as a measure of how far real speech falls Issues of power are an inevitable part of commu­ short of them. nication - for example, the first speaker has the power of initiation and agenda-setting, which subsequent speakers must challenge. To be effec­ Communication gaps tive, communicators need credibility based on criteria such as 'trust' and 'respect'. An audience Effective communication is a two-way process of may not be deceived by seduction or manipulation, 'speaking' and 'hearing', involving connection but obviously manipulative communicators will between a communicator and an audience. lose credibility, and what they are communicating Although a means of empowering people so that will be treated with suspicion. John Forester (1 989) they can contribute constructively, communication discussed the concept of communication in plan­ may be adversely affected by 'gaps' in the connec­ ning. Transposing 'urban design' for planning, his tion. It is important for urban designers to appreci­ arguments remain appropriate. Urban designers ate where such communication gaps may arise and must: to be aware of how to overcome them. There is, for example, typically a gap between the producers routinely argue practically and politically, about and consumers of the urban environment (see desirable and possible fu tures. If they fail to Chapter 1 0). There are also communication and recognise how their ordinary actions have social gaps between designer and user, and subtle communicative effects, they will be coun­ between professional and layperson. If their desire terproductive, even though they may mean is to make places for people, urban designers need well. Th ey may be sincere but mistrusted, rigor- to narrow rather than exacerbate these gaps. The communication process 2:65

(i) The professional-layperson gap pies in words. In securing permissions and consents Through their training and education, urban and in supporting graphic submissions, for exam­ design practitioners acquire the skills necessary to ple, they may need to write design statements. represent both what exists and what might However, language, words, phrases, slang and become 'reality'. This is simultaneously a strength shorthand versions of common concepts can create and a weakness: Lang (1 987), for example, argues communication gaps. Duany et at. (2000, p. 21 3) that environmental design professionals remain observed how some architects try to regain a 'sense overwhelmingly locked into a 'pictorial' mode that of power' through what they describe as 'mysti­ treats the city as a work of art rather than a setting cism': 'by developing illegible techniques of repre­ for everyday life. Similarly, Hubbard (1 994, p. 271) sentation, and by shrouding their work in argues that inscrutable jargon, designers are creating increas­ ingly smaller realms of communication'. They cite design training and socialisation inculcates a an example from the Harvard Graduate School of professional perspective which emphasises the Design News (Winter/Spring 1993, p. 13) describ­ objective, physical qualities of the environment ing the plan for a single-family house: and diKourages a more personal, subjective response ... one can comfortably assume that Th ese distortions elicit decipherment in terms of such disparities reflect fundamental differences several constructs that allow the house to ana{.. in the ways in which designers and non-design­ ogise discourse and call for further elucidation. ers think about their surroundings, not simply These constructs are continually motivated and differences in the way they express themselves. frustrated by conflicts in their underlying schemata and the concrete form in which they This problem is not simply a matter of professional are inscribed. They refer to the ideal or real perspective, but is inherent in any act of represen­ objects, organisations, processes and histories tation. As Bosselmann (1 998, p. xiii) recognises, which the house approximately analogises or because the real world's 'richness and complexity' opposes. cannot be completely represented, designers inevitably select from reality an 'abstraction of A more positive example of the use of language in actual conditions': 'For them the process of repre­ urban design concerns the improvements in Birm­ sentation is a complex form of reasoning. What ingham (UK) during the 1990s (Wright, 1999, they choose to represent influences their view of p. 298). Prior to the late 1980s, there had been reality and very significantly defines the outcome of very little concept of a physical vision for the city designs and plans, and thus the future form of and it was considered important to communicate cities.' urban design ideas and principles so that people This raises issues regarding the nature of profes­ could understand what was intended. The key sional expertise, and potential gaps between the phrases used - 'mending our city'; 'breaking the professional and the layperson. Rather than consid­ concrete collar'; 'a good environment is good busi­ erations of 'experts' and 'non-experts', it is better ness'; 'streets and squares'; 'city living'; and 'giving to conceptualise this in terms of different types of the streets back to the people' - captured the expertise. This is of particular note in situations essence of important urban design principles with­ where urban design practitioners are dealing with out unnecessary jargon. communities and users. Bentley (1 999) suggests distinguishing between 'local' and 'global' exper­ (ii) The designer-non-designer gap tise. He argues that professionals have 'global' There is a gap between designers and non-design­ expertise, while local people have 'local' expertise. ers. Those with little design appreciation may tend Each needs to be respected in the design process to see shapes and lines on a piece of paper as Jiust and in the making of places that are responsive, that (i.e. in two dimensions). By contrast, designers meaningful and valued by their users. read drawings spatially, as representing three­ As well as through pictures and images, the dimensional objects that define and are defined by professional-layperson gap may be exacerbated space. The act of drawing - and of design - through the use of words and language. Urban involves an important nexus between hand, eye, design practitioners need both to think spatially and brain. Mechanical and computer-aided forms and to express spatial concepts, ideas and princi- of drawing reduce the fluency of this connection. 266 Public Places - Urban Spaces

While it may simply be different, designers need to - appreciate how they are different. Some volume Citizen control house builders, for example, employ 'technicians' 8 (rather than 'designers') to 'design' housing layouts Degrees of using standardised layouts and house types and a Delegated power - citizen power two-dimensional site plan. This may happen with­ 7 out the technician ever having visited the site and Partnership

appreciated the qualities and potential of the local - 6 - context. Placation

(iii) The reality-representation gap 5 Consultation Degrees of In general, greater realism in the representation of - tokenism a scheme increases the likelihood of viewers under­ 4 standing the project as they would in the real Informing

world. A common problem, however, is that - 3 - perception cannot be fully represented graphically. Therapy Many representations present an individual and 2 primarily visual experience that fails to portray Manipulation Nonparticipation wider perceptual and social elements - for exam­ ple, as we move through space, our view and 1 1-

sensual perception of the environment changes. As - techniques for representation increase in sophisti­ cation and realism, we increasingly confront prob­ FIGURE 12.1 lems arising from the confusion of realism in Arnstein's ladder of participation representations (i.e. a realism-reality gap). The crux of the problem is not that forms of presentation can be realistic, distorting, misleading, or not, but the need to recognise the potential for this and, where possible, to correct for it. Representations pation of the governed in their government' is - in must not be confused with reality; audiences may principle - 'the cornerstone of democracy'. A need to be educated to appreciate the limitations, 'revered idea', 'vigorously applauded by virtually strengths and weaknesses of representation tech­ everyone', she noted that this applause is 'reduced niques. As is discussed later, scale models can be to polite handclaps ...when this principle is advo­ particularly misleading. cated by the have-not[s] ... And when the have­ nots define participation as redistribution of (iv) The powerful-powerless gap power.' Although the gap between the powerful and the In this respect, design is no different to any less powerful in urban design manifests itself in other area of public policy. Assuming a zero-sum many ways, it is often a function of gaps between game, the more power that is transferred to local 'paying' and 'non-paying' clients (see Chapters 1 populations, the less resides with those financing, and 3) and between producers and consumers (see developing, designing and politically sanctioning Chapter 1 0). In economic theory, where markets the project. More generally, this may also mean work, the consumer has sovereignty and the empowering those on the right-hand side of the producer provides what s/he wants. In practice, McGlynn's powergram (see Chapter 1 0). Power is that situation rarely prevails and imbalances in a complex phenomenon and is best considered to economic power are sometimes corrected through be multi- rather than uni-dimensional: that is, · the use of governmental and regulatory power. In rather than some actors having power and other 1969, Sherry Arnstein developed her ladder of actors having none (which is how it is conceived in participation illustrating eight levels of citizen Arnstein's model), all have some power and they involvement (Figure 12.1 ). While the lower levels interact in complex ways (see Lukes, 1975). are generally tokenistic, processes further up the Partnerships are a form of power-braking in ladder involve greater transfers of power to citi­ which conflicts of interest are resolved internally. zens. Arnstein (1969, p. 21 6) argued that 'partici- Revised power relationships may be justified by the The communication process 267 increased potential for early resolution of conflicts, 'needs and preferences' model of user research, to with collaborative and supportive arrangements an 'adaptation and control' model, concerned leading to more sustainable outcomes, added with developing users' abilities to adapt and value through more considered design policies control their environment. The conceptual shift is and proposals, and greater commitment to devel­ from users as passive expressers of needs and pref­ opment/design proposals through broader owner­ erences, to users as active agents of change. ship of the processes that led to them. As well as 'Adaptation' refers to users' ability to change executive agencies and support coalitions, part­ themselves and their behaviour in response to nerships in urban design may also operate as pres­ different environmental contexts. 'Control' refers sure/lobby groups, usually to defend the amenity to users' ability to change the physical dimensions of an area .. of an environment they are not motivated to The sense of ownership of the environment by adapt. local populations can easily be undermined, along Research into users' needs and preferences is with the willingness of economic interests to invest usually based on the assumption that if people in an area. In such circumstances, the public sector cannot make their voice heard, project sponsors is frequently left to cope with the social, economic should advocate users' perspective to designers. and environmental fallout. Implied here is the idea that more of users' needs could be met if more information about them was available during the design process (Vischer, 1985, (v) The designer-user gap p. 289). The model is based on at least three (ques­ A perennial problem in design is that designers' tionable) assumptions: priorities and aspirations may not be congruent with those of users. During the 1960s and 1970s, That questioning can identify users' needs and • designers looked to the social sciences for informa­ preferences. As users are often unable to formu­ tion and guidance about human behaviour and late exhaustive lists in rank order of need and needs. Social research offered the specious ability preference, researchers have to make assump­ to make predictions about human behaviour, tions, introducing their own values into the derived from environmental settings. Designers needs assessment process. often treated these as scientific data, although That appropriate design of the physical envi­ • theirs was a 'misplaced certainty'. It is questionable ronment can result in users' needs being who, if anyone, was to blame for this - researchers met. who were extravagant in their claims and did not That users have a relatively passive role. As • adequately qualify their research, or the designers Vischer (p. 291) notes, identifying and who ignored the qualifications. Heavily qualified responding to users' needs places the users' in information, however, is unlikely to be welcome to a passive, recipient role in terms of their behav­ practitioners. jenks (1 988, p. 54) notes how: ioural relationship to the environment and also places the researcher (who identifies needs) tentative guidelines may be edited and and the designer (who responds to needs) in summarised, and recommendations made upon key roles of responsibility regarding the ulti­ which action can be taken. In turn, recommen­ mate fit between users and environments'. She dations may be translated into guidelines, therefore argues that the model fails to recog­ design principles or standards to facilitate the nise users' active role as both agent in the designer's task. There is nothing inherently operation of the environment and as instigator wrong with this, and it is undeniably useful. of environmental change. However, once turned into that epitome of certainty, a standard or guideline, the ratio­ nale, the reasoning and the careful qualifica­ Vischer (pp. 293-4) concludes that giving users tions tend to get lost. At that stage may not some control over their environment may be even be clear whether the standard or recom­ more effective than trying to design a direct mendation is authoritative, or whetherit it is response to their needs as they express them: 'Users are not passive and inert entities ... they based on research or supposition. take an active role in their environments, inter­ More fundamentally, Vischer (1 985) suggested acting with it and adjusting it to suit changiing the need to change from what she termed a situations.' 268 Public Places - Urban Spaces

PARTICIPATION AND INVOLVEMENT proposals. Research by the Urban Design Group (1 998, p. 1 7) identified a high level of demand by Community involvement in the process of urban local communities for involvement in the planning design is increasingly promoted as a means of over­ and management of their local environment. coming - or at least reducing - the professional­ Moreover, by involving communities, a sense of layperson, powerful-powerless and designer-user ownership of the resulting decision may be engen­ gaps. Participation takes many different forms, dered, the eventual urban design quality of the broadly conceptualised as top-down or bottom-up scheme may be improved, and the benefits more approaches. equitably distributed. Top-down approaches tend to be instigated by In any consultation/participation exercise, three public authorities and/or developers, usually to distinct activities should be recognised: dispersing gauge public opinion and gain public support for information; gathering information; and promot­ proposals. Development options or policy propos­ ing a dialogue. In direct contrast to the third, the als are prepared as the focus for a participation first two are essentially one-way (monological) exercise. The danger is that the agenda may forms of communication. Although communities already be largely set, leading to manipulation of have frequently been involved as part of a consul­ local opinion rather than to genuine participation. tation exercise on development proposals, such More positively, such approaches may offer an approaches have often tended merely to inform effective use of resources by using professional rather than to solicit views for use in the design expertise to mobilise, co-ordinate and interpret process. They have also been indirect rather than community opinions. hands-on and have taken place after-the-fact rather Bottom-up approaches are instigated and led than during the design process. Consequently the from grass roots level, usually in response to some community's engagement has been slight, and the perceived opportunity or threat. While these exer­ benefits of their involvement minimal. Such cises offer highly effective means to influence polit­ approaches feature towards the lower end of ical decision-making processes, they suffer from Arnstein's ladder. their time-consuming nature, the time and In an attempt to bring communities more fully commitment required to develop expertise, and into the design process, a range of more active frequent failure to connect aspirations with the participatory mechanisms have been developed resources needed to put them into effect. Ideally, that seek to promote dialogue and two-way inter­ whatever approach is adopted, the aim - short- or action. These work most effectively when they are long-term - should be to develop a mutually initiated from the bottom up and less effectively if advantageous dialogue and perhaps partnership imposed from above - although some initial between public, private and voluntary stakehold­ encouragement and support may be required. The ers. more common methods are: Rudlin and Falk (1 999, p. 21 3) discuss the need to create and maintain a support coalition for 'Planning for Real' exercises, utilising large-scale • design ideas, principles and proposals, in the models to encourage non-confrontational context of Manchester City Council's design guide community involvement in identifying and for the city's Hulme area (Hulme Regeneration Ltd, addressing problems. Participants are encour­ 1994). The design guide initially met with a lot of aged to make suggestions by filling out sugges­ opposition from private and social housing devel­ tion cards and attaching these to the model, to opers, police, traffic engineers and institutional be pursued in detail at follow-up group meet­ investors and it was a struggle to maintain the prin­ ings. The process relies on members of the ciples and ideas contained within it. What helped community trying out different ideas, with the in Hulme was the strong coalition established professionals recording the results, arbitrating between the consultant professionals and the local and acting as enablers and facilitators. politicians. Action planning events/community charettes, • An essential part of a support coalition comes collaborative events enabling sections of local from the local community and those directly communities to work with independent special­ affected by proposals. Public involvement and ists from a variety of disciplines to produce consultation can be an important means of build­ proposals for action. Events, usually staged ing support for urban design principles and over several days, involve briefing from key The communication process 2:69

stakeholders, analysis of the physical context, 8. Get value for money. workshops and brainstorming sessions, synthe­ 9. Accept different agendas. sis and presentation of proposals, reporting 10. Accept varied commitment. back, and dissemination of results. 11 . Be honest. Urban design assistance teams (UDATs) are a 12. Be transparent. • variation on action planning where multi-disci­ 13. Learn from others. plinary teams from outside the area 'parachute 14. Accept limitations. in' to facilitate an event and, with the local 15. Use experts. community, 'brainstorm' an approach to a 16. Use outsiders carefully. problem and thereby help the local community 17. Use facilitators. devise recommendations for action. UDATs 18. Be visual. should be community inspired and led (Figure 19. Follow up. 12.2). 20. Maintain continuity. 21 . Have fun. A number of publications now categorise the wide 22. Go for it! array of participation approaches. Recent examples include the New Economics Foundation's Participa­ Personal computers provide opportunities for tion Works! 2 7 Techniques of Community Participa­ greater public participation in the design and tion for the 2 7 st Century (1998) and the Urban development process. Information such as text, Design Group's Involving Local Communities in illustrations, video, audio, and computer files can Urban Design (UDG, 1998). Together these reports be readily communicated to any number of differ­ identified seventy-eight separate techniques (Box ent sources, and as a result, virtual design studios 12.1 ). The UDG (1998, pp. 18-1 9) report also and digital design on the Internet will inevitably identifies twenty-two general prompts that apply increase (see Graham and Marvin, 1996). As collab­ to community planning and design situations: orative design projects become increasingly promi­ nent, the World Wide Web provides a medium for 1. Involve all those affected. the communication and storage of design informa­ 2. Encourage local ownership of the process. tion, and for integrated working, with real-time 3. Plan your own process carefully. discussion groups. In time, people will be able to 4. Agree rules and boundaries. experience virtual representations of urban design 5. Quality not quantity. projects. Access to the Internet should also enable 6. Involve all sections of the community. greater community participation in urban design at 7. Spend money. the local level.

FIGURE 12.2 The Urban Design Assistance Team Process 270 Public Places - Urban Spaces

Although much more needs to be achieved in The various approaches available indicate the effort providing information and resources to involve and required to move beyond tokenistic consultation empower local communities, existing good prac­ procedures. Given differing publics (societal tice can be drawn upon. In choosing the correct groups) and forms or techniques of public partici­ approach, urban designers should address the pation and information exchange (e.g. public following key questions: meetings, exhibitions, focus groups, technical reports), a matrix of possibilities can be created, What are the main aims? helping urban designers to devise programmes of • What commitment exists among the organisers? participation and consultation tailored to local • What are their values, and how can these be needs and circumstances. • reflected in the adopted approach? What resources exist and what is the time • scale? REPRESENTATION What level of participation is required? • How can local ownership of the process be Urban designers typically develop and present • encouraged? ideas, concepts and proposals through sketches, How can quality of participation be balanced diagrams and other forms of graphic representa­ • with quantity? tion. Baker (1 996, p. 66) emphasises that diagrams How can disenfranchised groups be involved? are the 'essential tool' of analyst and designer, and • What role (if any) should experts play? that their use stimulates 'thought patterns capable • How can momentum be maintained? of considerable dexterity. This dexterity - the abil- • The communication process 2.71 ity to grasp the essence of a concept - and through computer-generated models and artists' impres­ this understanding to fully develop an idea, is sions, are more easily understood by laypeople central to the act of design.' Bosselmann (1998, than plans and conceptual diagrams. As such, p. xiii), however, offers a cautionary reminder that, urban designers need to represent both that which while urban design practitioners usually know the exists and, more importantly, what might become power and limitations of representation, 'they may 'reality'. Due to the inherent richness and complex­ take for granted how representation influences ity of 'real' environments, this can only be done by design thinking'. Thus, as well as communicating abstraction, aiming to create visual representations the qualities of a design to others, modes of repre­ that can be readily understood as substitutes for sentation employed in designing inevitably direct reality. our thinking. The method by which urban design proposals Techniques of representation range from are presented is of considerable importance. Urban elementary two-dimensional maps and diagrams to designers need to be aware of the most appropri­ highly sophisticated interactive visualisations repre­ ate method(s) of communicating an urban design senting all four dimensions - three spatial and one project. The graphic techniques available for repre­ temporal. In essence, all representations are abstrac­ senting urban design ideas, proposals, projects or tions of reality. Peter Bosselmann (1 998, p. 3) analysis can be divided into four categories: argues that 'pictures do not mimic what we see': while we might assume that photography truthfully 1 . Analytical and conceptual. records the world around us, 'no optical system 2. Representations of two dimensions. exists to mimic the task performed by our eyes'. 3. Representations of three dimensions. The conventional methods of graphic represen­ 4. Representations of four dimensions. tation are the perspective and the plan view (Bosselmann, 1988, pp. 3-1 8). These are so The remainder of this chapter outlines the implica­ commonplace that it is difficult to conceive of a tions of these techniques, and the increasingly time when they did not exist. Filippo Brunelleschi important role of modern technological develop­ (1 377-1 466) is usually credited with the discovery ment. - or rediscovery - of linear perspective. Thirty years after Brunelleschi's death, Leonardo da Vinci drew the first known example of a plan view, based on Analytical and conceptual an actual survey for the small town of lmola in representations Italy's Emilia Romana. Bosselmann (p. 18) argues that these two methods - 'map' and 'perspective' Analytical and conceptual diagrams of the urban - represent two ways of looking at and under­ context are essential tools of the urban designer. standing the world: Brunelleschi's represents the They include site analyses, townscape notations earlier view, an understanding of the world based and pedestrian activity maps. In discussing the role on the evidence of visual experience; while they play in design analysis and in communicating Leonardo's map 'symbolises our need to go the act of design, Baker (1 996, p. 66) observes that beyond direct experience, to explain the structure diagrams: of things, the theory behind the phenomena we can see'. Bosselmann argues that these two meth­ are selective; • ods of representation introduced a division in are about clarity and communication; • professional thinking between the 'clarity of reveal the essence; • abstractions' (the view from above) and 'befud­ are often simple; • dling richness and confusion' (the ground-level separate out issues, so as to better comprehend • view). Although the former could be considered to the complex; be the 'architect's view' and the latter the 'plan­ allow a degree of artistic licence; • ner's view', to adequately represent a place both can have a vitality of their own; and • methods are required. While the map and the can explain form and space better than words • perspective are both abstractions, the latter is more or photographs. closely related to our actual experience. In general, representations of three and four Analytical diagrams are important in enabling the dimensions, such as animations, photomontage, identification and understanding of constraints that 272 Public Places - Urban Spaces could influence a design. They are usually carried enable designers to keep sight of their original out at the initial stage of a project, as part of a site intent - the 'vision' - during the design develop­ survey and analysis. They consist of representations ment stages of a project and in decision-making of a site, together with contextual information that processes. Schematic, functional and flow diagrams aids understanding of opportunities and potential are similar to concept drawings in that they are problems. Other graphic methods of analysing a part of the thought process in the initial design site and its environment include sun path, daylight stages. They can emphasise relationships between and shadow diagrams, and wind-flow assessments. different parts of a project and/or add the fourth Conceptual diagrams representing initial or dimension of time by identifying movement, direc­ embryonic ideas in an abstract form are often used tion, intensity, and potential conflicts. to explain the key principles of a project and how Urban designers often use Kevin Lynch's it functions. As discussed in Chapter 11, the site elements of imageability - paths, nodes, edges, survey and analysis form an important resource for districts and landmarks - in analysing areas and the design process. sites, usually by recording the incidence of Lynch's Analytical and conceptual diagrams are often elements on a plan view. While a common and highly abstract, using symbols, annotations, useful technique, it can, as Lynch (1984, p. 251) images and words to convey ideas and principles, warned, misunderstand the purpose of his original rather than the intended 'reality' of the scheme or study, which was to remind designers of the neces­ site (Figure 12.3). They often aid understanding of sity of consulting those who live in a place. Lynch the context and/or design proposal, and can lamented that, while plans had been 'fashionably

FIGURE 12.3 Concept diagram for central Glasgow (source: Mackinsey Cullen in Gillespies, 1995, p. 6) The communication process 273 decked out' with nodes, etc., there had been few And secondary parameters categorise the primary attempts to reach out to the actual inhabitants. divisions: Instead of his 'new jargon' 'opening a channel by which citizens might influence design, the new the range of the category; • words became another means of distancing them its usefulness; • from it'. A more meaningful record of imageability its behaviour; and • can be obtained by returning to Lynch's own its relationships. • methods of undertaking mental mapping exercises with users of the environment (see Chapter 5). 'Indicators', the most frequently emulated (and Some urban designers have developed nota­ useful) part of the system, denoted isolated quali­ tional systems to represent urban design qualities ties that exist in their own right, such as levels and or features. Lynch's elements, for example, are heights; boundaries; spatial types; connections; often used to communicate ideas about built form views and vistas; etc. (see Figure 12.4). and spaces without having to deal with the speci­ While a number of other systems have been ficities of buildings. Notations can be an important developed since Cullen's, no definitive system and effective means of communication between exists. Systems are always likely to vary from urban designers and the communities with which project to project, but they should all be capable of they are working. Various forms of notation are easy interpretation, adaptation and addition. In now used as methods for appraising and convey­ Portland, Oregon, for example, city planners devel­ ing the character of context. An early example was oped a coherent notation for conveying urban Gordon Cullen's 'notation' to represent townscape design ideas in order to express the design frame­ (Cullen, 1967), which included denotations for the works established in The Central City Plan broad types and perceptions of environment (Figure 12.5). encountered. Four primary divisions were defined: A further graphic means19 88of analysing urban design is through the use of pedestrian activity humanity (i.e. the study of people); maps (Figure 12.6). These diagrams record obser­ • artefaclts (i.e. buildings and objects); vations about where people gather, sit, stand, or • mood (i.e. the character of place); and hurry through spaces. Recording the times of day • space (i.e. the physical space). and climatic conditions, they enable analysis of • how people use urban spaces. They can also be used to plot and analyse movement patterns, as in Appleyard's (1 981) famous study of how traffic volumes affect pedestrian movement patterns in CONNECTORS SER:IAl VISIONSEOUE'NCE ®-7> residential streets (see Chapter 4). Alternatively, the �lri�l�atet'!$$ � � t Project for Public Space (2001) has utilised time­ t«Fft-UTY 0() C$�cnlf�l:;ighlll!W: -----)- lapse photography and video techniques to � compress periods of street activity into a few * WATER POINT OfRfi'ER£NC!l: minutes of screen action, giving a stronger impres­

GROUPS sion of movement and activity patterns . SPACEENliTY (9 raf'ldom Figure-ground studies, space syntax analysis (see ...---"----. arebltec:tutal � Chapter 8), and analysis of the cross-sections of AM61ENC:t �-..) (us1119 typical budding ll$(l�etmp!e) ...... spaces, provide means to undertake and communi­

\. ; ,.. GROWTH cate morphological analyses. Figure-ground tech­ -· -· < UNK€0 SPAct <:P niques derive from Giambattista Nolli's survey of SPAC£ S,o.\AAIER ''"''"' PROPORTION Rome (1 736-48), in which he used white to repre­ � l:f£:l$SS(!C�iotl pfo.�:.l�\ sent publicly accessible space and black to represent ..... U!VaS .... ' ...... __ soot +250 the coverage of buildings (see Figure 4.6 - note that building: eo VISTAS heiOhl the interiors of churches and other public buildings peno�ma � ... . - lYH ...,...... (f) are also white). These drawings highlight the rela­ .... ®i'if tionships between solids or mass, and voids. They gr>mp$0 � FACING om&:T�ON .&.l50 {Sl.lilii..I'Bek::} can reveal the urban grain of an area and highli9ht FIGURE 12.4 �· aspects of the relationship of new development Cullen's notation (source: Cullen, 1967) with its surrounding context. Such drawings enable 274 Public Places - Urban Spaces

,;:: � ....

LEGEND � Hls!Oric Olstrlel& Cenlla!CityGateway Proposed RWer VIewpoint Elds�ng 0 - Park/Open _Space �- - Park/Open Space - Existing .hv-�ews DiSirlct Gateway .d . B�- Skidmcre/01dTown Q iJOO·:Vin1ago Tro lley !Ji?;9·;�0�In9, Target Area .·IllPari

Standing Standing e • Sitting Standing and talking X 0 Musicians, Performers Standing and waiting {J. D Vendors and Waiters Sitting FIGURE 12.6 0 X Pedestrian activity map Wednesday, for the same street in 19 July, 1995 Moliday,23 July, 1968 Til'!le: Time: noon Copenhagen on 13.30 f•.M. 12:00 Weather: Fine, Weather: Fine, Wednesday 19 july 1995 23<> C. 20Q C. Standing: pr:�rsons standing: persons and Monday 23 july 340 429 Sitting: p•;!rsons Sitting: persons 1968 (source: 389 3::1:4 To tal: p�!rsons Total: persons 753 729 Bosselmann, 1998, p. 44)

or site that present difficulties for development issues as diverse as population statistics, social because of one, or a combination of, constraints deprivation patterns, traffic levels, pollution levels, (Moughtin et a/., 1999, p. 70). When undertaken environmental resources, and existing land uses (a using Geographic Information Systems (GIS), many particularly important component of urban design layers of socio-economic and physical data can be analysis). Combined with site studies, such data combined and compared. Public authorities often can provide a powerful analytical tool for urban collect and maintain extensive GIS-based data on design. 276 Public Places - Urban Spaces

Representations of two dimensions schedules of spaces and accommodation, and transportation routes, and can store, display and This section concerns two means of representing manipulate visual and audio information - such as urban design in a two-dimensional form: ortho­ photographic and video images - in association graphic projections, and Geographic Information with more traditional forms of data. This multi­ Systems (GIS). layered approach takes GIS beyond the realms of two-dimensional representation. A considerable (i) Orthographic projections amount of information related to an area can be Orthographic projections represent three dimen­ stored within the system, including data related to sions in two-dimensional drawings, by means of both buildings and spaces, and the way they are plans, sections and elevations. A series of vantage used. Traditionally the domain of geographers and points is usually required to illustrate a scheme. urban planners, GIS systems are increasingly used Plans and elevations are abstracted views, plans in urban design analysis and in the design process. from above, and elevations facing straight on, with The main disadvantage of two-dimensional no distortions due to perspective (being drawn as representations is that the layperson may have diffi­ if seen from infinity). Sections complement plans culty in interpreting such drawings, which often and elevations - which on their own rarely provide bear little resemblance to real views of spaces or sufficient information - by showing the vertical townscapes. They are, however, a key means of dimension relative to the horizontal one (Figure communicating design information between 12.7). They can also show and enable exploration professionals, and are relatively quick and cheap to of the relationship between inside and outside produce when compared to more sophisticated spaces and between different levels. Orthographic graphic and visual representations. projections are an important means of communi­ cating design projects, particularly as part of a package of working or construction drawings Representations of three dimensions displaying the scheme at a true scale. Three-dimensional representations communicate in a (ii) Geographic infonnation systems more widely understandable form. However, their More recent additions to the range of tools avail­ production usually requires more skill, is time able to urban designers are Geographic Informa­ consuming, and is more costly than two-dimensional tion Systems (GIS), computer-based systems for the graphics. Despite their additional realism, these handling of geographically referenced information. diagrams - with the exception of physical models - They contain information on utilities and services, are still communicated through a 2D medium such

FIGURE 12.7 Sections are particularly useful in communicating the relationship between internal and external spaces (source: Papadakis, 1993, p. 1 02) The communication process 2"/7 as paper or a computer screen. The most commonly (ii) Sketches and photomontages used means of representing urban design are By helping to portray an idea quickly while aiding perspective drawings, sketches, paraline drawings, observation and analysis of the environment, computer-aided design, and physical models. sketches are important communication devices, useful in investigating an early design idea, to test (i) Perspec:tive drawings visual effects, or to set a design in context. Rather Brunelleschi's experiments with linear perspective as than as ends in themselves, they should be consid­ a technique for representing realism and defining ered as part of the process of understanding. IBy the location of objects in space marked a turning superimposing an illustration of a design onto a point in visual representation (Figure 12.8). Perspec­ photographic image, photomontage can also tives represent the optical effect where the eye provide a realistic impression, giving a good idea of perceives parallel lines as converging with distance. whether it integrates with the existing context Perspective drawings are useful both to convey (although, for a realistic effect, attention needs to finalised design proposals and as quick sketch aids be paid to details such as shadows). Such presen­ at a project's concept stage. They can convey tations are popular with clients, local planning abstract qualities, such as mood, character and authorities and the general public who can quickly atmosphere, much better than orthogonal draw­ understand and react to proposals. ings, and are therefore valuable in enabling non­ professionals to understand a design. They are, however, only useful when they represent views as (iii) Paraline drawings they are seen - artistic licence is often used on Based upon orthographic projections, paraline perspectives so that the view illustrated may not be drawings convey a third dimension through tine experienced in reality. Another potential pitfall is representation of length, breadth and height in that rendering a new development in the same one drawing, using axonometric or isometric technique as the existing context on an illustration projections (Figure 12.9). They enable space to be can help it appear to 'fit in', when in reality this may organised by volume rather than by area as with not be the case. Equally, without full rendering, a orthographic views. They aid visual perception, but perspective gives little sense of materials, texture or only to a limited degree because perspective effects colour. are ignored.

FIGURE 12.8 Vriedman de Vries On Perspective 1599 (source: Porter, 1997, p. 16) 278 Public Places - Urban Spaces

FIGURE 12.9 Isometric and axonometric projections are useful in communicating three-dimensional form. This axonometric of central Croydon, London, UK, shows development possibilities (source: EDAW, 1998) The communication process 27'9

(iv) Computer-aided design (daylighting, shadows, etc.). The possibility of the The use of computer-aided design (CAD) enables technology's presentational 'gloss' overshadowing ideas to be resolved quickly and alternatives to be a scheme's attributes, however, must be guarded generated (Figure 12.1 0). The designer is encour­ against, as well as any tendency for the technolo9y aged to think in three dimensions from the initial to unduly dictate the design. stages of a project. Software can calculate and simulate artificial and daylight conditions, materi­ (v) Models als, etc., through the application of textures and To enable better understanding and communica­ colours, and computer models can take on an extra tion of a project, physical! models can complement dimension of realism with animation, through the or replace drawings {Figure 12.1 1 ). Depending addition of people, vehicles, landscaping, street upon its application and the stage of the project at furniture, and other objects. which it is constructed, the role of a model varies: Computer-generated three-dimensional models of urban areas help in assessing the impact of new Conceptual models used in the initial design • buildings and alterations to existing townscape, stages are essentially three-dimensional allowing development/design proposals to be 'slot­ diagrams, expressing and exploring the ted' into an existing computer model and viewed designer's initial ideas. from any angle (see Bosselmann, 1998, Working models used during design develop­ • pp. 1 00-1 9). Options such as colour schemes, ment enhance understanding of spatial and materials, roof pitches, heights, and fenestration sequential relationships, and may be used for can be tested and amended far more accurately simulating lighting and climatic conditions. and in less time than with traditional media. Design Presentation models represent the final desi�Jn • issues can therefore be resolved quickly and effi­ solution. Suitably embellished with 'entourage' ciently, with almost instant revisions. Computer (e.g. people, landscape, vehicles, etc.), they technology can also be used to supplement free­ usually form important aids to the project's hand techniques by scanning in images and communication and marketing rather than to enhancing them with computer techniques decision-making.

FIGURE 12.10 Computer-aided urban townscape model of central Tokyo (source: Webscape.com) 280 Public Places - Urban Spaces

FIGURE 12.11 Urban model (photograph: Glynn Halls). Credit: Matthew Byron, Alisdair Russell and Peter Wraight

While models are a long-established method of A certain idealisation - or abstraction - of representing architectural and urban form, they models is often deliberate: it helps to highlight raise particular issues concerning the realism-real­ certain features, while emphasising that it is only a ity gap. By presenting a three-dimensional version model (a representation of reality). Grey and white of a proposed development, models may seem models tend to show form better because the more 'truthful' than drawings, but problems arise shadows are sharper. Such models also allow in trying to understand what the full-sized building designers and clients to keep their options open and its environment will be like. This is a regarding materials, finish and colour. Equally, means-ends confusion: the observer is seduced however, such models abstract buildings from their into seeing the model as an end rather than as a surroundings. Some urban designers suggest that means to another end. Conway and Roenisch the most appropriate scale for models is 1 :300, (1994, p. 200), for example, note how models can their function being to explore and communicate be seductive: the intended massing of the development and spaces created, rather than to show buildings in Beautifully made . . . they remind us of the detail. Larger-scale models usually require architec­ doll's houses, model frames and railways that tural detail which distracts from the urban space we played with as children. The seductiveness design issues being discussed . . . . is not only to do with their size and the materials used, it is also to do with their clarity and cleanliness of the forms, the way they are Representations of four dimensions lit and the way shadows fall. They represent pure, ideal buildings that are removed from As experiencing an urban environment is a their context and are not subject to the wear dynamic activity involving movement and time and tear of weather and time. (see Chapter 9), the addition of a time dimension Models may also appear to represent an ideal to graphic representations can enhance under­ world: 'Even if these models are finely detailed and standing and communication. For centuries, fully coloured, and include people, trees and cars in designers and artists have tried to capture such scale with the buildings, the world that they inhabit experiences in graphic and visual terms - the has no litter, no graffiti, no poor or elderly, and we Cubists, for example, attempted it with work such have no clue about where the sun might shine' as Duchamp's Lady Descending the Stair. Several (Conway and Roenisch, 1994, p. 200). techniques of spatial representation have been The communication process 21n developed to record and communicate the experi­ movement through space, although presentation is ence of complex interacting three-dimensional still confined to the two--dimensionai abstraction of events through the sequential description of space the computer screen. A range of new technologies - and time. such as virtual reality -- emerged during the 1990s, Three types of four-dimensional representation which could have a significant impact upon urban are considered here: serial vision; video animations; design. Indeed, few new computer technologies and computer-aided animations and virtual reality. have captured the imagination in the way that virtual reality has. Previously, the only way to enable walk­ (i) Serial vision ing through a project in real time was to construct a Serial vision is a method of communicating the full-scale mock-up. Now, sophisticated, high-speed experience of townscape by introducing movement computer power combined with images, sound and through a series of sequential illustrations. Gordon other effects can create an interactive system so fast Cullen's sketches in The Concise Townscape (1 971 ), and intuitive that the computer disappears from the and Edmund Bacon's diagrams in Design of Cities user's mind, leaving the computer-generated envi­ (1 974) embody the concept that movement can be ronment as the reality. Viewers can perceive and read and understood as a pictorial sequence. As understand an environment in their own way, discussed in Chapter 7, Cullen advocated the idea enabling better-informed feedback and participation. of serial vision as a tool of both visual analysis and Representations of urban environments and creative design. Whereas traditional static images design proposals in four dimensions are likely to be illustrate space at a certain moment in time, serial increasingly important in the communication, vision attempts to show the temporal unfolding of promotion and selling of projects. However, this movement as a dynamic activity: its images can be evolving technology must be harnessed to enhanc­ thought of as resembling the pages of an old-fash­ ing the understandin9 of proposals by both ioned flicker book (see Figure 7.4). However, as designer and layperson. New techniques offer a Bosselmann (1 998) observes, serial vision graphics highly realistic and interactive environment, with do not provide a sense of how we actually experi­ choice of movement giving freedom to viewers to ence and interpret places, nor how we generate a choose their own routes, as opposed to the pre­ sense of structure and location in space. programmed walk-through of traditional manual and computer presentations. Despite its obvious (ii) Video animations potential designers need to be aware of dangers in Accustomed to television and video technology, the persuasiveness of virtual reality. The technology people can easily understand projects presented also needs to be simplified and made less expen­ through video images. Computer-generated video sive to gain widespread professional adoption. presentations are used to communicate projects to Virtual reality nevertheless offers the opportunity to clients, planning authorities, funding institutions bridge the gap between what you see and what and members of the community. Video technology you get in urban desig�n. As part of the creative engages viewers through visual, aural, kinaesthetic, process, and as a decision-making and presenta­ spatial and temporal senses, allowing them to tional tool to aid understanding and evaluation, its make more accurate judgements regarding dimen­ importance will increase. sions and proportions than from still pictures. Many visual and graphic techniques exist to However, viewers are restricted to a predetermined communicate the experience of places. As commu­ and scripted route, which restricts perception of nication technology becomes increasingly familiar to the environment and thus to an extent predeter­ both professionals and the public, this should open mines feedback. As in serial vision, the field of up opportunities for it to be used to its full potential. vision is too narrow to truly represent and capture The previous sections have shown the increasingly what human eyes can see and other senses important role that technology is playing in the perceive. Representations inevitably eliminate some representation and communication of urban design. information, available to peripheral vision, that Since the 1970s, film, television and computers have might attract attention. also been increasingly exploited as design media. As a means of representation, computer-aided des'i1gn (ii) Computer imaging and animation has superseded all previous methods. Indeed, usiing Whereas t1raditional representations are static (i.e. a computer - in some form - is now standard prac­ fixed viewpoints in space), computers can show tice in nearly all design offices. 282 Public Places - Urban Spaces

Although new technology offers the opportunity and designers' skill. It is important, though, to design to make information more accessible and compre­ the project rather than the presentation. Given the hensible, designers need to appreciate the many influence of presentational techniques on the way in roles that a computer can play in the design which designers perceive their creations, the mode of process, as well as its advantages and disadvan­ representation can have a strong influence on the tages for each task. The ability to communicate scheme's design - designers need to be wary of design more persuasively raises important issues designing for the representational media rather than regarding the ethics of communication. State-of­ for the real world. There is also an increasing trend the-art visualisations of projects often mean that for designers to use presentation methods that are so few people understand precisely how the data is abstract and complex that only other designers can manipulated or can access the information to verify understand them. This form of professional elitism - a simulation's accuracy. It is important therefore usually from the 'architecture as fine art' school - that technological developments are harnessed to may do little to persuade an audience of the merits enable better understanding and involvement of of high quality urban design and undermines effec­ the public in decisions affecting their environment. tive communication of design ideas. The use of technology could help to create an Everyone perceives the urban environment in a increased awareness of urban design, and facilitate different way, as we each respond to the particular the ability for everyone to react to, and interact phenomena that attract us. The way the environ­ with, proposals for the built environment. ment is seen is conditioned by our background, familiarity with the place, purpose within it, and/or mode of travel (see Chapter 5). In communicating CONCLUSION urban design projects, the aim should be to enable viewers to perceive a scheme in similar ways to Communication in urban design covers all aspects reality. Good visual images should provide legible of verbal and non-verbal presentation, as well as and understandable information for a wide and the ability to listen to, and appreciate and respect varied audience, enabling evaluation by those the views, values and aspirations of, others. In the affected by the design. Presenters need to under­ communication of any urban design project it is stand the context of the communication process, important to give as true a representation of the and thus understand the audience and adapt a project as possible to all interested parties. presentation as appropriate. Presenters should also Communication is an important tool that can influ­ be aware of potential barriers to communication, ence decision-making (Figure 12.12). including social, psychological or technical factors, There are a number of implications of the media and the use of language and non-verbal communi­ chosen, including the appropriateness, cost, time, cation such as body language.

REALITY OF FUTURE PLACE REALITY

PROPOSAL FOR CHANGE

PROPONENTS OF CHANGE FIGURE 12.12 Design communication model (source: Bosselmann, 1998, 202)

p. Holistic urban design

INTRODUCTION - although, as has been noted previously, this is done not so much by urban designers as by the In general terms, this book has moved from theory people who inhabit space with their activities and, through to practice. Part I began with general thus, turn them into places. To focus and structure discussion about the nature of urban design and this discussion, a loose structure of key areas of the role of the urban designer. Discussion moved urban design action hats been used, which can on to review the evolution of urban design and its accommodate and relate most of the key contribu­ impact on urban form and a number of overarch­ tions to urban design thought. It, nevertheless, ing contexts - local, global, market and regulatory. remains open to debate where to place individual In Part II, key areas of urban design thought were contributions (particularly since, due to the inte­ reviewed in the form of six dimensions - morpho­ grative nature of urban design, most writers and logical, perceptual, social, visual, functional, and commentators range across the different dimen­ temporal. In Part Ill, the nature and roles of the sions). The book's structure also emphasises urban public and private sectors in delivering and sustain­ design's multi-dimensional and multi-layered ing high quality urban design were explored. The nature. While it is structured for convenience, our overarchin9 definition used throughout has been experience is not. Our experience of urban envi­ that urban design is about making places for ronments is an integrative one, but, to understand people. This definition asserts the importance of it better, it is necessary to dissect it and analyse the four themes: constituent parts. Conversely, to design -to create new places and to make positive contributions and urban design being concerned with people; interventions into existing places those • urban design valuing 'place'; constituent parts need to be drawn together and • urban design operating in the 'real' world, with considered as a whole. • the designer's field of opportunity typically In making the case for urban design, this book constraiined by market and regulatory forces; has not sought to produce a 'new' theory in a and prescriptive fashion, nor to offer a new definition of urban design as a design process. the subject, or a formulaic 'solution' to urban • design. The discussion in Chapter 1, for example, In this final chapter, we stress and reiterate the showed that while many definitions of urban fourth and final point in this overarching definition design are appropriate atnd valuable, they are also - urban design as a design process. limiting and contestable. Although some useful frameworks from distinguished urban designers were presented, they were accompanied by the 'QUESTIONING' URBAN DESIGN caveat that they should not be treated as inflexible dogma, nor reduced to mechanical formulae. In essence, this book should be understood as a Application of a formula negates the active process discussion of how to make 'places' out of 'spaces' of design, and downgrades the role of the

2lB 284 Public Places - Urban Spaces

designer. No single set of rules or objectives can the quality of which may only be known in time. capture the scope and complexity of urban design, Bryan Lawson (2001, p. 247) argues that design nor offer a step-by-step formula for a successful typically 'requires action in the form of decisions, outcome. Design is an exploratory, intuitive and even in the face of inadequate time and knowl­ deductive process, involving research into the edge. For these reasons sometimes it is useful to problem posed, and into the variable and specific oversimplify in order to structure thought enough conditions of time and place. This is not to say that to make design decisions slightly less arbitrary. We the complex interactions between the processes cannot hope to make them perfect.' The necessary and elements in any one place cannot be exam­ attitude is encapsulated in Frank Lloyd Wright's ined, nor that these cannot give generic clues as to response to a question asked near the end of his why some places succeed while others fail. career regarding what he thought was his best It is also necessary to have a continually ques­ building. Wright replied: 'The next one.' tioning and inquisitive approach to urban design. A number of recent publications (e.g. Tibbalds et As in any design process, there are no 'right' or a/., 1990; DETR, 1998; Cowan, 2001) take the help­ 'wrong' answers, only 'better' and 'worse' ones, ful approach of setting out a series of prompts Holistic urban design 2115 and/or posing a set of questions to establish an time and uncertainty of the development agenda of issues for both 'knowing' and 'unknowing' process, leading to fragmented and unco-ordi­ urban designers. As an attempt to bring together nated developments. some of the various contributions and dimensions Unco-ordinated development: Individual acts of • discussed in this book, Box 13.1 offers a series of development are often unco-ordinated, and do questions. Rather than a complete conceptualisation not aggregate into a greater whole. In general, of or prescriptive agenda for urban design, the inten­ larger sites (once assembled into sin�Jie tion is to provide a modest reminder of key issues. landownership) are more likely to address The questions can be used to evaluate proposed issues of 'place-making', making it easier for schemes, but more appropriately might be used to investors to capture beneficial 'externalities' in ask why some places succeed while others fail. the form of rents and capital values. Equally, small-scale incremental development, particu­ larly when co-ordinated in some (perhaps THE CHALLENGE unconscious) way, will often produce 'better' places. The day-to-day problems of achieving high quality Combative relationships: Confrontational rella­ • urban design are real, and are illustrated by the diffi­ tionships between developers and the public culty of finding high quality examples of contem­ sector increase the time taken to develop, thus porary urban design. A wide range of barriers can increasing uncertainty and risk. be highlighted that militate against the delivery of Economic conditions: Uncertainty and instabililty • better quality urban design (Carmona et a/., 2001 , in the general economy can often lead to pp. 32-3). Many of these have been discussed or shorter-term investment decisions and less alluded to in earlier chapters, but include: investment in design. Lack of choice: Constraints in the supply of the • Low awareness: There is variable awareness of right quality of property in a desired location • urban design issues among investors and occu­ reduce the contribution of design considera­ piers concerning the value given to environ­ tions in occupier decision-making - occupiers mental quality (in its broadest sense) in the may often trade poorer development for an success of their operations. Research suggests alternative location. that different submarkets have different levels Short-termism: The structure of capital markets, • of concern and sophistication as regards with planning horizons of three to five years, design: retailers, for example, tend to be more makes it difficult for many businesses to engaqe aware of the contribution of design than are in the long-term planning necessary for invest­ office occupiers. ment in better design. This is also shown by the Poor information: The scarcity of reliable infor­ preference for short-term and one-off transac­ • mation about the preferences of prospective tions rather than a long-term relationship occupiers and investors adds to the risk of involving repeat custom. departing from conventional and 'safe' stan­ Perceptions of cost: The perception among • dards olf design quality. occupiers that, while many benefits of good Unpredictable markets: The timing of a develop­ design accrue to the wider community (i.e. • ment in relation to the fluctuations of the prop­ they are social benefits), it is the occupiers who erty and investment market often dictates pay for it, in higher rents, running costs and attitudes towards investing in urban design commercial rates (i.e. they involve private quality, as perceived risk changes. The cyclical costs). behaviour of property markets can, therefore, Decision-making patterns: Many of the most • be a ba1rrier to good urban design. important urban design decisions are taken not High land costs: High land costs can reduce by planners, developers or designers, but by • profit margins and leave little room for extra people who may not think of themselves as investment in quality, especially since, in prop­ being involved in urban design (i.e. unknowing erty markets, prices adjust only slowly and urban designers). Such actors often lack appre­ imperfectly. ciation of the wider consequences of the deci­ Fragmented land ownership: Fragmented sions they make, particularly their impact on • patterns of land ownership can increase the the urban environment. 286 Public Places - Urban Spaces

Negative planning: Largely reactionary, as achieve something worthwhile on the ground. • opposed to 'positive' and proactive, Equally, without the means, there is no end. approaches to urban design across many local The barriers listed above highlight the impor­ authorities, and a general failure to link tance of the public sector in establishing a political concerns for urban regeneration with those for and regulatory climate within which good design better urban design. can flourish. In cities demonstrating the best exam­ Ski/Is deficit: The low levels of urban design skills ples of urban design - Barcelona, Copenhagen, • on both sides of the development process Birmingham, Portland, San Francisco, Sydney - the represent a significant and consistent impedi­ barriers have been overcome. In such places, as ment to the effective delivery of better design. well as the positive role played by public authori­ ties in ensuring the right climate for design, the Such constraints should be seen as challenges for positive role played by private sector developers urban designers. Successful designers are skilled in and investors working to ensure a shared commit­ confronting and overcoming constraints. Urban ment to quality across different stakeholder groups design is not simply a passive reaction to change, has often been equally significant. If commitment but also a positive attempt to shape change and from all sectors is there, then there is the potential make better places. As discussed in a more to create contemporary public places and urban specific sense in Chapter 1 0, urban designers can space to rival the best in any century. Figures deploy three particular types of power and influ­ 13.1-1 3.3 illustrate three examples where this has ence: through the knowledge and expertise been the case. produced by their learning, research and profes­ If many of the barriers to delivering better qual­ sional experience, and, more generally, by their ity urban design relate to the processes of design, awareness of precedents; through their reputa­ development and public regulation, then (as with tion, which is why they are hired and which sustainable development) so do many of the solu­ endows them with 'cultural capital'; and through tions. Certain process-related barriers - local initiative and being proactive. To succeed, market conditions, the macro-economy, etc. - are however, urban designers also need political and almost impossible for urban designers (or, indeed, operational skills. Tibbalds (1 988a, pp. 12-1 3), any built environment professionals) to influence. for example, identified a set of personal skills Other factors are only amenable to influence over required by successful urban designers, which extended periods of time and with national/state or includes the following: regional action. They include awareness of urban design among key actors; established patterns of Being able to operate at a high level (i.e. being decision-making; the cost of land; the nature of the • a force to be reckoned with, and appreciated planning system and other regulatory mechanisms. by politicians, administrators, industrialists, These were discussed in Chapter 3 as the market developers, etc.). and regulatory contexts for urban design, which, Being passionately concerned with achievability for practical purposes, urban designers often have • (i.e. putting all manner of design ideas to prac­ to accept as givens. tical effect). There are, nevertheless, a series of constraints Being outward looking and able to show due that urban designers, their clients and local • deference and humility to other professions communities can influence: the availability of and to the community. information on demand and on public prefer­ Being able to argue cogently and convincingly ences; the consolidation of land and develop­ • for the necessary resources of finance, land and ment opportunities; the operation of the manpower to see their ideas through. planning process as a positive force for change; Possessing astute financial awareness. education about the value of better design; the • Being idealistic but realistic (i.e. able to recog­ availability of appropriately skilled individuals in • nise why things go wrong). both public and private sectors; and the formula­ Having an unfettered imagination, and tion and adoption of a coherent local vision. • commitment to quality and to finishing the job. Most of all, urban design practitioners can move beyond short-sighted, hard-edged professional As Tibbalds (1 988a, p. 13) correctly noted, these approaches, and adopt collaborative working skills are only a means to an end: the real end is to relationships. Holistic urban design 21J7

FIGURE 13.1 Aker Brygge, Oslo, Norway. Effectively producing a new city centre quarter for Oslo, the Aker Brygge is a successful piece of urban design. Attracting six million people annually, its success as urban design is built on its:

• diverse range of uses - cafes, restaurants, retail, festival • architectural mix - a rich mix of bold contemporary shopping,. offices, two theatres, theatrical academy, architecture with revitalised historic buildings;

residential, cinemas, health centre, kindergarten; • response to climate - with protected pockets,

• morphological form - positive relationship to its interior walkways and spaces for the winter and uses waterside setting, sequence of spaces lined with that spill out into the external spaces in good active uses, pedestrian-friendly car-free status, good weather; and

pubic transport connections, and high permeability • size and density - 64 hectares of high density but (visually and physically) without compromising the with relatively small buildings and with a good intimacy of the key space; resident and working population.

A HOLISTIC APPROACH building layout, form and visual expression. React­ ing to the overcrowded and unhealthy conditions To conclude this book, it is worth re-stressing the of the industrial cities, Modernists argued that holistic nature of urban design. In any design people needed more light, fresh air, sun and process, th

FIGURE 13.2 considerable public sector investment, and includes high Bankside, London, UK. Bankside is a major success story quality public art and landscaping. It also includes a of urban design in London. The diversity of its number of successful contemporary interventions such attractions and dramatic nature of its context with views as Tower Bridge Piazza and the Coin Street social across the Thames to the Cities of London and housing development. Architecturally, a number of Westminster make the experience a major draw for iconic set pieces add to the area's appeal -Tower tourists and Londoners. It is not, however, a Bridge, the London Assembly Building, the converted conventional piece of urban design in the form of a new Bankside power station, the Millennium Bridge (shown development. Instead, it is a rejuvenated - and still above), the London Eye and the Royal Festival Hall. The evolving - riverside walk stretching from east of Tower quantity and quality of visual and social stimuli make Bridge to Westminster Bridge and taking in London's Bankside a memorable place. Its success is all the more Design Museum, Southwark Cathedral, historic Borough significant because of the diversity of players responsible Market, the Globe Theatre, Tate Modern (art gallery), for its creation, including a proactive local authority and the National Theatre, along with a host of other regeneration team and a host of voluntary, community entertainment, arts, residential, commercial, retail and and commercial interests. In large part, the area has restaurant/cafe uses. Dominated by the pedestrian been revitalised through managed incremental route, along which most of the attractions are arranged, development (rather than through any grand master the urban form is a mix of high-density traditional space plan), and through a concern for quality around the and contemporary commercial developments. The unifying theme of the Thames Path. historic public realm has been the subject of

the preferences and choices of those likely to live interpreted not only in the narrower financial sense there. of respecting budget constraints, but also (and In Chapter 3, a fourth criterion -economy - was more importantly) in its widest sense - reflecting added to the well-established trinity of 'firmness, the imperative of minimising environmental costs. commodity and delight', and it was argued that The need to address complex sustainability issues each must be satisfied simultaneously. 'Economy' is represents perhaps the greatest challenge of the Holistic urban design 21!19

FIGURE 13.3 and the formation of the Downtown Business Pioneer Courthouse Square, Portland, Oregon, USA. Association for Portland Process halted plans. A grass Located in the centre of Portland's downtown, Pioneer roots action group - Friends of Pioneer Square - fought Courthouse Square is a successful piece of urban design. to retain the project, raising US$1 .6 million by selling The square's long gestation period contributed both to sponsorship of the square's benches, trees and lights,

· its character and to the sense of ownership felt for it by plus more than 60,000 paving bricks. Opened in 1984, the city's citizens. In 1952, the former grand Portland the square offers a variety spaces providing varying Hotel was demolished· and a two-storey garage structure degrees of refuge and exposure, opportunities for constructed. In the early 1960s, there was a proposal to people-watching and a varietyof of sitting locations. Its replace the garage with a public square, but it was not centre is palpably pregnant with opportunity and hosts until 1972 that the Downtown Plan for Portland three hundred events annually. The square has also designated the block for future use as a public square. played a significant role in restoring Portland's The city eventually purchased the land in 1979 and, in downtown as the region's social and economic centre, 1980, an international competition was held to select a while an enlightened transport policy has made it the design for th1e square. Although a citizen jury chose a main terminal of a regional light-rail scheme by a local firm of architects, a change of mayor

twenty-first century. Those engaged in the design Perceptual - the psychological welfare of people • and management of urban areas have the potential is intimately related to the social stability of to play an important role in addressing this chal­ places, and how they are valued and looked after.

lenge. In different ways, sustainability impacts on Social - patterns of living can both reinforce • each of the dimensions of urban design: and undermine environmental well-being.

Functional - mixing uses, building at higher • Morphological - resource consumption and densities and coping with the local environ­ • pollution (particularly through movement) is ment all impact on energy usage.

strongly influenced by the configuration of the Visual - diversity in the built and natural envi­ • urban pattern. ronment is a key sustainable principle, while 290 Public Places - Urban Spaces

concern for aesthetic fulfilment indicates a will­ design often stands out. Indeed, it may only be ingness to invest in sustainable quality. noticed when it does not work. Good urban design Temporal - the pursuit of sustainable develop­ may often be like the referee in a football (soccer) • ment is a long-term goal accomplished match who has a 'good' game by not being through many small-scale interventions. noticed. Furthermore, in delivering good urban design, the contribution of the individual is almost Achieving sustainable development is also a politi­ always eclipsed by that of the team. This, in turn, cal challenge. Hildebrand Frey (1 999, p. 144) reflects the nature of urban design as a process of argues that: joining-up - both joining-up environments and places, and joining-up professionals and other to achieve sustainable city regions requires the actors with each other, with communities, and rethinking not only of the city and city region with those who wish to invest. In the contemporary but also of current policies, approaches and context, good urban design is almost always professional responsibilities as well as educa­ achieved through collaborative design and working tion. What is needed is a strong political will to processes. act upon this commitment by implementing To achieve its full potential, urban design strong, co-ordinated policies, approaches and considerations need to figure more centrally in the strategies; and this equates with a kind of decision-making processes of public and private gentle and friendly revolution. Half-heartedness actors and in the programmes of educators in built will not achieve sustainable city regions. environment and related fields. There also needs to Despite its role in delivering environmental quality be a general cultural shift towards perspectives that - and unlike, for example, the field of architecture are more appreciative and mindful of urban design. - there are very few 'big names' in urban design. It is hoped that this book will make a contribution In part, this is because good urban design is often on these fronts. If urban design is about making unobtrusive. It blends in and 'disappears' - we do public places for people, the challenge is to design not notice that it is there. Conversely, poor urban urban spaces that people will want to use. Bibliography

Abbott, C. (1 997), Portland: Gateway to the North-West, Appleyard, D. and Lintel!, M. (1 972), The environmental American Historical Press, Washington. quality of city streets: The residents' viewpoint, journal Adams, D. (1 994), Urban Planning and the Development of the American Institute of Planners, 38, 84-1 01 . Process, UCL Press, London. Appleyard, D., Lynch, K. and Myer, j. (1 964), The View Adams, D., Disberry, A., Hutchison, N. and Munjoma, T. from the Road, MIT Press, Cambridge, Mass. (1 999), Do Landowners Constrain Urban Redevelopment? Ardrey, R. (1 967), The Territorial Imperative: A Personal RICS Research Findings 34. Inquiry into the Animal Origins of Property and Nations, Aldous, T. (11 992), Urban Villages: A concept for creating Collins, London. mixed-use developments on a sustainable scale, Urban Arefi, M. (1 999), Non-plaoe and placelessness as narra­ Villages Group, London. tives of loss: Rethinking the notion of place, journal of Alexander, (1 965), A City is Not a Tree, Architectural Urban Design, 4, 179-93. Forum, 122 (1 and 2), April/May, also in Bell, G. and Arendt, H. (1 958), Th e Human Condition, University of Tyrwhitt, C. (1 992) (eds), Human Identity in the Urban Chicago Press, Chicago. Environment, Penguin, London. Arnheim, R. (1 977), Th e Dynamics of Architectural Form, Alexander, Ft. (1 975), The Oregon Experiment, Oxford University of California Press, Berkeley. University Press, Oxford. Arnstein, S. (1969), A Ladder of Citizen Participation, Alexander, C. (1979), The Timeless Way of Building, American Institute of Planners journal, july, pp. 21 6-24. Oxford University Press, Oxford. Arup Economics and Planning (1 995), Environmental Alexander, C.,C. Ishikawa, S. and Silverstein, M. (1 977), A Capacity, A Methodology for Historic Cities, Cheshire Pattern Language: Towns, Buildings, Construction, County Council, Chester. Oxford University Press, Oxford. Arup Economics and Planning (2000), Survey of Urban Alexander, C., Neis, H., Anninou, A. and King, I. (1 987), Design Skills in Local Government, DETR, London. A New Th eory of Urban Design, Oxford University Press, Ashworth, G.j. and Tunbridge, j.E. (1 990), Th e Touristic­ New York. Historic City, Belhaven Press, London. Ambrose, P. (1 986), Whatever Happened to Planning, Attoe, W. and Logan, D. ('1 989), American Urban Archi­ Methuen, London. tecture: Catalysts in the Design of Cities, University of Anderson, S. (1978) (ed.), On Streets, MIT Press, California Press, Berkeley. Cambridge, Mass. Auge, M. (1 995), Non-places: An Introduction to an Appignanesi, R. and Garratt, C. (1 999), Introducing Post­ Anthropology of Supermodernity, Verso, London. modernism,. Icon Books, London. Bacon, E. (1974, 1992), Design of Cities, London, Thames Appleyard, D. (1 976), Planning a Pluralist City: Conflicting Hudson (first published in 1967). realities in Ciudad Guyana, MIT Press, Cambridge, Mass. Baker, G. (1 996), Design Strategies in Architecture: An Appleyard, D. (1980), Why buildings are known: A &approach to the analysis of form, second edition, predictive tool for architects and planners, in Broad­ London: E FN Spon. bent, G., Eiunt, R. and Llorens, T. (1 980) (eds), Mean­ Ball, M. (1 986), The built environment and the urban ing and Behaviour in the Built Environment, john Wiley question, Envi& ronment Planning D: Society Space, 4, Sons, Chichester. 447-64. Appleyard, D. (1 981 ), Liveable Streets, University of Cali­& Ball, M. (1 998), Institutions& in British Property& Research: fornia Press, Berkeley. A Review, Urban Studies, 35, 1501-1 7. Appleyard, D. (1982), Three kinds of urban design prac­ Ball, M., Lizieri, C. and MacGregor, B.D. (1 998), The tice, in Ferebee, A. (1 982) (ed.), Education fo r Urban Economics of Commercial Property Markets, London, Design, Institute for Urban Design, New York. Routledge. Appleyard, D. (1 991 ), Foreword, from Moudon, A.V. Banham, R. (1 976), Megastructures: Urban Features of the (1 991 ), Public Streets for Public Use, Columbia University Recent Past, London, Thames and Hudson. Press, New York, pp. 5-8. Banerjee, T. (2001 ), The Future of Public Space: Beyond 292 Public Places - Urban Spaces

Invented Streets and Reinvented Places, APA journal, Blakely, E.]. and Snyder, M.G. (1 997), Fortress America: 67, 9-24. Gated Communities in the United States, Brookings Insti­ Banerjee, T. and Baer, W.C. (1 984), Beyond the Neigh­ tution Press, Washington DC and Lincoln Institute of bourhood Unit, Plenum Press, New York. Land Policy, Cambridge, Mass. Bane�ee, T. and Southworth, M. (1 991 ) (eds), City Sense Blowers, A. (1 973), The City as a Social System: Unit The and City Design: Writings and Projects of Kevin Lynch, Neighbourhood: Exploration of a Concept, Open Univer­ MIT Press, Cambridge, Mass. sity, Milton Keynes. 7: Barnett, ]. (1 974), Urban Design as Public Policy, Harper Blowers, A. (1 993), Planning for a Sustainable Environment, Row, New York. Earthscan Publications Ltd, London. Barnett, j. (1 982), An Introduction to Urban Design, Harper& Boddy, T. (1 992), Underground and overhead: Building Row, New York. the analogous city, in Sorkin, M. (1 992) (ed.), Varia­ Barr, R. and Pease, K. (1 992), A place for everycrime and tions on a Th eme Park, Noonday Press, New York, every& crime in its place: an alternative perspective on pp. 123-53. crime displacement, in Crime, Policing and Place: Essays Booth, N.K. (1 983), Basic Elements of Landscape Architec­ in Environmental Criminology, Evans, D.]., Fyfe, N.F. and tural Design, Elsevier, Oxford. Herbert, D.T. (eds), London, Routledge. Borchert, j. (1 991 ), Future of American cities, in Hart, j.F. Barrett, S., Stewart, M. and Underwood, j. (1 978), The (ed.) (1 991 ), Our Changing Cities, john Hopkins Press, Land Market and the Development Process, occasional Baltimore. paper 2, SAUS, University of Bristol, Bristol. Bosselmann, P. (1 998), Representation of Places: Reality Barthes, R. (1 967), Elements of Semiology, Hill Wang, and Realism in City Design, University of California Press, New York. Berkeley. Barthes, R. (1 968), The death of the author, in Bar& thes, R. Bottoms, A.E. (1 990), Crime prevention in the 1990s, (1 977), Image-Music-Text, Flamingo, London, pp. 2-8. Policing and Society, 1, 3-22. Barton, H. (1 995), Going Green by Design, Urban Design Boudon, P. (1 969), Lived-in Architecture: Le Corbusiers Quarterly, Issue 57, january, pp. 13-1 8. Pessac Revisited, MIT Press, Cambridge, Mass. Barton, H., Davis, G. and Guise, R. (1 995), Sustainable Boyer, M.C. (1 992), Cities for Sale: Merchandising History Settlements: A Guide for Planners, Designers, and Devel­ at South Street Seaport, in Variations on a Th eme Park: opers, Local Government Management Board, Luton. Th e New American City and the End of Public Space, Baudrillard, j. (1 983; in French, 1981 ), Simulations, Semi­ Sorkin, M. (ed.), New York, Hill Wang, pp. 3-30. otext, New York. Boyer, M.C. (1 993), The city of illusion: New York's public Baudrillard, j. (1 994; in French, 1981 ), Simulacra and places, in Knox, P. (1 993) (ed.),& The Restless Urban Simulation, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. Landscape, Prentice Hall, Eaglewood, California, Bell, P.A., Fisher, J.D., Baum, A. and Greene, T.C. (1 990), pp. 111-26. Environmental Psychology (third edition), Holt, Rinehart Boyer, M.C. (1 994), The City of Collective Memory, MIT Winston, Inc., London. Press, Cambridge, Mass. Ben-joseph, E. (1 995), Changing the Residential Street Boyer, M.C. (1 996), Cybercities, MIT Press, Cambridge, Mass. Scene:& Adopting the Shared Street (Woonerf) Concept Brand, S. (1 994), How Buildings Age: What happens after to the Suburban Environment, journalof the American they are built, Penguin Books, Harmondsworth. Planning Association, 61, 504-1 5. Braunfels, W. (1 988), Urban Design in Western Europe: Bentley, I. (1 976), What is Urban Design? Towards a Defi­ Regime and Architecture University of nition, Urban Design Forum, No. 1 . Chicago Press, Chicago. Bentley, I. (1 990), Ecological Urban Design, Architects Breheny, M. (1 992a) (ed.), Sustainable900-7 900, Urban Develop­ journal, 192, 69-71 . ment and Urban Form, Pion, London. Bentley, I. (1 998), Urban design as an anti-profession, Breheny, M. (1 992b), The Contradictions of the Compact Urban Design Quarterly, Issue 65, p. 15. City: A Review, in Breheny, M. (1 992) (ed.), Sustainable Bentley, I. (1 999), Urban Transformations: Power, people Urban Development and Urban Form, Pion, London. and urban design, Routledge, London. Breheny, M. (1 995), The Compact City and Transport Bentley, Alcock, A., Murrain, P., McGlynn, S. and Energy Consumption, Transactions of the Institute of Smith, G. (1 985), Responsive Environments: A Manual for British Geographers, 20, 81-1 01 . Designers,1., Architectural Press, London. Breheny, M. (1 997), Centrists, Decentrists and Compro­ Bianchini, F. (1 994), Night cultures, night economies, misers: Views on the Future of Urban Form, in jenks, Town Country Planning, 63, 308-1 0. M., Burton, E. and Williams, K. (1 997) (eds), Compact Biddulph, M. (1 995), The value of manipulated meanings Cities and Sustainability, E FN Spon, London, in urban& design and architecture, Environment Plan­ pp. 13-35. ning B: Planning Design, 22, 739-62. Brill, M. (1 989), Transformation, &nosta lgia and illusion in Biddulph, M. (1 999), Book review of Bosselmann,& P. public life and public place. In Public Places and Spaces, (1 998), Representation& of Place: Reality and Realism in Altman, I. and Zube, E. (eds), New York, Plenum Press. City Design, journal of Urban Design, 4, 125-7. Broadbent, G. (1 990), Emerging Concepts of Urban Space Biddulph, M. (2000), Villages don't make a city, journalof Design, Van Nostrand Reinhold, New York. Urban Design, 5, 65-82. Brolin, B.C. (1 980), Architecture in Context: Fitting New Birmingham City Council (1994), Convention Centre Quar­ Buildings With Old, Van Nostrand Reinhold, New York. ter, Planning Urban Design Framework, Birmingham Buchanan, P. (1 988a), What city? A plea for place in the City Council, Birmingham. public realm, Architectural Review, No. 1101, Blake, P. (1 974), &Form Follows Fiasco, Little Brown, Boston. pp. 31-41 .

& Bibliography 293

Buchanan, P. (1988b), Facing up to fa�ades, Architects Case Scheer, B. and Preiser, W. (eds) (1 994), Design journal, 188, 21-56. Review: Challenging Urban Aesthetic Control, Chapman Building Research Establishment (BRE) (1 990), BRE Digest Hall, New York. Climate and Site Development, BRE, Watford. Case Scheer, B. (1 994), Introduction: The debate on Building Research Establishment (BRE) (1 999), An Assessment &design review, in Case Scheer, B. and Preiser W. (eels), 350:of the Police's Secured by Design Project, BRE, Watford. Design Review: Challenging Urban Aesthetic Control, Burke, G. (1 976), Townscapes, Harmondsworth, Penguin. Chapman Hall, New York, pp. 3-9. Burtenshaw, D., Bateman, M. and Ashworth, G.j. (1 991 ), Castells, M. (1 989), The informational City, Blackwells, The European City: A Western Perspective, London, David Oxford. & Fulton Publishers. Chapman, D. and Larkham, P. (1 994), Understanding Cadman, D. and Austin-Crowe, L. (1 991, Cadman and Urban Design, An Introduction to the Process of Urban Tapping, 1995), Property Development (third edition Change, University of Central England, Birmingham. edited by Topping, R. and Avis, M.), Chapman Hall, Chermayeff, S. and Alexander, C. (1 963), Community and London. Privacy, Pelican, Harmondsworth. CAG Consultants (1 997), Sustainabifity in Develo&pment Chih-Feng Shu, S. (2000), Housing layout and crime Control, A Research Report, Local Government Associa­ vulnerability, Urban Design International, 5, 177-88. tion, London. Clarke, R.V.G. (ed.) (1 992), Situational Crime Prevention: Calhoun, C. (1 992) (ed.), Habermas and the Public Sphere, Successful Case Studies, Harrow Heston, New York. Mit Press, Cambridge, Mass. Clarke, R.V.G. (ed.) (1 997), Situational Crime Prevention: Calthorpe, P. (1 989), Pedestrian Pockets: New strategies Successful Case Studies, 2nd edition,& Harrow Heston, for suburban growth, in Kelbaugh, D. (1 989) (ed.), Th e New York. Pedestrian Pocket Book: A New Suburban Design Strategy, Clifford, S. and King, A. (1 993), Local Distinctiven& ess: Princeton University Press, Princeton, pp. 7-20. Place, Particularity and Identity, Common Ground, Calthorpe, P. (1 993), The Next American Metropolis: Ecol­ London. ogy, community and the American Dream, Princeton Cold, B. (2000), Aesthetics and the built environment, in Architectural Press, New York. Design Professionals and the Built Environment: An Intro­ Campbell, K. and Cowan, R. (1 999), Finding the Tools for duction, Knox, P. and Ozolins, P. (eds), London, Wiley. Better Design, Planning, No. 1305, 12 February, Coleman, A. (1 985), Utopia on Trial: Vision and Reality in pp. 16-1 7. Planned Housing, Shipman, London. Caniggia, G. and Maffei, G.L. (1 979), Composizione Collins, G.R. and Collins, C.C. (1 965), Translators Preface, Architettonica e Tipologia Edilizia: Lettura dei/Edilizia di in Sitte, C. (1 889), City Planning According to Artistic Base, Marsilio Editori, Venice. Principles (translated by Collins, G.R. and Collins, C.C., Caniggia, G. and Maffei, G.L. (17, 984), Composizione 1965), Phaidon Press, London, pp. ix-xiv. Architettonica e Tipologia Edilizia: 2, II Oproget­ Commission of the European Communities (CEC) (1 990), toneiiEdilizia di Basi, Marsilio Editori, Venice. Green Paper on the Urban Environment, EUR 2902, Cantacuzino, S. (1994), What makes a good building? An CEC, Brussels. inquiryby the Royal Fine Arts Commission, RFAC, London. Congress for the New Urbanism (1 999), Charter 7for the Canter, D. (1 977), The Psychology of Place, Architectural New Urbanism (http://'..vww .cnu.org/charter.html). Press, London. Conrads, U. (1 964), Programmes and Manifestos of Twen­ Carmona, M. (1 996), Sustainable Urban Design: The tieth Century Architecture, Lund Humphries, London. Local Plan Agenda, Urban Design Quarterly, Issue 57, Conway, H. and Roenisch, (1 994), Understanding Archi­ pp. 18-22. tecture: An introduction to architecture and architectural Carmona M. (1 998a), Design Control - Bridging the history, Routledge, London.Fl. Professional Divide, Part 2: A New Consensus, journalof Conzen, M.P. (1 960), Alnwick: a study in town pllan Urban Design, 3, 331-58. analysis, Transactions, Institute of British Geographers, Carmona, M. (1 998b), Urban design and planning prac­ 27, 1-1 22. tice, from Greed, C. and Roberts, M. (1 998), Introduc­ Cook, R. (1 980), Zoning for Downtown Urban Design, ing urban design: Interventions and responses, Longman, Lexington Books, New York. Harlow. Council for the Protection of Rural England (CPRE) Carmona, M. (2001 ), Housing Design Quality: through (2001 ), Compact Sustainable Communities, CPIRE, policy, guidance and review, Spon Press, London. London. Carmona, M., Carmona, S. and Gal lent, N. (2001 ), Work­ Countryside Commission English Nature (1 997), The ing Together: A Guide for Planners and Housing Providers, Character of England: Landscape, Wildlife Natural Thomas Telford, London. Features, English Nature,/3( Peterbor ough. Carmona, M., de Magalhaes, C. and Edwards, M. (2001 ), Cowan, R. (1 995), The Cities Design Forgot, Urban& Initia­ The Value of Urban Design, CABE, London. tives, London. Carmona, M., Punter, j. and Chapman, D. (2002), From Cowan, R. (1 997), The Connected City, Urban Initiatives, Design Polley to Design Quality: the Treatment of Design London. in Community Stretegies, Local Development Frameworks Cowan, R. (2000), Beyond the myths on urban desi9n, and Action Plans, London, Thomas Telford Publishing. The Planner, 17 November, p. 24. Carr, S., Francis, M., Rivlin, L.G. and Stone, A.M. (1 992), Cowan, R. (2001 a), Responding to the Challenge, Plan­ Public Space, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. ning, Issue 1413, 6 April, p. 9. Carter, S.L. (1 998), Civility: Manners, Morals and the Cowan, R. (2001 b), Arm Yo urself With a Placecheck: A Etiquette of Democracy, Harper Perennial, London. Users Guide, Urban Design Alliance, London. 294 Public Places - Urban Spaces

Crang, M. (1 998), Cultural Geography, Routledge, Department of Environment, Transport and Regions London. (DETR) (2000b), Survey of Urban Design Skills in Local Crawford, M. (1 992), The world in a Shopping Mall, in Government, DETR, London. Variations on a Theme Park: the New American City and Department of Environment, Transport and the End of Public Space, Sorkin, M. (ed.), New York, Hill Regions/Commission for Architecture and the Built Wang, pp. 3-30. Environment (DETR/CABE) (2000), By Design: Urban Crowe, T. (1 991 ), Crime Prevention through Environmental Design in the Planning System: Towards Better Practice, Design,& Oxford, Butterworth-Heinemann. DETR, London. Cullen, G. (1 961 ), Townscape, Architectural Press, Department of Environment (DoE) (1 992), Planning Policy London. Guidance Note Development Plans and Regional Plan­ Cullen, G. (1 967), Notation, Alcan, London. ning Guidance, HMSO, London. Cullen, G. (1 971 ), The Concise Townscape, Architectural Department of Environment12: (DoE) (1994), Quality in Town Press, London. and Country: A Discussion Document, DoE, London. Cullingworth, B. (1 997), Planning in the USA: Policies, Department of Environment (DoE) (1 996), Analysis of Issues and Processes, Routledge, London. Responses to the Discussion Document Quality in Town Curdes, G. (1 993), Spatial organisation of towns at the and Country, HMSO, London. level of the smallest urban unit: plots and buildings, in Department of Environment (DoE) (1 997), Planning Policy Montanari, A., Curdes, G. and Forsyth, L. (eds) (1 993), Guidance: General Policy and Principles (PPG ), The Urban Landscape Dynamics: A multi-level innovation Stationery Office, London. process, Avebury, Aldershot, pp. 281 -94. Department for Transport, Local Government and1 the Dagenhart, R. and Sawicki, D. (1 992), Architecture and Regions (DTLR) (2001 ), Green Paper: Planning: Deliver­ planning: the divergence of two fields, journal of Plan­ ing a Fundamental Change, London. ning Education Research, 21, 1-16. Dickens, P.G. (1 980), Social sciences and design theory, Dagenhart, R. and Sawicki, D. (1 994), If urban design is Environment Planning B: Planning Design, 7, everything, maybe& its nothing, journal of Planning 353-60. Education Research, 13, 143-6. Downs, A. (2001& ), What does "Smart Growth"& really Davis, D. (1 987), Late Postmodern: the end of style, Art mean? Planning (American Planning Association), April. in America,& June, pp. 5-23. Dovey, K. (1 990), The Pattern Language and its enemies, Davis, C. (1 997), Improving Design in the High Street, Design Studies, 11, 3-9. Architectural Press, Oxford. Dovey, K. (1 999), Framing Places: Mediating power in built Davis, M. (1 990), City of Quartz: Excavating the fu ture in form, Routledge, London. Los Angeles, Verso, London. Duany, A. and Plater-Zyberk, E. (1 991 ), Towns and Town­ Davis, M. (1 998), Ecology of Fear: Los Angeles and the Making Principles, Rizzoli, New York. imagination of disaster, Picador, London. Duany, A., Plater-Zyberk, E. and Chellman, C. (1 989), Davison, I. (1 995), Viewpoint: Do We Need Cities Any New Town Ordinances and Codes, Architectural Design, More? Town Planning Review, 66, iii-vi. 59, 71-5. Dear, M. (1 995), Prolegomena to a postmodern urban­ Duany, A. and Plater-Zyberk, E. with Speck, J. (2000), ism, in Healey, Cameron, S., Davoudi, S., Graham, Suburban Nation: The rise of sprawl and the decline of the S. and Mandanipour, A. (1995) (eds), Managing Cities: American Dream, North Point Press, New York. The New UrbanP., Context, John Wiley, Chichester, Dubos, R. (1 972), A God Within, New York, Charles pp. 27-44. Schribners Sons. Dear, M. and Flusty, S. (1 999), The postmodern urban Duffy, F. (1 990), Measuring Building Performance, Facili­ condition, in Featherstone, M. and Lash, S. (1999) ties, May. (eds), Spaces of Culture: City-Nation-World, Sage Publi­ Dyckman, J.W. (1962), The European motherland of cations, London, pp. 64-85. American urban romanticism, journal of the American Dear, M. and Walch, J. (1 989), How territory shapes Institute of Planners, 28, 277-81 . social life, in Walch, J. and Dear, M. (eds) (1 989), The Eco, U. (1 968), Function and sign: semiotics in architec­ Power of Geography: How territory shapes social life, ture, in The City and the Sign: An Introduction to Urban Unwin Hyman, Boston. Semiotics, Gottdiener, M. and Lagopoulos, A. (eds), De ]onge, D. (1 962), Images of urban areas: Their struc­ New York, Columbia University Press. ture and psychological foundations, journalof the Amer­ EDAW (1 998), Croydon Th e Thinking and the Vision ican Institute of Planners, 28, 266-76. Ideas Competition, London Borough of Croydon, Denby, E. (1 956), Oversprawl, Architectural Review, London. 2020: December, pp. 424-30. Edwards, B. (1 994), Understanding Architecture through Department of Environment, Transport and Regions Drawing, E FN Spon, London. (DETR) (1 998), Places, Streets and Movement: A Ekblom, P., Law, H. and Sutton, M. (1 996), Safer Cities Companion Guide to Design Bulletin Residential Roads and Domestic& Burglary, London, Research and Statistics and Footpaths, DETR, London. Directorate, Home Office. Department of Environment, Transport32 and Regions Elkin, T., Mclaren, D. and Hillman, M. (1 991 ), Reviving (DETR) (1 999), Good Practice Guidance on Design in the the City: Towards Sustainable Urban Development, Planning System, DETR, London. Friends of the Earth, London. Department of Environment, Transport and Regions Ellin, N. (1996), Postmodern Urbanism, Blackwells, Oxford. (DETR) (2000a), Best Value Performance Indicators Ellin, N. (1997) (ed.), The Architecture of Fear, Princeton DETR, London. Architectural Press, London.

200 1/2002, Bibliography 295

Ellin, N. (1 999), Postmodern Urbanism (revised edition), Angeles Forum for Architecture and Urban Design, Blackwells, Oxford. West Hollywood, CA. Ellin, N. (2000), The Postmodern Built Environment, in Flusty, S. (1 997), Building Paranoia, in Ellin, N. (1 997) Knox, P. and Ozolins, P. (2000) (eds), Design profes­ (ed.), Architecture of Fear, Princeton Architectural Press, sionals and the built environment: An introduction, Wiley, New York, pp. 47-59. London, pp. 99-1 06. Flusty, S. (2000), Thrashing Downtown: Play as resistance English Heritage (1 997), Sustaining the Historic Environ­ to the spatial and representational regulation of Los ment: New Perspectives in the Future, English Heritage, Angeles, Cities, 17, 149-58. London. Ford, L. (2000), Th e Spaces Between Buildings, The john English Heritage (1 998), Conservation-led Regeneration: Hopkins University Press, London. The Work of English Heritage, English Heritage, London. Forester, j. (1989), Planning in the Face of Power, Univer­ English Heritage (2000a), Streets for All: A Guide to the sity of California Press, Berkeley. Management of Londons Streets, English Heritage, Francescato, D. and Mebane, W. (1 973), How citizens London. view two great cities, in Downs, R. and Stea, D. (1 973) English Heritage (2000b), Power of Place: The future of the (eds), Image and Environment, Aldine, Chicago. historic environment, English Heritage, London. Franck, K.A. (1 984), Exorcising the ghost of physical English Partnerships (1 998), Time for Design 2, English determinism, Environment Behaviour, 16, 41 1-35. Partnerships, London. Frey, H. (1 999), Designing the City, Towards a More Engwicht, D. (1 999), Street Reclaiming, Creating Liveable Sustainable Urban Form, E & FN Spon, London. Streets and Vibrant Communities, New Society Publish­ Frieden, B.j. and Sagalyn, (1 989), Downtown Inc.: How ers, British Columbia. America rebuilds cities, MIT& Press, Cambridge, Mass. Entrikin, j.N. (1 991 ), The Betweenness of Place: Towards a Fyfe, N. (1 998) (ed.), ImagesL. of the Street: Planning, Geography of Modernity, john Hopkins University Press, identity and control in public space, Routledge, Baltimore. London. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) (2001 ), What is Galbraith, j.K. (1 992), The Culture of Contentment, Smart Growth? EPA Fact Sheet, Environmental Protec­ Penguin Books, London. tion Agency (United States), April 2001 . Gans, H.j. (1 961 a), Planning� and social life: friendship and Eppli, M. and Tu, C. (1 999), Valuing the New Urbanism: neighbour relations in suburban communities, journal The Impact of New Urbanism on Prices of Single Family of the American Institute of Planners, 27, 1 34-40. Houses, Urban Land Institute, Washington DC. Gans, H.j. (1 961 b), The balanced community: homo­ Essex County Council (1 973), A Guide to Residential geneity or heterogeneity in residential areas? journal of Design, Essex County Council, Colchester. the American Institute of Planners, 27, 1 76-84. Essex Planning Officers Association (EPOA) (1 997), A Gans, H.j. (1 962), The Urban Villagers: Groups and Class in Design Guide for Residential and Mixed Use Areas, EPOA, the Life of Italian-Americans, New York, Free Press. Essex. Gans, H.j. (1967), The Levittowners: Ways of Life and Poli­ Evans, G., Lercher, P., Meis, M., Ising, H. and Kofler, W. tics in a New Suburban Community, Allen Lane The (2001 ), Community Noise Exposure and Stress in Chil­ Penguin Press, London. dren, journal of Acoustical Society of America, 109, Gans, H.j. (1 968), People and Planning: Essays on &Urban 1023-27. Problems and Solutions, Penguin, London. Fainstein, S. (1 994), The City Builders: Property, politics and Garcia Almerall, P., Burns, M.C. and Roca Cladera, j. planning in London and New York, Blackwell, Oxford. (1 999), An economics evolution model of the environ­ Fawcett, j. (1 976) (ed.), The Future of the Past: Attitudes to mental quality of the city, paper presented at the 6th Conservation London, Thames Hudson. European Real Estate Society (ERES) Conference, Athens, Featherstone, M. (1 991 ), Postmodernism and Consumer Greece, 23-25 june. Culture, Sage 17Public40-1ations,974, London. & Garreau, j. (1 991 ), Edge City: Life on the new frontier, Featherstone, M. (1 995), Undoing Culture: Globalisation, Doubleday, London. Postmodernism and Identity, Sage Publications, London. Garreau, j. (1 999), Book review of Kay, j.H. (1 997), Featherstone, M. (2000), The Flaneur, the city and the Asphalt Nation: How the Automobile Took Over America virtual public realm, Urban Studies, 35, 909-25. and How We Can Take it Back, in journal of Urban Featherstone, M. and Lash, S. (1 999) (eds), Spaces of Design, 4, 238-40. Culture: City-Nation-World, Sage Publications, London. Gehl, j. (1 996, first published 1971 ), Life Between Build­ Felson, M. and Clarke, R.V. (1 998), Opportunity Makes the ings: Using public space (third edition), Arkitektens Thief: Practical theory for crime prevention, Police Forlag, Skive. Research Series Paper 98, Home Office, London, Gehl, j. and Gemzoe, L. ("1 996), Public Spaces - Public Life, p. 25. The Danish Architectural l'ress, Copenhagen. Fishman, R. (1 987), Bourgeois Utopias: The rise and fall of Gehl, j. and Gemzoe, L. (2000), New City Spaces, The suburbia, Basic Books, New York. Danish Architectural Press, Copenhagen. Fitch, R. (1990), Historic preservation: Curatorial Manage­ Gibberd, F. (1 953a, 1969), Town Design, Architectural ment of the Built Environment, University Press of Press, London. Virginia, Charlottesville. Gibberd, F. (1953b), The Design of Residential Areas, in Fitzpatrick, T. (1 997), A tale of tall cities, The Guardian Ministry of Housing and Local Government (MHLG) On-Line, 6 February, p. 9. (1 953), Design in Town Village, HMSO, London. Flusty, S. (1 994), Building Paranoia: The proliferation of Giddens, A. (2001 ), Th e Global Third Way Debate, Poli'ty interdictory space and the erosion of spatial justice, Los Press, Bristol. & 296 Public Places - Urban Spaces

Giedion, S. (1 971 ), Space, Time and Architecture, fifth Hall, P. and Imrie, R. (1999), Architectural practices and edition, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Mass. disabling design in the built environment, Environment Gillespies (1 995), Glasgow City Centre Public Realm, Strat­ Planning B: Planning Design, 26, 409-25. egy and Guidelines, Strathclyde Regional Council, Glas­ Hall, T. (1998), Urban Geography, Routledge, London. gow. Hannigan,& ]. (1998), Fantasy& City: Pleasure and profit in the Gleave, S. (1 990). Urban Design, Architects journal, 24th postmodern metropolis, Routledge, London. October, 192, 63-64. Hart, and Spivak, A.L. (1 993), The Elephant in the Gordon, P. and Richardson, H. (1 991 ), The commuting Bedroom: Automobile dependence and denial: Impacts on paradox - Evidence from the top twenty, journal of the the 5.1.economy and environment, New Paradigm Books, American Planning Association, 57, 416-20. Pasadena. Gordon, P., Richardson, H. (1 989), Gasoline Consump­ Harvey, D. (1 989a), The Condition of Postmodernity: An tion and Cities - A Reply, journal of the American Plan­ enquiryinto the origins of cultural change, Basil Blackwell, ning Association, 55, 342-5. Oxford. Gore, T. and Nicholson, D. (1 991 ), Models of the land Harvey, D. (1 989b), The Urban Experience, Blackwell, Oxford. development process: A critical review, Environment Harvey, D. (1997), The New Urbanism and the Commu­ Planning A, 23, 705-30. nitarian Trap, Harvard Design Magazine (Winter/ Gosling, D. (1 996), Gordon Cullen: Visions of Urban& Spring), pp. 8-9. Design, Academy Editions, London. Hass-Kiau, C. (1 990), The Pedestrian and City Traffic, Gosling, D. and Maitland, B. (1 984), Concepts of Urban Belhaven Press, London. Design, Academy, London. Hass-Kiau, C., Crampton, G., Dowland, C. and Nold, I. Gottdiener, M. (1995), Postmodern Semiotics: Material (1 999), Streets as Living Space: Helping public spaces play culture and fo rms of postmodern life, Blackwell, Oxford. their proper role, Landor, London. Gottdiener, M. and Lagopoulos, A. (1 986), Th e City and Haughton, G. and Hunter, C. (1994), Sustainable Cities, the Sign: An Introduction to Urban Semiotics, New York, jessica Kingsley Publishers, London. Columbia University Press. Hayward, R. and McGlynn, S. (1 993) (eds), Making Better Government Office for London (1996), London's Urban Places, Urban Design Now, Butterworths Architectural Environment, Planning for Quality, HMSO, London. Press, Oxford. Graham, S. (2001 ), The Spectre of the Splintering Healey, P. (1 991 ), Models of the development process: A Metropolis, Cities, 18, 365-8. review, journal of Property Research, 8, 219-38. Graham, S. and Marvin, S. (1996), Telecommunications Healey, P. (1 992), An institutional model of the develop­ and the City: Electronic spaces, urban places, Routledge, ment process, journal of Property Research, 9, 33--44. London. Healey, P. and Barrett, (1 990), Structure and agency in Graham, S. and Marvin, S. (1 999), Planning cybercities? land and propertydevelopment processes: Some ideas Integrating telecommunications into urban planning? for research, Urban Studies,5. 27, 89-1 04. Town Planning Review, 70, 89-1 14. Heath, T. (1 997), The Twenty-Four Hour City Concept: A Graham, S. and Marvin, S. (2001 ), Splintering Urbanism: review of initiatives in British cities, journal of Urban Networked infrastructures, technological mobilities and Design, 2, 193-204. the urban condition, Routledge, London. Heath, T. and Stickland, R. (1 997), Safer Cities: The Greed, C. (1999), Design and Designers Revisited, in Twenty-Four Hour Concept, in Oc, T. and Tiesdell, S., Introducing Urban Design: Interventions and Responses, Safer City Centres: Reviving the Public Realm, Paul Chap­ Greed, C. and Roberts, M. (eds), Harlow, Longman, man, London, pp. 1 70-83. pp. 197-9 . Henneberry, ]. (1998), Development process, course Greed, C. and Roberts, M. (eds) (1 998), Introducing Urban taught at the Department of Town and Regional Plan­ Design: Interventions and Responses, Addison Wesley ning, University of Sheffield. Longman, Harlow. Hiedegger, M. (1962), Being and Time, Harper Row, Gummer, ]. (1 994), More Quality in Town and Country, New York. Department of the Environment News Release DoE, Hiedegger, M. (1 969), Identity and Difference, Harper& London. Row, New York. Guy, S., Henneberry, ]. and Rowley, S. (2002), 77Develop­ 3, Hildebrand, F. (1 999), Designing the City: Towards a More& ment cultures and urban regeneration, Urban Studies, Sustainable Urban Form, London, E FN Spon. 39, 1181-96. Hillman, ]. (1 988), A New Look for London, HMSO, Habermas, ]. (1 962), Th e Structural Transformation of the London. & Public Sphere (translated by Burger, T. and Lawrence, F., Hillman, ]. (1 990), Planning for Beauty, RFAC, London. MIT Press, Cambridge, Mass. Hillier, B. (1973), In defence of space, RIBA journal, Habermas, ]. (1979), Communication and the Evolution of November, pp. 539--44. Society (translated by McCarthy, T.), Beacon Press, Hillier, B. (1 988), Against enclosure, in Teymur, N., Boston. Markus, T. and Wooley, T. (1988) (eds), Rehumanising Hall, D. (1991 ), Altogether misguided and dangerous - A Housing, Butterworths, London, pp. 63-88. review of Newman and Kenworthy (1 989), Town Hillier, B. (1 996a), Space is the Machine, Cambridge Country Planning, 60, 350-1 . University Press, Cambridge. Hall, P. (1995), Planning and Urban Design in the 1990s,& Hillier, B. (1 996b), Cities as movement systems, Urban Urban Design Quarterly, Issue 56, pp. 14-21. Design International, 1, 47-60. Hall, P. (1 998), Cities in Civilisations: Culture, Innovation Hillier, B. and Hanson, ]. (1 984), The Social Logic of Space, and Urban Order, Weidenfeld Nicolson, London. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.

& Bibliography 2�97

Hillier, B., Leaman, A., Stansall, P. and Bedford, M. Jencks, C. (1 969) (ed.), Meaning in Architecture, The Cres­ (1986), Space Syntax, Environment Planning B: Plan­ set Press, London. ning Design, 13, 147-85. Jencks, C. (1977), Th e Language of Post Modern Architec­ Hillier, B., Penn, A., Hanson, j., Gajewski,& T. and Xu, J. ture, Rizzoli, London. (1993),& t�atural Movement: or configuration and Jencks, C. (1 980), The Architectural Sign, in Broadbent, attraction in urban pedestrian movement, Environment G., Bunt, R. and Jencks, (1 983) (eds), Signs, Symbols Planning B: Planning Design, 20, 29-66. and Architecture, john Wiley, Chichester, pp. 71-1 18. Hitchcock, I-I.R. and johnson, P. (1 922), The International Jencks, C. (1 984), Late C.Modern Architecture, Rizzoli, Style:& Architecture since& 7 922, W.W. Norton London. Company,. New York. Jencks, C. (1986), What is Postmodernism? St Martins Hodgson, G.M. (1999), Economics and Utopia: Why the& Press, London. Learning Economy is Not The End of History, London, Jencks, C. (1987), The Language of Post-Modem Architec­ Routledge. ture, London, Academy Editions. Holford, W..G. (1 953), Design in Town Centres, in Jencks, C. (1 990), The New Modems: From Late to Neo­ Ministry of Housing and Local Government (MHLG) Modernism, Academy Editions, London. (1 953), Design in Town Village, HMSO, London. jenks, M. (1 988), Housing problems and the dangers of Hope, T. (1 986), Crime, community and environment, certainty, in Teymur, N., Markus, T.A. and Woolley, T. journal of Environmental &Psychology, 6, 65-78. (eds) (1 988), Rehumanising Housing, Butterworth, Horan, T.A. (2000), Digital Places: Building Our City of Bits, London, pp. 53-60. Urban Land Institute, Washington. jenks, M., Burton, E. and Williams, K. (1 996) (eds), The Hough, M. (1 984), City Form and NaturalProcess: Towards Compact City, A Sustainable Urban Form ? E FN Spon, a new urban vernacular, Routledge, London. London. HRH, The Prince of Wales (1 988), A Vision of Britain: A jenks, M., Burton, E. and Williams, K. (1 997a)& (eels), Personal View of Architecture, London, Doubleday. Compact Cities and Sustainability, E FN Spon, London. Hubbard, P.jl. (1 992), Environment-behaviour studies and JMP Consultants (1 995), Travel to Food Superstores, JMP city design: A new agenda for research? journal of Envi­ Consultants, London. & ronmental Psychology, 12, 269-77. jupp, B. (1 999), Living Together: Community Life on Mixed Hubbard, P ..j. (1 994), Professional versus lay tastes in Tenure Estates, London, DEMOS. design control - an empirical investigation, Planning Katz, P. (1994), Th e New Urbanism: Towards an Architec­ Practice and Research, 9, 271-87. ture of Community, McGraw-Hill, New York. Hulme Regeneration Limited (1 994), Rebuilding the City: A Kaplan, S. (1 987), Aesthetics, affect and cognition: Envi­ Guide to Development, Manchester City Council, ronmental preferences from an evolutionary perspec­ Manchester. tive, Environment Behaviour, 191, p. 12. Huo, N. (2001 ), Th e Effectiveness of Design Control in Kaplan, S. and Kaplan, R. (1 982), Cognition and Environ­ China, unpublished PhD thesis, Glasgow, University of ment: Functioning &in an uncertain world, Praeger, New Strathclyde. York. Huxtable, A.L. (1 997), The Unreal America: Architecture Kay, J.H. (1 997), Asphalt Nation: How the automobile took and Illusion, The New Press, New York. over America and how we can take it back, Crown, New Imrie, R. and Hall, P. (2001 ), Inclusive Design: Designing York. and Developing Accessible Environments, Spon Press, Kelbaugh, D. (1 997), Common Place: Toward Neighbour­ London. hood and Regional Design, University of Washington, Isaac, D. (1 998), Property Investment, Macmillan, Seattle. Basingstoke. Kidder, R.M. (1 995), How Good People Make Tough Isaacs, R. (2001 ), The Subjective Duration of Time, jour­ Choices: Resolving the dilemmas of ethical living, Simon nal of Urban Design, 6, 109-27. Schuster, New York. lttelson, W.H. (1 978), Environmental perception and Kindsvatter, D. and Van Grossman, G. (1 994), What is urban experience, Environment Behaviour, 10, Urban& Design? Urban Design Quarterly, Spring/Autumn, 193-21 3. pp. 9-1 2. jackson, j.B. (1 994), A Sense of Place, A& Sense of Time, Yale King, R. (2000), The built environment, in Knox, P. and University Press, New Haven. Ozolins, P. (2000) (eds), Design professionals and the jacobs, A.B. (1 993), Great Streets, MIT Press, Cambridge, built environment: An introduction, Wiley, London. Mass. Klosterman, R.E. (1 985), Arc�uments for and against plan­ jacobs, A. and Appleyard, D. (1 987), Towards an urban ning, Town Planning Review, 56, 5-20.

design manifesto: A prologue, journal of the American Knox, P.L. (1 984).. Styles, symbolism and settings: the Planning Association, 53, 112-20. built environment and the imperatives of urbanised jacobs, J. (1 961 , 1984 edition), Th e Death and Life of Great capitalism, Architecture et Comportment, 2, 107-22. American Cities: The failure of modern town planning, Knox, P. (1 987), The social production of the built envi­ Peregrine Books, London. ronment: Architects, architecture and the post-Modern jameson, F. (1 984), Postmodernism or the cultural logic city, Progress in Human Geography, 11, 354-78. of late capitalism, New LeftReview, No. 146, pp. 53-92. Knox, P. (1 993), Th e Restless Urban Landscape, Prentice Jarvis, R. (1 994), Townscape revisited, Urban Design Quar­ Hall, Englewood Cliffs, New jersey. terly, No. 52, October, pp. 15-30. Knox, P. (1994), Urbanisation, Prentice Hall, Englewood Jarvis, R. (1 980), Urban environments as visual art or Cliffs, New jersey. social setting, Town Planning Review, 151, 50-66. Knox, P. and Marston, S.A. (1 998), Places and Regions in 298 Public Places - Urban Spaces

a Global Context: Human Geography, Upper Saddle Langdon, P. (1 992), How Portland does it: A city that River, Prentice Hall. protects its thriving, civil core, Atlantic Monthly, 270, Knox, P. and Ozolins, P. (2000), The built environment, 134-41 . in Knox, P. and Ozolins, P. (2000) (eds), Design profes­ Langdon, P. (1 994), A Better Place to Live: Reshaping the sionals and the built environment: An introduction, Wiley, American Suburb, The University of Massachusetts Press, London, pp. 3-1 0. Amherst. Knox, P. and Pinch, S. (2000), Urban Social Geography: An Lange, B. (1 997), Th e Colours of Copenhagen, Royal Introduction, Prentice Hall, Harlow. Danish Academy of Fine Arts, Copenhagen. Kostof, S. (1 991 ), The City Shaped: Urban patterns and Larkham, P. (1 996a), Settlements and growth, in Chap­ meanings throughout history, Thames Hudson, man, D. (1996) (ed.), Neighbourhoods and Places, E London. FN Spon, London, pp. 30-59. Kostof, S. (1 992), Th e City Assembled: The &elements of Larkham, P. (1 996b), Conservation and the City, Rout­& urban form through history, Thames Hudson, London. ledge, London. Kreitzman, L. (1 999), Th e 24 Hour Society, Profile Books, Lasch, C. (1 995), The Revolt of the Elites and the Betrayal London. & of Democracy, London, W.W. Norton. Krieger, A. (1995), Reinventing public space, Architectural Lash, S. and Urry, ]. (1 994), Economies of Signs and Space, Record, 183(6): 76-77. Sage, London. Krier, L. (1 978a), The reconstruction of the city, in Laurie, M. (1 986), An Introduction to Landscape Architec­ Deleroy, R.L. (1 978), Rational Architecture, Archives ture (second edition), Elsevier, Oxford. d'Architecture Moderne, Brussels, pp. 38-44. Lawrence, R.]. (1 987), Houses, Dwellings and Homes: Krier, L. (1 978b), Urban transformations, Architectural Design, Theory, Research and Practice, Wiley, New York. Design, 48(4). Lawson, B. (1980, 1994), How Designers Think: The design Krier, L. (1 979), The cities within a city, Architectural process demystified, Butterworth Architecture, Oxford. Design, 49, 19-32. Lawson, B. (2001 ), The Language of Space, Architectural Krier, L. (1 984), Houses, places, cities, Architectural Press, London. Design, 54(7/8). Layard, A., Davoudi, S. and Batty, S. (2001 ), Planning for Krier, L. (1 987), Tradition - Modernity - Modernism: a Sustainable Future, Spon Press, London. Some Necessary Explanations, Architectural Design, Leccese, M. and McCormick, K. (eds) (2000), Charter of 57(1 /2). the New Urbanism, New York, McGraw-Hill. Krier, L. (1 990), Urban Components, in Papadakis, A. and Le Corbusier (1 927), Towards a New Architecture (1 970 Watson, H. (1 990) (eds), New Classicism: Omnibus edition), Architectural Press, London. Edition, Academy Editions, London, pp. 96-21 1. Le Corbusier (1 929), The City of To morrow and its Planning Krier, R. (1979; first published in German in 1975), Urban (reprinted 1947), London, Architectural Press. Space, Academy Editions, London. Ledrut, R. (1 973), Les images de Ia ville, Anthropos, Paris. Krier, R. (1 990), Typological elements of the concept of Lee, T. (1 965), Urban neighbourhood as a socio-spatial urban space, in Papadakis, A. and Watson, H. (1 990) schema, from Proshansky, H.M., lttleson, W.H. and (eds), New Classicism: Omnibus Edition, Academy Rivlin, L.G. (eds) (1 970), Environmental Psychology: Man Editions, London, pp. 212-1 9. and His Physical Setting, Holt Rinehart Winston, New Kropf, K.S. (1 996), An Alternative Approach to Zoning in York, pp. 349-70. France: Typology, Historical Character and Develop­ Lefebvre, H. (1991 ), The Production of Space,& Basil Black­ ment Control, European Planning Studies, 4, 71 7-37. well, London. Krupat, E. (1985), People in Cities: The Urban Environment Lewis, R.K. (1 998), Architect? A candid guide to the profes­ and its Effects, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press. sion (revised edition), MIT Press, Cambridge, Mass. Kunstler, ].H. (1 994), The Geography of Nowhere: Th e rise Lichfield, N. (1 988), Economics in urban conservation, and decline of America's man-made landscape, Simon Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. Schuster, New York. Linden, A. and Billingham, ]. (1 998), History of the Urban Kunstler, ].H. (1996), Home from Nowhere: Remaking our& Design Group, in Urban Design Group (1 998), Urban everyday world fo r the 21st century, Simon Schuster, Design Source Book, UDG, Oxford, pp. 40-3. New York. Littlefair, P.J. (1 991 ), Site Layout Planning for Daylight and Lagopoulos, A.P. (1 993), Postmodernism, geography& and Sunlight: A Guide to Good Practice, Building Research the social semiotics of space, Environment Planning D: Establishment, Watford. Society Space, 11, 255-78. Littlefair, P.J., Santamouris, M., Alvarez, S., Dupagne, A., Lane, R.]. (2000), jean Baudrillard, Routledge,& London. Hall, D., Teller, ]., Coronel, ].F. and Papanikolaou, N. Lang, ]. (1&987 ), Creating Architectural Theory: The Role of (2000), Environmental site layout planning: Solar access, the Behavioural Sciences in Environmental Theory, Van microclimate and passive cooling in urban areas, Nostrand Reinhold, New York. BRE/European Commission ]OULE/DETR, London. Lang, ]. (1989), Psychology and Architecture, Penn in Ink Llewelyn Davies (2000), Urban Design Compendium, Newsletter of Graduate School of Fine Arts, University English Partnerships/Housing Corporation, London. of Pennsylvania, Fall, pp. 1 0-1 1. Llewelyn Davies, Weekes, Forestier-Walker and Bor, W. Lang, ]. (1 994), Urban Design: The American Experience, (1976), Design Guidance Survey: Report on a Survey of Van Nostrand Reinhold, New York. Local Authority Guidance for Private Residential Develop­ Lang, ]. (1996), Implementing Urban Design in America: ment, DoE Housing Research Federation, HMSO, Project types and methodological implications, journal London. of Urban Design, 1, 7-22. Lloyd-Jones, T.& (1 998), The scope of urban design, in Bibliography 2519

Greed, C. and Roberts, M. (1998), Introducing Urban Madanipour, A. (1 996), Design of Urban Space: An inquiry Design: Intervention and Responses, Longman, Harlow. into a socio-spatial process, john Wiley Sons, Chichest

Montgomery, ]. (1998), Making a City: Urbanity, Vitality Norberg-Schulz, C. (1 965), Intentions in Architecture, MIT and Urban Design, journal of Urban Design, 3, 93-1 16. Press, Cambridge, Mass. Montgomery, R. (1 989), Architecture invents new people, Norberg-Schulz, C. (1 969), Meaning in Architecture, in in Ellis, R. and Cuff, D. (eds) (1 989), Architects People, Jencks, (1 969) (ed.), Meaning in Architecture, The Cres­ Oxford University Press, Oxford, pp. 260-81 . set Press, London. Morris, A.E.G. (1 994), A History of Urban Form Before the Norberg-Schulz, C. (1 971 ), Existence, Space and Architec­ Industrial Revolution, Longman, Harlow (first published ture, London, Studio Vista. 1972). Norberg-Schulz, C. (1 980), Genius Loci: To wards a Morris, E.W. (1 996), Community in Theory and Practice: phenomenological approach to architecture, Rizzoli, New A framework for intellectual renewal, journalof Planning York. Literature, 11, 127-50. Oc, T. and Tiesdell, S. (1 997), Safer City Centres: Reviving Moudon, A.V. (1 986), Built for Change: Neighbourhood Archi­ the Public Realm, Paul Chapman Publishing, London. tecture in San Francisco, MIT Press, Cambridge, Mass. Oc, T. and Tiesdell, S. (1 999), The fortress, the panoptic, Moudon, A.V. (1 987), Public Streets for Public Use, Colum­ the regulatory and the animated: Planning and urban bia University Press, New York. design approaches to safer city centres, Landscape Moudon, A.V. (1 992), The evolution of twentieth-century Research, 24, 265-86. residential forms: An American case study, in White­ Oc, T. and Tiesdell, S. (2000), Urban design approaches head, J.W.R. and Larkham, P.]. (1 992) (eds), Urban to safer city centres: The fortress, the panoptic, the Landscapes: International Perspectives, Routledge, regulatory and the animated, in Gold, ].R. and Revill, G. London, pp. 1 70-206. (2000) (ed.), Landscapes of Defence, Prentice Hall, Moudon, A.V. (1 994), Getting to know the built environ­ Harlow, pp. 188-208. ment: typo-morphology in France, in Franck, K. and Oldenburg, R. (1 999), The Great Good Place: Cafes, coffee Scneekloth, l. (1 994) (eds), Ordering Space: Types in shops, bookstores, bars, hair salons and the other hang­ Architecture and Design, Van Nostrand Reinhold, New outs at the heart of a community (second edition), York, pp. 289-31 1. Marlowe Company, New York. Moughtin, C. (1992), Urban Design, Street and Square, Osbourne, D. and Gaebler, T. (1992), Reinventing Govern­ Butterworth Architecture, Oxford. ment, New& York: Plume Publishing. Moughtin, C., Cuesta, R., Sarris, C. and Signoretta, P. Owens, S. (1 992), Energy, environmental sustainability (1 999), Urban Design, Method and Techniques, Archi­ and land-use planning, in Breheny, M. (1 992) (ed.), tectural Press, Oxford . Sustainable Urban Development and Urban Form, Pion, Moughtin, ].C., Oc, T. and Tiesdell, S.A. (1 995), Urban London. Design: Ornament and Decoration, Butterworth-Heine­ Papadakis, A. and Toy, M. (1 990), Deconstruction: A mann, Oxford. Pocket Guide, Academy Editions, London. Mulholland Research Associates Ltd (1 995), Towns or Papadakis, A. (1 990) (ed.), Terry Farrell: Urban Design, Leafier Environments? A Survey of Family Home Buying Academy Editions, London. Choices, House Builders Federation, London. Papadakis, A. and Watson, H. (1 990) (eds), New Classi­ Mumford, (1 938), The Culture of Cities, Harcourt Brace, cism, Academy Editions, London. New York. Parfect, M. and Power, G. (1 997), Planning for Urban Mumford, l. (1 961 ), The City in History: Its origins, its Quality, Urban Design in Towns and Cities, Routledge, transformations and its prospects, Harcourt Brace London. jovanovich,l. New York. Pearce, D. (1 989), Conservation Today, London, Routledge. Murphy, C. (2001 ), Customised Quarantine, Atlantic Penwarden, A.D. and Wise, A.F.E. (1 975), Wind Environ­ Monthly, july-August, pp. 22-4. ment Around Buildings: A Building Research Establishment Nasar, ].l. (1 998), The Evaluative Image of the City, Sage, Report, London, HMSO. London. Pepper, D. (1 984), The Roots of Modern Environmentalism, National Playing Fields Association (NPFA) (1 992), Th e Six London, Croom Helm. Acre Standard: Minimum Standards fo r Outdoor Playing Perry, C. (1929), The Neighbourhood Unit, in Lewis, H.M. Space, NPFA, London. (1 929) (ed.), Regional Plan for New York and its Environs, New Economics Foundation (1 998), Participation Works! Volume Neighbourhood and Community Planning, Techniques of Community Participation for the 2 st New York. Century, New Economics Foundation, London. Pisarski, A.E.7, (1 987), Commuting in America: A national Newman,2 7 0. (1 973), Defensible Space: People and Design7 report on commuting patterns and trends, ENO Founda­ in the Violent City, Architectural Press, London. tion for Transportation, Westport, Connecticut. Newman, 0. (1 995), Defensible Space - A New Physical Pitts, A. (1 999), Technologies and Techniques, presenta­ Planning Tool for Urban Revitalisation, journal of the tion given at Education for the Next Millennium: Environ­ American Planning Association, 61, 149-55. mental Workshop, University of Sheffield, january. Newman, P. and Kenworthy, ]. (1 989), Gasoline Pocock, D. and Hudson, R. (1 978), Images of the Urban Consumption and Cities: A comparison of US cities with Environment, Macmillan, London. a global survey, journalof the American Planning Associ­ Pope, A. (1 996), Ladders, Princeton Architectural Press, ation, 55, 24-37. New York. Newman, P. and Kenworthy, ]. (2000), Sustainable Urban Popper, K. (1 972), Objective Knowledge, Oxford University Form: The Big Picture, in Williams, K., Burton, E. and Press, London. jenks, M. (2000) (eds), Achieving Sustainable Urban Porteous, L. (1 977), Environment and Behaviour, Addison­ Form, E FN Spon, London, pp. 1 09-20. Wesley, London.

& Bibliography 34)1

Porteous, J.D. (1 996), Environmental Aesthetics: Ideas, Robbins, K. (1 991 ), Tradition and translation: National politics and planning, Routledge, London. culture in its global context, in Corner, ]. and Harv,ey, Porter, T. (1 982), Colour Outside, Architectural Press, S. (1 991) (eds), Enterprise and Heritage: Crosscurrents of London. National Culture, Routled!�e, London. Porter, T. Cl 997), The Architects Eye: Visualisation and Robinson, N. (1 992), The Planting Design Handbook, depiction of space in architecture, E FN Spon, London. Gower, Aldershot. Porter, T. and Goodman, S. (1 982), Manual of Graphic Rogers, R. (1 988), Belief in the future is rooted in memory Techniques Butterworth Architectu& re, Oxford. of the past, Royal Society of Arts journal, November, Porter, T. and Goodman, S. (1 983), Manual of Graphic pp. 873-84. Techniques 2, Butterworth Architecture, Oxford. Rogers, R. (1997), Cities for a Small Planet, Faber Faber, Porter, T. and Goodman, S. (1 985), Manual of Graphic London. Techniques 3, Butterworth Architecture, Oxford. Rossi, A. (1 982; first published in Italian, 1966), Th&e Archi­ Porter, T. and Greenstreet, B. (1 980), Manual of Graphic tecture of the City, MIT Press, Cambridge, Mass. Techniques 4, Butterworth Architecture, Oxford. Rouse, ]. (1 998), The Seven Clamps of Urban Desi9n, Porter, D., Phillips, P. and Lassar, T. (1 988), Flexible Zoning, Planning, No. 1293, 6 November, pp. 18-1 9. How it Works,7, Urban Land Institute, Washington, DC. Rowe, C. and Koetter, K. (1975), Collage City, Architec­ Portland Bureau of Planning (1 992), Central City Develop­ tural Review, August, pp. 203-1 2. ers Handbook, Portland Bureau of Planning, Portland. Rowe, C. and Koetter, K. (1978), Collage City, MIT Press, Powell, K. (1 999), Architecture Reborn: The conversion and Cambridge, Mass. reconstruction of old buildings, Lawrence King Publish­ Rowley, A. (1 994), Definitions of Urban Design: The ing, London. nature and concerns of urban design, Planning Practice Project for Public Space (PPS) (2001 ), How to Turn a Place Research, 9, 179-97. Around: A Handbook for Creating Successful Public Rowley, A. (1 996), Mixed use development: ambiguous Spaces, Project for Public Spaces, Inc., New York. concep& t, simplistic analysis and wishful thinking? Plan­ Property Council of Australia (1 999), The Design Dividend, ning, Practice Research, 11, 85-98. PCA National Office, Canberra. Rowley, A. (1 998), Private-property decision makers and Proshansky, H.M., lttelson, W.H. and Rivlin, L.G. (1 970) the quality of &urban design, journal of Urban Design, 3, (eds), Environmental Psychology: Man and His Physical 151-73. Setting, Holt Rinehart Winston, New York. Rowley, A., Gibson, V. and Ward, C. (1 996), Quality of Punter, ]. (1 991 ), Participation in the Design of Urban Urban Design: A study of the involvement of private prop­ Space, Landscape Design,& Issue 200, pp. 24-7. erty decision-makers in urban design, Royal Institution of Punter, ]. (1 995), Portland Cements Reputation for Chartered Surveyors, London. Design Awareness, Planning, No. 1114, 14th April, Rudlin, D. (2000), The Hulme and Manchester Design pp. 22-1 . Guides, Built Environment, 25(2). Punter, ]. (1 998), Design, from Cullingworth, ].B. (1 998), Rudlin, D. and Falk, N. (1 999), Building the st Century British Planning: years of Urban Regional Policy, The Home: The sustainable urban neighbourhood, Architec­ Athlone Press, London, pp. 137-55. tural Press, Oxford. 2 7 Punter, ]. (1 999),50 Design Guidelines& in American Cities, Rybczynski, W. (1 994), Epilogue, in Scheer, B.C. and Liverpool University Press, Liverpool. Preiser, W. (eds) (1994), Design Review: Challenging Punter, ]. and Carmona, M. (1 997), The Design Dimension Urban Aesthetic Control, Chapman Hall, New York, of Planning: Theory, Content and Best Practice for Design pp. 21 0-1 2. Policies, E iS!: FN Spon, London. Rybczynski, W. (1 995), City Life, Simon& Schuster, Rabinowitz, H. (1 996), The Developer's Vernacular: The London. owners influence on building design, journal of Archi­ Rybczynski, W. (1 997), Th'e Pasteboard Past,& New York tectural Planning Research, 1 3, 34-42. Times Book Review, 6 April, p. 13. Rapoport, A. (1 977), Human Aspects of Urban Form: Sandercock, L. (1 997), Towards Cosmopolis, Academy Towards &a Man-Environment Approach to Urban Form Editions, London. and Design, Pergamon Press, Oxford. Saoud, R. (1 995), Political Influences on Urban Form, paper Read, ]. (1 982), Looking Backwards, Built Environment, 7, presented to the New Academics in Planning Confer­ 68-81 . ence, Oxford Brookes University. Reade, E. (11 987), British Town and Country Planning, SceneSusTech (1 998), Car-Systems in the City: Report Milton Keynes, Open University Press. Department of Sociology, Trinity College, Dublin. Reekie, R.F. (1 946), Draughtsmanship, Edward Arnold, Schwarzer, M. (2000), The Contemporary City in Four7, London. Movements, journal of Urban Design, 5, 127-44. Relph, E. (1 976), Place and Placelessness, Pion, London. Scoffham, E.R. (1 984), The Shape of British Housing, Relph, E. (1 981 ), Rational Landscape and Humanistic Geog­ George Godwin, London. raphy, Croom Helm, London. Scottish Office (1 994), Planning Advice Note Fitting Relph, E. (1 987), The Modern Urban Landscape, john New Housing Development into the Landscape, Scottish Hopkins University Press, Baltimore. Office, Edinburgh. 44: Reps, ].W. (1965), The Making of Urban America, Prince­ Scruton, R. (1 982), A Dictionary of Political Thought, Pan, ton University Press, New Haven. London. Richards, B. (2001 ), Future Transport in Cities, Spon Press, Sebba, R. and Churchman, (1983), Territories and terri­ London. toriality in the home, Environment and Behaviour, 15, Richards, ]. Cl 994), Fm;adism, Routledge, London. 191-21 0. A 302 Public Places - Urban Spaces

Sennett, R. (1 970), The Uses of Disorder, Faber Faber, Southworth, M. and Ben-joseph, E. (1 995), Street Stan­ London. dards and the Shaping of Suburbia, journal of the Amer­ Sennett, R. (1977), The Fall of Public Man, Faber & Faber, ican Planning Association, 61, 65-81 . London. Southworth, M. and Ben-joseph, E. (1 997), Streets and Sennett, R. (1 990), The Conscience of the Eye: Th&e design the Shaping of Towns and Cities, McGraw-Hill, New and social life of cities, Faber Faber, London. York. Sennett, R. (1 994), Flesh and Stone: The body and the city Southworth, M. and Owens, P.M. (1 993), Studies of in Western Civilisation, Faber & Faber, London. community, neighbourhood and street form at the Sharp, T. (1953), The English Village, in Ministry of Hous­ urban edge, journal of the American Planning Associa­ ing and Local Government (MHL& G) (1 953), Design in tion, 59, 271-87. Town Village, HMSO, London. Spreiregen, P.D. (1 981 ), Urban Design: The Architecture of Shearing, C.D. and Stenning, P.C. (1 985), From the Towns and Cities, Robert E. Krieger, Malabar, Florida. Panopticon& to Disney World: the Development of Disci­ Sternberg, E. (1 996), Recuperating from market failure: pline, in Criminological Perspectives: A Reader, Muncie, ]., Planning for bio-diversity and technological competi­ Mclaughlin, E. and Langan, M. (eds), London, Sage tiveness, Public Administration Review, 56, 21-9. Publications, pp. 41 3-22. Sternberg, E. (2000), An Integrative Theory of Urban Sheller, M. and Urry, ). (2000), The City and the Car, Design, journal of the American Planning Association, 66, International journal of Urban Regional Research, 24, 265-78. 737-57. Sudjic, D. (1 992), Th e Mile City, London, Harcourt Shelton, B. (1 999), Learning from& the japanese City: West Brace Co. Meets East in Urban Design, E FN Spon, London. Sudjic, D. (1 996), Can we10 fix0 this hole at the heart of our Sherman, B. (1 988), Cities fit to five in, Channel Four cities? &The Guardian, Saturday 13 january, p. 27. Books, London. & Talen, E. (1 999), Sense of community and neighbour­ Sherman, L., Gottfredson, D., MacKenzie, D., Eck, )., hood form: An assessment of the social doctrine of New Reuter, P. and Busways, S. (2001 ), Preventing Crime: Urbanism, Urban Studies, 36, 1361-79. What works, what doesn't, what's promising, USA Talen, E. (2000), The Problem with Community in Plan­ National Institute of justice, Washington. ning, journal of Planning Literature, 15, 171-83. Shields, R. (1 989), Social spatialisation and the built envi­ Taylor, D. (2002), Highway Rules, Urban Design Quarterly, ronment: The West Edmonton Mall, Environment Issue 81 , pp. 27-9. Planning D: Society Space, 7, 147-64. Terence O'Rourke pic (1 998), Planning for Passive Solar Siksna, A. (1 998), City centre blocks and their evolution:& Design, BRECSU, Watford. A comparative & study of eight American Thiel, P. (1 961 ), A sequence-experience notation for and Australian CBDs, journal of Urban Design, 3, architectural and urban space, Town Planning Review, 253-83. 32, 33-52. Sircus, ). (2001 ), Invented Places, Prospect, 81 , Sept/Oct, Tibbalds, F. (1 988a), Ten commandments of urban pp. 30-5 . design, The Planner, 74(1 2), 1. Sitte, C. (1 889), City Planning According to Artistic Princi­ Tibbalds, F. (1 988b), Mind the Gap!, The Planner, March, ples (translated by Collins, G.R. and Collins, C.C., pp. 11-15. 1965), Phaidon Press, London. Tibbalds, F. (1 992), Making People Friendly Towns: Improv­ Smith, P.F. (1 980), Urban Aesthetics, in Mikellides, B. ing the public environment in towns and cities, Longman, (1 980) (ed.), Architecture and People, Studio Vista, Harlow. London, pp. 74-86. Tibbalds, F., Colbourne, Karski and Williams (1 990), City Smithson, A. (ed.) (1 962), Team 10 Primer, Architectural Centre Design Strategy (Birmingham Urban Design Strat­ Design, 32, 556-602. egy), City of Birmingham, Birmingham. Sohmer, R.R. and Lang, R.E. (2000), From Seaside to Tibbalds, F., Colbourne, Karski, Williams and Monro Southside: New Urbanism's Quest to Save the Inner (1 993), London's Urban Environmental Quality, London City, Housing Policy Debate, 11, 751-60. Planning Advisory Committee, Romford. Soja, E. (1 980), The socio-spatial dialectic, Annals, Associ­ Tiesdell, S. and Oc, T. (1 998), Beyond fortress and panop­ ation of American Geographers, 70, 207-25. tic cities - Towards a safer urban public realm, Environ­ Soja, E. (1 995), Postmodern Urbanisation: The six restruc­ ment Planning Planning Design, 25, 639-55. turings of Los Angeles, in Watson, S. and Gibson, K. Tiesdell, S., Oc, T. and Heath, T. (1996), Revitalising (eds), Postmodern Cities and Spaces, Blackwell, Oxford, Historic& Urban Quarters,8: Oxford:& Butterworths. pp. 125-37. Toffler, A. (1 970), Future Shock, Random House, New Soja, E. (1 996), Los Angeles, 1965-1 992: The six geogra­ York. phies of urban restructuring, in Scott, A.). and Soja, E. Tranche, H. (2001 ), Promoting Urban Design in Develop­ (1 996) (eds), The City: Los Angeles and Urban Theory at ment Plans: Typo-Morphological Approaches in the End of the Twentieth Century, University of California Montreuil, France, Urban Design International, Vol. 6, Press, Los Angeles, pp. 426-62. Issue 3/4, pp. 157-72. Sorkin, M. (ed.) (1992), Variations on a Th eme Park: The Trancik, R. (1 986), Finding Lost Space: Theories of Urban New American City and the End of Public Space, Hill Design, Van Nostrand Reinhold, New York. Wang, New York. Tripp, H.A. (1938), Road Traffic and its Control, Arnold, Southworth, M. (1997), Walkable Suburbs? An evaluation& London. of neotraditional communities at the urban edge, jour­ Tripp, H.A. (1 942), Town Planning and Road Traffic, nal of the American Planning Association, 63, 28-44. Arnold, London. Bibliography 3l[)3

Tschumi, B. (1 983), Sequences, Princeton journal, 1, place urban realm, in Webber, M.M., Dyckman, ].W., 29-32. Foley, D.L. et a/. (1 964), Explorations into Urban Struc­ Tugnutt, A. and Robertson, M. (1 987), Making Town­ ture, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia pp. scape: a Contextual Approach to Building in an Urban 79-1 53. Setting, London, Batsford, London. Weintraub, ]. (1 995), Varieties and vicissitudes of public University of Reading (2001 ), Training for Urban Design, space, in Kasinitz, P. (1 995) (ed.), Metropolis: Centre DETR, London. and Symbol of Our Times, Macmillan, London, Unwin, R. (1 909), Town Planning in Practice: An introduc­ pp. 280-319. tion to artistic city planning, T. Fisher Unwin, London. Wells-Thorpe, ]. (1 998), From Bauhaus to Boiler House,. in Urban Design Alliance (UDAL) (1 997), The Urban Design Context: New Buildings in Historic Settings, Warren, ]., Alliance Manifesto, UDAL, London. Worthington, J. and Taylor, S. (eds), Architectural Press, Urban Design Group (UDG) (1994), Urban Design Source­ Oxford, pp. 1 02-1 4. book, Urban Design Group, Oxon. Whitehead, J.W.R. (1 992), The Making of the Urban Land­ Urban Desi�Jn Group (UDG) (1 998a), Involving Local scape, Blackwell, Oxford. Communities in Urban Design, Promoting Good Prac­ Whitehead, ].W.R. and Larkham, P. (1 992) (eds), Urban tice, Urban Design Quarterly, Special Report, Issue 67, Landscapes: International Perspectives, Routled,�e, July, pp. 15-38. London. Urban Design Group (UDG) (1 998b), Urban Design Whyte, W.H. (1 980), The Social Life of Small Urban Spaces, Sourcebook, Urban Design Group, Oxon. Conservation Foundation, Washington DC. Urban Design Group (2002). Urban Design Guidance, Whyte, W.H. (1 988), City: Rediscovering the Centre, Urban Frameworks, Development Briefs and Master Plans, Doubleday, New York. London, Thomas Telford Publishing. Wiggington, M. (1 993), Architecture: the rewards of Urban Task Force (1 999), Towards an Urban Renaissance, excellence, in Better Buildings Mean Better Business, Urban Task Force, London. Report of Symposium, London, Royal Society of A11:s, Urban Villages Forum (1 995), Economics of Urban Villages, pp. 4-7. Urban Villages Forum, London. Wilford, M. (1 984), Off to the Races or Going to the Urban Villages Forum/English Partnerships (1 999), Dogs, Architectural Design, Vol. 54, No. 1/2, pp. 8-1 5. Making Places: A Guide to Good Practice in Undertaking Willmott, P. (1 962), Housing density and town design in Mixed Development Schemes, Urban Villages a new town: A pilot study at Stevenage, Town Planning Forum/English Partnerships, London.pp. 2-5. Review, 33, 115-27. Urry, ]. (1 999), Automobility, Car Culture and Weightless Williams, K., Burton, E. and jenks, M. (2000a) (eels), Travel: A Discussion Paper, available at http:// Achieving Sustainable Urban Form, E FN Spon, www.comp.lancs.ac.uk/sociology/soc008ju.html. London. Yandell, K. atnd Lane, ]. (1 989), The economics of archi­ Williams, K., Burton, E. and jenks, M. (2000b),& Achieving tecture and urban design: Some preliminary findings, Sustainable Urban Form: An Introduction, in Williams, journal of the American Real Estate and Urban Economics K., Burton, E. and jenks, M. (2000) (eds), Achieving Association, 17, 235-60. Sustainable Urban Form, E FN Spon, London, pp. Varoufakis, Y. (1998), Foundations of Economics: A Begin­ 1-5. ners Companion, London, Routledge. Williams, R. (1 961 ), The Long& Revolution, Penguin, Venturi, R. (1 966), Complexity and Contradiction in Archi­ Harmondsworth. tecture, MOMA, New York. Williams, R. (1 973), The Country and the City, Chatto Venturi, R., Scott Brown, D. and lzenour, S. (1 972), Learn­ Windus, London. ing from Las Vegas: The Forgotten Symbolism of Architec­ Wilson, E. (1 991 ), The Sphinx in the City: Th e control &of tural Form, MIT Press, Cambridge, Mass. disorder and women, Virago, London. Vischer, ].C. (1 985), The adaptation and control mode of Wilson, ].Q. and Kelling, G.L. (1 982), Broken Windows, user needs: A new direction for housing research, jour­ Atlantic Monthly, March, pp. 29-36. nal of Environmental Psychology, 19, 287-98. Wolf, C. (1 994), Markets or Government? Choosing Von Meiss, P. (1990), Elements of Architecture: From form between Imperfect Alternatives (second edition), MIT to place, E. FN Spon, London. Press, Cambridge, Mass. Ward, G. (1 997), Postmodernism, Hodder Stoughton, Wolfe, T. (1 981 ), From Bauhaus to Our House, Penguin London. & Books, Harmondsworth. Warren, ]., Worthington, ]. and Taylor, S. &(1 998) (eds), Worskett, R. (1969), The Character of Towns: An approach Context: New buildings in historic settings, Architectural to conservation, Architectural Press, London. Press, Oxford. Wright, G. (1 999), Urban design 12 years on: The Birm­ Warren, S. (1 994), Disneyfication of the metropolis: ingham experience, Built Environment, 25, 289-99. Popular resistance in Seattle, journal of Urban Affairs, Zeisel, ]. (1 975), Sociology and Architectural Design, Russell 16, 89-1 07. Sage Foundation, New York. Watkin, D. (11 984), Morality and Architecture, University of Zeisel, ]. (1 981 ), Inquiry by Design: Tools for environment­ Chicago Pt'ess, Chicago. behaviour research, Cambridge University Press, Webber, M.M. (1 963), Order, diversity: Community with­ Cambridge. out propinquity, in Wingo, L. (1 963) (ed.), Cities and Zucker, P. (1 959), Town and Square: From the Agora to Space: Th e fu ture use of urban land, John Hopkins Village Green, Columbia University Press, New York. University Press, Baltimore, pp. 23-54. Zukin, S. (1 989), Loft Living: Culture and Capital in Urban Webber, M.M. (1964), The urban place and the non- Change, Rutgers University Press, New Brunswick, Njl. 304 Public Places - Urban Spaces

Zukin, (1 991 ), Landscapes of Power: From Detroit to Zukin, (1 995), The Cultures of Cities, Basil Blackwell, Disney World, University of California Press, Berkeley. Oxford. 5. 5. Index

Accessibility, 64, 124 Cadastral (street) pattern, 63-6 disability and, 127-8 accessibility, 64 mobility and, 128 permeability, 64 physical access, 124 persistence of, 84 robustness and, 205 Capital web, 67, 188 symbolic access, 124 Cars visual access, 124 accessibility and, 128 Active frontage, 1 73-5 impact on urban form, 29-30 Advisers, 226 motorist's visual experience, 134-5 Aesthetic preferences, 1 30-1 parking, 190-1 patterns and, 131-4 problems of car dependency, 31, 49, 80 Agency, 219 road networks, 72-7 Agency models, 214 traffic calming measures, 188, 189 Air quality, 187 traffic reduction proposals, 80 'All-of-a-piece' urban designers, 18 See also Transport Appleyard, Donald, 9-1 0, 11 Central Business District (CBD), 27 Appraisal, 240-44 block structures, 84, 85, 86 area-wide appraisal, 241-3 Change district/region-wide appraisal, 240-1 management of, 205-1 0 site-specific appraisal, 243-4 robustness, 202-5 Architectural code, 252 time frames of, 202 Architecture, 149-58 urban environment, 38-9 types, 70-1 See also Urban development See also Buildings Charter for New Urbanism, 11 Authenticity, lack of in invented places, 1 04-5 Chicago School, 27, 33 Choice, 48 Circulation mesh, 84 Balance, 1 31 Cities Balanced communities, 118-1 9 Central Business District (CBD), 27 Boundaries: block structures, 84, 85, 86 edges, 89--90 identity, 88 neighbourhoods, 116-1 8 images of, 88-92 Builders, 226 districts, 90 Buildings edges, 89-90 as constituents of urban blocks, 67-9 landmarks, 90 attributes of good buildings, 150-2 nodes, 90 freestanding buildings, 67-9, 142, 149-50 paths, 89 structures, 62-3 transformations in urban form, 24-33 symbolic role of, 94-6 industrial cities, 26-7 urban architecture, 149-58 informational age urban form, 32-3 Built environment professions, roles of, 12-1 4 post-industrial urban form, 28-32 Burgage plots, 62, 63 See also Urban design; Urban development; Urban Burgess's Concentric Zone Model, 27, 28 environment; Urban morphology; Urban space

3()5 306 Index

City Beautiful Movement, 3 Democracies, 50, 51 Civic design, 3 Denotation, 93 Comfort, 1 65-6 Density, 182-5 Communication, 263-4 benefits of higher density, 183-4 communication gaps, 264-7 urban form and, 183 designer-non-designer gap, 265-6 Design, 3, 54-5 designer-user gap, 267 policies, 1 7 powerful-powerless gap, 266-7 See also Urban design professional-layperson gap, 265 Design briefs, 249-50 reality-representation gap, 266 Design codes, 251-2 informative, 263 Design frameworks, See Urban design persuasive, 263 Developers, 220-3 technology, 24-6, 27, 32-3, 38 motivations of, 220-3 impact on urban form, 32-3 types of, 220 See also Representation Development advisers, 226 Communities Development funders, 224-5 balanced communities, 118-1 9 Development pipeline model, 214, 215-1 9 community motivators or catalysts, 18 development feasibility, 216-1 8 gated communities, 119-20 market conditions, 21 7 role in development process, 226 ownership constraints, 21 6 See also Participation physical conditions, 21 6 Community urban design, 17 project viability, 21 7-1 8 Competition, 48, 49 public procedures, 21 6--17 Computer imaging and animation, 281-2 development pressure and prospects, 215-1 6 Computer-aided design, 279 See also Development process Computers, participation and, 269 Development process, 12, 21 3-33 Concept providers, 18 actors and roles, 21 3, 219-31 Conceptual urbanism, 22, 24 adjacent landowners, 223 Congress for New Urbanism, 1 0-1 1 advisers, 226 Connotation, 93 builders, 226 Conservation, 197-9, 201, 240-2 developers, 220-3 management, 260 funders, 224-5 Containment, 139, 140 investors, 224-5 Continuity of place, 199-200 landowners, 223-4 Controls, 1 3-1 4, 125, 239 motivations of, 220 public sector role, 237, 239 occupiers, 226-7 See also Public sector public sector, 227-8 smart controls, 14, 239 land and property development, 21 3-1 5 zoning controls, 246 models, 21 4-1 5 See also Appraisal agency models, 214 Copenhagen, 209, 21 0 equilibrium models, 214 Crime, 119 event-sequence models, 214 displacement, 123. institutional models, 21 5 fear of victimisation, 120 structure models, 214 perception of, 120 See also Development pipeline model prevention, 120-4 qualityissues, 228-35 'broken windows' theory, 261 monitoring and review, 255-6 dispositional approaches, 120-2 producer-consumer gap, 228, 228-9 situational approaches, 120-1 public sector role, 237, 239 See also Security urban design quality, 232-4 Crime Prevention Through Environment Design urban designer's role, 229-32 (CPTED), 122 See also Urban development Cui-de-sacs, 66, 74, 78-9 Diagrams, See Representation Culture, 38, 107-8 Disability, 127-8 mass culture, 101 Discovery, 1 68 Curvilinear layouts, 66 Disneyland, 1 02 Disneyworld, 1 05, 123 Decentralisation, 26, 28, 34 Districts, 90 Index 307

Edge cities, 29 Garages, 175-6 Edges, 89-90, 173-8 Gated communities, 119--20 Education, 2:56-7 Geographic Information Systems (GIS), 275, 276 Electronic communication, 24-{), 27, 32-3 Global context, 39-45 impact on urban form, 32-3 Global warming, 33, 39 Enclosure, 1 39-41 Globalisation, 1 01 squares, 142 Government, 50-1 streets, 147 market-state relations, 51-4 Engagement,. 166-8 reinventing of, 53 active, 1 66-8 structure of, 51 passive, 1 66 Grid erosion, 74 English Heritage, 242, 260 Guideline designers, 18 Environment, See Urban environment Environmental design, 185-8 Harmonic relationships, 1 31 lighting, 187-8 Hearing, 87 microclimate, 185 Hierarchy of human needs, 1 07, 1 08 sun and shade, 185-6 Home Zones, 80, 188 wind, 186--7 Environmental footprints, 40 Identity, 88, 97 Environmental issues, 39-45 personalisation and, 98 fossil fuel consumption, 33, 39 Image, 88-92 global warming, 33, 39 lmageability, 272-3 pollution, 33, 39 Images sustainable development, 33-4, 39, 41-5, 205, 290 districts, 90 by spatial scale, 46-47 edges, 89-90 density and, 184 landmarks, 90 strategies for, 42-3 nodes, 90 Environmental meaning, 92, 93-6 paths, 89 Environmental perception, 87-92 Incentive zoning, 247 Environmental symbolism, 92, 93-6 Incivilities, 120 Equilibrium models, 214 Industrial cities, 26-7 Equitable environments, 127-9 Industrial Revolution, 27 disability, 127-8 Informational age, 32-3 mobility, 128 Infrastructure, 191 social segregation, 128-9 designers, 1 8 Event-sequence models, 214 Institutional models, 215 See also Development pipeline model Integration, 152-4, 156-8 Exclusion, 124 Internet, 269 disability and, 127-8 Invented places, 1 02-5 mobility and, 128 lack of authenticity, 1 04-5 strategies, 126-7 manufactured difference, 1 03-4 voluntary exclusion, 119 other-directedness, 104 superficiality, 1 03-4 Fac;ades, 150, 1 73-5 Investors, 224-{) Facilitators urban events, 18 Involvement, See Participation Figure-ground techniques, 273-4 Finance, 224-{)of jacobs, Allan, 9-1 0, 11 funders, 224-5 japanese cities, 38 investors, 224-5 Floorscape, 159-61 Keno Capitalism, 33 Footpath design, 188-90 Kinaesthetic experience, ·1 34-8 Fossil fuel consumption, 33-4, 39 Fragmentation, 29 Land development, 21 3 by roads, 75 See also Development process; Urban development social fragmentation, 128-9 Land markets, 49 Frontage, 73-8 Land uses, 61 Functional zoning, 180-2 mixed use, 1 79-82 Funders, 224-51 Landmarks, 90 308 Index

Landowners, 223-4, 234 National Playing Fields Association, 188 adjacent landowners, 224 Neighbourhoods, 114-1 9 Landscape code, 252 boundaries, 116-1 8 Landscaping, 159 mixed-use, 115 hard, 159 neo-traditional neighbourhoods (NTDs), 1 0 soft, 159, 162-4 size of, 116 Lighting, 187-8 social mix and balanced communities, 118-1 9 natural lighting, 187 social relevance and meaning, 118 street lighting, 188 traditional neighbourhood developments (TNDs), 10, Local context, 36-9 115 London, 37, 203-4, 237-8, 260-1 types of, 115 Canary Wharf, 53 Neo-traditional neighbourhoods (NTDs), 1 0 Docklands, 53, 54 New Modernism, 25 Los Angeles School, 29 New Urbanism, 1 0-1 2, 115, 118 Lynch, Kevin, 9, 11 Charter for, 11 New Urbanist codes, 251-2 Nodes, 90 Maintenance, 260-1 Noise, 179 Management, 258-61 conservation, 260 Obsolescence, 200-1 maintenance, 260-1 Occupiers, 226-7 public realm, 124-6 Open space, 1 88 regeneration, 258-9 Organic growth, 207 transport, 258 Organicists, 14--1 5 Managerialism, 53 Orthographic projections, 276 Manhattan, 33, 66, 84 Ownership constraints, 21 6, 285 Manipulation, 263-4 Maps, See Representation Paraline drawings, 277-9 Market context, 45-50, 21 7, 230-1 , 285 Parking, 190-1 market-state relations, 50, 51-4 See also Cars operation of markets, 48-50 Participation, 256-8, 268-70 Marketplace urbanism, 22, 24 bottom-up approaches, 268 Maslow's hierarchy of needs, 1 07, 1 08 top-down approaches, 268 Mass culture, 1 01 Paths, 89 Master plans, 259 Patterns, 6, 7 Meaning, 92, 93-6 aesthetic preferences and, 1 31-4 neighbourhoods, 118 plot pattern, 63 Microclimate, 185 See also Cadastral (street) pattern Mixed use, 1 79-82 Pedestrian activity maps, 273 Mobility, 128 Pedestrian pockets, 1 0-1 1 Models, 279-80 Pedestrianisation, 188 Burgess's Concentric Zone Model, 27, 28 Copenhagen, 209, 210 conceptual models, 279 Perception, 87, 88 development process, 214-1 5 environmental perception, 87-92 agency models, 214 of crime, 120 equilibrium models, 214 Performance indicators, 256 event-sequence models, 214 Perimeter cities, 29 institutional models, 215 Permeability, 64 structure models, 214 Personalisation, 97-1 01 presentation models, 279 Perspective drawings, 277 working models, 279 Persuasion, 261 See also Development pipeline model Phenomenology, 96-7 Modernism, 13, 21-3, 196, 287 Photomontages, 277 Modernist urban space, 21-3, 61 , 62 Physical conditions, 21 6 New Modernism, 25 Place symbolism and, 95 attributes of successful places, 98--1 01 Monuments, 143 construction of, 96 Movement, through public space, 169-72 identity of, 97 Index 3019

invented places, 1 02-5 design frameworks and codes, 250-2 lack of authenticity, 1 04-5 intervention by, 238-40 other-directedness, 104 management role, 258-611 superficiality, 1 03-4 conservation, 260 making places tradition of urban design, 7-9 maintenance, 260-1 sense of, 96-1 01 regeneration, 258-9 neighbourhoods and, 115 transport, 258 personalisation, 97-1 01 monitoring and review, 2:55-6 territoriallity, 97-8 policy, 245-8 significance of, 20 role in development process, 226 Placelessness, 1 01 -2 role in quality control, 23:7, 239 globalisation and, 1 01 Public space, 165-78, 188 loss of attachment to territory, 1 01-2 comfort, 1 65-6 mass culture and, 101 discovery, 168 Plants, 162-4 edges, 1 73-8 Plot pattern, 63 engagement, 166-8 Pod developments, 77-9, 118 active, 1 66-8 Policy, 245-8 passive, 1 66 Policy makers, 18 exclusion strategies, 126-7 Politics, 50 external, 111 Pollution, 33, 39 internal, 111 Postmodernism, 95-6, 154 movement through, 169--72 superficiality, 1 03-4 network, 67 symbolism and, 96 quasi-public space, 111 Power, 94-5, 264 relaxation, 166 Powergram, .229-31, 266 shape, 1 73-8 Precinct principle, 75 social use of, 168-9 Preservation, 197-9, 240-1 See also Public realm; Urban space Privacy, 1 78--9 aural privacy, 1 79 Quality in Town and Country initiative, 257 visual privacy, 1 78-9 Quality issues, 12-14, 48, 228-35 Private sector, 52-3 constraints, 285-6 Privatisation, 53, 110-1 1, 119 monitoring and review, 255-6 Professional-layperson gap, 265 producer-consumer gap, 227, 228 Project for Public Space, 100, 167-8, 231 public sector role, 237, 239 Project viability, 21 7-1 8 See also Public sector Property development, 21 3-1 5 urban design quality, 231-3 See also Development process; Urban development urban designer's role, 229-32 Property markets, 49 Quasi-public space, 111 Public goods,, 50 Public life, 114 Radiance, 149-50 Public participation, See Participation Reality-representation gap, 266 Public procedures, 21 6-1 7 Redevelopment, 22, 196, 199, 205-6 Public realm, 7, 1 09-1 4 Regeneration, 258-9 decline of, 110-1 1 Regulatory context, 50-4 design, 17 government structure, 51 exclusion strategies, 126-7 market-state relations, 51-4 function of, 1 09-1 0 Relaxation, 166 management and, 124-6 Representation, 270-82 physical and sociocultural public realms, 111-14 analytical representations, 271-2 See also Public space computer imaging and animation, 281-2 Public sector, 52-3, 234-5, 237-61 computer-aided design, 279 appraisal, 240-4 conceptual representations, 271, 272 area-wide appraisal, 241-3 four dimensions, 280-2 district/negion-wide scale, 240-1 Geographic Information Systems (GIS), 276 site-specific appraisal, 243-3 models, 279-80 design briefs, 249-50 orthographic projections, 276 design control/review, 237, 252-5 paraline drawings, 277-9 310 Index

Representation (cont.) Sonic environment, 88 perspective drawings, 277 Soundscape, 88 photomontages, 277 Space Left Over After Planning (SLOAP), 188 serial vision, 281 Space, See Public space; Urban environment; Urban sketches, 277 space three dimensions, 276-80 Space syntax, 1 72 two dimensions, 276 Spatial analysis, 240 video animations, 281 Spatial containment, 139, 140 Resilience, 202, 205 Squares, 141-6 Responsive environments, 1 0 amorphous squares, 146 Rhyme, 131 closed squares, 144-5 Rhythm, 131 dominated squares, 145 Rhythmic repetition, 193 enclosure, 142 Road design, 188-90 freestanding sculptural mass, 142 Road networks, 72--7 grouped squares, 145-6 impact on urban form, 28, 29-30, 67 monuments, 143 See also Cars; Transport nuclear squares, 145 Robustness, 202-5 shape, 142-3 access and, 205 Street furniture, 161-2 cross-sectional depth and, 204-5 Street Reclaiming, 80 room shape and size and, 205 Streets, 141, 146-7 lighting, 188 Safety, 119, 120 pattern, See Cadastral (street) pattern; Road networks 24-hour cities, 195-6 Structure models, 214 road design and, 188-9 Suburbs, 28 Scale, 6 Sunlight, 185-6, 187 Seaside, Florida, 251 Superficiality, 1 03-4 Seasonal cycle, 194 Surveillance, 122, 123 Security, 119-20 Sustainable development, 33-4, 39, 41-5, 205, 290 animation/peopling approach, 124 by spatial scale, 46-7 crime prevention, 120-4 density and, 184 fortress approach, 124 strategies for, 42-3 management/regulatory approach, 124 SWOT analysis, 243 panoptic approach, 124 Symbolism, 92, 93-6 See also Crime Semiotics, 93 Technical standards, 1 3 Sensation, 87-8 Telecommunications, 24-6, 27, 32-3 Serial vision, 281 impact on urban form, 32-3 Servicing, 190-1 Territoriality, 97-8 Seven Clamps of Urban Design, 13 loss of attachment to territory, 1 01-2 Shade, 185-6 Theme parks, 1 02 Shared streets, 80 crime prevention, 123 Short-termism, 39, 50, 51, 285 See also Invented places Sieve maps, 274-5 Third place, 113, 114 Signification, 93 Third way, 53-4 Simulation, 1 04 Tibbalds, Francis, 1 0 See also Invented places Time Sitte, Camillo, 142-3 cycles, 193-5 Sketches, 277 management of, 195-6 Smart controls, 14, 239 march of, 196-7 Smart growth, 30-1 , 32 time frames of change, 202 Smell, 87 Tissue studies, 274 Social costs, 49 Total designers, 18 Social mix, 118-1 9 Touch, 87 Social segregation, 128-9 Town Centre Management, 261 Social space, 67, 69, 168-9 Townscape, 149-5 1 See also Public space Traditional neighbourhood developments (TNDs), 10, Social urbanism, 22, 24 115 Index

31 '1 Traditional urbanism, 22, 24 making places tradition, 7-9 Traffic calmin�J measures, 188, 189 social usage tradition, 6--7 Transit-oriented development (TO D), 1 0-1 1, 184-5 visual-artistic tradition, 6 Transport 'unknowing' urban design, 15-1 6, 55-6 environmental sustainability issues, 33-4 Urban Design Alliance (UDAL.), 14 impact on urban form, 28, 29-30, 67 Placecheck, 242 management, 258 Urban Design Group (UDG), 14 road networks, 72-7 Urban development technology, 24, 26, 38 change management, 205-1 0 See also Cadastral (street) pattern; Cars development briefs, 249-50 Trees, 162-4 environmental sustainability, 33-4, 39, 41-5, 205, air quality and, 187 290 shade, 186 density and, 184 wind protection, 187 strategies for, 42-3 Triangulation, 167-8 sustainable design by spatial scale, 46-7 Twenty four-hour society, 194-6 quality, 232 smart growth, 30-1 , 32 Urban architecture, 149-58 transformations in urban form, 24-33 See also Buildings industrial cities, 26-7 Urban code, 252 informational age urban form, 32-3 Urban consenrationists, 18 post-industrial urban form, 28-32 Urban design, 3-1 9, 21 3 See also Development process; Urban design as joining up, 14-1 5 Urban entertainment destination (UED), 1 03 the professions, 14 See also Invented places the urban environment, 14-1 5 Urban environment challenges, 285-7 changes, 38-9 clients and consumers of, 19 time frames of, 202 controls, 1 3-1 4 components of, 37-8 definitions, 3-6, 7-9 culture relationship, 38 ambiguities in, 3-5 environment-people interaction, 1 06-9 relational definitions, 5 environmental determinism, 106 scale and, 6 environmental possibilism, 1 06 design briefs, 249-50 environmental probabilism, 106, 109 design codes, 251-2 environmental perception, 87-92 design review and evaluation, 252-5 equitable environments, 1 :27-9 frameworks, 9-1 2, 250-2, 259 disability, 127-8 Allan jacobs and Donald Appleyard, 9-1 0, 11 mobility, 128 Francis Tibbalds, 1 0 social segregation, 128-9 Kevin Lynch, 9, 11 management, 258-61 responsive environments, 10 conservation, 260 The Con9ress for New Urbanism, 1 0-1 1 maintenance, 260-1 global context, 39-45 regeneration, 258-9 holistic approach, 287-90 transport, 258 'knowing' urban design, 15, 16, 55-6 quality issues, 12-1 4, 48, .256, 257 local context, 36-9 public sector role, 237, 239 market context, 45-50 urban environmental product, 12 monitoring and review, 255-6 See also Cities; Urban development need for, 1 :2-1 4 Urban grids, 65-6 practice, 1 5-1 9 grid erosion, 74 types of, 16-1 9 Urban managers, 18 process, 54-7 Urban morphology, 61 -9 quality, 231-3 building structures, 62-3 barriers to, 285-6 cadastral (street) pattern, 63-6 questioning�, 283-5 capital web, 67 regulatory context, 50-1 density and, 183 Seven Clamps of Urban Design, 1 3 freestanding buildings, 67--9, 149-50 technical standards, 1 3 land uses, 61 traditions of thought, 6-9 plot pattern, 63 312 Index

Urban morphology (cont.) Vegetation, 162-4 pod developments, 77-9 Venice, 1 35-6 public space network, 67 Victimisation, 120 return to streets, 79-80 Video animations, 281 road networks, 72-7 Virtual reality, 281 super blocks, 72, 73, 74-5 Vision, 87 urban blocks, 67-9, 80-5 Vision makers, 18 block sizes, 81-4 Visual experience persistence of block pattern, 84 aesthetic preferences, 1 30-1 See also Cities motorists, 1 34-5 Urban population growth, 27 patterns and, 131-4 Urban quarters, 115 Visual privacy, 1 78-9 Urban regeneration, 258-9 Voluntary exclusion, 119 Urban space, 1 38-41 design, 20-4 Modernist, 21-3, 61 , 62 Wind environment, 186-7 positive and negative space, 1 38 Woonerfs, 80, 188 positive space creation, 1 38-41 World Wide Web, 269 traditional, 61, 62 return to, 69-72 See also Public space Zoning, 180-2, 246-7 Urban Task Force, 257 controls, 246 Urban villages, 117 incentive zoning, 247 Urban Villages Forum, 115, 118 Zucker, Paul, 144-6 ARCHITECTURE

PUBbiC PLAC ES URBAN SPAC ES

Public Places - Uman Spaces is a holistic guide to the many complex and interacting dimensions of urban design.

... The discussion moves systematically through ideas, theories, research and the practice of urban design from an unrivalled range of sources. It aids the readergradually by building the concepts one upon the other towards a total view of thesubject.

The author team explain the catalysts of change and renewal, and explore the gtobal and local contexts and processes within which urban design operates. The book presents six key dimensions of urban design theory and practice - the social, visual, functional, temporal, morphological and perceptual - allowing it to be dipped into for specifi C infonnation, orread fromcover to cover.

This is a clear and accessible text that provides a comprehensive discussion of this complex subject.

Mattt.w Carmona,Plami� TheBartlettSchoolof CollegeUl'liveMy London. Tim Heath, Instituteof Urban Planning.of UlliveMy Notti ngham. HT 166 Taner Oc, Instituteof Urban Planning, Universityof Nottingham. .P813 SteYen TleSdell, DepartmentLand of Economy, Universityof Aberdeen.

ISBN 0-7506-l6lZ-7 Architectural Press Animprint of Elsevier Science www.architecturalpress.com .1.11111