URBAN DESIGN
2020 BATCH / AR 17 72 / Asst. Prof. Emie B Fair
REFERENCES
• Community Design and Culture of Cities – Eduardo E. Lozano
• Exterior Design in Architecture – Yoshinobu Ashihara
• Architecture of Towns and Cities – Paul [Link]
• The Social Logic of Space –Bill Hillier and Julienne Hanson
• The New Theory of Urban Design – Alexander Christopher
• The Image of the City – Kevin Lynch
• Design of Cities – Edmund N. Bacon
• Life Between Buildings: Using Public Space-Jan Gehl
• Cities for People-Jan Gehl
• The City Shaped: Urban Patterns and Meanings Through History- Spiro Kostof
• The Urban Pattern- City Planning And Design- Arthur Gallion
• The New Landscape – Charles Correa
• The Architecture of Cities – Rossi, Aldo
• The Concise Townscape – Cullen, Gordon
• Finding lost space-Theories of Urban Design – Roger Trancik
• The Art of Building Cities: City Building According to Its Artistic Fundamentals – Sitte, Camillo
MODULE III
• Introduction to terminologies related to the physical structure,
interdependencies and movement networks of the city.
• Theories of urban spatial organizations, Aspects, and issues related to
urbanism today through the study of literature and best
practices/international case studies in urban design.
• Topics to include Urban decay, Change and renewal, Place-making,
Heritage, Conservation, Identity, Suburban sprawl, etc.
Terminologies related to the physical structure,
interdependencies and movement networks of the city
Shape
• A shape is the form of external boundary,
outline of any city.
• It may be evolved from existing geographical
constrains, or by the introduction of
intentionally incorporated component.
• Identify the factors/ Macro level reasons –
• Natural factors (hills, lakes, rivers, sea) and
• Man made factors(ports, temples, forts,
Canals, railway, airstrips)
• Limiting the growth
Pattern
• Urban pattern is the way how different functions and elements of
settlement form are distributed and mixed together spatially.
• It can be measure by the size of its grain.
• Every city has an overall shape which may be
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Grain & Texture
• Grain is fine when similar elements or functions are
dispersed throughout the district without forming any
large clusters.
• Grain is coarse when different elements and functions
are segregated from each other in a way that extensive
areas of one thing are separated from extensive areas of
other things
• Texture measured by uniformity or unevenness of the
plots
Grain & Texture- Examples
• With small houses on
• A suburban area with small varying size lots, it
houses on small plots has a could still have a fine
fine grain and uniform texture grain but an uneven
texture.
• If the building are
• In city, large blocks of uniform in size, they
buildings with varying size could be described as
plots could be described as having coarse grain by
having coarse and uneven uniform texture.
texture.
Public spaces morphology-Building typology
• Building typology refers to the study and documentation of
a set of buildings which have similarities in their type of
function or form. There are two sides to the term "building
typology".
• The first is a functional typology that categorizes buildings
by the similarity of their use into groups such as hospitals,
schools, and shopping centers (see more examples in
the list of building types by use).
• The second is a typology that groups buildings according to
their forms,.
• Formal building typology may be based on configuration,
format, or relationships of building to streets and each
other. Any single functional type can be subdivided into
formal types.
Public spaces morphology-Building typology
Public spaces morphology-Open spaces
• Urban open spaces (UOS) are defined as
publicly accessible open spaces designed and
built from human interactions
• These may include parks and community
gardens , children’s playing areas, green
corridors, downtown civic plazas and
squares, pedestrian streets and market places.
• Urban open space (UOS) is a broad term that
can be used to describe all land that does not
contain buildings and structures.
Public spaces morphology-Open spaces
• This entails absence-places that are left open or empty and
unoccupied in the spatial fabric of the city.
• An urban open space can be a huge strip of green space in an urban
area or a small area in the center of the city.
Public spaces morphology-Street networks
• Streets are the connections between spaces and
places.
• They are defined by their physical dimension and
character as well as size scale, and character of the
buildings that line them.
• Streets range from grand avenues to small pedestrian
streets of neighborhoods.
• The pattern of street network is part of what defines a
city and what makes each city unique.
• Streets are divided into primary(arterial), secondary
(collector), tertiary(local) streets based on its
importance.
Public spaces morphology- Character districts
• Districts are the medium-to-large sections of the city, conceived of as
having two-dimensional extent, which the observer mentally enters
"inside of," and which are recognizable as having some common,
identifying character.
Pubic space morphology-Pedestrian paths
• An environment designed to make movement by pedestrians fast,
attractive and comfortable for various ages and abilities.
• Considerations include separation of pedestrian and auto circulation,
street furniture, clear directional and information signage, safety,
visibility, shade, lighting, surface material, trees, sidewalk width,
intersection treatments, curb cuts, ramps and landscaping
Pubic space morphology-Vista
• A line of vision, contained by
buildings of landscape, to a
building or other feature
which terminates view.
• A view along a main grand
axis, in an urban precinct
lined by built form, in rural
areas marked out by
landmarks or bounded by
natural features.
• A distant view or prospect,
especially one seen through
an opening, as between
rows of buildings or trees
Pubic space morphology- Skyline
• A skyline is the outline or shape created by a city's overall structure,
or by human intervention in a non-urban setting or in nature that is
formed where the sky meets buildings or the land.
• City skylines serve as a pseudo-fingerprint as no two skylines are
alike.
Pubic space morphology-Movement network
• Circulation refers to the way people move through
and interact with in a city.
• Types of circulation :
1. Grid: Equally spaced, perpendicular streets. Need
not consist of straight lines.
2. Radial: Directs flow from a common center.
Beltways allow through traffic to bypass the center
to alleviate congestion.
3. Linear: Useful where development is restricted by
natural topography (narrow valley) or parallels with
existing transportation artery (railroad, freeway).
• Pedestrian movement is the primary type of
circulation to be addressed in urban areas.
• Vehicular movement - traffic – speed control
Pubic space morphology-Circulation pattern
Pubic space morphology-Activity nodes
• Nodes are points, the strategic spots in a
city into which an observer can enter, and
which are the intensive foci to and from
which he is traveling.
• They may be primarily junctions, places of
a break in transportation, a crossing or
convergence of paths, moments of shift
from one structure to another.
Urban Scale: Relation with human vision-neighbor hood size
• In human-scale neighborhoods, a wide Shelter For All is clustered around one or more well-defined
neighborhood centers which support jobs, commercial activity, and a range of amenities.
• The neighborhood is scaled to the pedestrian, offering sufficient variety within a five to fifteen minute walk .
• It offers a gradient of density, from open spaces to high-density commercial cores.
• The layout of pathways, streets, and transportation corridors minimizes conflict between walking, biking, and
driving, and provides effective and affordable Transit Access to other neighborhoods and regional centers.
• Neighborhoods are the most significant building blocks of Compact Towns and Cities.
• Human scale can refer to how people perceive a city.
• Buildings that have dominated the street level and destroyed the human scale of the area.
Urban Scale: Enclosure qualities
• Urban enclosure creates an experience in which the pedestrian fells
sheltered with a semi private realm.
• Buildings, trees, landscaping, street widths etc. are the factors
creating sense of enclosure.
• The sense of enclosure is generated by ratio of street height to the
street width.
Urban Scale: Built-open relationships
• A good urban space is not just an open space,
it is a space formed by arrangement of many
built forms.
• The character of open spaces, to a large
extent, is dictated by the building masses
surrounding them. The character of the
building masses can get enhanced or
subdued by the open spaces.
• It is the genius of concepts of building masses
articulating spaces or spaces articulating
building masses which have been responsible
for the totality of great architectural
experiences .
Urban Scale: Urban mass
• Mass combines with shape to define form.
• Mass refers to the size or physical bulk of building, and can be
understood as the actual size or relative to context.
• Lack of Land availability and high land value is the major reason
for huge Urban masses.
• Human scaled buildings, safety and security are the two
important concerns