You are on page 1of 7

6

A procedural explanation
for contemporary urban
design
R. Varkki George
[1997]

A crisis of identity? or his students, ‘I will not tell you exactly what urban
design is (or, I will only give you a vague descrip-
The task of designing urban places—where the tion), but I will teach you urban design?’ What will
designer is primarily concerned with the sensual, but guide researchers in identifying research questions—
particularly visual, qualities of these places—has trad- other than the obvious questions about the sensual
itionally been termed urban design. Long associated qualities of urban places—the answers to which will
with architecture and urban planning, urban design help urban designers do their job better?
in the US began to acquire a distinct but weaker iden- In the author’s experience of teaching urban
tity in academia as each of these two disciplines lost design over several years to different groups of scep-
interest in the issues that engage urban designers tical students, it has been necessary to articulate and
(Dagenhart & Sawicki, 1992). Despite this weak aca- refine a procedural explanation for urban design
demic identity, urban design continues to remain that is both sufficiently general and specific at the
alive in several ways. First, urban places continue to be same time. It is procedural in that it focuses more on
designed in cities across the US. This is true even if, as the means that contemporary urban designers use
Kreditor (1990b, p. 67) points out, there is not an to create urban places. It is general in the sense that
‘urban design practice carried out by professional it is applicable across different situations, and that it is
urban designers.’ Second, issues of concern to urban not overly restrictive in what it subsumes. It is specific
designers continue to be discussed at meetings and in the sense that it provides a reason for engaging in
conferences of planners and architects, when they specific analytic and synthetic tasks.
meet together and separately. This paper presents the author’s procedural
Despite the apparent impossibility of a com- explanation: essentially, it is argued that contempo-
monly agreed definition of urban design, it could be rary urban design is a second-order design endeavour;
argued that a meaningful explanation for contem- that is, the urban designer is only indirectly respon-
porary urban design is vital, and that it is worth try- sible for producing built forms and the spaces in
ing to arrive at one. This paper will attempt to between them. Unlike other design professionals,
make the case for this point of view and for the belief today’s urban designers rarely design built artefacts;
that a meaningful explanation of urban design is rather, they are mostly engaged in designing the
crucial to training a new generation of effective decision environment within which others (some-
urban designers and for inspiring research that can times these are other design professionals) make
inform the future practice of urban design. There is decisions to alter or add to the built environment.
support for this belief (Symes, 1982; Colman, 1988), While the term second-order design is new, many of
and it is not hard to see why: can a teacher tell her the arguments and ideas used to support the use of
TEAM LinG
A procedural explanation 53

this term can be found scattered in the discourse gen- In the 25 years since the San Francisco urban
erated when urban design practitioners and scholars design scheme was formulated, such tactics have
have gathered to discuss urban design (Goldberg been used more widely (Ray, 1984, Shirvani, 1990),
et al., 1962; Pittas & Ferebee, 1982, Ekistics, 1988; but they have also evolved somewhat in response to
Kahn & Speck, 1990). In particular, this explanation lessons learned from previous applications.
builds on and recasts—in a more useful way—the The description of contemporary urban design
ideas of Jonathan Barnett, Robert Shibley, and developed in this section clarifies the aptness of the
Richard Lai. definitions proffered by Jonathan Barnett, Robert
The first section of this paper reviews what has Shibley, and Richard Lai. Urban design is designing
been established in the literature and in practice as the cities without designing buildings because the
tactics used by contemporary urban designers in the intention is to realize a desired state of the built
design of urban places. The second section presents environment, but without actually designing the
the case for why the term second-order design is a good components of the environment. Urban designers
explanation for these tactics. The choice of this term are not authors of the built environment, rather
rather than any other is explained together with the they create a decision environment that enables
reasons for such an approach to design given contem- others to author the built environment. The invis-
porary circumstances. ible web that urban designers spin is the decision
The descriptive theorizing in this paper is directed environment within which designers make design
more towards making sense of contemporary urban decisions: urban design involves manipulating and
design practice than towards postulating the charac- structuring this environment. Each definition is by
teristics of good urban design practice. Hence, this itself not quite complete, but perhaps together they
paper attempts to explain rather than define. Second, sufficiently describe contemporary urban design.
the term contemporary is used to delimit the historic
scope of my explanation because words such as mod-
ern and postmodern come with too many distracting How is urban design different?
associations from architecture and philosophy.
Clearly, urban design as described above is an unusual
type of design endeavour; it is different from design
Describing contemporary endeavours such as architecture, landscape archi-
urban design tecture, interior design, and product design. One
could distinguish between urban design and the
With the 1971 San Francisco urban design plan (City other types of design endeavours in terms of the scale
of San Francisco, 1971) came a significant change in of the designed product (Scott Brown, 1982).
the way urban designers seek to shape the built envi- A more useful, sufficient, and complete distinc-
ronment in cities. Previously, the future urban fabric, tion, however, lies in the relationship between the
as envisioned by the urban designer, was completely designer and the designed object. All designers,
described and specified using drawings the way an except contemporary urban designers, have a direct
architect would describe and specify a building. relationship with the object that they design, as
Based on these drawings, builders would execute schematically depicted in Figure 6.1. These design-
the construction of the structures thus specified. ers make the decisions that dictate and directly
The work of Le Corbusier in Chandigarh is illustra- shape the object. In an intellectual sense, they have
tive of this kind of an architectonic approach. ownership over the object. As described in the pre-
Rather than use an architectonic approach, the vious section and depicted in Figure 6.2 however,
urban designers of San Francisco—and in other cities contemporary urban designers have only an indi-
such as New York (Barnett, 1982b)—sought to real- rect relationship with the designed object. They
ize their vision of the future by influencing decisions shape the designed object by influencing decisions
made by the various individuals and organizations made by other designers who then directly shape
intending to alter or add to the built environment. the object; they design the decision environment
These tactics, collected and expressed in a document within which other designers create the designed
using words and pictures, were intended to ensure object. (In this case, the word designer is used to
that decisions made by different decision makers at include both professional designers as well as non-
different points in time would collectively and even- designers whose decisions shape the built environ-
tually produce the intended built environment. ment; this is because professional designers are
TEAM LinG
54 Urban Design Reader

responsible for only a fraction of additions and alter- Another candidate, the term second-order design,
ations to the built environment.) appears to be more appropriate. Second-order rela-
What term can we use to describe the relationship tionships are indirect relationships in the sense that
between the contemporary urban designer and the the related objects are one step removed from each
designed object? Contemporary urban design other. Some examples from human relationships
appears to be a higher-order design activity in the might help delineate the difference between meta
sense that it is indirectly related to the designed and second-order relationships: grandparents can be
object. The term metadesign offers itself as a candi- described as metaparents (they are ‘parents of par-
date. Meta-activities are those that involve the ents’): the children of siblings, on the other hand, are
recursive application of an activity: for example, second-order siblings (they are not ‘siblings of sib-
meta-analysis is the analysis of other analyses, it is lings,’ rather they are siblings once removed from
‘analysis of analyses;’ hence, metadesign can be each other). Contemporary urban design is design
understood to mean ‘design of designs.’ In that sense, that is one step removed from the designed object;
unfortunately, the term metadesign is clearly too hence, it is second-order design. While architectural
grandiose, and using it to describe urban design programming is another second-order design activ-
may be overstating the scope and nature of con- ity, most other professional design endeavours
temporary urban design. involve first-order design.

Why a second-order approach to


urban design?

Why is a second-order approach to urban design


necessary? Does such an approach reduce urban
design to what Shirvani (1990, p. x) contemptuously
FIGURE 6.1
refers to as ‘a mere bureaucratic process’? Can urban
The relationship between the typical designer and the design still be a creative task? Does urban design
designed object. have to be an enterprise distinct from architecture

FIGURE 6.2
The relationship between the urban designer and the designed object.
TEAM LinG
A procedural explanation 55

and landscape architecture? It will be argued in this Though complex endeavours in themselves, first-
section that the circumstances under which urban order design projects involve factors that are rela-
design is practised today require a second-order tively stable over the time it takes to realize the
approach. In the days of Pope Sixtus V and Baron design project. Factors such as function, climate,
Haussmann, and perhaps in the early part of this topography, and aesthetics are often extremely chal-
century, urban design could be a first-order design lenging to address, but nonetheless the nature of
activity: very little about the project changed during these factors can be expected in most cases to
the time it took to become reality; feudal systems remain relatively stable while an object is being
allowed decision-making powers to be concen- designed and constructed. Urban design projects
trated in the hands of a few individuals or even a involve these kinds of factors, but they also involve
single individual. In the more recent past, however, factors of an economic, political, social, and legal
urban areas have been changing very rapidly, and nature. These latter types of factors are liable to
this change is becoming even more rapid and wide- change significantly, particularly over the rather long
spread each passing year: it is hard to predict eco- time frame that most urban design projects take to
nomic, technological, and social circumstances be realized, thereby contributing to a turbulent deci-
even a few years down the road. Compounding this sion environment. Second-order design is more
rapid change, the increasing prevalence of demo- appropriate to a turbulent decision environment
cratic ideals necessitates increasingly distributed because it is based on a strategic approach to deci-
and perhaps decentralized decision-making pow- sion making (‘What do we really need to specify?
ers.1 Additionally, this distributed decision making What can we ignore?’) rather than the comprehen-
presents the urban designer with multiple clients sive decision making that characterizes first-order
rather than the unitary client with which other design (where every aspect of the designed object
designers interact. Further discussion of these issues must be specified).
is warranted.
Distributed decision making
Turbulent decision environment
In first-order design, the designer usually has control
As schematically illustrated in Figure 6.3, there is over, is involved in, or is directly responsible for all
a difference between the decision environments design decisions. In urban design, on the other
encountered in first-order design and urban design. hand, control over decisions that produce or alter

FIGURE 6.3
Different decision environments.
TEAM LinG
56 Urban Design Reader

FIGURE 6.4
Different control over decision making.

the built environment is distributed across a wide Multiple clients


range of private and public entities (Brown, 1982):
No matter how large the scale of a project, first-order
decision making is ‘complex and fractionated’ (Scott
designers usually deal with a single client while urban
Brown, 1982, p. 169). As a result, many of the deci-
designers deal with multiple clients (Barnett, 1982a).
sions are outside the designer’s locus of control.
These multiple clients include the individual decision
(This situation is graphically represented in Figure
makers—individual property owners, developers,
6.4.) For instance, the built environment is affected
business interests, politicians—as well as relatively
when the owner of a parcel of land decides to reno-
homogenous groups of these decision makers. A
vate the structure on that parcel. It is also affected
second-order approach to design is appropriate for
when a city official makes the decision to replace
dealing with multiple clients because a range of
ageing light-posts in a residential neighbourhood or
acceptable solutions is usually specified rather than
to redo the sidewalks in a commercial area. The
a single solution: the likelihood of satisfying mul-
urban designer can rarely participate directly in this
tiple interests and points of view is increased.
myriad of decisions. Second-order design is appro-
priate to a situation characterized by distributed
decision-making because the design solution is speci-
fied at a more abstract level and is, therefore, appli- Conclusion
cable across a wider range of situations than would
be possible if the solution were specified in very con- How satisfactory an explanation does the notion of
crete terms. To illustrate: where a neighbourhood is second-order design provide? Does it, as Kreditor
identified as historic through various public policy (1990a, p. 157) warns, ‘disappoint and discourage
initiatives, property owners and city officials tend to further discussion’? In the author’s opinion, this is
make diverse first-order design decisions that pre- far from the case. First, the explanation is sufficient
serve the historic aspects of the neighbourhood to describe contemporary urban design. It is inclu-
(whether this is good or bad in a particular instance sive in terms of our ability to use this idea to explain
is a different question altogether). the assorted activities and projects for which we use

TEAM LinG
A procedural explanation 57

the term urban design. It provides a coherent ration- City of San Francisco, Department of City Planning (1971)
ale for this assortment that we find so hard to The Urban Design Plan for San Francisco (May).
Colman, J. (1988) Urban design: A field in need of broad
delimit and describe in a succinct manner. Second, educational innovation, Ekistics, 55 (328–330),
rather than terminating further development of an pp. 106–109.
urban design discourse, it prompts fresh questions Dagenhart, R. & Sawicki, D. (1992) Architecture and
about why we do certain things and how we can do Planning: The divergence of two fields, Journal of
them differently and better. Planning Education and Research, 12(1), pp. 1–16.
Ekistics (1988) Professional education and training: Urban-
rural planning and management; urban design; archi-
Notes tecture, 55 (328–330), pp. 4–156 (Athens, Greece,
Doxiadis Associates/Athens Center of Ekistics).
George, R.V. (Forthcoming) HyperSpace: Communicating
1. This is not to suggest that all urban design endeavours of ideas about the quality of urban spaces, Journal of
the past 50 years have been democratic. As the anony- Planning Education and Research.
mous referee points out, Nelson Rockefeller in Albany George, R.V. & Campbell, M.C. (1994) Architectural
(and others would add Robert Moses in New York) design controls: Is the whole greater than the sum of
oversaw urban design endeavours that were far from its parts? Paper presented at the 36th Conference of the
democratic. Still, in the past 30 or 40 years, there is a Association of Collegiate School of Planning, Philadelphia,
much greater pressure on urban designers to be less PA (July).
autocratic. Goldberg, J., Montgomery, R. & Weismantel, W. (Eds)
(1962) Education for Urban Design. Proc. of a conference
held at Washington University School of Architecture
References (St. Louis, MO).
Gutman, R. (1988) Architectural Practice: A Critical View
Alexander, C. et al. (1987) A New Theory of Urban Design (Princeton, NJ, Princeton Architectural Press).
(New York, Oxford University Press). Hack, G. & Canto, M. (1990) Collaboration and context in
Alterman, R. & Corren, N. (1996) Designing design con- urban design, Center, 6, pp. 74–85.
trol: dimensions and dilemmas, Paper presented at the Hall, A. (1996) Design Control: Towards a New Approach
Joint International Congress of the Association of (Oxford, Butterworth-Heinemann).
Collegiate Schools of Planning and the Association of Hamnett, S. (1988) The current interest in urban design:
European Schools of Planning, Toronto, Canada (July). Implications for planning education in Australia,
Appleyard, D. (1982) ‘Three kinds of urban design prac- Ekistics, 55 (328–330), pp. 101–105.
tice’, in: M. Pittas & A. Ferebee (Eds), Education for Hinshaw, M.L. (1992) Transforming suburbia through
Urban Design (Boston, MA, Hutchinson Ross). urban design; case study: Bellevue, Washington, Proc.
Attoe, W.C. & Logan, D. (1989) American Urban of the International Symposium on Design Review,
Architecture. Catalysts in the Design of Cities (Berkeley, Cincinnati, OH (October).
CA, University of California Press). Hough, M. (1992) Place-making and design review, Proc.
Bacon, E.N. (1988) Bringing us back to our senses: The new of the International Symposium on Design Review,
paradigm for teaching design, Ekistics, 55 (328–330), Cincinnati, OH (October).
pp. 110–120. Jacobs, A.B. (1982) Education for successful practice, in:
Barnett, J. (1982a) For case studies and internships, in: M. Pittas & A. Ferebee (Eds), Education for Urban Design
M. Pittas & A. Ferebee (Eds), Education for Urban (Boston, MA, Hutchinson Ross).
Design (Boston, MA, Hutchinson Ross). Jacobs, A. & Appleyard, D. (1987) Toward an urban design
Barnett, J. (1982b) Introduction to Urban Design (New York, manifesto, Journal of the American Planning Association,
Harper & Row). Winter, pp. 112–120.
Barnett, J. (1986) Architectural education: Teaching urban Kahn, T.D. & Speck, L.D. (Eds) (1990) Architecture vs
design now that clients really want it, Architectural Planning. Collision and Collaboration in the Design of
Record, 174, p. 49. American Cities (published as Volume 6 of Center;
Becker, J. (1992) The validation of computer simulations for New York, Rizzoli).
design guidelines dispute resolution, Proc. of the Knack, R.E. (1984) Staking a claim on urban design,
International Symposium on Design Review, Cincinnati, Planning, 50 (10), pp. 4–11.
OH (October). Kreditor, A. (1990a) The neglect of urban design in the
Boyer, M.C. (1990) Erected against the city: The contem- American academic succession, Journal of Planning
porary discourses of architecture and planning, Center, Education and Research, 9(3), pp. 155–164.
6, pp. 36–43. Kreditor, A. (1990b) Urban design: A victim of American
Brown, L. (1982) An urban designer speaks, in: M. Pittas & academic tastes, Center, 6, pp. 64–71.
A. Ferebee (Eds), Education for Urban Design (Boston, Lassar, T.J. (1989) Carrots and Sticks: New Zoning
MA, Hutchinson Ross). Downtown (Washington, DC, Urban Land Institute).
Choate, C.L. (1994) The Ransom Place Information System: Lai, R. (1988) Law in Urban Design and Planning (New
A hypermedia information system for preservation York, Van Nostrand Reinhold).
planning, unpublished Masters Thesis, Department of Lightner, B.C. (1992) A survey of design review practice in
Urban and Regional Planning, University of Illinois at local government, Unpublished manuscript, School of
Urbana-Champaign (Champaign, IL). Planning, University of Cincinnati (Cincinnati, OH).

TEAM LinG
58 Urban Design Reader

Lynch, K. (1982) City design: What it is and how it might Shirvani, H. (1985) The Urban Design Process (New York,
be taught, in: M. Pittas & A. Ferebee (Eds), Education Van Nostrand Reinhold).
for Urban Design (Boston, MA, Hutchinson Ross). Shirvani, H. (1990) Beyond Public Architecture: Strategies for
Moudon, A.V. (1992) A catholic approach to organizing Design Evaluations (New York, Van Nostrand Reinhold).
what urban designers should know, Journal of Planning Stamps, A.E. (1991) All buildings great and small: Design
Literature, 6(4), pp. 331–349. review from high rise to houses, Environment and
Nasar, J.L. (1988) The effect of sign complexity and coher- Behavior, 23(5), pp. 402–420.
ence on the perceived quality of retail scenes, in: J.L. Stamps, A.E. (1994) Comparing preferences of neighbors
Nasar (Ed.) Environmental Aesthetics: Theory, Research, and a neighborhood design review board, Environment
and Applications (New York, Cambridge University and Behavior, 26(3), pp. 616–629.
Press). Symes, M. (1982) Urban design education in Britain and
Pittas, M. & Ferebee, A. (Eds) (1982) Education for Urban America, in: M. Pittas & A. Ferebee (Eds), Education for
Design (Boston, MA, Hutchinson Ross). Urban Design (Boston, MA, Hutchinson Ross).
Rand, A. (1971) The Fountainhead (New York, New Toon, J. (1988) Urban planning and urban design, Ekistics,
American Library). 55 (328–330), pp. 95–100.
Ray, G.H. (1984) City Sampler: Catalogue of Urban Trache, H. (1996) The design dimension of local land use
Environmental Design Tools and Techniques in Local plans: A review of current French practice. Paper pre-
Government (Washington, DC, Community Design sented at the Joint International Congress of the
Exchange). Association of Collegiate Schools of Planning and the
Robertson, J.T. (1982) The current crisis of disorder, in: Association of European Schools of Planning, Toronto,
M. Pittas & A. Ferebee (Eds), Education for Urban Canada (July).
Design (Boston, MA, Hutchinson Ross).
Scott Brown, D. (1982) Between three stools: A personal
view of urban design practice and pedagogy, in:
M. Pittas & A. Ferebee (Eds), Education for Urban Source and copyright
Design (Boston, MA, Hutchinson Ross).
Selby, R.I. (1992) Design of a splendid city: A case study of This chapter was published in its original form as:
urban synergy. Paper presented at the 34th Annual
Varkki George R (1997), ‘A Procedural Explanation for
Meeting of the Association of Collegiate Schools of
Contemporary Urban Design’, Journal of Urban Design,
Planning, Columbus, OH (October).
2 (2), 143–161.
Shibley, R. (1982) Urban design as performing art, in:
M. Pittas & A. Ferebee (Eds), Education for Urban Reprinted with permission of Taylor & Francis Ltd
Design (Boston, MA, Hutchinson Ross). (http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals)

TEAM LinG

You might also like