Urban design lecture 6

URBAN DESIGN IV
Lecture 06: Theory of Urban Design
Lawrence Ogunsanya
lawrencesanya@yahoo.com
ogunsanya@ukzn.ac.za

Existing Theories and Practice

Theories that have motivated and still inform the
construction of cities are both normative and
functional.
Normative theories attempt to specify
"goodness.what is good city form?... and discuss
in detail the aspects that create good
cities..Prescriptive..What cities ought to be!
Functional theories attempt to explain how cities
perform by concentrating on city form processes,
spatial and social structure, and form
modelsDescriptiveWhat cities are!

Normative Theories
1. The Cosmic Model
It assertions that the form of a permanent settlement should
be a magical model of the universe and its gods.

Such a crystalline city has all of its parts fused into a perfectly
ordered whole and change is allowed to happen only in a
rhythmically controlled manner
specific phenomena included: such as returning, natural
items, celestial measurement, fixing location, centeredness,
boundary definition, earth images, land geometry,
directionality, place consciousness, and numerology

1. The Cosmic Model

Important activities, such as administration and worship,
typically at the centre.
Streets and buildings arranged to express spiritual beliefs;
walls and gates enforced hierarchy.
Layout is informed by the topography and used local
materials, producing a striking sense of identity.
Projection of authority, enforcement of social hierarchy

1. The Cosmic Model

Beijing, City designers arranged streets and buildings to

improve the flow of chi, applying feng shui city-wide.
The Mayans sited buildings in Chichen Itza to represent
cosmic forces.

Athens , Greece

Vatican , Rome

2. The Machine Model

The analogy between city and machine has a long history

it occurs often when there is no long-term goal in mind but

the settlement has to be created hurriedly and its future
growth will be determined by still unforeseen forces
Its form requires a few simple rules of urbanization and the
outcome is factual, functional and devoid of the mystery of
the universe.
Among its attributes are convenience, speed, flexibility,
legibility, equality, and speculation.

2. The Machine Model

The city was viewed as a kind machine to power and fabricate
industrial civilization. Classic Machine Cities were at their apex
until around 1950
The rail station, port and commercial district became the new
centres of importance not the temple.
Efficiency in production housing, administration, transportation
and commerce.
Economic development supreme, even if it produces slums and
pollution.
The use of technology to overcome the existing terrain, water
bodies and climate.

Johannesburg , South Africa

London,
UK

San Francisco, USA

Dubai, UAE

3. The Organic Model

In the Organic model, the city is viewed as a living creature, its
inhabitants likened to cells and its health is paramount.
To survive, the Organic City requires abundant energy,
omnipresent machinery, the automobile and communications
technology.
Does not change merely by adding parts but through
reorganization as it reaches limits or thresholds.
It is self-repairing and regulating toward a dynamic balance.
Undergoes cycles of life and death as is rhythmic passage
from one state to another.

Organic model (contd)

From this flows the notion of the form of the organic city:
- A separate spatial and social unit made up internally of
highly connected places and people.
- A healthy community of heterogeneous and diverse nature
- The micro unit is the neighborhood, a small residential area,
as the support area for an elementary school, to which
children, the most vulnerable of the human species, can safely
walk.

- Like organisms, settlements are born, grow and mature, and

if further growth is necessary, a new entity has to be
formed. Thus there are states of optimum size, beyond which
pathological conditions ensue.

Organic model (contd)

- Greeenbelts not only ensure an intimate contact with nature
but enclose healthy growth.

- A model with typical physical forms, among which radial

patterns, anti-geometrical layouts, and a proclivity for natural
materials.
- The Organic City sprawls, reflecting the democratic living
choices of its inhabitants.
- Hundreds of land use zones mark permissible areas for
families, old people, apartment dwellers, shopping centers,
offices and industry, resulting in social segregation.
-There is an attraction to small-scale modes of production or
services as opposed to large-scale synthetic processes.
Often the model aligns itself with a socio-economic philosophy
that sees increases in urban value as the result of communal
rather than individual endeavor.

Venice, Italy

Prague, Czechoslovakia

Moscow, Russia

Zanzibar, Tanzania

Lamu, Kenya

GENERAL SUMMARY OF THE 3 MODELS

Functional DescriptiveTheories
These are founded on the following characteristics:
Urban history: the city is regarded as a unique historic process... explaining
cities as derivative of their own culture (ref Sjoberg, Rapoport).

Urban Ecology: city is regarded as an ecology of people, each social

group occupying space according to economic position and class. (Ref.
Burgess [concentric model], Weber, Simmel and Spengler)

City economy: regards the city as an economic engine in which space,

unlike in the previous category, is both a resource and an additional cost
imposed on the economy for production or consumption.location of
cities an optimization of raw materials, labour and market locations (ref.
Isard,Von Thunen,Christaller)

Functional Descriptive Theories (contd)

Urban Communication: regards the city as a field of forces, a
communications network of particles which attract and repel each other
much as they do in physics.
Sub-sets of these ideas include population potential maps, gravity models,
communications flows, and various topological models.

Urban Politics/Governance: understanding the city as a system of linked

decisions...affluence, imminent domain, citizen participation in a
democratic city; the game theory, in which people interact together
according to fixed rules and produce agreed-upon outcomes
Urban Chaos: rejects previous theories of competition and posits the city
as an arena of conflict, in which the city's form is the residue and sign of
struggle, and also something which is shaped and used to wage it.

Theory Versus Practice

(Why urban design matters)

We design spaces to attract people (public realm)

Urban design creates a framework for our lives.
understanding how humans perceive the physical
scale and form of cities is essential to mastering
design.
Embedded in urban design theories is the
fundamental goal of balancing private development
and public good in a way that incorporates the social,
economic, and cultural needs of a diverse urban
population.

Questions