*

* DOXIADIS was a Greek architect and Town planner. He became

known as the lead architect of Islamabad. BORN 1913.
* GRADUATED Architect-Engineer from the Technical University of
Athens in 1935.
* In 1937 he was appointed Chief Town Planning Officer for the
Greater Athens Area and during the war (1940-1945).
* DURING his occupation published a magazine called "Regional
Planning, Town Planning and Ekistics," the only technical
publication

*
* Inorder to create the cities of the future, we need to
systematically develop a science of human settlements.

* EKISTICS: a science dealing with human settlements and

drawing on the research and experience of professionals in
various fields (such as architecture, engineering, city planning,
and sociology)

* This science, termed Ekistics ,will take into consideration the

principles man takes into account when building his settlements,
as well as the evolution of human settlements through history in
terms of size and quality.

* The target is to build the city of optimum size, that is, a city which
respects human dimensions. Since there is no point in resisting
development, we should try to accommodate technological
evolution and the needs of man within the same settlement.
*The whole range of human settlements, is a very
complex system of five elements - nature, man ,
society, shells (that is, buildings), and networks.

*It is a system of natural, social, and man-made

elements which can be seen in many ways -
economic, social, political, technological, and
cultural.
* SUSTAINABLE CITY • Islamabad represents Pakistan’s first
New town project as the capital of the newly
independent state,

* and one of the major new town developments in the sub-

continent.

* • Doxiadis´s provision of generous public spaces for each

class of community was paralleled by a careful ecological
analysis of the four main categories of natural landscape:
the mountains, the hillocks, the plain and the ravines.
* The notion of design to integrate nature and the city is
achieved by a scalar arrangement of “Landscape” in the
form of Productive Landscape (agro-grid, urban agro-
farm), ecological Landscape (ecogrid, natural plant,
green, ravine and wildlife), and Urban Structuring
Landscape (public, private and hybrid)types.

* The plan of Islamabad shows connectivity on all levels;

within the city, natural landscape is integrated with other
systems of open spaces and other types of landscape, and
also creates an urban system that is connected to the
natural areas surrounding the city.
 *SALIENT FEATURES
* Islamabad is the capital of Pakistan and the 10th largest city in the country.
* The greater Islamabad-Rawalpindi Metropolitan Area is the third largest
conurbation in Pakistan with a population of over 4.5 million inhabitants.
* It is located in the Pothohar Plateau in the north of the country, within
the Islamabad Capital Territory.
* The city was built during the 1960’s to replace Karachi as Pakistan's
capital. Islamabad is a well-organized and most developed city divided
into different sectors and zones.
* It was ranked as Gamma World City in 2008.
* The city is home to Faisal Mosque, the largest mosque in South Asia and
the sixth largest mosque in the world.
* Islamabad has the highest literacy rate in Pakistan and is home to some of
the top ranked universities in Pakistan.
* Islamabad's architecture is a combination of modernity and old Islamic and
regional traditions.
 THE BIRTH AND LOCATION OF THE CAPITAL
new capital for Pakistan was necessary following the
independence of India in 1947 and the inevitable
partition into India and Pakistan.

Various solutions were proposed for the location of the

new capital from 1947 to 1959 when the final decision
was reached.

The two most important were related to the creation of

the new capital, either in Karachi or at a distance of
about 15-20 miles from this city.
* In February 1959, a commission and nine sub-
committees were formed C.A. Doxiadis started
advising on the location and planning of the new
capital in 1955 when he submitted his first report.

*In March 1959, the problem of the location of the

new capital was solved and a site was approved
which was located at the foot of the Margala Hills in
northern Pakistan
* THE HIERARCHICAL CONCEPT IN COMMUNITIES,
LAND USES AND TRANSPORTATION SYSTEM
* Islamabad is planned according to a hierarchical system
(A hierarchy is an organizational structure in which
items are ranked according to levels of importance) of
communities of various classes, each class comprising
the functions corresponding to its size.

* These communities are properly served by a major

transportation system developed within wide corridors of a
grid-iron configuration ( GRID PLAN is a type of city plan
in which streets run at right angles to each other,
forming a grid. The infrastructure cost for regular grid
patterns is generally higher than for patterns with
discontinuous streets), surrounding and defining the
higher class communities.
* Local
and collector low speed roads, wide sidewalks, pedestrian
roads and bicycles lanes within the lower class ‘Human
Communities’ provide access to the major transportation system.

* The above hierarchical system of communities and transportation

facilities, contributes to the reduction of travel distances and
time, accidents, and to the promotion of ‘Green Transport’
(walking, cycling, public transport).

* By the extensive use of cul-de-sacs (a street or passage closed at

one end) cars can move inside these ‘Human Communities’
without interfering with pedestrians.
THE MASTER PLAN AND THE DYNAMETROPLIS
CONCEPT
The Islamabad Metropolitan Area is composed of Islamabad, the old city of
Rawalpindi and the National Park.

The latter is a hilly area, containing two large lakes, the National Sports
Centre, the National University and the National Research Centre.

Four major inter-urban roads delineate the above three major

components of the Metropolitan Area.

The overall plan is based on the “Dynametropolis” concept, giving the

possibility of continuous expansion with the least possible adverse effects
in traffic and generally, in the functioning of the Metropolis.

Both Islamabad and Rawalpindi, central cores and residential areas, may
expand dynamically.
* Doxiadis, prepared the master plan in 1960 with
the suggestion for its revision after every 20
years.
* However, successive governments never
revised it which resulted in a lack of civic
planning in the city.
* Except for some minor changes, the master
plan has never been revised since 1960