APL 423 PLANNING 3

“INTRODUCTION TO URBAN & REGIONAL PLANNING”

Course Description:
Concepts & emerging trends, methods & techniques in urban and regional planning; design of human settlements, and
overview of land use in the planning of regions.

Course Objective:
At the end of the course, the student should be able:
1) Have a general understanding of the planning process;
2) Understand the basic foundation of planning;
3) Have a boarder framework upon which the student in architecture can foresee the implication of specific
projects;
4) Learn useful planning techniques relevant to the rank of the architect as a design professional;
5) To relate history & theories of urban & regional planning to ecology & sustainable development;
6) Understand the current thoughts and practices with regards to plan formulation & implementation.

MIDTERMS

TOPIC 1. Introduction to Urban Planning

Basic Definitions of Planning:

1. Planning is „a general activity, the making of an orderly sequence of action that will lead to the achievement of a stated
goal or goals‟. (Hall 2002)
2. It is the fundamental management function, which involves deciding beforehand, what is to be done, when is it to be
done, how it is to be done and who is going to do it.
3. It is an intellectual process which lays down an organization’s objectives and develops various courses of action, by
which the organization can achieve those objectives.
4. In general, it is a thinking and social process. Intellectual thought processes (thinking aspect) as well as policies
and actions (social aspect) are needed to bridge the gap between what is likely and what is desired.

Planning is nothing but thinking before the action takes place. It helps us to take a peep into the future and decide in
advance the way to deal with the situations, which we are going to encounter in future. It involves logical thinking and
rational decision making.

Planning is concerned with setting objectives, targets, and formulating plan to accomplish them. The activity help
managers analyze the present condition to identify the ways of attaining the desired position in future. It is both, the need of
the organization and the responsibility of managers.

Planning is present in all types of organizations, households, sectors, economies, etc. We need to plan because the future
is highly uncertain and no one can predict the future with 100% accuracy, as the conditions can change anytime. Hence,
planning is the basic requirement of any organization for the survival, growth and success.
Characteristics of Planning:
1. Managerial function
– it provides the base for other functions of the management,
i.e. organizing, staffing, directing and controlling, as they are
performed within the periphery of the plans made.

2. Goal oriented
– focuses on defining the goals of the organization, identifying
alternative courses of action and deciding the appropriate
action plan, which is to be undertaken for reaching the goals.

3. Pervasive
– in the sense that it is present in all the segments and is
required at all the levels of the organization. Although the
scope of planning varies at different levels and departments.

4. Continuous Process
– Plans are made for a specific term, say for a month, quarter,
year and so on. It is an ongoing process, as the plans are
framed, executed and followed by another plan.

5. Intellectual Process
– It is a mental exercise at it involves the application of mind, to think,
forecast, imagine intelligently and innovate etc.

6. Futuristic
– In the process of planning we take a sneak peek of the future.
It encompasses looking into the future, to analyze and predict it
so that the organization can face future challenges effectively.

7. Decision making
– Decisions are made regarding the choice of alternative courses of
action that can be undertaken to reach the goal. The alternative chosen
should be best among all, with the least number of the negative and
highest number of positive outcomes.
HISTORY OF PLANNING AND SETTLEMENTS: THE BEGINNING

- Agricultural societies needed a system of easy land division for crop planning and land ownership; land plotting for
redivision and reapportionment after floods.

- Rectilinear Land Plotting suited all these needs; as the logic of the plow led to rectilinear plotting in the field, the geometry
of mud brick house construction as well as the need easy land division led to rectilinear plotting in the town.
Paleolithic Times (Before 10,000 years ago)
- Man was hunter and gatherer and lived in caves.
- Man discovered fire, became a second-level consumer.

Neolithic Revolution (10,000 to 5,000 years ago)

- Agriculture, and animal domestication was born
- Man shifted from food collection to food production
- The village was formed

Other ancient civilizations:

- Mohenjo-daro and Harappa (India)
- Mesopotamia (Babylonia)
- Tenochtitlan, Mexico
- Egypt
- Greece
- China
- Cities of “Fertile Crescent” (Near East Asia)
- Thebes and Memphis
4000 B.C. – 500 B.C.
- Prevailing Influences: usually Mystical / Religious / Spiritual
- Zoroastrianism, Judaism, Buddhism, Taoism, Confucianism, Vedanta, Monism, Jainism

- Dominating Ideology: Preoccupation with cosmology, deities, death and the afterlife.
- Development Orientation (Policies):
- Temples are central to the settlements; built along or near rivers and based on cosmological concepts such as
Kan Yu or Feng Shui; the KING is the “decision-maker”.
- Main Planner is the Priest

- Influential Planning Works:

- IMHOTEP, advisor to Pharaoh Zoser
- Considered as the Inventor of the Pyramid; laid out Zoser’s
capital city and funerary temple complex in Egypt.

Planning Concern Outcomes:

- Formal overall shape and regular grid layout of Harappa, Kabangan and Mohejo-Daro, the oldest complete cities known;
Orthogonal grid as seen in an Egyptian workers’ camp dated 2670 B.C.; “Mandala” basic scheme for city form.

Indian mandala as used

as the "idea" in the design
of Old Jaipur to inform
order and guide built
form, India.
 400 B.C. 146 B.C. (GREEK CIVILIZATION)
- Prevailing Influences: - Ordering of society based on rational thinking
- Teachings of Aristotle & Plato

Aristotle and Plato were philosophers in ancient Greece who critically studied matters of ethics, science, politics, and more.
Though many more of Plato's works survived the centuries, Aristotle's contributions have arguably been more
influential, particularly when it comes to science and logical reasoning. While both philosophers' works are considered less
theoretically valuable in modern times, they continue to have great historical value.

ARISTOTLE PLATO

Notable ideas The Golden mean, Reason, Logic, Biology, Theory of Forms, Platonic idealism, Platonic realism
Passion

Main interests Politics, Metaphysics, Science, Logic, Ethics Rhetoric, art, literature, justice, virtue, politics,
education, family, militarism

Date of birth 384 BC 428/427 or 424/423 BCE

Place of Birth Stageira, Chalcidice Athens

Influenced Alexander the Great, Al-Farabi, Avicenna,
Averroes, Albertus Magnus, Maimonides
Copernicus, Galileo Galilei, Ptolemy, St.
Thomas Aquinas, Ayn Rand, and most of
Islamic philosophy, Christian philosophy,
Western philosophy and Science in general
Aristotle, Augustine, Neoplatonism, Cicero, Plutarch,
Stoicism, Anselm, Descartes, Hobbes, Leibniz, Mill,
Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, Heidegger, Arendt, Gadamer,
Russell and countless other western philosophers and
theologians

Influenced by Parmenides, Socrates, Plato, Heraclitus Socrates, Homer, Hesiod, Aristophanes, Aesop,
Protagoras, Parmenides, Pythagoras, Heraclitus,
Orphism
- Dominating Ideology: Greek Democracy through the establishment of a moral and political form of citizenship

Athenian democracy developed around the 6th century BC

in the Greek city-state (known as a polis) of Athens,
comprising the city of Athens and the surrounding territory
of Attica. Although Athens is the most famous ancient
Greek democratic city-state, it was not the only one, nor
was it the first; multiple other city-states adopted similar
democratic constitutions before Athens

Nineteenth-century painting by Philipp Foltz depicting the

Athenian politician Pericles delivering his famous funeral
oration in front of the Assembly.

- Development Orientation (Policies) - Rational structuring of settlements anchored on the interaction of citizens.
- Planner-Philosophers

LANDSCAPE – powerfully assertive

HIGH PLACES – fortified hilltop sacred precinct
TOWN DESIGN = SENSE OF THE FINITE
Aristotle’s ideal size of city = 10,000 – 20,000 people
- never attempted to overwhelm nature
- buildings give a sense of human measure to landscape
- MODULE – Greek use of house as module for town planning
- THE STREET – not a principal element but as a leftover space for circulation.
- PLACE OF ASSEMBLY – market (AGORA)