Professional Documents
Culture Documents
EKISTICS AND
MAN’S
ALIENATION
Submitted by:
FACTORA, Precious Abegail
C. GABAO, Earl Gabriel G.
GAMBOA, John Paul G.
LLAGAS, Hannah Andrea G.
RIVERA, Samantha Ysabelle C.
BS ARCHITECTURE 5-A
Submitted to:
AR. GREGORIO L. VILLAVIZA JR.
INSTRUCTOR
EKISTICS & MAN’S ALIENATION
EKISTICS
Known as the Science of Human Settlement, “ekistics” was a Greek term coined by Greek
Architect and Urban Planner Constantinos Apostolos Doxiadis in 1942. Generally meaning,
“settling down”, the goal of ekistics is to create harmony between a settlement's residents and its
physical and sociocultural environment through the descriptive study of all types of human
settlements and the formation of broad conclusions. In a descriptive research, the physical
settlement, which is made up of both natural and man-made components, as well as the settlement's
content, such as man alone or in communities, are both examined. The investigation of five
fundamental components of human settlement, including nature, which includes physical geography,
soil resources, water resources, plant and animal life, and climate, as well as human biological and
emotional needs, sensations and perceptions, and moral values, as well as society, which includes
health and welfare, is involved in the examination of settlement content and the physical settlement.
Born in 1913, Constantinos Apostolos Doxiadis comes from a family hat played an important
role in the settlement of Greek war refugees in between the two World Wars. He worked as the
Chief Town Planning Officer in the Greater Athens Area in 1937-1938 and as the Head of the
Department of Regional Town Planning, Ministry of Public Works in Greece during 1939-1945.
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around the world based on his vision of the emerging global city.
Ekistics is the science of human settlements; this characteristic refers to functions expressed in
space by certain dimensions. In practice, Ekistics has set the goal of human happiness and basically,
satisfy “Man”.
The container; or the physical settlement, which consists both natural and man-made
artificial elements.
Where the whole content of human settlement is the geographic limits of the earth, the whole
cosmos of man. However, human settlement is no longer satisfactory for their inhabitants due to
various factors contributing to such dissatisfactory. It holds true for both the way of living of their
inhabitants
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and for the forms we give to the shells of the settlements trying to satisfy their needs.
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the means to satisfy their needs. Resulting to remaining homeless or live in houses of very
SOCIAL REALITIES – Man often appears lost and intimidated in big cities, and appears
POLITICAL REALITIES – There is the creation of new types of societies and new types
of people which have not found their corresponding political institutions. These societies
create new types of people; the marginalized, displaced, poor, and refugees.
their proper functioning, in spite of the technological achievements of our era. The include
absent
AESTHETIC REALITIES – Wed need only to look around at the ugliness of human
Furthermore, according to Doxiadis, crititcal conditions common to all cities are as follows:
at a tremendous scale.
3. There is a gradual socialization in the patterns of living, which allows the whole population
to participate more and move in the city, its facilities and resources.
4. In the modern city, growth, and change over time is a dominant feature, which must take
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EKISTICS FRAMEWORK
Doxiadis posited a convenient way of organizing information and mapping out the components
and relationships of the elements within the human settlement real. He suggested that a
The classificatory system are divided by units, elements, evolutionary phases, and factors and
disciplines.
BY EKISTICS UNITS
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Ekistics Logarithm Scale: a classification of settlements according to their size, presented based on
a logarithmic scale, running from single unit (Man) to Ecumenopolis (Hypothetical concept of
planetwide city)
Micro-settlements – units smaller than, or as small as, the traditional town where people
used, do and still do achieve interconnection by walking (house group, small neighborhood)
Meso-settlements – between traditional town and conurbation within which one can
commute daily (small polis, polis, small metropolis, small eperopolis, eperopolis)
BY EKISTICS ELEMENTS
Human settlements is a place that is inhabited by humans that includes content elements and
container elements. These elements of ekistics are divided into five parts:
Nature – includes the physical geography, soil resources, water resources, plant, and animal
life.
i. The first principle is maximization of man’s potential contacts with the elements of
nature (such as water and trees), with other people, and with the works of man (such
ii. The second principle is minimization of the effort required for the achievement of
Shells – humans initially started by changing nature by building huts. After that, began to
have expertise in the agricultural revolution which subsequently created various types of
houses.
iii. The third principle is optimization of man’s protective space, which means the
selection of such a distance from other persons, animals, objects that he can keep his
Contacts with them (first principle) without any kind of Sensory or Psychological
discomfort.
Networks – especially the transportation network that contributes to the access of occupancy
to centers of activities and clean water networks as a means of basic human needs.
iv. The fourth principle is optimization of the quality of man’s relationship with his
environment, which consists of nature, society, shells (buildings and houses if all
sorts) and networks (ranging from roads to telecommunications). This is the principle
that leads to order, physiological, and aesthetic, and that influences architecture and,
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in many respects, art.
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Society – this study examines the elements of society through sub-variables in the form of
v. Finally, the fifth principle, ,an organizes his settlements in an attempt to achieve an
optimum synthesis of the other four principles, and this optimization is dependent on
time and space, on actual conditions, and on man’s ability to create a synthesis.
BY EVOLUTIONARY PHASE
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ECONOMICS
Plays an important role in human settlement as the people belonging to the same
CULTURAL DISCIPLINE
TECHNICAL DISCIPLINE
The term is used to apply to a wide range of education disciplines, from accounting
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The discipline of Political Science analyses the processes by which resources are
allocated and values are developed and discussed within a political system.
SOCIAL SCIENCE
Social science is the branch of science devoted to the study of societies and the
Pictured here is Greek architect-engineer and town planner Dr. Constantinos Apostolou Doxiadis
(1913-1975) presenting his first ideas for the Master Plan of Islamabad. Karachi had started out as
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the
capital of Pakistan but the government at the time thought that the port city did not have “a satisfactory
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solution from points of view of climate, tradition and the existing buildings, which were not
adequate in number or to the standards required by a capital,” as Doxiadis put it in a paper. It also
had a refugee problem. Ayub Khan set up a special commission chaired by CGS Yahya Khan in
1959 and subsequently Ayub named Dr Doxiadis as advisor on the location of the capital. He
suggested two areas: one outside Karachi and the other to the north of Rawalpindi. Ayub decided in
Doxiadis Associates were later entrusted with the design of the new capital. On February 24,
1960 it was named Islamabad (the City of Islam) and the Capital Development Authority took over
from the Federal-Capital Commission to get the job done. The city was planned for a future
Doxiadis planned generous public spaces around the mountains, hillocks, plain and ravines. His
aim was to use an urban agro-farm model that would keep the city connected with nature. Four
The backbone of the Islamabad Metropolitan Area Master Plan is formed by two highways,
Islamabad Highway and Murree Highway, the alignment of which was dictated by the natural
landscape pattern and the existing man made obstacles. On the basis of the above ideas, a system of
four highways becomes the basic step for the metropolitan area. These axes form a big square,
which will define all future transportation systems and all major functions within the metropolitan
area.
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The principal system of axes in the metropolitan area of islamabad defines three distinctive areas:
c. the National Park area which will retain certain agricultural functions for several years and where
sites must be provided for a national sports center, the national university, national research institute,
etc.
The areas of Islamabad proper and Rawalpindi are both open for expansion towards the south-west,
while the National Park area is rather districted from the surrounding hills and Soan river to the
south- east.
Dynametropolis
The cities of Islamabad and Rawalpindi will develop as twin cities serving each other in
complementary ways. Islamabad will be the capital of the nation and will serve mainly
administrative and cultural functions. Rawalpindi will remain the regional center serving industrial
and commercial functions. The master plan for both cities has the flexibility to allow for future
expansions of the center. It has been designed on the basis of the ideal city of the future and to form
a dyna-metropolis. Each is planned to develop dynamically towards the south-west, their center
cores growing simultaneously and together with their residential and other functions.
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Organization
Hierarchy of Functions
ravines that cut the fields from north to south. The ground
designing the
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layout of each sector, and green spaces created by this physical feature have been fully exploited by
locating such functions as schools, gardens, parks, and playgrounds next to them. Climatic conditions
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have been also taken into account, with orientations for the purpose of insulation and taking
Social Planning
help the lower-income people to mature, and to assure the comfort of the
higher income-classes.
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MAN’S ALIENATION
Alienation is a state of separation and a person’s distancing from his spiritual and material world
and making him distant and unable to change the reality in which he lives. The alienation may be
voluntary or involuntary and imposed on him. The concept of alienation came in many fields of
knowledge, such as language, philosophy, sociology, and psychology, as well as the field of
architecture, as it is a phenomenon of the modern era, and this is what led us to the need to address it
in order to reveal its contents and forms. These introductions lead us to get acquainted with this
concept and reveal the most important thing that it contains, as the link between the built
environment and the physical components it carries with the human being as a social being has
subjective and spiritual requirements that are taken into consideration and seriously to be met in that
component that it will contain, which in turn alleviates the social problems resulting from the
problems and crises of the rupture between man and the urban structure through creating a sense of
belonging. The alienation contains multiple forms, including spatial, social and psychological
alienation, all of which lead to the separation of the link between the individual as a social being and
the place as a physical environment, which leads to the disintegration of the urban fabric and the
formation of a contradictory urban structure in the chaos of the decaying urban spaces that were the
cause of creating social problems and their failure to achieve Its social and psychological
performance.
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ALIENATION
The word is derived from the Greek word “alienation” which means cutting something off or change
in property to something else, the word” alienation” derived from the verb”alienus” which means
belonging to something else. It was a word that was widely used in explaining different theories of
man’s ever changing relationship with his surrounding environment, including factors that affect
him in terms of the natural environment, societal norms, beliefs, and his general view of the world.
Often times, man would feel detached or “estranged” from his surroundings due to a multitude of
reasons that would suggest such phenomenon. An example would be the rapid urbanization of rural
areas, a certain community that have been confined in rurality would feel estranged and detached
from the new world that they are being introduced to.
Over the years, man have alienated himself from almost everything including his;
Cultural surroundings . we have been bombarded with mass culture thereby losing
ourselves, cultural identity, and what makes us different from others. And;
Social structures. Society has become highly complicated that we now appear lost among it
and find it difficult to blend with others, thus, “man feels all the more helpless”
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fourth is alienation from others, from society. There is nothing mysterious about this fourfold
breakdown of alienation. It follows from the idea that all acts of labour involve an activity of some
sort that produces an object of some sort, performed by a human being (not a work animal or a
Alienation in general, at the most abstract level, can be thought of as a surrender of control
through separation from an essential attribute of the self, and, more specifically, separation of an
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actor or agent from the conditions of meaningful agency. In capitalist society the most important
such separation,
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the one that ultimately underlies many, if not most other forms, is the separation of most of the
producers from the means of production. Most people do not themselves own the means necessary
to produce things. That is, they do not own the means that are necessary to produce and reproduce
their lives. The means of production are, instead owned by a relatively few. Most people only have
access to the means of production when they are employed by the owners of the means of
production to produce under conditions that the producers themselves do not determine.
So alienation is not meant by Marx to indicate merely an attitude, a subjective feeling of being
without control. Although alienation may be felt and even understood, fled from and even resisted, it
is not simply as a subjective condition that Marx is interested in it. Alienation is the objective
structure of experience and activity in capitalist society. Capitalist society cannot exist without it.
Capitalist society, in its very essence, requires that people be placed into such a structure and, even
better, that they come to believe and accept that it is natural and just. The only way to get rid of
alienation would be to get rid of the basic structure of separation of the producers from the means of
production.
These are some of what are often regarded as dehumanizing conditions of work under capitalism.
Note that some of these effects are social-psycholigical types of effects that may be associated more
with meaningless or powerlessness. However, it is the alienation of objects, processes, and self that
a. Alienation of Labour not just Individual Alienation. Some consider alienation to be a personal
or psychological problem. While this aspect of alienation certainly exists, for Marx the origin of
alienation is not with the individual, nor can the problems it creates be solved on a person by person
basis, perhaps by reorganizing workplaces or providing assistance to individuals. Rather, the origin
of alienation is in the social structure, in the fact that society is organized in a way that production
takes place with alienated labour, i.e. on the capital/labour basis. It is the fact that capitalists own the
means of production, that workers must work for these capitalists, that is at the root of alienation.
The solution must be a structural one, not merely an individual one. (See Ritzer, p. 51).
b. Social Order and Disorder. Many other sociological theorists were concerned with the
economic, political and social disorganization that results from capitalism and industrialization, and
as a result they focussed their studies on values, religion, ideology, the state, or consensus. For these
theorists, the latter forces were ways in which social order could be created and maintained. In
contrast, Marx shows how social disorganization is built into capitalism with a system with private
property. Marx's solution to overcoming alienation is to remove the conditions creating alienation,
rather than modifying or reforming sociey to create greater social organization. See quotes 9 and 10.
c. Solution to Alienation. Marx connects alienation with the division of labour, wages and private
property. In early society, there was a very simple form of the division of labour, perhaps by sex and
age. People may not have specialized in particular occupations, rather there were often group or
communal activities. As the division of labour developed, and as people began to specialize in
necessary, and this created the possibility of alienation. At this stage, production was generally small
scale and exchange mostly at a local level, so that control over production was close to the producer.
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Conclusion
In spite of these weaknesses, the concept of alienation has proved to be a very useful and fruitful
one. It is widely used today in politics, in social psychology, studies of labour and work, and so on.
For Marx's system itself, the analysis of alienation is associated with the early stage of his writings.
The analysis of alienation allowed him to pull together his philosophical background, his
observations of early nineteenth century capitalism, his interest in political issues, and his first
forays into a discussion of political economy. In the Marxian system, alienation becomes
transformed into exploitation and surplus value, and it is the latter that the late Marx is more
Marx's contribution was to provide a systematic analysis of alienation, and show how it had
material origin, being rooted in the organization of labour and private property. His theoretical
approach is also evident in the study of alienation, with a dialectical analysis combining elements
from various other writers, but developing a new approach to the study of alienation.
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Conducting city planning by studying the concepts and theories that help meet the needs of
people in housing. These cities depend on a number of social, economic and human measures, and
on this basis, urban planning for cities aim towards providing three basic elements for man to
In a study by Dale L. Gibbs in 1997, “The (Form) of Alienation: Architectural Theory in an Age
of Change”, he tackled the concept of alienation through its discussion of contemporary architectural
ideas resulting in an era of rapid change taking place in society. In his study, he mentioned the
changing relationship of an architect with society to conform to new norms and succumbing to
leaving tradition. Gibbs also mentioned that he cannot generalize that all architects are expatriates,
either in person or in their relations with society, and that the traditional architect is far from the
mainstream of the society he serves, some architects feel strange, and some feel an indifference to
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the future. This
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is also a type of alienation, and that its roots lie in a new type of society, where strangers take the
form of revolution. People in the past viewed alienation traditionally as imposed on them by
circumstances socially or economically, but increasingly at the present time the position of alienation
1. Truthfulness or honesty
4. Emphasis on self-centeredness
Lastly, the study has shown the reasons for this alienation into four influences--Technology forces,
Discontinuity, Decomposition, and Cultural Change. The study in this way has been confined to the
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study of alienation from the side of the architectural idea only, and it is also not specified individuals
FORMS OF ALIENATION
Spatial Alienation
It is the disconnection of the connection between the individual and the place in which he is, so
this type of alienation has arisen in the urban environment that suffers from the distortion of the
image of it and the scattering of its parts and its lack of adherence to its failure to meet the human
requirements, all of this leads to the disconnection of the individual. Firstly the moral and then the
physical, that the spatial alienation of the individual does not come by chance, but rather is the result
of the changes that occur to the urban structure and the change in its shape, and this happens when
there is a lack of connection between parts of the place and the tyranny of a system over the existing
urban systems due to the removal and replacement of the original system, and this process includes
Psychological Alienation
One of the psychological characteristics of marginal and estranged people is affective binary in
excessive anxiety about the future, feeling of isolation, loneliness, feeling helpless and insults in
one's choices. What he wants and wishes, and what he achieves in the actual reality, affects his
psychological structure in terms of his safety and disorder, and the sick individual feels that he is
separate from himself and his feelings and separated from people for others and from society, so the
phenomenon of alienation refers to a person’s relationship with the surrounding external world and
to his relationship
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with himself.
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Cultural Alienation
Refers to the individual's departure from the culture of his society, and the end of society is a
coalition of customs and traditions prevailing in that society and the violation of the standards that
control the ownership of its members, as you find the individual rejecting these elements and
alienating them and not abiding by them, but preferring everything that is foreign and foreign to
them.
The Causes
The relationship between human settlements and the natural environment or ecological systems is
complex, iterative and continually changing. The natural environment provides the basic elements
that human beings need to survive such as food, water and shelter. The impact of human settlements
on the environment increases with population growth, settlement expansion, economic growth and
increased consumption. Thus, resulting in humans finding new ways to sustain their livelihood, in
The following has been identified to be some of the major causes of alienation in the urban setting;
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Such problems arise because of poor urban planning, causing man to flee the buzz and the noise
of the concrete utopia and settle for temporary havens on the countryside, until he feels estranged
and repeats the cycle again and again. The scholars have concluded that the physical framework of a
place has a psychological and behavioral effect on the individual, so if this frame is a physical
projection of the moral constituents, then its effect is no different from it. His action is
homogeneous, and the nature of its constituents forms the character, spirit and conscience of the
place through our extrapolation of historical and social data, that despite the spread of its physical
and moral framework, the place still affects the collective conscience of individuals, and it still
defines their behavior, which made us certain that the place has a memory that remains alive despite
its demise. It is derived from the strength of the urban and architectural presence within the existing
fabric, so all activities and actions that take place within the space and repeat in it become a feature
of its characteristics, and over time form the memory of the place, so the change of the physical
framework to a degree that inevitably leads to a change in the internal behavior, as well as changing
customs, traditions and activities. Within the space there is a reason to change its physical
framework, that making changes to the place without an in- depth and comprehensive study may
lose its function and make the place not suitable for meetings and living. Many cities that he sought
to evaluate by changing their centers and visiting vital ones that came to be innate, a job, and the
establishment of new centers according to new architectural and urban patterns, the results came
disappointing, where the restless soul usually falls under the shock of a strange and frightening
emotional reality, so the sense of loss and fear remains attached to it.
accordance with the needs of a community, which then leads to disintegration. The physical shells of
our settlements clearly demonstrates the continuous disintegration from which they are suffering.
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Millions of settlements are left behind by evolution, where physical wealth is disintegrating. The
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expansion of big urban areas where a lot of factions are irrationally mixed together cannot function
properly and assume its appropriate shape and form, resulting in congestion and overbuilding in the
centers of our city. In an effort to lessen the urban density we experience, traffic engineers
unfortunately would only make it worse by cutting the community into many different pieces
without proper planning. In the end, new communities are far worse off than old existing ones,
giving the impact that unnecessary and rapid, irrational building is not the solution, but rather,
developing and planning appropriately for the growth of already existing communities is a much
In an attempt to address this problem in urbanization and man’s relationship to the urban structure
that he belongs to, there are three possible assumptions that can be made;
The situation is inevitable. As long as the city’s structure is confused, people’s minds
The situation is not inevitable. It is a transitional one and conditions will be ameliorated
This can also be achieved through the coordination of different professionals involved in assuring
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Moreover, economists, engineers, and city officials all play a vital role in ensuring that such problem
be adequately addressed and foreseen. In this way, if they work in harmony towards a common goal
of finding proper solutions to the human settlement problems, the growth of the community and the
REFERENCES
250, S. (2002). Marx on Alienation. Retrieved from https://uregina.ca/~gingrich/s3002.htm
Glazer, N. (1947). The Study of Man: The Alienation of Modern Man. COMMENTARY: Culture & Civilization.
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alienation-of-modern-man/
Guy-Evans, O. (2023). Marx’s Theory Of Alienation. Simply Sociology: Marxism Examples. Retrieved
from https://simplysociology.com/marx-alienation.html
Horowits, A. (2010). Marx’s Theory of Alienation. AS/POLS 2900.6A Perspectives on Politics 2010-11.
Retrieved from https://www.yorku.ca/horowitz/courses/lectures/35_marx_alienation.html
Mishra, H. (n.d.). Doxiadis : Ekistics the science of human settlement. Retrieved from
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structure-and-its-impact-on-the-individual-and-society-12745.html
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