MAKING GREAT

CITIES

STREETS
Helps make community
Physically comfortable
Safe
Encourage participation
Specific representative characteristic

1. PLACES FOR PEOPLE TO WALK WITH SOME

LEISURE
Public Socializing
ON
FOOT
Community enjoyment
Intimately involoved with Urban environment eg:
stores,houses,people
BUT NO SUCH THINGS HAPPEN WHILE TRAVELLING IN CARS.

LIESURELY SAFE WALKING ON STREETS

Neither crowding nor lonely
Should be safe from vehicles
>2 people/min/m
------ lonely
Around 8 people/min/m ------ leisure
13 people/min/m
----- crowding but still
can walk
leisurely
17 people/min/m
----- crowding but not
safe
CUBS AND SIDEWALKS-Protect pedestrians
But curbs simply may or may not provide
protection
WHAT CAN BE DONE????
Trees can be planted on curbs to provide
barrier
Parking lane can be made but not very
much preferable.

What to be done in case of small streets???

No curbs or separations help in this case.
So in this special case we will let people mix
with automobiles.
Eg: Via dei
Giubbonari,
Rome

Auto is forced to move at the pedestrian

pace.
2.PHYSICAL
COMFORT
Shades
Sitting areas
Climate
responsive

3. DEFINATION ------------- boundaries

If streets are wide they become
plazas

Vertically
eg Height of
building,trees etc.

Horizontally
eg spacing, length
etc.

3x

2x

Factors:
Human Scale
Psychological experience
Distance at which facial expressions are
seen.
Paris streets are example of
harmonious streets

Quality of street
Streets as Primary Urban Public Space
Streets as image of city
important characteristics that people look for

the liveliness and

diversity of the predominantly core areas.

by mixing various land uses we can achieve

a more vital,

vibrant, attractive,

safe, viable, and

sustainable pattern of urban lifestyle

QUALITIES THAT ENGAGE THE EYES

Great streets require physical characteristics that help the

eyes do what they want to do, must do: move. Every great
street has this quality.

Generally, the constant movement of light over many

different surfaces keeps the eyes engaged.

Separate buildings, many separate windows or doors can

achieve this effect, or surface changes.

Beyond helping to define a street, separating the pedestrian

realm from vehicles, and providing shade, trees are special

because of their movement.

QUALITIES THAT ENGAGE THE

EYES
What of streets at night?
Much that was visible during the day

disappears. The eyes may have less to

look at.

They become more focused, usually

at a lower level than during the day,

where the lights are: streetlights,
signs, and store windows.

TRANSPARENCY
One can see or have a sense of what is behind whatever it is that defines the

street; one senses an invitation to view or know, if only in the mind, what is
behind the street wall.

Usually it is windows and doors that give transparency.

On commercial streets, they invite you in, they show you what is there and, if

there is something to sell or buy, they entice you.

On the best shopping streets there may be a transition zone between the

street and the actual shop doorways.

There are subtle ways to achieve transparency; it need not be all windows and

doors.

There are blank-walled passageways in Venice, less than three feet wide, with

no windows and very few doorway.

TRANSPARENCY

MAINTENANCE
Clean
Smooth
No pothoholes
Use of materials that are relatively easy to maintain and street
elements for which there is some history of caring.