ASSIGNMENT- 10

TOWN PLANNING

SUBMITTED TO: SUBMITTED BY:

AR. POOJA AGGARWAL DEEPALI RAI
B.ARCH,4TH YEAR,
7TH SEMESTER
KELVIN LYNCH
INTRODUCTION
•Kevin Andrew Lynch was born
on7th Jan 1918 & died on
25thApril 1984.
•He was an American urban planner
& author.
•He is best known for his work on
mental mapping & on
perceptual form of urban
environments.
•His famous book The Image of the
City which he
published in 1960 is very famous
among his works.
•He was a disciple of FLW before he
studied city
planning, & spend his academic
career at the
Massachusetts Institute of
Technology, teaching there.
•He practice site planning and
urban design

CONCEPT OF MENTAL MAPPING

• A mental map is a person's point-of-view perception of their area
of interaction.
• A person’s perception of the world is known as mental map, it’s
an individual’s own map of their known world.
• The image which the user form in his mind about the
architectural and urban components of the city and their places
so he can direct his motion through the city after that
 • Mental maps of an individual can be investigated by:
• Asking for directions to a landmark or other location.
• Asking someone to draw a sketch map of an area or describe
that area.
• Asking a person to name as many places as possible in short
period of time.
Mental image properties :
The overall mental image of an urban environment will be:
1. Partial : not covering the whole city
2. Simplified : omitting a great deal of information
3. Unique : each individual has his/her own
4. Distorted : not necessary has real distance or direction.

THEORY - FIVE POINTS

Kevin Lynch found that there are
five basic elements which people
use to construct their mental
image of a city:
• Pathways
• Districts
• Edges
• Landmarks
• Nodes
1. PATHWAYS
• These are the streets, sidewalks, trails, canals, railroads and other
channels in which people travel;
• They arrange space and movement between space
• Paths are the channels along which the observer moves. They
may be streets, walkways, transit lines, canals, railroads.

2. EDGES
• Boundaries;
• They can be either Real or Perceived;
• These are walls, buildings, and shorelines, curb stone, streets,
overpasses, etc.
• Edges are linear elements that form boundaries between areas
or linear breaks in continuity (e.g. shores, railway cuts, walls)
3. DISTRICTS
• Medium to large areas that are two dimensional;
• An individual enters into and out of these areas;
• Have common identifying characteristics.
• Districts are the medium-to-large sections of the city which the
observer mentally enters "inside of," and which are recognizable
as DISTRICTS

4. NODES
• Large areas you can enter, serve as the foci of the city,
neighbourhood, district, etc.;
• Offers the person in them multiple perspectives of the other core
elements.
 5. LANDMARKS
• Points of reference person cannot enter into;
• These are buildings, signs, stores, mountains, public art;
• Mobile Points (such as Sun) can be used as well

THREE CITIES ON THIS CONCEPT

The image of the cities Boston, Jersey Cities and Los Angeles
derived from the consensus of verbal interviews and sketch maps.