Human Settlements 3

PLANNING CONCEPTS
THE POST INDUSTRIAL CITY
• An era of complex developmental issues and models in city

planning
• Development of industry with in inner city areas and outside – led
to development of worker housing suburbs and also more
congested inner city dwelling
• The elite or the consumer moved out of the congested inner city
lured by newer developments
• An era of “display of assets” in the “posh” neighborhoods
• Mixed quality neighborhoods within the inner city areas
• speculation in neighborhoods
Ar.Mohamed Azharuddin 3
• Growth of new urban nuclei along the Railroads

• Residential areas graded according to the rents they could fetch
• Radical transformation of CBD with the development of the
skyscraper between 1870 and 1900. These tall buildings were not
technically feasible until the invention of the elevator and steel-
frame construction methods. Skyscrapers reflect the dynamics of
the real estate market; the tall building extracts the maximum
economic value from a limited parcel of land.
• These office buildings housed the growing numbers of white-
collar employees in banking, finance, management, and business
services, all manifestations of the shift from an economy of small
Firms to one of large corporations.
• Zonal & Sectorial Growth – Concentric and Wedges
• In London the inner zone was characterized by the most severe
overcrowding and extreme poverty, except in west which had
extreme affluence. The second zone was slightly less wealthy and
less crowded and less impoverished, the third zone was
inhabited by short term commuter – mainly lower middle class.
The fourth zone belonged to the wealthy. This over all pattern
was punctuated by linear features like canals, rivers, railways etc.
Industry moved outwards as the land prices increased
• In Chicago the sectors and zones were pronounced because of

immigration and radial development of the railroads fanning
outwards from CBD. The residential area grew between the
radial corridors
The Industrial City 1850
Konx and Pinch 2000 – Urban Social Geography
The Industrial City 1945 - 1975
The Post Industrial City 1975 onwards
The Industrial and Post Industrial City
Some Concepts and Models
• Some Concepts and Models
• The Garden City of Ebenezer Howard

The Garden City
Ebenezer Howard
• Ebenezer Howard (1850-1928) is known for his publication Garden Cities of To-
morrow (1898), the description of a utopian city in which man lives
harmoniously together with the rest of nature.
• The publication led to the founding of the Garden city movement, that realized
several Garden Cities in Great Britain at the beginning of the Twentieth Century
• Howard aimed to reduce the alienation of humans and society from nature, and
hence advocated garden cities
• This book offered a vision of towns free of slums and enjoying the benefits of
both town (such as opportunity, amusement and high wages) and country (such
as beauty, fresh air and low rents). Howard illustrated the idea with his "Three
Magnets" diagram.
11/10/2014
The Garden City
Ebenezer Howard
• Howard's "Three Magnets"
diagram which addressed the
question "Where will the
people go?", the choices being
"Town", "Country" or "Town-
Country.“
• For too long residents have

had to make the unfulfilling
choice between living in a
culturally isolated rural area or
giving up nature to live in a
city, but "human society and
the beauty of nature are
m1e1/a10n2/t01t4o be enjoyed
together
The Garden City - Ebenezer Howard
• The towns would be self-governed, managed by the citizens who had
an economic interest in them, and financed by ground rents.
• The land on which they were to be built was to be owned by a group

of trustees and leased to the citizens.
• Well planned buildings and ordered green spaces between, with

housing, employment and leisure within easy walking distance.
• Mechanisms to fund their long term growth - Howard saw that

development partners had to have a return on investment, but he
was able to set this at a fixed rate. Residents bought leasehold from
the Land Trust and the rents paid for a wide range of community
services facilities and infrastructure.
• Large scale – up to 30,000 people
• There was an assumed limitation of the amount of building in

relation to the area of open space.
• A stand alone new settlement or a town extension - the principle of

compound settlements is important. Howard saw a federated group
of towns intimately connected with one general center as forming a
constituent part of the Garden City movement
• An innovative view on land value and density
• Limits to growth of each garden city
• Local participation in decisions about development
• As with most instances
of social engineering,
the garden city
movement didn’t quite
achieve what it set out
to do.
• Its laudable motives and

egalitarian vision
contrast with the often
depressing artificiality of
‘garden cities’, and the
fact that they merely
function as dormitories
to the larger cities they
so often adjoin.
As far as the design goes, Howard wants to make it as
little like the overcrowded London of his day as possible,
so public parks and private lawns are everywhere. The
roads are incredibly wide, ranging from 120 to 420 feet
for the Grand Avenue, and they are radial rather than
linear. Commercial, industrial, residential, and public
uses are clearly differentiated from each other spatially
Applications: Garden City of
Letchworth (1903)
Letchworth Garden City is a town of leafy suburbs
and traditional pitched roof houses, whose quaint
appearance belies a pioneering approach.
The world’s first Garden City, it was designed to

overcome the urban squalor and rural poverty
created by rapid industrialization, by bringing
together the best of town and country living
The town was designed as a self-contained

sustainable community with proportionate areas
for homes, recreation and industrial areas, zoned
so as to avoid pollution, and surrounded by a
green belt of agricultural land for growing food.
Letchworth
• A key element of the original concept was that
the town would feed itself – the land capable of
growing enough food for the community.
• This green belt around the town, which was the

first of its kind, has been maintained and also
ensures no one is far from open country.
• The architects of the Letchworth Garden City

masterplan, Barry Parker and Raymond Unwin,
also recognised the importance of sustainable
living and incorporated gardens and communal
open space large enough to grow your own
vegetables, an idea enthusiastically adopted by
later Garden Cities.
Letchworth
• Many houses were also sited to ensure they
received the maximum amount of daylight.
• The town’s size and design means everywhere

is walkable, so the rail station, town centre and
industrial areas can easily be cycled or walked
to, and everyone has access to open space in
parks and public gardens.
• Quality of life was key to Letchworth Garden

City’s design. Comfortable, well-designed
houses were built with gardens set in tree-
lined roads, complementing clean, healthy and
safe factories in a concentrated industrial
zone, meaning pollution was limited
Applications: Garden City of Letchworth
• The town’s sustainability model is also

underpinned by a bold desire to harness
the value of the land and ensure all
people benefitted.
• This was at the heart of Howard’s model

and today the land is still held in trust for
the community, with the estate managed
by the Letchworth Garden City Heritage
Foundation, a self-funding charitable
organisation, which uses revenue from
commercial rents to reinvest in the town
for long-term benefit.
Letchworth
• Their charitable enterprises include a unique
private hospital which is free for residents, and
a grants programme to fund community
projects.
• Importantly, the Foundation is also answerable

to the community, who help shape priorities
through regular town meetings.
• Howard made clear that a population limit was

the only way to keep such towns workable and
Letchworth Garden City at 33,000 people is still
close to his suggested optimum of the time
• Some Concepts and Models
• Cities in Evolution
• Patrick Geddes
Cities in Evolution – Patrick Geddes
• Patrick Geddes (1852 – 1932) is known for his publication “Cities in Evolution”. He was a
biologist turned sociologist and town planner
• He was influenced by Darwin’s theory of Evolution of Mankind the maxim “survival of the
fittest”. Although later he believed that evolution is being driven by the organism itself
rather than an external agent as in case of natural selection
• According to this view, cities were the ultimate expression of social union and
evolution
• His view of evolution led Geddes to employ two different kinds of organic analogy when it
came to understanding cities and practicing town planning. First, the city itself was
conceived of as something ‘organic’, whether interpreted as a developing organism or
‘evolving’ in relation to its environment.
• Geddes also introduced a second evolutionary theme, in which the city was itself an
environment: a built environment, of course, whose design could positively influence the
social organism it contained. In this second sense, the role of the planner was to influence
social evolution beneficially through physical design
Cities in Evolution – Patrick
•
Geddes
Geddes’ approach to cities was largely based on his historical classification of urban
form, into two distinct periods, which he defined as paleotechnic (early
industrialization), and the neotechnic (the condition into which he supposed
industrial society to be heading)
• The influence of French social thought of the late 1870s, particularly the emerging
sciences of sociology and geography, also shaped Geddes understanding of the city.
Geddes extended the theories of Auguste Comte, Frederic Le Play and Elisée Reclus
to the study of human settlements and he was among the first to adopt a unified
perspective to understand urban development in its context
• Considered one of the founding fathers of modern urbanism, Patrick Geddes is best
remembered for introducing the concept of region and for calling for survey before
the plan in the urbanistic debate of the early 20th century.
• He also coined the term conurbation, the growing together of urban settlements. It
implied the waves of population inflow to large cities, followed by overcrowding
and slum formation, and then the wave of backflow – the whole process resulting
in amorphous sprawl, waste, and unnecessary obsolescence.
Conurbation
Geddes
``The study of human evolution is not merely a retrospect of origins in
the past ... .Beyond the first question of Whence? Ö Whence have
things come from? and the second, of How? Ö How do they live and
work? Ö the evolutionist must ask a third.
Not, as of old at best, What next? Ö as if anything might come; but

rather Whither? Ö Whither away? For it is surely of the essence of the
evolution concept ... that it should not only inquire how this of to-day
may have come out of yesterday, but be foreseeing and preparing for
what the morrow is even now in its turn bringing towards birth''
Geddes
“The environment acts, through
function, upon the organism and
conversely the organism acts,
through function, upon the
environment.“
In human evolution terms this can be
understood as a place acting through
climatic and geographic processes
upon people and thus shaping them.
At the same time people act, through
economic processes, on a place and
thus shape it.
Thus both place and folk are linked
and through work are in constant
transition.
• He was influenced by Le Play's analysis of the key units of society as
constituting "Lieu, Travail, Famille" ("Place, Work, Family"), but changing the
last from "family" to "folk". In this theory, the family is viewed as the central
"biological unit of human society "from which all else develops.
• According to Geddes, it is from "stable, healthy homes" providing the
necessary conditions for mental and moral development that come
beautiful and healthy children who are able "to fully participate in life".
• Geddes believed that true education starts with the feelings and proceeds
towards the intellect, not vice versa. His teaching philosophy emphasized
the elemental emotion of wonder which, he believed, would elicit first
admiration, and second curiosity. His motto - vivendo discimus (by living, we
learn) - was put into practice in the education of his children, for whom a
range of practical and sensory experience and an insistence on a generalist
education took primacy.
‘How many people think twice about a leaf ? Yet the leaf is the chief product and
phenomenon of Life: this is a green world, with animals comparatively few and small,
and all dependent upon the leaves. By leaves we live. Some people have strange ideas
that they live by money. They think energy is generated by the circulation of coins.
But the world is mainly a vast leafcolony, growing on and forming a leafy soil, not a
mere mineral mass: and we live not by the jingling of our coins, but by the fullness of
our harvests.’
‘Town-planning is not mere place-planning, nor even work-planning. If it is to be
successful it must be folk-planning.’
‘This means that [the task of town-planning] is not to coerce people into new places
against their associations, wishes and interest - as we find bad schemes trying to do.
Instead its task is to find the right places for each sort of people; places where they
will really flourish. To give people in fact the same care that we give when
transplanting flowers, instead of harsh evictions and arbitrary instructions to “move
on”, delivered in the manner of officious amateur policemen.’
-Patrick Geddes
• a unified "web of life" acknowledging the symbiotic nature of the living world
based on the life-force
• a two-fold life process of action and re-action involving the organism and its
environment (but similarly also between body and mind)
• his triad of Folk-Work-Place paralleled by Organism-Function-Environment; also

the Cosmosphere as the world of things(from solar systems to dewdrops),the
Biosphere(realm of organisms),and the Sociosphere (kingdom of man)
• his four chambers of the "ledger of life" expressed in his famous diagram as a
synthetic process encompassing Acts, Facts, Dreams and Deeds, emphasizing
especially relations between the objective out-world and the subjective in-
world, and the active and the passive, each complementing the other.
He proposed that the development of the city was just one part of a wider
network and that city planning therefore was not just the relationship between
streets and public spaces, but also the city and the surrounding countryside, the
drama of human history being as important as geography. Urban planning
therefore needed to take the past and geography in context.
So how does all this translate in to city planning process? The sequence
of planning based on Geddes’ principles is to be:
1. Regional survey
2. Rural development
3. Town planning
4. City design
• Geddes first published his idea of the valley section in 1909 to illustrate
his idea of the 'region-city‘. The region is expressed in the city and the
city spreads influence of the highest level into the region.
• To put it another way, Geddes said that "it takes a whole region to make
the city"
• The Valley Section illustrated the application of Geddes's trilogy of

'folk/work/place' to analysis of the region. Geddes saw this combination
of organism, function and environment as a key to understanding
human settlement and civilization.
• The valley section is a complex model, which combines physical

conditions - geology and geomorphology and their biological
associations - with so-called natural or basic occupations such as miner,
hunter, shepherd or fisher, and with the human settlements that arise
from them.
• Geddes illustrated the section using the locally available landscapes of Edinburgh
and its hinterland. In the early images, the Pentland Hills are the mountains, the
Lothian region provides the pastoral hills and agricultural plains, with their
scattered settlements and villages,
• Edinburgh is the city and Leith the fishing village closest to the sea. This was not a
simplistic illustration of environmental or social determinism, but an attempt to set
the pattern of the contemporary city, its constructions and occupations, within the
context of mankind's roots in the landscape.
'We must', he says, 'excavate the layers of our cities downwards, into its earliest
past ‐ the dim yet heroic cities over and upon which it has been built: and
thence we must read them upwards, visualising them as we go. We must place
our cities, Geddes says, in the context of their regions ‐ environmental, social
and economic ‐ and understand them in that context. This is the basis for 'town
and regional planning' as an emergent discipline and of the recent re‐
emergence of the ‘city‐region’ as a focus of policy and planning.
• Geddes perpetuated the use of survey to determine the city planning
needs.
• “We must be much more attentive, to the actual patterns of consumption

rather than simply to the patterns of economic production. We must pay
attention not just to the social aggregate of the city's population but also to
'the special and statistical observation of the real well‐being of the whole
family”
• He draws on Le Play's Monographies sociales, which were detailed

snapshots of the ways of life and spending patterns of French working‐class
families. This formed the basis of a larger method of social survey which
Geddes aimed to transform ‐ unsuccessfully in Europe but with more effect
in Palestine and India ‐ into the 'city ‐ or civic survey'.
• The basis of the survey would be a comprehensive analysis of the lifestyle

patterns of urban populations
• THE OUTLOOK TOWER - EDINBURGH
"From the hard World of Facts to the no less real
World of Acts, you can only travel by this "In-World
way."
Geddes P., Cities In Evolution, 1915, pg 208
He took over Short’s Observatory and converted it in to

Outlook Tower in 1892.
The spatial introversion of the camera obscura

represented a threshold into Geddes' "In-world". From
this height one can survey the city of Edinburgh from
the "Out-world" and immediately afterwards, by
entering the dark space, see it from the introverted
perspective of the Obscura, i.e. the "In-world".
Geddes used the tower as an educational tool, as a way

of showing new perspectives on the city, its hinterland
and how these sat in the wider contexts of the
Commonwealth and the World.
"From the high garden, or from one of your tree-top castles, you look out upon everything, you
see for miles and miles; but in your dark little caves in the ivy-bank you can sit and dream. Up in
your tree-castle you often sit dreaming, of course; and from your hidden cave, through it's ivy
curtain, you love to peep; still, in the main, one is the Out-world's Watch-tower, the other the In-
world's Gate."
Geddes P., The World Without And The World Within, Sunday Talks With My Children, 1905
• Patrick Geddes explains that what he
calls the "Out-world" is the world we
see around us, every day. He explains
to his children that the light from the
roof of the outlook tower is a way
into the "In-world", our thoughts and
memories. The "In-world" is where
we begin actively thinking and
planning; and then in carrying out our
plans we come back into the "Out-
world" once again.
As well as being what Geddes calls a

"Civic Observatory", the outlook
tower is a physical embodiment of
this philosophy.
•
Applications: Tel Aviv - 1926
Tel Aviv turned out to be the only example
of one of Geddes’ plans being built
largely as he envisaged.
The area of Tel Aviv originally planned by

Geddes makes up approximately 7.5%
of the current day municipality of Tel
Aviv and is now known as Tel Aviv’s “Old
North”.
It was designed to be an extension of the
much older neighbouring Arabic port
town Jaffa to the south and a home for
the increasing population of Jews
emigrating from other parts of the world
(predominantly Eastern Europe)
The principles he employed for the city
were strikingly similar to what we now
know as New Urbanism ideas of planning -
an emphasis was placed on pedestrians
as opposed to motor car traffic, a sense of
community and civic life was encouraged
through the use of town squares and
abundant planting of greenery provided
significant focus on a minimal
environmental footprint.
Private automobile traffic was minimised
and the city was envisaged on a
pedestrian-scale. This neighbourhood
identity has been crucial in the success of
Tel Aviv as a city.
• His plans were simple and therein
lies their success. As a biologist he
saw the city as a circulation system.
• Large main boulevards (North-

South)
– Chen, Ben Yehuda, Dizengoff and
Hayarkon were extensions of the
existing streets in the South.
• All the boulevards were paved and

well planted. The boulevards would
be the main circulation “arteries”
with the main commercial activities
and taller buildings – 5 floors. He
called them “mainways”.
Approximately at right angles to these
were the East-West boulevards – Keren
Kayemet (Ben Gurion today), Nordau,
Arlozoroff and Kibbutz Galuyot (Jabotinsky
today). These would bring the sea breezes
into the new city, like a circulatory system.
These too were mainways.
Also approximately at right angles to

these main boulevards were small roads
leading to “Blocks” as he called them.
Each block or cluster was of a different
design in shape and atmosphere and in
planting, so that there was instant
recognition of place and home.
His town plan was no mechanical or
geometrical grid like Manhattan for
instance, but a principle adapted to
the geography and topography of
the place and stressing the variety
inherent in humans, in locality and
in climate.
Each block – there were 60 of them

in his plan but unfortunately not all
were built as planned – had a central
garden surrounded by the buildings
which were accessible from the
smaller surrounding roads.
The central gardens were also the areas
where small public buildings or facilities,
kindergartens, schools, tennis courts,
would be constructed.
In this way neighborhood units would be

built and completed and the town plan
would be carried out block by block
Unfortunately only 30 gardens were built.

By allowing small buildings of 3 floors,
which faced either towards the small
access roads or the public gardens, all
inhabitants would have light and air.
Immigrants from different countries filled
these blocks and social integration was more
easily achieved.
In the “Blocks”, buildings were erected 4

meters from access roads and only 1.5 meters
from the public gardens. This made for
relatively high building density.
And in the access roads to the blocks there

were small commercial neighborhood units.
The different buildings, stressing the

individuality of their owners and architects,
assisted in the free feeling which is a Tel Aviv
hallmark.
Not all the architects working in those years agreed with the town plan and they
thought that lots should be larger, buildings spread further apart and building
densities be higher. The leading architects who had studied in Germany (Bauhaus),
Belgium, Italy and France held many architectural discussions, and further east of Ibn
Gvirol you see a rather different picture. By then Geddes was dead (in 1932), but parts
of his plans with their parks and gardens live on.
Geddes’ plan was amended by the municipality in 1938 and formally passed. By then
an additional floor was allowed to all buildings (the population had boomed, mostly
due to immigration).
But his plan with the important central features – Dizengoff Circle, Habimah Square
and Chen Boulevard – and his blocks with fruit trees and flowering shrubs around the
gardens are still a feature and are amongst the successes of world town planning of
the 20th century.
Patrick Geddes in India
Geddes' connections with India are well known. He visited four times between 1914
and 1924, staying for two and a half years between 1916 and 1919.
Whilst here he surveyed countless cities and also crystallised his thoughts on synthesis
as Professor of Civics and Sociology at Bombay University
Geddes' interest in India had begun many years before. In Chicago in February 1900 he
had met the famous Indian guru Swami Vivekanda. There are records of this meeting
with "the apostle of the Vedanta" and how "the eastern discipline of body and mind
made such a lasting impression on both Anna (Geddes' wife) and Patrick that they
later handed on to their young children the simple Raja Yoga exercises for control of
the inner nature
He gave master planning advice for various Indian cities based on his observations and
deductions thereon
Contemporary City
-Le Corbusier
Alternatives open to Modern architecture - contemporary
disaster or spatial freedom of environment
– sketch by Le
Ar.Mohamed Azharuddin
Corbusier 53
Charles-Édouard Jeanneret, who chose to be known as Le Corbusier (1887 – 1965),
was a Swiss architect, designer, urbanist, writer, artist and painter, famous for being
one of the pioneers of what now is called Modern architecture or the International
style.
He was a pioneer in studies of modern high rise design and was dedicated to providing
better living conditions for the residents of crowded cities
Born and brought up in Switzerland and interested in works of modern artists, at

around 1908, he traveled to Paris, where he found work in the office of Auguste
Perret, the French pioneer of reinforced concrete. It was both his trip to Italy and his
employment at Perret's office that began to form his own ideas about architecture.
Between October 1910 and March 1911, he worked near Berlin for the renowned
architect Peter Behrens, where he met Ludwig Mies van der Rohe and Walter Gropius
It is this that may have influenced his own ideas about architecture and cities. Le
Corbusier placed systems of harmony and proportion at the center of his design
philosophy.
His faith in the mathematical order of the universe was closely bound to the golden
section, which he explicitly used in his Modular system for the scale of architectural
proportion. He saw this system as a continuation of the long tradition of the works of
Vitruvius
Le Corbusier exemplifies the energy and efficiency of the machine age. From the
beginning his designs for houses were strikingly original with minimalistic cubism
apparent in the plans and sections. He called them “Machines For Living”.
After World War II, Le Corbusier sought efficient ways to house large numbers of
people in response to the urban housing crisis. He believed that his new, modern
architectural forms would provide an innovative solution that would raise the quality
of life for the lower classes.
He realized some of his urban planning schemes on a small scale by constructing a

series of unités (housing block units) around France. The most famous of these was
the Unité d'Habitation of Marseilles (1946-1952).
Five Points of A New Architecture
During his career, Le Corbusier developed a set of architectural

principles that dictated his technique, called "the Five Points of
a New Architecture" which were most evident in his Villa
Savoye. These were:
Pilotis – The replacement of supporting walls by a grid of
reinforced concrete columns that bears the load of the structure is
the basis of the new aesthetic.
The free designing of the ground plan – The absence of
supporting walls means that the house is unrestrained in
its internal usage.
The free design of façade – By separating the exterior of the
building from its structural function the façade becomes free.
The horizontal window – The façade can be cut along its entire
length to allow rooms to be lit equally.
Roof gardens – The flat roof can be utilized for a domestic
purpose while also providing essential protection to the concrete
Background of Ville Contemporaine :
Philosophy of Le Corbusier
1. No matter how open and green, cities should be frankly urban: urban
surroundings are to be definitely contrasting with rural surroundings
2. Densities are in themselves not a problem: Congestion and slum conditions in the
cities are due to excessive coverage, persistence of old street patterns and
unrestricted land speculation
3. Slums exist because of the failure to provide the proper surrounding for high
density living
4. “Human creations that survive are those which produce emotions, and
not
those which are only useful”
1. Assumes an ideal site which is level, river flows far away
from the site
2. Dwellers will comprise of citizens, suburban and mixed
kinds:
1. Citizens are of the city: those who work and live
in it.
2. Suburban dwellers are those who work in the outer
industrial zone and who do not come into the city:
they live in garden cities.
3. The mixed sort are those who work in the business
parts of the city but bring up their families in garden
cities.
3. High density development.
4. The towns of today can only increase in density at the
expense of the open spaces which are the lungs of a city.
“We must increase the open spaces and diminish the
distances to be covered. Therefore the centre of the city
must be constructed vertically.”
5. “The modern street in the true sense of the word is a new
type of organism, a sort of stretched-out workshop, a home
for many complicated and delicate organs, such as gas,
water, and electric mains. It is contrary to all economy, to all
security, and to all sense to bury these important service
mains. They ought to be accessible throughout their length.
The various storeys of this stretched-out workshop will each
have their own particular functions. If this type of street,
which I have called a “workshop,” is to be realized, it
becomes as much a matter of construction as are the
houses with which it is customary to flank it, and the
bridges which carry it over valleys and across rivers. The
modern street should be a masterpiece of civil engineering
and no longer a job for navies. The “corridor-street” should
be tolerated no longer, for it poisons the houses that border
it and leads to the construction of small internal courts”
6. Three kinds of roads are needed, and in superimposed storeys:
1. Below-ground there would be the street for heavy traffic.
This storey of the houses would consist merely of
concrete piles, and between them large open spaces
which would form a sort of clearing-house where heavy
goods traffic could load and unload.
2. At the ground floor level of the buildings there would be
the complicated and delicate network of the ordinary
streets taking traffic in every desired directions.
3. Running north and south, and east and west, and
forming the two great axes of the city, there would be
great arterial roads for fast one-way traffic built on
immense reinforced concrete bridges 120 to 180 yards in
width and approached every half-mile or so by subsidiary
roads from ground level. These arterial roads could
therefore be joined at any given point, so that even at the
highest speeds the town can be traversed and the suburbs
reached without having to negotiate any crossroads.
7. Following the two great axes of the city, two “storeys”
below the arterial roads for fast traffic, would run the
tubes leading to the four furthest points of the garden
city suburbs, and at the very center we have the station
with its landing stage for aero-taxis.
8. At the base of the skyscrapers and all round them we have

a great open space 2,400 yards by 1,500 yards, giving an
area of 3,600,000 square yards, and occupied by gardens,
parks and avenues. In these parks, at the foot of and round
the skyscrapers, would be the restaurants and cafés, the
luxury shops, housed in buildings with receding terraces:
here too would be the theaters, halls and so on; and here
the parking places or garage shelters.
9. On the right, and traversed by one of the arms of the main

arterial roads, we have the warehouses, and the industrial
quarters with their goods stations.
10. All around the city is the protected zone of woods and
green fields.
11. Further beyond are the garden cities, forming a wide

encircling band.
12. Then, right in the midst of all these, we have the
Central Station, made up of the following elements:
1. The landing platform; forming an aerodrome of

200,000 square yards in area.
2. The mezzanine; at this level are the raised
tracks for fast motor traffic
3. The ground floor where are the entrance halls
and booking offices for the tubes,
suburban lines, main line, and air traffic.
4. The “basement”: here are the tubes which
serve the city and the main arteries. The “sub-
basement”: here are the suburban
lines running on a one-way loop,
5. The “sub-sub-basement”: here are the main
lines (going north, south, east and west).
13. Here we have twenty-four skyscrapers capable each

of housing 10,000 to 50,000 employees; this is the
business and hotel section, etc., and accounts for
400,000 to 600,000 inhabitants.
The plan of the city
14. Basic principles:
1. We must decongest the centers of our cities.
2. We must augment their density.
3. We must increase the means for getting about.
4. We must increase parks and open spaces.
15. The great central open space are the cafes, restaurants,
luxury shops, halls of various kinds, a magnificent forum
descending by stages down to the immense parks
surrounding it, the whole arrangement providing a
spectacle of order and vitality.
Density of population
16. (a) The skyscraper: 1,200 inhabitants to the acre.

(b) The residential blocks with setbacks: 120 inhabitants to
the acre. These are the luxury dwellings.
(c) The residential blocks on the “cellular” system, with a
similar number of inhabitants.
Of the area (a), 95 percent of the ground is open (squares,
restaurants, theaters).
Of the area (b), 85 percent of the ground is open (gardens,
sports grounds).
Of the area (c), 48 percent of the ground is open (gardens,
sports grounds)
The protected zone (which will be the property of the city),

with its aerodrome
.
A zone in which all building would be prohibited; reserved for
the growth of the city as laid down by the municipality: it
would consist of woods, fields and sports grounds.
Though the gridiron arrangement of the streets every 400

yards (sometimes only 200) is uniform (with a consequent
ease in finding one’s way about), no two streets are in any
way alike.
Suppose we are entering the city by way of the Great Park. Our fast car takes the
special elevated motor track between the majestic skyscrapers: as we approach
nearer there is seen the repetition against the sky of the twenty-four skyscrapers; to
our left and right on the outskirts of each particular area are the municipal and
administrative buildings; and enclosing the space are the museums and university
buildings.
Then suddenly we find ourselves at the feet of the first skyscrapers. But here we have, not
the meager shaft of sunlight which so faintly illumines the dismal streets of New York, but
an immensity of space. The whole city is a Park. The terraces stretch out over lawns and
into groves. Low buildings of a horizontal kind lead the eye on to the foliage of the trees.
Where are now the trivial Procuracies? Here is the city with its crowds living in peace and
pure air, where noise is smothered under the foliage of green trees. The chaos of New
York is overcome. Here, bathed in light, stands the modern city.
Our car has left the elevated track and has dropped its speed of sixty miles an hour to run
gently through the residential quarters. The “setbacks” permit of vast architectural
perspectives. There are gardens, games and sports grounds. And sky everywhere, as far
as the eye can see. The square silhouettes of the terraced roofs stand clear against the
sky, bordered with the verdure of the hanging gardens.
The uniformity of the units that compose the picture throw into relief the firm lines
on which the far-flung masses are constructed. Their outlines softened by distance,
the skyscrapers raise immense geometrical facades all of glass, and in them is
reflected the blue glory of the sky. An overwhelming sensation. Immense but
radiant prisms.
And in every direction we have a varying spectacle: our “gridiron” is based on a unit of
400 yards, but it is strangely modified by architectural devices! The traveler in his
airplane, arriving from Constantinople or Pekin it may be, suddenly sees appearing
through the wavering lines of rivers and patches of forests that clear imprint which marks
a city which has grown in accordance with the spirit of man: the mark of the human brain
at work.
As twilight falls the glass skyscrapers seem to flame.
This is no dangerous futurism, a sort of literary dynamite filing violently at the spectator.
It is a spectacle organized by an Architecture which uses plastic resources for the
modulation of forms seen in light.
A city made for speed is made for success.

LA VILLE RADIUSE: (RADIANT CITY)
1. Le corbusier rearranged the key features of the Ville Contemporaine because of

the critiques he received
2. The basic ideas of free circulation and greenery were still present, but the
juxtaposition of different land-uses had changed. For example, the central area
was now residential instead of a skyscraper office core.
3. Influenced by the linear city ideas of
Milyutin and the theories of the
syndicalist movement (that he had
recently joined) he formulated a new
vision of the ideal city, the Ville Radieuse.
4. It represented an utopian dream to

reunite man within a well-ordered
environment. Unlike the radial design of
the Ville Contemporaine, the Ville
Radieuse was a linear city based upon the
abstract shape of the human body with
head, spine, arms and legs. The design
maintained the idea of high-rise housing
blocks, free circulation and abundant
green spaces proposed in his earlier
work.
LA VILLE RADIUSE: (RADIANT CITY) 1930
5. In the Radiant City, however, the pre-
fabricated apartment houses, les unites,
were at the center of "urban" life. Les
unites were available to everyone (not
just the elite) based upon the size and
needs of each particular family.
6. Sunlight and recirculating air were

provided as part of the design. The scale
of the apartment houses was fifty meters
high, which would accommodate,
according to Corbusier, 2,700 inhabitants
with fourteen square meters of space per
person. The building would be placed
upon pilotus, five meters off the ground,
so that more land could be given over to
nature
7. Inside les unites were the vertical streets, i.e. the elevators, and the pedestrian
interior streets that connected one building to another
8. Automobile traffic was to circulate on pilotus supported roadways five meters

above the earth. The entire ground was given as a "gift" to pedestrians, with
pathways running in orthogonal and diagonal projections. Other transportation
modes, like subways and trucks, had their own roadways separate from
automobiles.
9. The business center, was positioned to the north of les unites and consisted of
Cartesian (glass & steel) skyscrapers every 400 meters. The skyscrapers were to
provide office space for 3,200 workers per building.
10. Each apartment block was equipped with a catering section in the basement,
which would prepare daily meals (if wanted) for every family and would complete
each families’ laundry chores. The time saved would enable the individual to
think, write, or utilize the play and sports grounds which covered much of the
city’s land.
11. Directly on top of the apartment houses were the roof top gardens and beaches,
where residents sun themselves in “natural" surroundings - fifty meters in the air.
12. Children were to be dropped off at les unites’ day care center and raised by
scientifically trained professionals.
13. The workday, so as to avoid the crisis of overproduction, was lowered to five hours
a day.
14. Women were enjoined to stay at home and perform household chores, if
necessary, for five hours daily.
15. Transportation systems were also formulated to save the individual time.
Corbusier bitterly reproaches advocates of the horizontal garden city (suburbs) for
the time wasted commuting to the city. Because of its compact and separated
nature, transportation in the Radiant City was to move quickly and efficiently.
Corbusier called it the vertical garden city.
Applications: Unite D’habitation was
started immediately after the Second
World War (1945- 46), and was finished
in 1952.
1. It comprises 337 apartments arranged over
twelve stories.
2. The apartments are suspended on
large piloties that allowed free circulation and
abundant green spaces….“Sport at the foot of the
houses”
3. The Internal Street (third floor), incorporates
shops, sporting, medical and educational
facilities, a hotel which is open to the public, and
a restaurant.
4. Its flat roof is designed as a communal terrace
with sculptural ventilation stacks, a running
track, a shallow paddling pool for children, and
an open-air theatre.
5. The building is constructed in rough-cast
concrete
6. Le Corbusier painted the apartments in
different
colors, to create an identity for each
resident.
Applications: City of Chandigarh, India - 1950
The city of Chandigarh is planned to human scale. It puts us in touch with the infinite
cosmos and nature. It provides us with places and buildings for all human activities
by which the citizens can live a full and harmonious Life. Here the radiance of nature
and heart are within our reach.
The idea of building Chandigarh was conceived soon after India's independence in 1947, when the tragedy
and chaos of Partition, and the loss of its historic capital Lahore, had crippled the state of Punjab. A new city
was needed to house innumerable refugees and to provide an administrative seat for the newly formed
government of re-defined Punjab
It was modelled as a city of prestige, as an aesthetic ideal, and, above all, as a social utopia
"The Chandigarh Project was, at first, assigned to the American planner Albert Mayer, with his associate
Matthew Nowicki working out architectural details.
Le Corbusier's association with the city was purely fortuitous, a result of Nowicki's sudden death in August
1950. Beginning in 1951, he continued to be associated with the city as the principal ‘architectural and
planning advisor' till his death in 1965.
As it turned out, there was none else who could have matched Prime Minister Nehru's lofty optimism and
his progressive, modernist vision for an impoverished, politically unstable, newly independent nation.
Albert Mayer’s Master Plan
1. The master plan which Albert Mayer produced
for Chandigarh assumes a fan-shaped outline,
spreading gently to fill the site between the two
river beds.
2. At the head of the plan was the Capitol , the seat
of the state government, and the City Centre was
located in the heart of the city.
3. Two linear parklands could also be noticed
running continuously from the northeast head of
the plain to its southwestern tip. A curving
network of main roads surrounded the
neighborhood units called Super blocks.
5. The flatness of the site allowed almost
4. first phase of the city was to be developed on complete freedom in creating street
the north-eastern side to accommodate 1,50,000 layout and the overall pattern deliberately
residents and the second phase on the South- avoids a geometric grid in favour of a
western side for another 350,000 people. loosely curving system
Contemporary City – Le
Corbusier
Albert Mayer’s Master Plan
5. The super block was designed as a self –sufficient
neighborhood units placed along the curvilinear roads
and comprised of cluster type housing, markets and
centrally located open spaces
6. Mayer liked “the variation of Indian streets, offsetting and
breaking from narrow into wider and back” and thought
that they were appropriate to a land of strong sunlight,
7. At the narrow points, his house design involved an inner
courtyard for ventilation with small openings on the
street side to protect privacy. “We loved this little inner
courtyard,” Mayer wrote, “for it seemed to us to bring the
advantages of coolness and dignity into a quite small
house.”
8. Another element in planning was “to place a group of houses around a not very large court,
with the ends somewhat narrowing, which could serve as a social unit—i.e. a group of
relatives or friends or people from the same locality might live there, with the central area
for play, gossip, etc.” The neighbourhood units were to contain schools and local shopping
centers.
Le Corbusier’s Master Plan
1. Le Corbusier requested the assistance
of his cousin Pierre Jeanneret.
Jeanneret, together with Fry and Drew,
as senior architects working in India for
a period of three years assisted by a
team of 20 idealistic young Indian
architects, would detail the plan and Le
Corbusier could concentrate on major
buildings.
2. Le Corbusier visited India 22 times to

formulate his vision.
3. He revised the shape of the city plan

was from one with a curving road
network to rectangular shape with a
grid iron pattern for the fast traffic
roads
4. The city plan was conceived as post war ‘Garden City’
wherein vertical and high rise buildings were ruled
out, keeping in view the living habits of the people.
5. Le Corbusier conceived the master plan of

Chandigarh
as analogous to human body, with a clearly defined
a) Head (the Capitol Complex, Sector 1),
b) Heart (the City Centre Sector-17),
c) Lungs (the leisure valley, innumerable open
spaces and sector greens),
d) arms, which were perpendicular to the main axis,
had the academic and leisure facilities
The plan incorporated Le Corbusier’s
e) Circulatory system (the network of roads, the
principles of light, space and
7Vs) and
greenery. What had been named an
f) Viscera (the Industrial Area).
“Urban Village” in Mayer’s plan, Le
Corbusier renamed a “Sector”.
1. Le Corbusier divided the city into
different Sectors. Each Sector or the
neighbourhood unit, is quite similar
to the traditional Indian 'mohalla',
and measures 800 meters by 1200
meters, covering 250 acres of area.
2. The sector featured a green strip
running north to south, bisected by
a commercial road running east to
west.
3. Les Sept Voies de Circulation
V1: arterial roads that connect one city to another, V5: distribution road meandering through a sector,
V2: urban, city roads, V6 residential road,
V3: vehicular road surrounding a sector, V7: pedestrian path,
V 4: shopping street of a sector,
.
4. Each Sector is surrounded by V2 or V3 roads,
with no buildings opening on to them and
meant to be self-sufficient, with shopping
and community facilities within reasonable
walking distance
5. The entrance of cars into the sectors, which
are exclusively reserved to family life, can
take place on four points only; in the middle
of the 1,200 meters; in the middle of the 800
meters. All stoppage of circulation shall be
prohibited at the four circuses, at the angles
of the sectors. The bus stops are provided
each time at 200 meters from the circus so
as to served the four pedestrian entrances
into a sector. Thus the transit traffic takes
place out of the sectors; the sectors being
surrounded by four wall-bound car roads
without openings (the V3s).
City’s Green
The hierarchy of open space is prominently

visible in the city.
1) At the city level, the open space consist
of
the Leisure Valley and special gardens.
2) At sector level, the open space constitute

the central green in each sector whereas
open space at community level consist of
parks around which clusters of houses re
arranged.
3) The smallest category of open space is the

courtyards provided in each dwelling on
the front and rear side.
Architectural Controls:
1. To curb undue individualism in the built environment, Le Corbusier conceived a number of
mechanisms to regulate the development of private buildings in the city.
2. These included : architectural controls, frame controls and zoning controls.
3. The basic aim was to maintain uniformity in skyline, heights and the architectural character.
4. Further controls on private construction in the city have been imposed through building
byelaws, which govern and lay down the minimum standards of light ventilation, living area
and sanitation.
5. Each plot of land in the city is governed by the specific use and building volume that can be
developed on it through ‘zoning restriction’.
6. In small residential houses frames control was devised which is an architectural element
limiting projection lines and unifying heights. Opening of desired size and shape may be
arranged within this frame as per individual requirements.
7. Similarly in shopping street, architectural order is ensured by development of shops as
architectural controls.
Architectural Controls:
1. To curb undue individualism in the built environment, Le Corbusier conceived a number of
mechanisms to regulate the development of private buildings in the city.
2. These included : architectural controls, frame controls and zoning controls.
3. The basic aim was to maintain uniformity in skyline, heights and the architectural character.
4. Further controls on private construction in the city have been imposed through building
byelaws, which govern and lay down the minimum standards of light ventilation, living area
and sanitation.
5. Each plot of land in the city is governed by the specific use and building volume that can be
developed on it through ‘zoning restriction’.
6. In small residential houses frames control was devised which is an architectural element
limiting projection lines and unifying heights. Opening of desired size and shape may be
arranged within this frame as per individual requirements.
7. Similarly in shopping street, architectural order is ensured by development of shops as
architectural controls.
Chandigarh has four main work centers :
1. The Capitol Complex in the north-east

2. The Educational institutes in the north-west
3. The City Centre in the heart
4. The industrial area in the south-east
Le Corbusier conceived the tree plantation and landscaping for the City in harmony with the
beautiful natural settings of Shivalik Hills. He studied the various species of trees, their shapes,
foliage and colour of flowers etc. before planning landscape scheme for three great urban
elements roads, urban spaces and free spaces such as the leisure valley and the parks
The leisure valley is a green sprawling space extending North-East to South-West along a
seasonal choe and was conceived by Le Corbusier as the lungs of the city. The fitness trails and
the other gardens along the green belt, which passes through the city, offer quiet a retreat at all
hours of the day, orchestrating life's subtler impulses and heightening the spiritual experience
In all, more than 100 different tree species have been planted in Chandigarh
Le Corbusier’s Sketches
City Center:
The city centre (Sector 17) is the heart of Chandigarh's

activities. It comprises the Inter-State Bus Terminus,
Parade Ground, District Courts, etc. on one hand, and vast
business and shopping center on the other. The 4-storey
concrete buildings house banks and offices above and
showrooms/shops at the ground level with wide
pedestrian concourses
The Capitol Complex
Assembly
High Court
Secretariat
Broad acre City

-Frank Lloyd Wright
Broadacre City – Frank L Wright
1. Frank Lloyd Wright (1857 – 1959) was arguably known as the best
American architect in his era.
2. Born and raised on a farm in Wisconsin USA, he migrated to Chicago to

work with Louis Sullivan. By the early 20th century he had established his
own office and had become known for his “prairie Style” houses
3. Had promulgated “organic architecture” of which his ‘Falling Water’

became the most famous, But he also had a faith in technological
advancements, believing that technological advancements will make
decentralized living a reality
4. He used steel and glass in his buildings and was fascinated by the
automobile
5. Frank Lloyd Wright was the most radical, most stubborn, and most
influential of a rare species of urban planners, which wanted to rid
the world of the industrial city altogether. It is ironical that the most
celebrated architect of the time should be so completely anti
urbanism.
6. “Wright felt the city and the industrial civilization that produced it
must perish. They were the consequences of diseased values, and to
achieve health, new values had to be established in a new
environment.” – Leonard Reissman (Urban Sociologist)
“ Like some tumor grown malignant, the city like a cancerous growth,
has become a menace to the society”
“Democracy….we have started toward a new integration—-to an

integration along the horizontal line which we call the great highway.”
7. Wright wrote a rebuttal to Le Corbusier’s “The Radiant
City”, the apotheosis of vertical growth, where soaring
skyscrapers would house 2,700 people, and interior
streets would connect one building to the other, in New
York Times
8. His rebuttal was named as “Broad acre City – An

Architect’s Vision”
9. In 1932, Frank Lloyd Wright first described his utopia in

his
book called “The Disappearing City” – fittingly so
Imagine spacious landscaped highways …giant roads, themselves
great architecture, pass public service stations, no longer eyesores,
expanded to include all kinds of service and comfort. They unite and
separate — separate and unite the series of diversified units, the farm
units, the factory units, the roadside markets, the garden schools, the
dwelling places (each on its acre of individually adorned and cultivated
ground), the places for pleasure and leisure. All of these units so
arranged and so integrated that each citizen of the future will have all
forms of production, distribution, self improvement, enjoyment, within
a radius of a hundred and fifty miles of his home now easily and
speedily available by means of his car or plane.
This integral whole composes the great city that I see embracing all of
this country—the Broadacre City of tomorrow.
Main Features:
• At Broadacre’s center were one-acre land units meant for
nuclear families.
• Expanding from this center, Wright designated distinct

areas that included: little farm units; “luxurious” type
(non-farm) housing; orchards; hotel; sanitarium; music
garden; zoo; aquarium; little factories; scientific and
agricultural research; and a “small school for small
children.” On one panel of the Rockefeller Model were a
series of negations that included:
• No Slum. No Scum
• No traffic problems
• No glaring cement roads or walks
Main Features:
• This would be accomplished by the decentralization of cities
over spans of hundreds of miles. Rather than one large city
crammed with millions of people, there would now be dozens of
sprawling cities with those millions evenly distributed.
• Wright imagined a flowering of small cities covering the entire

United States, all connected by a superhighway. Each city would
be embedded in nature and have its own cultural and
educational centers. Wright’s “larger villages” would contain only
about 10,000 individuals.
• In every way, Broadacre was an alternative to the mega-city.

Wright, an ardent individualist, also hated money (“the modern
city is its stronghold and chief defender”), land rent and
landlords, and above all, profit and bureaucracy
Main Features:
• Regarding the inevitability of suburban sprawl, Wright was not naïve.
He knew population growth would push Americans out of the cities;
that some intermediary between urban and rural would arise. What he
wanted was to harness this inevitability, to direct its flow.
• In 1958, already witnessing the dark sides of suburbanization, Wright

wrote, “America needs no help to Broadacre City. It will haphazard
build itself. Why not plan it?”
• Wright really wanted the city to fall out altogether, and like a post-
apocalyptic pioneer, he wanted to shape its replacement. The closest
he ever came to Broadacre’s realization was in 1943, when he
compiled a “Citizens’ Petition” signed by sixty-four Broadacre
sympathizers, including Albert Einstein and Nelson Rockefeller. He
sought unlimited cash flow to dot the American landscape with
Broadacres. He never got it.

In his Petition he wrote:
Inevitably, there will develop a new form of community life, but just
what it will be except as Broadacre City tentatively outlines it as free
to grow, who can say? Not I. Who is going to say how humanity will
eventually be modified by all these spiritual changes and physical
advantages, sound and vision coming through solid walls to men, each
aware of anything in or of the world he lives in without lifting a finger,
making it unnecessary to go anywhere unless it is a pleasure to go.
The whole psyche of humanity is changing and what that change will
ultimately bring as future community I will not prophecy. It is already
greatly changed.

However, the Roosevelt Administration rejected their appeal, and the
utopian plan fell out of political favor. The redistribution of land,
liquidation of government, and eradication of cities were ideas too
radical and impractical
Wright contended that the air, light, and space afforded by

decentralization away from cities—which he conceived of as “soulless
machines of capital accumulation” (Wright 1958, 17)—would have
salubrious effects and strengthen the nation’s democracy (Lopez 2012,
78).
Additionally, an architect rather than a politician would manage land

ownership and state or county governmental bodies rather than federal
bodies would govern public utilities (Wright 1935, 346).

The allocation of one acre of land to each person in Broadacre City
would allow the population to be involved in food production, and a
system of roadside markets would enable the trade, sale, and
distribution of personally produced food
According to Wright, human rights include a right “to the ground itself”
(Wright 1935, 345). But this right is not just to private property, but to a
working relationship with the land: “To have and to hold!”
“Monarchy was the ideal of “Centralization… so Democracy is the

ideal
of reintegrated decentralization”

Main Features:
• There should be as many kinds of houses as there are kinds
of people and as many differentiations as there are different
individuals. A man who has individuality (and what man
lacks it?) has a right to its expression in his own environment
- Wright 1908
• ORGANIC ARCHITECTURE: All forms integral, natural to site,

materials, process of construction and purpose
• Among some of the features of the Broad Acre City, too

numerous to list in full include little farms, music gardens,
flight service, vineyards and orchards, schools, cinemas, gas
stations, general merchandising and markets, little factories
and so forth.
Main Features:
• Also listed in the Broadacre City's official description
are general guidelines or rules. Among the more
relevant are:
1. No private ownership of public needs. No public ownership of

private
needs.
2. No landlord and tenant - An acre of ground per person minimum by
virtue of site value tax.
3. No traffic problem. No back and forth haul.
4. No poles or wires in sight. Streets are lighted at the curb. No
headlights.
5. No ditches alongside the roads.
6. Roads are concave with drainage and utilities buried in median.
7. Tall buildings are isolated in parks.
8. Building design determined by the character and topography of the
region
A City designed for Democracy
Naturally enough the railroad rights-of-way as may be, belong to the people; and
truck lanes occupy the vacant spaces each side along the rails. Various streams of
continuous cross-country traffic, local and long distance bus travel and local
trucking should be placed upon these popular railroad rights-of-way, thus restoring
the highway to the safe use of the citizen in his automobile.
There may be many minor transient stations instead of a few major ones. Railway
cars would not run by noisy "trucks" but slide down shallow skids, the cars mounted
upon them being light cylindrical tubes perhaps jet-powered. A railway train would
become capable of 150 miles an hour without any uncomfortable vibration.

As was he in favor of the use of the
machine in the Arts & Crafts, he also
favored the machine, by way of new
means of communication via the
telephone and new speeds of
transportation via the automobile.
In the ancient cities, it was necessary to
live in such close confines because there
was no other means of communication
than by personal contact, and the slow
transport available to move between
great distances hindered
decentralization..
In the modern city there is no
need to be so close together
The train was to be a series of
cylinders for the passenger cars,
air driven by propeller above
the engine car track or monorail

Frank Lloyd Wright would refine the concept of
the Broadacre City for the remainder of his life.
In 1945, Wright revised The Disappearing City
essay and published it as When Democracy
Builds, and in 1958 he published The Living
City. All three essays relate to the concept of
decentralization.
A square mile section of what was proposed

to be a continuous fabric of inhabited
landscape across the American continent

He called for “a new standard of space
measurement—the man seated in his
automobile.”
He thought every person should have a car
and, eventually, an “aerator”—a helicopter
that could land without a landing strip

Broadacre City – Frank L
Wright

New Urbanism
New Urbanism
"The long-standing preoccupation with automobiles has degraded our communities
to such a degree - physically and otherwise - that our destinations are no longer
places worth reaching." –World Watch Institute
“A town is saved, not more by the righteous men in it than by the woods and
swamps that surround it.” -- Henry David Thoreau
NEW URBANISM is an important planning movement of this century. It is an

international movement to reform the design of the built environment, and is about
raising the quality of life and standard of living by creating better places to live.
New Urbanism is the revival of the lost art of place-making, and is essentially a re-
ordering of the built environment into the form of complete cities, towns, villages, and
neighborhoods - the way communities have been built for cen
New Urbanism involves fixing and infilling cities, as well as the creation of compact
new towns and villages.

The 10 Principles of New Urbanism
1. Walkability
Most needs are within a 10-minute walk of home and work. Street design is
friendly to pedestrians, because buildings are close to the street and have
porches, windows, and doors. Streets have lots of trees and on-street parking,
with parking lots and garages placed behind buildings and houses, often
connected to alleys. Streets are narrow, which slows traffic dramatically.
2. Connectivity
An interconnected street grid disperses traffic and encourages walking.
3. Mixed-Use and Diversity

Neighborhoods, blocks, and buildings offer a mix of shops, offices, apartments,
and homes. The neighborhoods welcome people of all ages, income levels,
cultures, and races.

4. Mixed Housing
Zoning allows the close proximity of a wide range of housing types, sizes, and
prices.
5. Quality Architecture and Urban Design

Buildings emphasize beauty, aesthetics, and comfort and establish a sense of
place; public spaces function as civic art, establishing an attractive, quality public
realm.
6. Traditional Neighborhood Structure

Neighborhoods have definite centers and edges, with public spaces near the
center. Each neighborhood contains a range of uses and densities within a 10-
minute walk.
7. Increased Density
Buildings, residences, shops, and services are close together to make walking
more convenient, services and resources more efficient, and living areas more
enjoyable.

8. Smart Transportation
A network of high-quality public transit connects cities, towns, and
neighborhoods, while pedestrian-friendly design encourages more use of
bicycles, rollerblades, scooters, and walking as daily transportation
9. Sustainability
The community uses respect for natural systems and eco-friendly technologies
like energy efficiency to minimize effects on the environment. The community
connects strongly with surrounding farmland, encouraging land preservation
and local food consumption.
10. Quality of Life

These design principles produce a life that is well worth living by providing
places that enrich, uplift, and inspire the human spirit.

The urban-to-rural transect is an urban planning model created by
New Urbanist Andrés Duany. The transect defines a series of zones that
transition from sparse rural farmhouses to the dense urban core.
Each zone is fractal in that it contains a similar transition from the edge
to the center of the neighborhood. The transect is an important part of
the New Urbanism and smart growth movements.
The importance of transect planning is particularly seen as a contrast to

modern zoning and suburban development. In these patterns, large
areas are dedicated to a single purpose, such as housing, offices,
shopping, and they can only be accessed via major roads.
The transect, by contrast, decreases the necessity for long-distance

travel by any means

The Segmentation of
the Transect
continuum is
accomplished by
dividing it into six
different Transect
Zones:
1. Rural Preserve
(T1),
ransect
2. Rural Reserves
(T2),
3. Sub-Urban
The T
(T3),
4. General Urban
(T4),
5. Urban Center (T5),
and
6. Urban Core (T6).
11/10/2014
The concept of the transect was borrowed from ecology. Ecological
transects are used to describe changes in habitat over some gradient
such as a change in topography or distance from a water body. Patrick
Geddes, in his Valley Section of the early 20th century was among the
first to proclaim that human settlement should be analyzed in the
context of its natural region.
Human beings thrive in different habitats. Some people prefer urban

centers and would suffer in a rural place, while others thrive in the rural
or sub-urban zones.
Before the automobile, American development patterns were walkable,

and transects within towns and city neighborhoods revealed areas that
were less urban and more urban in character.

To systemize the analysis and coding of traditional patterns, a prototypical
American rural-to-urban transect has been divided into six Transect Zones, or
T-zones, for application on zoning maps. Standards were written for the first
transect-based codes, eventually to become the SmartCode, which was
released in 2003 by Duany Plater-Zyberk & Company.
This zoning system replaces conventional separated-use zoning systems that
have encouraged a car-dependent culture and land-consuming sprawl.
The six Transect Zones instead provide the basis for real neighborhood
structure, which requires walkable streets, mixed use, transportation options,
and housing diversity. The T-zones vary by the ratio and level of intensity of
their natural, built, and social components. They may be coordinated to all
scales of planning, from the region through the community scale down to the
individual lot and building.

The Transect seeks to rectify the inappropriate intermixing of rural and urban elements known as
sprawl. No desire for a particular type of development is categorically “wrong;” it is just in the
wrong Transect location.
The transect eliminates the “urbanizing of the rural” - office towers in otherwise pristine
environments - or equally damaging, the “ruralizing of the urban” - undefined, vacant open space in
the urban core. The prescribed urban pattern is therefore based on, theoretically, finding the proper
balance between natural and human-made environments along the rural-to-urban Transect.

Urban Urban
Transect of Transect of
Hayward, El Paso,
California Texas
Urban Transect of Jamestown, Rhodes Island
New Orleans
Washington
San Fransisco
Miami

Smart Code
1. Article 1 contains the general instructions
pertaining to all other Articles.
2. Article 2 prescribes how Regional Plans
designate the Open Sectors intended for
open lands and the Growth Sectors intended
for development and redevelopment. It also
prescribes what Community Unit types
belong in each Sector.
3. Article 3 prescribes the requirements for
New Communities, including the Transect
Zones that make up each type.
4. Article 4 prescribes the Infill
requirements
for areas already urbanized.
5. Article 5 prescribes lot and building
standards within each Transect Zone.
6. Article 6 contains diagrams and tables
supporting the other Articles.
7. Article 7 contains terms and definitions
supporting the other Articles

Human Settlements 3

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Human Settlements 3

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PLANNING CONCEPTS

THE POST INDUSTRIAL CITY

• An era of complex developmental issues and models in city

• Growth of new urban nuclei along the Railroads

• Zonal & Sectorial Growth – Concentric and Wedges

• In Chicago the sectors and zones were pronounced because of

Some Concepts and Models

• Some Concepts and Models

• The Garden City of Ebenezer Howard

• For too long residents have

• The land on which they were to be built was to be owned by a group

• Well planned buildings and ordered green spaces between, with

• Mechanisms to fund their long term growth - Howard saw that

• There was an assumed limitation of the amount of building in

• A stand alone new settlement or a town extension - the principle of

• An innovative view on land value and density

• Limits to growth of each garden city

• Local participation in decisions about development

• Its laudable motives and

The world’s first Garden City, it was designed to

The town was designed as a self-contained

• This green belt around the town, which was the

• The architects of the Letchworth Garden City

• The town’s size and design means everywhere

• Quality of life was key to Letchworth Garden

• The town’s sustainability model is also

• This was at the heart of Howard’s model

• Importantly, the Foundation is also answerable

• Howard made clear that a population limit was

• Some Concepts and Models

Not, as of old at best, What next? Ö as if anything might come; but

• his triad of Folk-Work-Place paralleled by Organism-Function-Environment; also

• The Valley Section illustrated the application of Geddes's trilogy of

• The valley section is a complex model, which combines physical

• “We must be much more attentive, to the actual patterns of consumption

• He draws on Le Play's Monographies sociales, which were detailed

• The basis of the survey would be a comprehensive analysis of the lifestyle

He took over Short’s Observatory and converted it in to

The spatial introversion of the camera obscura

Geddes used the tower as an educational tool, as a way

As well as being what Geddes calls a

The area of Tel Aviv originally planned by

• Large main boulevards (North-

• All the boulevards were paved and

Also approximately at right angles to

Each block – there were 60 of them

In this way neighborhood units would be

Unfortunately only 30 gardens were built.

In the “Blocks”, buildings were erected 4

And in the access roads to the blocks there

The different buildings, stressing the

Born and brought up in Switzerland and interested in works of modern artists, at

He realized some of his urban planning schemes on a small scale by constructing a

During his career, Le Corbusier developed a set of architectural

8. At the base of the skyscrapers and all round them we have

9. On the right, and traversed by one of the arms of the main

11. Further beyond are the garden cities, forming a wide

1. The landing platform; forming an aerodrome of

13. Here we have twenty-four skyscrapers capable each

16. (a) The skyscraper: 1,200 inhabitants to the acre.

The protected zone (which will be the property of the city),

Though the gridiron arrangement of the streets every 400