URBAN DESIGN AND

PLANNING
• EAAQ/00027/2014
• DENNIS MWANGI NDIRITU

• EAAQ/00644/2015
• MWIMA NAMBALE COLLINS
C.A DOXIADIS AND THE SCIENCE OF
HUMAN SETTLEMENTS
 Constantin A. Doxiadis
• Constantin A. Doxiadis was a greek architect born in Bulgaria by Greek parents at the year 1913.
• He worked under the Greek government in various Ministries around the years 1945-1951.
• He experienced the misery of world war 2 and thus the enormity and complexity of the problems, scarcity of resources,
urgency in guiding recovery and development and complexity in allocating aid provided by world relief and marshall plan
were decisive in his approach and involvement in overall science of human settlements.
• From these experiences in planning, he realized the basis of knowledge seemed to be lacking and what was undertaken
was ineffective. He formulated an agenda of priority issues for human settlement. He thus decided that full spectrum of
human knowledge would provide a better answer to problems than any single discipline.
 INTRODUCTION
• Doxiadis described our cities as urban nightmares. The irrational structures, clogged arteries and congested streets,
pollution and environmental degradation, lack of sufficient housing, facilities and services are indications of that cities no
longer serve their inhabitants adequately.
• While fields of science and technology have experienced rapid advancement and progress, in dealing with our cities and
settlements, we face confusion, disorientation and isolated unconcerted actions.
• He therefore proposed creation of a science, which integrates all aspects of human settlements including implementations
of ideas and solutions for a better habitat for human kind.
• He called this science ekistics, science of human settlement.
• Doxiadis saw the purpose of this science to first provide descriptive framework with increasing knowledge of facts and
gradually evolving theories and secondly it concerted effort to attain its goals and to implement ideas for better human
conditions in improved settlements.
• According to Doxiadis, there are critical conditions that are common in all cities;
1. Unprecedented increase in population in urban areas due to improved living conditions and urban migration.

2. Gradual socialistation in the patterns of living has allowed population to participate more in the city, its facilities and
resources.
3. More impact of machines in human lives. These lead to higher productivity and new possibilities. It also brings
unprecedented problems to the structure of the cities and society mainly of resource use and environmental
degredation.
• Doxiadis thus formulated a set of conceptual models which formed the basis of ekistics. They included;
1. 5 elements of human settlement-man, society, nature, shells and networks and their relationship
2. The ekistic logarithimic scal(ESL) and ekistic units.
3. Ekistic grid, consisting of units of space and five elements ofhuman settlements
4. Model of satistfaction
5. The anthropocosmos model
 EKISTIC ELEMENTS

• MAN- in the center stands man, meaning the individual human being
• SOCIETY- deals with people and their interaction with population trends, group behavior, social customs, occupation,
income and government. Of increasing importance is the preservation of values inherent in small communities after being
absorbed by larger settlements.
• NATURE- represents the ecosystem within which man and society operates and cities and settlements are placed. The
interrelation between man, machines, settlements and nature is of high importance as the carrying capacity of regions,
continents and ultimately the entire planet.
• SHELLS- generally means all buildings and structures
• NETWORKS- for transportation, communication and utilities support the settlements and tie them together with their
organization and structure.
EKISTIC LOGARITHMIC SCALE AND
GRID
• Doxiadis developed a 15 levels of settlement size/ ekistic units.
• Due to the enormity of human settlements, it is meaningless to do a study without
classifying them.
• He thus developed a grid by combining the ekistric elements with the ekistic
logarithmic scale.
• This helped to localize and categorise each study on the grids.
 MODEL OF SATISFACTION
• Doxiadis derived the goals of human settlements from Aristotle’s saying that, the goals for our cities are to make man
happy and safe.
• Safety is not only from wars but also from crimes, pollution and national disasters.
• Doxiadis believed that to survive, to live or to find happiness, humans built settlements which followed fundamental
principles that include
1. Maximum contacts-Man is continuously reaching out for a greater number of contacts(materials, aesthetics, intellectual)
with nature and other people and elements. This maximizing of contacts leads to expansion of cities.
2. Minimum effort-man tries to spend minimum effort to achieve maximum contact and to reduce energy, time and cost to
a minimum. This leads to higher densitites.
3. Optimum space- man needs optimum space whether t emporary or permanent for man as an individual or a meber of a
group for satisfaction of his needs.
4. Quality of environment-this is determined by mans relation with nature, society, shells and networks cxreating a balance
of the ekistic elements. The relationship needs to be optimized.
5. Optimum in the synthesis of all principles- a balanced and beneficial synthesis of the preceding principles has to be
created.
 ANTHROPOCOSMOS
• Doxiadis further elaborated on the grid by adding a time scale and aspects of desirability and feasibility to the x-axis.
• On the y-axis the ekistic elements were expanded to include their interelations.
• This model helps to define total system of life.
• Research began in the 1960s in Athens
• Projections pf the dynamic settlement patterns proved to be accurate which thus proved the viability of this
method
• Work on different parts of ecumenopolise such as metropolitan and megalopolises in different regions of
the world were projected to the year 2010 and 2100 and after 40yrs the 2010 projections seem to be true.
• A major difficulty in dynamically growing settlement is their unremitting change which affects the entire
system.
• According to Doxiadis, an individual cell maintains its size and structure despite growth and change of the
system.
• he thus concluded that search for ideal solutions has to be geared towards maintaining static cells within
the dynamic growth of the organism. This is achieved by removing forces of change from settlement/cell
e.g moving transportation network from center to periphery.
• In a class 4 city of about 2000 families or 10000 inhabitants, an ideal building block should not exceed
30000 inhabitants, growth is then achieved by adding blocks of a constant size than enlarging the units
themselves. This is analogous to the evolution of the house and thus not grows so much by enlarging of
one room but by adding more and more rooms.
• As the city enlarges it will be compromised of two parts, the building block and the networks serving them.
A major problem of the rapid dynamic growth is typically growth of the centers, expanding concentrically
into their surrounding areas thus having an impact in each concentric ring. This mainly results into slums
which are due to forces of transition from housing to office use and from lower to higher densities.
• Doxiadis thus formulated a compelling solution of an ideal dynapolis, that expands along a single axis
emanating from the center, allowing growth by addition and leading to a unidirectional linear arrangement.