GEOG 346: Day 18

1. GEOG 346: Day 18 GEOG 346: DAY 17 Teunesha and Urban Design Teunesha and Urban Design

2. Housekeeping Items Any comments about the field trip on Thursday? Anyone like to offer brief reports on the field course to Portland and Seattle? Today we will hear Teunesha’s presentation (she has been very understanding and patient) and, rather than doing Chapter 5 of Condon, I will try to complement her presentation by talking about urban design principles (please supplement based on your Gordon Cullen exercise from the field course). Good place-making and public space resource: www.ppp.org.

3. Urban Design Definition of urban design: “is the process of designing and shaping cities, towns and villages. Whereas architecture focuses on individual buildings, urban design address the larger scale of groups of buildings, of streets and public spaces, whole neighborhoods and districts, and entire cities, to make urban areas functional, attractive, and sustainable.” (Wikipedia) Different authors/ practitioners offer different principles, but some key ones are as follows.

4. Urban Design Respect the existing sense of place (vs. all-too-common commercial ‘blandscapes’ and referencing of Mediter-ranean, Californian, and French styles in a rainforest setting). Create environments for people, not cars (speaks for itself) Foster the human scale (don’t dwarf people) Create 24/7 environments for ‘eyes on the street’ (avoid single use precincts and blank walls) Achieve street width/ building height proportionality Aim for visual focal points for significant landmarks Aim for legibility of buildings and environments (make navigation and wayfinding easy)

5. Urban Design – DOs and DON’Ts Don’t Do

6. Urban Design – DOs and DON’Ts Don’t Do

7. Urban Design – DOs and DON’Ts Don’t Do

8. Urban Design – DOs and DON’Ts Don’t Do

9. Urban Design – DOs and DON’Ts Don’t Do

10. Urban Design – DOs and DON’Ts Don’t Do

11. Urban Design – DOs and DON’Ts Don’t Do

12. Other Thoughts About Urban Design? Principles? Examples? Authors? What makes for distinctive places? Here’s a short video about cycling culture in Copenhagen: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PS18RcH8nzM.