Urban Design

1. Shireen Abdelrahman Definitions and Objectives Urban Design Lecture 1

2. Why good urban design? Good urban design is essential if we are to produce attractive, high-quality, sustainable places in which people will want to live, work and relax. It is fundamental to our objective of an urban renaissanceالنهضة الحضرية . We do not have to put up with shoddyرديئة, unimaginative and second-rate buildings and urban areas. There is a clamorضوضاء for better designed places which inspire and can be cherishedالتي يمكن ان تكون مصدر الهام , places where vibrant communities can grow and prosperالأماكن التي يمكن ان تكون مجتمعات حيوية . To achieve this we need to effect a culture change, and this guide is designed to help this process

3. Why Good Urban Design?

4. Urban design, Definitions Urban design is the art of making places for people. It includes the way places work and mattersشئون حياتهمsuch as community safety, as well as how they look. It concerns the connections between people and places, movement and urban form, nature and the built fabricالنسيج الحضري , and the processes for ensuringضمان successful villages, towns and cities. Urban design is a key to create sustainable developments and the conditions for a flourishing economic lifeازدهار الحياة الاقتصادية, for the prudent useالاستخدام الرشيد of natural resources and for social progress. Good design can help create lively places with distinctive characterطابع مميز; streets and public spaces that are safe, accessible, pleasant to use and human in scale; and places that inspireتلهم because of the imagination and sensitivity of their designers.

5. Urban design There are many benefits to be gained from thinking coherently مترابطabout the way places are designed. Some are the traditional concerns of good planning, others are relatively new. For example, ‘Secured by Design’ promoted by the Association of Chief Police Officers has prompted greater attention to designing out crime and the fear of crime. More recently, the Urban Task Force led by Lord Rogers underlined the importance of good urban design to an urban renaissance. The Task Force’s vision of towns and cities as places of opportunity and sustainable growth is largely founded on design excellence.

6. Urban design Urban design does not just concern one profession or interest group. This was underlined in 1998 when five professional institutes came together with other organizations and set up the Urban Design Allianceتحالف, finding a common purpose in working across their individual disciplinesالعثور على الهدف المشترك في العمل عبر تخصصاتهم الفردية. These professions town planners, landscape architects, surveyors, architects and civil engineers can all be powerful influences for better urban design.

7. Urban design As the Urban Task Force pointed out, the best way to promote successful and sustainable regeneration, conservation and place-making is to think about urban design from the start of the planning and development process. Leaving urban design until the end can make the planning process slow, frustrating and a source of wasteful conflict, and is unlikely to lead to the best outcome in terms of quality. محبطة ومصدرا من مصادر الصراع العقيم ، وليس من المرجح أن يؤدي إلى نتائج أفضل من حيث النوعية.

8. Place - Making Successful urban design requires a full understanding of the conditions under which decisions are made and development is delivered. Many factors determine or influence the outcome of the design process and the sort of places we make. Success, nowadays, rarely happens by chance. It depends on: • A clear framework provided by development plans and supplementary guidance delivered consistently, including through development control. • A sensitive response to the local context. • Judgments of what is feasible in terms of economic and market conditions. • An imaginative and appropriate design approach by those who design development and the people who manage the planning process. يتسم بسعة الخيال وتصميم المنهج المناسب من جانب أولئك الذين تصميم وتطوير والأشخاص الذين يديرون عملية التخطيط.

9. Place - Making It is vital حيويto bring these factors together. If policy is not set out clearly for applicants, a proposed development may conflict unwittingly with a local authority’s aspirations for good design. If too little weight is given to feasibility, the development may fail commercially. If too little weight is given to local context, the proposal may be opposed locally. If the design approach is wrong, the site’s opportunities will be missed and poor or mediocre development will result.

10. Scopeنطاق of Urban Design Urban design has replaced the "civic design”التصميم المدني which dealt primarily with city hallsيتعامل مع ميادين المدينة , museums, streets, boulevardsشارع عريض ملئ بالاشجار, parks and other open spaces since 1960s. However there is not a consensusلا يوجد اجماع علىabout the definition and boundaries of urban design.

11. Scope of Urban Design Urban Design is, • The process of giving physical design direction to urban growth, conservation, and change • The design of cities - 'a grand design‘تصميم كبير • The interfaceالعلاقة between architecture, landscape and town planning • The complex relationships between all the elements of built and un built space. • The architecture of public space Some theoreticians rather not to describe urban design but to explain what it is not: • It is not land use policy, sign controls, and street lighting districts. • It is not strictly utopian or proceduralليس بالضرورة ان تكون مثالية . • It is not necessarily a plan for downtownوسط المدينة, however architectonic, nor a subdivision regulationلائحة لتفسيم الاراضي.

12. Role of Urban Design Urban design is generally considered neither a professionمهنة nor a discipline. There is a trend to formulate urban designهناك اتجاها لوضخ التصميم الحضري as the interface between architecture and town planning, or the gap between them. For example, when Kevin Lynch saw urban design as a branch of architectureMichael Southworth on the other hand thought urban design as a branch of urban planning. "It is easier to talk about urban design than to write about it… In between (planning and architecture), but belonging neither to one nor the other, lies the magic world of urban design. We can recognize it by its absence. It is inferredالاستدلال, suggestedالاقتراح, feltالشعور ." Another commentator Jonathan Barnett also recognizes the crucial roleالدور الحاسم of urban design between the urban planning and architecture:

13. Urban planner, urban designer and architect An urban planner was some one who was primarily concerned with the allocation of resources according to projections of future needتخصيص الموارد تبعا للحاجة في المستقبل. Planners tend to regard land use as a distribution of resources problem, parceling out landتقطيع الارض, for zoning purposes, without much knowledge of its three-dimensional characteristics, or the nature of the building that may be placed on it in the future. The result is that most zoning ordinances and official land use plans produce stereotyped and unimaginative buildings. Architect, on the other hand, designs buildings. A good architect will do all he can to relate the building he is designing to its surroundings, but he has no control over what happens off the property he has been hired to considered.

14. Urban planner, urban designer and architect There is a substantial middle ground between these professions, and each has some claim to it, but neither fills it very well. Land use planning would clearly be improved if it involved someone who understands three-dimensional design. On the other hand, some one is needed to design the city, not just the buildings. Therefore, there was a need for someone who could be called an urban designer." Undoubtedly urban design cannot stand alone between these three main professions. Urban design is an interdisciplinary concept and should be considered with the other disciplines and professions such as Real Estate Development, Economics, Civil Engineering, Law, Social Sciences and Natural Sciences.

15. What is an urban designer? A wide variety of people call themselves urban designers. In one sense anyone who is involved in making places is active in urban design: hence the Urban Design Alliance (UDAL) brings together many of the built environment professions. Even if you do a university course in ‘urban design’, exactly what you learn will depend on which university you choose, as on other courses. The various urban design courses have different emphases. It is important to understand that urban design is not an accredited profession. There is no professional body that decides what should be on the curriculum of an urban design course, or what expertise and knowledge you need to be able to practise as an urban designer.

16. An urban designer needs a broad understanding of cities, towns and villages, and ways of making them work better. This involves understanding how the planning system operates, how developers make their sums add up, how to assess what makes a particular place special, how to make places easy to move around by foot and vehicle, how to bring life to places that have become run down, how to conserve historic buildings, how to make the most of the landscape, how to think about the future of small and large development sites, how to involve local people, how to make sure that projects actually happen, how to communicate effectively, how to negotiate, and how to write design policy and guidance.

17. That sounds like a lot of subjects! But they are all related, and each explains a bit more about how urban places work. The urban designer is not expected to be an expert on all of them, but it is essential to be able to see the whole picture.

18. The role of the planning system The planning system provides the means to encourage good design, not just in conservation areas and other attractive places, but everywhere. Securing good design is central to good planning. The appearance of proposed development and its relationship to its surroundings are relevant to the consideration of a planning application and PPG1 makes it clear that local planning authorities should reject poor designs. This guide looks at the ‘tools’ local authorities have available within the planning system to help deliver better design. The most important is the local authority’s development plan. This should set out the design policies against which development proposals will be assessed. This guide considers both what could be included in the plan and how further explanation might be provided in supplementary guidance.

19. The role of the planning system The development control process is vital. The way it is used determines whether and how the design policies in development plans and supplementary guidance are reflected and applied. The most thoroughly developed design policies will achieve little if they are ignored in the development control process. As stated in PPG1, “applicants for planning permission should be able to demonstrate how they have taken account of the need for good design in their development proposals and that they have had regard to relevant development plan policies and supplementary design guidance”.

20. THINKING ABOUT URBAN DESIGN Good urban design is rarely brought about by a local authority prescribing physical solutions, or by setting rigid or empirical design standards but by approaches which emphasise design objectives or principles.

21. Prompts to thinking The objectives are general and should be tailored to the locality. This process can be helped by the series of prompts to thinking about urban design set out in the next section of this guide. The prompts are unfolded under each of the urban design objectives but they are closely related and are not unique to the objective under which they appear. Most importantly, they are prompts not rules. They are not rigid formulae to be followed slavishly. In any real situation, some of these prompts will conflict and some will benefit some people more than others. Good design results from consideration being given to a wide range of concerns and the creative resolution of potential conflicts. For example, the height of a building might need to respond to a general pattern of buildings of no more than three stories, to the potential of high density development for making the most of public transport and creating vitality, to the value of creating a landmark to enhance views, to the need for a sense of enclosure, to the opportunity to enhance safety by natural surveillance, and to the need to avoid overshadowing.

22. Prompts to thinking Each of these might indicate a different height for the building if they were to be considered separately. In the real world, the planning and design process must lead to a solution that takes all concerns into account. This depends on, first, a judgment of how important each is in the circumstances and, second, design skills capable of rising imaginatively to the demands of a difficult brief. The prompts are followed by pointers to good design. Some prompts can be explained more simply than others, but this does not necessarily mean they are less important. Nor is the list exhaustive: evolving practice and special local conditions will always give rise to new ways of achieving better urban design.

24. Objectives of urban design Successful streets, spaces, villages, towns and cities tend to have characteristics in common. These factors have been analyzed to produce principles or objectives of good urban design. They help to remind us what should be sought to create a successful place السعي لايجاد مكان ناجح. There is considerable overlap between the objectives and they are mutually reinforcingو يعزز بعضها بعضا