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Neighbourhoods, Streets and Communities

Neighbourhoods, Streets and Communities. Jon Lang MUDD Program, UNSW 3 rd July 2008. Community?. There are a number of definitions: The people living in an area An interacting populations of individuals in a common location A group of people with a common interest.

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Neighbourhoods, Streets and Communities

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  1. Neighbourhoods, Streets and Communities Jon Lang MUDD Program, UNSW 3rd July 2008

  2. Community? There are a number of definitions: • The people living in an area • An interacting populations of individuals in a common location • A group of people with a common interest. Webster’s New Encyclopedic Dictionary (1993): 199

  3. Streets and Communities The primary role of streets isto give access streets also act as • edges orthey can act • as seams for everyday life and community formation. The urban design issue: When do we give primacy to traffic flows and when to the street as a seam – as a set of behaviour settings?

  4. Communities? • Socio-Psychological - Formal Organization - Communal Organization • Physical - Precincts - Neighbourhoods - Face-blocks - Buildings

  5. Organizational Types:Formal Organizations • They are held together by contract • They can be designed Communal Organizations • They are held together by social norms • They cannot be designed; they grow from the grassroots

  6. Types of socio-physical communities • The total territorial community -- the cresive community • The community of limited-liability and • The administered community • The designed community

  7. A total community?Collection of the author Photograph by Carolina Calderon Apol, Ahmedabad

  8. An administered community GSFC Township Vadodara (Baroda), India B. V.Doshi and the Vastu Shilpa Foundation, urban designers and architects

  9. Wenxinyuan, Hankou Design principles: • walled and gated • a hierarchy of formal organizations - block - street - building. Is it a designed community or an administered community? Source: Bray (2006)

  10. A designed community:A cohousing example Trudeslund, Denmark Vankustein, architects

  11. The search for ‘community’ through urban design Design Ideas: • The standard model for decomposing a city into its parts • The neighbourhood unit updated • The vertical neighbourhood The role of streets in all these examples?

  12. The generic urban decomposition modelSource: Hester (1975) A specific case: Columbia, Maryland, USA Rouse Corporation Property Developers.

  13. The neigbourhood unit Design Principles: • A well-bounded area (good contour) • Communal facilities at the core • ¼ mile (400 metres) walking distance from the periphery to the core • Shopping and apartment buildings at the intersections with neighbouring units Clarence Perry Source: Regional Plan of New York, 1929

  14. The Radburn (New Jersey, USA) planSource: Gallion and Eisner, 1975 The plan as built A cul--de-sac Clarence Stein and Henry Wright designers (Late 1920s)

  15. Radburn An underpass A walkway from the back of houses to the central park

  16. The first generation British new towns Source: Runcorn Development Corporation (1967) Runcorn, England (1970s)

  17. A pedestrian pocket proposalSource: Kelbaugh (1989) Collection of the author The generic idea An example

  18. New Urbanism and neighbourhood design A neighbourhood should have: • A discernible centre • Buildings in the centre built to the property line • Dwellings within a 5minute walk from the centre • A variety of dwelling types • Shops and offices at the periphery • An elementary school within walking distance of houses • A playground within 1/8 mile (200metres) • A connected network of streets and • A formal self-governing organization Source: Andres Duany and Elizabeth Plater Zyberk Architects, Inc.

  19. The neighbourhood unit updated, 1994 Design Principles • ¼ mile walking distance • 160 acres bounded by boulevards • shops + bus stop at the centre • school shared with adjacent areas • mixed use main street • offices etc + parking on boulevards Duany and Platter Zyberk, architects

  20. The image of the main street Source: Jackson (2006) Proposal for Fullerton, California 2006 100 homes, 300,000 sq feet (27871sq metres) commercial space

  21. Example: Playa Vista, Los Angeles Source: Katz (1994): 186

  22. US Patent 6688052- Neighborhood housing arrangement (2004) Source http://drflandershometown.com/HT%20PICTURES%20PAGE%2001.htm

  23. The Rationalist Response: A vertical neighbourhood Source: Richards (1962) The Unité d’ habitation, Marseilles, France Le Corbusier, architect

  24. A district of vertical neighbourhoods Buildings set in open space

  25. The modern version?

  26. The street as seam Why bother?

  27. Streets as nested sets of behaviour settings Remember such observations as these are culture-bound!

  28. A University-Town CommunityANeo-Traditionalist approach Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium

  29. Traffic and face-block neighbourhoods The higher the traffic volume the less the communication across streets

  30. Stage in life cycle and mobility Source: Michael Southworth

  31. Children – the true neighbourhood people? Source: The Smithsons Question: What do we do with observations such as this one?

  32. A study of children’s play areas Source: Randolph Hester, Neighborhood Space

  33. The woonerf or ‘shared street’ Source: Southworth and Ben Joseph, 1996

  34. The cul-de-sacNo longer a viable option? Too old-fashioned? It’s a favoured play space for children

  35. Recognizing the limitations of planning and design Creating opportunities for the formation of community (i.e., communities of limited liability)

  36. What can we do today? In creating a sense of community in a neigbourhood or in a building: • Design a central node • Create a boundary • Create an image of similarity of buildings • Create formal organizations • Create opportunities/catalysts for social meeting. The most one can expect to achieve is a community of limited liability but also one rich in informal learning opportunities for children.

  37. A community of ‘limited liability’Collection of the author Millennium Village, Greenwich, London, England, UK Ralph Erskine, Urban Designer and Architect

  38. A college community Kresge College, University of California at Santa Cruz Moore and Turnbull, architects

  39. A community of scholars?A designed community The National Center for the Humanities, North Carolina, USA Hartman Cox, Architects

  40. Conclusion Remember: • We can design formal organizations • We cannot design communal ones • We can create opportunities (affordances) for the development of communal organizations But: • Most depends on the people involved and their aspirations

  41. The quality of streets is fundamental in the quality of communities • They can be seams for everyday life • They are multi-purpose spaces • They establish the character of any development Remember: • streets are three dimensional not just the roadbed; they are enclosed by buildings ‘A street wants to be a room’ Louis I Kahn

  42. The character of streets shapes the character of neighbourhoods Photographs by Jesus Lara Source: Croc (2005) Main Street, Moapa Valley, Nevada and an alternative

  43. Thank youJon Lang

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