Key Characteristics of Urban Patterns Arabic Cit y :

Prepared by Dr. Hazem Abu-Orf Key Characteristics of Urban Patterns Arabic City : The concern is with looking at the Key features of traditional; colonial & modern patterns

Approach Adopted • Elements of the Built Environment: • Townscape • Urban Form • Public Realm • Architecture Prepared by Dr. Hazem Abu-Orf

Townscape of Traditional Arabic Cities • The traditional city is the result of an organic growth of houses, mixed up with shops while keeping the mosques as the focal point. • Minarets and larger Domes are elements emerging from continuous roofscape; • The traditional pattern much emphasises a connection with the sky above: the top edge of the walls has an interplay with the sky by using various designs breaking the linearity of both the roof and the wall top. Prepared by Dr. Hazem Abu-Orf

Townscape of Colonial Arabic Cities • Buildings have impressed themselves as a landmark upon the urban scene; • By virtue of size & scale, such landmarks were the key decorative elements of a city; • Buildings showed great respect for context: window shapes; details; materials; gable and colour blind to represent a highly decorative & unified street scene; • The shop front is the façade’s element for contact; • The arcade is a key element in providing cover for the shoppers in hot and witty weather; • The arcade has drawn on continuity to the potentially diverse street scene. Prepared by Dr. Hazem Abu-Orf

Townscape of Post-colonial State • Tall buildings much emphasise a sense of social power & prestige, a corporate image of economic welfare as well as a government image for the state having a national progress; • The skyline is much more dynamic and/or chaotic; • The skyline is continually changing, probably as a result of uncoordinated efforts of individual institutions Prepared by Dr. Hazem Abu-Orf

Urban Form of A traditional Arabic City • An aggregation of enclosed cellular units, taking the shape of private houses; mosques and markets, all built within a coherent urban form; • Buildings are not considered as detached objects, but rather as living architectural shells, shaped according to the actual needs and responding to enclosed activities; • Mosques are the reference point in the urban fabric: street layout seems to radiate & merge from one mosque to the next; • The division of land was not based on a definite method with less connection to a geometric discipline. Rather, the size & alignments of lots was due to the continuous subdividing of land resulting in compact & uncontrolled urban fabric; Prepared by Dr. Hazem Abu-Orf

Clusters & Central Courtyard • The cluster approach includes an integral & autonomous entity, with its own resource of air; light and open space – known as central courtyard (Bianca, 2000). • Each enclosed area has a courtyard, with elevations turned inwards facing each other; • Repetition of similar patterns of enclosure, and inclusion of plot size throughout hierarchal levels of the built form, has resulted in complete structural integration; • The outer walls are often blind, as they are shared with attached neighbourhood buildings making street fronts of a secondary importance responding to local climate and to the Islamic life of privacy, while building exuding users with a sense of place, identity, security and individual freedom; Prepared by Dr. Hazem Abu-Orf

More on Courtyard Features • Street and alleyways are virtually swallowed by the residential clusters, being transformed into a series of internal corridors. The houses can only be seen and experienced from within and do not depend on external open spaces; • The inside plan of the building frequently used the court form. Surrounding the court were covered colonnades and the rooms were arranged to open onto balconies overlooking the Court; • This arrangement allowed cool air to flow through the building into every room in the evening. In the daytime, when outside windows were closed, the coolness was maintained inside the rooms by heavy walls, which absorbed any heat build-up. The courtyard then became the controlled source of light, provided shade as the sun moved across the sky, and allowed a portion of that light to be used all day for indoor living purposes. Thus, the open courtyard was in effect the inner living space Prepared by Dr. Hazem Abu-Orf

Urban Form of Colonial Arabic City • Characterized by grid iron pattern of street layout; • Design has concerned with human scale; that is, the relationship of buildings and urban space to the size of a human being. Man was therefore the measure used for the built environment; • In particular, on the ground and first floors, architectural ornaments have no decorative elements with their smaller dimensions less than 1-1.5 cm. Beyond the third floor, a bolder treatment of ornament is necessary for it to impinge upon the senses: a wide overhanging cornice, or highly modelled roofline, is the most effective at viewing distance; • The square pattern is dominant around which the key civic buildings are arranged. Equally important for unity is the repetition of roof materials, skyline, verge, and eaves details; the consistent use of floors cape materials and patterning; and the choice of street fittings of compatible form Prepared by Dr. Hazem Abu-Orf

Urban Form of Colonial Arabic City • Buildings expressed a coherent street façades through continuity of heights, widths, forms, colours, and materials. • The visual image of the colonial Arabic city and its skyline remained intact for centuries, largely due to both the limitations of available building materials and techniques, and more important, by fire-conscious building regulations, which restricted building heights. • The buildings were generally of red brick and of a modest height of about three or four storeys. Prepared by Dr. Hazem Abu-Orf

Urban Form of Arabic Post-Colonial City • Rectangular grid of streets and avenues. • Land subdivisions have been institutionalized, using regulatory measures: such as zoning, codes, legislation, master plans and other prescribed ordinances, primarily into squares or rectangular lots, as the model for urban form. • Contextual values and human-scale interrelations between buildings and/or between buildings and open spaces, are much neglected in favour of a rigid functional separation of housing, public facilities, traffic and open spaces. • Single functions are being isolated and inflated to a point where they became meaningless Prepared by Dr. Hazem Abu-Orf

Urban Form of Post-Colonial Arabic City • While the high-rise buildings have provided the city with its own individual identities and urban image, their appearance and location in the city have generally been unplanned. They have created various visual problems, primarily because of their location, site planning, and in particular design have not always been in a harmony with the broader design context of urban complex. • High-rise buildings became a source of the visual pollution in the urban environment, especially if they were poorly designed and insensitively located. Prepared by Dr. Hazem Abu-Orf

Public Realm of Traditional Arabic City • Traditional Arabic cities were built on a pedestrian scale. • Public spaces were allocated to, and often integrated with, specific architectural units: such as mosques, schools, etc and therefore detached from the urban realm. • Streets were subsidiary to the urban structure and were often transformed into narrow internal corridors. • Priority was given to the clear definition of well-marked space compartments, far from private and public uses. As the ramified street network were absorbed by the corresponding architectural units, the main thoroughfares were integrated into the market, secondary lanes into the residential quarters, and the dead-end alleys into the clusters of private houses to which they gave access. Prepared by Dr. Hazem Abu-Orf

Public Realm of Traditional Arabic City • The sequence corresponded to a well-established hierarchy and was punctuated by gates and thresholds. The circulation system therefore helped implement increasing degrees of privacy, ensuring that every section of the network matched the character of the space it served and the social needs of its users. • The space layouts are focused on a multi-functional core structure enveloping the surrounding central mosque by different layers of interconnected markets. These are interspersed with a number of Arabic path, schools and caravanserais which constitute the support system for the mosque and the retail shops. Prepared by Dr. Hazem Abu-Orf

Public Realm of Colonial Arabic City • Urban streets of a colonial city are broadly grouped into three functional types: the great civic streets, dominated by the civic buildings; the commercial streets and the residential streets. • Columns, pediments and other classical elements are used to achieve the unity in the streets despite the variety of different building types, heights, and size. • Squares; commercial squares and residential ones, were a place of rest within the busy street network. • The civic square facades were usually restrained and classical, designed to impress. The most important concern in decorating was achieving unity and rhythm. Prepared by Dr. Hazem Abu-Orf

Public Realm of Colonial Arabic City • Commercial squares were often examples of the comic scene, displaying exuberance through a variety of decorated facades. The residential squares, unlike residential streets, tend to display tragic scenes, restrained facades decorated by unity and rhythm of small cues. • Dominated squares were categorized by one individual structure or a group of buildings towards which the open space is directed and to which all other surrounding structures are related. This dominating building may be a palace, town hall, or railway station. The squares were distinguished by two types: the “deep”, and the “wide”. Edge buildings are most of rich decoration on their facade attracting attention and fully establishing the landmark on minds. • Most civic furniture acted in harmony with, or enhanced by, counterpoints of the public space decorated by a fountain, a tree, a statue, a clock tower with seats. Prepared by Dr. Hazem Abu-Orf

Public Realm of Post Colonial City • Characterised by the grid pattern and designed to maximize movement and accessibility. Streets show more concern for cars than for people. The streets disregard climatic comfort, privacy and security. Moreover, although many of the public spaces are quite large, generally they are neither very green nor very accessible for use. • Concentration of commercial & public buildings in downtown areas vanishes the interface between various facets of social life. Buildings are very intrusive and poorly integrated with other buildings, and even when they incorporate excellent landscaping and amenities, these often remain unconnected to public footpath systems or to adjacent landscape elements. Prepared by Dr. Hazem Abu-Orf

Public Realm of Post Colonial City • It appears to be filled with a clutter of signs, kiosks, lampposts of various sizes and shapes, overhead wires and advertisement hoardings. • They pay less consideration to their grouping and the effect they have on the street scene. • The opportunity of repeating, on the paving pattern, the sinuous forms of the street plan has been missed, together with the opportunity of retaining the proportion and scale of the street by using raised pavements on both sides. Prepared by Dr. Hazem Abu-Orf

Architecture of Traditional Arabic City • Traditional city has been of Islamic architecture by nature based in Arabian Peninsula and the Mediterranean area: using stone of various kinds and sun-dried or baked brick to create tranquillity & unity. • Architectural forms were evolved using bearing walls with domes as the most common forms. Domes were the natural roof forms to span larger covered spaces. For colonnades with flat roofs, wooden logs or cut-timber beams were used. • Islamic art was able to gain a new dimension through its marriage with architectural structures. This is due to the specific sense of space generated by the dominant courtyard typology. Prepared by Dr. Hazem Abu-Orf

Architecture of Traditional Arabic City • Islamic architecture was supported by means of artistic expression: i.e. calligraphy, geometric patterns, and the arabesque, that all were surface-related and therefore suitable to fully merge with the planes of walls and/or ceilings. • Arabesque and geometrical patterns were often juxtaposed with calligraphy to from frames and panels of continuous decoration. While Islamic art favoured plane surfaces for its use of geometrical patterns and arabesques, it also developed a three-dimensional geometric pattern that is considered as an important vehicle of artistic expression. • The key component of this three-dimensional adornment is the muqarnas. The muqarnas have become a hallmark of Islamic architecture. Their use was by no means restricted to the supporting corners of vaulted structures but became a ubiquitous decorative element, filling the interior of domes, the cavities of niches and the projecting edges of balconies and cornices with their stalactites or hanging niches. Prepared by Dr. Hazem Abu-Orf

Architecture of Colonial Arabic City • European city is subdivided horizontally and vertically by elements of order, the entablature, the column and/or pilaster. • Each floor is distinguished by the use of a different order. The building façade consists of three key sections: a foundation or base; a middle section with its rows of windows; and the roof zone, which connects the building to the sky by silhouette. • Decoration is a key dependant upon building’s location, height & size. The elements were emphasised by a simple horizontal stringcourse. Within the zone, the articulation was largely achieved through decoration around the edges of windows, niches, or the treatment of projecting bays, balconies, and stairwells. The ornamental work is of contrasting colour and material to the background. The facades’ design is of load-bearing masonry construction with large window areas, considered as a skilful engineering achievement. Prepared by Dr. Hazem Abu-Orf

Architecture of Colonial Arabic City • The street corners are stressed by a decorative treatment to be memorable and to strengthen the city image. A prime location for architectural decoration was at the external corners of a building, particularly, if the corner is at the junction of several streets. • The design elements were used to achieve an effective indoor cooling & reducing the undesirable impact of both solar radiation and outdoor temperature variations. • The heavy size of the buildings, with relatively controlled openings, provided excellent thermal inertia, reducing and delaying the transfer of the external heat loads to the interior. Equally, the mouldings and cornices have shaded the glazed openings; which also had shutters, awnings, or roller blinds in an extendable frame allowing ventilation and light. Mansard roofs, forming large ventilated airspaces protected the floors below, reducing heat losses unwanted heat gains. Prepared by Dr. Hazem Abu-Orf

Architecture of Post-colonial City • More buildings are of 6-10 storeys, with flat roofs. The ground floor is designed as retail stores. Apartments are on the first floor. One or two elevators are used and fire-stairs are almost non-existent except in large new projects. Apartments are two and three bedroom units, with 100-120 sq m areas. They mostly look toward the street surrounding the building. • Modern architecture, in its puritanical zeal, rejected ornament and decoration. • The post-colonial city has been considered as a machine to provide work, housing, and other activities of mutual profit. • Where decoration are used, it is to express commercial strength; it symbolizes the power and prestige of the enterprise, usually a multi-national organization. Prepared by Dr. Hazem Abu-Orf

Summary: Urban Planning of Arabic Cities • Traditional city is characterized by: willingness to adapt to local materials and local image; symmetry in the plan and elevation; the organic growth as an aggregation of private houses, mosques and markets, all collected within a coherent urban fabric; the sequence hierarchy of space from the public, semi-private and private spaces to maximize family privacy; built on a pedestrian scale provided an extremely dense townscape; and the calligraphy, geometric patterns and the arabesque as the main means of the visual interest and richness. • By colonialism, all Arabic cities were influenced by the general attitudes originating from several design considerations. There key features are: symmetry of design elements to a balanced composition around one and/or more axial lines; closing of vistas by careful placing of monumental buildings at the ends of long, straight streets; and individual buildings integrated into a single, coherent, architectural ensemble, frequently through the repetition of a basic elevation design. Prepared by Dr. Hazem Abu-Orf

Summary: Urban Planning of Arabic Cities • The modern patterns tend to differentiate urban along isolated function for housing, commerce, recreation, industrial activities and governmental use. Thus, ensuring that functional segregation disconnects human activities and support less social interaction. Road and transportation systems have transformed the urban form into isolated patterns. Prepared by Dr. Hazem Abu-Orf

Key Characteristics of Urban Patterns Arabic Cit y :