THE BIG RETHINK: URBAN DESIGN

Summary

Many people around the world are now urbanised into new settlements in the city. The first generations entering these cities and slums had to sacrifice their lives to give their children the education and to support dependents in the countryside. Despite being in slums in unhealthy conditions, they do in a sense work hard to upgrade their homes, or move on, as they can afford to. Indeed it is a well-intended intervention, such as construction of state-funded new housing, that tend to fail.

For wealthier countries, it is becoming a trend for developing countries to focus on improving their open spaces and quality of life. Besides improving the quality of life, making better places for leisurely enjoyment, so less stressed and in various ways healthier. The spreading of Slow City movement also emphasises enhancing local characteristics and culture, including regional food and cuisine. Thus, resists the homogenising impact of globalisation. Due to this it also makes a city more attractive to skills and investment in our globalised world, where cities as much as countries compete for these economic essentials, and key assets are a city’s quality of life and individuality of character.

The most threatening are endemic to modernity. Resolving them would require, among other things, counterbalancing modernity’s too exclusive focus on the quantitative and objective with attention also to the qualitative and subjective, including the desire to live in accord with personal values and aspirations. Rural people arriving in the cities might willingly sacrifice themselves for dependents and future generations with very different aspirations. Nor being able to afford consumer goodies and distracting entertainment persuade them to compromise their ideals. They will want lives and work of dignity, offering meaning and personal desires which is what the city always promised, but delivered to only a minority, and will soon be deemed essential by most. So the challenges facing these developing cities are much more than the overwhelming current concerns of number and quantity. Difficult as these are to achieve, they are conceptually easier to entertain than dealing with such psycho-cultural challenges as conceiving of cities that offer lifestyles.

When undergoing massive and pivotal historic change, it is as likely for some trends to reverse as to continue. For instance, many analysts and commentators have been warning of problems of future supplies and security. the emissions produced, the poisoning of land and water, the loss of biodiversity and the un-nutritious food produced. Its unviability and the need to offer millions dignified and meaningful work suggests there may be a return to the land, to small-scale labour-intensive farming, to regenerating and living in harmony with the earth and its daily and seasonal cycles, to producing local nutritious food and leaving a long-term legacy for one’s descendants. After all, the poverty presently associated with such farming has been brought about by the corporations that are trashing the planet to maximise profits by driving down prices and feeding us highly processed, unhealthy food. What is being suggested here is not the end of cities, but rather that the future might lie with a range of differing kinds and sizes of settlements, some no doubt of a sort yet to be conceived. After all, thank to the Internet and various forms of energy-efficient public and private transport, combining the best of urban and rural life is now perfectly possible.

URBAN DESIGN GUIDELINES

For example: Singapore URA, revisions to Outdoor Kiosks and Outdoor Refreshments area (ORA) guidelines for Orchard planning area.

a) Outdoor kiosks and ORAs are encouraged along the streets, courtyards and open spaces that form   an extension of the pedestrian networks.
b) Only food and drinks are allowed for sale in outdoor kiosks and not for the retail of convenient items. To complement the shopping experience along Orchard Road hence the encouragement of outdoor kiosks.
c) Wider opaque panels for outdoor kiosks can be supported gradually to ensure equipments and storage spaces are neatly concealed.

GUIDELINES FOR OUTDOOR KIOSKS PLANNING AREA

USE: Retail of food and drinks only with minimal service requirements.

LOCATION: To be located at 1st storey directly fronting onto the designated pedestrian malls or within courtyards and open plazas. Not to encroach onto areas approved for covered linkways.

SIZE: Kiosks should not exceed 30sqm, any size bigger will be evaluated on a case by case basis.

FRONTAGE: Total length of frontage should not exceed 25% of the total length on one side's facade.

STRUCTURE: Opaque panels, doors and internal partitions should not exceed 1.2m, 4m width. Full height and wider panels to conceal equipment may be considered on a case by case basis.

GUIDELINES FOR OUTDOOR REFRESHMENT AREA

USE: For seating only. No food preparation allowed outside kitchen area

LOCATION: To be located at 1st storey directly fronting onto the designated pedestrian malls or within courtyards and open plazas. Not to encroach onto areas approved for covered linkways.

SIZE: All furniture, booths, etc should not exceed the approved boundary by ORA.

FRONTAGE: Combined length for outdoor kiosks and ORAs should not exceed 60% in total length of the development facade.

STRUCTURE: Designed as outdoor, unenclosed dining area. Only lightweight shelters and movable furniture are allowed. All furniture and opaque structures should not exceed 1.2m.

HEIGHT: Maximum 6m.


Reference:  https://www.ura.gov.sg/uol/urban-planning.aspx

 

 Urban Design Studies

I learn that urban design is the process of designing and shaping cities, towns and villages. Urban design address the larger scale of groups of buildings, streets, neighborhoods and districts. It unites all the built environment professions like architecture, landscape architecture, and city planning. Including the arrangement of public spaces, transport systems, services and amenities. Urban design enable the planning of frameworks that orders the elements into a network of streets, squares and blocks. Urban design is about making connections between people and places. Generally it enables the planning of urban areas to be functional, attractive and sustainable. Urban Design operates at 3 scales: Region(city and town), Neighborhood(district and corridor), Block(street and building)

Any Urban Design must deal with 3 elements.

• Firstly, Authorities. What are the visions of urban planning by the authorities and how its purpose will effect economically or politically.
• Secondly, Community. Whether the community understand and accept the visions set up by the authorities.
• Thirdly, Context. In terms of Geographical, Ecological, Topographical, Cultural, Historical  and Social Structure.

There are 3 components that makes a good urban design.

• Firstly, Infrastructure (transportation, energy, water managements, communications, waste management facilities, geophysical monitoring networks)
• Secondly, Public spaces (parks, streets, squares)
• Thirdly, Architecture ( Historic, conservation and Modern, planning)  

 

 

 

The Start of Urban Planning

Hippodamus of Miletus (498 BC — 408 BC) 

An ancient Greek architect, who was also an urban planner, physician, mathematician, meteorologist and philosopher was known as the “father” of urban planning. He is the originator of the idea thinking that a town plan might clarify a rational social order

His plans of Greek cities were done by order and regularity in contrast to the more intricacy and confusion common to cities of that period, even Athens.