Urban Design & Planning

Tom Turner
University of Greenwich
School of Architecture and
Construction
0208 331 9100
Email t.turner@gre.ac.uk
Website
www.landscapeplanning.gre.ac.uk

Questions

IS TOWN DESIGN = URBAN DESIGN?

ARE THEY = TOWN PLANNING?

Origins
Town is a noun and town design would be the art of
designing a physical object. One of the UKs modernist
architect-planner-landscape architects (Sir Frederick
Gibberd) wrote a book on Town Design
A City is a place where people, and buildings, behave in
civil, polite or considerate manner to each other
Urban (from the Latin urbs, meaning city), is an adjective
so that urban design is the art of making a place more
city-like
Urban Design is more process than product
Therefore URBAN DESIGN is not = TOWN DESIGN

Town Planning
Even if not designed in advance, all towns have a plan. Lets
look at some historic examples and see what influenced
their plans .

Catal Huyuk, 6,000 BCE

Iron Age Hut, 600 BCE
Greek-Roman Town, 79 CE
Medieval City, c1300 CE
Baroque City, c1750 CE
[BCE=Before Common Era CE=Common Era]

A City c6000BCE
The worlds oldest city is
said to be Catal Huyuk
(pronounced chatal
hooyook) in Central
Turkey. Access to the
dwellings was from roof
level. Living here, you had
to behave in a much more
civic manner than living
in a rough hut on a bare
hill.

Iron Age Camp c 500BC

This is how people who did not live in cities lived, all over
Europe, until the Roman conquest. The only planning
principle was a ring of defences, to make a Hill Fort

The City in 79 AD: Pompeii

Pompeii was buried by
Vesuvius and can
represent most of the
planned cities in Europe
from 500 BC to 500 AD,
as well as most of the
colonial cities (eg in
South America) from
1452-1700 AD). It was a
walled city, designed to
be able to defend itself.

Photographs of Pompeii
The main features of
Pompeii are exactly
as described by
Vitruvius
A grid of streets
Pavements +
stepping stones
Water supply
Drainage system
Public buildings at
important positions
No windows
Internal courts

The Medieval City (c1300)

The main consideration was
defense, provided by a high
wall and narrow streets.

Nuremberg in 1516 (below,

from Benevolo) The city was
founded in 1040 AD.

Planning: origins
Now let us consider the word planning
It comes from the activity of drawing a plan in 2 dimensions on
a flat surface
Maps and Plans have a very important place in human history.
They enable the organisation of land, and travel, and the creation
of empires.
This type of Planning produced the Baroque City

The Baroque City c 1750

Baroque cities were
dominated by stars of
avenues, designed to
glorify the autocrat
and facilitate the
movement of soldiers
and the firing of
canon at revolting
peasants,

Industrial City (c1900)

(=baroque city+more blds+railways+parks+sewers

Organising Principles:
mostly singleobjective
Catal Huyuk, 6,000 BCE: Defense against nomadic
herders
Iron Age Hut, 600 BCE: Defense against other
agriculturalists
Greek-Roman Town, 79 CE: Defense against armies
Medieval City, c1300 CE: Defense against knights
Baroque City, c1750 CE: Defense against revolutionaries
Industrial City, c1900: Defense against cholera
21st Century City, c2000: One could argue that the new
organising principle will be Defense against crime

Interim Conclusions
City planning has been dominated by considerations of
Engineering + Security
When this fact was appreciated (eg by the Viennese
architect Camillo Sitte The art of building cities, 1889) it
led to a campaign for architects to take responsibility for
Town Design, Civic Design and the City Beautiful
Movement.
Architects tended to see cities as architecture writ large,
with buildings instead of rooms and streets instead of
corridors. It was a bit like arguing that a Beautiful Body is
the main thing in life

Town design

Planning: Modern & Post-Modern

Marx and Lenin believed that all economic and
social activity could and should be planned.
It did not work.
But it does not follow that planning is
impossible.
Rather, planning is something to be done by many
organisations in many ways for many reasons.
It has changed from a Modernist Activity to a
Post-Modernist Activity.

There was also a tendency to draw

plans on white paper
Existing Site Drawing

City as landscape
I wrote that (p.103) Too often,
architects have seen the land on which
they build as sheets of white parchment
on which to write new projects. In
reality, every work of architecture is a
conversion of the existing
environment. When writing on the
parchments of history, new buildings
should converse with the stones, listen
to the wind and speak to the flowers.
The languages of the post-modern
environment are of prime importance.

I also, bravely, wrote a chapter on

The Tragedy of Feminine Design

The Tragedy of Feminine Design

This illustration shows the natural roles of men and women

This illustration shows the natural

roles of men and women on design
projects

Here we see the brilliant results of a

male (hunter) approach to urban design

Here is the result of arrogant male urbanism

(Pruitt-Igoe, July 15, 1972 at 3.32pm)

Happily, we can date the death of Modern Architecture to a precise moment in time (Charles Jencks
The Language of Post-Modern Architecture, Part 1, Chapter 1)

Now lets turn to the animal kingdom

The Male Emperor
(left) shows great
prowess in puffing
out his chest
The Female Empress
looks more thoughtful

Here is a cow - slain by the hunter

2-dimensional
views of the city
From Modern Town
and Country Planning
(Thomas Adams,
1932, revised by JWR
Adams, 1952)
Thomas Adams did a
plan for New York
City in the 1930s

2-dimensions ->3-dimensions

Frontispiece to: Modern Town and Country Planning (Thomas

Adams, 1932, revised by JWR Adams, 1952)

The trouble with males..

.is that they only ever
want one thing

The Tragedy of Feminine Design

The tragedy of feminine design is that it
receives so little official support (Turner,
T., City as landscape p.132)
Does anyone agree?
We need urban design to based on wisdom,
pluralism, subtlety, common sense

Levi-Strauss Landscape

The structuralist philosopher was interested in surface structures and deep structures
He believed you must look beneath the surface to understand the world
One then finds all sorts of sophisticated processes: geology, hydrology, ecology, colour,
emotion, ownership, tradition, trust,

Rubber Bands

Overlapping Zones

Venn Diagrams of City Planning 1

Venn Diagrams of City Planning 2

Here is what
Modernism did
to rivers
The four stages of
scientific river
planning.
Multiple uses are
converted to a
single use. The
fish dies.

Modernist/Scientific Road Planning

Planning with GIS

Just as the political basis for planning has
changed so the technology of planning has
changed.
The 2-dimensional plan has been replaced by the
multi-dimensional Geographical Information
System
I have thrown out my rapidographs and given up
Autocad
Perhaps we should speak of Gis-ing instead of
Planning
The chief theorist of this approach is the ScotsAmerican Ian McHarg

McHarg Richmond Parkway (Ch4)

The great strength of the method was the use of descriptive overlays
AND evaluative overlays

McHarg Richmond Parkway

(Ch4)
X-Ray Overlay

Route Determination

McHarg
Diagram
This method,
apparently to
logical, has had a
bad influence on
GIS-based
planning.

Planning by
Layers
Layers are needed for
future plans, as well as
information about the
present
Layers represent sets of
ideas (eg geology)
Layers can translate
directly into visual
images

Hyde Park Montage (Ben Jarrett)

Historical Layer + Lifestyle Layer

Video Wall (Ben Jarrett)

Historical Layer (Speakers Corner) + Futuristic
Layer (Internationalism)

An error
We must not think that GIS, being a more powerful
technology, gives more power to those who use the
technology. At best, GIS is a decision support
system. Ian McHarg was wrong to suggest that it
can be a decision making system and that anyone
using the same method will come to the same
conclusion.
But McHarg is, rightly, recognised as a pioneer by
the GIS community and many share the old
scientific-modernist dream of (mad!) scientists
taking over from politicians as the ultimate
decision-makers.
It was a non-democratic/autocratic procedure

Where?
and
What?

What
if?
Both the following
procedures allow
questions land to be
planned to protect and
create Public Goods
The Environmental
Assessment (EA) System
The Development
Control system (UK)

Landscape Assessment & Design

An opportunity to seize
Joining the word Landscape with a GIS approach
to Planning gives us a great opportunity.
We can use GIS to conserve and improve the
environment with this word used to describe a
very wide range of objectives. They relate to:
NATURAL PROCESSES
SOCIAL PROCESSES
AESTHETIC IDEAS
DESIGN ARCHETYPES

Pattern Analysis Diagrams

PAKILDA
PatternAssistedKnowledgeIntensiveLandscapeDesignApproach

Zone of
Visual
Influence
ZVI

Skyline Planning

Examples
I will finish by looking at Hydrology as an
example of a subject for Pattern Analysis
and Design

Hydrological
Planning

Planning for the Song Thrush

Water Infiltration (Recharge) Policy

(Jessica Read)

Water Detention (Retention) Policy

(Jessica Read)

Cities as Concepts
One needs a concept of what a city IS in order
to plan its future.

Landscape Planning: BookCover

Statutory & Non-Statutory Planning

The UK enacted the Town and Country Planning
Act in 1947
Since then every municipality has had a statutory
duty to prepare a Local Plan
This has done no good at all for planning Public
Open Space
Much more has been achieved with Non-Statutory
plans
This is very encouraging!
The pen is mightier than the sword & The idea
is mightier than the law

Conclusions
Planning is an inherently Modernist activity. It
suggests: One Authority; One Way; One Plan; One
Result [The International Modern City]
Urban Design is a more Post-Modern conception.
It is multi-cultural, suggesting: Many Authorities;
Many Ways; Many Plans; Many Results.
This requires Many Layers & Many Approaches
& Many Professions
A final question: What should the 21st Century
City Symbolise?

Symbolism

Mumford sees the hieroglyph (left) as a defensive enclosure with a crossroads dividing
the city into four quarters and comments that if this is in fact a symbolic plan it would
be the best possible symbol for the classic city
Osiris tomb chamber (centre), covered by a mound and representing The Creation (an
island coming out of the primordial waters)
The Baroque City was a symbol of the Sun King & autocracy

What should the twenty-first century city symbolise?