Substantive Urban Design Considerations: Priorities for Creating Successful Places

Abstract

Although urban design, as opposed to urban design theories, is an ancient profession, that hasshaped towns and cities over the centuries in many different cultures and continents, the agenda of urbandesign is new and different relative to other more established theories of late-twentieth-century townplanning [1]. Whilst urban design theory as well as its practice still faces a number of challenges, in recentyears many urban designers and planners seemingly agree that there is no single traditional urban designapproach which could offer an absolute answer to successful urban design. Indeed, ‘successful urbandesign’ should not be employed as a fixed theoretical model but as the principles that underlie thosesuccesses, have value in empirical settings, and draw its intellectual roots from the past. In light of thisconcern, this paper is devoted to a discussion of the principles underlining successful urban design.Based on a review of both academic and professional works, five main substantive urban designconsiderations are proposed in this paper. These include physical function, visual perception, urbanenvironment, heritage conservation, and social demand and development. Through the discussion, thispaper shows that these substantive considerations play their important roles in urban design and helpto generate successful urban design.