Urban Design Theory Research Articles

The science of urban design?

In a provocative paper Marshall (2012) suggests that a range of seminal urban design theories stemming from the 1960s – Jacobs, Alexander, Lynch and Cullen – can be construed as pseudo-science because they have not been tested empirically. Adding Sitte and Cerda, we take this provocation as a chance to raise some questions about the nature of urban design knowledge, theory and practice. We suggest that this work is not and cannot be empirical science but is based in the detailed observation of cities using multiple logics. While there is an emerging science of cities, urban design knowledge is much broader, spanning both natural and social sciences as well as the arts and humanities. We also argue that it is a particular form of diagrammatic socio-spatial knowledge that cannot be reduced to either words or numbers. These thinkers remain seminal more for the questions they open than the answers they provide.

Phytoremediation-by-design: community-scale landscape systems design for healthy communities

Since the Industrial Revolution humans have introduced hazardous compounds into the environment. Interest has grown for combining urban planning/design processes with phytoremediation as a systems-based approach to environmental remediation. Phytoremediation has potential to transform traditional urban infrastructure processes thereby enhancing the formative structure of the urban context. A historic view of integrating ecosystems within urban planning and design processes is provided, and an ecologically based approach to creating urban contexts through environmentally responsive community planning and design is proposed. Evidence supports incorporating phytoremediation into the community-wide urban planning and design process to establish and sustain communities, environment, human health, and prosperity. Conclusions are drawn from historic and emerging urban planning and design theories, practices, and present and past successes in creating environmentally responsive sustainable communities. Conclusions are supported by a review and analysis of case studies focused on this topic. Based on these processes this research supports a hybrid approach to phytoremediation-by-design, which borrows from past efforts and builds on current urban planning theory and ecological principles.

The polymorphic, multilayered and networked urbanised territory

The discussion of the network city has in recent years been supplemented by an increasing interest in reconsidering the notion of territory. Looking into both geographical and urban design theories, we find examples of a focus on how the networks of the city not only connect them irreversibly with sites and systems without any direct physical relation, but also of how this does not necessarily result in complete fragmentation and dissociation between the parts and the surrounding landscapes, as described in network city theory. By relating examples from this literature to a description of the main development characteristics of a low-profile example of a developing European urban region, Eastern Jutland in Denmark, the article contributes with a discussion of how concrete urban development perspectives in such a context can help inform the more general conceptualisation efforts developed in theory. The concept of The Polymorphic, Multilayered and Networked Urbanised Territory is introduced to grasp the reality experienced in European regions outside the largest and most potent versions of contemporary cities.

Visualising the design of conditions for urban social sustainability

With increasing attention in urban design theory paid to conditions conducive to sustainable forms of urban experience, there is emerging emphasis on the non-technical perspective of sustainable urban design. This perspective focuses on design for urban social sustainability. Despite increasing exploration in this area, much of the theoretical conditions remain as text-based descriptions that lack graphic representation. This is due, in part, to contributions from disciplines traditionally not associated with visualisation. In considering the suggestive potential of this perspective for designers, this research seeks to ascertain if it can be represented visually. This article illustrates the beginning of a wider exploration into how to make visual the design of conditions for urban social sustainability. Testing how the non-technical perspective of sustainable urban design could be applied and communicated, this article highlights not only the value of the perspective but also the role of imaging in narrowing the gaps between urban design theory and practice and in the development of performative forms of imaging in the revelation of performative urban conditions.

Effects of skeletal streetscape design on perceived safety

It is important for planners and urban designers to understand how physical characteristics of urban streetscapes contribute to perceptions of them as safe, comfortable urban spaces. While urban design theory offers numerous suggestions for successful streetscapes there is meager empirical evidence of their effects. We suggest that this is largely due to precision and sample size limitations on audit-based physical design and human perception measurements. This paper overcomes these limitations by identifying a key set of “streetscape skeleton” design variables that can be efficiently measured using a GIS-based method. It then measures these variables on a large and diverse sample of streetscapes, and examines their relationship to crowdsourced perceived safety scores, a useful indicator of environmental comfort. Regression modeling indicates that factors related to streetscape enclosure have a substantial positive effect on perceived safety. These include street tree canopy, the number of buildings along a block, and the cross-sectional proportion—the ratio of building height to width across the street between building façades. Importantly, these streetscape-scale skeleton variables have greater effect than neighborhood-scale urban form and affluence measures that are commonly used to identify desirable urban environments. Planning practitioners can draw on our results to set priorities for urban forestry and design guidelines that shape the spatial proportions of streetscapes and their success as spaces that feel safe and comfortable for human users.

A typology of Urban Design theories and its application to the shared body of knowledge

This article consists of two parts. The first part suggests a typology for urban design theories in order to provide a new way of understanding the nature and function of the, seemingly opposing, debates existing in the field. This typology is based on distinguishing between subjects, object and knowledge of urban design. In the second part, the typology is applied to the shared body of knowledge. In order to do so, this article attempts to give an overview of the current shared body of knowledge in the field of urban design. The reading lists of urban design theory courses, drawn from different universities in the United States, United Kingdom and Australia, are analysed to identify common texts. These texts are then considered to be one reading of what constitutes the shared body of knowledge. A comparison is made between this list of titles and those texts offered in various urban design readers to provide a better overall picture of the shared body of knowledge. Finally, a chronological analysis is made to illustrate the development of the three types of urban design theory.

Operationalizing Jane Jacobs’s Urban Design Theory

Jane Jacobs’s The Death and Life of Great American Cities (1961) had an enormous influence on urban design theories and practices. This study aims to operationalize Jacobs’s conditions for a vital urban life. These are (1) mixed use, (2) small blocks, (3) aged buildings, and (4) a sufficient concentration of buildings. Jacobs suggested that a vital urban life could be sustained by an urban realm that promotes pedestrian activity for various purposes at various times. Employing multilevel binomial models, we empirically verified that Jacobs’s conditions for urban diversity play a significant role with regard to pedestrian activity.

Behavior Space Design and Expression by the Theories and Methods of Urban Design—The Yan Dao ancient town of design practice

In recent years, the ancient town of update and development has become a new hot spot, the study of old town renewal of concern is gradually warming. And again there are a lot of space in the middle of the old town renewal design and traditional style, space activities and use the contradiction between population, which becomes a problem urgently to be solved in design stage. The purpose of this study was to explore old town design space and behavior, traditional and modern conflict resolution methods, and to present the town development and design with a design concept. This paper' uses three theories of urban design (The relationship between figure and ground, Contact theory and Place theory) as a real-time monitoring, assessment, comparison of methods, to study Yan Dao Ancient Town, and the space for analysis. In the research, this paper based on the design theory of the three major city as a starting point, detailedly describes the different types in a certain area of difference in the behavior and the properties of space, and the ancient town of Hubei Shennongjia forest region salt path planning and design practice, the ancient town of updating the connotation of the historical context and space behavior of connection. The conclusion of this thesis put forward the method of that based on the space shape of ancient design method of its application in practice.

On Collective Form

The following article is an edited version of the keynote address presented at the 13th International docomomo Conference that took place in Seoul, Korea, in September 2014. In this essay, Fumihiko Maki's urban design theory and practice are traced through nearly 60 years of written and built work. Extensive travel and observations of village formations (under the auspices of the Graham Foundation) in 1958, research and writing "Investigations in Collective Form" at Washington University in St. Louis, and associations with the Metabolist Group and Team X are elements which Maki has stitched together to form his understanding of urban architectural group form strategies. These strategies have been tested in a variety of projects throughout Japan and elsewhere; together with his texts, they form a continuing body of work that exhibit how successful, quality urban environments are created.

Fences and Profanations: Questioning the Sacredness of Urban Design

Adopting an impure and contingent conception of urban design as a biopolitical apparatus, along the theme of urban informal squatter-occupied spatialities, this paper searches for an alternative narrative of urban design. It presents a theoretical and analytical framework developed around Michel Foucault's and Giorgio Agamben's spatial ontology and political aesthetics as an aggregate source toward recalibrating the approach to urban design research, pedagogy and practice, integrating the debate around the dispositif and its profanation. Critically engaging with the complexity and contradictions of the current neoliberal urban design practice—articulated as a complex urban apparatus instrumental to regimes of security and control—the paper explores the conceptual tool of profanation as a potential antidote to the sacred production of the neoliberal city. The act of profaning the urban realm, of ‘returning it to the free use of men’, is approached through the lens of a design research initiative in a squatter-occupied space in Rome, Italy. The narrative that emerges from this theoretically inspired action research points to an alternative practice that can be read as a site of resistance in reclaiming the intellectual productivity of urban design theory and research.

Urban design redux: Redefining a professional practice of specialization

Implicitly, Arabic literatures address the notions of ‘Umran’ and urban design. In Egypt, there are two terms used to describe the art of cities. This paper aims to disengage and delineate the terminologies in the field of building human settlements. The research starts with a thoroughly inductive analysis of the concept of urban design theories and discourse. The exploratory-descriptive approach follows some development projects that use urban design for several types of settlements neither a city nor town. Finally, the paper proves that ‘Umran Design’ is not opposite to ‘urban design’. This gets a recommendation to make urban design works in cities/town as well as provides experts who are aware of the national context with opportunities to follow the design process other types of human settlements. The disengagement can give a room in applicable research projects for the Arabic expression to work on communities hold a variety of types.

Urban routes and commuting bicyclist’s aesthetic experience

The present study examines whether and in what way aesthetic experience is involved in the judged quality of bicyclist’s route which they have chosen to ride between home and work. In this respect it is considered important to distinguish aesthetic experience from experience that is related to the influence of instrumental or functional features. The aesthetic impact is primarily related to features that stimulate emotional well-being when cycling. An online survey was conducted in three Nordic cities, Odense, Trondheim and Reykjavík, concentrating on cycling in different urban surroundings. The interpretation of the meanings and values associated with certain features or characteristics that influenced the commuting cyclists’ aesthetic experience is in this paper based on three theoretical viewpoints: (1) the phenomenology of perception and experience, (2) urban design theory and (3) environmental aesthetic theories and methods. The last theory involves the interpretation of experience from the environment into aesthetic meaning. The results of the survey indicate that aesthetic experience is of value to most of the respondents and is, therefore, of importance in developing the quality of bicycle routes for commuting. Greenery and contact with the natural environment and distance from motorised traffic are the most important influences on pleasurable aesthetic experience.

Diseño urbano y sentido de lugar: análisis de lugares con sentido, el caso de estudio de Valdivia.

Chilean cities should be subject of serious concern, not only because population in them is growing in size, but also in discontent. Functionality related problems, as well as a loss of local identity, make dwelling in urban areas meaningless. Addressing the aforementioned problems requires an approach that not only considers functionality, but also perceptual and subjective issues that arise from the perception that the inhabitants of cities have, in relation with their environment. Therefore, the sense of place appears to be a fundamental aspect to look at, since it can transform the way of inhabiting a certain area. Moreover, some guidance regarding what is a good place, and should it be can be found within the principles of urban design. However, the linkage between design theory, creating sense of place and the urban design practice, have not been developed yet. This articles intends to look at how Sternberg's integrative urban design theory could be applied, putting emphasis on the production of places with meaning, through the projects developed in an architecture studio at the Universidad Austral de Chile, for the city of Valdivia. The results focus on the spatial transformation of key areas of the city, through a methodology that integrates theory and practice.

A Theoretical Perspective on How Bicycle Commuters Might Experience Aesthetic Features of Urban Space

Limited attention has been paid to the value of the aesthetic dimension of the urban environment in altering the character of commuting by bicycle. The positive impact of aesthetics on cycling is primarily related to emotional reactions of an individual. For cyclists, aesthetic experience is a multisensory phenomenon influenced by various motivational factors. The purpose of this paper is to lay out a conceptual framework for studies of the aesthetic experience of commuting bicyclists. Three theoretical approaches were considered for interpretation of information: (1) phenomenology of sensory perception and experience; (2) urban design theory; and (3) environmental aesthetics. Together the three theoretical fields complement each other and explain different viewpoints on this complex subject. Relating earlier studies on bicycling to these theories may elucidate the ways in which bicycling affects how the senses work and how perception of the environment can be interpreted in terms of aesthetic meaning. In particular, speed affects this perception. The importance of aesthetic features has a strong relation to expectations and attitude towards the trip.

The attributes of resilience

Purpose – This paper aims to propose the concept of resilience as a way of aligning these disciplines. Theories of recovery planning and urban design theories have a common interest in providing for the health and safety of urban communities. However, the requirements of safe refuge and recovery after a disturbance, such as an earthquake, are sometimes at odds with theories of urbanism. Design/methodology/approach – The paper analyses the data from two case studies: the earthquake and fire of 1906 in San Francisco and the Chile earthquake of 2010. It uses a set of resilience attributes already embedded in the discourse of urban theory to evaluate each city’s built environment and the way people have adapted to that built environment to recover following an earthquake. Findings – The findings suggests that resilience attributes, when considered interdependently, can potentially assist in the design of resilient cities which have an enhanced capacity to recover following an earthquake. Originality/value – They also suggest that the key to the successful integration of recovery planning and urban design lies in a shift of thinking that sees resilience as a framework for the design of cities that not only contributes significantly to the quality of everyday urban life but also can be adapted as essential life support and an agent of recovery in the event of an earthquake.

Agamben’s Gesture of Profanation and the Politics of Play in Urban Design

Positioning a broader conception of design along the thematic context of the informal squat-occupation urban realities, this article contributes to the search for an alternative narrative of urban design. It presents a conceptual elaboration around Giorgio Agamben’s spatial ontology and political aesthetics as an aggregate source toward (re)calibrating the approach to urban design research and practice. Playing with the topos and the gesture of neoliberal urban design, and framing it into the wider background of the current trends of gated urbanisms, the article explores the notion of profanation as act capable of unlocking and enhancing new modes of politics. The centrality of the act of profanation is seen - through the lenses of a design research initiative in Rome - not simply as a productive antidote to the “sacred” phenomenon of urban design and its gesture imposed on humanity from above, but as a site of resistance in reclaiming, above all, a capacity of logos (speech) for an otherwise displaced and silenced urban subject and, along with it, the intellectual productivity of urban design theory and practice themselves.

근대주의 도시건축 이론의 프리즘 - H. P. Berlage와 CIAM의 도시건축 이론에 대한 비교연구 -

근대주의 도시건축 이론의 프리즘 - H. P. Berlage와 CIAM의 도시건축 이론에 대한 비교연구 -

Learning from new millennium science fiction cities

Fiction, and particularly current science fiction, (1) reflects, gives voice to, and may shape popular images of the city; (b) provides models of ‘world building’ whose methods may complement and critique other methods of informing the design of cities; and (3) plays out poetically rich thought experiments – cities of feeling – that can help designers understand nuances of current urban design and architectural theory. This paper examines the urban landscapes of three 21st-century award-winning science fiction novels. These cities of the fictive imagination can inform the creation of cities of the design imagination.

Public/private urban interfaces: type, adaptation, assemblage

The public/private interface has long been recognized as a key issue in urban design theory. This article presents a typology for the mapping and analysis of urban interfaces – the typical ways in which private territories plug into public networks. Drawing on mappings of the mixed morphology of the Australian inner city, a simple typology of five primary interface types is articulated according to criteria of access, setback, transparency and mode of access. The interface is construed as a socio-spatial assemblage wherein types are diagrams of connectivity that enable the creation, production and reproduction of ideas, goods, services and identities. In the second part of the article we explore the complex dynamics of adaptation and transformation from one type to another. The article raises questions about the methodology and ontology of micro-spatial analysis in urban research, as well as the importance of interface connections to urban production, exchange and innovation.

Evaluation of the contemporary urban design through the classic urban theories: Cairo and Gwangju downtown as a case study

Since Camillo Sitte’s time (1843–1903) and until three decades ago, a number of principles for quality design derived from a range of urban design and planning theorists have emerged in urban planning field. Due to the reasons of exploratory theorists’ influence on the new urbanism movement, their concepts were applied in varied regions, especially; within the United states. Unfortunately, the urban planners nowadays have ignored the basic principles of good urban spacing, abandoning theories evolved from systematic observations and deductive experiments thus; the urban environment constitute lots of problems which undermine the role of public spacing as a social generator in our life.This study examines the current situation of two areas selected in Egypt and South Korea against some general principles extracted from a band of classic urban design theories. Therefore; the study aims at measuring up the studied area to the successful principles in order to determine both the positive and negative aspects of urban design, in an attempt to improving the built environment in the forthcoming redevelopments.The result showed some encouraging aspects of the studied area, especially in Cairo downtown of Egypt which appears to be consistent with classic urban design theories, but Gwangju downtown of South Korea still has some problems, and as a result, there are overriding concerns that could well undermine such positive elements.