Urban design: myth
or reality?
Paul Vanner
Ten years ago, urban design was an esoteric activity
occupying a nether world between architecture and planning. The writings
of Kevin Lynch [1] and Jane Jacobs [2] were treated with tepid enthusiasm.
Urban design was an animal whose existence was acknowledged but with little
real respect. Today, urban design is central to government policy and
is recognised as raising issues that have a fundamental impact on the
thinking and operation of the traditional players in a design team.
Government white papers and edicts on urban design,
urban quality, housing density, mixed uses and the role of design in the
planning process culminated at the end of the 1990s in the publication
of Lord (Richard) Rogers' Urban Task Force report, Towards an urban
renaissance (1999), closely followed by the urban white paper Our
towns and cities - the future; delivering an urban renaissance (DETR,
2000).
As government policies reacted to the breakdown of law
and order in Britain's decaying inner cities, programmes embraced more
inclusive and participatory attitudes to regeneration. Political imperatives
signalled the rebirth or renaissance of urban design as a key component
in a new vision of urban living - cities, towns and suburbs offering a
higher quality of life for all.
All this is welcome, but having been placed at the heart
of the regeneration debate, urban designers now have a responsibility
to ensure that not only are their skills welcome within regeneration projects
but that the outcome of their involvement is a measurably better project.
And, as consumers of the built environment, do we understand
the role of the urban designer? How can we participate as citizens in
bringing the urban renaissance into being? How can we ensure that policies
are adopted that will benefit everyone, making towns and cities vibrant
and successful, and ensuring that the countryside is protected from development
pressure?
In Wales we are particularly proud and protective
of our rural environment and natural landscapes. How relevant is the concept
of urban renaissance to a nation whose self-image is arguably more connected
with the countryside rather than the town?
Whether we live in rural or urban areas our livelihood
and well being depends on both. Over 75 percent of the UK population lives
in towns and cities of over 10,000 people but these in turn only cover
seven percent of the land in England and Wales (1991 census). Improving
the quality of urban life and regenerating the run down city centres is
important not just to the health of those areas but is a vital component
in relieving the pressure for piecemeal development in the countryside
and on the edge of our towns.
We are all familiar with how our industrial cities
grew, and how their growth was accompanied by a flight to the "utopian
suburbs" is well documented, but by this process the connection between
people and place was lost. This link gives a quality we all appreciate
in those European communities where living, work and leisure exist side
by side in tightly formed compact towns. These offer environments where
life is not dependent upon the use of a private car and where public transport
can operate efficiently and public spaces are celebrated not simply tolerated.
In Britain we have seldom managed to maintain or create such places.
Towns and cities have always been dynamic organisations
adapting to changing social and economic conditions, so why are we facing
such problems at the beginning of the new millennium?
I suggest it is not change that is the difficulty but the speed of change.
Urban settlements evolve over a long period of
time and other than natural or man made calamities changes are small and
incremental. In the late twentieth century cities experienced rapid change,
ever increasing in speed and severity as industries closed, depopulation
occurred and public infrastructure investment was cut, resulting in increased
economic and social disparity.
This process created inner city ghettos of disenfranchised
citizens with failing educational and welfare institutions often resulting
in disillusionment and in some cases protest manifested by violent public
disorder.
It was this last concern that encouraged government interest
in urban regeneration and gave birth to the concept, in Lord Rogers' words,
of an "urban renaissance founded on principles of design excellence,
economic strength, environmental responsibility, good governance and social
well-being."
What kind of professional skills do we need to
achieve a renaissance of this kind? Leave it to the planners and a two-dimensional
view of the world emerges. Architects are too often obsessed by stylistic
appearance with little regard for context, while our traffic engineers
have been preoccupied with moving cars into and out off of cities rather
than the benefits an integrated transportation policy can bring to the
quality of our towns.
What is urban design?
If the failings of the traditional professions characterised by the above
statements are at least partly true how can urban designers improve matters?
What is urban design?
In his Concepts of urban design (1995),
David Gosling defined urban design as "a prospectus to engage the
interest of existing communities, local authorities and potential developers."
To Ian Bentley and Paul Murrain, co-authors of
Responsive Environments (1985), it is about "democratic design,
creating settings which maximise choice for the individual, constrained
for the benefit of the collective."
In England, Planning Policy Guidance Note 1
defines urban design as "the relationship between different buildings
and the streets, squares, parks, waterways and other public spaces that
make up the public domain; the nature and quality of the public realm
itself; the relationship between one part of a village, town or city with
other parts; and the patterns of movement and activity which are thereby
established: in short, the complex relationship between all the elements
of built and unbuilt space."
Each of these statements is helpful, but one of
the most pertinent definitions has been Francis Tibbalds' "ten commandments"
of urban design, which can be summed up as:
- places are more important than buildings;
- we need to learn from the past;
- uses and activities need to be mixed;
- human scale is important;
- freedom of pedestrian movement (permeability) is equally important;
- towns and cities are about human contact, and accessibility for everyone is paramount;
- our built environments must be clear and "legible" to help people understand where they are
- our built environment must be "robust", that is, long lasting, sustainable and flexible;
- we need to be more sensitive in controlling the scale and rate of change in our cities - so comprehensiveness is tempered with incrementalism;
- all this needs to come together to form a rich, attractive and enjoyable public realm.
Urban design is thus derived
from, but transcends, the related disciplines of planning and transport,
architecture, development economics, landscape design and engineering.
It draws these and other strands together, as an enabling adhesive that
unites the influences impacting on the built environment to create a vision
for an area and then deploys the skills and resources to realise that
vision over a period of time.
Urban designers do not "design" cities;
they do not prescribe building form or style. Rather they are place-makers,
brokers between all the participants operating in a collective rather
than an adversarial role to improve the design of our public spaces.
People have no problem in listing places they
enjoy, and responses usually include such well known examples as Charles
Bridge and the Old Town Square in Prague, the Place Pompidou in Paris,
St Marks Square in Venice, the steps at Sydney Opera House, Greenwich
Village New York, or even the Mill Lane café quarter, Cardiff.
Underlying such choices will be a number of key
urban design issues, not necessarily immediately apparent to the observer
but intrinsic values that make a place special.
These include a sense of place, history, choice,
activity, building form and grain, security, movement and vitality, works
of art and animation in the public realm.
These are the issues forming the urban designer's
palette. They are not new; urban design has existed since the earliest
urban civilisations and although technology and materials may have changed,
the human response to other individuals and the built form has not altered.
When the urban designer talks of learning from
the past this is not a call for some pastiche replication, it is a plea
for designers to understand how people, places and buildings react to
one another and to learn from historical successes and failures.
Urban design is not about nostalgia; we all hanker
over the quality of the open-air market the pavement café, a shady
seat from which to watch the children play in the fountain in the square.
The urban designer's role is to identify and transpose those elements
of the built environment that support and encourage such choices and to
identify and eradicate those that hinder or preclude the range of experiences
to be derived from urban living.
The role of the urban designer is to build upon
the best examples of what has succeeded in the past, embodying the best
of urban traditions. To draw together the many strands of place making,
environmental responsibility, social equity and economic viability in
order to create places of great beauty and distinct identity — places
where we all want to be.
References
1 Kevin Lynch (d. 1984) was a student of Frank Lloyd Wright, who went
on to be professor of city planning at MIT. A theorist of city form, his
books include Image of the city (1960) and Growing up in cities
(1977), which explores how environments affect children.
2 Jane Jacobs, who was born in Scranton, Pa. in 1916, is based in Toronto.
With no professional planning training, she has won acclaim for her unconventional
thinking on cities. She is an advocate of diversity, mixed uses, and high
densities, and sees cities as "organic, spontaneous and untidy."
Books include The death and life of great American cities (1961).
Paul Vanner is Chief Executive of Burgess
and Partners, a member of the Design Commission for Wales, and a trustee
of the Civic Trust for Wales