Playing with Squares
I came across these sketchup models which I remember creating 2 years ago after reading Jan Gehls "Life Between Buildings" and seeing this drawing. 
It shows how the subdivision of residential areas in Scandinavian housing schemes into groups of 15-30 dwellings has been found to work quite well in encouraging social networking. I stating thinking about this and how the rotation of these squares on only creates an interesting visual place but also one good for social interaction. So I started playing with this idea of simply rotating a series of squares along a street to see what kind of place I can up with.
It shows how the subdivision of residential areas in Scandinavian housing schemes into groups of 15-30 dwellings has been found to work quite well in encouraging social networking. I stating thinking about this and how the rotation of these squares on only creates an interesting visual place but also one good for social interaction. So I started playing with this idea of simply rotating a series of squares along a street to see what kind of place I can up with.
Place Making - High Street Kensington
There have been a lot of articles in the press lately about places in the UK that have been removing clutter and barriers from streets to improve the quality of the public realm. So on a recent trip to London I took the opportunity to visit Kensignton High Street, where such street improvements have been made to see if it works.
I really enjoyed the short time spent on this street, on what was a very busy Saturday afternoon both in terms of pedestrians and vehicles. Although the street was busy it never felt crowded or you never felt trapped as you knew crossing the road was an easy and safe option when you needed too. I now find it odd that anyone would worry about removing barriers on any street smaller that this when it works so successfully here!
Kensington High Street is a bustling retail/commercial street, which incorporates 4 lanes of traffic and a busy tube station. Without the barriers there was a definite sense of freedom on the street as without the barriers you didn't feel trapped on the pavement on one side of the street. Without the barriers there telling you where you can or cannot cross at certain points the road did the 4 lanes did seem more manageable and pedestrians were happy to stroll across whenever they wanted.
As it is a 4 lane busy street, pedestrian crossing points are still needed, however with the removal of the barriers the familiar and personally hated staggered crossing points no longer feel like cattle pens but useful and wide crossing points. What I thought most interesting about them is that you only need to walk the full stagger if you are the first person to cross or if the roads are very busy. Latecomers to the crossing can now cut across at any point allowing more people to cross more directly.
Junctions onto side street were raised to pedestrian levels and clearly paved to create a shared surface. This worked very well, with cars slowing and stopping for pedestrians, and the pedestrians doing the same for the cars. In key locations this raised area gives the impression of a larger public space in which market stalls are present, this gives the impression of a decent sized vibrant public space without pedestrians needing to squeeze around everything.
In order to keep street clutter down to a minimum there is not much seating along the street. Seating was however placed in little setbacks along the street, which allows you to remove yourself from the pedestrian traffic, sit back, relax and watch the world go by.
The only place barriers have not been removed is outside of the tube station. This however proves to been quite a useful stopping place for the people waiting outside of the station where they can lean against it (protecting their backs) while waiting for their friends.
A central reserve is also present along long lengths of the street, which is wide enough to stop and have a chat on or even park your bike. This again makes the road more manageable as you don't have to attempt to cross it all at once but then don't feel trapped on a narrow ledge when you do stop halfway.
Slopes & Bunds
The Disability Discrimination Act
Planting schemes will have no mitigation effect against noise.
With regard to air quality, the bunds will make little difference in terms of mitigating emission from the colliery operations – air pollutants simply disperse over the top of them and return to ground level almost immediately over the other side. Planting schemes are more likely to be successful in reducing air pollution, specifically in term of providing a mitigation measure against dust provided that the vegetation is sufficiently dense.
Place Making - Zones of Exclusion
I found this post on BLDGBLOG and loved the comparison of these maps to that of Mappa Mundi inspired!
Researchers at the University of Glasgow, sponsored by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, have spent the past two years asking young residents of Bradford, Peterborough, London, Glasgow, Sunderland, and Bristol to draw maps of their own individual urban experience in order to explore micro-territoriality as both a cause and a symptom of social exclusion. You can read the full PDF of their report here.
“In Glasgow, Sunderland and Bradford,” they found, “a recognizable territory might be as small as a 200-meter block or segment.” In Tower Hamlets, London, fifteen and sixteen-year old boys mapped their world into three streets, a football pitch, a barber shop, mosque, Indian restaurant, and – just beyond the clearly marked “Front Line” – an off-license, or liquor store.
Some of the sketches even remind me of medieval maps: the known world is an island of familiarity, simultaneously shown much larger than scale but made tiny and precious by the monsters of “Terra Incognita” that surround it.
In the case of a 15-year-old girl from Bradford, today’s dragons are “moshers,” “chavs,” “Asians,” and “posh people” – all “Enemy's.”
The researchers found that teenage boys display an even more complete ignorance of the world beyond their perceived boundaries: these two maps of the same area in Glasgow were drawn by young men in the same class at the same school, who live on different sides of the same road.
The report’s authors examined the causes, nature, and impact of micro-territorialization. Their research uncovered Bristol’s “postcode wars,” where gangs spray-paint their postcode in rival areas as a form of aggression, as well as descriptions of the maneuvers involved in going to school in one part of Bradford that match the Schlieffen Plan in strategic complexity. “In some places,” they note with reference to Glasgow and Sunderland, “territoriality was a leisure activity, a form of ‘recreational violence.’” In other words, bored and economically deprived teenagers are transforming 1960s council estates and Victorian terraces into a real-world, multiplayer World of Warcraft.
Of course, excessive loyalty to the local, and the resulting lack of mobility, has a significant and negative impact on access to education, services, and job opportunities. In the words of one interviewee from Glasgow:
If your horizons are limited to three streets, what is the point of you working really hard at school? What is the point of passing subjects that will allow you to go to college or university if you cannot travel beyond these streets? What’s the point of dreaming about being an artist, a doctor, etc., if you cannot get on a bus to get out of the area in which you live?
The report points out an interesting irony here: current policies in urban regeneration are dominated by strategies to increase “place attachment” as a means “to reinforce social networks and maintain the quality of an area through pride.” However, the areas that actually generate such loyalties are, in the authors’ words “often ones that have little that conventionally invokes pride.”
It was difficult to say which was more depressing – the relentless defense of a featureless piece of open space on the fringes of a Glasgow housing scheme where there is nothing whatsoever by way of amenities, or the confinement to a socially isolated but densely populated and built-up quarter-square-mile of London of young men for whom the culture and wealth of one of the world’s great cities might as well be on another continent.
The report goes on to identify 244 anti-territorial projects (ATPs) currently in progress across the UK. Most use sports or other “hook” activities to encourage association and to teach networking skills. Disappointingly, none tackle the issue in terms of the design of physical space.
So what does the anti-territorial city look like? Some things to consider: unsurprisingly, the report found that most conflicts “occurred on boundaries between residential areas, which were typically defined by roads, railways, vacant land or other physical features.” The city center also becomes a venue for bigger showdowns: a youth worker in Peterborough explains that “the flashpoints are in the city center, the ‘big stage,’ the one place they all, you know, congregate on a Saturday.” Finally, the researchers found that micro-territorialization took place across the spectrum of low-income housing stock, from “high-density, flatted, inner-city estates; traditional, pre-1914 areas of terraced housing; and suburban, often council-built environments.”
As the authors rightly point out, lack of jobs and economic hardship are key structural forces contributing to “problematic territoriality.” But what role does urban planning, landscape design and the built environment have to play? Can the design of the city itself generate – or mitigate against – territoriality?
(Note: Read the Guardian's take on the Joseph Rowntree Foundation report here and here).
Researchers at the University of Glasgow, sponsored by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, have spent the past two years asking young residents of Bradford, Peterborough, London, Glasgow, Sunderland, and Bristol to draw maps of their own individual urban experience in order to explore micro-territoriality as both a cause and a symptom of social exclusion. You can read the full PDF of their report here.
“In Glasgow, Sunderland and Bradford,” they found, “a recognizable territory might be as small as a 200-meter block or segment.” In Tower Hamlets, London, fifteen and sixteen-year old boys mapped their world into three streets, a football pitch, a barber shop, mosque, Indian restaurant, and – just beyond the clearly marked “Front Line” – an off-license, or liquor store.
Some of the sketches even remind me of medieval maps: the known world is an island of familiarity, simultaneously shown much larger than scale but made tiny and precious by the monsters of “Terra Incognita” that surround it.
In the case of a 15-year-old girl from Bradford, today’s dragons are “moshers,” “chavs,” “Asians,” and “posh people” – all “Enemy's.”
The researchers found that teenage boys display an even more complete ignorance of the world beyond their perceived boundaries: these two maps of the same area in Glasgow were drawn by young men in the same class at the same school, who live on different sides of the same road.
The report’s authors examined the causes, nature, and impact of micro-territorialization. Their research uncovered Bristol’s “postcode wars,” where gangs spray-paint their postcode in rival areas as a form of aggression, as well as descriptions of the maneuvers involved in going to school in one part of Bradford that match the Schlieffen Plan in strategic complexity. “In some places,” they note with reference to Glasgow and Sunderland, “territoriality was a leisure activity, a form of ‘recreational violence.’” In other words, bored and economically deprived teenagers are transforming 1960s council estates and Victorian terraces into a real-world, multiplayer World of Warcraft.
Of course, excessive loyalty to the local, and the resulting lack of mobility, has a significant and negative impact on access to education, services, and job opportunities. In the words of one interviewee from Glasgow:
If your horizons are limited to three streets, what is the point of you working really hard at school? What is the point of passing subjects that will allow you to go to college or university if you cannot travel beyond these streets? What’s the point of dreaming about being an artist, a doctor, etc., if you cannot get on a bus to get out of the area in which you live?
The report points out an interesting irony here: current policies in urban regeneration are dominated by strategies to increase “place attachment” as a means “to reinforce social networks and maintain the quality of an area through pride.” However, the areas that actually generate such loyalties are, in the authors’ words “often ones that have little that conventionally invokes pride.”
It was difficult to say which was more depressing – the relentless defense of a featureless piece of open space on the fringes of a Glasgow housing scheme where there is nothing whatsoever by way of amenities, or the confinement to a socially isolated but densely populated and built-up quarter-square-mile of London of young men for whom the culture and wealth of one of the world’s great cities might as well be on another continent.
The report goes on to identify 244 anti-territorial projects (ATPs) currently in progress across the UK. Most use sports or other “hook” activities to encourage association and to teach networking skills. Disappointingly, none tackle the issue in terms of the design of physical space.
So what does the anti-territorial city look like? Some things to consider: unsurprisingly, the report found that most conflicts “occurred on boundaries between residential areas, which were typically defined by roads, railways, vacant land or other physical features.” The city center also becomes a venue for bigger showdowns: a youth worker in Peterborough explains that “the flashpoints are in the city center, the ‘big stage,’ the one place they all, you know, congregate on a Saturday.” Finally, the researchers found that micro-territorialization took place across the spectrum of low-income housing stock, from “high-density, flatted, inner-city estates; traditional, pre-1914 areas of terraced housing; and suburban, often council-built environments.”
As the authors rightly point out, lack of jobs and economic hardship are key structural forces contributing to “problematic territoriality.” But what role does urban planning, landscape design and the built environment have to play? Can the design of the city itself generate – or mitigate against – territoriality?
(Note: Read the Guardian's take on the Joseph Rowntree Foundation report here and here).
Ecostar & Epcot
EcoStar, the £1bn eco-town and holiday resort in the desert of Dubai, could become a memorial to Jameel Hashmee, a Bristol-based businessman who was the driving force behind a scheme.
His vision was for a star-shaped town of 8,000 people situated 20 miles inland from the coast which would have a zero-carbon footprint.
The concept contains cutting edge technology to minimise the town’s impact on the environment and includes a five million ft² mix of homes, leisure facilities, offices and retail development.
Colin Bloch, RPS director, consultant on the scheme, said: “The power would come from five wind turbines at the points of the star, each 650 ft high and the tallest in the world, and from solar panels, while at least 50% of the water used in the development would be recycled.
“The centerpiece of the scheme would be a recreation of the Taj Mahal which would be the most exclusive boutique hotel in the world.
This island consists of two 5 pointed stars, which I think is a great shape for a city to be based on. It allows for a large mixed commercial, retail and leisure (and some residential) central hub with the arms housing the residential neighbourhoods. Basing the residential neighbourhoods on these arms everyone is able to live within close proximity to the sea (or greenspace if on land). Public transport can then run out from the central hub and along the central spine of these arms, with the stops spaced so that they are within a walkable distance of every resident (so the base of the arm no bigger than 400m from the central spine).
His vision was for a star-shaped town of 8,000 people situated 20 miles inland from the coast which would have a zero-carbon footprint.
The concept contains cutting edge technology to minimise the town’s impact on the environment and includes a five million ft² mix of homes, leisure facilities, offices and retail development.
Colin Bloch, RPS director, consultant on the scheme, said: “The power would come from five wind turbines at the points of the star, each 650 ft high and the tallest in the world, and from solar panels, while at least 50% of the water used in the development would be recycled.
“The centerpiece of the scheme would be a recreation of the Taj Mahal which would be the most exclusive boutique hotel in the world.
This island consists of two 5 pointed stars, which I think is a great shape for a city to be based on. It allows for a large mixed commercial, retail and leisure (and some residential) central hub with the arms housing the residential neighbourhoods. Basing the residential neighbourhoods on these arms everyone is able to live within close proximity to the sea (or greenspace if on land). Public transport can then run out from the central hub and along the central spine of these arms, with the stops spaced so that they are within a walkable distance of every resident (so the base of the arm no bigger than 400m from the central spine).
This concept does remind me of Walt Disney's Original Epcot Project with its radial plan and central city
Book Notes: Rossington's Radial Rational
Throughout history, town planning and urban design have rested on two main principles; a concern for urban form and the ideal city in architectural terms; and a search for the ideal community. Many of the human settlements that have developed as a result of the move from a nomadic existence to an agricultural one have displayed various degrees of design consideration in their layout and function. The earliest examples of these can be traced back as far as the third century BC with the ancient Mesopotamian (modern day Iraq) and Harrapan (India) civilizations.
The ideal city concept emerged in ancient Greece and was typified by the city of Athens, although like many other cities during this period it was not consciously ‘designed’ but grew in an organic nature in reaction to the acropolis. Plato, however in his dialogues on political theories and the ideal city clearly describes a consciously planned radial city known as the lost city of Atlantis. In Atlantis, the acropolis was also placed in the centre of the settlement and was surrounded by a circular wall and a series of concentric islands divided by waterways which linked into the surrounding ocean. Each concentric island had a clearly defined function (the small inner ring consisted of gardens and temples, the middle island was a military base and the outer ring predominantly agricultural land).
During this time religious beliefs influenced city design and circular cities were associated with cosmic alliance. Therefore the centre of Atlantis held great importance and is an excellent insight into the values of that society. In ancient Greek cities an urban space known as an "agora" would represent the centre of the city and in its function was the heart of the city where social life, business and politics would be discussed and debated. Where a central authority holds power it is common for a palace or temple to occupy the centre. A series of concentric roads can then cut the city up and allow the population to be situated at varying distances from this political centre on the basis of rank and status.
The Greeks themselves did not build any radial ideal cities, neither did the Romans who rejected a circular radial layout in favour of the square grid. During this time the circle and square were hailed as the most perfect geometric shapes because of the work of Marcus Vitruvius Pollio, a Roman writer, engineer and architect on the relationship between proportion and beauty. He recognised that nature’s designs were based on universal laws of proportion and symmetry and symbolized this with an image of a spread-eagled man whose extremities would touch the perimeters of these perfect circle and square figures.
During the Renaissance Leonardo da Vinci popularised this concept with his famous drawing of the Vitruvian Man, and the notion that cities should be designed accordingly with work and life taking place in an ideal space that responds to the rhythm of life. The Renaissance theorists also believed that the workings of the human body could be analogous to the workings of the universe (whereby the square symbolized material existence with lines and right angles expressing will, order and subordination and the circle represented spirituality and a continual cycle of life). As a result, the European Renaissance saw the re-emergence of the ideal city in the form of a radial plan as a diagram of humanist perfection.
In addition to this and more commonly in Renaissance times, the radial city plan was encouraged by military engineers due to its defensive capabilities. Francesco di Giorgio was the first Renaissance architect and military engineer to articulate the ways in which a radial system of streets, a bastioned periphery wall, and a public space in the centre could work together.
The use of a radial layout for the convergence of traffic had been apparent since the Middle Ages in merchant towns with a centralised market place. The widespread use of the stage-coach in the Baroque era facilitated a post-war function for the radial plan as an acceptable city diagram. Its prominence in transport terms was further elevated by the transformation of the city centre into a business district and the introduction of more rapid forms of transport such as the automobile, which emphasised the need for a more coherent system of radial traffic arteries. Due to this development in transportation and the redundancy of city defences, the walls of many previously fortified cities were pulled down and the land turned into a continuous ring road. The majority of the old approaches from the countryside into the city were rationalised into straight radial roads linking the centre to the growing suburbs.
Out of the industrial age came the re-emergence of the ideal city in the form of Ebenezer Howard’s Garden City Movement of 1898. The origins for this movement arose out of Howard’s concern for the poor quality of life in the industrial city and proposed the construction of new self sustaining satellite towns where people could enjoy the benefits of both the town and countryside. The concept of the Garden City consisted of a radial plan divided by six large tree lined boulevards traversing the city from the centre to the rim and split the city into six wards. With an emphasis on community the large public buildings such as the town hall, hospital and library set in large parklands would sit at the centre of the city in the location most accessible to the entire population. Running around the edge of the parkland was to be a wide glass arcade that would house the cities retail and leisure facilities, with the furthest city inhabitant living only 5-10 minutes walk of this ‘crystal palace’. The rings beyond this would consist mainly of residential developments of large well lit and high quality housing and have educational, religious facilities and further parkland interspersed throughout. The outer ring of development would contain the cities factories and industrial sector like the crystal palace the furthest an inhabitant would live from these would be 5-10 minutes walk. Beyond the city would be open countryside designated as green belt to stop the city expanding so that its self sufficiency could be maintained. The Garden Cities were linked to a central city through routes radiating from its centre through a series of rapid transport routes. The outlaying Garden Cities were linked to one another via electric trams by a direct road route and railway lines.
It was around the time of the Garden City Movement that Doncaster’s philanthropic colliery owners started to build housing for their workers. In 1907 Percy Houfton designed Woodlands model village for the workers of Brodsworth Colliery and was seen in its day as an exemplar piece of urban planning and was directly influenced by the Garden City Principles of tree lined boulevards and high quality housing. It was also around this time that the colliery housing at New Rossington was being built with ‘The Circle’ as its centrepiece (much of this area was constructed in the 1920s and 30s). The Circle - the most conspicuous pattern of urban grain in this area and which emerged at this time in reaction to modernist design thinking and the Garden City ideals - has a strong radial plan with a green space at its centre and a number of large residential properties, a church, public house and community hall encircling the central space. Around this inner ring are two rings of terraced residential properties before the plan merges back into a more traditional grid layout. In the corner spaces left over from the transition between square and circle are located further community buildings and the market place and the retail centre located along the circles northern axis. Although there are no references in historical texts about any influences on New Rossington’s housing layout the area does seem to embody an element of the Garden City philosophy with rings of housing around an area of greenspace and community buildings.
The ideal city concept emerged in ancient Greece and was typified by the city of Athens, although like many other cities during this period it was not consciously ‘designed’ but grew in an organic nature in reaction to the acropolis. Plato, however in his dialogues on political theories and the ideal city clearly describes a consciously planned radial city known as the lost city of Atlantis. In Atlantis, the acropolis was also placed in the centre of the settlement and was surrounded by a circular wall and a series of concentric islands divided by waterways which linked into the surrounding ocean. Each concentric island had a clearly defined function (the small inner ring consisted of gardens and temples, the middle island was a military base and the outer ring predominantly agricultural land).
During this time religious beliefs influenced city design and circular cities were associated with cosmic alliance. Therefore the centre of Atlantis held great importance and is an excellent insight into the values of that society. In ancient Greek cities an urban space known as an "agora" would represent the centre of the city and in its function was the heart of the city where social life, business and politics would be discussed and debated. Where a central authority holds power it is common for a palace or temple to occupy the centre. A series of concentric roads can then cut the city up and allow the population to be situated at varying distances from this political centre on the basis of rank and status.
The Greeks themselves did not build any radial ideal cities, neither did the Romans who rejected a circular radial layout in favour of the square grid. During this time the circle and square were hailed as the most perfect geometric shapes because of the work of Marcus Vitruvius Pollio, a Roman writer, engineer and architect on the relationship between proportion and beauty. He recognised that nature’s designs were based on universal laws of proportion and symmetry and symbolized this with an image of a spread-eagled man whose extremities would touch the perimeters of these perfect circle and square figures.
During the Renaissance Leonardo da Vinci popularised this concept with his famous drawing of the Vitruvian Man, and the notion that cities should be designed accordingly with work and life taking place in an ideal space that responds to the rhythm of life. The Renaissance theorists also believed that the workings of the human body could be analogous to the workings of the universe (whereby the square symbolized material existence with lines and right angles expressing will, order and subordination and the circle represented spirituality and a continual cycle of life). As a result, the European Renaissance saw the re-emergence of the ideal city in the form of a radial plan as a diagram of humanist perfection.
In addition to this and more commonly in Renaissance times, the radial city plan was encouraged by military engineers due to its defensive capabilities. Francesco di Giorgio was the first Renaissance architect and military engineer to articulate the ways in which a radial system of streets, a bastioned periphery wall, and a public space in the centre could work together.
The use of a radial layout for the convergence of traffic had been apparent since the Middle Ages in merchant towns with a centralised market place. The widespread use of the stage-coach in the Baroque era facilitated a post-war function for the radial plan as an acceptable city diagram. Its prominence in transport terms was further elevated by the transformation of the city centre into a business district and the introduction of more rapid forms of transport such as the automobile, which emphasised the need for a more coherent system of radial traffic arteries. Due to this development in transportation and the redundancy of city defences, the walls of many previously fortified cities were pulled down and the land turned into a continuous ring road. The majority of the old approaches from the countryside into the city were rationalised into straight radial roads linking the centre to the growing suburbs.
Out of the industrial age came the re-emergence of the ideal city in the form of Ebenezer Howard’s Garden City Movement of 1898. The origins for this movement arose out of Howard’s concern for the poor quality of life in the industrial city and proposed the construction of new self sustaining satellite towns where people could enjoy the benefits of both the town and countryside. The concept of the Garden City consisted of a radial plan divided by six large tree lined boulevards traversing the city from the centre to the rim and split the city into six wards. With an emphasis on community the large public buildings such as the town hall, hospital and library set in large parklands would sit at the centre of the city in the location most accessible to the entire population. Running around the edge of the parkland was to be a wide glass arcade that would house the cities retail and leisure facilities, with the furthest city inhabitant living only 5-10 minutes walk of this ‘crystal palace’. The rings beyond this would consist mainly of residential developments of large well lit and high quality housing and have educational, religious facilities and further parkland interspersed throughout. The outer ring of development would contain the cities factories and industrial sector like the crystal palace the furthest an inhabitant would live from these would be 5-10 minutes walk. Beyond the city would be open countryside designated as green belt to stop the city expanding so that its self sufficiency could be maintained. The Garden Cities were linked to a central city through routes radiating from its centre through a series of rapid transport routes. The outlaying Garden Cities were linked to one another via electric trams by a direct road route and railway lines.
It was around the time of the Garden City Movement that Doncaster’s philanthropic colliery owners started to build housing for their workers. In 1907 Percy Houfton designed Woodlands model village for the workers of Brodsworth Colliery and was seen in its day as an exemplar piece of urban planning and was directly influenced by the Garden City Principles of tree lined boulevards and high quality housing. It was also around this time that the colliery housing at New Rossington was being built with ‘The Circle’ as its centrepiece (much of this area was constructed in the 1920s and 30s). The Circle - the most conspicuous pattern of urban grain in this area and which emerged at this time in reaction to modernist design thinking and the Garden City ideals - has a strong radial plan with a green space at its centre and a number of large residential properties, a church, public house and community hall encircling the central space. Around this inner ring are two rings of terraced residential properties before the plan merges back into a more traditional grid layout. In the corner spaces left over from the transition between square and circle are located further community buildings and the market place and the retail centre located along the circles northern axis. Although there are no references in historical texts about any influences on New Rossington’s housing layout the area does seem to embody an element of the Garden City philosophy with rings of housing around an area of greenspace and community buildings.
Book Notes: The Social Life of Small Urban Spaces - W H Whyte
Discovering the public spaces people use and don't use and why
Commuter distance is usually short, usually around 3 blocks
The best used plazas are sociable spaces
You find a higher proportion of couples and groups, more people meeting each other or exchanging goodbyes.
When people go to a place in groups of 2 or 3 or rendezvous there, it is most often because they have decided to
They also attract more individuals, if you are alone a lively place can be the best place to be
Most used paces also tend to have a higher proportion of women - women are more discriminating than men to where they will sit
Men tend to take front row seats and if there is a gateway men will be the guardian of it
Women favor places slightly secluded
Self congestion
Commuter distance is usually short, usually around 3 blocks
The best used plazas are sociable spaces
You find a higher proportion of couples and groups, more people meeting each other or exchanging goodbyes.
When people go to a place in groups of 2 or 3 or rendezvous there, it is most often because they have decided to
They also attract more individuals, if you are alone a lively place can be the best place to be
Most used paces also tend to have a higher proportion of women - women are more discriminating than men to where they will sit
Men tend to take front row seats and if there is a gateway men will be the guardian of it
Women favor places slightly secluded
Self congestion
"What attracts people most, it would appear, is other people"
Many spaces are designed as though the opposite is true. If you ask people they tend to say they want to 'get away' from it all, go to a 'retreat' an 'oasis'. What people do however, reveals a different priority
When people stop for a conversation they don't move out of the main pedestrian flow in a street, they would stay in it or even moved into it. It could be because in the centre of a crowd you have the maximum choice to break off.
People also sit in the main stream and position themselves near objects (fountain, statue)
People stop in well defined spaces, they rarely choose the middle of a large space
People like to have a full view of all comers but keep their rear covered
Sitting space
People don't look up at buildings but whats going on at eye level
Sheer space does not draw people, in some circumstances it can have the opposite effect
The most popular plazas tend to have considerably more sitting space then less used ones
Sitting should be physically comfortable BUT it is more important that it be 'socially' comfortable - this means choice (up front, in back, side, in sun, in shade, groups or alone)
People will site almost anywhere between a height of 1 - 3 feet (30 - 90cm)
Ledges and spaces 2 bums deep seat people more comfortably - 30inches (76cm) will do but 36 (91cm) is better. However this will not double the number of people using the space, but will give people more choice (more socially comfortable)
Steps allow for a range of space for an infinity of possible groupings and excellent views of the street. So make steps big enough to sit on!
All things being equal you can calculate that where a pedestrian flow bisects a sittable place, that is where people will most likely sit. Circulation and sitting are not antithetical but complementary.
Benches that are fixed cant be moved if they dont work. Experiment first.
Chairs enlarge choice (move into sun, out of it, into groups or alone)
If you know that you can move when you want to, you feel more comfortable staying put. People often move a chair a few inches before sitting down about where they started as a declration of autonomy, to oneself.
Fixed individual seats are NOT good. Social distance is a subtle measure, and ever changing but the distance of fixed seats dont. They are rarely quite right for everyone.
Where there is a choice between fixed seats and other kinds of sitting, it is the other that people choose.
It may be less expensive to trust people and buy replacements periodically than to have someone gather in chairs every night.
Sun, Wind, Trees and Water
The best time to sit under a tree is when there is sunlight to be shaded from.
The more access to the sun the better. People will actively seek the sun and given the right spots they will sit in surprisingly large number in quite cold weather.
What people seek are suntraps and the absense of drafts and wind are as critical for these as the sun. Most new urban spaces are either all indoors or all outdoors, more can be done to encourage inbetweens. Semi outdoor spaces could be created that would be usable in all but the worst weather.
Tall freestanding towers can generate tremendous drafts
By far the best sitting spaces are those affording a good look at the passing scene and the pleasure of being comfortably under a tree while doing so. This crovides a satidfying enclosure; people feel cuddled, protected very much as they do under the awning of a street cafe.
If trees are planted closely together, the overlapping foiliage provides a combination of sunlight and shade that is very pleasing.
One of the best things about water is the look and feel of it, so people need access to it. Its is not right to put water before people and them keep them from it.
Another great thing about water is the sound of it. It can mask noise and conversations, so you can talk quite loudly bet still enjoy a feeling of privacy.
Food
If you want to seed a place with activity, put out food! Vendors are the caterers of the city's outdoor life. When they are moved on a lot of the life of the space goes with it.
Food attracts people who attract more people
Bunch them together and group tables closely together and as a consequence people are compressed into meeting one another.
The Street
The relationship to the street is integral and is by far and away the vritical design factor. The area where the street and open space meet is key to success or failure. Ideally the transition should be such that its hard to tell where one ends and the other begins.
Steps up to a space should be low and inviting so you can drift up.
Sightlines are important, if you dont see the space they dont use it.
Unless there is a compelling reason an open space shouldn't be sunk. They are dead spaces. People look at you, you dont look at them.
The "Undesirables"
IF good places are so benifitial why are there not more of them? The biggest single reason is the problem of undesirables! They themselves are not the problem, its the measures taken to combat them that is the problem.
Places designed with disrust get what they are looking for.
You will find winos elsewhere, but it is empty places they prefer; it is the empty spaces that they are conspicuous almost as if the design was contrived to make them so.
The best way to handle the problem of undesirables is to make sure it is attractive to everyone else
The way people use a space mirrors expectations. There are never problems in spaces that are well used; they become self policing.
Putting up barriers to deter undesirables usually only stops other people from using the space, much to the delight of the undesirables.
The Blackout Bus
This plan represents the most accessible places in a town. The red and purple areas represents the destinations and the green line the bus route. The line increases in thickness the more bus routes travel along that section. A destination that has a thin line next/through it is less accessible (has fewer buses going past) than destinations with thicker lines (more buses going past).
The Blackout
Recently I have been experimenting with a new graphic style to allow the message the plan is trying to convey more legible and easier to 'spot'. This has involved using colours of various brightness on top of a dark base. The paths or spaces at the top of the hierarchy are assigned the brightest (more contrasting with black) colours, with them getting gradually darker the further down the hierarchy you go. This results in a plan where the most important elements contrast and stick out from the dark background, and the less important elements almost indistinguishable from it.
Below the most used/public green spaces are in the brightest with the lesser/more privatised spaces getting gradually darker. This plan not only shows where the most used spaces are and where there is a lack of greenspace, but also how the spaces connect with each other and which spaces need to be improved/expanded to create a stronger green network.
Below the technique allows you to easily identify the movement hierarchy of a town and the 'voids' of space where new connections are needed. 
Below the most used/public green spaces are in the brightest with the lesser/more privatised spaces getting gradually darker. This plan not only shows where the most used spaces are and where there is a lack of greenspace, but also how the spaces connect with each other and which spaces need to be improved/expanded to create a stronger green network.
Below the technique allows you to easily identify the movement hierarchy of a town and the 'voids' of space where new connections are needed.
Underground Zoo
I think that the London Underground map is a masterpiece of graphic design. Simple and clear to understand it is one of the easiest maps you are ever likely to use.
*Someone* has however has looked at the map in a way no one has ever thought of before and has seen a whole world of animal life contained in the network of underground tunnels.
RIP Norman, 10th March 2008 - 18th June 2008
*Someone* has however has looked at the map in a way no one has ever thought of before and has seen a whole world of animal life contained in the network of underground tunnels.
Its amazing what you can find if you just look at things a little differently. A friend once found a robot (named Norman) lurking in one of my masterplans. Sadly however due to major changes in the development he will never come to life
RIP Norman, 10th March 2008 - 18th June 2008
Roadsworth
Peter Gibson (aka Roadsworth) began painting the streets of Montreal in autumn 2001. He was motivated by a desire for more bike paths in the city and a questioning of “car culture” in general.
I really like the sentiment behind this graffiti and think that it conveys some very strong messages about how the car and roads are so dominant in the urban landscape, with its needs prioritised over the pedestrians.
Is this trying to express that people shouldn't be forced to cross roads at designated points. Could it be the case that once a crossing is designated on a street then this will be the only place that people will ever be able to cross at. Cars wont slow to allow pedestrians cross anywhere else on the street because they think the pedestrians should be using the crossing, thereby forcing pedestrians to use the crossing even if it is out of their way to do so. Prehaps if that crossing was never there then pedestrians would attempt to cross the road an numerous points making cars more cautious and so more likely to slow down and allow pedestrians to cross? Does..........
Are car parks destroying destroying the fragile and beautiful natural landscape? The more dominant we are on the car the more we need car parks. The more car parks we build the less greenspace we have. The less greenspace we have the less we are likely to want to do for a walk. The less we walk the more dominant we are on the car. The more dominant we are on the car...
Are roads tearing communities apart? Unzipping socail connections?
I really like the sentiment behind this graffiti and think that it conveys some very strong messages about how the car and roads are so dominant in the urban landscape, with its needs prioritised over the pedestrians.
Is this trying to express that people shouldn't be forced to cross roads at designated points. Could it be the case that once a crossing is designated on a street then this will be the only place that people will ever be able to cross at. Cars wont slow to allow pedestrians cross anywhere else on the street because they think the pedestrians should be using the crossing, thereby forcing pedestrians to use the crossing even if it is out of their way to do so. Prehaps if that crossing was never there then pedestrians would attempt to cross the road an numerous points making cars more cautious and so more likely to slow down and allow pedestrians to cross? Does..........
Are car parks destroying destroying the fragile and beautiful natural landscape? The more dominant we are on the car the more we need car parks. The more car parks we build the less greenspace we have. The less greenspace we have the less we are likely to want to do for a walk. The less we walk the more dominant we are on the car. The more dominant we are on the car...
Are roads tearing communities apart? Unzipping socail connections?
Is the need to design out any possibility of any risk in a public space and the street clutter that this will lead to, killing the life of public spaces? Im not sure if the image above is by the same person but I think it shares the same sentiments.
Dymaxion Map
The Dymaxion map of the Earth is a projection of a global map onto the surface of a polyhedron, which can then be unfolded to a net in many different ways and flattened to form a two-dimensional map which retains most of the relative proportional integrity of the globe map. It was created by Buckminster Fuller
Nolli
Giambattista Nolli (1701-1756) was an architect and surveyor who lived in Rome and devoted his life to documenting the architectural and urban foundations of the city. The fruit of his labor, La Pianta Grande di Roma ("the great plan of Rome") is one of the most revealing and artistically designed urban plans of all time. The Nolli map is an ichnographic plan map of the city, as opposed to a bird’s eye perspective, which was the dominant cartographic representation style prevalent before his work.
The Nolli map provides an immediate and intuitive understanding of the city’s urban form through the simple yet effective graphic method of rendering solids as dark gray (with hatch marks) and rendering voids as white or light shades of gray to represent vegetation, paving patterns and the like. The city, thus conceived as an enormous mass that has been "carved" away to create "outdoor" rooms is rendered intelligible and vivid through this simple graphic convention.
The Nolli map provides an immediate and intuitive understanding of the city’s urban form through the simple yet effective graphic method of rendering solids as dark gray (with hatch marks) and rendering voids as white or light shades of gray to represent vegetation, paving patterns and the like. The city, thus conceived as an enormous mass that has been "carved" away to create "outdoor" rooms is rendered intelligible and vivid through this simple graphic convention.
The idea of solid/void is closely related to the idea of figure/ground. The dark and light patterns of the city reveal the manner in which public space in the city is conceived no less carefully than building. In Rome, public or semi-public space possesses a distinct and identifiable character whether it is a church interior, palace courtyard or public urban space. The Piazza Navona, for example, is easily identified as a "figural" element in the city, with the surrounding buildings acting as a back up field or "ground" into which the element has been placed, or rather, carved away. In contrast, the Modern city reverses this conceptual reading so that building is always seen as active figural object while space is imagined (if at all) as a kind of recessive, formless ether or receptacle that provides the setting for the object. In Rome, solid and void readings have the capacity to be interpreted as either figure or ground.
Letting your Hands do the Talking
I love how engaging this model is. Can you imagine turning up to a community consultation event with this on the table and then being told you can play with it. From my experience with comcon so many people have trouble explaining what they want, why not give the the chance to make it?
Fom now on I think all models should be made from PlayDough
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