emerging concepts in urban space design

Geoffrey Broadbent

Summary Of Selected Chapters Part II (21-38)

(1990). Van Nostrand Reinhold (International) Co. Ltd, London

University Of Jordan. College Of Graduate Studies. Department Of Architecture.

Course Title:

Urban Design And Planning. (0902721).

Course Instructor:

Dr. Magdy Tewfik.

Presented By:

Arch. Abedelrahman I. AlKhattab. (8121088) Date Of Presentation:

2- Nov.- 2013 - 1st Semester.

2 Broadbent, Geoffrey (1990). Emerging Concepts in Urban Space Design

Presentation Info.

Overview.

The Logic Of Informal Space.

Medieval Planning 2: European Recovery.

Medieval Planning 3: Irregular.

Medieval Planning In Siena.

Medieval Regularity.

Bastides.

Renaissance Planning – ( Alberti ).

Index


Overview

This important work provides a clear analysis of the nature of many of

today's design problems, identifying their causes in history and

suggesting a basis for coordinated solutions.

The author discusses a spectacular and formal tendencies in modern

architecture, relating them to parallels between philosophic thought and

design theory through the ages. Using a wealth of international examples

from around the world including USA, UK, Italy, Germany and France

and with over 250 photographs and illustrations, emerging concepts in

space design offers a fascinating insight into the history and likely future

directions of Urban Design.


Broadbent, Geoffrey (1990). Emerging Concepts in Urban Space Design 5

The Logic of Informal Space

First point in this chapter is the rules of the gridded cities (Geometric &

Social), then turning to |Hillier and Hanson argument (1984). Talking from a

biological concepts about how we think in spaces and buildings as cells that

is linked, related according to genotypes.

The defined buildings as cells into two types :

Enclosed cell with a boundary consisting a Floor, Walls, (Ceiling or Roof),

Inside, Outside, an Entry, and Threshold, that is enclosed to another cell.

Open cell that is open to sky and defined only by the boundary walls of

whatever closed cells may surround it.

Two ruler for these cells : every cell must be linked each other & should have at

least one open face ( courtyard) for example: Catal Huyuk, Turkey which is the

first city that got this type of rules.


Fig. 1.16 Hillier: Random, full-face

aggregation of square cells each

with at least one wall free of other

cells (from Hillier And Hanson,

1984, The Social Logic Of Space,

Cambridge University Press).

Enclosed cell

Open cell



Hillier and Hanson took a small town in southern France to practice their

proposed rules. And to enumerate its spatial properties that is:

1. Each building fronts directly, with no intervening boundary to hamlet's general

open-space structure.

2. The hamlet's form depend on how the buildings enclosed them.

3. There is one main ring in the complex with a growing number of sub-rings.

4. Each beady ring of spaces is formed between an inner clump of buildings and a

series of outer clumps.

5. The buildings which form the outer ring of clumps provide boundary to the

settlement that gives its finished shape.

6. The buildings are mutually accessible by a definition at least two ways any

building to any other building.



Fig. 1.17 „G‟, a small town in the Var Region of France showing Hillier's aggregation

in practice (from Hillier And Hanson, 1984, The Social Logic Of Space, Cambridge

University Press).



Medieval Planning (2) European

Recovery : Reviewing historical events , civilizations (Vikings, Muslims)

that affected the urban form in Europe . How these factors limited the

properties of forming cities, Location, Shape, using new Materials (stone

instead of limber), to defend their own villages.

Comparing different region in Europe that is under the Byzantine like the

Walls Of Constantinople and the Muslims proper castles in Armenia. In that

time a new complex's where found Burgus as a reaction of the region rulers

to built their castles, cathedral, monastery that farmers with their produce

and traders huddled round them for protection. So a city might started as a

town , old roman, cathedral, monastic, or it have started as Burgus round a

castle.


Medieval Planning (2) European Recovery :

Fig. 1.18 Walls Of Constantinople



After (1096) the Christians of northern Europe were emboldened to embark on

the first crusade, to occupy the holy land from Muslims. After many crusades the

invasions has been halted, so Europe recovered quickly and began to plan a new

towns outside the walls of their cathedrals and monasteries. Therefore the gates were

a control on cities to levied on everything that passed through till the French

revolution(1789).

Otherwise these walls and gates creates a feeling of unity between the citizens in

the city. Once individual ( Burgage ) plots had been set out within the new town they

would be made available to all comers on a first come and first served basis. Each

burgage holder was required to build a house on his plot. And on the 11th century

there was a real commercial revival centered in Venice between northern Europe,

Mediterranean.



Even though the city may have been started a regular plan it have

continued in irregular lines, according to location of the markets in it.

Many cities as King‟s Lynn, Oxford and other, planned so that street

frontages were occupied by several shops but with a single large

residence behind them.

As the merchants became rich hey built walls or pallisades, which

meant that others had to start new faubourgs outside theirs. Thus the

cities in Europe concentric, irregular loops. Like Hillier “ Clouds Of

Midges” but on a very large scale .



Fig. 1.19 Oxfords: Tackly‟s Inn. Late 13th Or Early 14th Century.

Reconstruction By A. W. Pantin ( From Platt, 1976)


Fig. 1.21 medieval Paris (early 17th century print) (from Hiorns, 1956)



Medieval Planning (3) Irregular.

Why so many medieval cities were irregular?

According to many factors like :

1.The nature of the sites on which they were built.

2.The defensive purposes.

3.Influences from Muslims and others.

Even though to fix this situation many Europe cities began to stream

regulation to clarify the land formation, buildings, materials, shapes, forms

and height to develop the medieval city. Further they tried to public records as

Saalman suggested. At this point urban planning some how began to

crystallized as shown in city of Siena


Medieval Planning In Siena

The city of Siena clustered around the castle of Vecchio, with a Y-shaped

formation as a three main roads( axes of growth): the Vit Di Citta, the Banchi

Di Sopra and the Banchi Di Sotta. Later on these three axes turned into three

main gates of the city walls: the Port San Marco to the south-west, Camnolia

to the north-west, and Romana to the south-east.

The last two created a Scallop-shell form space that the buildings surround

it to become later on the Campo. As for the Campo itself Like many of the

world‟s great urban spaces it is surrounded by buildings which themselves all

distinguished. The city were built from stone or bricks with open courtyards

and towers.


Siena plan




The Campo plan


Medieval Regularity

We tend to thin that the medieval planning was irregular, But that was no

means always the case, Medieval drawings exist of regular geometric planning

for example the abbey of St. Gall. Horn and born have analyzed the plans of it

and got a lot of details, grids, drainage system, and their work were

summarized by Lorna Price (1982).

So even in the darkest ages the monasteries were built, and continued to be

built, in enormous numbers, And according to location they provided the seeds

which many medieval cities grew from.


Fig. 1.26 Monastery Of St. Gall : plan (c.820-830 ad) ( from Pric.1982)

Medieval Regularity


Bastides

In the late thirteenth century by the kings of France and the dukes

of Aquitaine, the kings of England, to keep watch over and maintain their common

border. In exchange for the service they were called upon to provide to the

inhabitants, they received extensive rights. they starts to build Bastides (derived

from French word for build “batir”) for example: Montpazier.

So in these Bastides there a new regulations as the gap between two buildings is

10 inches to make fire-stop, the walls got gates in the end of roads, and the rest got

tower to defend the Bastide.

the Bastides took two regular shapes:

1. The rectangular shape like Montpazier.

2. The circular shape Montsegur.


Bastides

Montpazier, an English Bastide, was founded in 1284 by Edward I. Its layout is particularly

curious. Three longitudinal and four intersecting roads cut the town into right angles. The

houses are organized with a cellular uniformity, and are separated by narrow alleyways of

equal dimensions. At the center is the church and large square surrounded by houses.


Renaissance Planning – ( Alberti )

Curiously enough, the most coherent advocate of medieval irregular

planning was the first great architectural theorist of the Renaissance, Leone

Battista Alberti.

As Vitruvius before him, Alberti is concerned in location of the city, the spaces

between building (streets wide), the straightness of lines (street shape), and

how those factors affect the healthiness and happiness level. He assumes that

the city will be walled, with battlement, towers, Cornish's, and gates.

Alberti as Vitruvius has an idea how the city image will be by proposing the

center, the heights of buildings, the wide of streets, and the grid which will use

in creating the city elements as symmetrical in themselves.



Filarete inscribed the imaginary city of Sforzinda within an eight-pointed star of

walls within a circular moat, which formed the blueprint of the city. This plan was

the first of many ideal star-shaped city plans that was the opposite of the crowded,

irrational areas of the typical medieval city. In his work, Filarete compares the ideal

city to a human body when proposing that it should function “like a communal

organism.” The architect further theorized that its buildings not only had to be

designed to respond to the desires and needs of its citizens and government, but that

also had to be constructed adhering to three central values: permanence, beauty, and

utility.



Fig. 1.30 Scamozzi, Palmanova (C.1593). Plan Showing Defenses In 1713. Third

International Exhibition Of Architecture, Biennale Di Venezia, 1985, Electra Editrice.


Palmanova is a city in Italy

constructed during the

renaissance and it is a city

built following the ideals of

a utopia. It is a concentric

city with the form of a star,

with three nine sided ring

roads intersecting in the

main military radiating

streets. It was built at the end

of the 16th century by the

Venetian Republic which

was, at the time, a major

center of trade. It is actually

considered to be a fort,

or citadel as protection