Introduction to Urban Design

• This course introduces urban design, focusing on its theories and methodologies, particularly in the last 30 years in Europe and North America, with the goal of understanding its application and trends locally.
• The module provides a contextual overview of Urban Design.
• Module objectives include differentiating the roles/scales of urban design relative to other disciplines and developing a clear understanding of urban characteristics.

Urban Design Definition and Objectives

• Urban design shapes the physical setting for life in cities, towns, and villages.
• It involves designing buildings, groups of buildings, spaces, and landscapes.
• It establishes frameworks/processes for successful development and is considered the art of place-making.
• Urban Design involves the arrangement/design of buildings, public spaces, transport systems, services, and amenities.
• It gives form, shape, and character to groups of buildings, neighborhoods, and cities.
• It is a framework ordering elements into a network of streets, squares, and blocks.
• It blends architecture, landscape architecture, and city planning to create functional/attractive urban areas.
• The objectives are to create/shape cities and towns and enable people to create attractive places.

Why Urban Design Is Essential

• Strengthens the planning/development of livable and workable surroundings.
• Improves the stature/value of space, boosting the local economy, attracting tourists, and improving the quality of life for residents.
• Encourages sustainability through ecologically sensitive buildings and technology.
• Impacts a community's sociological/cultural makeup by fostering participation/communication.

Urban Design as an Integrative Profession

• Urban Design interlinks architecture and urban planning, designing spaces focused on users, groups of buildings, and the urban spaces between them.
• Architecture relates to a single building/group without exploring the spaces between, focusing on form through colors/materials and highlighting the building/its function on a micro-scale.
• Urban Planning is concerned with the macro-scale, organizing a city's physical components and focusing on functional relationships within, such as buildings, streets, transportation, and infrastructure.
• Urban Design focuses on open spaces such as streets, pedestrian paths, gardens, squares, and the aesthetics of the physical and natural environment.

Elements of Urban Design

Buildings

• Buildings shape and articulate space.
• Well-designed buildings/groups create a sense of place.

Public Space

• Public spaces are where people gather to enjoy the city
• They make high-quality city life possible, forming the stage and backdrop to life's activities.
• They range from grand central plazas/squares to small, local neighborhood parks.

Streets

• They connect spaces and places, while also being spaces themselves.
• Defined by physical dimensions, character, size, scale, and the buildings lining them.
• The street network pattern defines a city and makes each city unique.

Transport

• Connects city parts, helps shape them, and enables movement and includes road, rail, bicycle, and pedestrian networks, forming a city's movement system.
• The balance of transport systems defines the city's quality/character, making it friendly or hostile to pedestrians.
• The best cities elevate the pedestrian experience while minimizing private vehicle dominance.

Landscape

• Landscape is the city's greenery, including urban parks, street trees, plants, flowers and water.
• It helps define a city's character/beauty and creates contrasting spaces and elements.

Dimensions of Urban Design

Morphological Dimension

• This is the layout/configuration of urban form and space.
• Urban Morphology studies the form/shape of settlements.
• It has four elements: land uses, building structure, plot pattern, and street pattern.

Perceptual Dimension

• This is the awareness/appreciation of environmental perception and the experience of 'place'.
• Environmental Perception is that both we and the environment impact each other.
• Sense of Place describes the connections between people/places based on meanings/attachments to a setting.

Social Dimension

• This relates to space and society.
• Urban Design's Social Development includes the relationship between people and space, public realm/life, the notion of neighborhoods, safety/security, and accessibility.

Visual Dimension

• This explains the aesthetic appreciation of the environment.

Functional Dimension

• Involves how places work and how urban designers improve 'better' places, with both the 'social usage' and 'visual' traditions of urban design thought.
• Five primary needs people seek to satisfy in public space: comfort, relaxation, passive engagement, active engagement, and discovery.

Temporal Dimension

• Relates to the influence of time on the urban environment.
• Three temporal dimensions of urban design: activities are fluid in space/time, environments are used differently at different times, high value is placed on some degree of continuity/stability, and urban environments change over time with the implementation of policies.