Urban design concerns the arrangement, appearance and functionality of towns and cities, and in particular the shaping and uses of urban public space. It has traditionally been regarded as a disciplinary subset of urban planning, landscape architecture, or architecture. However, with its increasing prominence in the activities of these disciplines, it is better conceptualised as a design practice that operates at the intersection of all three, and requires a good understanding of a range of others besides, such as urban economics, political economy and social theory. It has been suggested that this article or section be merged with Gathering place. ... Urban planning is concerned with the ordering and design of settlements, from the smallest towns to the worlds largest cities. ... Central Park, like all parks, is an example of landscape architecture. ... This article is about building architecture. ... Face-to-face trading interactions on the New York Stock Exchange trading floor. ... The Politics series Politics Portal This box:      Political economy was the original term for the study of production, the acts of buying and selling, and their relationships to laws, customs and government. ... Social theory refers to the use of abstract and often complex theoretical frameworks to explain and analyze social patterns and large-scale social structures. ...

Urban design theory deals primarily with the design and management of public space (i.e. the 'public environment', 'public realm' or 'public domain'), and the way public places are experienced and used. Public space includes the totality of spaces used freely on a day-to-day basis by the general public, such as streets, plazas, parks and public infrastructure. Some aspects of privately owned spaces, such as building facades or domestic gardens, also contribute to public space and are therefore also considered by Urban design theory. Important writers on, and advocates for, Urban design theory include Gordon Cullen, Jane Jacobs, Christopher Alexander, William H. Whyte, Kevin Lynch, Aldo Rossi, Robert Venturi, Colin Rowe, Peter Calthorpe, Jon Lang and Jan Gehl. It has been suggested that this article or section be merged with Gathering place. ... Gordon Cullen (1914-1994) was an English architect and founder of the Townscape movement. ... The Death and Life of Great American Cities, by Jane Jacobs, is arguably the most influential book written on urban planning in the 20th century. ... Christopher Alexander (born October 4, 1936 in Vienna, Austria) is an architect noted for his theories about design, and for more than 200 building projects in California, Japan, Mexico and around the world. ... William Hollingsworth Holly Whyte (1917- January 12, 1999) was an American sociologist, journalist, and peoplewatcher. ... Kevin Andrew Lynch (1918 Chicago, Illinois - 1984 Marthas Vineyard, Massachusetts), American urban planner and author. ... Aldo Rossi, (May 3, 1931- September 4, 1997 Milan, Italy) was an Italian architect. ... Robert Charles Venturi (June 25, 1925 -) is an award winning American architect. ... Colin Rowe (born 1920 - died November 5, 1999, Arlington County, Virginia, USA) was a British architect, architectural critic and teacher. ... Peter Calthorpe has been named one of twenty five innovators on the cutting edge by Newsweek magazine for his work redefining the models of urban and suburban growth in America. ... Jan Gehl (born 1936) is a Danish architect and urban design consultant based in Copenhagen and whose career has focused on improving the quality of pedestrian urban life. ...

While the two fields are closely related, 'urban design' differs from 'urban planning' in its focus on physical improvement of the public environment, whereas the latter tends, in practice, to focus on the management of private development through planning schemes and other statutory development controls.

Urban Design Principles

Public spaces are frequently subject to overlapping management responsibilities of multiple public agencies or authorities and the interests of nearby property owners, as well as the requirements of multiple and sometimes competing users. The design, construction and management of public spaces therefore typically demands consultation and negotiation across a variety of spheres. Urban designers rarely have the degree of artistic liberty or control sometimes offered in design professions such as architecture. It also typically requires interdisciplinary input with balanced representation of multiple fields including engineering, ecology, local history, and transport planning. Engineering is the applied science of acquiring and applying knowledge to design, analysis, and/or construction of works for practical purposes. ... This article does not cite any references or sources. ... Local history is the study of the history of a relatively small geographic area; typically a specific settlement, parish or county. ... Transportation planning is the field involved with the siting of transportation facilities (generally streets and highways and public transport lines). ...

The scale and degree of detail considered varies depending on context and needs. It ranges from the layout of entire cities, as with l'Enfant's plan for Washington DC and Griffin and Mahony's plan for Canberra (although such opportunities are obviously rare), through 'managing the sense of a region' as described by Kevin Lynch, to the design of street furniture. Pierre (Peter) Charles LEnfant LEnfants plan for Washington, as revised by Andrew Ellicott Pierre (Peter) Charles LEnfant (2 August 1754, Paris, France – 14 June 1825, Prince Georges County, Maryland) was a French-born American architect and urban planner. ... Flag Seal Nickname: DC, The District Motto: Justitia Omnibus (Justice for All) Location Location of Washington, D.C., with regard to the surrounding states of Maryland and Virginia. ... Walter Burley Griffin and his wife Marion Mahony Griffin, in Sydney in 1930 Walter Burley Griffin (November 24, 1876 - February 11, 1937) was an American architect and landscape architect best known for his role in designing Canberra, Australias capital city. ... For other uses, see Canberra (disambiguation). ... Kevin Andrew Lynch (1918 Chicago, Illinois - 1984 Marthas Vineyard, Massachusetts), American urban planner and author. ... Street furniture is a collective term for objects and pieces of equipment installed on streets and roads for various purposes, including benches, bollards, post boxes, phone boxes, streetlamps, street lighting, traffic lights, traffic signs, bus stops, grit bins, tram stops, taxi stands, public lavatories, fountains and memorials, and waste receptacles. ...

Urban design may encompass the preparation of design guidelines and regulatory frameworks, or even legislation to control development, advertising, etc. and in this sense overlaps with urban planning. It may encompass the design of particular spaces and structures and in this sense overlaps with architecture, landscape architecture and industrial design. It may also deal with ‘place management’ to guide and assist the use and maintenance of urban areas. Urban planning is concerned with the ordering and design of settlements, from the smallest towns to the worlds largest cities. ... This article is about building architecture. ... Central Park, like all parks, is an example of landscape architecture. ... Industrial design is an applied art whereby the aesthetics and usability of products may be improved for marketability and production. ...

Much urban design work is undertaken by urban planners, landscape architects and architects but there are professionals who identify themselves specifically as urban designers. Many architecture, landscape and planning programs incorporate urban design theory and design subjects into their curricula and there are an increasing number of university programs offering degrees in urban design, usually at post-graduate level.

Urban design considers:

• Urban structure – How a place is put together and how its parts relate to each other

• Urban typology, density and sustainability - spatial types and morphologies related to intensity of use, consumption of resources and production and maintenance of viable communities

• Accessibility – Providing for ease, safety and choice when moving to and through places

• Legibility and wayfinding – Helping people to find their way around and understand how a place works

• Animation – Designing places to stimulate public activity

• Function and fit – Shaping places to support their varied intended uses

• Complementary mixed uses – Locating activities to allow constructive interaction between them

• Character and meaning – Recognizing and valuing the differences between one place and another

• Order and incident – Balancing consistency and variety in the urban environment in the interests of appreciating both

• Continuity and change – Locating people in time and place, including respect for heritage and support for contemporary culture

• Civil society – Making places where people are free to encounter each other as civic equals, an important component in building social capital

This article does not cite any references or sources. ... Look up Place in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... Urban density is a term used in urban planning and urban design to refer to the number of people inhabiting a given urbanized area. ... It has been suggested that Easy Access be merged into this article or section. ... Look up Place in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... Wayfinding refers to the ways in which people and animals orient themselves in physical space and navigate from place to place. ... Look up Place in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... Look up Place in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... Look up Place in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... Mixed-use development refers to the practice of containing more than one type of use in a building or set of buildings. ... Look up Place in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... Cultural heritage (national heritage or just heritage) is the legacy of physical artifacts and intangible attributes of a group or society that are inherited from past generations, maintained in the present and bestowed for the benefit of future generations. ... The Politics series Politics Portal This box:      Civil society is composed of the totality of voluntary civic and social organizations and institutions that form the basis of a functioning society as opposed to the force-backed structures of a state (regardless of that states political system) and commercial institutions. ... Look up Place in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... Social capital is a core concept in business, economics, organizational behaviour, political science, and sociology, defined as the advantage created by a persons location in a structure of relationships. ...

History

Although contemporary professional use of the term dates from the mid-20th century, 'urban design' has been practiced throughout the history of cities. Ancient examples of carefully planned and designed cities exist in Asia, India, Africa, Europe and the Americas, and are particularly well-known within Classical Chinese, Roman and Greek cultures. European Medieval cities are often regarded as examplars of undesigned or 'organic' city development, but there are clear examples of considered urban design in the Middle Ages (e.g. see David Friedman, Florentine New Towns: Urban Design in the Late Middle Ages, MIT 1988.)

A revival of urban design in Europe is associated with the Renaissance and, especially, the Age of Enlightenment. Spanish colonial cities were often planned, and in the Baroque period the design approaches developed in French formal gardens such as Versailles were extended into urban development and redevelopment. In this period, when modern professional specialisations did not exist, urban design was undertaken by people with skills in areas as diverse as sculpture, architecture, garden design, surveying, astronomy, and military engineering. In the 18th and 19th centuries, urban design was perhaps most closely linked with surveyors and architects. Much of Frederick Law Olmsted's work was concerned with urban design, and so the (then-new) profession of landscape architecture also began to play a significant role in the late 19th century. The Renaissance (French for rebirth, or Rinascimento in Italian), was a cultural movement in Italy (and in Europe in general) that began in the late Middle Ages, and spanned roughly the 14th through the 17th century. ... The Age of Enlightenment (French: ; German: ) was an eighteenth century movement in European and American philosophy, or the longer period including the Age of Reason. ... Adoration, by Peter Paul Rubens. ... This article is about the city of Versailles. ... A sculpture is a three-dimensional object, which for the purposes of this article is man-made and selected for special recognition as art. ... This article is about building architecture. ... Garden design is the art and process of designing the layout and planting of domestic gardens and landscapes. ... Surveyor at work with a leveling instrument. ... For other uses, see Astronomy (disambiguation). ... A military engineer is primarily responsible for the design and construction of offensive, defensive and logistical structures for warfare. ... Frederick Law Olmsted (April 26, 1822 – August 28, 1903) was a United States landscape architect, famous for designing many well-known urban parks, including Central Park and Prospect Park in New York City. ...

Modern urban design can be considered as part of the wider discipline of Urban planning. Indeed, Urban planning began as a movement primarily occupied with matters of urban design. Works such as Camillo Sitte’s City Planning According to Artistic Principles (1889), and Robinson’s The Improvement of Cities and Towns (1901) and Modern Civic Art (1903), all primarily concern urban design as did the wider City Beautiful movement in general. Urban planning is concerned with the ordering and design of settlements, from the smallest towns to the worlds largest cities. ... Charles Mulford Robinson (1869-1917) was a city planner and the first Professor for Civic Design at University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. ... The City Beautiful movement was a Progressive reform movement in North American architecture and urban planning that flourished in the 1890s and 1900s with the intent of using beautification and monumental grandeur in cities to counteract the perceived moral decay of poverty-stricken urban environments. ...

'Urban design' was first used as a distinctive term when Harvard University hosted a series of Urban Design Conferences from 1956 . These conferences provided a platform for the launching of Harvard's Urban Design program in 1959-60. The writings of Jane Jacobs, Kevin Lynch, Gordon Cullen and Christopher Alexander became authoritative works for the school of Urban Design. Harvard University (incorporated as The President and Fellows of Harvard College) is a private university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA and a member of the Ivy League. ... Jane Jacobs Jane Jacobs, OC, O.Ont (May 4, 1916 – April 25, 2006) was an American-born Canadian urbanist, writer and activist. ... Kevin Andrew Lynch (1918 Chicago, Illinois - 1984 Marthas Vineyard, Massachusetts), American urban planner and author. ... Gordon Cullen (1914-1994) was an English architect and founder of the Townscape movement. ... Christopher Alexander (born October 4, 1936 in Vienna, Austria) is an architect noted for his theories about design, and for more than 200 building projects in California, Japan, Mexico and around the world. ...

Gordon Cullen's The Concise Townscape, first published in 1961, also had a great influence on many urban designers. Cullen examined the traditional artistic approach to city design of theorists such as Camillo Sitte, Barry Parker and Raymond Unwin. He created the concept of 'serial vision', defining the urban landscape as a series of related spaces. Gordon Cullen (1914-1994) was an English architect and founder of the Townscape movement. ... Raymond Unwin was born in Rotherham, Yorkshire but grew up in Oxford after his father sold up his business and moved there to study. ...

Jane Jacobs' The Death and Life of Great American Cities: The Failure of Town Planning, published in 1961, was also a catalyst for interest in ideas of Urban design. She critiqued the Modernism of CIAM, and asserted that the publicly unowned spaces created by the 'city in the park' notion of Modernists was one of the main reasons for the rising crime rate. She argued instead for an 'eyes on the street' approach to town planning, and the resurrection of main public space precedents, such as streets and squares, in the design of cities. Jane Jacobs Jane Jacobs, OC, O.Ont (May 4, 1916 – April 25, 2006) was an American-born Canadian urbanist, writer and activist. ... The Death and Life of Great American Cities, by Jane Jacobs, is arguably the most influential book written on urban planning in the 20th century. ... For Christian theological modernism, see Liberal Christianity and Modernism (Roman Catholicism). ... This graph shows the rate of non-fatal firearm-related crime in the United States from 1993 to 2003. ...

Kevin Lynch's The Image of the City of 1961 was also seminal to the movement, particularly with regards to the concept of legibility, and the reduction of urban design theory to five basic elements - paths, districts, edges, nodes, landmarks. He also made popular the use of mental maps to understanding the city, rather than the two-dimensional physical master plans of the previous 50 years. Kevin Andrew Lynch (1918 Chicago, Illinois - 1984 Marthas Vineyard, Massachusetts), American urban planner and author. ...

Other notable works include Rossi's Architecture of the City (1966), Venturi’s Learning from Las Vegas (1972), Colin Rowe's Collage City (1978), and Peter Calthorpe's The Next American Metropolis (1993). Rossi introduced the concepts of 'historicism' and 'collective memory' to urban design, and proposed a 'collage metaphor' to understand the collage of new and older forms within the same urban space. Calthorpe, on the other hand, developed a manifesto for sustainable urban living via medium density living, as well as a design manual for building new settlements in accordance with his concept of Transit Oriented Development (TOD). The popularity of these works resulted in terms such as 'historicism', 'sustainability', 'livability', 'aesthetic', 'high quality of urban components', etc. become everyday language in the field of Urban planning. Aldo Rossi, (May 3, 1931- September 4, 1997 Milan, Italy) was an Italian architect. ... Robert Charles Venturi (June 25, 1925 -) is an award winning American architect. ... Colin Rowe (born 1920 - died November 5, 1999, Arlington County, Virginia, USA) was a British architect, architectural critic and teacher. ... Peter Calthorpe has been named one of twenty five innovators on the cutting edge by Newsweek magazine for his work redefining the models of urban and suburban growth in America. ... Aerial view of growth patterns in Arlington County, Virginia. ...

Equality Issues in Urban Design

Disability

Until the 1970s, urban designers had taken little account of the needs of people with disabilities. At that time, disabled people began to form movements demanding recognition of their potential contribution if social obstacles were removed. Disabled people challenged the 'medical model' of disability which saw physical and mental problems as an individual 'tragedy' and people with disabilities as 'brave' for enduring them. They proposed instead a 'social model' which said that barriers to disabled people result from the design of the built environment and attitudes of able-bodied people. 'Access Groups' were established composed of people with disabilities who audited their local areas, checked planning applications and made representations for improvements. The new profession of 'access officer' was established around that time to produce guidelines based on the recommendations of access groups and to oversee adaptations to existing buildings as well as to check on the accessibility of new proposals. Many local authorities now employ access officers who are regulated by the Access Association. A new chapter of the Building Regulations (Part M) was introduced in 1992. Although it was beneficial to have legislation on this issue the requirements were fairly minimal but continue to be improved with ongoing amendments. The Disability Discrimination Act 1995 continues to raise awareness and enforce action on disability issues in the urban environment. Look up disability in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... The phrase built environment refers to the manmade surroundings that provide the setting for human activity, ranging from the large-scale civic surroundings to the personal places. ... Local governments are administrative offices that are smaller than a state or province. ... The Disability Discrimination Act is a UK parliamentary act of 1995, which makes it unlawful to discriminate against people in respect of their disabilities in relation to employment, the provision of goods and services, education and transport. ...

Gender

Little consideration was given to the issues of gender in the urban environment until the establishment of Women's Design Servicein 1987. A group of women architects and planners expressed concern that women’s issues were being largely ignored by planners, architects and urban designers. They explored a problem with the personal nature of design: designers tend to see themselves at the end of the pencil or mouse, and imagine themselves in the space they are designing. When the majority of clients, planners, landscape architects, architects, engineers and construction personnel are white, able-bodied men this tends to create an urban environment that reflects the needs and experiences of this particular group, excluding (deliberately or not) the needs of others. Illustrating this is Le Corbusier's famous call for buildings and urban environments to be designed to a human scale: the scale of his 'Modulor' was based on a six foot tall man. Charles-Edouard Jeanneret, who chose to be known as Le Corbusier (October 6, 1887 – August 27, 1965), was a Swiss-born architect and writer, who is famous for his contributions to what now is called Modern Architecture. ...

Gender-aware urban design aims to cater to a human model that reflects both genders. Statistically women are smaller, have a shorter reach and are less physically strong than most men. The scale of stairs, door handles, chairs and many other designed elements tend to suit male ergonomics, while door closers match an able-bodied man's strength. Women have different physical functions; they require different toilet provision, areas for breast-feeding, accommodations for pregnancy, all of which have until recently been largely ignored by designers. Women's social position also has implications for urban design. Women still bear the major responsibility for caring for children and elderly relatives. They are still more likely to organise domestic responsibilities such as shopping and housework. Women have less access to use of a private car and are the greater users of buses. However public transport routes and timetables have been designed around the needs of commuters going into the centre at peak times and not around the needs of women delivering children to childcare, then visiting a relative, then going to work, then shopping, then collecting children again. Gender aware urban design seeks to acknowledge these issues in the way that our towns, cities, buildings, transport and open spaces are planned, designed and managed. Breastfeeding an infant Symbol for breastfeeding (Matt Daigle, Mothering magazine contest winner 2006) Breastfeeding is the feeding of an infant or young child with milk from a womans breasts. ... In sociology, social status also known as Social position social status means a position of an individual in a given society and culture. ... Bangkok Skytrain. ...

Ethnicity

Different cultures may use public space in different ways. For example, in Islam, a private space can be turned into a public space by the presence of a person of the opposite sex that could theoretically be a marriage partner.^{[citation needed]}

The UK Department for International Development had a programme of research aimed at creating a guide to urban design http://www.transport-links.org/transport_links/filearea/publications/1_637_PA3379_1998.pdf this appears not to have been published in full.

References

• Barnett, Jonathan, An Introduction to Urban Design, Harper & Row, New York 1982, ISBN 0064303764

• Carmona, Matthew, and Tiesdell, Steve, editors, Urban Design Reader, Architectural Press of Elsevier Press, Amstedam Boston other cities 2007, ISBN 0750665319

• Larice, Michael, and MacDonald, Elizabeth, editors, The Urban Design Reader, Routledge, New York London 2007, ISBN 0415333865

See also

• Activity centre
• Architecture
• Automobile dependency
• Behavioural sciences
• Building engineering
• Car-free zone
• Context theory
• Crime prevention through environmental design
• Design
• Ecology
• Environmental psychology
• Ergonomics
• HUD USER
• Landscape architecture
• Neighbourhood character
• Neighborhood Watch
• New Urbanism
• Place
• Placemaking
• Principles of Intelligent Urbanism
• Regulatory Barriers Clearinghouse
• Space syntax
• Transit-oriented development
• Urban consolidation
• Urban density
• Urban economics
• Urban planning
• Urban village

Activity centre is a term used in urban planning and design for a mixed-use urban area where there is a concentration of commercial and other land uses. ... This article is about building architecture. ... Automobile dependency is a term coined by Professors Peter Newman and Jeff Kenworthy to capture the predicament of most cities in the United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, and to a lesser extent, large cities in Europe. ... Behavioural sciences (or Behavioral science) is a term that encompasses all the disciplines that explore the activities of and interactions among organisms in the natural world. ... // Building engineering: a discipline for the modern era Building engineering, commonly known in the US as architectural engineering, is an emerging engineering discipline that concerns with the planning, design, construction, operation, renovation, and maintenance of buildings, as well as with their impacts on the surrounding environment. ... Car-free zones (also known as auto-free zones and pedestrianised zones) are areas of a city or town in which automobile traffic is prohibited. ... Context theory Environmental design and planning rest on theories of how new development should relate to its context. ... Crime prevention through environmental design (CPTED) is a multi-disciplinary approach to deterring criminal behavior. ... All Saints Chapel in the Cathedral Basilica of St. ... This article does not cite any references or sources. ... Environmental psychology is an interdisciplinary field focused on the interplay between humans and their surroundings. ... Dildonics (or human factors) is the application of scientific information concerning humans to the design of objects, systems and environment for human use (definition adopted by the International Dildonics Association in 2007). ... In 1978, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Developments (HUDs) Office of Policy Development and Research (PD&R) established HUD USER, an information source for housing and community development researchers, academics, policymakers, and the American public. ... Central Park, like all parks, is an example of landscape architecture. ... Neighbourhood character refers to the look and feel of an area[1], in particular a residential area. ... This article is about the local crime prevention organization. ... The New urbanism is an American urban design movement that arose in the early 1980s. ... Look up Place in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... Placemaking is a term that began to be used beginning in the 1970s by architects and planners to describe the process of creating squares, plazas, parks, streets, and waterfronts that will attract people because they are pleasurable or interesting. ... The introduction to this article provides insufficient context for those unfamiliar with the subject matter. ... The Regulatory Barriers Clearinghouse (RBC) collects, processes, assembles, and disseminates information on existing barriers that inhibit the production and conservation of affordable housing. ... The term space syntax encompasses a set of theories and techniques for the analysis of spatial configurations. ... Aerial view of growth patterns in Arlington County, Virginia. ... Urban consolidation refers to a diverse set of planning policies intended to make better use of existing urban infrastructure by encouraging development within existing urbanised areas (so-called brownfield sites) rather than on non-urbanised land (aka greenfield sites), thus limiting urban sprawl. ... Urban density is a term used in urban planning and urban design to refer to the number of people inhabiting a given urbanized area. ... Broadly, Urban Economics is the economic study of urban areas. ... Urban planning is concerned with the ordering and design of settlements, from the smallest towns to the worlds largest cities. ... An urban village is an urban planning concept. ...

External links

Industry resources

• Urban Design Forum, Australia
• Urban Design Alliance, Queensland, Australia
• New Zealand Ministry for the Environment publications, including Urban Design Protocol
• Resource for Urban Design Information, UK
• Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment, UK
• The Urban Design Alliance, UK
• The Urban Design Group, UK
• U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development's HUD USER
• Regulatory Barriers Clearinghouse, USA
• Urban Design Compliance Project, USA

Academic resources

• Urban Design Certificate Program, courses and free public lectures from Simon Fraser University

Other resources

• Urban design discussion forum on the urban planning portal Cyburbia
• Terreform: Nonprofit Urban Design Collaborative
• Urban Design in the Postmodern Context, Koray Velibeyoglu
• Kerb 15 - Landscape Urbanism. This issue includes contributions from Charles Waldheim, Mohsen Mostafavi, FOA, Karres en Brands, Kongjian Yu, Kyong Park, Kathryn Gustafson, Stephen Read, Kelly Shannon, Richard Weller,Melbourne, RMIT Press, 2007.