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PRINCIPLES
OF URBAN DESIGN
or:
How to Build a Town
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A
century of urban design experimentation, which was
unique in architectural history in terms of its
magnitude and its distinctive predilection for cold,
awesome abstraction, is rapidly coming to an end.
Despite the plethora of architectural utopias produced
during our century, the creation of a convincing and
committed concept of a viable ”city of the present”
or a ”city of the future” was unsuccessful.
It is striking that all of the urban visions of the last
hundred years were based on abstract intellectual
theories about the functioning of the urban fabric.
These diverse concepts of urban design share one thing
in common in a negative sense: their intentional
departure from the traditional European city - the kind
of city increasingly seen as a very desirable place to
live or work that attracts tourists like a magnet.
None of these familiar cities and towns originated in
our century. They are not ”brain-children” or the
products of an abstract idea. Rather, they derive from a
basic universal principle, namely perimeter block
development (in its various forms: open, semi-detached,
closed). This type of development results from the
placement of like individual units in a row, on parcels
of property with quiet inner courtyards, fronted by
commercial streets.
The method of sectioning land between four streets can
be found on all continents and traces back to the
origins of human settlement. The house itself has been
interpreted an infinite variety of ways, determined by
patterns of living, climatic conditions, and the natural
availability of construction materials. In the same way,
urban design ideas were influenced by the geological
properties of the land to be developed as well as by the
ordering of parcels, their allocation to certain
functions, and the differentiation between public and
private property.
We owe the quality of the built ensemble, which in
Europe is so rich in variety, to exactly this respect
for basic principles. We hold the view that the art of
building cities cannot be learned only from books, but
also through the built reality wrought by our cultural
history into human settlements in the form of a complex
Gesamtkunstwerk.
For this reason we deliberately base our planning
criteria on the experience provided by the successful
cities of Europe. These are cities which throughout the
centuries have demonstrated their ability to be
flexibile and accommodating, attractive and valuable, by
means of their pattern and layout as well as through
their buildings.
Hidden behind such ideas is no sacred or nostalgic
vision of the aesthetic qualities of urban space, but
rather the conviction that the loss or the mistrust of
this civic art is partly responsible for the social
problems of our day. It is perhaps an undeniable truth
that the models of contemporary urbanism that have come
unhinged are clearly linked to the manifestations of the
decay of modern society.
The point of departure for our design methodology is
therefore the design of the city, its built fabric, and
its spatial and functional organization. We thus attempt
to create the preconditions for the establishment of an
urbanity that will be the foundation for people to live
together in harmony.
Architecture’s history offers us viable models for a
city in the form of the classic European city cited
above. It is often argued that these cities, together
with all of their acknowledged qualities, have ”grown
organically” and thus can no longer serve as a
precedent for urban design today.
This is an odd statement, implying that the cities of
our ancestors were products of chance and not the result
of determined artistic and political activity. It is
certainly true that the urban tradition was essentially
handed down by many separate families, from the
aristocracy, from the upper and middle classes, and from
the artisan class, and that each individual building was
the conscious expression of a single builder.
Thus the many different façades reflect, for example,
the drive toward self-portrayal, personal ambition,
striving for beauty, and also healthy competition.
However, such achievements are inconceivable in the
absence of an overarching concept of urban design which
is carried out in detail, enhanced, and adapted to
special situations.
Today the two essential functions of traditional urban
design - city planning and architecture - must be quite
determinedly fulfilled by all participants in the
planning process, since the single private builder is
hardly involved anymore.
Without question we are aware that our conceptual ideals
tend to be located at the edge of what planners,
political authorities, investors, contractors and
business people are used to supporting.
A city with good quality of life can only come about
however in cases there those involved in the building
process have reached an understanding about this concept
and its ”inner meaning”.
In the following section we will endeavor to explain our
most important concepts and enlarge the portrait of a
city that we would like to reclaim:
- A town differentiates itself clearly from its
surrounding landscape. The transition from ”land”-scape
to ”town”-scape, therefore, is not flowing, but
clearly delineated by the buildings at the edges.
- The main component of any town is the building.
Grouping individual buildings into blocks produces
smaller neighborhoods which in turn form residential
quarters as an interrelated system.
- Each quarter possesses a central square which is the
focal point of its public spaces.
- Each building, including its façade and roof, is
conceived as an autonomous aesthetic unit.
- There are binding norms of design for all built
elements that form public spaces. This primarily
includes the façade materials, the proportion of
openings, and the profile of the roof.
- The space of the street is comprised by the
accumulation of individual buildings in conjunction with
one another along the edge of a block. As a public
space, the street should be made in such a way that it
can be physically experienced as intensively as
possible.
- Street spaces should be "enclosed" by the
buildings flanking them as far as possible. At the same
time, the corner building or building composition at the
corner is assigned special significance.
- The cross section of the street space should be as
narrow as possible. Accordingly, the street should no
longer function solely for the purpose of traffic; it
should be reactivated as the union of all dimensions of
life in the town.
- The public space of a street must distinguish itself
clearly from private space.
- The public space of a street takes on spatial,
aesthetic, and functional meaning in the form of a
square. The built development bordering a square should
offer the greatest possible variety of uses: dwelling,
shopping, services, "white commercial" (low
environmental impact), and an assortment of public
amenities.
- The interconnection of the most variegated living and
activity zones is an important goal. The more dwellings,
workplaces, and cultural facilities are brought together
in close spatial proximity, the more positively the
general quality of life will be affected.
- Every opportunity must be taken to locate on public
squares workplaces, offices, laboratories, shops,
communal and public services, recreational activities
and restaurants. To achieve this, built elements must be
arranged at logically predesignated sites, so that more
of these kinds of uses can be added much later.
- Larger integrated retail spaces and shopping
opportunities are to be organized as rows of stores or
in market halls. Specialty departments of a supermarket
unit should be detached from the inward-directed
structure of its spatial organization and oriented
towards public space as attractive individual shops.
- Every street or every square should be given an
individual, unmistakable formal identity. These urban
spaces are not merely unused areas, the leftover residue
of built blocks, but are independent spaces with
discrete qualities.
- As a rule street spaces should be lined on both sides
with trees, while squares may be paved exclusively in
stone.
- Streets and squares, i.e. the urban spaces, are to be
laid out according to the principle of conveying at once
closure and openness. In order to achieve this, the
spatial transition from squares to streets must be
arranged so that the character of "enclosure"
is maintained, by means of tapering, staggering, or
change of angle.
- Every neighborhood is to be given points of access
other than those designed as major architectural
entrances. In this way, the openness of the spatial
continuum is guaranteed. This affords a diverse offering
of alternative paths within the whole street system.
- On the whole, streets are to be designed as two-way
thoroughfares. One-way streets unnecessarily lengthen
travel routes, thus producing more traffic and
diminishing the orientation of the driver.
- Central squares are to be reserved mainly for
pedestrians only.
- In order to reduce the amount of signage in public
spaces as much as possible, traffic indicators are to be
determined solely through spatial design. Driving speeds
are primarily influenced by spatial geometries and by
the design of the road surface.
- Parking on public streets should be reduced to a
minimum, and large parking facilities are not generally
desirable within the space of the city. Instead, larger
private parking lots are to be laid out in the
generously planted courtyard areas, so that the vehicles
will not be easily seen.
- Entrance to parking areas is provided by gate-houses
or other types of architecturally designed gateways.
- The courtyard spaces planned for parking spaces will
be designed so that during the day they are available
for children to use as playgrounds. In a sense this
becomes “playing in the street”, which is more
adventurous for children than using specially designed
play equipment.
CITY AND URBANITY
The notions of "city" and "urban
character" are not to be confused with such terms
as downtown, service center, galleria, plaza, and
shopping mall.
Instead, the desired character will be guaranteed by
relatively small scale building lots and the greatest
possible selection of uses. This encompasses the idea of
the street as place just as it includes the possibility
of direct voice contact with the street from the highest
story.
Nearly all traditional small towns and even villages
welcome us with more urbanity and a more exciting
spatial intensity than we are able to experience in
modern city centers. Urbanity is thus not a question of
a "metropolis" per se, nor does it mean a
"city of stone" or keeping to a single
"cornice height". We believe urbanity to be a
notion with a positive association which we understand
as the built frame that unconsciously speaks to us
through its human scale and which engenders a state of
spatial well-being.
Our philosophy obviously does not aim to simply
reproduce the city of the past. But we are convinced
that awareness of public space must be reawakened
through the creation of new towns and cities, and that
in order to do this, the model of the traditional city
cannot be rejected. What is crucial for this
"sensitizing process" is to first learn to
understand the pre-existing model in order to translate
it into contemporary conditions. For the sake of this
principle we must apply well-established basic ideas and
mediate them against the needs of today's society.
Along with striving in a businesslike manner to bring
the greatest possible variety of uses to public space,
the task of achieving the greatest possible
architectural diversity must be given high priority.
The method that we have employed to create such a lively
image elsewhere (Ritterstrasse and Rauchstrasse in
Berlin; Consuls De Mer; Montpellier; De Resident, The
Hague; Kostverlorenvaart, Amsterdam; Noorderhof,
Amsterdam; Brandevoort, Helmond), consists of inviting
several architects to design individual buildings within
the fixed framework of an urban design scheme.
In this process, individual design tasks are distributed
among the various architects participating, alternating
them around a given block, so that these different
creative personalities can prepare plans for buildings
as "infill" and thus provide the foundations
for a variegated streetscape.
Because our architecture schools and the common mode of
commissioning architects are increasingly oriented to
specialized work as part of a team - no longer a matter
of building in ensemble - the planning process requires
a special procedure. One aspect of this is the initial
selection of the architects. An additional aspect is the
design process itself.
This kind of design practice allows us to realign
ourselves to the city plans of the traditional European
city, which is characterized by a multiple array of a
common building type, interspersed with prominent
buildings, and by the building's function as form-giver
in the creation of spaces of streets and squares. The
individual buildings are to be treated from the start as
individuals. They are to follow specific design
guidelines. Through this, public space becomes a
relatively neutral, but heterogeneous place, which is
not dominated by a single building or by large-scale
complexes.
The "myth of isolation" that came about in our
century (the dehumanizing "art for art's sake"
attitude of many planners) must be fundamentally
challenged. A critical investigation is long overdue of
the highly questionable acclaim given to an architecture
which ultimately will have to share responsibility for
the eradication of the city as an environment for
living. This planning tendency is reinforced by
fashion-oriented architecture journalism, which
consistently favors precisely the kind of projects that
are realized most radically as isolated products in a
space practically void of humans (effectively replacing
the idea of a "built environment" with the act
of publication).
In order to continue to develop the "project of the
city", the model of public space handed down
through the centuries along with its main elements -
building, street, square; dwelling, working, recreation
- must be rediscovered.
(Trans. note: Stadt in German may be translated
either as city or town, which have different
connotations in English. The distinction generally has
to do with size but also with spatial character -
height, density, etc. - and their perceptual
consequences.)
rk · chk
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