Category Archives: Urban Design

Optimism by design

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Corbusier is credited with the title of the Father of ‘Critical Regionalism’. The Legislative Assembly Building in Chandigarh is said to typify his approach to design in this latter stage of his career.

The Legislative Assembly Building by Le Corbusier in Chandigarh was designed as an architectural statement “strong enough to embody a sense of power and permanence, of seriousness and exaltation.”

Chandigarh was commissioned by Nehru “to reflect the new nation’s modern, progressive outlook.” According to Nehru the new city was to be “unfettered by the traditions of the past, a symbol of the nation’s faith in the future.”

Chandigarh a social utopia, designed as a post-war Garden City, despite the proliferation of the contemporary problems of urban ‘slums’ and ‘squatter’ settlements ranks first in India in the Human Development Index for quality of life and e-readiness.

The design of Chardigarh was intended to provide “equitable opportunities for a dignified, healthy living even to the ‘poorest of the poor’.”

Although it has been stated that Chandigarh could have been designed anywhere, the UNESCO listing acknowleges  Corbusier paid particular attention to the landscape context:

“The natural edges formed by the hills and the two rivers, the gently sloping plain with groves of mango trees, a stream bed meandering across its length and the existing roads and rail lines – all were given due consideration in the distribution of functions, establishing the hierarchy of the roads and giving the city its ultimate civic form.”

Energy Intensive

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Trying to imagine how the landscape of renewables will look in the future is quite a challenge. Will they be industrial or parklike in character? Or will the have the characteristics of gardens or wilderness places? If the future of alternative energy technology mirrors the evolution of the mobile phone we should look forward to an interesting future. How quickly will the first generation carbon neutral cities become technologically and aesthetically obsolete?

When will the classic designs of our zero carbon future become apparent?

What is landscape urbanism?

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Charles Waldheim Landscape urbanism reader

Charles Waldheim's Landscape urbanism reader

[See notes on Urban design and landscape urbanism]

London’s Architectural Association has picked up the term landscape urbanism and come near to draining it of meaning. The programme’s ‘rationale’ states that landscape urbanism is understood as ‘a model of connective, scalar and temporal operations through with the urban is conceived and engaged with: the urban is conceived and engaged with: the urban is diagrammed as a landscape; a complex and processual ecology’. In social science, ‘processual’ means ‘of or relating to a process, especially to the methodological study of processes’. In physics ‘A scalar is a quantity with a magnitude but no direction’. So I would describe the above ‘rationale’ as profoundly vague.
Wikipedia defines landscape urbanism as ‘a theory of urbanism arguing that landscape, rather than architecture, is more capable of organizing the city and enhancing the urban experience’. This definition comes from The landscape urbanism reader edited by Charles Waldheim (Princeton Architectural Press, 2006). Waldheim associates the term landscape urbanism with James Corner’s essay Terra Fluxus. Corner, in turn, associates the term with a conference organized by Waldheim in 1997. But Corner’s essay, unlike the AA statement, is cogent and useful and has a simple underlying message: buildings and landscapes must be considered together, planned together and designed together (my phrasing). They comprise a ‘field’ on which we operate. Corner works with an architect (Stan Alan) and their firm has the name Field Operations. Corner’s essay allows one to understand what the AA means by processual. City planning should rest on an understanding of the ecological and social processes which underpin Ian McHarg’s Design with nature approach. The term Terra Fluxus is therefore a contrast with Terra Firma: the world is not firm – it is a flux (as Heraclitus observed). I commend James Corner for his clarity and abhor the AA’s obfuscation of the term.

For more discussion see Jason King’s landscape + urbanism blog. It is an important debate and I have provisionally added Charles Waldheim’s reader to the list of 100 Best Books on landscape architecture.

See also: the definition of landscape urbanism

Turf roof gardens for back to nature sustainable ecohouse living in the twenty-first century

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Turf roof gardens for the twentyfirst century?

Turf roof gardens for the twentyfirst century?

Iceland is the most recently made country and has a great-and-abandonned tradition of turf building. Dwellings were built with stone foundations, birch frames and turf cladding for the roofs and walls. Interiors were probably damp but now that waterproof membranes are available they should go back to to cladding their buildings in turf. It would be good for insulation, sound-proofing, wildlife etc and could create jobs for an icy land now down on its uppers.
I expect the greatest difference between the cities of the 20th and 21st centuries to be the prevelance of a vegetative cladding on cities of the 21st century. Icelanders could export consultancy skills instead of cod – and we should all remember that this was the classic building technique in Neolithic Europe.

Peak Oil Group Taskforce and the need to plan for greener transport – urban design with veloways and cycletubes?

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Planning cycle routes is the healthiest, fastest, cheapest, greenest and most ecological approach to greener rural and urban transport in the coming age of Peak Oil

Planning cycle routes is the healthiest, fastest, cheapest, greenest and most ecological approach to greener rural and urban transport in the coming age of Peak Oil

When I heard that the UK’s Peak Oil Group Taskforce is calling for greener transport, I thought at once of leafy lanes in country areas joined to panoramic cycletubes in urban areas. No such luck. In the greasy shell of a small nut, what they want is taxpayer subsidies for public transport engineering and the ‘ongoing introduction of lower carbon technology and trials of sustainable bio fuels’. There is no mention of the Great Green Machine – the bicycle – in their shamefully self-serving report. The above photograph is of the Eastway Cycle Circuit before it was bulldozed to make way for London’s 2012 Olympics.

The snowball effect

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Tom once the winter is over you will be free of snowball throwing teenagers! Then perhaps, given your recent acquisition of expertise in the art of dodging snowballs through firsthand experience, you can give lessons on snowball etiquette in urban and rural areas and advice for the unwary…

I found this description of teenage snowball warfare that might be of assistance in compiling the necessary advice.

Here are several scenerios with which to contextualise your advice:

Scenerio One: A seventy year-old was arrested for allegedly pointing a gun at snowball throwing teenagers.

Scenerio Two: The police and hoodies engage in snowball fight.

Scenerio Three: A man kidnaps a teenager for throwing a snowball.

Scenerio Four: Girl throws a snowball at a boy.

Scenerio Five: Police hunt teenagers throwing snowballs at traffic.

Here is some helpful opinions from the general snowball fight interested public. Overzealous teenagers, snowballs and transportation seem to be a particularly potent mix.