Emerging concepts in urban space design

Geoffrey Broadbent
Summary Of Selected Chapters Part II (21-38)
(1990). Van Nostrand Reinhold (International) Co. Ltd, London

Presentation Info.

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

2

Index


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 ).


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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.


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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.


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Open cell

Enclosed cell

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).

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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.


7


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).

8

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.


9

Medieval Planning (2) European Recovery :

Fig. 1.18 Walls Of Constantinople


10


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.


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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 .


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Fig. 1.19 Oxfords: Tackly‟s Inn. Late 13th Or Early 14th Century.
Reconstruction By A. W. Pantin ( From Platt, 1976)

13



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

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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


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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.


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Siena plan

18


The Campo plan

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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.


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Medieval Regularity

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

21

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.

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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.

23

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.


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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.

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Fig. 1.30 Scamozzi, Palmanova (C.1593). Plan Showing Defenses In 1713. Third
International Exhibition Of Architecture, Biennale Di Venezia, 1985, Electra Editrice.

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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


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Emerging concepts in urban space design

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