Urban Design Studio

Module 1 – Introduction to Urban Design

d. trip flow

LEARNING
OBJECTIVES
After studying this module, you as a future Architect 3. The building blocks of a Regional City are Centers,
Districts, preserves and?
should be able to:
A. corridors
1. Define in simple terms the fundamental b. trails
terminology in Urban Design and Planning c. greenbelts
2. Differentiate Urban Design from Urban d. road networks
Planning
4. In a Regional City, these are the primary retail,
civic and work place dominated with some
residential uses mixed in.
TOPIC A. districts
OUTLINE b. nodes
c. centers
1. Key terms used in Urban Design and
d. precincts
Planning

5. These are the skeletal structure of regional form

and its connections, and they form the defining
OVERVIEW framework of its future. Some of these includes
waterways, road networks, trail or greenbelts.
a. travel routes
Module 1 serves as a brief discussion about the b. landmarks
fundamental terms and concepts used in Urban c. destinations
Design. It gives us an overview on the lessons D. corridors
learned in Planning2. This module is good for 3 hour
6. This concept in urban design moderate and high
lecture.
density housing along with complementary public
uses, jobs, retail and services are concentrated in
ACTIVATING mixed use developments at strategic points along
PRIOR KNOWLEDGE the regional transit system.
A. transit oriented development
1. It is constitutes the spatial distribution of
b. transit reliant development
population and the pattern of trips by people when
c. transit centric development
they go from their homes to their place of work, to
d. transit dependent development
schools, shops, social gatherings or to any other
places where they will have a productive or social
7. Who is the proponent of Une Cite Industrielle?
activity etc.
a. Le Curbosier
a. urban demographics
B. Tony Garnier
B. urban spatial structure
c. Siegfred Gideon
c. urban organization
d. Kevin Lynch
d. urban form

8. A term of reference given for or to the scheme of

2. Movement of people in urban setting can be
arrangement for a family-life community. The
monocentric or polycentric. These are the the?
underlying principle of the scheme is that it should
A. trip pattern
be regarded both as a unit of a larger whole and a
b. trip schedule
distinct entity in itself.
c. movement

Module 1 – Introduction to Urban Design | Page 1 of 6

 a. townhouse unit
B. neighbourhood unit
c. suburban
d. community Key Terms in Urban
Design and Planning
9. If the CBD is considered as the heart of the city,
and green open spaces is known as the lungs of the
city, what is then regarded as the artery of the city? AVENUE. In a city an avenue is generally a wide,
a. main city thoroughfares straight street lined with buildings or trees, and it
B. urban waterways sometimes leads to a terminal building or
c. urban bikelanes feature at its end. (The word “avenue” is derived
from the Latin “advenis,” meaning “to come
d. city road networks
to.”) An avenue is also a straight, often tree-lined
10. In urban design, it is an examination of the form, road leading to a house or mansion. As an
appearance, and composition of a city-an illustration element in city planning, the avenue descends from
of its assets and liabilities. It enables designers and the ancient processional way.
planners to see where the city needs reshaping. BLIGHT. Sometimes called “planning blight,” but
A. visual survey among planners planners often referred to simply as
b. ocular inspection “blight.” It stems from depreciation in the
c. site investigation value of land or buildings as the result of planning
d. urban data gathering proposals or planned development. Blight may
occur in two ways:
INTRODUCTION TO 1. As the result of the putting forward of
URBAN DESIGN alternative planning proposals for public
discussion. In such a situation, until a
Urban Design. The aspect of Architecture and City single and final proposal is decided
Planning that deals with the design of urban upon, there is uncertainty about the
future development of all land affected
structures and spaces.
by each proposal. As the practice of
putting forward alternative planning
City Planning. The activity or profession of proposals for public discussion
determining the future physical arrangement and increases, there is likely to be an
condition of a community, involving an appraisal of increase in the form of blight.
the current conditions, a forecast of future 2. Where a specific, confirmed proposal, or
requirements, a plan for the fulfilment of these a development actually carried out (e.g.
requirements and proposal for legal, financial and a new road), so affects the value of the
constructional programs to implement the plan. Also properties in the vicinity that they cannot
called Town Planning be sold at the market value they had
before the development was proposed
or took place. At present this is the
Urban Structure. The arrangement of land use in more common form of blight.
urban areas, in other words, how the land use of a
city is set out. ... Urban structure can also refer to BOULEVARD. The word “boulevard” originally
urban spatial structure, which concerns the designated the broad, horizontal surface of the
arrangement of public and private space in cities rampart of a city wall. Later, the term was
and the degree of connectivity and accessibility. applied to the wide thoroughfares that took the place
of the city walls of Paris. The first such
Urban space- The term urban space refers to the boulevard was opened in 1670 on the site of the
physical and social location of a metropolitan region, ancient walls extending from Port Saint- Denis to the
the properties of that location, and the spatial Bastille. The term has since been used to typify any
organization of the entities within it. It is, therefore, a broad, handsome avenue.
broad and inclusive concept that has been
BUILT-UP AREA. An area, mainly occupied by
addressed from a range of viewpoints.
buildings, where a system of street lighting is

Module 1 – Introduction to Urban Design | Page 2 of 6

required. In modern usage, the term is broadly dwelling place should, therefore, logically form the
synonymous with “urban” in its physical sense. unit of physical planning. This may appear obvious,
BYPASS. A road which passes by a built-up area, but it is only recently, with the emphasis on the
in order to expedite traffic movement and to social aspects of planning, that it has been generally
minimize its nuisance in a town. Generally it accepted. Up to the middle of the 20th century,
takes the form of a loop joined to a major road in many planning theorists based their ideas on the
order to skirt a town, thus avoiding congestion in assumption that the street, or square, derived
a city caused by through traffic.
from the marketplace, was the unit of planning, and
CONURBATION. A term coined by Patrick Geddes that the siting of dwelling houses must
to describe a large concentration of urban conform to the layout of streets or squares, as has
communities. Planners in Britain speak of “the been done for centuries.
London conurbation,” “the Tyneside conurbation,”
FURNITURE, URBAN AND STREET. The
and so on.
provision of services and their equipment in urban
DEMOGRAPHY. The collection of vital economic development is a matter of prime concern to
and social statistics and of related matters the planner. It involves the economic installation
and the best functional location of such equipment
concerned with the racial makeup, growth,
and its effective and harmonious disposition in the
density, and distribution of a national, regional, or urban scene. This street furniture, as it is
city population. generally called, serves the functions performed by
DENSITY. In planning usage, “density” means the the lighting, transport, telephone, postal,
protective, and other services and includes various
ration of persons, households, or volume of building forms of lighting equipment such as lighting
or development to some unit of land area. masts, columns, standards, wall brackets,
Thus, population density is the number of persons and other fittings; the wide variety of traffic signs,
per square mile or square kilometer in a telephone kiosks, post- and mailboxes,
country, or state, or region. Residential or housing giuardrails and fences, litter and storage bins,
density is variously expressed in numbers of busshelters, outdoor seats, poster display units,
and several others.
dwellings, households, habitable rooms, or persons
per acre or hectare. GARDEN CITY. Though the description “garden
city” was claimed by various towns in the past, in
DOWNTOWN. Used in the United States to denote
pride of their verdant character or surroundings,
the business or lower part of a city or town. Its use
its use in the town-planning context dates from the
in this sense is beginning to spread to other
proposal of Ebenezer Howard in his famous
countries.
book of 1898 suggesting the creation of new
DYNAPOLIS. The dynamic polis or the dynamic moderate-sized towns in place of the
city. All cities up to the 17th century some of which continued growth of over-large and congested cities.
may have been dynamic for only a very short Such towns, Howard said, would not only be
period of their life, were static and were often healthy, efficient, and pleasant in themselves but
surrounded by walls. Later cities started growing would enable existing cities, through dispersal of
in a dynamic way, and today they are almost all some of their excess population and industry, to be
dynamic. Humanity did not understand this, redeveloped satisfactorily.
and this is one basic reason why so many mistakes
The concept was briefly defined in
have been made in our cities and why we are 1919 by the Garden City Association in
suffering so much today. It is necessary to classify agreement with Howard: “A Garden
the cities of the present era, which grow under the City is a Town designed for healthy living and
impact of many new forces, in a different category industry; of a size that makes
from the statis cities of the past. This is why we possible a full measure of social life, but not
need to understand that from the city-polis we have larger; surrounded by a rural belt; the whole of
the land being in public ownership or
moved to the dynamic city, to dynapolis.
held in trust for the community.”
FAMILY UNIT. The family is the smallest and, by GREENBELTS. Permanently reserved zones of
tradition, the basic collective unit of society. Its unbuilt-on land around and between cities, to limit

Module 1 – Introduction to Urban Design | Page 3 of 6

the cities’ overgrowth and to prevent their usage commonly implies that it is visually as
merging into each other. Greenbelts were an well as physically unrelated to its surroundings.
integral part of Ebenezer Howard’s proposal Although piecemeal development is
for garden cities. They had many historical most often the result of a lack of planning, it can also
foreshadowings; for example, in the “pasture occur where development plans have been
land” of the Levitical cities (13 th century B.C.); the prepared and there is a system for the control of
plains of Ezekiel (6th century B.C.) and Nehemiah development but where that control is
(5th century B.C.) for the rebuilding of Jerusalem; of weak. It can occur in the form of mixed or single land
Lycurgus of Sparta (9th century B.C.), Solon of uses.
Athens (7th century B.C.), Plato (5th century B.C.) SENSE OF PLACE, The sense of place is a widely
and Aristotle (4th century B.C.); and Sir Thomas shared personal, subjective experience that has
More in his Utopia. Ancient Roman cities often had become, to some extent, a minor purpose
a consecrated unbuilt-on pomoerium surrounding among some planners. The recollection of a
their walls, which on a necessary expansion of particularly agreeable place in the urban scene,
population had to be solemnly deconsecrated. which is treasured in memory and to which there is a
GRID. A checkerboard network of intersecting desire to return, partially describes it. The
streets and avenues forming the basic layout of a experience can be likened to the recollection of a
city or town. Just as in architecture a system of passage of music which gives particular pleasure
proportions, related to a basic dimension or module, and arouses a wish to hear it again. The creation of
has sometimes been used to facilitate construction such places can become a conscious purpose
and serve functional needs, so the elements of a
in planning, involving a study of the elements that
town may be arranged with reference to a set of
related dimensions. Grids were employed in the compose them; but as these elements are so
ancient planning of Egypt, Mesopotamia, and often accidental and mingled with time and the
Greece. The Greeks’ Hippodamian planning was picturesque, they tend to elude analysis.
based on the most conveniently sized
residential blocks or insulae. SATELLITE TOWNS. Term first applied (1918) by
garden city advocates of New Towns which were
MEGALOPOLIS. In Greek, “the big city,” “Megalopolis” thought of as mainly self-contained and
is a word coined by the ancient Greeks when they decided
separated by greenbelts from major cities, but
to connect many small cities of Arcadia into a big
economically and culturally related to them.
city which could be used as their major administrative and
cultural center. To distinguish it from the small cities, it Subsequently the term was sometimes used for
was called Megalopolis. It was created in 371 B.C. by large-scale city fringe developments more
Epaminondas of Thebes. intelligibly named “industrial suburbs.” The term
“quasi-satellites” was applied by the London
In modern times “megalopolis” has been
used by Jean Gottman, the geographer, to indicate County Council about 1930 to some of its
the multiple and complex urban system suburban housing projects of a purely dormitory
which comprises many metropolises on the eastern character.
coast of the United States, from Boston
to New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Satellite towns are often planned to
Washington. Another megalopolis, the Great implement a policy of decentralization from a large
Lakes megalopolis, is now under study by the city in preference to suburban
Developing Great Lakes Megalopolis Inc. and by development, the eight satellite towns planned round
Doxiades Associates. Many more (a total London in the post Second World War
of 14, located all over the world) are now under study period being a conspicuous example. They were
by the Athens Center of Ekistics. initially called “satellite towns” following Abercrombie’s
Greater London Plan of 1944, but they
PIECEMEAL DEVELOPMENT. Development that were subsequently officially called “New Towns.”
has taken place in a haphazard or sporadic fashion
SLUMS. No precise definition is given in
in small, unrelated areas. Piecemeal
dictionaries of the term “slum,” which is of
development is, in a sense, the opposite of
comparatively modern origin (1812), possibly as
comprehensive development except that, in
a contraction of “slump,” meaning to fall or sink in a
addition to being carried out in small quantities, the
swap or muddy place. A slum is usually

Module 1 – Introduction to Urban Design | Page 4 of 6

understood to be an area of overcrowded, squalid, SUMMARY
closely built, and unhygienic housing. Urban
slums arose in great numbers during the Let us see if you can remember the main points
growth of industrial cities and towns in the 19 th raised in this lesson. Below is a summary of these
century, so that few great industrial cities points:
established for a hundred years or more are without
their slum areas.  Urban planning. Layout of neighbourhoods,
SUBURBS. Suburbs are the compactly developed and cities & regions. Fulfilling needs of
developing areas surrounding the central city in a community & economy balancing the built
metropolitan area. These areas are &natural environment
distinguished from the central city by their more  Urban Design. Spaces between buildings:
homogeneous socioeconomic and physical involves places such as squares, piazza,
character. There is normally no identifiable boundary streets and pedestrian precinct. Giving
between city and suburb; but whatever the definition, the forms, shape, and character to group of
city merges gradually into the suburb without an
buildings, to whole neighbourhood and to
appreciable break in physical aspect.
city
Suburbs take a number of forms as a  Architecture. Individual building. The art or
function of their age, their location with respect to the practice of designing & constructing
central city, the cultural context within
buildings.
which they developed, and other circumstances. The
most typical types can be characterized
as “old suburbs,” :new suburbs,” and former
independent communities.

TOWN. An urban settlement generally with a

population of not less than about 3,000 persons, LEARNING ACTIVITY 1
below which, in England, it is usually termed a
“village.” In the U.S., when a village or town Home Reading Assignment to be given by the
exceeds 5,000 population, it usually becomes a
Instructor on Messenger group chat for further study
city. “Town” is an adjective most commonly used for
urban planning in Great Britain, as “city” is in the of Urban Design vocabulary
United States. The use of “town” in this context was
established by the first Town Planning Act of
1909, which was followed by the Town Planning
Review founded at Liverpool University in 1910,
REFERENCES
followed by the Town Planning Conference in
Ching, Francis D.K. (1995). A Visual Dictionary of
London in the same year, and the foundation of the
Town Planning Institute in 1914. Architecture. John Wiley and Sons, Inc.
UTOPIA AND UTOPIAN PLANNING. The name
Watson, Donald et.al (2003). Time Saver Standards
“utopia” – nowhere land – comes from the famous
for Urban Design. The McGraw-Hill
book by Sir Thomas More (1478-1535), first
published in Latin in 1516, portraying in fictional form Companies, Inc.
“the best state of a commonwealth.” Thomas
Arnold Whittick, Editor-in-Chief 1974, Encyclopedia
More acknowledged as a classic predecessor
Plato’s Republic, and his work has had many of Urban Planning. McGraw-Hill, Inc.
imitators with varying ingredients of idealism, satire,
and constructive sagacity. Though the Encyclopedia of Urban Studies. Ray Hutchison,
adjective “utopian,” as commonly used, carries an Editor 2010. SAGE Reference Publication
implication of impossibility or unreality, the
literature of utopias has had much valuable influence Urban Design, lecture 1. Dr. Dina Saadallah.
on sociological thought and political policy. Department of Architecture, Alexandria
University

Module 1 – Introduction to Urban Design | Page 5 of 6

www. Wikipedia.com

Prepared by:

ARCH. ALBERT T. PASCUA, LRA

Faculty, College of Engineering and Architecture

Module 1 – Introduction to Urban Design | Page 6 of 6