What is Urban Design?

• Urban Design is an intermediary phase between

town planning and the implementation phase of
planning decisions;
(town planners’ point of view)

• Urban Design is the design of the public realm;

(civic design)

• Urban design designates an understanding of

approaching architecture “urbanistically”;
It is Urban Architecture (architects’s point of view)
Urban Design is an intermediary phase
of physical planning
According to this view, urban design is a process of a
complex set of decision-making rather than an
outcome.

It includes various dimensions of urban space-making such as:

• land-use planning,
• functional programming,
• three dimensional design of urban space,
• community design and public participation,
• traffic planning,
• infrastructure engineering,
• landscape design,
• economic feasibility, financial models of implementation,
• legal aspects and urban regulations, etc.
• City Design,
• Civic Design,
• Community Design,
• Neighborhood Design,
• Environmental Design

are terms which are interchangeably

used for Urban Design
depending on the focus of the study.
 Urban Design as Urban Architecture

• The design of any urban artefact (streets, plazas or

buildings), which is an integrated part of urban form
is Urban Design.

• The urban context forms

a design generator for architecture.
• The task of urban design is primarily to generate
“spatial-locational” frameworks within which
individual objects are integrated.

• Urban space frameworks extend from the design

of the space pattern of the city at large to the
design of individual spaces in the city.
Urban Design focuses on

►therelationships between
architectural / urban objects (artefacts),

► on linkages (relational structures)

► on the spatial and structural order of the

arrangement of objects in the city,
rather than objects themselves
 Urban Design Approaches

Urban Design studies are

grouped around three main
theoretical approaches Form
with a particular focus on:

• Urban Form
Activity Image

• Urban Image

• Urban Activities (J. Montgomerry)

 Urban Form

- “Artistic Principles of City Building”

by Camillo Sitte

- Typo-morphology Approach
Urban Morphology / Architectural Typology

- Linkage Theory
Streets and series of plazas and squares in Bruges
Camillo Sitte, City Planning According to Artistic Principles
Public Squares should be
enclosed entities

Camillo Sitte, City Planning According to Artistic Principles

“That the Center of Plazas be kept free”

Camillo Sitte, City Planning According to Artistic Principles

The picturesque quality
of the city is generated
by the winding streets
 Historical Settlements

• Historical settlements constitute societies’ cultural

heritage.

• They transmit to future generations human values,

alternative ways of living and spatial / urban /
architectural qualities created and accumulated over a
long period of time.

• Mostly they are successful urban places with their

sustainability as well as their spatial qualities.
 Historical Settings as
“spatial-locational frameworks”

• In historical settlements, local patterns of space

organisation that were set in a long period of time, have
formed spatial-locational frameworks. These generated
cities with a coherent spatial structure.

• The urban development is the result of many disparate

projects over long periods of time.

• The spatial-locational frameworks in historic cities

have enabled the co-ordination of individual
developments in time.
 Alban Janson, Thorsten Burklin, Auftritte / Scenes,
Interaction with Architectural Space, the Campi of Venice, 2002
Spatial Structure in Venice, the system of canals and perpendicular streets
Alban Janson, Thorsten Burklin, Auftritte / Scenes,
“the Spine” as a spatio-locational framework in Venice
Alban Janson, Thorsten Burklin, Auftritte / Scenes,
Interaction with Architectural Space, the Campi of Venice, 2002
Figure-ground analysis:
buildings defining public spaces
Figure-ground analysis:
buildings defining public spaces
Alban Janson, Thorsten Burklin, Auftritte / Scenes,
Interaction with Architectural Space, the Campi of Venice, 2002
Rob Krier, Urban Space, 1979
Spatial property
of Squares
with respect to the
positioning
of streets

Rob Krier,
Urban Space, 1979
Triangular
Squares

Rob Krier,
Urban Space,
1979
 Circular
squares

Rob Krier, Urban

Space, 1979
Rob Krier, Urban Space,
1979
The articulation of
Building sections

Rob Krier,
Urban Space, 1979
The urban
fabric
in the historical
city of Istanbul,
The Grand
Bazaar
The historical
Urban fabric in
Galata, Istanbul
The urban fabric
In Amsterdam
The urban fabric
In Frankfurt
am Main
The urban blocks
of the Cerda plan
in Barcelona
and the variety of
building patterns
The Urban
Fabric
in Barcelonetta
Spatial
configuration
of modern housing
blocks in
Le Perreux,
France
Variation of
open public
spaces
and the
arrangement
of parcels and
buildings
Squares and parcel divisions