Urban Design

is:

. the theory and practice of producing the form and life of the city in the macro, meso
and micro scales,

. sometimes designing and making, more extensively guiding the design and making of
the city and its parts,

. the process of putting planning decisions into realization, and maintenance of the urban
environment. In this connection, architecture, character, quality, form, aesthetics,
meaning, image, comfort etc., are all subject matters to be scrutinized, debated and
achieved.
a) Regarding the relation of men and objects: Those goals
1) having to do with direct functioning: biological or technical goals, such as the
achievement of an environment which sustains and prolongs life;
2) having to do with interpersonal relations: psychological or esthetic goals,
such as the creation of an environment which is meaningful to the
inhabitant.

b) Regarding the relation of men and men: those goals

1) having to do with interpersonal relations: sociological and psychological
goals, such as constructing surroundings which maximize interpersonal
communications;
2) or having to do with group functioning: social goals such as survival and
continuity of the group" (Lynch and Rodwin, 1958: 209).
Tampere - Finland
CONTENTS OF URBAN DESIGN

A. SCALE

At the macro scale urban design is conceived as an integral part of the decision making process of urban macro form. Lynch and
Rodwin (1958), Spreiregen (1965) and Lynch (1981) touched this important point. A very pertinent mistake made in this respect
originates from reducing urban design to smaller scales. Planning in general, is defined as the description of processes gene rating a
city, determination of alternative development strategies, making of decisions and implementation. Along this line, allocation of
resources is also a part of the planning process. On the other hand design is considered to be a process too, aiming at the
procurement of an object. Hence urban design is also a process (Bacon, 1982) covering the necessary sequence of actions to put
planning decisions into implementation.

The macro-form of a city is planned or designed at the macro scale, with its road and green area systems. This is a very important
point to determine the structure of the city. One very distinct difference between any western and Turkish town is observed i n their
macro-forms. The western town succeeding to extend infrastructure and transportation systems towards the fringe has been able to
produce a low density town integrated with the countryside. The Turkish town on the other hand, because it was not able to create
these opportunities, lived processes of concentration in the existing built-up areas. As a result the western town, growing radially
along corridors, and the Turkish town growing like an oil drop offer two distinct worlds of design.

Again at this scale the difference between urban design and city design was debated and the latter was also found appropriate for its
comprehensiveness (Lynch, 1979). The concepts of 'image' and 'character' developed at the macro scale was further consolidated at
the meso scale and have become important inputs in the design of the environment beside functional criteria. In this connecti on parts
of the city; districts, neighborhoods, center, green systems, development corridors, regeneration in built-up areas are all subject
matters of urban design at the meso scale. Moreover, those functional areas inhabiting industry, small production, storage and road
systems, that is, the veins of the city, which those approaching urban design from aesthetical, visual or symbolic values do not
consider worth designing are all basic issues of urban design.
The most favored is the small scale in urban design. Clusters, streets, plazas, parks, landscaping and furniture are all manipulated at
this scale. However, views which confine urban design to the limits of the small scale, and three-dimensional expression of planning
decisions have proved to be insufficient. It is needless to say that in the generation of the urban environment, actions carried out at
the small scale are of utmost important, but it is the planning or design decisions at the larger scales which would determine and hold
together such decisions.
Urban design should be perceived as a multi-dimensional sequence of actions starting from the macroform of the city. Requoting
from Shirvani (1985) and Brown (1990), it is a difficult task covering long time spans, negotiating with many clients in very
indeterminate decision making processes.
SPACE - PLACE DUALISM
The eternal bond between space and place covers a huge portion of debates in urban design. In the definitions
of urban design, it was observed very roughly that, architecture biased views preferred terminology based on
space-mass relations, while the planners approached it from the place-community integrity. This, as said, is a
very general interpretation among the substantial discussion on this dualism. A very simple definition of urban
space concentrates on its physical three-dimensional quality, while place is described as a space inhabiting a
function or an activity, or a setting which has meaning for those who live, observe or perceive it.
While discussions on architectural and urban space have generated the grand polemic of urban design: mass-
space-form, place acquired a value with Cullen in his Townscape (1961). In the same years M. Webber (1964)
pointed out to another aspect of metropolitan growth which he called The Urban Place and the Nonplace Urban
Realm.
What Webber showed, and what he contributed to the concepts of urban place, was that the physical place had
less and less relevance in the modern world because the size and flexibility of communications were changing...
The spatial patterns of American urban settlement are going to be considerably more dispersed, varied and
space-consuming than they ever were in the past - whatever metropolitan planners or anyone else may try to do
about it (Jencks, 1982: 330).
Jencks bases a portion of his study on Webber's analysis of place-nonplace realms and depicts that one of the
basic disputes emerge from space-place-nonplace approaches in the urban debate, and that the core of
argumentation between CIAM and TEAM X might also be sought in this connection. Choay's Progressist-
Culturalist (Günay.b, 1988), and Broadbent's (1990) Rationalist-Empiricist dualisms also consider the importance
of space-place debate.
Furthermore as regards to Trancik's (1985) taxonomy of the causes of lost space, it is apparent that he should
have added the logic of metropolitan growth in the first place. Evidently, both in theory and practice, the tension
between space and place will continue, whereby the author believes that one goal of urban design should be to
superimpose the two.
PHYSICAL STRUCTURE - ACTIVITY STRUCTURE

City planning turned its focus on activities after fifties, instead of the generalistic
analyses of land uses. It is after this outlook that the basic bonds between activity
structure and physical form were defined. It was Lynch and Rodwin (1958) who would try
to systematize and establish a theory of urban form and lay down the measurable
aspects of the physical environment. Urban form is an outcome of the bonds between
activities - adapted spaces and flows - channels. Consequently the activities and flows
among them, build up the physical structure (adapted spaces and circulation) of cities
and parts of cities.

Within this relationship, if a new activity system is generating a new physical structure in
a new development zone, this will open the way to the famous design strategy: form
follows function. However if that new activity is to reside in an existing physical fabric, a
tension will emerge between form and function, since activity structure is dynamic apt to
frequent changes and physical structure static and difficult to change. Because existing
form has not been able to easily follow new functions, there arose a multitude of
planning and design problems concerning urban regeneration in built-up areas. This
evolution opened a new dualism in urban design, namely design in built-up areas and
new development zones.
BUILT-UP AREAS - NEW DEVELOPMENT ZONES

CIAM emerged in an era when the city, especially metropolitan areas were growing into the fringes. As a result,
design strategy aimed at sun, space and greenery in new development zones and slum clearance in built-up
areas. When urban growth recessed and public policies turned their focus back to the built-up areas, the tax
revenues of which had declined due to slum formations, urban design ideologies started to change, and concepts
like identity, association, urban space and place were introduced.

Since the users were not known in new development areas, planners and architects had dominated the field. But
operations in built-up areas created the conditions where planners and designers met the users. The models
depending on psychosocial environment thus developed. At present, the dual character of urban design, regarding
built-up areas subject to regeneration and new development zones subsists and feeds different design
approaches. This difference is highlighted as follows:

(1) assembling land in the city typically means negotiating with multiple landowners, whereas developers of
suburban sites can typically negotiate with a single owner; (2) the historic preservation lobby is active and
powerful in most cities, whereas there is little to save and less political organization in suburban ares; and (3) the
politics of the center city are more complicated, and development there is more costly (Attoe & Logan, 1989: 173).
URBAN DESIGN - CIVIC DESIGN

These two phrases are often used to mean the same thing. In essence; "Civic design covers the ceremonial or
institutional aspects of the public realm, whereas urban design covers the whole city" (Brown, 1990: 22).
Consequently policies, methods, groups involved, finance and maintenance will differ and alternative contents
will evolve both in theory and practice.
PUBLIC REALM VERSUS PRIVATE REALM

The relations and problems between the public and private realms have attracted the attention of many authors.
Bacon (1987), Barnett (1974), Brown (1990), Gosling (1984), Greene (1992), Habe (1989), Jacobs and Appleyard
(1987), Lynch (1981), Shirvani (1985), Sttretton (1978), Trancik (1986), quoted in this study have touched different
or resembling aspects of this bond. The author believes that urban design is a public policy, and that it requires
special attention to study this vast topic. Therefore some of the dualisms deduced from definitions of, and
discussions on urban design are given below, each of which might further be scrutinized as a distinct field of
study:

. public control over private design

. public vs. private interest
. public and private land
. public guidance for private design
. public vs. private space
DESIGN IN ONE PROPERTY - DESIGN FOR MANY PROPERTY

The pattern of land subdivision is one of the more critical planning decisions faced by those designing human
settlements. Once established, the pattern essentially remains forever and can only be changed at great cost,
effort and political will. The area and the geometric layout pattern effectively dictate the infrastructure networks,
which represent the basic capital costs in settlements construction: water supply, sewage disposal, electricity
networks, street lighting, streets and sidewalks (Goethert, 1985: 279).
I think that the ownership pattern of both urban land, and potential land open to urban growth, constitute one of the
most important challenges of urban design. In fact, rearrangement of property is a basic task of urban
transformations. It is where the distinction between architecture and urban design starts. Architectural products
are shaped between the responsive actions of demands of the owner or owners (client), and the architect's design
approach. On the other hand, the existence of varying preferences and ownership patterns, and corresponding
activity and style demands in the urban context, requires the development of design strategies, sometimes
transcending architectural or aesthetical considerations.
Since this complexity will enforce an implementation process covering long time spans, alternative control
strategies will have to be developed. The San Marco plaza in Venice inevitably occupies the highest place in
assessments made on both urban and civic design products. When observed after centuries as a finished product,
the plaza no doubt, is a glorious creation of man. But the time spent is out of the perception of one generation. It
was a sometimes spontaneous, sometimes conscious political, social and financial process. As discussed and
depicted by Bacon (1982: 104-105), it was "the result of a long series of agonizing decisions constantly aimed at
perfecting the squares". In fact the agonizing decisions aimed at transforming the ownership or possession of
land.
One basic reason for my insistent concern on ownership, is the prevailing attitudes of either negation or
consideration of existing patterns as divine and unchangeable. Patterns of ownership are design variables which
have to be resolved in urban design. The processes of transforming cadastral ownership into urban land, shared
titles into communal, public to private, or private to public, and unification or subdivision of land should all be
considered in any urban design action.
Preliminary Attempts
Preliminary Attempts
 Competition Project

First Prize by:

Altuğ – Behruz Çinici
METU 1966
METU 1966
METU 1982
OBJECT DESIGN - PROCESS DESIGN
Teymur's discussion on the architectural outlook (1992) claimed that the architect
visualizes the urban as an architectural object. It is true that many, who deal with urban
design consider it as a design of objects. Bacon (1982, 1st published in 1967),
Alexander (1987), Lynch (1981), Shirvani (1985), Brown (1990) and Teymur (1992)
stress on the issue that urban design is a process. Rapoport (1980) added that it is
spatial organization rather than the objects which counted.
This point is important in understanding the essence of urban design. This is one of the
basic premises of the field as discussed by D.S. Brown (1990), who practiced both city
planning and architecture, and now dealing with urban design problems. When you are
confronted with one client, in one property to design one building or a set of objects, this
is architectural design. But when you are dealing with a multitude of actors (property
owners, politicians, bureaucrats, investors, citizens), their preferences, restricted
financial resources, ambiguous decision making, indefinite timing, then design of the
process becomes a tool to arrive at harmonious sets of objects. Urban designer has to
insistently stay in the process to continuously guide the evolution of the urban
environment.
Contents of the urban design field is dependent on how you define it. The author's
definition of it inclines to attribute a societal role, and eventually the dualisms discussed
above seem to cover the most striking aspects of urban design from this point of view.
As a synthesis of the preceding discussion, various frames within which the urban
design field might be investigated will be depicted in schematic representations in the
next section.
 DESIGN VALUES DESIGN CRITERIA
URBAN DESIGN
politics order
M O DELS
power space-mass
religion scale
Q UALITATIVE CHAN N EL democracy proportion
participation enclosure VISUAL STRUCTURE
EVOLUTION OF DESIGN TERMIN OLOGY community color silhouette
privacy symmetry style
territory balance image
esthetics
N ATURAL SOCIAL & VALUE JUDGMEN TS TOTAL SPON TAN EITY form
RESOURCES IN STITUTION AL of social groups spontaneity for form & function
STRUCTURE natural & organic
LEVEL O F IN TERVEN TIO N TO THE
TECHN OLOGY ARCHITECTURE
SO CIO -ECO N O - ACTIVITY STRUCTURE EVO LUTIO N O F SPACE
URBAN SPACE
PO LITICO location decisions of TOTAL PLAN N IN G
GEOGRAPHY STRUCTURE activities planning for form & function
social groups artificial & mechanical
PHYSICAL STRUCTURE
POPULATION ECON OMIC BASIS
building types
quantity
FUN CTION AL density
PHYSICAL REGION AL grain
RELATION S
GEOGRAPHY GEOGRAPHY focal organization
EVOLUTION OF PLAN N IN G urban economy
geomorphology transportation
urban geography macroform
TERMIN OLOGY vegetation basic economy
land use
hydrology population
Q UAN TITATIVE CHAN N EL planning
climate settl. hierarchy
cost
PLAN N IN G M O DELS

FRAM EW O RK I. EV O LUTIO N O F PHYSICAL SPACE (Günay, 1988.a)

 HUMANS
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 AESTHETIC VALUE
CULTURE S form oriented, evolves in
practial bond with O
N ATURAL U
EN VIRON MEN T PSYCHO- the object B
B
SOCIAL J
TECHN OLOGY STRUCTURE J
E
E AESTHETIC EVALUATIO N
SOCIETY AESTHETIC
content oriented, evolves in C
APPREHEN SION
C
cognition with T
T the object

CHAN GE CHAN GE

AESTHETIC VALUES O F
CULTURE URBAN SPACE
N ATURAL SUBJECT dimension, form, location, distance, O BJECT
EN VIRON MEN T PSYCHO- direction relations among objects
SOCIAL urbanites .natural
TECHN OLOGY STRUCTURE architects setting
planners .space-mass
AESTHETIC EVALUATIO N O F
SOCIETY AESTHETIC .surfaces
URBAN SPACE
APPREHEN SION .silhouette
place, time, meaning

FRAM EW O RK III. AESTHETICS (Interpreted from Tunalý, 1979 & Kagan, 1982)
 Subjectivism in Urban Design

Belirli bir zaman kesitinde, belirli bir toplum yapısında güzel olan, bir başka kesitte hor
görülebilir. Molier'in asagidaki dizeleri bunun açık kanıtıdır:

Siz küf kokan gotik anıtlar,

Karanlık çagların lanetli canavarları,
Sizler barbarlık sellerinin kusmuklarısınız (Galion 1963).

The rank taste of Gothic monuments

These odiusmonsters of ignorant centuries,
Which the torrents of barbarism spewed forth.
Objectivism in Urban Design

Space – Movement
Edmund Bacon
Image of the City
Kevin Lynch
Place & Optics, Serial Vision
Gordon Cullen
Patterns
Christopher Alexander
Organization of Space
Amos Rapoport
 EC O N O M IC B A S IS

P LA N N IN G D EC IS IO N S S OO CCI OI O- P- OP OL I TLI ICTAI CL A D LE C FI SRI OA NM S E

P LA N N ER p la n n e d v s s p o n ta n e o u s
la n d u s e & tr a n s p o r ta ti o n

D ES IG N V A R IA B LES
D ES IG N ER

I R EA LIZ A TIO N
D p r o p e r ty d e v e lo p m e n t
C U LT U R A L &
E SP A C E-M A SS-FO R M r e s o u r c e a llo c a ti o n
P H I LO S O P H I C A L
O D IS C O U R S E
th e g ra n d p o l e m ýc le g i s la ti o n s ta n d a r d s
L d e s i g n g u i d e li n e s
O p u b li s v s p r i v a te
b
G e
I P S Y C H O S O C IA L
a A R C H ITEC T
C u EN V IR O N M EN T
u
A g p la c e & p e r c e p ti o n
t&
L l
i
y
f B IO P H Y S IC A L
B u
P S Y C H O S O C IA L & B IO P H Y S IC A L EN V IR O N M EN T
A l D IS C O U R S E h e a lth & c o m f o r t
S
good & ba d
I
S

FR A M EW O R K IV . TH E U R B A N D ES IG N P R O C ES S
Modern - Postmodern
Constructivism - Deconstruction
 Monist - Brutal

Plural - Picturesque
Personification
The Turkish theory and practice is yet too shallow in this framework. Let alone the public, even
professional circles attribute different meanings to urban design. The approaches to it in the design
framework certainly require variety and distinction, but its definition is simpler: it is the process of
putting planning decisions into realization, that is making the city. Since in making the city the
professionals are only actors, but expert actors, they have to learn primarily to live together.

This learning should preoccupy both planners and architects with:

. the apprehension of both parties' prevailing philosophical and scientific background,

. the representation of apprehended values in terms of various vocabularies of written or drawn
form, and
. enter realization processes of urban design. This can only be achieved when urban design is
established as a public policy.