SITE PLANNING AND DESIGN

Introduction to Architectur by James C. Snyder

Architect’s prime responsibilty for making the appropriate fit between building and site. Building do not
exist in isolation, they exist in spatial, behavioral, and perceptual context. Thus, the architect has a direct
responsibility for the relationship between building site and locale.

Site planning is the art of ordering the man-made and natural environment to support human activities.
The study of site planning is often organized two related components, the natural environment and man
man-made environment. The natural environment is conceived of as an ecological system of water, air,
energy, land, vegetation, and life form a community that adapts and evolves as the environment
changes.

The man-made environment comprises the built form of the city, the physical fabric and its spatial
arrangement together with the social, political, and economic behavior patterns that shape the physical
environment.

The study of site planning is often organized into two related components.
 1. The natural environment, conceived of as an eclogogical system of water, air energy, land
vegetation and life form that interact to form a community that adapts and evolved as the
environment changed.

2. The man-made environment, comprise the built form of the city, the physical fabric and its
spatial arragement together with the social, political and economical behavior patterns that
shape the physical environment.

The site-planning process.

In site planning, as in other forms of architectureal prolem solving, a rational and critical process is
required. Although process shown here appears to be linier, in reality it is iterative. For example, while
the client sets the basic objectives, there cannot be defined fully until the site analysis has been
completed, with site potentials, constraints, and design concepts identified
THE BEHAVIORAL ENVIRONMENT & PUBLIC INFRASTUCTURE

The site designer must look beyond the boundaries of the site to study the spatial distribution of social
and economic activities and linkages in the locale.

Urban Activity Patterns

Urban areas are characterized by population concentration around one or more central points and
along major trasportation routes, with a gradient of concetration from the highest desities in the center
to the lowest at the fringe. Concentration occurs because of the need for people to interact
economically and socially; hence the need for accessibility due to the friction of distance.
It is important for the site designer to understand the forces that create an urban activity pattern of
zones, sectors and nuclei. Site designer should understand that each use attempts to locate itself within
the city to maximize its environmental conditions at a price it can afford.

Local Activity Patterns

One technique for analyzing both the local and urban activity environment of a site involves mapping
the spatial distribution of the related activities and the nature of the access linkages. Such a diagram
notes the following factors:

1. The location of the related activities in the locale and urban area

2. The location of incompatible activities in the locale

3. The direction of the flows (inward, outward, two-way) among activities.

4. The frequency of interaction (daily, weekly, monthly)

5. The access route (pedestrian, bus, automobile, train)

In analyzing spatial distribution activities, site designer must be aware that the pattern of zones is not
static. It is subject to constant change for a variety of reasons.

1. Changes in the location of related activites

2. Changes in transportation technology

3. Obsolescence of the site plan or structures

4. Changes in market demand for the activity

5. Changes in the activity mix through infiltration of incompatible uses

 6. Changes in public policy

Perceptual and activities territories

Transportation and Circulation

The utility of any site is largely a function of its accessibility; circulation sistem facilitate linkages that
relate activities in space. Flows of different types use different system. Traffic, flow, parking facilities,
and pedestrian flow are essentially part of pattern of flows of people, while utilities are flows of energy,
waste, and water.
The vehicular circulation system is a primary element in structuring a site plan. Circulation system are
not haphazard; they form distinct hierarchical pattern. The spatial pattern that this hierarchy takes
varies. The major pattern are the grid, radial, linier, organic, and combinations of this.

The street system must form a logical hierarchy of flow within the site, while conncetingwith the existing
local and community transportation system. In general street system should be efficient in term f cost,
minima in visual impact, sensitive to the site’s natural features, and easy to comprehend.

The pedestrian system forms an important link, relating activities on site to the local network. It may be
a major structuring element in site design. In designing the pathway system should be to develop a safe,
legible, fuction sequence that is vissually stimulating and expressive of the character of the site.

Diagram of transportation pattern

The storage of vehicles is as important as their movement. The layout of a parking lot is dictated by the
the movements and dimensions of automobiles and must accomodate the largest vehicles using the
site. An excellent example of a well design pedestrian path system is the site plan for Radburn, New
jersey, a residential development designed by Clarence Perry in the 1920s. The plan provides a safe
pedestrian environment b separating the pedestrian and vehicular system. The pedestrian system is also
legible, visually stimulating, and socially functional, linking the groups of houses together.

Sixty-degree parking and traffic flow

Radburn, New Jersey.

Utilities

Utility systems are important to the site design because they often represent a major cost of site
development. They must accommodate the urban environment where the natural system has been
overridden. The availability of such utilities on a site cannot be assumed. For example, as concerns over
energy and the environment grow, many communities are refusing to extend they already overloaded
sewer systems out to important to the suburbs.

In the site design, the utility lines should be integrated with other circulation system in order to develop
an efficient site plan. Increasingly, the trend is to place utility and communication lines underground,
directly related to the street and sidewalk system and utilizing the same right of way.
Institutional Controls

There’s a regulation in every each area. It could be possible if an area has only one function or
multifunction. So the design environment is limited by a range of land use and environmental pubic
policies. So it gives some restriction especially for an architect :

“All private and public development should coincide with the master of comprehensive plan”

The site designer exercises only partial control over the design environment in relation to the spatial
distribution of related activities and linkages. The control range from federal programs controlling the
quality of the environment.

Most of the legislative power to control the use and development of land has traditionally been vested
in the local community as the appropriate level of government to deal with the detailed issues of land
use planning and control.
THE SPATIAL ENVIRONMENT

Natural Elements

An understanding of the natural elements of the site and its locale (climate, water, soil topography,
vegetation and animal life) is important to the site design. The locale must be seen first as functioning
ecosystem with a natural carrying capacity to be respected in site development and secondly as a set of
indigenous spatial qualities to be related to the activity program and expressed in the design.
Climate

Climate may be viewed at two levels – regional and site. Each site has a characteristic regional climate
that is beyond the building and the site. This regional climate is expressed as a series of average data
that includes days of sunlight, amount of sunlight, days of precipitation, amount of precipitation, wind
direction, wind force, and wind frequency.

Regional climate expressed of average data that includes sun angle (azimuth), days of sunlight, amounth
of sunlight, days of precipitation, amount of precipitation, wind direction, wind force and wind
frequency. The regional climate will influence the orientation of structures and spaces.

Site climate (microclimate) varying within the site itself. On an undeveloped site the microclimate will
be affected by two factors – the ground surface and the landform. It generates buildings massing, siting
and form that affect air flow.

Sun path: equinox and soltice

Sitting, topography and ventilation

Vegetation and Wildlife

In analyzing, must address two issues – the nature of the ecosystems and their sensitivity to
development; the design potential that these natural forms offer.

As an ecosystem, the vegetation will vary with the climate.

In site design the choice of new planting must be guided by the fit with the existing plants.

Topography

The landform or topography of a site shapes its development in three ways.

1. Represents an ongoing geomorphological system subject to change through weathering.

2. Includes a slope or plane that sets engineering constaints on devenlopment.

3. Represents an indigeneous site potential.

Spatial landscaping material.

The slope characteristic play an important part in identifying areas that suitable for development.

The site analysis should map these pivotal features (views, overlooks, enclosures or sequences).

Topography and contours.

Soil

The type of soil strongly influences the location, form and structure of human settlement but does not
dictate it.
The soil has importance for the site designer for three reasons.

1. Ecologically, as medium for the support of plant life

2. Architecturally, as a medium for the support of structures

3. As an indigenous site potential

Water

The site designer must have a knowledge of the properties and presence of the water on a site for
several reasons

1. Water is important as a base element in the support of all life forms

2. Surface and subsurface water affect the development potential of the site

3. Water can be an indigenous site amenity

One important aspect of site water involves the runoff and percolation of surface water to the
groundwater table.

It is important to note where drainage from other upstream site crosses the subject site, and the impact
of the subject site drainage on downstream sites.
 Drainage diagram.

Groundwater is important for sustaining water supply and vegetation. It provides the base supply for
surface rivers and streams in periods of drought.

But, it also has important impact on the development potential of the site. Areas where the water table
is high (wetland) are not ecologically sensitive, but they also present strutural problems.
Hydrologic cycle.

Architectural Elements

That is, the placement of buildings creates exteriior space and that space must be designed with level of
care usually associated only with interior spaces.

Architectural Elements that Define Spaces

An understanding of space rests with the basic two-dimentional planes.

1. The base plane, the earth and its landform

2. Vertical planes, articulate the enclosure of a space

3. Overhead plane, percieved as the sky

Elements that Influence The Qualities of Space

Exterior spaces are designed with repect to enclosure, scale, shape and proportion.

The shape of a space can affect the type of activities that can occure separately or simultaneously within
the space. Different shapes provide qualities that reinforce the formation of behavioral territories.

Texture porvides a human scale in the environment by supplying a recognizable dimension that may be
perceived by touch or by sight.

Color may aid in creating an atmosphere in a space.

Elements that Order Space

Space do not occur in isolation, they are linked together.

Sequence is continuity in the perception and understanding of spaces and it is achieved by the use of
spatial elements to provide a succession of visual experiences.
Sequential views.

A simple type of organizational structure for a sequence is a hierarchy (such as in the size of space). The
space may increase progressively in size until one reaches the primary space. Finally, continuity may be
used to structure a spatial sequence.
 Hierarchy of entry,
Oxford, England.

Hierarchy of entry, Oxford, England.

The quality and appearance of a space can be modified by a range of objects placed in the space. In
addition to the people and their activities that possess the space.

Street furniture, graphics, artificial lightning and sculpture are all contained elements that can alter the
quality of a space.
THE PERCEPTUAL ENVIRONMENT

Our understanding of a space is based upon our perception of that space - through the visual
environmental stimuli sent from the eye to the brain and cognition.

Perceptual Structure

Designer considerations of the perceptual structure of the site and locale.

1. In terms of the way people perceptually divide space into a hierarchy of territories, which
affects the way the space is used

2. In terms of the ways in which the arrangement of space and space-defining lements affect the
manner in which people interact in the space.
Meaning and Legibility

It is important for a space to have a clear meaning, the perceptual structure must affirm the activity of
the space.

And also the legibility of a site is important issue. Spaces should be arranged so that an individual can
understand their pattern and organization. One point that is the goal of the legibility is could the a
source of emotional security and a basis foe self identity, they called as psychological perception of
space

THE GENERATION OF DESIGN CONCEPTS

The basic elements of site organization.

1. The behavioral structure f activity patterns, the space-defining elements (both natural and
architectural) and the psychological perception of space

2. Must be melded together in the site design to achieve a spatial, behavioral and perceptual
unity.