ARCH 161 - WFWX

CERVANTES, Camille Cassandra

2013 – 25178
14 August 2015

RESEARCH: URBAN DESIGN & ITS SCOPE

In the Urban Design Handbook (2009), urban design is defined as “the discipline
through which planning and architecture… [enhance] the visual image and quality of
neighborhoods”. It is also described here how the discipline provides a tangible form to
implemented policies in a planned area, “[focusing] on the design of the public realm,” which
includes the infrastructure as well as the public spaces they define. These are the spaces
that are unified with urban design, forming a harmonic coalesce of the components that
make up what we define as an urban space – this in turn requires collaboration from different
disciplines enumerated: urban designers, architects, landscape architects, planners, civil and
environmental engineers, and market analysts.

Further explained by Dixon (2005) is the difference between urban design process
and the building design process in the following:

As seen, urban design covers a much larger scale. It is also emphasized once again
in this excerpt how the discipline focuses on shaping the built environment and the public
realm – the fusion of information taken from city planning policies, specific neighborhood
values, transportation, and real estate findings into plans, guidelines, and regulations that
make up the place’s physical characteristics.

Dixon also quotes American Institute of Architect’s director of planning, William

Gilchrist, “Urban design can result in visions and new public policies that establish long-term
legacies, offering guidance for shaping growth and change for generations”.

REFERENCES:

[1] Urban design handbook. (January 2009). City of Baton Rouge: Parish of Baton Rouge,
Planning Commission

[2] American Institute of Architects, & Dixon, D. (2005). Urban design services. In The
architects handbook of professional practice (Update 2005). USA: John Wiley &
Sons, Inc.