Urban Design Today. Chapter 1. Defining Urban Design UNDERSTANDING URBAN DESIGN

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1 Chapter 1 Urban Design Today This book adopts a broad understanding of urban design as the process of making better paces for peope than woud otherwise be produced (Figures 1.1e1.3). Four themes are emphasised in this definition: first, that urban design is for peope; second, the significance of pace ; third, that urban design operates in the rea word, with its fied of opportunity constrained by economic (market) and poitica (reguatory) forces; and fourth, the importance of design as a process. That urban design is about making better paces than woud otherwise be produced is, of course, a normative contention about what urban design shoud be rather than what it is at any point in time. Introducing and defining urban design, this chapter is organised into three main parts. The first part deveops an understanding of the subject. The second part discusses the contemporary need for urban design. The third part discusses urban designers and urban design practice. design conference at Harvard in 1956 and subsequenty setting up the first American urban design programme at that university (see Krieger & Saunders 2009). As a term for the activity, it repaced the more traditiona and narrower term civic design. Typified by the City Beautifu Movement, civic design focused on the siting and design of major civic buidings e city has, opera houses and museums e and their reationship to open spaces. Evoving from an initia, predominanty aesthetic, concern with the distribution of buiding masses and the space between buidings, contemporary urban design denotes a more expansive approach and, refecting the tite of this book, has become primariy concerned with shaping urban space as a means to make, or re-make, the pubic paces that peope can use and enjoy. UNDERSTANDING URBAN DESIGN From the eary 1960s, a cutch of writers and designers e notaby Jane Jacobs, Kevin Lynch, Gordon Cuen, Christopher Aexander, Ado Rossi, Ian McHarg, Jan Geh and others e became infuentia in shaping what woud increasingy become known as urban design. The term itsef had been coined in North America in the ate 1950s and is often associated with Jose Luis Sert, Dean of Harvard s Graduate Schoo of Design, convening an urban Containing two probematica words, urban design can be an ambiguous term. Taken separatey, urban and design have cear meanings: urban describes the characteristics of towns or cities, whie design refers to such activities as sketching, panning, arranging, coouring and patternmaking. As used generay within the fied, urban has a wide and incusive meaning, embracing not ony the city and town but aso the viage and hamet, whie design, is as much about effective probem soving and/or the processes of deivering or organising deveopment, as about narrow aesthetics or particuar physica outcomes. FIGURE 1.1 Gamme Strand, Copenhagen (Image: Steve Tiesde) FIGURE 1.2 St Andrews Square, Edinburgh (Image: Steve Tiesde) Defining Urban Design Pubic Paces Urban Spaces. DOI: /B X Copyright Ó 2010, 2003, Matthew Carmona, Steve Tiesde, Tim Heath & Taner Oc. Pubished By Esevier Ltd. A rights reserved. 3

2 4 PART I FIGURE 1.3 Chicago (Image: Matthew Carmona) Discussing definitions of urban design, Madanipour (1996: 93e117) identified seven areas of ambiguity: Shoud it be focused at particuar scaes or eves? Shoud it focus ony on the visua quaities of the urban environment or, more broady, address the organisation and management of urban space? Shoud it simpy be about transforming spatia arrangements or shoud it be about more deepy seated socia and cutura reations between spaces and society? Shoud its focus be its product (the urban environment) or the process by which it is produced? Shoud it be the province of architects, panners or andscape architects? Shoud it be a pubic or private sector activity? Shoud it be an objectiveerationa process (a science) or an expressiveesubjective process (an art)? The first three are concerned with the product of urban design, the ast three concern urban design as a process, whie the fourth concerns the producteprocess diemma. Athough Mandanipour s ambiguities are deiberatey presented as oppositiona and mutuay excusive, it is often a matter of and/both rather than either/or. As we consciousy shape and manage our buit environments (Madanipour 1996: 117), urban designers are interested in and engaged with both process and its products. Whie, in practice, urban design is used to refer to a the products and processes of deveopment, in a more restricted sense it means adding quaity to both product and process. Another distinction that can be confusing is that between its use in a descriptive manner and its use in a normative manner. In the former, a urban deveopment is ipso facto urban design; in the atter, ony urban deveopment of sufficient merit or quaity is urban design. Thus, seen anayticay, urban design is the process by which the urban Defining Urban Design environment comes about; seen normativey, it is e or shoud be e the process by which better urban environments come about. Confusion comes because those in-the-know (designers) wi often skip between these forms of use, but others (often socia scientists) fai to make this distinction. Urban design s scope is broad. Indicating the potentia scope and diversity of urban design, and attempting to sum up the remit of urban design in simpe terms, Tibbads (1988a) suggested it was Everything you can see out of the window. Whie this statement has a basic truth and ogic, if everything can be considered to be urban design, then equay perhaps nothing is urban design (see Dagenhart & Sawicki 1994). There is, however, itte vaue in putting boundaries around the subject. The rea need is for definitions encapsuating its heart or core rather than prescribing its edge or boundary e that is, for the identification, carification and debate of its centra beiefs and activities. To expore the source of some of this confusion, urban design can be considered in terms of discipine and geographica scae. (i) Discipine In terms of discipine, it is frequenty easier to say what urban design is not than precisey what it is. It is not, for exampe, big architecture, sma-scae panning, civic beautification, urban engineering, a pattern-book subject, just visua/aesthetic in its scope, ony a pubic sector concern, nor a narrow sefcontained discipine. Despite this, reationa definitions e those defining something in reation to something ese e can hep us to get coser to what it is. Urban design, for exampe, is typicay defined in terms of architecture and town panning e Gosing & Maitand (1984) described it as the common ground between these discipines, whie the UK s former Socia Science Research Counci ocated it at. the interface between architecture, andscape architecture and town panning, drawing on the design tradition of architecture and andscape architecture, and the environmenta management and socia science tradition of contemporary panning. (Bentey & Butina 1991) Urban design, however, is not simpy an interface. It encompasses and sometimes subsumes a number of discipines and activities: architecture, town panning, andscape architecture, surveying, property deveopment, environmenta management and protection, etc. As Cuthbert (2007: 185) observes, professions are aways territoria, and, furthermore, frequenty at the behest of professions, academic institutions offering education in professiona areas inevitaby aso become territoria (see Tabe 1.1). Urban design is not, or shoud not be, a particuar professiona territory (see beow).

3 Chapter 1 Urban Design Today 5 TABLE 1.1 A Systems View of Professiona Boundaries Architecture Urban Design Urban Panning Definition The design of individua buidings, which are conceived primariy in terms of the design parameters of artificiay controed environments. An open system that uses individua architectura eements and ambient space as its basic vocabuary, and that is focused on socia interaction and communication in the pubic ream. The agent of the state in controing the production of and for the purposes of capita accumuation and socia reproduction; in aocating sites for the coective consumption of socia goods such as hospitas, schoos and reigious buidings; and in providing space for the production, circuation and eventua consumption of commodities. Eement (i) Structure Static þ human activity Morphoogy of space and form (history þ human activity) Government bureaucracy (ii) Environment Three-dimensiona (cosed system) Four-dimensiona (open system) The poitica economy of the state (iii) Resources Materias þ energy þ design theory Architecture þ ambient space þ socia theory (iv) Objectives Socia cosure/physica protection Socia communication and interaction Systems of egitimation and communication To impement the prevaiing ideoogy of power (v) Behaviour Design parameters: artificiay controed environments Dynamics of urban and markets Dynamics of advanced capitaist societies Source: Adapted from Cuthbert 2007: 189e90. Despite some professions periodicay making imperiaist caims on the fied, urban design is typicay coaborative and inter-discipinary, invoving an integrated approach and the skis and expertise of a wide range of actors. Some urban design practitioners argue that pace is not e or shoud not be e a professiona territory and that, rather than imbuing the creative task of designing urban paces in the hands of a singe a-knowing designer, it shoud be shared among many actors. Cowan (2001a: 9), for exampe, has asked:. which profession is best at interpreting poicy; assessing the oca economy and property market; appraising a site or area in terms of and use, ecoogy, andscape, ground conditions, socia factors, history, archaeoogy, urban form and transport; managing and faciitating a participative process; drafting and iustrating design principes; and programming the deveopment process? He contends that, whie a these skis are ikey to be needed in, say, producing an urban design framework or masterpan, they are rarey a embodied by a singe professiona. The best frameworks and masterpans are drawn up by a number of peope with different skis working in coaboration. Urban designers typicay work within a context of mutipe cients, often with conficting interests and objectives, deveoping as a consequence of mutipe soutions to a probem, rather than a singe soution. Indeed, many consider that the very term urban design paces it too much within the purview of professiona design experts engaging in sef-conscious, knowing design, and prefer the more incusive term pace-making and, at a arger scae, city-making: terms suggesting it is more than just (professiona) designers who create paces and cities. Described as urban design many non-professionas strugge to see their roe; described as pace-making they can more easiy envision their roe and contribution. Urban design can thus be considered the sef-conscious practice of knowing urban designers; pace-making is the sef-conscious and unsef-conscious practice of everyone. An important distinction is between urban design (or pace-making) as direct design (pace-design) and urban design as indirect design or, more grandy, as poitica economy. In the atter, actors are invoved in shaping the nature of pace (pace-shaping), through estabishing poicy, making investment decisions, managing space, etc., but may not themseves be invoved in any conscious design process. Urban design encompasses both. George (1997) makes a simiar distinction between first-order design and second-order design. First-order design invoves direct

4 6 PART I Defining Urban Design design of a component of the buit environment, such as a buiding or buiding compex, or environmenta improvements e in short, a project of some sort and usuay confined within a singe site. Second-order (indirect) design invoves designing the decision environments of deveopment actors (e.g. deveopers, investors, designers, etc.). Urban design may be concerned with first-order design processes (e.g. the design of a new pubic square), but is often concerned with coordinating the component parts of the urban environment through strategies, frameworks and pans, and is thus commony a second-order design activity. (ii) Scae Scae has aso been used as a means of defining urban design, with urban design being commony considered as the intermediate scae between panning (the settement) and architecture (individua buidings). In 1976, Reyner Banham defined its fied of concern as. urban situations about haf a mie square. This definition is usefu ony if urban design is seen as mediating between architecture and panning. Lynch (1981: 291) defined urban design more broady as encompassing a wide range of concerns across different spatia scaes, arguing that urban designers may be engaged in preparing a comprehensive regiona access study, a new town, or a regiona park system and, equay,. may seek to protect neighbourhood streets, revitaise a pubic square,. set reguations for conservation or deveopment, buid a participatory process, write an interpretative guide or pan a city ceebration. Urban design typicay operates at and across a variety of spatia scaes. Considering urban design at particuar scaes might often be a convenient device, but it detracts from the notion of paces as verticay integrated whoes. Urban designers need to be constanty aware of scaes above and beow the scae at which they are working, and aso of the reationships of the parts to the whoe, and of the whoe to the parts. Christopher Aexander s pattern anguage iustrates the range of scaes at which urban design operates, with the patterns being broady ordered in terms of scae, beginning with patterns for strategic (city-wide) design and ending with interior design. Whie identifying the muti-ayered compexities of urban design through the book s 253 patterns, Aexander et a (1977: xiii) stressed no pattern was an isoated entity : Each pattern can exist in the word ony to the extent that it is supported by other patterns: the arger patterns in which it is embedded, the patterns of the same size that surround it, and the smaer patterns which are embedded in it. Urging the buit environment professions to see the whoe as we as the parts, Tibbads (1992: 9) argued that paces matter most : We seem to be osing the abiity to stand back and ook at what we are producing as a whoe.. We need to stop worrying quite so much about individua buidings and other physica artefacts and think instead about paces in their entirety. Traditions of Thought Two broad traditions of urban design thought stem from different ways of appreciating design and the products of the design process e as aesthetic objects or dispays (for ooking at) and as environments (for using or iving in). Jarvis (1980) discussed this distinction in terms of a visuaartistic tradition emphasising visua form ( buidings-andspace ) and a socia usage tradition primariy concerned with the pubic use and experience of urban environments ( peope-and-activities ). These traditions have been synthesised into a third e making paces e tradition that focuses on process as we as product. More recenty, a new tradition of sustainabe urban design/pace-making is increasingy coming to the fore. (i) The visua-artistic tradition The visua-artistic tradition refects an earier, more architectura and narrower understanding of urban design. Predominanty product-oriented, it tended to concentrate on the visua quaities and aesthetic experience of urban spaces, rather than the myriad cutura, socia, economic, poitica, and spatia factors and processes contributing to successfu urban paces. Jarvis saw it as emanating from Sitte s City Panning According to Artistic Principes (1889). He aso saw Le Corbusier as a key proponent of this tradition e abeit as Sitte s aesthetic antithesis. The visuaartistic tradition was ceary expressed in Unwin s Town Panning in Practice (1909) and subsequenty by the various contributions to Design in Town and Viage (MHLG 1953). Commenting on Gibberd s contribution to the atter on designing residentia areas, Jarvis (1980: 53) noted both the absence of expicit references to peope s activities in housing areas and the tradition being exempified by the treatment of front gardens, where, rather than considering privacy and opportunities for personaisation, pictoria composition predominated. An especiay prominent strand of thought in this tradition was that of townscape, deveoped by Gordon Cuen and others in the ate 1940s and the 1950s. Cuen s (1961) subsequent book Townscape, for exampe, appeared to emphasise the visua dimension to the virtua excusion of a others. As Punter &

5 Chapter 1 Urban Design Today Carmona (1997: 72) note, athough the book deveoped Cuen s own persona and expressive response to urban environments, it argey faied to acknowedge pubic perceptions of townscapes and paces, in direct contrast to Lynch s contemporaneous The Image of the City. (ii) The socia usage tradition Jarvis contrasts the visua-artistic tradition with the socia usage tradition, which emphasises the way in which peope use space and encompasses issues of perceptions and sense-of-pace. Identifying Kevin Lynch as a key proponent of this approach, Jarvis (1980: 58) highights how Lynch shifted the focus of urban design in two ways: first, in terms of the appreciation of the urban environment e rejecting the notion that this was an excusive and eitist concern, Lynch emphasised that peasure in urban paces was a commonpace experience e and, second, in terms of the object of study e instead of examining the physica and materia form of urban paces, Lynch (1960: 3) suggested examining peope s perceptions and menta images. Another key proponent was Jane Jacobs, whose book The Death and Life of Great American Cities (1961) attacked many of the fundamenta concepts of modernist urban panning, herading many aspects of contemporary urban design (see Chapter 2). Jacobs (1961: 386) argued the city coud never be a work of art because art was made by seection from ife, whie a city was. ife at its most vita, compex and intense. Concentrating on the socio-functiona aspects of streets, sidewaks and parks, Jacobs cose observations of human behaviour emphasised their roe as sites of human activity and paces of socia interaction. Simiar detaied observations informed subsequent studies in this tradition, notaby Jan Geh s studies of pubic space in Scandinavia (Geh 1971) and Whyte s The Socia Life of Sma Urban Spaces (1980). Aexander s work aso epitomises the socia usage tradition. In Notes on the Synthesis of Form (1964) and A City is Not a Tree (1965), Aexander identified both the faiings of design phiosophies that considered form without context and the dangers of approaching urban design in ways that fai to aow for a rich diversity of cross-connections between activities and paces (Jarvis 1980: 59). Aexander s ideas were deveoped further in A Pattern Language (Aexander et a 1977) and The Timeess Way of Buiding (Aexander et a 1979), in which he set out a range of patterns. Rather than compete designs, each pattern was a sketched minimum framework of essentias, a few basic instructions and rough freehand sketches to be shaped and refined (Jarvis 7 FIGURE 1.4 Federation Square, Mebourne (Image: Steve Tiesde) 1980: 59). For Aexander, the patterns provide designers with a useabe e but not predetermined e series of reationships between activities and spaces. Even those patterns cosest to the traditiona visua or spatia concerns of urban design e in which Aexander frequenty cites Camio Sitte e are grounded in and justified by research and/or observation of peope s use of paces. (iii) The pace-making tradition Over the past 20 years, a pace-making tradition of urban design has emerged e a tradition rooted in arge part in the work of the urban design pioneers. Synthesising the two earier traditions, contemporary urban design is simutaneousy concerned with the design of urban paces as physica/aesthetic entities and as behavioura settings e that is, with the hard FIGURE 1.5 Borough Market, London (Image: Matthew Carmona). Contemporary urban design is concerned with the diversity and activity that heps to create successfu urban paces and, in particuar, how we the physica miieu supports the functions and activities that take pace there and how such spaces interact with everyday ife.

6 8 PART I Defining Urban Design city of buidings and spaces and the soft city of peope and activities (Figures 1.4 and 1.5) (iv) An emerging tradition e sustainabe urbanism The quest for more sustainabe deveopment is an increasingy expicit concern in urban design and pace-making, perhaps even the focus of a new, emerging tradition of thought and practice in its own right. Brown et a (2009) identify four convergent ines of thinking moving the activity on in the 2000s: (i) the work of Richard Forida (2004) and the arguments he makes that vibrant, wakabe neighbourhoods attract the creative casses; (ii) a parae transformation in the fortunes of America s downtowns as demand for urban iving has increased; (iii) an awareness of the growing obesity crisis in the USA (and esewhere), which has been inked to the spread of car-dependent urbanism; and (iv) a growing interest in the potentia of urban form to reduce the carbon footprint of mankind. The first three reinforce the making-paces tradition, whie the fina trend suggests new thinking may be required. A manifesto ceebrating the 50th anniversary of the infuentia 1958 Penn-Rockefeer Conference on Urban Design argued that: The new urban designer wi need to fee comfortabe operating under conditions of ambiguity, appreciating the fact that the science and art of integrating sustainabiity into urban design is an evoving chaenge requiring the adaptation and advancement of ideas as they emerge.. The utimate agency for the urban designer is as someone who is abe to describe potentia futures for the city in visua, technica, and narrative terms that foster socia invovement, poitica action, and economic investment to make reaity the post-carbon city. (Abramson et a 2008: 4e5). A body of high-quaity technica information and case studies is emerging that wi assist the achievement of ow- and zero-energy deveopments (see, for exampe, Dunster et a 2008). Thus, just as technoogy deivered high-rise iving and high-speed trave, so e if the wi is there e can it aso deiver carbon-free iving and, in the process, rein back the carbon impact of the buiding stock. However, as urban design transcends both these very tangibe technica questions, and the far ess tangibe pacemaking questions discussed above, the chaenge for urban designers wi be to integrate them. In this way, sustainabiity is a further dimension in urban design s ong quest for a more human-centred environment e one not ony deivering quaity of ife ocay, but aso mitigating against unwanted consequences gobay. Urban Design and Pace-Making Frameworks As part of the making-paces tradition, a number of theorists and practitioners have sought to identify desirabe quaities of successfu urban paces and/or good urban form. It is usefu to note the key content of six such attempts. Kevin Lynch Lynch (1981: 118e9) identified five performance dimensions of urban design: Vitaity e the degree to which the form of paces supports the functions, bioogica requirements and capabiities of human beings. Sense e the degree to which paces can be ceary perceived and structured in time and space by users. Fit e the degree to which the form and capacity of spaces matches the pattern of behaviours that peope engage in or want to engage in. Access e the abiity to reach other persons, activities, resources, services, information or paces, incuding the quantity and diversity of eements that can be reached. Contro e the degree to which those who use, work or reside in paces can create and manage access to spaces and activities. Two meta-criteria e efficiency and justice e underpinned the basic dimensions. Efficiency reated to the reative costs of creating and maintaining a pace for any given eve of attainment of the above environmenta dimensions, whie justice reated to the way in which environmenta benefits were distributed. Thus, for Lynch (1981: 119) the key questions were (i) what is the reative cost of achieving a particuar degree of vitaity, sense, fit, access or contro and (ii) who is getting how much of it? Aan Jacobs and Donad Appeyard In Towards an Urban Design Manifesto, Jacobs & Appeyard (1987) suggested seven goas essentia for the future of a good urban environment : Liveabiity e a city shoud be a pace where everyone can ive in reative comfort. Identity and contro e peope shoud fee that some part of the environment beongs to them, individuay and coectivey e some part for which they care and are responsibe, whether they own it or not. Access to opportunities, imagination and joy e peope shoud find the city a pace where they can break from traditiona mouds, extend their experience, meet new peope, earn other viewpoints, and have fun.

7 Chapter 1 Urban Design Today 9 Authenticity and meaning e peope shoud be abe to understand their city (or other peope s cities), its basic ayout, pubic functions and institutions; they shoud be aware of its opportunities. Community and pubic ife e cities shoud encourage participation of their citizens in community and pubic ife. Urban sef-reiance e increasingy, cities wi have to become more sef-sustaining in their uses of energy and other scarce resources. An environment for a e good environments shoud be accessibe to a. Every citizen is entited to some minima eve of environmenta iveabiity and minima eves of identity, contro and opportunity (Jacobs & Appeyard 1987: 115e6). To achieve these goas, five prerequisites of a sound urban environment were identified: Liveabe streets and neighbourhoods. Some minimum density of residentia deveopment as we as intensity of and use. An integration of activities e iving, working, shopping e in some reasonabe proximity to each other. A manmade environment, particuary buidings, that defines pubic space (as opposed to buidings sitting in space). Many separate, distinct buidings with compex arrangements and reationships (as opposed to a few, arge buidings) (Jacobs & Appeyard 1987: 117). Responsive Environments During the ate 1970s and eary 1980s, a team at what was then Oxford Poytechnic formuated an approach to urban design, subsequenty pubished as Responsive Environments: A Manua for Urban Designers (Bentey et a 1985). Their approach stressed the need for more democratic, enriching environments, which maximise the degree of choice avaiabe to users. The core idea was that. the buit environment shoud provide its users with an essentiay democratic setting, enriching their opportunities by maximising the degree of choice avaiabe to them. (Bentey et a 1985: 9). The design of a pace affects the choices peope can make: Where they can and can not go (permeabiity). The range of uses avaiabe (variety). How easiy they can understand what opportunities it offers (egibiity). The degree to which they can use a given pace for different purposes (robustness). Whether the detaied appearance of the pace makes them aware of the choice avaiabe (visua appropriateness). Their choice of sensory experience (richness). The extent to which they can put their own stamp on a pace (personaisation). Paces with these quaities were responsive. In 1990, Ian Bentey suggested an additiona set of quaities e resource efficiency, ceaniness and biotic support e reating to the ecoogica impact of urban forms and patterns of activity. Later he deveoped his ideas into a responsive city typoogy consisting of six types: the deformed grid (interconnected street pattern); the compex use pattern (mixed use); the robust pot deveopment; the positive privacy gradient (active frontages); the perimeter bock; and the native biotic network (Bentey 1999: 215e7). By contrast, two of the other team members e McGynn & Murrain (1994) e stated that their experience in practice and teaching had reduced the origina ist to just four fundamenta quaities: permeabiity; variety (vitaity, proximity and concentration); egibiity; and robustness (resiience). Francis Tibbads In 1989, His Roya Highness Prince Chares had offered a framework for architectura design, comprising the pace; hierarchy; scae; harmony; encosure; materias; decoration; art; signs and ights; and community. Firmy entrenched in the visua-artistic tradition, the Prince s ideas sparked an important debate. In response, the thenpresident of the Roya Town Panning Institute and founder of the UK-based Urban Design Group, Francis Tibbads (1988a,b, 1992), suggested a more sophisticated (urban design) framework comprising 10 principes: Paces matter most Learn the essons of the past Encourage mixing of uses and activities Design on a human scae Encourage pedestrian freedom Provide access for a Buid egibe environments Buid asting environments Contro change (incrementay) Join it a together. The Congress for New Urbanism During the 1990s in the United States, New Urbanism (see chapter 2) deveoped from two earier sets of ideas: Neo-traditiona neighbourhoods (NTDs) and traditiona neighbourhood deveopment (TNDs), where the centra idea was to design compete new neighbourhoods that woud be simiar to traditiona neighbourhoods (e.g. Duany & Pater-Zyberk 1991).

8 10 PART I Defining Urban Design Pedestrian pockets and transit-oriented deveopment (TOD), where the centra idea was to design neighbourhoods expicity reated to transport connections and of a sufficient density to make pubic transport viabe (e.g. Cathorpe 1989, 1993). Formaised through the creation of the Congress for New Urbanism (CNU) in 1993, a Charter for New Urbanism ( was pubished advocating restructuring pubic poicy and deveopment practices to support the foowing: Neighbourhoods diverse in use and popuation. Communities designed for the pedestrian and transit as we as the car. Cities and towns shaped by physicay defined and universay accessibe pubic spaces and community institutions. Urban paces framed by architecture and andscape design that ceebrate oca history, cimate, ecoogy and buiding practice. The charter aso asserts a detaied set of principes to guide pubic poicy, deveopment practice, urban panning and design at three spatia scaes: (i) the region e the metropois, city and town; (ii) the neighbourhood, the district and the corridor; and (iii) the bock, the street and the buiding (see Nan Ein More recenty, Nan Ein set out a manifesto for what she caed Integra Urbanism, pubished as the frontispiece of her 2006 book of the same name. Integra Urbanism demonstrates five quaities: hybridity, connectivity, porosity, authenticity and vunerabiity: Rather than isoate objects and separate functions, hybridity and connectivity bring activities and peope together, treating peope and nature as symbiotic e as we as buidings and andscapes e rather than oppositiona. Porosity preserves the integrity of what is brought together whie aowing mutua access through permeabe membrane. Authenticity invoves activey engaging and drawing inspiration from actua socia and physica conditions with an ethic of care, respect and honesty. Like a heathy organisms, the authenti-city is aways growing and evoving according to new needs that arise thanks to a sef-adjusting feedback oop that measures and monitors success and faiure. (2006: xiv). Vunerabiity requires us to reinquish contro, isten deepy, vaue process as we as product, and reintegrate space with time. (2006: xiv). The Frameworks Many such frameworks exist, and each has a different degree of prescription regarding desirabe physica and spatia forms. Lynch s framework is the east prescriptive and is essentiay a series of criteria to guide and evauate urban design, eaving others to determine physica form. Jacobs and Appeyard s framework is more prescriptive, their criteria suggesting the vibrant, ivey and we-integrated urban form of cities such as San Francisco and Paris. The CNU s criteria are aso highy prescriptive about physica and spatia forms. As is discussed ater (see Chapters 4 and 8), definitions of urban design shoud not be too prescriptive about urban form because form depends in particuar on issues of oca cimate and cuture. Spatia forms that are appropriate in one cimate and one cuture may not be in another. Kaiski (2008a: 94e5), for exampe, acknowedges Jane Jacobs prioritising of the sma scae of daiy ife as the generative component of good urbanism, but compains that she had:. too quicky associated specific forms with good urbanism and defined those forms as good. With hindsight, this type of insuar recursion too quicky devaues aternate urbanisms that inevitaby are as deary oved by residents as the routines and forms of Greenwich Viage were admired by Jacobs. In recent years, officia definitions of urban design have expressy embraced pace-making and have set down these officia positions in simiar frameworks to those discussed above. Taking Engand as an exampe, the Government first defined urban design in poicy in 1997 as:. the reationship between different buidings; the reationship between buidings and the streets, squares, parks and other spaces which make up the pubic domain itsef; the reationship of one part of a viage, town or city with the other parts; and the patterns of movement and activity which are thereby estabished. In short, the compex reationships between a the eements of buit and unbuit space. (DoE 1997: para 14). A subsequent government pubication e By Design: Urban Design in the Panning System: Towards Better Practice (DETR/CABE 2000a: 8) e gave a more rounded and compete definition, stating that urban design was the art of making paces for peope : It incudes the way paces work and matters such as community safety, as we as how they ook. It concerns the connections between peope and paces, movement and urban form, nature and the buit fabric, and the processes for ensuring successfu viages, towns and cities. Seven objectives were identified e each reating to the concept of pace: Character e a pace with its own identity.

9 Chapter 1 Urban Design Today 11 Continuity and encosure e a pace where pubic and private spaces are ceary distinguished. Quaity of the pubic ream e a pace with attractive and successfu outdoor areas. Ease of movement e a pace that is easy to get to and move through. Legibiity e a pace that has a cear image and is easy to understand. Adaptabiity e a pace that can change easiy. Diversity e a pace with variety and choice (DETR/ CABE 2000). A 2005 update in poicy (ODPM 2005) emphasised sustainabiity s increasing importance within the nationa urban design agenda: Good design ensures attractive, usabe, durabe and adaptabe paces and is a key eement in achieving sustainabe deveopment. Engand is not exceptiona in this regard and, demonstrating the spread and acceptance of the pace-making canon, such high-eve poicy is repicated at nationa/state eve around the word (see, for exampe, New Zeaand s Urban Design Protoco e Ministry for the Environment 2005). Whie the theoretica frameworks and the quaities of good paces given in poicy often contain much simiarity, the danger of generay desirabe design principes becoming infexibe dogma, and of design and pace-making being reduced to a formua, is inherent in these frameworks. This woud negate the active process of design that reates genera principes to specific situations through the appication of design inteigence: design principes shoud be used with the fexibiity derived from a deeper understanding and appreciation of their bases, justifications and interreations. In any design process there are no whoy right or wrong answers e substantiay because design invoves reating genera, and generay desirabe, principes to specific sites, where the totaity of the outcome is what matters. Furthermore, as presented here, these frameworks stress the outcomes or products of urban design, rather the process dimensions: they indicate the quaities of good paces, but not how such paces can or shoud be deivered or achieved. Effective pace-making demands sensitivity to, and cognisance of, power dynamics in and across urban space and its production. Urban designers thus need to understand the contexts within which they operate (see Chapter 3) and the processes by which paces and deveopments come about (see Chapters 10 and 11). As in many spheres, there is often an impementation gap between theory and practice and, in the case of poicy, between higheve, aspirationa principes and oca deivery. THE NEED FOR URBAN DESIGN Arguing in 1976 that urban design was sti in its prehistoric stage, Bentey (1976) saw the emergence of express concerns for urban design originating in critiques of the urban environmenta product, the process by which the buit environment was brought about, and the professiona roe invoved in controing its production. Each critique detected various kinds of fragmentation, a ack of concern for the totaity and overa quaity of the urban environment. These probems remain today. Product and Process There have been many critiques of the quaity of the buit environment. The poor quaity of much of the contemporary buit environment and the ack of concern for overa quaity is a function of both the processes by which it comes about and the forces that act on and within those processes. Much of this is attributed e righty or wrongy e to the deveopment industry. The UK s Urban Design Compendium (Leweyn-Davies 2000: 12), for exampe, argued that the deveopment process and the actors within it had become entanged in a system producing deveopments not paces. Among the constraints on making paces of quaity, Leweyn-Davies (2000: 12) identified the. predominanty conservative, short-term and suppydriven characteristics of the deveopment industry. Focusing on product rather than process but in a simiar vein, Loukaitou-Sideris (1996: 91) discussed pace quaity in terms of cracks, seeing the cracks as: The gaps in the urban form, where overa continuity is disrupted. The residua spaces eft undeveoped, underused or deteriorating. The physica divides that purposefuy or accidentay separate socia words. The spaces that deveopment has passed by or where new deveopment has fragmentation and interruption. Exampes of such cracks were given for a range of ocations, incuding the urban core:. where corporate towers assert their dominance over the skies, but turn their back onto the city; where sunken or eevated pazas, skyways and roof gardens disrupt pedestrian activity; and where the asphat deserts of parking ots fragment the continuity of the street. (Loukaitou-Sideris 1996: 91) (Figure 1.6). Esewhere the cracks incude car-oriented, commercia strips, acking sidewaks and pedestrian amenities, and waed or gated deveopments that. assert their privateness by defying any connection with the surrounding andscape. (Loukaitou-Sideris 1996: 91e2). Many cracks are the consequence of sef-conscious design, but, as we as express design, environmenta degradation aso resuts from the cumuative effect of decisions made by unknowing urban designers (see beow).

10 12 PART I Defining Urban Design Simiary, McGynn (1993: 3) argued that, as peope ived in and experienced. the simpified, fragmented and frequenty aienating forms of post-war redeveopment, they began to chaenge the vaues and assumptions of architects and panners and to distrust their abiity to improve upon the spatia and physica forms of pre-modernist urbanism.. FIGURE 1.6 A crack in the city (Image: Matthew Carmona) Poor quaity urban environments aso arise through various socia and economic trends e such as those of homogenisation and standardisation; the trend towards individuaism rather than coectivism; the privatisation of ife and cuture; and a retreat from and decine of the pubic ream. More than 20 years ago, Jacobs & Appeyard (1987: 113) commented on how cities, especiay American cities, had become privatised due to consumer society s emphasis on the individua and private sector. Escaated greaty by the spread of the car, these trends had resuted in a new form of city :. one of cosed, defended isands with bank and windowess facades surrounded by wasteands of parking ots and fast-moving traffic.. The pubic environment of many American cities has become an empty desert, eaving pubic ife dependent for its surviva soey on panned forma occasions, mosty in protected interna ocations. (Jacobs & Appeyard 1987: 113). These processes have intensified over the ast 20 years (see Low & Smith 2006). The Buit Environment Professions Contemporary concern for urban design, and for sefconscious pace-making, is aso ocated in critiques of the roe of various environmenta professionas. The period from the ate 1960s onwards e continuing through to today e saw a series of crises of confidence in the main environmenta professions about what they were doing and how they were doing it. Lang (1994: 3), for exampe, attributes urban design s (re-)birth to recognition that. the sterie urban environments achieved by appying the ideas of the Modern Movement to both poicy-making and to architectura design at the urban scae were a faiure in terms of the ives of the peope who inhabited them. The ack of quaity in contemporary deveopment has aso been attributed to we-intentioned but i-conceived pubic reguation (Ben-Joseph & Szod 2004; Duany & Brain 2005). Drawing inspiration from John Ruskin, Rouse (1998) outined The Seven Camps of Urban Design e the reasons. why we are consistenty faiing to achieve high standards of. urban design (see Tabe 1.2 and Chapter 11). Simiary, discussing panning and deveopment contros in the USA, Duany et a (2000: 19) highight how many deveopment codes have a negative effect on the quaity of the buit environment: Their size and their resut are symptoms of the same probem: they are hoow at the core. They do not emanate from any physica vision. They have no images, no diagrams, no recommended modes, ony numbers and words. Their authors, it seems, have no cear picture of what they want their communities to be. They are not imagining a pace that they admire, or buidings that they hope to emuate. Rather, a they seem to imagine is what they don t want: no mixed uses, no sow-moving cars, no parking shortages, no overcrowding. They observe that. one cannot easiy buid Chareston anymore, because it is against the aw. Simiary, Boston s Beacon Hi, Nantucket, Sante Fe, Carme e a of these we-known paces, many of which have become tourist destinations, exist in direct vioation of current zoning ordinance. (Duany et a 2000: xi). The probem is particuary pronounced with regard to highway and traffic design standards e rigid appication of which effectivey determines the ayout of many areas. This is, in part, a consequence of fragmentation: the abiity to focus on a part e and frequenty to measure it against a technica and immutabe standard e whie faiing to see the whoe. Urban design, by contrast, is a process of creating whoes from the parts, refecting how the totaity matters most (see Chapters 3 and 9). Whie panning, architecture and highway engineering endured considerabe pubic criticism from the 1960s and 1970s onwards, the division of issues and responsibiities concerning the urban environment among the estabished buit environment professions enabed them to bame each other. As McGynn (1993: 3) argues, architecture s concern was the design of a buiding

11 Chapter 1 Urban Design Today 13 TABLE 1.2 The Seven Camps of Urban Design (i) The Camp of Strategic Vacuum The ack of sufficient nationa, regiona and oca poicy apparatus to ensure urban design is paced at the heart of poitica and administrative decision-making. (ii) The Camp of Reactivity The faiure of the panning system to adopt a strategic approach to urban design process, substituting reactive and negative reguation for proactive and positive intervention. (iii) The Camp of Over-Reguation Reguation in the wrong pace and time can ki innovation, creativity and risk taking, but that greater fexibiity in the processes of deveopment needs to be baanced by stronger contro on the quaity of design. (iv) The Camp of Meanness As we emerge from an age where we earnt the price of everything but forgot the vaue of so many things, design in genera and urban design in particuar suffered. Design may cost money, but creates asting vaue. (v) The Camp of Iiteracy Virtuay no one is propery equipped with the skis to demand, create and interpret exceence in urban design e we have become iiterate and we need, coectivey, to re-educate ourseves. (vi) The Camp of Sma-Mindedness Contemporary deveopment is characterised by introspection, ow ambition, a tendency to revert to the owest common denominator and an unheathy obsession with the successes and faiures of the past. (vii) The Camp of Short-Termism The systemic, myopic condition that means the shape of new deveopment is dictated not by the projected 100-year ife of buidings and the need for aftercare, but by the five-year funding programme, four-year poitica cyce, three-year pubic expenditure agreement and by the spectre of annuity. Source: Rouse (1998). (or buidings) on a defined site, whie panning was responsibe for. the genera disposition of and uses through poicy formuation and pan making and for the detaied and necessariy piecemea reguation of individua buiding projects through the operation of the deveopment contro system. More generay, panners had become primariy concerned with socio-economic processes and poitica systems at the expense of considerations of pace and peope. Reph (1976: 24) argues that, during this period, the concept of pace in urban panning meant itte more than a ocation where certain specified interactions occurred and certain imited functions were served:. a notion of pace that ceary owes itte to spatia experience. Carmona (2009a) characterises the divergent cutures as professiona tyrannies with the potentia to impact negativey on the design quaity of deveopment proposas. The first tyranny resuts from the fetishising of design, where image, rather than inherent vaue e economic, socia or environmenta e is of paramount concern, and where the freedom to pursue the creative process is vaued above a. Such agendas are most cosey associated with the architectura profession. The second refects the argument that the market knows best, and that what ses counts. Thus, design quaity is perceived by deveopers as a compex mix of factors that incudes dominant economic aspects of suppy and demand revoving around costs and saes potentia e buidabiity, standardisation, market assessment and customer feedback. Lang (2005: 381), for exampe, asks Who eads?, concuding that, in capitaist countries, private corporations drive urban deveopment. The third, that of reguation, can be anaysed (and chaenged) in terms of the poitica economy it represents, namey as an attempt to correct market faiure. As Van Doren (2005: 45, 64) argues, reguation is inherenty costy and inefficient, but difficut to change because of poitica support for it from what he describes as booteggers (specia interests who gain economicay from the existence of reguation) and Baptists (those who do not ike the behaviour of others and want government to restrict it). Representing extremes, perhaps even caricatures, the tyrannies aso refect reaities that practitioners repeatedy face during the deveopment process. They resut from profoundy different motivations e respectivey peer approva, profit and a narrowy defined view of pubic interest e but aso from very different modes of working and associated professiona knowedge fieds e respectivey design, management/finance and socia/ technica expertise. They have often ed to substandard deveopment soutions, based on confict, compromise and deay, rather than on what woud enhance pace quaity. Urban Design as Joining-Up From the ate 1960s onwards, the hard-edged, sio-based and divisive separation of professiona responsibiities was seen as contributing to widespread poor-quaity environments, deveopment and paces. Bentey (1998: 15) argues that the professiona practice of urban design arose due to the gaps created by the boundaries set up and institutionaised around the various environmenta and deveopment discipines. Seeing the probem of gaps as inked to the reationship between designers and market processes, and the associated economic rationaisation that resuts in everincreasing speciaisation, he contended that the inevitabe resut is a fragmented set of professions, with tight boundaries around and gaps between them. As the gaps

12 14 PART I Defining Urban Design between the professions became hardened and institutionaised, what increasingy fe through the gaps was concern for. the pubic ream itsef e the void between buidings, the streets and spaces which constitute our everyday experiences of urban spaces. (McGynn 1993: 3). This, in turn, suggested a need to focus on integrating professiona activity, but, more importanty, a concern for pace quaity. The above discussion gives rise to two particuar and reated notions of urban design e first as a means of restoring or giving quaities of continuity and synergy to otherwise individua, often inward-focused, urban deveopments (i.e. to improve overa pace quaity), and second as a means of joining up a fragmented (and sometimes a somewhat estranged) set of professions. Joining Up the Urban Environment Sternberg (2000) argues that urban design s primary roe is to reassert the cohesiveness of the urban experience. Drawing upon the organicist schoo of thought e a schoo that had infuenced Patrick Geddes, Lewis Mumford and, more recenty, Aexander (1987, 1979) and Aexander et a (1977) e he notes how the organicists observed that. modern society (especiay its centra dynamic mechanism, the market) atomised community, nature and city. Inspired by bioogica metaphors and phiosophica concepts of vitaism, the organicists set out to reassert the natura growth and whoeness that a mechanica market society woud tend to undermine. (Sternberg 2000: 267) (see Chapter 9). Sternberg suggests the ideas informing urban design share an inteectua foundation in impicity acknowedging the non-commodifiabiity of the human experience across property boundaries e that it is impossibe to separate the parts from the whoe. He thus contends that the eading urban design theorists share. theviewthatgooddesignseeksto reintegrate the human experience of urban form in the face of rea estate markets that woud treat and and buidings as discrete commodities. (Sternberg 2000: 265). Thus, he argues that, without conscious concern for urban design as a process of restoring or giving quaities of coherence and continuity to individua, often inward-focused deveopments, overa pace quaity is inevitaby negected. Christopher Aexander s notion of things and reationships aso heps to put this idea into a design context. In The Timeess Way of Buiding (Aexander 1979), Aexander argued that what we perceive to be things in our everyday surroundings e buidings, was, streets, fences e are better understood as patterns intersecting with other patterns (i.e. as reationships). As Kunster (1996: 83) expains: A window in a house is a reationship between the inside of the house and the outside word. It transmits ight and air, and it aows gimpses between the pubic and private reams. When it fais to operate in these ways, it becomes a mere hoe in the wa. When they cease to be reationships and become things (i.e. isoated or removed from their context), patterns ose the quaity Aexander cas aiveness. Thus, just as Aexander et a (1977) argued that no pattern is an isoated entity (see above), urban design is, in arge part, about joining up the patterns that others (architects, deveopers, highway engineers, etc.) are primariy concerned with providing. Expaining Integra Urbanism, Ein (2006: 91) asserts that nothing exists in isoation, ony in reation and cites Jorge Luis Borge: The taste of the appe. ies in the contact of the fruit with the paate, not in the fruit itsef; in a simiar way (I woud say) poetry ies in the meeting of the poem and the reader, not in the ines of symbos printed on the pages of a book. She further asserts that: In contrast to the masterpanned functionay-zoned city which separates, isoates, aienates, and retreats, Integra Urbanism emphasises connection, communication and ceebration (Ein 2006: xv) and thus expains that Integra Urbanism focuses on: Networks not boundaries Reationships and connections not isoated objects Interdependence not independence or dependence Natura and socia communities not just individuas Transparency or transucency not opacity Permeabiity not was Fux or fow not stasis Connections with nature and reinquishing contro, not controing nature Cataysts, armatures, frameworks, punctuation marks, not fina products, masterpans or utopias (Ein 2006: xxiii). Joining Up the Buit Environment Professions Probems of pace quaity are wicked probems, which typicay have a number of common characteristics, incuding interconnectivity, compexity, uncertainty, ambiguity and confict. Inherenty muti-dimensiona, the dimensions are interdependent, do not fit easiy within structures based on separate functiona divisions and, hence, require a comprehensive and hoistic, joined-up response. Furthermore, unike tamed probems that have compete soutions, wicked probems can ony have partia soutions because they reate to open systems where the probem is continuousy changing and evoving. It is, thus, naïve to consider any design proposa, intervention or action as producing an end state or finite soution. Noting how architectura and, to a esser degree, andscape design often pace emphasis on the soution to the

13 Chapter 1 Urban Design Today 15 probem rather than on the probem itsef, Dobbins (2009: 182) argues that urban design. happens in fuid, interactive and ever-changing circumstances. The process of making paces that work and satisfy doesn t have a beginning and an end in the way that buiding projects or other time- and budget-specific projects might have. He argues that urban design needs to beware of soutionism : Some designers rey on the big idea, or three of four big ideas, as a way of synthesising an urban design process into an actionabe vision. If the big idea refects a fu vetting of the probem, a fuy incusive and citizen-guided process, or the fexibiity to do so, there s a good chance the method might work e and it certainy assists in reaching an imageabe and comprehendibe vision. If, on the other hand, the big ideas simpy come out of a consutant s medicine bag abeed big ideas, then watch out. However persuasive and compeing, however unconsciousy miseading, there s a fair chance that the purveyor of the big idea doesn t know why it has emerged as a generic soution in the first pace, or whether its appication to the particuars of a probem wi make things better or worse. (Dobbins 2009: 182e3). For Dobbins, the urban design fied is ittered with soutions that have presumed rather than investigated and understood the probem. Urban design is thus necessariy aways open-ended and ongoing e and, furthermore, is an intervention in, or contribution to, other dynamic systems. But, given the speed of contemporary change, the dangers of disjointed incrementaism shoud not be underestimated, and it may be important that some overa vision is avaiabe to guide deveopments towards agreed objectives e at east (on an evoutionary timescae) in the short-term e both giving the confidence necessary to attract investment and ensuring individua increments resut in a synergistic whoe (see Chapter 9). Rigid sio-based professiona demarcations reinforce the tendency for professions to see things from their own narrow discipinary perspective. Brain (2005: 229), for exampe, aments how. disintegrated choices are aowed to aggregate into forms that are argey the resut of the technica and administrative probemsoving efforts of a variety of speciaists, and in which the ordering ogic is dictated primariy by the technica considerations of engineers and administrators and the interest of ending institutions in comparabe and predictabe investment. He argues that effective pace-making often invoves cracking the sio-effect of disintegrated probem soving by speciaists (2005: 234). As different strands of expertise often need to be drawn together, rather than professiona speciaisation per se, the probem is often one of fragmentation, and ack of integrated hoistic consideration. Speciaisation and speciaist expertise are often both desirabe and necessary (we need brain surgeons as we as genera practitioners), but, in making good paces, the need is for soft-edged rather than hard-edged professionaism, and coaborative and incusive working practices. Rather than perpetuating the cuture of bame and buckpassing, from the 1970s onwards some professionas sought to address aspects of professiona practice detrimenta to pace quaity, arguing for greater consideration of pace and issues of environmenta quaity in panning and greater appreciation and respect for issues of context in architecture (i.e. incuding seeing site as something beyond the immediate ownership boundary). Recognising a need to join up a fragmented set of professions and professionas, certain key individuas e and subsequenty organisations e set out to buid bridges and create diaogue and common cause among the estabished buit environment professions. In the United Kingdom, the first umbrea organisation was the Urban Design Group (UDG), founded in The UDG was deiberatey incusive, considering everyone acting in the buit environment an urban designer. because the decisions they made affected the quaity of urban spaces. (Linden & Biingham 1998: 40). Urban design s inter-professiona nature was further emphasised in the United Kingdom by the aunch of the Urban Design Aiance (UDAL) in Founded by the Civic Trust, the Landscape Institute, the Institution of Civi Engineers, the Roya Institute of British Architects (RIBA), the Roya Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS), the Roya Town Panning Institute (RTPI) and the UDG, UDAL (1997) aims to. foster greater awareness of urban design and to promote higher standards of urban design. The campaigning work of these organisations contributed to shifting the UK government s approach to urban design over the foowing decade (see Chapter 11). Esewhere, in continenta European countries, for exampe, the boundaries between professions do not exist to the same degree, with panning often seen as a sub-discipine of architecture or engineering, and urbanism as the common intermediate focus for their activities (see Hebbert 2006). Amost everywhere, often within very different professiona structures, progress has been made in estabishing the activities of urban design and pace-making. During this period, the notion of urban design as a forma profession has nonetheess been a consistent theme. Observing the absence of a forma profession of urban designers in the United States, for exampe, Peter Cathorpe (in Fishman 2005: 68) argued: There is a profession and icense for andscape design, for panners, for civi engineers, for structura engineers, for traffic engineers but not for the most important profession, urban design. There is a huge void there. There is a profession waiting to be

14 16 PART I Defining Urban Design born. Sometimes peope sip out of architecture and become urban designers, but that s pretty rare because they are so fascinated with the buiding. Sometimes good andscape designers become urban designers, but they are not trained to. There is a ot of empathy in the panning fied, but very itte taent or ski for it because they have no design training. We don t have a profession to address these probems in the way they need to be addressed. In the United Kingdom, some interest groups are aso pushing for an urban design profession. The UDG, for exampe, has aunched a scheme whereby professionas of any background working in urban design can appy for recognition of their skis and abiity, through a new, though artess, designation of Recognised Practitioner in Urban Design. A common argument for the existence of professions is to steward a set of pubic goods that woud not adequatey be produced by unconstrained markets and, furthermore, professions are charged not ony with serving cients needs but aso advocating the common good (see Friedson 1994; Chids 2009). And yet, creation of a forma urban design profession woud seem to negate the very notion of urban design as a process of joining up and of pace-making as an incusive activity, and, foowing Ian Bentey s earier argument, woud institutionaise urban design as an inevitaby excusive professiona territory. THE URBAN DESIGNERS Given a need for urban design, this part discusses Who are the urban designers? An incusive response is a those who take decisions that shape the urban environment. This incudes not just architects, andscape architects, panners, engineers and surveyors, but aso deveopers, investors, occupiers, civi/pubic servants, poiticians, events organisers, crime and fire prevention officers, environmenta heath officias and many others. In this view, everyday users are as important as designers. As Kaiski (2008b: 105) asserts: The person who chooses a different commuting route, posts a sign over an existing sign, ses from a corner cart, or vounteers to organise a community meeting is as much a city designer as the deveoper and architect who construct a skyscraper or the city officia who suggest an ordinance. The city is as much a consequence of these fuid everyday actions of the overarching visions of urban designers who conceptuaise fixed-in-time masterpans. Individuas and groups are thus engaged in the process of urban design and pace-making in different capacities and with different objectives. Their invovement with and infuence on express design decisions may aso be direct or indirect and, furthermore, they may or may not appreciate how their decisions affect pace quaity. There is thus a continuum from knowing (sefconscious) urban design (i.e. what peope who see themseves as urban designers create and do) to unknowing (unsef-conscious) urban design (i.e. that resuting from the decisions and actions of those who do not see themseves as urban designers) (see Beckey 1979, in Rowey 1994: 187). This is not a distinction in terms of the quaity of the outcome e the outcomes of each can be good and bad. Unsef-conscious urban design is thus not a bad thing per se but e because overa pace quaity is not an expicit consideration e the ikeihood of good paces being created may be essened. As Barnett (1982: 9) has argued: Today s city is not an accident. Its form is usuay unintentiona, but it is not accidenta. It is the product of decisions made for singe, separate purposes, whose interreationships and side effects have not been fuy considered. The design of cities has been determined by engineers, surveyors, awyers, and investors, each making individua, rationa decisions for rationa reasons. Knowing/sef-conscious urban designers are typicay professionas empoyed or retained on account of their urban design expertise e that is, urban design practitioners. Many of these often have post-graduate quaifications in urban design, but many others have had no specific urban design education and have often earnt from experience and practice foowing an initia professiona training in architecture, panning and/or andscape architecture. Further aong the continuum is a group consisting of buit environment professionas who e despite having an infuence on decisions affecting pace quaity e do not consider themseves to be urban designers. They nevertheess acknowedge and appreciate their roe and infuence in seeking to maintain and improve pace quaity. This group may aso incude those property deveopers who recognise the potentia of design to add vaue and faciitate ong-term commercia success (University of Reading 2000). Unknowing and unsef-conscious urban designers are those who make urban design and pace-making decisions without appreciating what they are doing (Figures 1.7 and 1.8), such as: Poiticians in centra/state government, who set the strategic framework for design as part of the nationa economic strategy and the poicy context for sustainabiity. Poiticians in oca or regiona government, who impement the strategy from above, whie interpreting and deveoping it in the ight of oca circumstances. The business community and civi/pubic servants, who make investment decisions, incuding those reating to the physica infrastructure. Accountants, who advise the pubic and private sectors about their investments. Engineers, who design the roads and pubic transport infrastructure and integrate it into the pubic ream.

15 Chapter 1 Urban Design Today 17 This group may aso incude buit environment professionas who do not appreciate how their decisions affect overa pace quaity. Without recognition of the quaities and additiona vaue of good design, the creation and production of paces often occurs by omission rather than commission. The chaenge for knowing urban designers, and especiay for urban design practitioners, is to demonstrate the importance and vaue of urban design and to ensure concern for pace is not absent through ignorance or negect, or omitted for misguided or short-sighted convenience. Part of this roe invoves educating unknowing urban designers e pace-makers e about the important roe they pay. FIGURE 1.7 Greenwich, London (Image: Matthew Carmona). Introducing wheeie bins in Greenwich, London had an unexpected disruptive impact on the urban scene and represents an exampe of unknowing urban design. Investors, who assess short-, medium- and ong-term investment opportunities and make decisions about which deveopments and which deveopers to support. Urban regeneration agencies, who invest pubic funds in regeneration projects and baance environmenta, socia and economic objectives. Providers of infrastructure (e.g. eectric, gas and teecommunications companies), who invest in the hidden infrastructure and in maintaining the pubic ream. Community groups, who support or oppose deveopments, campaign for improvements, and otherwise invove themseves in the deveopment process. Househoders and occupiers, who maintain and/or personaise their property. Urban Design Practice Mainstream practice customariy affords urban designers two basic roes: those of architect/urban designer and panner/urban designer e a distinction that broady accords with that between direct and indirect urban design outined earier. The former is typicay directy invoved with the design of deveopment, usuay in the form of a specific buiding or a series of buidings. The atter typicay guides, enabes, coordinates and contros the activities of others, and is increasingy being caed upon to estabish the ong-term spatia or physica vision for ocaities. Such contro is typicay, but not excusivey, exercised by the pubic sector over private interests where the pubic/coective interest is deemed sufficient to justify contro, protection or guidance. Contemporary urban design practice is, nonetheess, much broader than this. The UK s DETR (2000), for exampe, identified four types of contemporary urban design practice e urban deveopment design; design poicies, guidance and contro; pubic ream design; and community urban design (see Tabe 1.3). Lang (2005) aso outines four key types of urban design action: FIGURE 1.8 Rome, Itay (Image: Matthew Carmona). Pubic standards for parking appied by different deveopers e surface-eve on one side of the road and underground on the other e have had an unintended deadening effect on the street for which no one is knowingy responsibe. The reguations had no positive vision of the desired pace. Tota urban design e compete contro by a singe design team over the design of a arge area e buidings, pubic space and impementation. A-of-a-piece urban design e where schemes are parceed out to different deveopment/design teams foowing an overa masterpan that acts to coordinate the pieces. Piece-by-piece urban design e the process of singe uncoordinated deveopments coming forward as and when opportunities or the market aow, athough guided by area objectives and poicies. Pug-in urban design e where infrastructure is designed and buit in new or existing areas, into which individua deveopment projects can be pugged in ater. Lang (1994: 78e94) had previousy discussed these, and other important variants in terms of types of urban