Urban Design Principles Address Form

And Function

Urban design principles applied to a town or city can enhance appearance,

transportation, the public space along streets between the private property lines, and
location decisions about specific civic and private land uses. Property values should
increase as well.
Urban design is a combination of ideas from architecture, landscape architecture, and
urban planning, with some general urban theory in evidence as well.
The term entered the vocabulary in the 1950s, but there is little agreement on its usage
yet. However, most people involved in community work think that urban design
principles especially emphasize what is apt to be called the public space.

This public realm includes the street, sidewalk, area between the street and the
sidewalk, as well as civic buildings, plazas, parks, and greenways.
But also you might hear talk about building facades during passionate discussions
about urban design principles, especially if you have some architects gathered. It's safe
to say that urban design tends to be defined in terms of objects, patterns, textures,
repetitions, themes, and disparate elements that one might observe from the street.

The scale of the discussion of urban design principles might legitimately range from a
block to an entire city. And despite the term "urban design," smaller towns and cities,
including villages, need to become very aware of urban design principles.

Citizens' List Of Urban Design Principles

While the boundaries of the field may be elusive, we can and should set forth some of
the most obvious urban design principles that will help you improve your community.

1. Centers And Nodes Set Up The Pattern For The City.

A village, town, or city needs one or more focal points, depending on size. Traditionally
these were the downtowns. Now most regions are multi-centric (sometimes called
polycentric). It's actually fine to have more than one center in a large city, but sound
urban design principles would describe a hierarchy of centers. And downtown should
the king of the hill.
Node is simply a term more likely to be used by professionals for the idea of an activity
center or an area where traffic, money, information, or other flows come together.
You might have employment centers, shopping centers, entertainment centers, or multifunction activity centers.
Each center or node should exude a strong sense of place. If you were a tyrant and you
could make the perfect hierarchical set of nodes within a major city, you also should
make each center or node have some distinctive elements.
So cultivating a dynamic and exciting community center or hierarchy of centers,
that most people can "read" intuitively, is perhaps the most important of the urban
design principles. When applied to a city or town, "legible" means that people from the
same culture have an intuitive sense of what is coming next and how to navigate; thus
we say that they can read their surroundings.
Incidentally, sprawl ruins legibility.

2. Creating A Strong Sense Of Place Is Key To A Successful

Neighborhood.

If you hang around the architecture or planning communities, you'll hear this term
bandied about as if it were something you learned in kindergarten. I didn't learn it until
much later, so let's talk.
Certainly distinguishing this place from other places on the basis of history, culture, wellpreserved natural systems, and distinctive human inventiveness and ornamentation
somehow stimulates the brain in a pleasant way.
If you flatten off the mountaintop, which I still see occasionally, haven't you given up a
very distinguishing feature? I'd love to see a mountain outside my window now instead
of asphalt, concrete, Bradford pear trees, a distant awning, and a non-descript building.
Recognizing history, including human history, natural history, and cultural history,
contributes greatly to the collective memory that helps form a great community.
Along these lines, a district needs to feel like a district, that is, a relatively cohesive
place with boundaries. In the influential 1961 book The Image of the City, Kevin Lynch
called these boundaries "edges," and they should be discernible.
If you work at the neighborhood scale, it's important to define your neighborhood
boundaries. The edges enhance sense of place also, because they reinforce the notion
that we are leaving one place and entering another.

3. Theme And Variation Is Among The Key Urban Design Principles.

Over and over in these pages, we are reminded that urban design principles are similar
to the key concept behind music, which is the enunciation of a theme or two, and then
endless variations and complexities rendered on the themes.
This is especially true when we consider architecture. Buildings on a street may be
generally two-story brick, but we might want to see different colors of brick, slightly
varying building heights, slightly varying window and door patterns, inventive use of
accent color, and even the occasional three-story brick or stucco building that is in
sympathy with other building members on the face of the block. Maybe the cornice type
and height varies along the block face.
So theme and variation is among the key urban design principles. In a town, you want
some slight degree of predictability about buildings, in a neighborhood a little more
predictability, and on a block, still more predictability.

Yet in all cases, we still want to be surprised. We humans need variety and delight in the
creativity of others. Don't take that away if you want a successful town or city.
But if you shock us on every block with a radically different look and feel, it's going to
read like a museum of architecture and not a very homey one at that.

4. Decide Where To Make A Design Statement, Make It, But Don't Make It
Everywhere.
Attention to quality, detail, and workmanship count in the public realm.
You would like each design element to look as though someone thought about it, at
least a little, and fit the form to the function.
In other words, I want the door of the art museum to be a more interesting and unique
door than the door to the paper cup factory. The occasional handmade and artful detail
is essential to the perception that someone cares about this place.
You don't have to be clever about traffic lights; predictability is more important than a
design statement there. However, when you have a bench along the sidewalk, it
shouldn't look as though it came from the discount store. Nor should I have to hang my
feet out into the street to use it.
The benches, planters, street trees with tree grates, litter cans, and such that you see
along many commercial streets collectively are called a streetscape, by the way. Often
it's best not to spend money on streetscape unless you can do it well.
So decide where urban design principles need to be subtle and functional, versus
conscious and even decorative. Architects would remind us that this means that there
should be some thoughtful "articulation" (doors, windows, details, and "relief" in the form
of different vertical planes on the front wall) on walls facing the public realm, rather than
simply blank walls.
But if you carry out an elaborate cornice system on the rear of the building where no
one can see it, maybe you're just being impractical.
Landmarks are important in making people feel comfortable in a place, but each
building can't be a landmark. That would defeat the purpose.

In the public space, your backflow preventer cover doesn't need to be lavender, but
maybe the flowers in your planters should be lavender with some yellow and white
thrown in for contrast.
Usually your street furniture (benches and such) is important, but perhaps an exquisite
uplight for your street tree less so. That's a judgment call, and one that requires a welltrained eye.

5. Urban Design Should Promote And Facilitate Social Interaction.

Just walk across the plaza and meet me. Don't call me on your cell phone from the
driveway.

Related Articles:

Seriously, social interaction is important because the wealthy develop empathy for
the poor, and vice versa, only when there are places for accidental association
among classes and people with diverse outlooks.
In the professional community, you will hear about related urban design principles
of "human scale" and "pedestrian scale." Designing for the human scale implies
everything from keeping street lighting at a height that lights the way for
pedestrians, rather than only for cars, to designing some places that are
appropriate for intimate and semi-private conversations in the public realm.

Vibrant Downtown
Ordinance
(on our wish list)

When you build a great cathedral (who's done that lately?), you want it to be aweinspiring and to point to something far greater than human scale. But for most
everyday interactions, including commerce, people unconsciously respond very
well to keeping street level features at the human scale.

6. The Social System Should Be More Important Than Vehicular

Systems.

Form-Based Code

People are more important than machines. OK, you all agree.
But I know that some of you really don't, because I see you build highways that
bisect neighborhoods, parishes, and extended families. When there is only one
path, and that path accommodates only machines, which could describe how the
interstate highways function in some parts of cities, we're all in trouble.
And when accommodating all the automobiles at the regional shopping mall du
jour for the Saturday before Christmas means that we should asphalt acres and
acres, we're forgetting that people are more important than our machines.

7. De-Emphasize Utilitarian, But Gray Portions Of The Public

Realm.

Local Historic
District

We mean those gray, brown, or rusty streets, roads, stormwater inlets, manholes,
utility boxes, ugly bridges, and so forth. With determined effort, you can design an
attractive and brightly colored street and you certainly can build a good-looking
bridge.

Complete Streets

However, making every road an art statement isnt the answer. The answer is
skinnier roads and more options for walking, cycling, and transit. Look into
acomplete streets policy and see if you don't like it.
Land use patterns and the amount of private land that each residence is allowed to
absorb are major determinants of how much of a metropolitan or micropolitan
area must be devoted to roads and other gray infrastructure.
So your urban design principles should emphasize compact development
patterns and the most narrow and unobtrusive infrastructure that will accomplish
the goal of a well-functioning flow of people and goods.

8. Functional Methods Of Transporting People Of All Abilities, Goods,

And Utilities Are Essential.
Here's where many American cities and towns are failing.
Is it really functional to have every desirable destination lined up along a single
roadway, which then becomes ridiculously congested along about 5:00 p.m. every
Friday? Surely not.
Is it useful for people to have to commute to work for 30 miles? Maybe somewhat
useful, but not economically efficient or friendly to the environment.
In most contemporary American cities, the pedestrian, the cyclist, the scooter user, the
baby carriage, and the skateboarder are all but forgotten. Making it safe and easy for
these people to move over the land is an essential part of a functional transportation
system.
The flows of people, electricity, water, freight, and so forth literally comprise the urban
structure. Sothe distribution of people, goods, and energy should be redundant,
intelligible, and efficient..
For example, when a freeway is being rebuilt, we need an alternate street system. This
is why it's a mistake to destroy a historic street grid, which allows for abundant detours
that are only slightly less efficient than the route of choice.

A system of cul-de-sacs may provide a comforting sense of familiarity, and thus meet
the intelligibility factor for those who live there. However, visitors from outside the
neighborhood won't find it so easy to navigate because it isn't redundant. And systems
that don't have ready substitutes are unforgiving of small mistakes, or if people who
don't drive.
Kids, the frail elderly, and the temporarily or permanently disabled actually comprise a
substantial portion of the population, so we need to accommodate their movement also.

9. Land Use Is Usually Secondary To Building Scale, Mass, And

Setbacks.
Elsewhere we describe how segregating land uses through zoning was the norm in
urban planning until a paradigm shift that began in the 1980s. And we're pretty
consistent proponents of mixed-use development. But that doesn't mean a complete
hodge-podge.
Imagine trying to walk down a sidewalk by a street, and in this order you pass:

A dry cleaner with a small amount of suburban type parking in front of it

A typical big box discount store
An apartment complex with three or four driveways onto the public street and two rows
or parking in front of the first buildings
A large old single-family house
A four-story brick office building of vaguely Colonial architecture
Disorienting, isn't it?
So not every mix of uses is a good one. Complete lack of consistency in building
setback and height, as well as a disparate set of uses, isn't comfortable. So the
soundest of urban design principles is that the land and building uses need to be
compatible with their neighbors, particularly if you can see from one to another.
Is a concrete plant likely to need to be close to a Five-Star restaurant? I think not. But
would a loft condominium development marketing to young people need to be near a
moderately priced, loud, and popular restaurant? Yes.

10. Civic And Public Gathering Space Should Be Generous.

Probably civic space is simply another twist on the idea of a sense of place, but let's
emphasize that there should be a physical place where people can have chance
encounters and also purposeful gatherings.
Every culture needs to demonstrate its pride in some heritage or accomplishment, and
every democratic country needs places where those who are unhappy can assemble.
But what makes a good civic space is appropriate scale, visibility from one end to the
other, a sense of spaciousness adequate for the likely number of participants, the look
and feel of being "on purpose" without being overly formal, and the capability for
random patterns of movement.
And pay attention to the new urbanist idea of giving civic buildings and spaces a
prominent place within the community. Don't put them down by the railroad track where
no one else wants to be; make them the end point of a great long view.

11. Urban Design Is Valuable But Complexity Should Be Proportionate To

The Population.
The larger the city, the more complexity it can bear in design elements, and indeed
some cityscapes thrive on nearly complete chaos.
Yet that can only be a pleasant experience when the human flow and other flows within
the city is large, random, and slightly chaotic itself. So complexity or simplicity needs to
be compatible with the number of inhabitants, whether permanent or on a seasonal or
daytime basis.
In a small town, you can still manage layers of complexity, and the best small towns do.
But the scale is drastically reduced. By this I mean that you might have a complex rose
garden 20 feet across, rather than the cacophony of businesses, street vendors, street
performers, entrances, signs, art, whimsy, and honking taxis that are part of the fun in a
New York City block.

The Evolving Field Of Urban Design

Urban design is a fascinating and certainly evolving field. People tend to claim their
particular slant on how communities should be formed as representative of good urban
design principles.
One of the search terms that found this page concerned whether these principles are
universal in all cultures. I tend to think not, but we would like to hear what some of you
think.
My best advice is that you have to decide in your community on your own urban design
principles. If your town or city is full of life, full of people enjoying themselves, relating to
one another, doing business with one business, and creating things, you have a great
urban design, whether the design professionals think so or not.
When everything is high polish design, nothing stands out; you're better off with a wellfunctioning community full of people relating, than with a too-precious and too selfconscious "design."
On the other hand, you may be ready to try to enforce a community-determined set of
ideas about how all or part of your community should look and function. If so, please
read our introduction to local design guidelines, which might be either mandatory or
advisory. Such standards are part of almost all historic district designations and
condominium master deeds, but increasingly are used to make local design review less
arbitrary.
http://www.useful-community-development.org/urban-design-principles.html