INTRODUCTION TO URBAN DESIGN AND COMMUNITY

PLANNING

Urban Design

Urban design involves the arrangement and design of buildings, public spaces, transport
systems, services, and amenities. Urban design is the process of giving form, shape, and character to
groups of buildings, to whole neighborhoods, and the city. It is a framework that orders the elements
into a network of streets, squares, and blocks. Urban design blends architecture, landscape
architecture, and city planning together to make urban areas functional and attractive.

Urban design is about making connections between people and places, movement and urban
form, nature and the built fabric. Urban design draws together the many strands of place-making,
environmental stewardship, social equity and economic viability into the creation of places with
distinct beauty and identity. It is derived from but transcends planning and transportation policy,
architectural design, development economics, engineering and landscape. It draws these and other
strands together creating a vision for an area and then deploying the resources and skills needed to
bring the vision to life.

Urban design involves place-making - the creation of a setting that imparts a sense of place to
an area. This process is achieved by establishing identifiable neighborhoods, unique architecture,
aesthetically pleasing public places and vistas, identifiable landmarks and focal points, and a human
element established by compatible scales of development and ongoing public stewardship. Other key
elements of place making include: lively commercial centers, mixed-use development with ground-
floor retail uses, human-scale and context-sensitive design; safe and attractive public areas; image-
making; and decorative elements in the public realm. It practices areas range in scale from small
public spaces or streets to neighborhoods, city-wide systems, or whole regions.

"Urban design and city building are surely among the most auspicious endeavors of this or
any age, giving rise to a vision of life, art, artifact and culture that outlives its authors. It is the gift of
its designers and makers to the future. Urban design is essentially an ethical endeavor, inspired by the
vision of public art and architecture and reified by the science of construction." -Donald Watson

Community Planning

Community plans are being developed in partnership with town and parish councils, residents
and local interest groups to understand and identify what services or infrastructure issues exist in local

areas and equally, what unique characteristics or spaces need to be protected or could be enhanced .

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Beyond the Local Plan
Some communities may also choose to take their Community Plan and feed it into the
background evidence for their Neighborhood Plan. In these cases, the community themselves will
very much start to take ownership of the plan and more control over shaping where they live.

What is the difference between a Neighborhood Plan and a Community Plan?

Neighborhood Plans enable local communities to shape the development and growth of their
neighbourhood in terms of planning decisions. Neighborhood planning is not a legal requirement but
is a right that communities can choose to use. Some areas in Central Bedfordshire have Neighborhood
Plans and some areas are developing them.

Community Plans are similar but they cover a larger area than a Neighborhood Plan.
Although Community Plans do not hold any weight in planning policy terms, they will be used to
inform the Local Plan for Central Bedfordshire, which absolutely does.

Existing Neighborhood Plans, or those that are currently being produced, will be used to inform the
Community Plans.

Community

A community is defined as “a group of people living in the same place or having a particular
characteristic in common.” Many places have different communities inhabiting them such as an
elderly or arts or ethnic community living and/or working in close proximity to one another. Even the
internet can be considered a place inhabited by many diverse communities. So the scale, parameters,
and character of a community-scaled planning effort is difficult to define.

Usually, community planning areas are defined by political boundaries or historic

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The 5 C’s of Community Planning

1. Complete
Great neighborhoods host a mix of uses in order to provide for our daily need to live,
work, play, worship, dine, shop, and talk to each other. Each neighborhood has a center, a
general middle area, and an edge. The reason suburban sprawl sprawls is because it has no
defined centers and therefore no defined edge. Civic spaces generally (though not always)
define a neighborhood’s center while commerce tends to happen on the edges, on more
highly traffic-ed streets and intersections easily accessible by two or more neighborhoods.
The more connected a neighborhood is, the more variety of commercial goods and services
can be offered, as not every neighborhood needs a tuxedo shop or a class ‘A’ office building.

2. Compact
The 5-minute walk from center to edge, a basic rule-of-thumb for walkability,
equates to approximately 80 to 160 acres, or 9 to 18 city blocks. This general area includes
public streets, parks, and natural lands, as well as private blocks, spaces and private buildings.
This scale may constrict in the dead of winter and/or heat of summer, and expand during
more temperate months. Compactness comes in a range of intensities that are dependent upon
local context. Therefore, more urban neighborhoods, such as those found in Brooklyn, are
significantly more compact than a new neighborhood located, for example, outside Taos,
New Mexico. Remember, the ped-shed is a general guide for identifying the center and edge
of a neighborhood. Each neighborhood must be defined by its local context, meaning shapes
can, and absolutely do, vary. Edges may be delineated by high speed thoroughfares (such as
within Chicago’s vast grid), steep slopes and natural corridors (as found in Los Angeles), or
other physical barriers.

3. Connected
Great neighborhoods are walkable, drivable, and bike-able with or without transit
access. But, these are just modes of transportation. To be socially connected,
neighborhoods should also be linger-able, sit-able, and hang out-able.
4. Complex
Great neighborhoods have a variety of civic spaces, such as plazas, greens,
recreational parks, and natural parks. They have civic buildings, such a libraries, post offices,
churches, community centers and assembly halls. They should also have a variety of
thoroughfare types, such as cross-town boulevards, Main Streets, residential avenues, streets,
alleys, bike lanes and paths. Due to their inherent need for a variety of land uses, they provide
many different types of private buildings such as residences, offices, commercial buildings
and mixed-use buildings. This complexity of having both public and private buildings and
places provides the elements that define a neighborhood’s character.

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 5. Convivial
The livability and social aspect of a neighborhood is driven by the many and varied
communities that not only inhabit, but meet, get together, and socialize within a
neighborhood. Meaning “friendly, lively and enjoyable,” convivial neighborhoods provide
the gathering places — the coffee shops, pubs, ice creme shops, churches, clubhouses, parks,
front yards, street fairs, block parties, living rooms, back yards, stoops, dog parks, restaurants
and plazas — that connect people. How we’re able to socially connect physically is what
defines our ability to endure and thrive culturally. It’s these connections that ultimately build
a sense of place, a sense of safety, and opportunities for enjoyment… which is hard to
maintain when trying to update a community plan without utilizing the Neighborhood Unit as
the key planning tool.

SOCIO-CULTURAL BASIS OF DESIGN COMMUNITIES

Socio-cultural is of, relating to, or involving a combination of social and cultural factors.
Socio-cultural factors are customs, lifestyles and values that characterize a society or group. Cultural
aspects include concepts of beauty, education, language, law and politics, religion, social
organizations, technology and material culture, values and attitudes.

Social factors include reference groups, family, role and status in society, time and available
resources. Socio-cultural perspective refers to a point of view that is built upon the idea that society
and culture are major factors influencing personal development.

There are many socio-cultural factors referring to man; some examples are religion, attitudes,
economic status, class, language, politics and law. These factors can affect quality of life, business
and health, but as future architects we will be focusing to what planning and designing architecturally
a community should be.

 Demographic structure (eg. size and density of population, rate of population growth, age and
sex structure);
 Ethno-linguistic characteristics (ie. division of the population on the basis of 'physical'
characteristics, such as race, tribe, clan or language);
 Social structure (eg. leadership structures, division on the basis of class or caste, gender
relations, degrees and forms of cooperative activity);
 Inheritance systems, including land tenure;
 Religious beliefs and practices;
 Other cultural beliefs and practices (eg. particular customs, ceremonies, taboos, prejudices);
and

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 Individual and group attitudes to any aspect of life (including actual or proposed development
activities), which may result from any of the other social characteristics (eg. social structure, religious
or cultural beliefs) and/or from the personal views of the individuals or groups concerned.

HISTORICAL BACKGROUND: AESTHETICS/COMMUNITY

Community Architecture

Community architecture consists of sites accessible to the general public. These buildings are
usually functional, amenable, approachable, and often enduring (long term).
Sometimes they are our cultural icons; often times they are local necessities. Community architecture
comprises of the buildings around us, in everyday use, and reflects the cultural and social values of
the time.

Historical Background of Community Architecture

• Different sources have varying claims as to when community architecture truly did begin.

• In the U. K., community architecture ‘movement’ started out in the 1970s. Charles Knevitt is
accounted to be the person who coined the term (community architecture) in his article in
Building Design. The disappearance of the idea and practice of ‘community architecture’ in
the past centuries has been accounted to the industrial revolution that happened two
centuries back which made the development of urban areas so rapid.

• Originally, the movement that community architecture is today can also be traced back to the
1930s from the Urban Renewal measures of the government in both the U.K. and North
America.

• Housing was seen as the ultimate solution in the removal of slums. At the same time, the
development of the Modern Movement in Architecture led by architects like Le Corbusier
propagated the notion of high-rise buildings employing industrial construction techniques as
the future of urban development.

• The anticipation of Slum Clearance and Urban Renewal as solutions to all social and physical
problems of the “blighted areas” failed to live up to their claims and expectations.

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 • The first significant step as a result of the 1960s debate on community participation in
planning and decision-making was the concept of Advocacy Planning in the US. Paul
Davidoff, an Urban Planning professor, first introduced this concept in an article published in
the November 1965 issue of the Journal of the American Institute of Planners, entitled
“Advocacy and Pluralism in Planning.”

• The first practical example of the concept of Advocacy Planning was the establishment of
Architects Renewal Committee in Harlem or ARCH in October 1964 in New York City.
ARCH started its operations in April 1965 and consisted of a team of architects and planners
providing their architectural and planning services to the inhabitants of Harlem in New York
in order to improve their living conditions.

• Hackney achieved major feat by attracting the attention of Prince Charles in 1984, which
gave the needed boost and Royal patronage to the Community Architecture Movement in
Britain.

• In 2013, the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) released a paper titled “Guide to
Localism” composed of two parts,

• Part one being ‘Neighbourhood Planning” and

• Part two ‘Getting Community Engagement Right’.

• The paper is part of the “Localism Bill” being proposed. This project of RIBA now termed as
‘Localism’ is another form of the Community Architecture movement, with the same driving
principle of getting the people to join in the designing and development process of their own
places.

Aesthetics

• A set of principles concerned with the nature and appreciation of beauty.

Ancient aesthetics
• Greece had the most influence on the development of aesthetics in the West.
• Greek philosophers initially felt that aesthetically appealing objects were beautiful in and of
themselves. Plato felt that beautiful objects incorporated proportion, harmony, and unity
among their parts. Similarly, in the Metaphysics, Aristotle found that the universal elements
of beauty were order, symmetry, and definiteness.

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Islamic Aesthetics
• The term "Islamic" refers not only to the religion, but to any form of art created in an Islamic
culture or in an Islamic context.
• According to Islam, human works of art are inherently flawed compared to the work of God;
thus, it is believed by many that to attempt to depict in a realistic form any animal or person
is insolence to God. This tendency has had the effect of narrowing the field of artistic
possibility to such forms of art as Arabesque, mosaic, Islamic calligraphy, and Islamic
architecture, as well as more generally any form of abstraction that can claim the status of
non-representational art.

Indian Aesthetics
• Indian art evolved with an emphasis on inducing special spiritual or philosophical states in
the audience, or with representing them symbolically.
• In the Pan Indian philosophic thought the term 'Satyam Shivam Sundaram' is another name
for the concept of the Supreme.
• 'Sat' is the truth value
• 'Shiv' is the good value
• 'Sundaram' is the beauty value.
• Man through his
• 'Srabana' or education,
• 'Manana' or experience and conceptualization and
• 'Sadhana' or practice, through different stages of life (Asramas) comes to form and realize the
idea of these three values to develop a value system.
• This Value-system helps us to develop two basic ideas
• 1) that of 'Daksha' or the adept/expert and
• 2) of Mahana/Parama or the Absolute
• Individuals’ idea of 'Daksha' and 'Mahana' is relative to one's development of the concept of
'Satyam-Shivam-Sundaram.'
• This concept of Satyam-Shivam-Sundaram, a kind of Value Theory is the cornerstone of
Indian Aesthetics.

Chinese Aesthetics
• Confucius emphasized the role of the arts and humanities (especially music and poetry) in
broadening human nature and aiding “li” (etiquette, the rites) in bringing us back to what is
essential about humanity.
• His opponent Mozi, however, argued that music and fine arts were classist and wasteful,
benefiting the rich but not the common people.

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REFERENCES:

 http://www.urbandesign.org/
 https://prezi.com/mt__mn0d0gcz/socio-cultural-basis-of-design-of-communities-planning-
2/
 https://www.cnu.org/publicsquare/2017/10/19/5-cs-community-planning
 https://www.plannersnetwork.org/2006/origins-of-community-design/
 https://www.cnu.org/publicsquare/2017/10/19/5-cs-community-planning
 https://www.centralbedfordshire.gov.uk/community-planning