Journal of Urban Design Vol 7 No 1 35ndash58 2002

Meaningful Urban DesignTeleologicalCatalyticRelevant

ASEEM INAM

ABSTRACT The paper begins with a critique of contemporary urban design the eld ofurban design is vague because it is an ambiguous amalgam of several disciplinesincluding architecture landscape architecture urban planning and civil engineering itis supercial because it is obsessed with impressions and aesthetics of physical form andit is practised as an extension of architecture which often implies an exaggeratedemphasis on the end product The paper then proposes a meaningful (ie trulyconsequential to improved quality of life) approach to urban design which consists ofbeing teleological (ie driven by purposes rather than dened by conventional disci-plines) being catalytic (ie generating or contributing to long-term socio-economicdevelopment processes) and being relevant (ie grounded in rst causes and pertinenthuman values) The argument is illustrated with a number of case studies of exemplaryurban designers such as Michael Pyatok and Henri Ciriani and urban design projectssuch as Horton Plaza and Aranya Nagar from around the world The paper concludeswith an outline of future directions in urban design including criteria for successfulurban design projects (eg striking aesthetics convenient function and long-termimpact) and a proposed pedagogical approach (eg interdisciplinary in-depth andproblem-driven)

Provocations

In the early part of 1998 two provocative urban design events occurred at theUniversity of Michigan in Ann Arbor The rst was an exhibition organized aspart of an international symposium on lsquoCity Space 1 Globalizationrsquo The secondwas a lecture by the renowned Dutch architect and urbanist Rem Koolhaas Bythemselves the events generated much interest and discussion yet were innocu-ous compared to say Prince Charlesrsquos controversial comments on contempor-ary cities in the UK or the gathering momentum of the New Urbanismmovement in the USA Both events however did provoke visceral reactions inthis observer about the superciality of current approaches to urban design

The two events were sadly symptomatic of traits which render most urbandesign projects insignicant within the broader context of critical and fundamen-tal urban challenges Koolhaas is so provocative (but not necessarily eitherparticularly profound or meaningful) that his writings on cities have beenanalysed by academic scholars (see Saunders 1997) Koolhaas (1995 p xix)

Aseem Inam Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning University of Michigan 2000 BonisteelBoulevard Ann Arbor MI 48109ndash2069 USA Email aseemumichedu

1357ndash4809 Print1469ndash9664 Online02010035-24 Oacute 2002 Taylor amp Francis Ltd

DOI 10108013574800220129222

36 A Inam

admits that architects are ldquoconfronted with an arbitrary sequence of demandswith parameters they did not establish in countries they hardly know aboutissues they are only dimly aware of expected to deal with problems that haveproved intractable to brains vastly superior to their ownrdquo yet purports toanalyse complex urban conditions in developing countries such as China Forexample his slide show in Ann Arbormdashderived from Harvard UniversityrsquosProject on the Citymdashwas an aggregation of spectacular images (eg craneshovering above giant construction projects) shallow impressions (eg thatcontemporary cities are largely unplanned) and novel vocabulary (eg Bigness)in describing the cities of the Pearl River Delta of China Students of citiesespecially architects are easily dazzled by the impressionistic spectacular andnovel descriptions of contemporary cities by architects such as Koolhaas How-ever while these observations are perceptive are they useful in any meaningfulfashion

Koolhaas over-reads and romanticizes many of the urban phenomena that heat the same time so sharply and originally perceives Coney Island skyscrapersManhattan(ism) congestion Radio City Music Hall the Berlin Wall and so onKoolhaas the contrarian is determined to be unconventional (which is reectiveof the tyranny of novelty in the design elds) and thus reverses expectationsthat Europeans will view Americans condescendingly Hating European snob-bery and effeteness he goes at times to an opposite extreme and becomes agullible bedazzled idealizer of the USA and its associated phenomena blank-ness the ordinary the unself-conscious the self-indulgent the ugly the crudethe banal (Saunders 1997) Furthermore in his ideas about Bigness GenericCities and globalization Koolhaas commits the logical fallacy of presenting partof the truth as the whole presenting certain conditionsmdashsuch as those in newChinese citiesmdashas the conditions

Likewise the lsquoCity Space 1 Globalizationrsquo exhibition purported to displaynew and exciting ideas as well as projects about the future city However theexhibition was dominated by spectacular images novel vocabulary and projectsthat were in cities but clearly not about cities The exhibition presented recentwork by Michael Rotondi Michael Sorkin Rem Koolhaas and other architectswho tend to approach the urban problematic primarily from an aestheticperspective focusing on striking impressions and images of cities Their mis-placed and primarily architectural obsession with form tends to gloss over thecomplex (eg political) and multiple (eg economic) factors which actually shapea city and make it an enriching (eg social) experience For example

The agora was funky not the kind of centralizing symmetrical spacethat one imagines in classical antiquity Itrsquos still a good model Theagora described the size of a tractable body politic and offered thepossibility of assembly in a variety of registers modalities and settingsThe agora supported both efcient passage and organized encounterswhile simultaneously offering innumerable routes and hence innumer-able circumstances for chance unstructured and accidental andserendipitous encounters (Sorkin 1997 p 13 emphasis added)

There is no attempt in the passage above to more fully understand or explainexactly how and why the space of the agora worked or for that matter did notwork the way it was intended This aesthetic obsession is further enhanced bySorkinrsquos drawings of lsquoNeurasiarsquo a clever play of words that is akin to Koolhaasrsquos

Meaningful Urban Design 37

peculiar inventions Bigness and Generic Cities The drawings (eg shiftingforms in orange and green) and words (eg lsquofunkyrsquo) certainly catch our atten-tion but do they provide any meaningful understanding of contemporary citiesor a useful means of intervening in them Probably not The drawings andspatial impressions demonstrate an over-eagerness to be unconventional andspectacular at the cost of being penetrating and meaningful which consequentlyimplies a lack of deep understanding and a lack of patiencemdashsymptomatic ofarchitectsrsquo view of cities in terms of images

The present author argues for a movement away from this obsession with thearchitectrsquos focus on image in urban design toward a focus that is more on thelsquourbanrsquo than on the lsquodesignrsquo in urban design and for an urban design that beginsand ends with the complex and rich dynamics of the contemporary city ratherthan with physical form Thus an urban designer is not simply an architectlandscape architect or planner who has an interest or has built projects in citiesbut one who has a sophisticated and deep understanding of cities and of thesubstantive contribution that urban design can make to cities

Signicance

The eld of urban design is in a state of ux Variously described as anambiguous overlap of the elds of architecture landscape architecture urbanplanning and civil engineering on the one hand and as a generalist that helpsdesign cities on the other urban design lacks a clear denition (and hence auseful understanding) and a clear direction (and hence a useful purpose)

Simultaneously countries such as the USA are witnessing an urban revival asdemonstrated by renewed interest in revitalizing inner cities an expandingmarket for urban housing the prominence of cities in popular magazines suchas Time and Newsweek popular television programmes such as Seinfeld lmssuch as Bridget Jonesrsquos Diary a resurgence of urban design curricula at leadinguniversities such as Berkeley and Southern California Institute of Architecture(SCI-Arc) and a recent inux of international urban design journals includingthe Journal of Urban Design Urban Design International and Urban Design Quar-terly Seminal books including The Next American Metropolis (Calthorpe 1993)Great Streets (Jacobs 1993) and Post-modern Urbanism (Ellin 1996) have attractedmuch attention in the past decade Several large-scale urban projects have beenbuilt recently or are currently under way in metropolitan regions such Detroit(eg Detroit Lions and Tigers stadiums Renaissance Center renovations newcasinos and airport expansion) in the USA (eg Getty Center in Los Angelesneo-traditional residential developments and conversion of military bases andobsolete industrial areas) and in the world (eg Londonrsquos Docklands HongKong Airport and the rebuilding of Beirut and Berlin)

Unfortunately much of this recent interest in urban design repeats thefamiliar deciencies of the past a focus on the supercial aesthetics and thepicturesque aspects of cities (instead of what role aesthetics play say incommunity development processes) an over-emphasis on the architect as urbandesigner and an obsession with design (instead of a more profound interdisci-plinary approach that addresses fundamental causes) an understanding ofurban design primarily as a nished product (instead of an ongoing long-termprocess intertwined with social and political mechanisms) and a pedagogicalprocess that is comfortably rooted in architecture and design (rather than in therich experiences processes and evolution of cities)

38 A Inam

Meaningful Urban Design

There are several critiques of the manner in which urban design is taughtpractised and researched at present The conventional approach to dening theeld of urban design is morphological that is according to the way it isstructured and organized Thus urban design is often regarded as an ambiguouscombination of architecture urban planning landscape architecture and civilengineering This denition puts urban designers at oddsmdashover power andresourcesmdashwith architects planners landscape architects and civil engineers

Another problem with current urban design thought and practice is the sensethat it is architecture only at a larger scale In this school of thought there is fartoo much emphasis on lsquodesignrsquo (eg aesthetics) and not enough of an under-standing of lsquourbanrsquo (eg how cities actually work) The architectural approach tourban design is reected in analysis that is purely conceptual (eg vectors yingoff in all kinds of directions) or too abstract (eg quotations from the latestFrench philosopher in vogue) Attempting to design a city as one designs abuilding is clearly misleading and dangerous because unlike individual build-ings which tend to be objects cities are highly complex large-scale organicentities and contain a bewildering multiplicity of users

Furthermore few contemporary urban designers demonstrate a fundamentalunderstanding of the complex ways in which cities function Especially glaringare a naivety at best an acceptable ignorance and a resistance at worst inunderstanding power structures (ie how and why critical decisions are madeabout the pattern of investment in cities and who makes them) and where urbandesigners t (ie usually marginalized) within such a power structure domi-nated as it is by elected ofcials local bureaucrats and prominent developers

On the basis of a new synthesis of existing ideas (for example see Loukaitou-Sideris 1996) the present author proposes a meaningful approach to urbandesign (ie one that is truly consequential in improving quality of life) thatconsists of being teleological (ie driven by purpose rather than dened bydisciplines) being catalytic (ie generating or contributing to long-term develop-ment processes) and being relevant (ie grounded in rst causes and pertinenthuman values) In this new synthesis urban design is circumscribed primarilyby urban scale and complexity and rests upon an interdisciplinary set of skillsmethodologies and bodies of knowledge

Teleological

In this notion of urban design it is an ongoing process with built form products(eg open spaces blocks streets and neighbourhoods) along the way Primarilyhowever the purpose of urban design is to be a stimulus to other goals whichare more critical to society and to the substantive challenges facing contempor-ary cities These goals and purposes include community development (egempowerment and social integration of marginalized populations) economicdevelopment (eg inner city revitalization) international development (egcross-cultural learning and collaboration) environmental sustainability (egefcient land use) and fecund urban environments (eg neighbourhood safetyrange of urban form choices and interconnected types)

Such an understanding of urban design is teleological that is it is driven bypurpose and not by morphology (ie conventional structures of elds and

Meaningful Urban Design 39

disciplines) Thus the phenomenon of urban sprawl and its attendant problems(eg cost resources and social fragmentation) would be a goal and a challengeinvolving not only design but also economic efciency public policy socialbehaviour cultural understanding and political processes There would be apurpose-driven (rather than discipline-driven) urban design process for increas-ing density in a culture of sprawl that addresses important concerns such asprivacypublicness and a sense of home This would be done for more efcientuse of a scarce resource (ie land) for greater convenience of access and to creategreater and more usable green spaces

In this view the primary purpose of urban design would be the improvementof the fundamental quality of life (ie socio-economic development) rather thanjust the quality of urban form The quality of life is not concerned as much withwhat a built environment looks like as with how a built environment works interms of the community the economy and increasing mutually benecial inter-national exchange For example an urban design project should empower itsusers (ie community development) strengthen the local economy (ie economicdevelopment) and foster international understanding opportunity and exchange(ie international development) Table 1 further articulates these purposes ofteleological urban design and the case studies which follow illustrate theseideas

Specically a teleological urban design would address three critical aspects ofthe urban experience which are the relationships between the city and theeconomy the city and society and the city and power The relationship betweenthe city and the economy considers the economic functioning of the cityincluding the city as a point in the production landscape as well as a site ofinvestment the changing international division of labour and the consequenteffects on the specic urban economies The relationship between the city andsociety focuses on the city as an arena of social interaction the distribution ofsocial groups residential segregation the construction of gender and ethnicidentities and patterns of class formation The relationship between the city andpower is the representation of urban structure and political power and consid-ers the city to be a system of communication a recorder of the distribution ofpower and an arena for the social struggles over the meaning and substance ofthe urban experience

Catalytic

Urban design projects and processes would generate or contribute signicantlyto three types of socio-economic development processesmdashcommunity develop-ment economic development and international developmentmdashwhile simul-taneously enhancing the built environment of cities

Urban Design and Community Development

Urban design as a catalyst for or as an active component of communitydevelopment consists of intelligent community participation in projects facili-tated by dialogue between community representatives and urban designers andcommunity leadership that is representative of community views institutionalpartnerships (eg between private and non-prot sectors) and decision-makingstructures (eg simulations and games) that lead to enabling urban environ-

40 A Inam

Tab

le1

Ele

men

tsof

mea

nin

gfu

lu

rban

des

ign

Spec

ializ

atio

nsW

ith

com

mun

ityW

ithec

onom

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ith

inte

rnat

iona

lan

dre

alm

sU

rban

desi

gnco

rede

velo

pmen

td

evel

opm

ent

deve

lopm

ent

Ped

agog

yTe

leol

ogic

alde

sign

Inte

llige

ntpa

rtic

ipat

ion

Geo

grap

hic

info

rmat

ion

Impa

ctof

fore

ign

aid

Skill

sD

esig

nin

urba

nco

ntex

tsdi

alog

uel

eade

rshi

psy

stem

sur

ban

spat

ial

and

Impa

ctof

inte

rnat

iona

lM

etho

dolo

gies

Des

ign

met

hod

olog

ies

Inst

itut

iona

lan

alys

islo

catio

nal

mod

ellin

gpr

ivat

ein

vest

men

tT

opic

sae

sthe

tics

empi

rica

lIn

stit

utio

nal

part

ners

hips

Em

ploy

men

tge

nera

tion

Tens

ion

betw

een

loca

lC

ours

esev

iden

cec

omm

unity

-bas

edD

ecis

ion-

mak

ing

stra

tegi

esin

proj

ects

and

glob

alpr

essu

res

Com

mun

icat

ions

gra

phic

st

ruct

ures

(eg

Sim

City

)Pr

ogra

mm

es(

eg

job

Cro

ss-c

ultu

ral

lear

ning

verb

alw

ritt

enc

ompu

ter

Ong

oing

expe

rien

ceof

trai

ning

)as

urba

nd

esig

nIn

tern

atio

nalc

olla

bora

tion

Urb

ande

sign

asde

cisi

on-

urba

nd

esig

nen

rich

espr

ojec

tsR

ole

ofin

form

alse

ctor

mak

ing

proc

esse

sex

pres

sion

and

iden

tity

Bac

kwar

dan

dfo

rwar

din

deve

lopi

ngco

untr

yci

ties

Set

ofur

ban

arch

etyp

esA

ctiv

ities

eve

nts

linka

ges

inpr

ojec

tsD

eepe

run

ders

tand

ing

ofan

dco

mbi

nati

ons

prog

ram

mes

and

serv

ices

Inte

grat

ing

reta

ilan

ddi

ffer

ent

cultu

res

and

Evol

ving

city

old

vsn

ewas

part

ofur

ban

des

ign

com

mer

cial

faci

litie

spo

litic

alec

onom

ies

wit

hho

usin

gin

stitu

tion

sSt

reet

revi

taliz

atio

nP

ract

ice

Batt

ery

Park

New

Yor

kTh

eA

rkS

anD

iego

CA

NY

NY

Cas

ino

Las

Veg

asN

MIn

dor

eH

ousi

ngI

ndia

Exam

ples

ofpr

ojec

tsM

useu

mby

Stir

ling

Stut

tgar

tD

oyle

Stre

etC

ohou

sing

CA

Dud

ley

Stre

etB

osto

nM

AO

lym

pic

Proj

ects

Bar

celo

naEx

empl

ary

Parc

And

reC

itro

enP

aris

His

men

Hin

-nu

Terr

ace

CA

Cam

den

Yar

dsB

alti

mor

eM

DR

ebui

ldin

gBe

rlin

prac

titio

ners

Broa

dgat

eII

Lon

don

Ente

rpri

seFo

unda

tion

Rob

ert

Gib

bsA

lvar

Aal

toD

uany

and

Plat

er-Z

yber

kSa

mue

lM

ockb

eeBe

rnar

dG

liebe

rman

Raf

aelM

oneo

Cha

nK

rieg

erA

ssoc

iate

sM

icha

elPy

atok

Skid

mor

eO

win

gsM

erri

llA

lvar

oSi

zaM

acha

doan

dSi

lvet

tiD

oug

Kel

baug

hch

aret

tes

Shop

ping

cent

red

esig

ners

BV

Dos

hiR

esea

rch

The

ory

The

ory

The

ory

The

ory

Cas

eSt

udie

sSe

min

albo

oks

Lync

h(1

981)

Jaco

bs(1

961)

San

derc

ock

Port

er(1

995)

Gar

vin

(199

6)Sa

ssen

(200

0)S

avitc

h(1

998)

K

eyar

ticl

es(1

998)

Sera

geld

in(1

997)

Met

hodo

logy

Cas

eSt

udie

sC

ase

Stud

ies

Cha

lleng

esA

lexa

nder

etal

(19

77)

Schn

eekl

oth

ampSh

ible

y(1

995)

Fr

ied

enamp

Saga

lyn

(198

9)

Gilb

ert

ampG

ugle

r(1

992)

Kru

mho

lzamp

Cla

vel

(199

4)A

ttoe

ampL

ogan

(198

9)H

isto

ryM

etho

dolo

gyK

osto

f(1

991)

Met

hodo

logy

Fram

pton

(199

2)R

owe

(199

7)H

este

r(1

990)

Cha

lleng

esSh

ort

(199

6)

Meaningful Urban Design 41

ments and the soft-programming of urban design (eg incorporation of publicexpression and cultural identity and activities events programmes and servicesintegrated with the built forms)

For the urban designer design communication is inherent in the act of designboth as internal communication in the thinking process and as an externalcommunication with the client user or broader community The people withina given context such as homeowners in a residential neighbourhood or businessowners in a commercial downtown are the agents of change aided by acommunication process that speaks to the formal aspects of their environmentThe better this communication process of design the higher the level of publicawareness and sense of ownership the better the internal decisions of changeThere are conventional public involvement formats such as public hearings citycouncil meetings and planning commission presentations There are also infor-mal meetings workshops and brainstorming sessions One of the most powerfuland effective mechanisms for active and intelligent community participation isthe charette

A charette is a short and intense workshop of a day or at the most a few daysin which the urban design team works with a local community and its socialeconomic or political leaders to arrive at a conceptual and implementationstrategy for a particular project (Kasprisin amp Pettinari 1995) The process usuallybegins with a consortium of local citizens and organizations inviting a team ofprivate (eg an architectural rm) or non-prot (eg the American Institute ofArchitects) urban designers to participate often along with a local task forceThe community and team leaders then prepare for the short intense workshopby arranging for publicity student participation work locations and suppliesThe workshop itself may subsequently consist of meetings with different repre-sentatives site tours open town hall meetings personal interviews with variousstakeholders detailed work sessions in groups a written and graphic report anda presentation of ndings (see Figure 1) In some cases there is a follow-upabout a year later in which the urban designer meets with the community toassess the success of the process and provide additional advice

The effectiveness of this community participation methodology and the oftensurprising results it generates have been well documented by Kelbaugh (1997) ina series of charettes in the Seattle region Similarly the Urban Design Group(1998) provides a series of clear concise and extremely useful communityparticipation forums including innovative mechanisms such as street stalls andinteractive displays carried out in different parts of the UK

The popularity of the computer program SimCity a city building simulatorattests to the possibility of designing urban simulation models with broad publicappeal Whether one is teaching urban processes and structures analysingspecic urban problems or most importantly involving the public in urbandesign and planning processes SimCity displays a vast untapped potential ofurban design games and simulations These examples point to creative engagingand benecial forms of not only community participation but also moresignicantly community development because they increase community aware-ness generate community strategies and suggest modes of community interven-tion in the future of their own environments

Another approach to long-term processes of community development isillustrated by the Hismen Hin-nu Terrace housing project in Oakland CA (Joneset al 1995) With a grant from the City of Oakland the architectural rm of

42 A Inam

Figure 1 Community-based charette for an urban design plan for the commercialrevitalization of Bagley Avenue in Detroit MI

Pyatok and Associates studied development scenarios for housing and neigh-bourhood services on several sites in the city The San Antonio CommunityDevelopment Council serving African American Latino and Native Americanresidents expressed interest in developing affordable housing for families andseniors on one of the sites and joined with the East Bay Asian Local Develop-ment Corporation which serves the Asian American community Pyatok andAssociates organized a series of workshops using participatory modelling kits tohelp over 30 neighbourhood participants to design plans for the site and tounderstand the implications of density

The 92 housing units in the project now not only house families and elderlycitizens with low and very low incomes but also help mend a deterioratingneighbourhood by restoring its main boulevard with housing over shops Familyhousing with a day care centre around quiet courtyards built behind a ground-oor market niches for street vendors and a job training centre all contribute tocommunity development in the neighbourhood A multi-ethnic mix of tenants isdepicted in exterior murals frieze panels decorative tiles and steel entry gatesin the form of a burst of sunshine The art is intended to prove that the USArsquoscultural diversity is a source of energy for creating community rather than asource of conict

Urban Design and Economic Development

Urban design as a catalyst for or as an active component of economic develop-ment involves designing projects that generate employment on a long-termbasis attract investment into deprived areas and increase business and taxrevenues In this context a city is not only a spatial concentration of a largenumber of people but also contains a density of economic activities Urban

Meaningful Urban Design 43

Figure 2 Horton Plaza in San Diego CA has not only generated jobs andsuccessfully attracted customers and tourists but has also helped revive the

surrounding areas

designers can be more effective if they understand and indeed encouragebenecial economic activities through physical projects

The Horton Plaza a highly successful shopping centre in San Diego CAgenerated jobs for local residents when city ofcials utilized their position asinvestors in the project to negotiate for positions (Frieden amp Sagalyn 1989) Themayor of the city turned to the Private Industry Council of San Diego Countya training and placement organization to nd jobs for low-income and unem-ployed San Diegans in Horton Plaza and other city-assisted developmentprojects The council then served as the main employment ofce for HortonPlaza By March 1986 store openings had created nearly 1000 new jobs and thecouncil lled half of them (see Figure 2) Of the people placed by the council70 were minority workers and 60 came from high-unemployment low-in-come neighbourhoods targeted for recruitment

Lower Downtown Denverrsquos most exciting commercial sub-market in recentyears provides one model for the economic reinvestment and revitalization ofother historic commercial districts (Segal 1995) The success of this area is basedon an understanding of fundamental changes in the marketplace and publicpolicies designed to complement market forces and represents an incrementalproject-by-project development approach that urban designers can adopt In1987 the Downtown Denver Partnership a non-prot business leadershiporganization established the Lower Downtown Business Support Ofce toprovide services such as business counselling to develop business plans mar-keting strategies and management expertise leasing referrals to direct prospec-tive tenants to available space and the design and implementation ofpublicprivate layered nancing strategies for individual projects Financialsupport was provided by the city of Denver the state governmentrsquos job trainingofce and corporate and foundation grants

44 A Inam

Figure 3 Outdoor seating for cafes is part of the urban design strategy whichcontributed to the economic revival of a historic area in the Lower Downtown area

of Denver CO

A historic district ordinance contributed to Lower Downtownrsquos success bycreating certainty in the marketplace Small business and entrepreneurial in-vestors were lured to the area by its scale and historic character and theknowledge that it will remain that way (see Figure 3) The cityrsquos investment of$19 million in streetscape improvements including new lighting pavementsand street furniture which was contingent upon the adoption of the historicdistrict ordinance also reinforced private investment in Lower DowntownDistrict stakeholders including developers and property owners are repre-sented on the ve-member design review committee which is now seen asbenecial to the area because of its localized control In 4 years the LowerDowntown area through the various strategies described above has attractedmore than $15 million in new investment 500 jobs and a nearby baseballstadium

Urban designers can learn to design environments that increase revenues bystudying the strategies adopted by the often maligned or overlooked designersof shopping centres gambling casinos and amusement or theme parks All ofthese environments are successful to their owners and operators when theyincrease revenues often in a remarkable manner The US landscape architectRobert Gibbs is one such member of this rare breed (Lagerfeld 1995) Accordingto Gibbs a townrsquos retail planning should begin where a shopping centrersquos doesfar from the selling oors For example it is disadvantageous to locate ashopping centre in a place where commuters have to make a left turn Peopletend to shop on their way to work and they are less likely to stop if it involvesmaking a turn against trafc

Most signicantly shopping centre designers know the average shopper (asthe urban designer should know their clientele and constituencies) and under-stand that most shoppers stroll at about 3ndash4 feet per second thus walking past

Meaningful Urban Design 45

a storefront in about 8 seconds That is how long a shop owner has to attract aconsumerrsquos attention with an arresting window display Downtown merchantsmust adapt to the same 8 second rule but they also have to sell to passingmotorists Sophisticated retailers use a variety of subliminal clues to attractshoppers whether it is a high-priced stationery store implying an upscalelifestyle through a window display of an old wood desk embellished withexpensive writing instruments or a small preciously enclosed display thatjewellers use to suggest high quality and prices to match These are but a fewof the examples of the manner in which shopping centre gambling casino andtheme park designers understand human behaviour and create environmentsthat encourage certain types of behaviour such as consumer spending howeverurban designers can focus on other types of behaviour such as the creation ofexciting neighbourhoods that foster greater social interaction and mutual under-standing amongst different ethnic groups

Urban Design and International Development

Urban design as a catalyst for or as an active component of internationaldevelopment takes the guise of sensitivity to context the generation of cross-cul-tural learning and directly addressing issues which arise out of the continuingphenomenon of economic globalization

A seminal essay which suggests an approach which is sensitive to localcontext without resorting to mimicry and which is contemporary without beinga generic modernism is Frampton (1992a) The contemporary paradox of sensi-tivity to context is that on the one hand the region or locality has to root itselfin the soil of its past forge a regional spirit and display this spiritual andcultural resistance before the modernist personality However in order to fullyparticipate in modern civilization it is necessary at the same time to take partin scientic technical and political rationality something which very oftenrequires the abandonment of major portions of a whole cultural past Thus howcan contemporary urban design celebrate an ancient tradition and return tosources while simultaneously becoming modern and participating in universalcivilization

Drawing upon the work of the French philosopher Paul Ricoeur Frampton(1992b) proposes a process of assimilation and reinterpretation wherein sustain-ing any kind of authentic culture in the future depends upon our capacity togenerate vital forms of authentic culture (eg via urban design) of regionalculture while appropriating alien inuences at the level of both the local and theglobal Alvar Aaltorsquos work is exemplary of such processes especially theSaynatsalo Town Hall in Finland (Inam 1992) The collective memory evoked bythe Saynatsalo Town Hall refers to two fundamental cultural traditions theindigenous largely agrarian one and an alien essentially classical one With itssteps overgrown with grass and weeds its variations of silhouette and itsweathered materials Saynatsalo has the air of an ancient complex of buildingswhich had grown slowly Indeed Aalto had identied this rather unique parti ofa lsquogrowing ruinrsquo in his 1941 essay lsquoArchitecture in Kareliarsquo by suggesting that aldquodilapidated Karielan village is somehow similar in appearance to a Greek ruinwhere also the materialrsquos uniformity is a dominant feature though marblereplaces woodrdquo (cited in Inam 1992 p 63)

46 A Inam

Figure 4 The Council Chamber of Saynatsalo Town Hall Finland which reectsthe power of cross-cultural symbolism

Apart from evoking the memory of indigenous environments Aalto remainedfaithful to the belief that a motif borrowed from a different context andtransplanted with sufcient conviction onto Finnish soil became genuinelyFinnish The Italian Renaissance was for Aalto an inalienable part of his heritageand philosophy of life In his view providing the inhabitants of Saynatsalo witha setting in which they could live much as the inhabitants of 14th-century Siennadid was a natural act When the members of the municipal board of buildinginquired if a small poor community like theirs really needed to build a councilchamber 17 m high especially since the brick was expensive Aalto respondedthat the worldrsquos most beautiful and famous town hall in Sienna had a councilchamber 16 m high and thus he proposed to build the one at Saynatsalo 17 mhigh (see Figure 4) Moreover Aalto explicitly referred to the courtyard as apiazza in spite of the fact that it is domestic both in nature and in scale

A contemporary example of sensitivity to context through a process ofassimilation and reinterpretation is the work of the Portuguese architect AlvaroSiza (Frampton 1992b) Siza has grounded his buildings in the conguration ofa specic topography and in the ne-grained texture of the local fabric To thisend his pieces of the built environment are tight responses to the urban landand marinescape of the Porto region Other important factors are his deferencetowards local material craft work and the subtleties of local light a deferencewhich is sustained without falling into the sentimentality of excluding rationalform and modern technique

The generation of cross-cultural learning arises out of understanding andapplying in a sympathetic and appropriate manner urban design methodolo-gies processes and forms from different cultural contexts (Inam 1997) Aninstance of this would be the woeful history of large-scale low-income housing(ie public housing) projects built by the government in various urban contextsin the USA The governmentrsquos quest to provide no-frills housing (eg built at the

Meaningful Urban Design 47

lowest costs on cheap often undesirable land) combined with the privatesectorrsquos unrelenting demands that public housing be different (eg minimalaccommodations which are overly modest and austere) from the rest of thehousing stock undermined the notion that public housing could also be attract-ive housing and possibly even contribute to the surrounding urban contexts(Bratt 1986)

Henri Cirianirsquos social housing projects in France which are the equivalent ofpublic housing projects in the USA serve as a demonstration of how large-scalelow-income housing projects built by the government can constitute positivecontributions to the urban environment instead of being eyesores La Courdan-gle is a large social housing project (ie 130 apartments 230 parking spaces anda day care centre) outside Paris in Saint Denis (Ciriani 1997) The seven-storeybuilding with its striped cladding and geometric frieze rises above the muddleof neighbouring streets and forms a corner in an otherwise loosely structuredurban space By creating a visually strong plan of geometrical precision theproject inspires a still-life composition device in urban design Transformed intoa picture plane the various free-standing buildings as well as high-rise buildingsthat surround the project integrate into a more harmonious urban setting Thecourtyard side of the building is a pure right-angled gure containing aperfectly dened square space The layering of the facades facilitates the articu-lation of the decreasing volumes contains the apartmentsrsquo balconies and terracesand mediates between the architecture of the building and the urbanity of theneighbourhood In this manner La Courdangle constitutes a low-income hous-ing project that is rich in architectural spaces and detail while helping deneand enhance the urban space around it

The phenomenon of increasing economic globalization is rapidly growing andhas been encouraged at the urban level For example in US cities such as NewYork Los Angeles Houston and Minneapolis where foreign investors havebeen active in buying real estate downtown real estate interestsmdashbrokerscommercial banks real estate consultants and property ownersmdashhave welcomedinternational property investment Throughout the 1980s the infusion of foreigncapital into the buying and selling of existing buildings and the construction ofnew building bolstered commercial property markets by raising rents increasingproperty values and generally expanding business opportunities The interactionof forces operating at various spatial scales especially the urban can beillustrated in a variety of ways the construction of an ofce building for aforeign bank using materials from around the world the dynamics of a majorresearch university whose architecture and urban planning faculty consultlocally as well as internationally and the corporate plan location and contractingstrategies of multinational corporations such as Nike and Coca Cola as theybalance local labour conditions regional locational advantages national marketsand international investment opportunities (Beauregard 1995)

The ongoing phenomenon of globalization suggests some strategies for urbandesigners Urban designers must be able to understand and react to inuencesimpinging on their communities regardless of where those inuences originate(eg World Bank funded housing projects in developing countries) and whichactors are responsible (eg US architectural rms designing ofce complexes inLondon) Furthermore urban designers must develop associations and networksthat extend beyond their spatial reach through collaborative endeavours andthereby provide another mechanism for responding to the multitude of actors

48 A Inam

who shape their communities For example the Indian architect B V Doshiutilized an institution the Vastu-Shilpa Foundation for Studies and Research todevelop an internationally (ie World Bank) funded local (ie in the city Indore)housing project in India Aranya Nagar (Serageldin 1997) The project has beenlargely a success due to the Vastu-Shilpa Foundation which carried out con-siderable research including surveys to understand the physical and economicfactors that determine the size type and density of the housing plots that werespecic to the local context

Relevant

Urban design that is relevant is urban design that is pertinent to matters at hand(eg critical urban issues) and that is based on fundamental human and naturalconditions In this section three such relevant approaches to urban design arehighlighted (1) a history of urban form that analyses the determinant processesand human meanings of form (2) a theory of urban form that is normative andbased on human values and (3) a design methodology of urban form that isempirically based and derived from patterns of human behaviour These threeapproaches are discussed by illustrating them with the work of Spiro Kostof(Kostof 1991) Kevin Lynch (Lynch 1981) and Christopher Alexander (Alexan-der et al 1977) but by no means does this suggest that these are the only suchapproaches in urban design Indeed there exist other relevant approaches tourban design (for example see Rowe 1991) but for the illustrative purposes ofthis paper the three examples mentioned above will sufce

Kostof (1991) studies the phenomenon of city making in a historical perspec-tive to consider how and why cities took the shape they did Amalgams of theliving and the built cities are repositories of cultural meaning Behind thearbitrary twist of a lane or the splendid eccentricity of a new skyscraper on theskyline lies a history of previous urban tenure a heritage of long-establishedsocial conventions a string of often bitter compromises between individualrights and the public will In a series of discussions of urban patterns such as thegrid and the city as diagram Kostof adopts a truly interdisciplinary approach bydrawing upon architecture cultural geography and social history to interpret thehidden order ascribed in these patterns

Urban form is related directly to urban process ie the people forces andinstitutions that bring about urban form (Kostof 1991) and a way to examinethis process is to ask probing research questions which are the basis for trulyunderstanding cities For example who actually designs cities What proceduresdo they go through What are the empowering agencies and laws The legal andeconomic history is an enormous and often overlooked subject It involvesownership of urban land and the land market the exercise of eminent domainwhich is the power of government to take over private property for public usethe institution of legally binding master plans building codes and other regula-tions instruments of funding urban change such as property taxes and bondissues and the administrative and more importantly the power structure ofcities Urban designers need not know all of this information but they do needto realize the importance of it why it is important to know where to turn toobtain it and to consider it in their project designs

Urban process also refers to physical change through time The tendency alltoo often is to see urban form as a nite thing and a complicated object

Meaningful Urban Design 49

However thousands of witting and unwitting acts every day alter a cityrsquos linesin ways that are perceptible only over a certain stretch of time City walls arepulled down and lled in once rational grids are slowly obscured a slashingdiagonal boulevard is run through close-grained residential neighbourhoodsrailroad tracks usurp cemeteries and waterfronts and wars res and highwaysannihilate city cores (Kostof 1991)

As an example let us consider the grid The grid is by far the commonestpattern for planned cities in history and it is universal both geographically andchronologically (Kostof 1991) No better solution recommends itself as a stan-dard scheme for disparate sites or as a means for the equal distribution of landor the easy parcelling and selling of real estate The advantage of straightthrough-streets for defence has been recognized since Aristotle and a rectilinearstreet pattern has also been resorted to in order to keep under watch a restlesspopulation However ubiquitous as the grid has always been it is also muchmisunderstood and often treated as if it were one unmodulated idea thatrequires little discrimination On the contrary the grid is an exceedingly exibleand diverse system of planning and hence its enormous success in urban designand planning About the only thing that all grids have in common is that theirstreet pattern is orthogonal that is the right angle rules and street lines in bothdirections lie parallel to each other

Furthermore the political innocence of the grid in the West is a ction In theearly Greek colonies for example the grid far from being a democratic deviceemployed to assure an equitable allotment of property to all citizens was themeans of perpetuating the privileges of the property-owning class descendentfrom the original settlers and for bolstering a territorial aristocracy The rstsettlers who made the voyage to the site were entitled to equal allocations ofland both inside and outside the city walls These hereditary estates wereinalienable the ruling class strictly discouraged a land market The estates werehuge as much as 25 acres (about 1 hectare) for some families They were thensub-divided by the owner Within the city private land could only be used forhousing Any alienation of land or any agitation for land reform was severelydealt with and could be punishable as for murder (Kostof 1991)

The point is made regularly that grids especially in the USA besides offeringsimplicity in land surveying recording and subsequent ownership transfer alsofavoured a fundamental democracy in property market participation This didnot mean that individual wealth could not appropriate considerable propertybut rather that the basic initial geometry of land parcels bespoke a simpleegalitarianism that invited easy entry into the urban land market The realityhowever is much less admirable The ordinary citizens gained easy access tourban land only at a preliminary phase when cheap rural land was beingurbanized through rapid laying out To the extent that the grid speeded thisprocess and streamlined absentee purchases it may be considered an equalizingsocial device Once the land had been identied with the city however thisadvantage of the initial geometry of land parcels evaporated and even unbuiltlots slipped out of common reach What matters most in the long run is not themystique of the grid geometry then but the luck of rst ownership (Kostof1991)

However for the conventional urban designer a grid is a grid is a grid(Kostof 1991) At best it is a visual theme upon which to play variations he orshe might be concerned with issues like using a true checkerboard design vs

50 A Inam

syncopated block rhythms with cross-axial or other types of emphasis with theplacement of open spaces within the discipline of the grid with the width andhierarchy of streets To Kostof and the meaningful urban designer on the otherhand how and with what intentions the Romans in Britain the builders ofmedieval Wales and Gascony the Spanish in Mexico or the Illinois CentralRailroad Company in the prairies of the Mid-west employed this very samedevice of settlement is the principal substance of a review of orthogonalplanning In fact the grid has accommodated a startling variety of socialstructuresmdashincluding territorial aristocracy in Greek Sicily the agrarianrepublicanism of Thomas Jefferson and the cosmic vision of Joseph Smith inMormon settlements like Salt Lake City Utahmdashand of course capitalist specu-lation

There have been few serious attempts at a comprehensive and normativetheory of urban form Good City Form (Lynch 1981) is an impressive andcourageous attempt by Kevin Lynch as a ldquosystematic effort to state generalrelationships between the form of a place and its valuerdquo (Lynch 1981 p 99)Lynch (1981 p 108) emphasizes ldquothose goals which are as general as possibleand thus do not dictate particular physical solutions and yet whose achievementcan be detected and explicitly linked to physical solutions This is the familiarnotion of performance standards applied at the city scalerdquo Lynch generalizesperformance dimensions which are certain identiable characteristics of citiesdue primarily to their spatial qualities and are measurable scales along whichdifferent groups achieve different positions These performance dimensions arebased on the following thinking

The good city is one in which the continuity of [a] complex ecology ismaintained while progressive change is permitted The fundamentalgood is the continuous development of the individual or the smallgroup and their culture a process of becoming more complex morerichly connected more competent acquiring and realizing new pow-ersmdashintellectual emotional social and physical hellip So that settlement isgood which enhances the continuity of a culture and the survival of itspeople increases a sense of connection in time and space and permitsor spurs individual growth development within continuity via open-ness and connection hellip [a settlement which is] accessible decentralizeddiverse adaptable and tolerant to experiment (Lynch 1981 pp 116ndash117)

In Lynchrsquos theory of good city form there are seven dimensions (Lynch 1981)First is vitality the degree to which an urban form supports the vital func-tions the biological requirements the capabilities of human beings and protectsthe survival of the species (eg adequate throughput of water air food andenergy) Second is sense the degree to which an urban form is clearly perceivedand mentally differentiated as well as structured in time and space and thedegree to which that mental structure connects with the residentsrsquo values andconcepts (eg distinct identity and unconstrained legibility) Third is t thedegree to which urban form matches the pattern and quantity of actionsthat people usually engage in or would like to engage in (eg compatibilitybetween function and form) Fourth is access the ability to reach other peopleactivities resources or places including the quantity and diversity of theelements that can be reached (eg ease of communication and transportation)

Meaningful Urban Design 51

Fifth is control the degree to which the creation of access to use of mainte-nance of and modication to urban spaces and activities are managed by thosewho use work or live in them (eg local power) Sixth is efciency the cost ofcreating and maintaining an urban form (eg less energy-demanding processes)Seventh is justice the way in which urban form costs and benets are dis-tributed among people according to a principle such as intrinsic worth or equity(eg equal protection from environmental hazards such as cars) These dimen-sions are applicable in a wide range of urban contexts because they are derivedfrom fundamental human values and serve as powerful measures of what alsquogoodrsquo urban design project might be

Christopher Alexander (Alexander et al 1977) adopts a problem-solvingapproach to design and explicitly renders the design methodology but moreimportantly describes how a meaningful urban designer might draw directlyfrom empirical evidence (rather than say idiosyncratic impulses) and extensiveresearch as a source of design The book is most useful as a series of thoroughlyanalysed and empirically based guidelines which are broad enough to beadapted to different contexts and architectural styles Each suggested solution isdescribed in a way that provides the key relationships (eg between humanbehaviour and spatial setting) needed to solve the problem but in a generalenough manner to allow for adaptation to particular lifestyles aesthetic tastesand local conditions Each pattern describes a problem which occurs repeatedlyin the built environment archetypal problems of urban form for example Thelongest portion of the description of each pattern describes the empiricalbackground of the pattern the evidence for its validity and the range of differentways the pattern can be manifested or designed

The rst 94 patterns deal with the large-scale structure including the urbanof the environment the growth of city and country the layout of roads andpaths the relationship between work and family the formation of suitablepublic institutions for a neighbourhood and the kinds of public space requiredto support these institutions (Alexander et al 1977) The following two examplesof urban patterns illustrate the value of this design methodology identiableneighbourhood and public outdoor room

According to Alexander et al (1977) and the scientic research they citepeople need an identiable spatial unit to belong to They want to be able toidentify the part of the city where they live as distinct from all others Availableevidence suggests rst that the neighbourhoods which people identify with haveextremely small populations second that they are small in area and third thata major road through a neighbourhood destroys it

What then is the right population for a neighbourhood The neighbourhoodinhabitants should be able to look after their own interests by being able to reachagreement on basic decisions such as about public services and common landand to organize themselves to bring pressure on local governments Anthropo-logical evidence cited by Alexander et al (1977) suggests that a human groupcannot usually co-ordinate itself to reach such decisions if its population is above1500 The experience of organizing community meetings at the local levelsuggests that 500 may be a more realistic gure

As far as the physical diameter is concerned in Philadelphia PA people whowere asked which area they really knew usually limited themselves to a smallarea seldom exceeding the two or three blocks around their house One-quarterof the inhabitants of an area in Milwaukee WI considered a neighbourhood to

52 A Inam

be an area no larger than a block around 300 feet (about 90 metres) One-halfconsidered it to be no more than seven blocks

The rst two features of the neighbourhood small population and small areaare not enough by themselves A neighbourhood can only have a strong identityif it is protected from heavy trafc Research cited by the authors suggests thatthe heavier the trafc in an area the less people think of it as home territory Notonly do residents view the streets with heavy trafc as less personal but theyalso feel the same about the houses along the street ldquoItrsquos not a friendlystreet hellip People are afraid to go out into the street because of the trafc hellip Noisefrom the street intrudes into my homerdquo (cited in Alexander et al 1977 p 83)This study conducted by the University of California at Berkeley found thatwith more than 200 cars per hour the quality of the neighbourhood begins todeteriorate

Therefore the proposed strategy suggests helping people dene the neigh-bourhoods they live in not more than about 300 yards (270 metres) or so acrosswith no more than 500 inhabitants or so and in existing cities encouraging localgroups to organize themselves to form such neighbourhoods and keeping majorroads outside these neighbourhoods While one may disagree with the dimen-sions suggested in this pattern one has to acknowledge that population sizephysical area and trafc ow are critical considerations for the design ofcontemporary neighbourhoods

In the public outdoor room pattern Alexander et al (1977) suggest that thereare very few spots along the streets of modern towns and neighbourhoodswhere people can hang out comfortably for hours at a time Men often seekcorner bars and pubs where they spend hours talking and drinking teenagersespecially boys choose special corners too where they hang around waitingfor their friends Elderly people like a special spot to go to where they canexpect to nd others small children need sandpits mud plants and water toplay with in the open young mothers who go to watch their children oftenuse the childrenrsquos play as a opportunity to meet and talk with other mothersand so on for a variety of groups Because of the diverse and casual natureof these activities they require a space which has a subtle balance of beingdened and yet not too dened so that any activity which is natural to theneighbourhood at any given time can develop freely and yet has something tostart from

What is needed is a framework which is dened just enough so that peoplenaturally tend to stop there and so that curiosity naturally takes people thereand invites them to stay A small open space roofed with columns but withoutwalls at least in part will provide the necessary balance between being open andenclosed Examples of this pattern were built with the assistance of architecturestudents in Cleveland OH on the grounds and on public land surrounding alocal mental health clinic According to staff reports these places changed thelife of the clinic dramatically many more people than usual were drawnoutdoors public talk was more animated and outdoor space that had beendominated by cars became more human In addition in the 12th and 13thcenturies there were many such public structures dotted through the towns andwhich were the scene of auctions open-air meetings and market fairs

Therefore in neighbourhoods and work communities the authors suggestmaking a piece of the common land into an outdoor roommdasha partly enclosedplace with a partial roof columns without walls perhaps with a trellis placing

Meaningful Urban Design 53

Figure 5 A contemporary example of a successful outdoor room which reects theguidelines of the outdoor room patternmdashCitywalk in Los Angeles CA

it beside an important path and within view of houses and workplaces In thisand the other patterns in the book the authors outline an urban designmethodology that is based on archetypal problems (eg public outdoor spaces)analyses of built examples descriptions of historical precedents and the explicitunpacking of design solutions such that they are clear relevant and thoughtful(see Figure 5) The basis for the design patterns was extensive and thoroughresearch carried out over an 8-year period Today there is current and volumin-ous research for example on environment and behaviour (for example seeMoore amp Marans 1997) that is highly relevant and useful for urban designers

Future Directions in Urban Design

Urban designers (eg Beckley 1998) are beginning to question what in fact islsquourbanrsquo in the contemporary environment However few will argue with

54 A Inam

denitions two decades old that are still relevant today a city is a ldquorelativelylarge dense and permanent settlement [or network of settlements] of sociallyheterogeneous individualsrdquo (L Worth cited in Kostof 1991 p 37) and a ldquopoint[or points] of maximum concentration for the power and culture of a com-munityrdquo (L Mumford cited in Kostof 1991 p 37) The urban designerrsquos impera-tive then is to understand cities On the one hand the most enduring featureof the city is its physical build which remains with remarkable persistencegaining increments that are responsive to the most recent economic demand andreective of the latest stylistic vogue but conserving evidence of past urbanculture for present and future generations On the other hand however urbansociety changes more than any other human grouping economic innovationusually comes most rapidly and boldly in cities immigration aims rst at theurban core forcing upon cities the critical role of acculturating refugees frommany countrysides and the winds of intellectual advance blow strong in cities(Vance cited in Kostof 1991)

Based on the new synthesis of ideas proposed in this paper there are threelevels of success of an urban design project These include rst the purelyaesthetically informed notion of urban design as a nished product (eg Does itlook good) The second is the sense of the project as an autonomous object thatfunctions in an affordable convenient and comfortable manner for its users (egDoes it work) The third and new idea is to have the urban design projectgenerate or substantially contribute to socio-economic development processes(eg Does it produce long-term quality of life impacts) In this sense urbandesigners and urban design projects become catalysts for community bettermenteconomic improvement and international understanding

Consequently urban designers should focus more on the lsquourbanrsquo of urbandesign and become less infatuated with the lsquodesignrsquo of urban design Urbandesign must begin with cities how they work and change and what impacts theyhave in creating enabling vs destructive impacts For example urban design hasto be seen within the framework of investment and development policies andas a shaper of those policies Cranersquos (1966) capital web of investment decisionsand Lairsquos (1988) invisible web of laws and norms that guide peoplersquos behaviourAt the same time design and form play a critical role because they are a languageand vocabulary for analysing and intervening in cities

At the most fundamental level all urban design should be responsible forcreating an environment that satises informs and inspires its users (ie thecommunity) This is an urban design that possesses an articulate communicativeprociency Urban design of profound signicance has a poetic quality By themeans of compressing its meanings into a concise formal expression a poeticurban design project draws the mind to a level of perception concealed behindthe conventional presentations of urban form The most effective symbols arethose which while operating within a given set of conventions are imprecisesparse and open-ended in their possible interpretations tending more to themetaphor than the simile Such an approach requires deep cultural understand-ing and social sensitivity

Implications for Education

The pedagogical approach to meaningful urban design will be interdisciplinary(eg examining cities from the perspectives of architects landscape architects

Meaningful Urban Design 55

urban planners policy makers social workers and business interests) teleologi-cal (eg driven by the express purpose of addressing critical urban challengessuch as uncomfortable and unsafe built environments community powerless-ness economic deprivation and fragmented interventions) critical (eg based onin-depth understanding of urban design problems and promises throughanalysis of urban design practice and case studies) and catalytic (eg theformulation of effective urban design strategies that include a focus on urbandesign products such as building complexes and public spaces but also includethe generation of long-term community and economic development processes)

The primary impact on this type of learning for students will be an under-standing of the urban designer as a leader Through an in-depth analysis ofurban issues an interdisciplinary approach to urban problem solving and skillsthat focus not only on issues of urban aesthetics and form but also on purposefulintervention generated by long-term processes students will gain a profoundand empowering understanding of meaningful urban design Students of urbandesign will also gain humility and condence by studying the power structuresof cities (and realizing just how little power urban designers actually have)practising critical thinking and learning to be politically savvy in order toaccomplish their goals A secondary impact on learning for students will be aunique opportunity for them to shape the future direction of urban designthrough readings research discussions case-study analyses and project designsthat will focus on specic urban challenges examine deciencies in currenturban design approaches and projects in addressing those challenges andformulate alternative more meaningful urban design strategies

In order to reach such goals an urban design programme should focus on twomajor sets of skills understanding how cities work and learning to shape citiesUnderstanding cities includes their conception (eg urban theory and form)their evolution (eg history of urban form) their decision-making processes (egurban political economy) and their use and experience (eg urban sociology)Learning to shape cities includes design methods (eg based on empiricalevidence and community participation) and communication skills (eg graphicverbal written and computer-based) The goal of a meaningful urban designpedagogical initiative would be to attract students of the built environment (egarchitects landscape architects and urban planners) who will become sophisti-cated practitioners and inuential leaders of urban design in architectural andplanning rms community organizations public agencies and internationalinstitutions The initiative would thus involve (1) teaching of exploratoryseminars and studios in new urban design methodologies (eg internationalstudios) (2) research into the relevant roles of professionals especially architectsand planners in the urban design of contemporary cities (eg institutionalstructures) and (3) professional work in the form of community outreach andproject analysis (eg evaluating New Urbanism)

In summary a meaningful pedagogical approach to urban design should havethe following characteristics (1) small (ie selective)mdashfocus on key urban designchallenges eg inner city revitalization (2) focused (ie depth)mdashdevelop exper-tise in the urban designurban development nexus (3) distinct (ie cutting-edge)mdashexperiment with new studio formats projects and research eginternational collaboration and cross-cultural learning and (4) existing resources(ie breadth)mdashbuild upon other departments eg social work business naturalresources and environment

56 A Inam

The critical question that guides this meaningful future of urban design issimply So what That is what consequential purpose has been achieved byparticular urban design theories urban design methodologies urban designpractices and urban design practitioners The implication of such probingquestions is that it is far from adequate to consider urban design projects assuccessful if they are only physically appealing or thought-provoking

Conclusion

In conclusion the author would like to return to the provocations that werereferred to at the beginning of this paper While both Rem Koolhaas and MichaelSorkin are emblematic of the image-based architect-driven urban design thatpermeates much of the world and especially the USA they are also contributorsto an urban design strategy that is realistic and contrary to the nostalgia evokedby the New Urbanism and neo-traditional movements Thus for Koolhaas

If there is to be a lsquonew urbanismrsquo it will not be based on the twinfantasies of order and omnipotence hellip but about discovering unnam-able hybrids [as is the case with Los Angeles] hellip Redened urbanismwill not only or mostly be a profession but a way of thinking anideology to accept what exists We were making sand castles Now weswim in the sea that swept them away (Koolhaas 1995 pp 969ndash971)

Koolhaas thus encourages us rst to accept the contemporary urban condition(instead of seeing it through rose-tinted lenses) and second as architects urbandesigners and planners to understand and work with the contemporary urbanforces (instead of imagining a world without cars or highways)

Similarly Sorkin extols us to learn from those urban design projects and urbanenvironments which are successful in terms of the designerrsquos objectives ofattracting people to these environments and the vibrant use of these environ-ments by people Even if the objectives were to differ say in terms of greatersocial interaction and co-operation in a neighbourhood the designers of shop-ping malls gambling casinos and amusement parks at least understand humanbehaviour as it relates to entertainment and consumptionmdashlessons which can beused for other perhaps more noble projects Thus according to Sorkin (1997pp 29ndash31)

Disneyland hellip is foremost a playground of mobility its entertainmentslargely those of pleasured motion And there is something to belearned here It seems undeniable that for all of its depredations all ofits regimentation surveillance and control part of what we experienceas enjoyable at Disneyland is the passage through an environment ofurban density in which both the physical texture and the means ofcirculation are not simply entertaining but stand in invigorating con-trast to the dysfunctional versions back home One extracts fromDisneyland a shred of hope the persuasive example that pedestrianismcoupled with short distance collective transport systems can be bothefcient and fun can thrive in the midst of an environment completelyotherwise constituted and that the space of low sufciently deceler-ated can become the space of exchange

Meaningful Urban Design 57

Figure 6 The design of Disneyland in Los Angeles CAmdashalbeit lsquoarticialrsquo anddesigned to foster consumptionmdashoffers deeper lessons for understanding humanbehaviour and creating exciting environmentsmdashfor say multicultural interac-

tionmdashbased on such understanding

The lsquoshred of hopersquo offered by Disneyland (see Figure 6) is constituted by suchlessons carefully and critically collected from numerous examples of contempor-ary urban design projects and articulatedmdashvia relevant history theory andmethodologymdashinto a meaningful approach to urban design

Acknowledgement

This paper was the second place winner of the 1999 Chicago Institute forArchitecture and Urbanism (CIAU) Award This award administered by theSkidmore Owings amp Merrill Foundation on behalf of the CIAU is for unpub-lished papers and is intended to encourage writing and research on the questionof how architecture infrastructure urban design and planning can contribute toimproving the quality of life of the American city For more information aboutthis award the Foundation can be contacted at somfoundationsomcom

References

Alexander C Ishikawa S Silverstein M Jacobson M Fiksdahl-King I amp Angel S (1977) APattern Language Towns Buildings Construction (New York Oxford University Press)

Attoe W amp Logan D (1989) American Urban Architecture Catalysts in the Design of Cities (BerkeleyUniversity of California Press)

Beauregard R (1995) Theorizing the globalndashlocal connection in P Knox amp P Taylor (Eds) WorldCities in a World System (Cambridge Cambridge University Press)

Beckley R (1998) [Dean Emeritus and Professor of Architecture and Urban Planning College ofArchitecture and Urban Planning University of Michigan] Written interview

Bratt R (1986) Public housing the controversy and the contribution in R Bratt C Hartman amp AMeyerson (Eds) Critical Perspectives in Housing (Philadelphia PA Temple University Press)

Calthorpe P (1993) The Next American Metropolis Ecology Communities and the American Dream (NewYork Princeton Architectural Press)

58 A Inam

Ciriani H (1997) Henri Ciriani (Rockport MA Rockport Publishers)Crane D (1966) Planning and Design in New York A Study of Problems and Processes of its Physical

Environment (New York Institute of Public Administration)Ellin N (1996) Postmodern Urbanism (Cambridge MA Blackwell)Frampton K (1992a) Critical regionalism modern architecture and cultural identityFrampton K (1992b) Modern Architecture A Critical History 3rd edn (London Thames amp Hudson)Frieden B amp Sagalyn L (1989) Downtown Inc How America Rebuilds Cities (Cambridge MA MIT

Press)Garvin A (1996) The American City What Works What Doesnrsquot (New York McGraw-Hill)Gilbert A amp Gugler J (1992) Cities Poverty and Development Urbanization in the Third World 2nd edn

(New York Oxford University Press)Hester R (1990) Community Design Primer (Mendocino CA Ridge Times Press)Inam A (1992) The urban monument symbol memory presence masterrsquos thesis in urban design

Washington University St LouisInam A (1997) Institutions routines and crises post-earthquake housing recovery in Mexico City

and Los Angeles doctoral dissertation in urban planning University of Southern California LosAngeles CA

Jacobs A (1993) Great Streets (Cambridge MA MIT Press)Jacobs J (1961) The Death and Life of Great American Cities (New York Random House)Jones T Pettus W amp Pyatok M (1995) Good Neighbors Affordable Family Housing (New York

McGraw-Hill)Kasprisin R amp Pettinari J (1995) Visual Thinking for Architects and Designers Visualizing Context in

Design (New York Van Nostrand Reinhold)Kelbaugh D (1997) Common Place Toward Neighborhood and Regional Design (Seattle WA University

of Washington Press)Koolhaas R (1995) Small Medium Large Extra Large (Rotterdam 010 Publishers)Kostof S (1991) The City Shaped Urban Patterns and Meanings through History (Boston MA Bulnch

Press)Krumholz N amp Clavel P (1994) Reinventing Cities Equity Planners Tell Their Stories (Philadelphia

Temple University Press)Lagerfeld S (1995) What Main Street can learn from the mall Atlantic Monthly November

pp 110ndash120Lai R T (1988) Law in Urban Design and Planning The Invisible Web (New York Van Nostrand

Reinhold)Loukaitou-Sideris A amp Banerjee T (1998) Urban Design Downtown Poetics and Politics of Form

(Berkeley CA University of California Press)Lynch K (1981) Good City Form (Cambridge MA MIT Press)Moore G amp Marans R (Eds) (1997) Advances in Environment Behavior and Design Toward the

Integration of Theory Methods Research and Utilization (New York Plenum Press)Porter M (1995) The competitive advantage of the inner city Harvard Business Review 73 pp 55ndash71Rowe P (1991) Making a Middle Landscape (Cambridge MA MIT Press)Rowe P (1997) Civic Realism (Cambridge MA MIT Press)Sandercock L (1998) Towards Cosmopolis Planning for Multicultural Cities (Chichester NY John

Wiley)Sassen S (2000) Cities in a World Economy 2nd edn (Thousand Oaks CA Pine Forge Press)Saunders W (1997) Rem Koolhaasrsquos writing on cities poetic perception and gnomic fantasy Journal

of Architectural Education 51 pp 61ndash71Savitch H V (1988) Post-Industrial Cities Politics and Planning in New York Paris and London

(Princeton NJ Princeton University Press)Schneekloth L amp Shibley R (1995) Placemaking The Art and Practice of Building Communities (New

York Wiley)Segal M B (1995) An old commercial district goes from cold to hot Urban Land 54 (11) pp 16ndash18Serageldin I (Ed) (1997) The Architecture of Empowerment People Shelter and Livable Cities (London

Academy Editions)Short J R (1996) The Urban Order An Introduction to Cities Culture and Power (Cambridge MA

Blackwell)Sorkin M (1997) Trafc in Democracy 1997 Raoul Wallenberg Lecture (Ann Arbor MI College of

Architecture and Urban Planning University of Michigan)Urban Design Group (1998) Involving local communities in urban design Urban Design Quarterly 67

pp 15ndash38

36 A Inam

admits that architects are ldquoconfronted with an arbitrary sequence of demandswith parameters they did not establish in countries they hardly know aboutissues they are only dimly aware of expected to deal with problems that haveproved intractable to brains vastly superior to their ownrdquo yet purports toanalyse complex urban conditions in developing countries such as China Forexample his slide show in Ann Arbormdashderived from Harvard UniversityrsquosProject on the Citymdashwas an aggregation of spectacular images (eg craneshovering above giant construction projects) shallow impressions (eg thatcontemporary cities are largely unplanned) and novel vocabulary (eg Bigness)in describing the cities of the Pearl River Delta of China Students of citiesespecially architects are easily dazzled by the impressionistic spectacular andnovel descriptions of contemporary cities by architects such as Koolhaas How-ever while these observations are perceptive are they useful in any meaningfulfashion

Koolhaas over-reads and romanticizes many of the urban phenomena that heat the same time so sharply and originally perceives Coney Island skyscrapersManhattan(ism) congestion Radio City Music Hall the Berlin Wall and so onKoolhaas the contrarian is determined to be unconventional (which is reectiveof the tyranny of novelty in the design elds) and thus reverses expectationsthat Europeans will view Americans condescendingly Hating European snob-bery and effeteness he goes at times to an opposite extreme and becomes agullible bedazzled idealizer of the USA and its associated phenomena blank-ness the ordinary the unself-conscious the self-indulgent the ugly the crudethe banal (Saunders 1997) Furthermore in his ideas about Bigness GenericCities and globalization Koolhaas commits the logical fallacy of presenting partof the truth as the whole presenting certain conditionsmdashsuch as those in newChinese citiesmdashas the conditions

Likewise the lsquoCity Space 1 Globalizationrsquo exhibition purported to displaynew and exciting ideas as well as projects about the future city However theexhibition was dominated by spectacular images novel vocabulary and projectsthat were in cities but clearly not about cities The exhibition presented recentwork by Michael Rotondi Michael Sorkin Rem Koolhaas and other architectswho tend to approach the urban problematic primarily from an aestheticperspective focusing on striking impressions and images of cities Their mis-placed and primarily architectural obsession with form tends to gloss over thecomplex (eg political) and multiple (eg economic) factors which actually shapea city and make it an enriching (eg social) experience For example

The agora was funky not the kind of centralizing symmetrical spacethat one imagines in classical antiquity Itrsquos still a good model Theagora described the size of a tractable body politic and offered thepossibility of assembly in a variety of registers modalities and settingsThe agora supported both efcient passage and organized encounterswhile simultaneously offering innumerable routes and hence innumer-able circumstances for chance unstructured and accidental andserendipitous encounters (Sorkin 1997 p 13 emphasis added)

There is no attempt in the passage above to more fully understand or explainexactly how and why the space of the agora worked or for that matter did notwork the way it was intended This aesthetic obsession is further enhanced bySorkinrsquos drawings of lsquoNeurasiarsquo a clever play of words that is akin to Koolhaasrsquos

Meaningful Urban Design 37

peculiar inventions Bigness and Generic Cities The drawings (eg shiftingforms in orange and green) and words (eg lsquofunkyrsquo) certainly catch our atten-tion but do they provide any meaningful understanding of contemporary citiesor a useful means of intervening in them Probably not The drawings andspatial impressions demonstrate an over-eagerness to be unconventional andspectacular at the cost of being penetrating and meaningful which consequentlyimplies a lack of deep understanding and a lack of patiencemdashsymptomatic ofarchitectsrsquo view of cities in terms of images

The present author argues for a movement away from this obsession with thearchitectrsquos focus on image in urban design toward a focus that is more on thelsquourbanrsquo than on the lsquodesignrsquo in urban design and for an urban design that beginsand ends with the complex and rich dynamics of the contemporary city ratherthan with physical form Thus an urban designer is not simply an architectlandscape architect or planner who has an interest or has built projects in citiesbut one who has a sophisticated and deep understanding of cities and of thesubstantive contribution that urban design can make to cities

Signicance

The eld of urban design is in a state of ux Variously described as anambiguous overlap of the elds of architecture landscape architecture urbanplanning and civil engineering on the one hand and as a generalist that helpsdesign cities on the other urban design lacks a clear denition (and hence auseful understanding) and a clear direction (and hence a useful purpose)

Simultaneously countries such as the USA are witnessing an urban revival asdemonstrated by renewed interest in revitalizing inner cities an expandingmarket for urban housing the prominence of cities in popular magazines suchas Time and Newsweek popular television programmes such as Seinfeld lmssuch as Bridget Jonesrsquos Diary a resurgence of urban design curricula at leadinguniversities such as Berkeley and Southern California Institute of Architecture(SCI-Arc) and a recent inux of international urban design journals includingthe Journal of Urban Design Urban Design International and Urban Design Quar-terly Seminal books including The Next American Metropolis (Calthorpe 1993)Great Streets (Jacobs 1993) and Post-modern Urbanism (Ellin 1996) have attractedmuch attention in the past decade Several large-scale urban projects have beenbuilt recently or are currently under way in metropolitan regions such Detroit(eg Detroit Lions and Tigers stadiums Renaissance Center renovations newcasinos and airport expansion) in the USA (eg Getty Center in Los Angelesneo-traditional residential developments and conversion of military bases andobsolete industrial areas) and in the world (eg Londonrsquos Docklands HongKong Airport and the rebuilding of Beirut and Berlin)

Unfortunately much of this recent interest in urban design repeats thefamiliar deciencies of the past a focus on the supercial aesthetics and thepicturesque aspects of cities (instead of what role aesthetics play say incommunity development processes) an over-emphasis on the architect as urbandesigner and an obsession with design (instead of a more profound interdisci-plinary approach that addresses fundamental causes) an understanding ofurban design primarily as a nished product (instead of an ongoing long-termprocess intertwined with social and political mechanisms) and a pedagogicalprocess that is comfortably rooted in architecture and design (rather than in therich experiences processes and evolution of cities)

38 A Inam

Meaningful Urban Design

There are several critiques of the manner in which urban design is taughtpractised and researched at present The conventional approach to dening theeld of urban design is morphological that is according to the way it isstructured and organized Thus urban design is often regarded as an ambiguouscombination of architecture urban planning landscape architecture and civilengineering This denition puts urban designers at oddsmdashover power andresourcesmdashwith architects planners landscape architects and civil engineers

Another problem with current urban design thought and practice is the sensethat it is architecture only at a larger scale In this school of thought there is fartoo much emphasis on lsquodesignrsquo (eg aesthetics) and not enough of an under-standing of lsquourbanrsquo (eg how cities actually work) The architectural approach tourban design is reected in analysis that is purely conceptual (eg vectors yingoff in all kinds of directions) or too abstract (eg quotations from the latestFrench philosopher in vogue) Attempting to design a city as one designs abuilding is clearly misleading and dangerous because unlike individual build-ings which tend to be objects cities are highly complex large-scale organicentities and contain a bewildering multiplicity of users

Furthermore few contemporary urban designers demonstrate a fundamentalunderstanding of the complex ways in which cities function Especially glaringare a naivety at best an acceptable ignorance and a resistance at worst inunderstanding power structures (ie how and why critical decisions are madeabout the pattern of investment in cities and who makes them) and where urbandesigners t (ie usually marginalized) within such a power structure domi-nated as it is by elected ofcials local bureaucrats and prominent developers

On the basis of a new synthesis of existing ideas (for example see Loukaitou-Sideris 1996) the present author proposes a meaningful approach to urbandesign (ie one that is truly consequential in improving quality of life) thatconsists of being teleological (ie driven by purpose rather than dened bydisciplines) being catalytic (ie generating or contributing to long-term develop-ment processes) and being relevant (ie grounded in rst causes and pertinenthuman values) In this new synthesis urban design is circumscribed primarilyby urban scale and complexity and rests upon an interdisciplinary set of skillsmethodologies and bodies of knowledge

Teleological

In this notion of urban design it is an ongoing process with built form products(eg open spaces blocks streets and neighbourhoods) along the way Primarilyhowever the purpose of urban design is to be a stimulus to other goals whichare more critical to society and to the substantive challenges facing contempor-ary cities These goals and purposes include community development (egempowerment and social integration of marginalized populations) economicdevelopment (eg inner city revitalization) international development (egcross-cultural learning and collaboration) environmental sustainability (egefcient land use) and fecund urban environments (eg neighbourhood safetyrange of urban form choices and interconnected types)

Such an understanding of urban design is teleological that is it is driven bypurpose and not by morphology (ie conventional structures of elds and

Meaningful Urban Design 39

disciplines) Thus the phenomenon of urban sprawl and its attendant problems(eg cost resources and social fragmentation) would be a goal and a challengeinvolving not only design but also economic efciency public policy socialbehaviour cultural understanding and political processes There would be apurpose-driven (rather than discipline-driven) urban design process for increas-ing density in a culture of sprawl that addresses important concerns such asprivacypublicness and a sense of home This would be done for more efcientuse of a scarce resource (ie land) for greater convenience of access and to creategreater and more usable green spaces

In this view the primary purpose of urban design would be the improvementof the fundamental quality of life (ie socio-economic development) rather thanjust the quality of urban form The quality of life is not concerned as much withwhat a built environment looks like as with how a built environment works interms of the community the economy and increasing mutually benecial inter-national exchange For example an urban design project should empower itsusers (ie community development) strengthen the local economy (ie economicdevelopment) and foster international understanding opportunity and exchange(ie international development) Table 1 further articulates these purposes ofteleological urban design and the case studies which follow illustrate theseideas

Specically a teleological urban design would address three critical aspects ofthe urban experience which are the relationships between the city and theeconomy the city and society and the city and power The relationship betweenthe city and the economy considers the economic functioning of the cityincluding the city as a point in the production landscape as well as a site ofinvestment the changing international division of labour and the consequenteffects on the specic urban economies The relationship between the city andsociety focuses on the city as an arena of social interaction the distribution ofsocial groups residential segregation the construction of gender and ethnicidentities and patterns of class formation The relationship between the city andpower is the representation of urban structure and political power and consid-ers the city to be a system of communication a recorder of the distribution ofpower and an arena for the social struggles over the meaning and substance ofthe urban experience

Catalytic

Urban design projects and processes would generate or contribute signicantlyto three types of socio-economic development processesmdashcommunity develop-ment economic development and international developmentmdashwhile simul-taneously enhancing the built environment of cities

Urban Design and Community Development

Urban design as a catalyst for or as an active component of communitydevelopment consists of intelligent community participation in projects facili-tated by dialogue between community representatives and urban designers andcommunity leadership that is representative of community views institutionalpartnerships (eg between private and non-prot sectors) and decision-makingstructures (eg simulations and games) that lead to enabling urban environ-

40 A Inam

Tab

le1

Ele

men

tsof

mea

nin

gfu

lu

rban

des

ign

Spec

ializ

atio

nsW

ith

com

mun

ityW

ithec

onom

icW

ith

inte

rnat

iona

lan

dre

alm

sU

rban

desi

gnco

rede

velo

pmen

td

evel

opm

ent

deve

lopm

ent

Ped

agog

yTe

leol

ogic

alde

sign

Inte

llige

ntpa

rtic

ipat

ion

Geo

grap

hic

info

rmat

ion

Impa

ctof

fore

ign

aid

Skill

sD

esig

nin

urba

nco

ntex

tsdi

alog

uel

eade

rshi

psy

stem

sur

ban

spat

ial

and

Impa

ctof

inte

rnat

iona

lM

etho

dolo

gies

Des

ign

met

hod

olog

ies

Inst

itut

iona

lan

alys

islo

catio

nal

mod

ellin

gpr

ivat

ein

vest

men

tT

opic

sae

sthe

tics

empi

rica

lIn

stit

utio

nal

part

ners

hips

Em

ploy

men

tge

nera

tion

Tens

ion

betw

een

loca

lC

ours

esev

iden

cec

omm

unity

-bas

edD

ecis

ion-

mak

ing

stra

tegi

esin

proj

ects

and

glob

alpr

essu

res

Com

mun

icat

ions

gra

phic

st

ruct

ures

(eg

Sim

City

)Pr

ogra

mm

es(

eg

job

Cro

ss-c

ultu

ral

lear

ning

verb

alw

ritt

enc

ompu

ter

Ong

oing

expe

rien

ceof

trai

ning

)as

urba

nd

esig

nIn

tern

atio

nalc

olla

bora

tion

Urb

ande

sign

asde

cisi

on-

urba

nd

esig

nen

rich

espr

ojec

tsR

ole

ofin

form

alse

ctor

mak

ing

proc

esse

sex

pres

sion

and

iden

tity

Bac

kwar

dan

dfo

rwar

din

deve

lopi

ngco

untr

yci

ties

Set

ofur

ban

arch

etyp

esA

ctiv

ities

eve

nts

linka

ges

inpr

ojec

tsD

eepe

run

ders

tand

ing

ofan

dco

mbi

nati

ons

prog

ram

mes

and

serv

ices

Inte

grat

ing

reta

ilan

ddi

ffer

ent

cultu

res

and

Evol

ving

city

old

vsn

ewas

part

ofur

ban

des

ign

com

mer

cial

faci

litie

spo

litic

alec

onom

ies

wit

hho

usin

gin

stitu

tion

sSt

reet

revi

taliz

atio

nP

ract

ice

Batt

ery

Park

New

Yor

kTh

eA

rkS

anD

iego

CA

NY

NY

Cas

ino

Las

Veg

asN

MIn

dor

eH

ousi

ngI

ndia

Exam

ples

ofpr

ojec

tsM

useu

mby

Stir

ling

Stut

tgar

tD

oyle

Stre

etC

ohou

sing

CA

Dud

ley

Stre

etB

osto

nM

AO

lym

pic

Proj

ects

Bar

celo

naEx

empl

ary

Parc

And

reC

itro

enP

aris

His

men

Hin

-nu

Terr

ace

CA

Cam

den

Yar

dsB

alti

mor

eM

DR

ebui

ldin

gBe

rlin

prac

titio

ners

Broa

dgat

eII

Lon

don

Ente

rpri

seFo

unda

tion

Rob

ert

Gib

bsA

lvar

Aal

toD

uany

and

Plat

er-Z

yber

kSa

mue

lM

ockb

eeBe

rnar

dG

liebe

rman

Raf

aelM

oneo

Cha

nK

rieg

erA

ssoc

iate

sM

icha

elPy

atok

Skid

mor

eO

win

gsM

erri

llA

lvar

oSi

zaM

acha

doan

dSi

lvet

tiD

oug

Kel

baug

hch

aret

tes

Shop

ping

cent

red

esig

ners

BV

Dos

hiR

esea

rch

The

ory

The

ory

The

ory

The

ory

Cas

eSt

udie

sSe

min

albo

oks

Lync

h(1

981)

Jaco

bs(1

961)

San

derc

ock

Port

er(1

995)

Gar

vin

(199

6)Sa

ssen

(200

0)S

avitc

h(1

998)

K

eyar

ticl

es(1

998)

Sera

geld

in(1

997)

Met

hodo

logy

Cas

eSt

udie

sC

ase

Stud

ies

Cha

lleng

esA

lexa

nder

etal

(19

77)

Schn

eekl

oth

ampSh

ible

y(1

995)

Fr

ied

enamp

Saga

lyn

(198

9)

Gilb

ert

ampG

ugle

r(1

992)

Kru

mho

lzamp

Cla

vel

(199

4)A

ttoe

ampL

ogan

(198

9)H

isto

ryM

etho

dolo

gyK

osto

f(1

991)

Met

hodo

logy

Fram

pton

(199

2)R

owe

(199

7)H

este

r(1

990)

Cha

lleng

esSh

ort

(199

6)

Meaningful Urban Design 41

ments and the soft-programming of urban design (eg incorporation of publicexpression and cultural identity and activities events programmes and servicesintegrated with the built forms)

For the urban designer design communication is inherent in the act of designboth as internal communication in the thinking process and as an externalcommunication with the client user or broader community The people withina given context such as homeowners in a residential neighbourhood or businessowners in a commercial downtown are the agents of change aided by acommunication process that speaks to the formal aspects of their environmentThe better this communication process of design the higher the level of publicawareness and sense of ownership the better the internal decisions of changeThere are conventional public involvement formats such as public hearings citycouncil meetings and planning commission presentations There are also infor-mal meetings workshops and brainstorming sessions One of the most powerfuland effective mechanisms for active and intelligent community participation isthe charette

A charette is a short and intense workshop of a day or at the most a few daysin which the urban design team works with a local community and its socialeconomic or political leaders to arrive at a conceptual and implementationstrategy for a particular project (Kasprisin amp Pettinari 1995) The process usuallybegins with a consortium of local citizens and organizations inviting a team ofprivate (eg an architectural rm) or non-prot (eg the American Institute ofArchitects) urban designers to participate often along with a local task forceThe community and team leaders then prepare for the short intense workshopby arranging for publicity student participation work locations and suppliesThe workshop itself may subsequently consist of meetings with different repre-sentatives site tours open town hall meetings personal interviews with variousstakeholders detailed work sessions in groups a written and graphic report anda presentation of ndings (see Figure 1) In some cases there is a follow-upabout a year later in which the urban designer meets with the community toassess the success of the process and provide additional advice

The effectiveness of this community participation methodology and the oftensurprising results it generates have been well documented by Kelbaugh (1997) ina series of charettes in the Seattle region Similarly the Urban Design Group(1998) provides a series of clear concise and extremely useful communityparticipation forums including innovative mechanisms such as street stalls andinteractive displays carried out in different parts of the UK

The popularity of the computer program SimCity a city building simulatorattests to the possibility of designing urban simulation models with broad publicappeal Whether one is teaching urban processes and structures analysingspecic urban problems or most importantly involving the public in urbandesign and planning processes SimCity displays a vast untapped potential ofurban design games and simulations These examples point to creative engagingand benecial forms of not only community participation but also moresignicantly community development because they increase community aware-ness generate community strategies and suggest modes of community interven-tion in the future of their own environments

Another approach to long-term processes of community development isillustrated by the Hismen Hin-nu Terrace housing project in Oakland CA (Joneset al 1995) With a grant from the City of Oakland the architectural rm of

42 A Inam

Figure 1 Community-based charette for an urban design plan for the commercialrevitalization of Bagley Avenue in Detroit MI

Pyatok and Associates studied development scenarios for housing and neigh-bourhood services on several sites in the city The San Antonio CommunityDevelopment Council serving African American Latino and Native Americanresidents expressed interest in developing affordable housing for families andseniors on one of the sites and joined with the East Bay Asian Local Develop-ment Corporation which serves the Asian American community Pyatok andAssociates organized a series of workshops using participatory modelling kits tohelp over 30 neighbourhood participants to design plans for the site and tounderstand the implications of density

The 92 housing units in the project now not only house families and elderlycitizens with low and very low incomes but also help mend a deterioratingneighbourhood by restoring its main boulevard with housing over shops Familyhousing with a day care centre around quiet courtyards built behind a ground-oor market niches for street vendors and a job training centre all contribute tocommunity development in the neighbourhood A multi-ethnic mix of tenants isdepicted in exterior murals frieze panels decorative tiles and steel entry gatesin the form of a burst of sunshine The art is intended to prove that the USArsquoscultural diversity is a source of energy for creating community rather than asource of conict

Urban Design and Economic Development

Urban design as a catalyst for or as an active component of economic develop-ment involves designing projects that generate employment on a long-termbasis attract investment into deprived areas and increase business and taxrevenues In this context a city is not only a spatial concentration of a largenumber of people but also contains a density of economic activities Urban

Meaningful Urban Design 43

Figure 2 Horton Plaza in San Diego CA has not only generated jobs andsuccessfully attracted customers and tourists but has also helped revive the

surrounding areas

designers can be more effective if they understand and indeed encouragebenecial economic activities through physical projects

The Horton Plaza a highly successful shopping centre in San Diego CAgenerated jobs for local residents when city ofcials utilized their position asinvestors in the project to negotiate for positions (Frieden amp Sagalyn 1989) Themayor of the city turned to the Private Industry Council of San Diego Countya training and placement organization to nd jobs for low-income and unem-ployed San Diegans in Horton Plaza and other city-assisted developmentprojects The council then served as the main employment ofce for HortonPlaza By March 1986 store openings had created nearly 1000 new jobs and thecouncil lled half of them (see Figure 2) Of the people placed by the council70 were minority workers and 60 came from high-unemployment low-in-come neighbourhoods targeted for recruitment

Lower Downtown Denverrsquos most exciting commercial sub-market in recentyears provides one model for the economic reinvestment and revitalization ofother historic commercial districts (Segal 1995) The success of this area is basedon an understanding of fundamental changes in the marketplace and publicpolicies designed to complement market forces and represents an incrementalproject-by-project development approach that urban designers can adopt In1987 the Downtown Denver Partnership a non-prot business leadershiporganization established the Lower Downtown Business Support Ofce toprovide services such as business counselling to develop business plans mar-keting strategies and management expertise leasing referrals to direct prospec-tive tenants to available space and the design and implementation ofpublicprivate layered nancing strategies for individual projects Financialsupport was provided by the city of Denver the state governmentrsquos job trainingofce and corporate and foundation grants

44 A Inam

Figure 3 Outdoor seating for cafes is part of the urban design strategy whichcontributed to the economic revival of a historic area in the Lower Downtown area

of Denver CO

A historic district ordinance contributed to Lower Downtownrsquos success bycreating certainty in the marketplace Small business and entrepreneurial in-vestors were lured to the area by its scale and historic character and theknowledge that it will remain that way (see Figure 3) The cityrsquos investment of$19 million in streetscape improvements including new lighting pavementsand street furniture which was contingent upon the adoption of the historicdistrict ordinance also reinforced private investment in Lower DowntownDistrict stakeholders including developers and property owners are repre-sented on the ve-member design review committee which is now seen asbenecial to the area because of its localized control In 4 years the LowerDowntown area through the various strategies described above has attractedmore than $15 million in new investment 500 jobs and a nearby baseballstadium

Urban designers can learn to design environments that increase revenues bystudying the strategies adopted by the often maligned or overlooked designersof shopping centres gambling casinos and amusement or theme parks All ofthese environments are successful to their owners and operators when theyincrease revenues often in a remarkable manner The US landscape architectRobert Gibbs is one such member of this rare breed (Lagerfeld 1995) Accordingto Gibbs a townrsquos retail planning should begin where a shopping centrersquos doesfar from the selling oors For example it is disadvantageous to locate ashopping centre in a place where commuters have to make a left turn Peopletend to shop on their way to work and they are less likely to stop if it involvesmaking a turn against trafc

Most signicantly shopping centre designers know the average shopper (asthe urban designer should know their clientele and constituencies) and under-stand that most shoppers stroll at about 3ndash4 feet per second thus walking past

Meaningful Urban Design 45

a storefront in about 8 seconds That is how long a shop owner has to attract aconsumerrsquos attention with an arresting window display Downtown merchantsmust adapt to the same 8 second rule but they also have to sell to passingmotorists Sophisticated retailers use a variety of subliminal clues to attractshoppers whether it is a high-priced stationery store implying an upscalelifestyle through a window display of an old wood desk embellished withexpensive writing instruments or a small preciously enclosed display thatjewellers use to suggest high quality and prices to match These are but a fewof the examples of the manner in which shopping centre gambling casino andtheme park designers understand human behaviour and create environmentsthat encourage certain types of behaviour such as consumer spending howeverurban designers can focus on other types of behaviour such as the creation ofexciting neighbourhoods that foster greater social interaction and mutual under-standing amongst different ethnic groups

Urban Design and International Development

Urban design as a catalyst for or as an active component of internationaldevelopment takes the guise of sensitivity to context the generation of cross-cul-tural learning and directly addressing issues which arise out of the continuingphenomenon of economic globalization

A seminal essay which suggests an approach which is sensitive to localcontext without resorting to mimicry and which is contemporary without beinga generic modernism is Frampton (1992a) The contemporary paradox of sensi-tivity to context is that on the one hand the region or locality has to root itselfin the soil of its past forge a regional spirit and display this spiritual andcultural resistance before the modernist personality However in order to fullyparticipate in modern civilization it is necessary at the same time to take partin scientic technical and political rationality something which very oftenrequires the abandonment of major portions of a whole cultural past Thus howcan contemporary urban design celebrate an ancient tradition and return tosources while simultaneously becoming modern and participating in universalcivilization

Drawing upon the work of the French philosopher Paul Ricoeur Frampton(1992b) proposes a process of assimilation and reinterpretation wherein sustain-ing any kind of authentic culture in the future depends upon our capacity togenerate vital forms of authentic culture (eg via urban design) of regionalculture while appropriating alien inuences at the level of both the local and theglobal Alvar Aaltorsquos work is exemplary of such processes especially theSaynatsalo Town Hall in Finland (Inam 1992) The collective memory evoked bythe Saynatsalo Town Hall refers to two fundamental cultural traditions theindigenous largely agrarian one and an alien essentially classical one With itssteps overgrown with grass and weeds its variations of silhouette and itsweathered materials Saynatsalo has the air of an ancient complex of buildingswhich had grown slowly Indeed Aalto had identied this rather unique parti ofa lsquogrowing ruinrsquo in his 1941 essay lsquoArchitecture in Kareliarsquo by suggesting that aldquodilapidated Karielan village is somehow similar in appearance to a Greek ruinwhere also the materialrsquos uniformity is a dominant feature though marblereplaces woodrdquo (cited in Inam 1992 p 63)

46 A Inam

Figure 4 The Council Chamber of Saynatsalo Town Hall Finland which reectsthe power of cross-cultural symbolism

Apart from evoking the memory of indigenous environments Aalto remainedfaithful to the belief that a motif borrowed from a different context andtransplanted with sufcient conviction onto Finnish soil became genuinelyFinnish The Italian Renaissance was for Aalto an inalienable part of his heritageand philosophy of life In his view providing the inhabitants of Saynatsalo witha setting in which they could live much as the inhabitants of 14th-century Siennadid was a natural act When the members of the municipal board of buildinginquired if a small poor community like theirs really needed to build a councilchamber 17 m high especially since the brick was expensive Aalto respondedthat the worldrsquos most beautiful and famous town hall in Sienna had a councilchamber 16 m high and thus he proposed to build the one at Saynatsalo 17 mhigh (see Figure 4) Moreover Aalto explicitly referred to the courtyard as apiazza in spite of the fact that it is domestic both in nature and in scale

A contemporary example of sensitivity to context through a process ofassimilation and reinterpretation is the work of the Portuguese architect AlvaroSiza (Frampton 1992b) Siza has grounded his buildings in the conguration ofa specic topography and in the ne-grained texture of the local fabric To thisend his pieces of the built environment are tight responses to the urban landand marinescape of the Porto region Other important factors are his deferencetowards local material craft work and the subtleties of local light a deferencewhich is sustained without falling into the sentimentality of excluding rationalform and modern technique

The generation of cross-cultural learning arises out of understanding andapplying in a sympathetic and appropriate manner urban design methodolo-gies processes and forms from different cultural contexts (Inam 1997) Aninstance of this would be the woeful history of large-scale low-income housing(ie public housing) projects built by the government in various urban contextsin the USA The governmentrsquos quest to provide no-frills housing (eg built at the

Meaningful Urban Design 47

lowest costs on cheap often undesirable land) combined with the privatesectorrsquos unrelenting demands that public housing be different (eg minimalaccommodations which are overly modest and austere) from the rest of thehousing stock undermined the notion that public housing could also be attract-ive housing and possibly even contribute to the surrounding urban contexts(Bratt 1986)

Henri Cirianirsquos social housing projects in France which are the equivalent ofpublic housing projects in the USA serve as a demonstration of how large-scalelow-income housing projects built by the government can constitute positivecontributions to the urban environment instead of being eyesores La Courdan-gle is a large social housing project (ie 130 apartments 230 parking spaces anda day care centre) outside Paris in Saint Denis (Ciriani 1997) The seven-storeybuilding with its striped cladding and geometric frieze rises above the muddleof neighbouring streets and forms a corner in an otherwise loosely structuredurban space By creating a visually strong plan of geometrical precision theproject inspires a still-life composition device in urban design Transformed intoa picture plane the various free-standing buildings as well as high-rise buildingsthat surround the project integrate into a more harmonious urban setting Thecourtyard side of the building is a pure right-angled gure containing aperfectly dened square space The layering of the facades facilitates the articu-lation of the decreasing volumes contains the apartmentsrsquo balconies and terracesand mediates between the architecture of the building and the urbanity of theneighbourhood In this manner La Courdangle constitutes a low-income hous-ing project that is rich in architectural spaces and detail while helping deneand enhance the urban space around it

The phenomenon of increasing economic globalization is rapidly growing andhas been encouraged at the urban level For example in US cities such as NewYork Los Angeles Houston and Minneapolis where foreign investors havebeen active in buying real estate downtown real estate interestsmdashbrokerscommercial banks real estate consultants and property ownersmdashhave welcomedinternational property investment Throughout the 1980s the infusion of foreigncapital into the buying and selling of existing buildings and the construction ofnew building bolstered commercial property markets by raising rents increasingproperty values and generally expanding business opportunities The interactionof forces operating at various spatial scales especially the urban can beillustrated in a variety of ways the construction of an ofce building for aforeign bank using materials from around the world the dynamics of a majorresearch university whose architecture and urban planning faculty consultlocally as well as internationally and the corporate plan location and contractingstrategies of multinational corporations such as Nike and Coca Cola as theybalance local labour conditions regional locational advantages national marketsand international investment opportunities (Beauregard 1995)

The ongoing phenomenon of globalization suggests some strategies for urbandesigners Urban designers must be able to understand and react to inuencesimpinging on their communities regardless of where those inuences originate(eg World Bank funded housing projects in developing countries) and whichactors are responsible (eg US architectural rms designing ofce complexes inLondon) Furthermore urban designers must develop associations and networksthat extend beyond their spatial reach through collaborative endeavours andthereby provide another mechanism for responding to the multitude of actors

48 A Inam

who shape their communities For example the Indian architect B V Doshiutilized an institution the Vastu-Shilpa Foundation for Studies and Research todevelop an internationally (ie World Bank) funded local (ie in the city Indore)housing project in India Aranya Nagar (Serageldin 1997) The project has beenlargely a success due to the Vastu-Shilpa Foundation which carried out con-siderable research including surveys to understand the physical and economicfactors that determine the size type and density of the housing plots that werespecic to the local context

Relevant

Urban design that is relevant is urban design that is pertinent to matters at hand(eg critical urban issues) and that is based on fundamental human and naturalconditions In this section three such relevant approaches to urban design arehighlighted (1) a history of urban form that analyses the determinant processesand human meanings of form (2) a theory of urban form that is normative andbased on human values and (3) a design methodology of urban form that isempirically based and derived from patterns of human behaviour These threeapproaches are discussed by illustrating them with the work of Spiro Kostof(Kostof 1991) Kevin Lynch (Lynch 1981) and Christopher Alexander (Alexan-der et al 1977) but by no means does this suggest that these are the only suchapproaches in urban design Indeed there exist other relevant approaches tourban design (for example see Rowe 1991) but for the illustrative purposes ofthis paper the three examples mentioned above will sufce

Kostof (1991) studies the phenomenon of city making in a historical perspec-tive to consider how and why cities took the shape they did Amalgams of theliving and the built cities are repositories of cultural meaning Behind thearbitrary twist of a lane or the splendid eccentricity of a new skyscraper on theskyline lies a history of previous urban tenure a heritage of long-establishedsocial conventions a string of often bitter compromises between individualrights and the public will In a series of discussions of urban patterns such as thegrid and the city as diagram Kostof adopts a truly interdisciplinary approach bydrawing upon architecture cultural geography and social history to interpret thehidden order ascribed in these patterns

Urban form is related directly to urban process ie the people forces andinstitutions that bring about urban form (Kostof 1991) and a way to examinethis process is to ask probing research questions which are the basis for trulyunderstanding cities For example who actually designs cities What proceduresdo they go through What are the empowering agencies and laws The legal andeconomic history is an enormous and often overlooked subject It involvesownership of urban land and the land market the exercise of eminent domainwhich is the power of government to take over private property for public usethe institution of legally binding master plans building codes and other regula-tions instruments of funding urban change such as property taxes and bondissues and the administrative and more importantly the power structure ofcities Urban designers need not know all of this information but they do needto realize the importance of it why it is important to know where to turn toobtain it and to consider it in their project designs

Urban process also refers to physical change through time The tendency alltoo often is to see urban form as a nite thing and a complicated object

Meaningful Urban Design 49

However thousands of witting and unwitting acts every day alter a cityrsquos linesin ways that are perceptible only over a certain stretch of time City walls arepulled down and lled in once rational grids are slowly obscured a slashingdiagonal boulevard is run through close-grained residential neighbourhoodsrailroad tracks usurp cemeteries and waterfronts and wars res and highwaysannihilate city cores (Kostof 1991)

As an example let us consider the grid The grid is by far the commonestpattern for planned cities in history and it is universal both geographically andchronologically (Kostof 1991) No better solution recommends itself as a stan-dard scheme for disparate sites or as a means for the equal distribution of landor the easy parcelling and selling of real estate The advantage of straightthrough-streets for defence has been recognized since Aristotle and a rectilinearstreet pattern has also been resorted to in order to keep under watch a restlesspopulation However ubiquitous as the grid has always been it is also muchmisunderstood and often treated as if it were one unmodulated idea thatrequires little discrimination On the contrary the grid is an exceedingly exibleand diverse system of planning and hence its enormous success in urban designand planning About the only thing that all grids have in common is that theirstreet pattern is orthogonal that is the right angle rules and street lines in bothdirections lie parallel to each other

Furthermore the political innocence of the grid in the West is a ction In theearly Greek colonies for example the grid far from being a democratic deviceemployed to assure an equitable allotment of property to all citizens was themeans of perpetuating the privileges of the property-owning class descendentfrom the original settlers and for bolstering a territorial aristocracy The rstsettlers who made the voyage to the site were entitled to equal allocations ofland both inside and outside the city walls These hereditary estates wereinalienable the ruling class strictly discouraged a land market The estates werehuge as much as 25 acres (about 1 hectare) for some families They were thensub-divided by the owner Within the city private land could only be used forhousing Any alienation of land or any agitation for land reform was severelydealt with and could be punishable as for murder (Kostof 1991)

The point is made regularly that grids especially in the USA besides offeringsimplicity in land surveying recording and subsequent ownership transfer alsofavoured a fundamental democracy in property market participation This didnot mean that individual wealth could not appropriate considerable propertybut rather that the basic initial geometry of land parcels bespoke a simpleegalitarianism that invited easy entry into the urban land market The realityhowever is much less admirable The ordinary citizens gained easy access tourban land only at a preliminary phase when cheap rural land was beingurbanized through rapid laying out To the extent that the grid speeded thisprocess and streamlined absentee purchases it may be considered an equalizingsocial device Once the land had been identied with the city however thisadvantage of the initial geometry of land parcels evaporated and even unbuiltlots slipped out of common reach What matters most in the long run is not themystique of the grid geometry then but the luck of rst ownership (Kostof1991)

However for the conventional urban designer a grid is a grid is a grid(Kostof 1991) At best it is a visual theme upon which to play variations he orshe might be concerned with issues like using a true checkerboard design vs

50 A Inam

syncopated block rhythms with cross-axial or other types of emphasis with theplacement of open spaces within the discipline of the grid with the width andhierarchy of streets To Kostof and the meaningful urban designer on the otherhand how and with what intentions the Romans in Britain the builders ofmedieval Wales and Gascony the Spanish in Mexico or the Illinois CentralRailroad Company in the prairies of the Mid-west employed this very samedevice of settlement is the principal substance of a review of orthogonalplanning In fact the grid has accommodated a startling variety of socialstructuresmdashincluding territorial aristocracy in Greek Sicily the agrarianrepublicanism of Thomas Jefferson and the cosmic vision of Joseph Smith inMormon settlements like Salt Lake City Utahmdashand of course capitalist specu-lation

There have been few serious attempts at a comprehensive and normativetheory of urban form Good City Form (Lynch 1981) is an impressive andcourageous attempt by Kevin Lynch as a ldquosystematic effort to state generalrelationships between the form of a place and its valuerdquo (Lynch 1981 p 99)Lynch (1981 p 108) emphasizes ldquothose goals which are as general as possibleand thus do not dictate particular physical solutions and yet whose achievementcan be detected and explicitly linked to physical solutions This is the familiarnotion of performance standards applied at the city scalerdquo Lynch generalizesperformance dimensions which are certain identiable characteristics of citiesdue primarily to their spatial qualities and are measurable scales along whichdifferent groups achieve different positions These performance dimensions arebased on the following thinking

The good city is one in which the continuity of [a] complex ecology ismaintained while progressive change is permitted The fundamentalgood is the continuous development of the individual or the smallgroup and their culture a process of becoming more complex morerichly connected more competent acquiring and realizing new pow-ersmdashintellectual emotional social and physical hellip So that settlement isgood which enhances the continuity of a culture and the survival of itspeople increases a sense of connection in time and space and permitsor spurs individual growth development within continuity via open-ness and connection hellip [a settlement which is] accessible decentralizeddiverse adaptable and tolerant to experiment (Lynch 1981 pp 116ndash117)

In Lynchrsquos theory of good city form there are seven dimensions (Lynch 1981)First is vitality the degree to which an urban form supports the vital func-tions the biological requirements the capabilities of human beings and protectsthe survival of the species (eg adequate throughput of water air food andenergy) Second is sense the degree to which an urban form is clearly perceivedand mentally differentiated as well as structured in time and space and thedegree to which that mental structure connects with the residentsrsquo values andconcepts (eg distinct identity and unconstrained legibility) Third is t thedegree to which urban form matches the pattern and quantity of actionsthat people usually engage in or would like to engage in (eg compatibilitybetween function and form) Fourth is access the ability to reach other peopleactivities resources or places including the quantity and diversity of theelements that can be reached (eg ease of communication and transportation)

Meaningful Urban Design 51

Fifth is control the degree to which the creation of access to use of mainte-nance of and modication to urban spaces and activities are managed by thosewho use work or live in them (eg local power) Sixth is efciency the cost ofcreating and maintaining an urban form (eg less energy-demanding processes)Seventh is justice the way in which urban form costs and benets are dis-tributed among people according to a principle such as intrinsic worth or equity(eg equal protection from environmental hazards such as cars) These dimen-sions are applicable in a wide range of urban contexts because they are derivedfrom fundamental human values and serve as powerful measures of what alsquogoodrsquo urban design project might be

Christopher Alexander (Alexander et al 1977) adopts a problem-solvingapproach to design and explicitly renders the design methodology but moreimportantly describes how a meaningful urban designer might draw directlyfrom empirical evidence (rather than say idiosyncratic impulses) and extensiveresearch as a source of design The book is most useful as a series of thoroughlyanalysed and empirically based guidelines which are broad enough to beadapted to different contexts and architectural styles Each suggested solution isdescribed in a way that provides the key relationships (eg between humanbehaviour and spatial setting) needed to solve the problem but in a generalenough manner to allow for adaptation to particular lifestyles aesthetic tastesand local conditions Each pattern describes a problem which occurs repeatedlyin the built environment archetypal problems of urban form for example Thelongest portion of the description of each pattern describes the empiricalbackground of the pattern the evidence for its validity and the range of differentways the pattern can be manifested or designed

The rst 94 patterns deal with the large-scale structure including the urbanof the environment the growth of city and country the layout of roads andpaths the relationship between work and family the formation of suitablepublic institutions for a neighbourhood and the kinds of public space requiredto support these institutions (Alexander et al 1977) The following two examplesof urban patterns illustrate the value of this design methodology identiableneighbourhood and public outdoor room

According to Alexander et al (1977) and the scientic research they citepeople need an identiable spatial unit to belong to They want to be able toidentify the part of the city where they live as distinct from all others Availableevidence suggests rst that the neighbourhoods which people identify with haveextremely small populations second that they are small in area and third thata major road through a neighbourhood destroys it

What then is the right population for a neighbourhood The neighbourhoodinhabitants should be able to look after their own interests by being able to reachagreement on basic decisions such as about public services and common landand to organize themselves to bring pressure on local governments Anthropo-logical evidence cited by Alexander et al (1977) suggests that a human groupcannot usually co-ordinate itself to reach such decisions if its population is above1500 The experience of organizing community meetings at the local levelsuggests that 500 may be a more realistic gure

As far as the physical diameter is concerned in Philadelphia PA people whowere asked which area they really knew usually limited themselves to a smallarea seldom exceeding the two or three blocks around their house One-quarterof the inhabitants of an area in Milwaukee WI considered a neighbourhood to

52 A Inam

be an area no larger than a block around 300 feet (about 90 metres) One-halfconsidered it to be no more than seven blocks

The rst two features of the neighbourhood small population and small areaare not enough by themselves A neighbourhood can only have a strong identityif it is protected from heavy trafc Research cited by the authors suggests thatthe heavier the trafc in an area the less people think of it as home territory Notonly do residents view the streets with heavy trafc as less personal but theyalso feel the same about the houses along the street ldquoItrsquos not a friendlystreet hellip People are afraid to go out into the street because of the trafc hellip Noisefrom the street intrudes into my homerdquo (cited in Alexander et al 1977 p 83)This study conducted by the University of California at Berkeley found thatwith more than 200 cars per hour the quality of the neighbourhood begins todeteriorate

Therefore the proposed strategy suggests helping people dene the neigh-bourhoods they live in not more than about 300 yards (270 metres) or so acrosswith no more than 500 inhabitants or so and in existing cities encouraging localgroups to organize themselves to form such neighbourhoods and keeping majorroads outside these neighbourhoods While one may disagree with the dimen-sions suggested in this pattern one has to acknowledge that population sizephysical area and trafc ow are critical considerations for the design ofcontemporary neighbourhoods

In the public outdoor room pattern Alexander et al (1977) suggest that thereare very few spots along the streets of modern towns and neighbourhoodswhere people can hang out comfortably for hours at a time Men often seekcorner bars and pubs where they spend hours talking and drinking teenagersespecially boys choose special corners too where they hang around waitingfor their friends Elderly people like a special spot to go to where they canexpect to nd others small children need sandpits mud plants and water toplay with in the open young mothers who go to watch their children oftenuse the childrenrsquos play as a opportunity to meet and talk with other mothersand so on for a variety of groups Because of the diverse and casual natureof these activities they require a space which has a subtle balance of beingdened and yet not too dened so that any activity which is natural to theneighbourhood at any given time can develop freely and yet has something tostart from

What is needed is a framework which is dened just enough so that peoplenaturally tend to stop there and so that curiosity naturally takes people thereand invites them to stay A small open space roofed with columns but withoutwalls at least in part will provide the necessary balance between being open andenclosed Examples of this pattern were built with the assistance of architecturestudents in Cleveland OH on the grounds and on public land surrounding alocal mental health clinic According to staff reports these places changed thelife of the clinic dramatically many more people than usual were drawnoutdoors public talk was more animated and outdoor space that had beendominated by cars became more human In addition in the 12th and 13thcenturies there were many such public structures dotted through the towns andwhich were the scene of auctions open-air meetings and market fairs

Therefore in neighbourhoods and work communities the authors suggestmaking a piece of the common land into an outdoor roommdasha partly enclosedplace with a partial roof columns without walls perhaps with a trellis placing

Meaningful Urban Design 53

Figure 5 A contemporary example of a successful outdoor room which reects theguidelines of the outdoor room patternmdashCitywalk in Los Angeles CA

it beside an important path and within view of houses and workplaces In thisand the other patterns in the book the authors outline an urban designmethodology that is based on archetypal problems (eg public outdoor spaces)analyses of built examples descriptions of historical precedents and the explicitunpacking of design solutions such that they are clear relevant and thoughtful(see Figure 5) The basis for the design patterns was extensive and thoroughresearch carried out over an 8-year period Today there is current and volumin-ous research for example on environment and behaviour (for example seeMoore amp Marans 1997) that is highly relevant and useful for urban designers

Future Directions in Urban Design

Urban designers (eg Beckley 1998) are beginning to question what in fact islsquourbanrsquo in the contemporary environment However few will argue with

54 A Inam

denitions two decades old that are still relevant today a city is a ldquorelativelylarge dense and permanent settlement [or network of settlements] of sociallyheterogeneous individualsrdquo (L Worth cited in Kostof 1991 p 37) and a ldquopoint[or points] of maximum concentration for the power and culture of a com-munityrdquo (L Mumford cited in Kostof 1991 p 37) The urban designerrsquos impera-tive then is to understand cities On the one hand the most enduring featureof the city is its physical build which remains with remarkable persistencegaining increments that are responsive to the most recent economic demand andreective of the latest stylistic vogue but conserving evidence of past urbanculture for present and future generations On the other hand however urbansociety changes more than any other human grouping economic innovationusually comes most rapidly and boldly in cities immigration aims rst at theurban core forcing upon cities the critical role of acculturating refugees frommany countrysides and the winds of intellectual advance blow strong in cities(Vance cited in Kostof 1991)

Based on the new synthesis of ideas proposed in this paper there are threelevels of success of an urban design project These include rst the purelyaesthetically informed notion of urban design as a nished product (eg Does itlook good) The second is the sense of the project as an autonomous object thatfunctions in an affordable convenient and comfortable manner for its users (egDoes it work) The third and new idea is to have the urban design projectgenerate or substantially contribute to socio-economic development processes(eg Does it produce long-term quality of life impacts) In this sense urbandesigners and urban design projects become catalysts for community bettermenteconomic improvement and international understanding

Consequently urban designers should focus more on the lsquourbanrsquo of urbandesign and become less infatuated with the lsquodesignrsquo of urban design Urbandesign must begin with cities how they work and change and what impacts theyhave in creating enabling vs destructive impacts For example urban design hasto be seen within the framework of investment and development policies andas a shaper of those policies Cranersquos (1966) capital web of investment decisionsand Lairsquos (1988) invisible web of laws and norms that guide peoplersquos behaviourAt the same time design and form play a critical role because they are a languageand vocabulary for analysing and intervening in cities

At the most fundamental level all urban design should be responsible forcreating an environment that satises informs and inspires its users (ie thecommunity) This is an urban design that possesses an articulate communicativeprociency Urban design of profound signicance has a poetic quality By themeans of compressing its meanings into a concise formal expression a poeticurban design project draws the mind to a level of perception concealed behindthe conventional presentations of urban form The most effective symbols arethose which while operating within a given set of conventions are imprecisesparse and open-ended in their possible interpretations tending more to themetaphor than the simile Such an approach requires deep cultural understand-ing and social sensitivity

Implications for Education

The pedagogical approach to meaningful urban design will be interdisciplinary(eg examining cities from the perspectives of architects landscape architects

Meaningful Urban Design 55

urban planners policy makers social workers and business interests) teleologi-cal (eg driven by the express purpose of addressing critical urban challengessuch as uncomfortable and unsafe built environments community powerless-ness economic deprivation and fragmented interventions) critical (eg based onin-depth understanding of urban design problems and promises throughanalysis of urban design practice and case studies) and catalytic (eg theformulation of effective urban design strategies that include a focus on urbandesign products such as building complexes and public spaces but also includethe generation of long-term community and economic development processes)

The primary impact on this type of learning for students will be an under-standing of the urban designer as a leader Through an in-depth analysis ofurban issues an interdisciplinary approach to urban problem solving and skillsthat focus not only on issues of urban aesthetics and form but also on purposefulintervention generated by long-term processes students will gain a profoundand empowering understanding of meaningful urban design Students of urbandesign will also gain humility and condence by studying the power structuresof cities (and realizing just how little power urban designers actually have)practising critical thinking and learning to be politically savvy in order toaccomplish their goals A secondary impact on learning for students will be aunique opportunity for them to shape the future direction of urban designthrough readings research discussions case-study analyses and project designsthat will focus on specic urban challenges examine deciencies in currenturban design approaches and projects in addressing those challenges andformulate alternative more meaningful urban design strategies

In order to reach such goals an urban design programme should focus on twomajor sets of skills understanding how cities work and learning to shape citiesUnderstanding cities includes their conception (eg urban theory and form)their evolution (eg history of urban form) their decision-making processes (egurban political economy) and their use and experience (eg urban sociology)Learning to shape cities includes design methods (eg based on empiricalevidence and community participation) and communication skills (eg graphicverbal written and computer-based) The goal of a meaningful urban designpedagogical initiative would be to attract students of the built environment (egarchitects landscape architects and urban planners) who will become sophisti-cated practitioners and inuential leaders of urban design in architectural andplanning rms community organizations public agencies and internationalinstitutions The initiative would thus involve (1) teaching of exploratoryseminars and studios in new urban design methodologies (eg internationalstudios) (2) research into the relevant roles of professionals especially architectsand planners in the urban design of contemporary cities (eg institutionalstructures) and (3) professional work in the form of community outreach andproject analysis (eg evaluating New Urbanism)

In summary a meaningful pedagogical approach to urban design should havethe following characteristics (1) small (ie selective)mdashfocus on key urban designchallenges eg inner city revitalization (2) focused (ie depth)mdashdevelop exper-tise in the urban designurban development nexus (3) distinct (ie cutting-edge)mdashexperiment with new studio formats projects and research eginternational collaboration and cross-cultural learning and (4) existing resources(ie breadth)mdashbuild upon other departments eg social work business naturalresources and environment

56 A Inam

The critical question that guides this meaningful future of urban design issimply So what That is what consequential purpose has been achieved byparticular urban design theories urban design methodologies urban designpractices and urban design practitioners The implication of such probingquestions is that it is far from adequate to consider urban design projects assuccessful if they are only physically appealing or thought-provoking

Conclusion

In conclusion the author would like to return to the provocations that werereferred to at the beginning of this paper While both Rem Koolhaas and MichaelSorkin are emblematic of the image-based architect-driven urban design thatpermeates much of the world and especially the USA they are also contributorsto an urban design strategy that is realistic and contrary to the nostalgia evokedby the New Urbanism and neo-traditional movements Thus for Koolhaas

If there is to be a lsquonew urbanismrsquo it will not be based on the twinfantasies of order and omnipotence hellip but about discovering unnam-able hybrids [as is the case with Los Angeles] hellip Redened urbanismwill not only or mostly be a profession but a way of thinking anideology to accept what exists We were making sand castles Now weswim in the sea that swept them away (Koolhaas 1995 pp 969ndash971)

Koolhaas thus encourages us rst to accept the contemporary urban condition(instead of seeing it through rose-tinted lenses) and second as architects urbandesigners and planners to understand and work with the contemporary urbanforces (instead of imagining a world without cars or highways)

Similarly Sorkin extols us to learn from those urban design projects and urbanenvironments which are successful in terms of the designerrsquos objectives ofattracting people to these environments and the vibrant use of these environ-ments by people Even if the objectives were to differ say in terms of greatersocial interaction and co-operation in a neighbourhood the designers of shop-ping malls gambling casinos and amusement parks at least understand humanbehaviour as it relates to entertainment and consumptionmdashlessons which can beused for other perhaps more noble projects Thus according to Sorkin (1997pp 29ndash31)

Disneyland hellip is foremost a playground of mobility its entertainmentslargely those of pleasured motion And there is something to belearned here It seems undeniable that for all of its depredations all ofits regimentation surveillance and control part of what we experienceas enjoyable at Disneyland is the passage through an environment ofurban density in which both the physical texture and the means ofcirculation are not simply entertaining but stand in invigorating con-trast to the dysfunctional versions back home One extracts fromDisneyland a shred of hope the persuasive example that pedestrianismcoupled with short distance collective transport systems can be bothefcient and fun can thrive in the midst of an environment completelyotherwise constituted and that the space of low sufciently deceler-ated can become the space of exchange

Meaningful Urban Design 57

Figure 6 The design of Disneyland in Los Angeles CAmdashalbeit lsquoarticialrsquo anddesigned to foster consumptionmdashoffers deeper lessons for understanding humanbehaviour and creating exciting environmentsmdashfor say multicultural interac-

tionmdashbased on such understanding

The lsquoshred of hopersquo offered by Disneyland (see Figure 6) is constituted by suchlessons carefully and critically collected from numerous examples of contempor-ary urban design projects and articulatedmdashvia relevant history theory andmethodologymdashinto a meaningful approach to urban design

Acknowledgement

This paper was the second place winner of the 1999 Chicago Institute forArchitecture and Urbanism (CIAU) Award This award administered by theSkidmore Owings amp Merrill Foundation on behalf of the CIAU is for unpub-lished papers and is intended to encourage writing and research on the questionof how architecture infrastructure urban design and planning can contribute toimproving the quality of life of the American city For more information aboutthis award the Foundation can be contacted at somfoundationsomcom

References

Alexander C Ishikawa S Silverstein M Jacobson M Fiksdahl-King I amp Angel S (1977) APattern Language Towns Buildings Construction (New York Oxford University Press)

Attoe W amp Logan D (1989) American Urban Architecture Catalysts in the Design of Cities (BerkeleyUniversity of California Press)

Beauregard R (1995) Theorizing the globalndashlocal connection in P Knox amp P Taylor (Eds) WorldCities in a World System (Cambridge Cambridge University Press)

Beckley R (1998) [Dean Emeritus and Professor of Architecture and Urban Planning College ofArchitecture and Urban Planning University of Michigan] Written interview

Bratt R (1986) Public housing the controversy and the contribution in R Bratt C Hartman amp AMeyerson (Eds) Critical Perspectives in Housing (Philadelphia PA Temple University Press)

Calthorpe P (1993) The Next American Metropolis Ecology Communities and the American Dream (NewYork Princeton Architectural Press)

58 A Inam

Ciriani H (1997) Henri Ciriani (Rockport MA Rockport Publishers)Crane D (1966) Planning and Design in New York A Study of Problems and Processes of its Physical

Environment (New York Institute of Public Administration)Ellin N (1996) Postmodern Urbanism (Cambridge MA Blackwell)Frampton K (1992a) Critical regionalism modern architecture and cultural identityFrampton K (1992b) Modern Architecture A Critical History 3rd edn (London Thames amp Hudson)Frieden B amp Sagalyn L (1989) Downtown Inc How America Rebuilds Cities (Cambridge MA MIT

Press)Garvin A (1996) The American City What Works What Doesnrsquot (New York McGraw-Hill)Gilbert A amp Gugler J (1992) Cities Poverty and Development Urbanization in the Third World 2nd edn

(New York Oxford University Press)Hester R (1990) Community Design Primer (Mendocino CA Ridge Times Press)Inam A (1992) The urban monument symbol memory presence masterrsquos thesis in urban design

Washington University St LouisInam A (1997) Institutions routines and crises post-earthquake housing recovery in Mexico City

and Los Angeles doctoral dissertation in urban planning University of Southern California LosAngeles CA

Jacobs A (1993) Great Streets (Cambridge MA MIT Press)Jacobs J (1961) The Death and Life of Great American Cities (New York Random House)Jones T Pettus W amp Pyatok M (1995) Good Neighbors Affordable Family Housing (New York

McGraw-Hill)Kasprisin R amp Pettinari J (1995) Visual Thinking for Architects and Designers Visualizing Context in

Design (New York Van Nostrand Reinhold)Kelbaugh D (1997) Common Place Toward Neighborhood and Regional Design (Seattle WA University

of Washington Press)Koolhaas R (1995) Small Medium Large Extra Large (Rotterdam 010 Publishers)Kostof S (1991) The City Shaped Urban Patterns and Meanings through History (Boston MA Bulnch

Press)Krumholz N amp Clavel P (1994) Reinventing Cities Equity Planners Tell Their Stories (Philadelphia

Temple University Press)Lagerfeld S (1995) What Main Street can learn from the mall Atlantic Monthly November

pp 110ndash120Lai R T (1988) Law in Urban Design and Planning The Invisible Web (New York Van Nostrand

Reinhold)Loukaitou-Sideris A amp Banerjee T (1998) Urban Design Downtown Poetics and Politics of Form

(Berkeley CA University of California Press)Lynch K (1981) Good City Form (Cambridge MA MIT Press)Moore G amp Marans R (Eds) (1997) Advances in Environment Behavior and Design Toward the

Integration of Theory Methods Research and Utilization (New York Plenum Press)Porter M (1995) The competitive advantage of the inner city Harvard Business Review 73 pp 55ndash71Rowe P (1991) Making a Middle Landscape (Cambridge MA MIT Press)Rowe P (1997) Civic Realism (Cambridge MA MIT Press)Sandercock L (1998) Towards Cosmopolis Planning for Multicultural Cities (Chichester NY John

Wiley)Sassen S (2000) Cities in a World Economy 2nd edn (Thousand Oaks CA Pine Forge Press)Saunders W (1997) Rem Koolhaasrsquos writing on cities poetic perception and gnomic fantasy Journal

of Architectural Education 51 pp 61ndash71Savitch H V (1988) Post-Industrial Cities Politics and Planning in New York Paris and London

(Princeton NJ Princeton University Press)Schneekloth L amp Shibley R (1995) Placemaking The Art and Practice of Building Communities (New

York Wiley)Segal M B (1995) An old commercial district goes from cold to hot Urban Land 54 (11) pp 16ndash18Serageldin I (Ed) (1997) The Architecture of Empowerment People Shelter and Livable Cities (London

Academy Editions)Short J R (1996) The Urban Order An Introduction to Cities Culture and Power (Cambridge MA

Blackwell)Sorkin M (1997) Trafc in Democracy 1997 Raoul Wallenberg Lecture (Ann Arbor MI College of

Architecture and Urban Planning University of Michigan)Urban Design Group (1998) Involving local communities in urban design Urban Design Quarterly 67

pp 15ndash38

Meaningful Urban Design 37

peculiar inventions Bigness and Generic Cities The drawings (eg shiftingforms in orange and green) and words (eg lsquofunkyrsquo) certainly catch our atten-tion but do they provide any meaningful understanding of contemporary citiesor a useful means of intervening in them Probably not The drawings andspatial impressions demonstrate an over-eagerness to be unconventional andspectacular at the cost of being penetrating and meaningful which consequentlyimplies a lack of deep understanding and a lack of patiencemdashsymptomatic ofarchitectsrsquo view of cities in terms of images

The present author argues for a movement away from this obsession with thearchitectrsquos focus on image in urban design toward a focus that is more on thelsquourbanrsquo than on the lsquodesignrsquo in urban design and for an urban design that beginsand ends with the complex and rich dynamics of the contemporary city ratherthan with physical form Thus an urban designer is not simply an architectlandscape architect or planner who has an interest or has built projects in citiesbut one who has a sophisticated and deep understanding of cities and of thesubstantive contribution that urban design can make to cities

Signicance

The eld of urban design is in a state of ux Variously described as anambiguous overlap of the elds of architecture landscape architecture urbanplanning and civil engineering on the one hand and as a generalist that helpsdesign cities on the other urban design lacks a clear denition (and hence auseful understanding) and a clear direction (and hence a useful purpose)

Simultaneously countries such as the USA are witnessing an urban revival asdemonstrated by renewed interest in revitalizing inner cities an expandingmarket for urban housing the prominence of cities in popular magazines suchas Time and Newsweek popular television programmes such as Seinfeld lmssuch as Bridget Jonesrsquos Diary a resurgence of urban design curricula at leadinguniversities such as Berkeley and Southern California Institute of Architecture(SCI-Arc) and a recent inux of international urban design journals includingthe Journal of Urban Design Urban Design International and Urban Design Quar-terly Seminal books including The Next American Metropolis (Calthorpe 1993)Great Streets (Jacobs 1993) and Post-modern Urbanism (Ellin 1996) have attractedmuch attention in the past decade Several large-scale urban projects have beenbuilt recently or are currently under way in metropolitan regions such Detroit(eg Detroit Lions and Tigers stadiums Renaissance Center renovations newcasinos and airport expansion) in the USA (eg Getty Center in Los Angelesneo-traditional residential developments and conversion of military bases andobsolete industrial areas) and in the world (eg Londonrsquos Docklands HongKong Airport and the rebuilding of Beirut and Berlin)

Unfortunately much of this recent interest in urban design repeats thefamiliar deciencies of the past a focus on the supercial aesthetics and thepicturesque aspects of cities (instead of what role aesthetics play say incommunity development processes) an over-emphasis on the architect as urbandesigner and an obsession with design (instead of a more profound interdisci-plinary approach that addresses fundamental causes) an understanding ofurban design primarily as a nished product (instead of an ongoing long-termprocess intertwined with social and political mechanisms) and a pedagogicalprocess that is comfortably rooted in architecture and design (rather than in therich experiences processes and evolution of cities)

38 A Inam

Meaningful Urban Design

There are several critiques of the manner in which urban design is taughtpractised and researched at present The conventional approach to dening theeld of urban design is morphological that is according to the way it isstructured and organized Thus urban design is often regarded as an ambiguouscombination of architecture urban planning landscape architecture and civilengineering This denition puts urban designers at oddsmdashover power andresourcesmdashwith architects planners landscape architects and civil engineers

Another problem with current urban design thought and practice is the sensethat it is architecture only at a larger scale In this school of thought there is fartoo much emphasis on lsquodesignrsquo (eg aesthetics) and not enough of an under-standing of lsquourbanrsquo (eg how cities actually work) The architectural approach tourban design is reected in analysis that is purely conceptual (eg vectors yingoff in all kinds of directions) or too abstract (eg quotations from the latestFrench philosopher in vogue) Attempting to design a city as one designs abuilding is clearly misleading and dangerous because unlike individual build-ings which tend to be objects cities are highly complex large-scale organicentities and contain a bewildering multiplicity of users

Furthermore few contemporary urban designers demonstrate a fundamentalunderstanding of the complex ways in which cities function Especially glaringare a naivety at best an acceptable ignorance and a resistance at worst inunderstanding power structures (ie how and why critical decisions are madeabout the pattern of investment in cities and who makes them) and where urbandesigners t (ie usually marginalized) within such a power structure domi-nated as it is by elected ofcials local bureaucrats and prominent developers

On the basis of a new synthesis of existing ideas (for example see Loukaitou-Sideris 1996) the present author proposes a meaningful approach to urbandesign (ie one that is truly consequential in improving quality of life) thatconsists of being teleological (ie driven by purpose rather than dened bydisciplines) being catalytic (ie generating or contributing to long-term develop-ment processes) and being relevant (ie grounded in rst causes and pertinenthuman values) In this new synthesis urban design is circumscribed primarilyby urban scale and complexity and rests upon an interdisciplinary set of skillsmethodologies and bodies of knowledge

Teleological

In this notion of urban design it is an ongoing process with built form products(eg open spaces blocks streets and neighbourhoods) along the way Primarilyhowever the purpose of urban design is to be a stimulus to other goals whichare more critical to society and to the substantive challenges facing contempor-ary cities These goals and purposes include community development (egempowerment and social integration of marginalized populations) economicdevelopment (eg inner city revitalization) international development (egcross-cultural learning and collaboration) environmental sustainability (egefcient land use) and fecund urban environments (eg neighbourhood safetyrange of urban form choices and interconnected types)

Such an understanding of urban design is teleological that is it is driven bypurpose and not by morphology (ie conventional structures of elds and

Meaningful Urban Design 39

disciplines) Thus the phenomenon of urban sprawl and its attendant problems(eg cost resources and social fragmentation) would be a goal and a challengeinvolving not only design but also economic efciency public policy socialbehaviour cultural understanding and political processes There would be apurpose-driven (rather than discipline-driven) urban design process for increas-ing density in a culture of sprawl that addresses important concerns such asprivacypublicness and a sense of home This would be done for more efcientuse of a scarce resource (ie land) for greater convenience of access and to creategreater and more usable green spaces

In this view the primary purpose of urban design would be the improvementof the fundamental quality of life (ie socio-economic development) rather thanjust the quality of urban form The quality of life is not concerned as much withwhat a built environment looks like as with how a built environment works interms of the community the economy and increasing mutually benecial inter-national exchange For example an urban design project should empower itsusers (ie community development) strengthen the local economy (ie economicdevelopment) and foster international understanding opportunity and exchange(ie international development) Table 1 further articulates these purposes ofteleological urban design and the case studies which follow illustrate theseideas

Specically a teleological urban design would address three critical aspects ofthe urban experience which are the relationships between the city and theeconomy the city and society and the city and power The relationship betweenthe city and the economy considers the economic functioning of the cityincluding the city as a point in the production landscape as well as a site ofinvestment the changing international division of labour and the consequenteffects on the specic urban economies The relationship between the city andsociety focuses on the city as an arena of social interaction the distribution ofsocial groups residential segregation the construction of gender and ethnicidentities and patterns of class formation The relationship between the city andpower is the representation of urban structure and political power and consid-ers the city to be a system of communication a recorder of the distribution ofpower and an arena for the social struggles over the meaning and substance ofthe urban experience

Catalytic

Urban design projects and processes would generate or contribute signicantlyto three types of socio-economic development processesmdashcommunity develop-ment economic development and international developmentmdashwhile simul-taneously enhancing the built environment of cities

Urban Design and Community Development

Urban design as a catalyst for or as an active component of communitydevelopment consists of intelligent community participation in projects facili-tated by dialogue between community representatives and urban designers andcommunity leadership that is representative of community views institutionalpartnerships (eg between private and non-prot sectors) and decision-makingstructures (eg simulations and games) that lead to enabling urban environ-

40 A Inam

Tab

le1

Ele

men

tsof

mea

nin

gfu

lu

rban

des

ign

Spec

ializ

atio

nsW

ith

com

mun

ityW

ithec

onom

icW

ith

inte

rnat

iona

lan

dre

alm

sU

rban

desi

gnco

rede

velo

pmen

td

evel

opm

ent

deve

lopm

ent

Ped

agog

yTe

leol

ogic

alde

sign

Inte

llige

ntpa

rtic

ipat

ion

Geo

grap

hic

info

rmat

ion

Impa

ctof

fore

ign

aid

Skill

sD

esig

nin

urba

nco

ntex

tsdi

alog

uel

eade

rshi

psy

stem

sur

ban

spat

ial

and

Impa

ctof

inte

rnat

iona

lM

etho

dolo

gies

Des

ign

met

hod

olog

ies

Inst

itut

iona

lan

alys

islo

catio

nal

mod

ellin

gpr

ivat

ein

vest

men

tT

opic

sae

sthe

tics

empi

rica

lIn

stit

utio

nal

part

ners

hips

Em

ploy

men

tge

nera

tion

Tens

ion

betw

een

loca

lC

ours

esev

iden

cec

omm

unity

-bas

edD

ecis

ion-

mak

ing

stra

tegi

esin

proj

ects

and

glob

alpr

essu

res

Com

mun

icat

ions

gra

phic

st

ruct

ures

(eg

Sim

City

)Pr

ogra

mm

es(

eg

job

Cro

ss-c

ultu

ral

lear

ning

verb

alw

ritt

enc

ompu

ter

Ong

oing

expe

rien

ceof

trai

ning

)as

urba

nd

esig

nIn

tern

atio

nalc

olla

bora

tion

Urb

ande

sign

asde

cisi

on-

urba

nd

esig

nen

rich

espr

ojec

tsR

ole

ofin

form

alse

ctor

mak

ing

proc

esse

sex

pres

sion

and

iden

tity

Bac

kwar

dan

dfo

rwar

din

deve

lopi

ngco

untr

yci

ties

Set

ofur

ban

arch

etyp

esA

ctiv

ities

eve

nts

linka

ges

inpr

ojec

tsD

eepe

run

ders

tand

ing

ofan

dco

mbi

nati

ons

prog

ram

mes

and

serv

ices

Inte

grat

ing

reta

ilan

ddi

ffer

ent

cultu

res

and

Evol

ving

city

old

vsn

ewas

part

ofur

ban

des

ign

com

mer

cial

faci

litie

spo

litic

alec

onom

ies

wit

hho

usin

gin

stitu

tion

sSt

reet

revi

taliz

atio

nP

ract

ice

Batt

ery

Park

New

Yor

kTh

eA

rkS

anD

iego

CA

NY

NY

Cas

ino

Las

Veg

asN

MIn

dor

eH

ousi

ngI

ndia

Exam

ples

ofpr

ojec

tsM

useu

mby

Stir

ling

Stut

tgar

tD

oyle

Stre

etC

ohou

sing

CA

Dud

ley

Stre

etB

osto

nM

AO

lym

pic

Proj

ects

Bar

celo

naEx

empl

ary

Parc

And

reC

itro

enP

aris

His

men

Hin

-nu

Terr

ace

CA

Cam

den

Yar

dsB

alti

mor

eM

DR

ebui

ldin

gBe

rlin

prac

titio

ners

Broa

dgat

eII

Lon

don

Ente

rpri

seFo

unda

tion

Rob

ert

Gib

bsA

lvar

Aal

toD

uany

and

Plat

er-Z

yber

kSa

mue

lM

ockb

eeBe

rnar

dG

liebe

rman

Raf

aelM

oneo

Cha

nK

rieg

erA

ssoc

iate

sM

icha

elPy

atok

Skid

mor

eO

win

gsM

erri

llA

lvar

oSi

zaM

acha

doan

dSi

lvet

tiD

oug

Kel

baug

hch

aret

tes

Shop

ping

cent

red

esig

ners

BV

Dos

hiR

esea

rch

The

ory

The

ory

The

ory

The

ory

Cas

eSt

udie

sSe

min

albo

oks

Lync

h(1

981)

Jaco

bs(1

961)

San

derc

ock

Port

er(1

995)

Gar

vin

(199

6)Sa

ssen

(200

0)S

avitc

h(1

998)

K

eyar

ticl

es(1

998)

Sera

geld

in(1

997)

Met

hodo

logy

Cas

eSt

udie

sC

ase

Stud

ies

Cha

lleng

esA

lexa

nder

etal

(19

77)

Schn

eekl

oth

ampSh

ible

y(1

995)

Fr

ied

enamp

Saga

lyn

(198

9)

Gilb

ert

ampG

ugle

r(1

992)

Kru

mho

lzamp

Cla

vel

(199

4)A

ttoe

ampL

ogan

(198

9)H

isto

ryM

etho

dolo

gyK

osto

f(1

991)

Met

hodo

logy

Fram

pton

(199

2)R

owe

(199

7)H

este

r(1

990)

Cha

lleng

esSh

ort

(199

6)

Meaningful Urban Design 41

ments and the soft-programming of urban design (eg incorporation of publicexpression and cultural identity and activities events programmes and servicesintegrated with the built forms)

For the urban designer design communication is inherent in the act of designboth as internal communication in the thinking process and as an externalcommunication with the client user or broader community The people withina given context such as homeowners in a residential neighbourhood or businessowners in a commercial downtown are the agents of change aided by acommunication process that speaks to the formal aspects of their environmentThe better this communication process of design the higher the level of publicawareness and sense of ownership the better the internal decisions of changeThere are conventional public involvement formats such as public hearings citycouncil meetings and planning commission presentations There are also infor-mal meetings workshops and brainstorming sessions One of the most powerfuland effective mechanisms for active and intelligent community participation isthe charette

A charette is a short and intense workshop of a day or at the most a few daysin which the urban design team works with a local community and its socialeconomic or political leaders to arrive at a conceptual and implementationstrategy for a particular project (Kasprisin amp Pettinari 1995) The process usuallybegins with a consortium of local citizens and organizations inviting a team ofprivate (eg an architectural rm) or non-prot (eg the American Institute ofArchitects) urban designers to participate often along with a local task forceThe community and team leaders then prepare for the short intense workshopby arranging for publicity student participation work locations and suppliesThe workshop itself may subsequently consist of meetings with different repre-sentatives site tours open town hall meetings personal interviews with variousstakeholders detailed work sessions in groups a written and graphic report anda presentation of ndings (see Figure 1) In some cases there is a follow-upabout a year later in which the urban designer meets with the community toassess the success of the process and provide additional advice

The effectiveness of this community participation methodology and the oftensurprising results it generates have been well documented by Kelbaugh (1997) ina series of charettes in the Seattle region Similarly the Urban Design Group(1998) provides a series of clear concise and extremely useful communityparticipation forums including innovative mechanisms such as street stalls andinteractive displays carried out in different parts of the UK

The popularity of the computer program SimCity a city building simulatorattests to the possibility of designing urban simulation models with broad publicappeal Whether one is teaching urban processes and structures analysingspecic urban problems or most importantly involving the public in urbandesign and planning processes SimCity displays a vast untapped potential ofurban design games and simulations These examples point to creative engagingand benecial forms of not only community participation but also moresignicantly community development because they increase community aware-ness generate community strategies and suggest modes of community interven-tion in the future of their own environments

Another approach to long-term processes of community development isillustrated by the Hismen Hin-nu Terrace housing project in Oakland CA (Joneset al 1995) With a grant from the City of Oakland the architectural rm of

42 A Inam

Figure 1 Community-based charette for an urban design plan for the commercialrevitalization of Bagley Avenue in Detroit MI

Pyatok and Associates studied development scenarios for housing and neigh-bourhood services on several sites in the city The San Antonio CommunityDevelopment Council serving African American Latino and Native Americanresidents expressed interest in developing affordable housing for families andseniors on one of the sites and joined with the East Bay Asian Local Develop-ment Corporation which serves the Asian American community Pyatok andAssociates organized a series of workshops using participatory modelling kits tohelp over 30 neighbourhood participants to design plans for the site and tounderstand the implications of density

The 92 housing units in the project now not only house families and elderlycitizens with low and very low incomes but also help mend a deterioratingneighbourhood by restoring its main boulevard with housing over shops Familyhousing with a day care centre around quiet courtyards built behind a ground-oor market niches for street vendors and a job training centre all contribute tocommunity development in the neighbourhood A multi-ethnic mix of tenants isdepicted in exterior murals frieze panels decorative tiles and steel entry gatesin the form of a burst of sunshine The art is intended to prove that the USArsquoscultural diversity is a source of energy for creating community rather than asource of conict

Urban Design and Economic Development

Urban design as a catalyst for or as an active component of economic develop-ment involves designing projects that generate employment on a long-termbasis attract investment into deprived areas and increase business and taxrevenues In this context a city is not only a spatial concentration of a largenumber of people but also contains a density of economic activities Urban

Meaningful Urban Design 43

Figure 2 Horton Plaza in San Diego CA has not only generated jobs andsuccessfully attracted customers and tourists but has also helped revive the

surrounding areas

designers can be more effective if they understand and indeed encouragebenecial economic activities through physical projects

The Horton Plaza a highly successful shopping centre in San Diego CAgenerated jobs for local residents when city ofcials utilized their position asinvestors in the project to negotiate for positions (Frieden amp Sagalyn 1989) Themayor of the city turned to the Private Industry Council of San Diego Countya training and placement organization to nd jobs for low-income and unem-ployed San Diegans in Horton Plaza and other city-assisted developmentprojects The council then served as the main employment ofce for HortonPlaza By March 1986 store openings had created nearly 1000 new jobs and thecouncil lled half of them (see Figure 2) Of the people placed by the council70 were minority workers and 60 came from high-unemployment low-in-come neighbourhoods targeted for recruitment

Lower Downtown Denverrsquos most exciting commercial sub-market in recentyears provides one model for the economic reinvestment and revitalization ofother historic commercial districts (Segal 1995) The success of this area is basedon an understanding of fundamental changes in the marketplace and publicpolicies designed to complement market forces and represents an incrementalproject-by-project development approach that urban designers can adopt In1987 the Downtown Denver Partnership a non-prot business leadershiporganization established the Lower Downtown Business Support Ofce toprovide services such as business counselling to develop business plans mar-keting strategies and management expertise leasing referrals to direct prospec-tive tenants to available space and the design and implementation ofpublicprivate layered nancing strategies for individual projects Financialsupport was provided by the city of Denver the state governmentrsquos job trainingofce and corporate and foundation grants

44 A Inam

Figure 3 Outdoor seating for cafes is part of the urban design strategy whichcontributed to the economic revival of a historic area in the Lower Downtown area

of Denver CO

A historic district ordinance contributed to Lower Downtownrsquos success bycreating certainty in the marketplace Small business and entrepreneurial in-vestors were lured to the area by its scale and historic character and theknowledge that it will remain that way (see Figure 3) The cityrsquos investment of$19 million in streetscape improvements including new lighting pavementsand street furniture which was contingent upon the adoption of the historicdistrict ordinance also reinforced private investment in Lower DowntownDistrict stakeholders including developers and property owners are repre-sented on the ve-member design review committee which is now seen asbenecial to the area because of its localized control In 4 years the LowerDowntown area through the various strategies described above has attractedmore than $15 million in new investment 500 jobs and a nearby baseballstadium

Urban designers can learn to design environments that increase revenues bystudying the strategies adopted by the often maligned or overlooked designersof shopping centres gambling casinos and amusement or theme parks All ofthese environments are successful to their owners and operators when theyincrease revenues often in a remarkable manner The US landscape architectRobert Gibbs is one such member of this rare breed (Lagerfeld 1995) Accordingto Gibbs a townrsquos retail planning should begin where a shopping centrersquos doesfar from the selling oors For example it is disadvantageous to locate ashopping centre in a place where commuters have to make a left turn Peopletend to shop on their way to work and they are less likely to stop if it involvesmaking a turn against trafc

Most signicantly shopping centre designers know the average shopper (asthe urban designer should know their clientele and constituencies) and under-stand that most shoppers stroll at about 3ndash4 feet per second thus walking past

Meaningful Urban Design 45

a storefront in about 8 seconds That is how long a shop owner has to attract aconsumerrsquos attention with an arresting window display Downtown merchantsmust adapt to the same 8 second rule but they also have to sell to passingmotorists Sophisticated retailers use a variety of subliminal clues to attractshoppers whether it is a high-priced stationery store implying an upscalelifestyle through a window display of an old wood desk embellished withexpensive writing instruments or a small preciously enclosed display thatjewellers use to suggest high quality and prices to match These are but a fewof the examples of the manner in which shopping centre gambling casino andtheme park designers understand human behaviour and create environmentsthat encourage certain types of behaviour such as consumer spending howeverurban designers can focus on other types of behaviour such as the creation ofexciting neighbourhoods that foster greater social interaction and mutual under-standing amongst different ethnic groups

Urban Design and International Development

Urban design as a catalyst for or as an active component of internationaldevelopment takes the guise of sensitivity to context the generation of cross-cul-tural learning and directly addressing issues which arise out of the continuingphenomenon of economic globalization

A seminal essay which suggests an approach which is sensitive to localcontext without resorting to mimicry and which is contemporary without beinga generic modernism is Frampton (1992a) The contemporary paradox of sensi-tivity to context is that on the one hand the region or locality has to root itselfin the soil of its past forge a regional spirit and display this spiritual andcultural resistance before the modernist personality However in order to fullyparticipate in modern civilization it is necessary at the same time to take partin scientic technical and political rationality something which very oftenrequires the abandonment of major portions of a whole cultural past Thus howcan contemporary urban design celebrate an ancient tradition and return tosources while simultaneously becoming modern and participating in universalcivilization

Drawing upon the work of the French philosopher Paul Ricoeur Frampton(1992b) proposes a process of assimilation and reinterpretation wherein sustain-ing any kind of authentic culture in the future depends upon our capacity togenerate vital forms of authentic culture (eg via urban design) of regionalculture while appropriating alien inuences at the level of both the local and theglobal Alvar Aaltorsquos work is exemplary of such processes especially theSaynatsalo Town Hall in Finland (Inam 1992) The collective memory evoked bythe Saynatsalo Town Hall refers to two fundamental cultural traditions theindigenous largely agrarian one and an alien essentially classical one With itssteps overgrown with grass and weeds its variations of silhouette and itsweathered materials Saynatsalo has the air of an ancient complex of buildingswhich had grown slowly Indeed Aalto had identied this rather unique parti ofa lsquogrowing ruinrsquo in his 1941 essay lsquoArchitecture in Kareliarsquo by suggesting that aldquodilapidated Karielan village is somehow similar in appearance to a Greek ruinwhere also the materialrsquos uniformity is a dominant feature though marblereplaces woodrdquo (cited in Inam 1992 p 63)

46 A Inam

Figure 4 The Council Chamber of Saynatsalo Town Hall Finland which reectsthe power of cross-cultural symbolism

Apart from evoking the memory of indigenous environments Aalto remainedfaithful to the belief that a motif borrowed from a different context andtransplanted with sufcient conviction onto Finnish soil became genuinelyFinnish The Italian Renaissance was for Aalto an inalienable part of his heritageand philosophy of life In his view providing the inhabitants of Saynatsalo witha setting in which they could live much as the inhabitants of 14th-century Siennadid was a natural act When the members of the municipal board of buildinginquired if a small poor community like theirs really needed to build a councilchamber 17 m high especially since the brick was expensive Aalto respondedthat the worldrsquos most beautiful and famous town hall in Sienna had a councilchamber 16 m high and thus he proposed to build the one at Saynatsalo 17 mhigh (see Figure 4) Moreover Aalto explicitly referred to the courtyard as apiazza in spite of the fact that it is domestic both in nature and in scale

A contemporary example of sensitivity to context through a process ofassimilation and reinterpretation is the work of the Portuguese architect AlvaroSiza (Frampton 1992b) Siza has grounded his buildings in the conguration ofa specic topography and in the ne-grained texture of the local fabric To thisend his pieces of the built environment are tight responses to the urban landand marinescape of the Porto region Other important factors are his deferencetowards local material craft work and the subtleties of local light a deferencewhich is sustained without falling into the sentimentality of excluding rationalform and modern technique

The generation of cross-cultural learning arises out of understanding andapplying in a sympathetic and appropriate manner urban design methodolo-gies processes and forms from different cultural contexts (Inam 1997) Aninstance of this would be the woeful history of large-scale low-income housing(ie public housing) projects built by the government in various urban contextsin the USA The governmentrsquos quest to provide no-frills housing (eg built at the

Meaningful Urban Design 47

lowest costs on cheap often undesirable land) combined with the privatesectorrsquos unrelenting demands that public housing be different (eg minimalaccommodations which are overly modest and austere) from the rest of thehousing stock undermined the notion that public housing could also be attract-ive housing and possibly even contribute to the surrounding urban contexts(Bratt 1986)

Henri Cirianirsquos social housing projects in France which are the equivalent ofpublic housing projects in the USA serve as a demonstration of how large-scalelow-income housing projects built by the government can constitute positivecontributions to the urban environment instead of being eyesores La Courdan-gle is a large social housing project (ie 130 apartments 230 parking spaces anda day care centre) outside Paris in Saint Denis (Ciriani 1997) The seven-storeybuilding with its striped cladding and geometric frieze rises above the muddleof neighbouring streets and forms a corner in an otherwise loosely structuredurban space By creating a visually strong plan of geometrical precision theproject inspires a still-life composition device in urban design Transformed intoa picture plane the various free-standing buildings as well as high-rise buildingsthat surround the project integrate into a more harmonious urban setting Thecourtyard side of the building is a pure right-angled gure containing aperfectly dened square space The layering of the facades facilitates the articu-lation of the decreasing volumes contains the apartmentsrsquo balconies and terracesand mediates between the architecture of the building and the urbanity of theneighbourhood In this manner La Courdangle constitutes a low-income hous-ing project that is rich in architectural spaces and detail while helping deneand enhance the urban space around it

The phenomenon of increasing economic globalization is rapidly growing andhas been encouraged at the urban level For example in US cities such as NewYork Los Angeles Houston and Minneapolis where foreign investors havebeen active in buying real estate downtown real estate interestsmdashbrokerscommercial banks real estate consultants and property ownersmdashhave welcomedinternational property investment Throughout the 1980s the infusion of foreigncapital into the buying and selling of existing buildings and the construction ofnew building bolstered commercial property markets by raising rents increasingproperty values and generally expanding business opportunities The interactionof forces operating at various spatial scales especially the urban can beillustrated in a variety of ways the construction of an ofce building for aforeign bank using materials from around the world the dynamics of a majorresearch university whose architecture and urban planning faculty consultlocally as well as internationally and the corporate plan location and contractingstrategies of multinational corporations such as Nike and Coca Cola as theybalance local labour conditions regional locational advantages national marketsand international investment opportunities (Beauregard 1995)

The ongoing phenomenon of globalization suggests some strategies for urbandesigners Urban designers must be able to understand and react to inuencesimpinging on their communities regardless of where those inuences originate(eg World Bank funded housing projects in developing countries) and whichactors are responsible (eg US architectural rms designing ofce complexes inLondon) Furthermore urban designers must develop associations and networksthat extend beyond their spatial reach through collaborative endeavours andthereby provide another mechanism for responding to the multitude of actors

48 A Inam

who shape their communities For example the Indian architect B V Doshiutilized an institution the Vastu-Shilpa Foundation for Studies and Research todevelop an internationally (ie World Bank) funded local (ie in the city Indore)housing project in India Aranya Nagar (Serageldin 1997) The project has beenlargely a success due to the Vastu-Shilpa Foundation which carried out con-siderable research including surveys to understand the physical and economicfactors that determine the size type and density of the housing plots that werespecic to the local context

Relevant

Urban design that is relevant is urban design that is pertinent to matters at hand(eg critical urban issues) and that is based on fundamental human and naturalconditions In this section three such relevant approaches to urban design arehighlighted (1) a history of urban form that analyses the determinant processesand human meanings of form (2) a theory of urban form that is normative andbased on human values and (3) a design methodology of urban form that isempirically based and derived from patterns of human behaviour These threeapproaches are discussed by illustrating them with the work of Spiro Kostof(Kostof 1991) Kevin Lynch (Lynch 1981) and Christopher Alexander (Alexan-der et al 1977) but by no means does this suggest that these are the only suchapproaches in urban design Indeed there exist other relevant approaches tourban design (for example see Rowe 1991) but for the illustrative purposes ofthis paper the three examples mentioned above will sufce

Kostof (1991) studies the phenomenon of city making in a historical perspec-tive to consider how and why cities took the shape they did Amalgams of theliving and the built cities are repositories of cultural meaning Behind thearbitrary twist of a lane or the splendid eccentricity of a new skyscraper on theskyline lies a history of previous urban tenure a heritage of long-establishedsocial conventions a string of often bitter compromises between individualrights and the public will In a series of discussions of urban patterns such as thegrid and the city as diagram Kostof adopts a truly interdisciplinary approach bydrawing upon architecture cultural geography and social history to interpret thehidden order ascribed in these patterns

Urban form is related directly to urban process ie the people forces andinstitutions that bring about urban form (Kostof 1991) and a way to examinethis process is to ask probing research questions which are the basis for trulyunderstanding cities For example who actually designs cities What proceduresdo they go through What are the empowering agencies and laws The legal andeconomic history is an enormous and often overlooked subject It involvesownership of urban land and the land market the exercise of eminent domainwhich is the power of government to take over private property for public usethe institution of legally binding master plans building codes and other regula-tions instruments of funding urban change such as property taxes and bondissues and the administrative and more importantly the power structure ofcities Urban designers need not know all of this information but they do needto realize the importance of it why it is important to know where to turn toobtain it and to consider it in their project designs

Urban process also refers to physical change through time The tendency alltoo often is to see urban form as a nite thing and a complicated object

Meaningful Urban Design 49

However thousands of witting and unwitting acts every day alter a cityrsquos linesin ways that are perceptible only over a certain stretch of time City walls arepulled down and lled in once rational grids are slowly obscured a slashingdiagonal boulevard is run through close-grained residential neighbourhoodsrailroad tracks usurp cemeteries and waterfronts and wars res and highwaysannihilate city cores (Kostof 1991)

As an example let us consider the grid The grid is by far the commonestpattern for planned cities in history and it is universal both geographically andchronologically (Kostof 1991) No better solution recommends itself as a stan-dard scheme for disparate sites or as a means for the equal distribution of landor the easy parcelling and selling of real estate The advantage of straightthrough-streets for defence has been recognized since Aristotle and a rectilinearstreet pattern has also been resorted to in order to keep under watch a restlesspopulation However ubiquitous as the grid has always been it is also muchmisunderstood and often treated as if it were one unmodulated idea thatrequires little discrimination On the contrary the grid is an exceedingly exibleand diverse system of planning and hence its enormous success in urban designand planning About the only thing that all grids have in common is that theirstreet pattern is orthogonal that is the right angle rules and street lines in bothdirections lie parallel to each other

Furthermore the political innocence of the grid in the West is a ction In theearly Greek colonies for example the grid far from being a democratic deviceemployed to assure an equitable allotment of property to all citizens was themeans of perpetuating the privileges of the property-owning class descendentfrom the original settlers and for bolstering a territorial aristocracy The rstsettlers who made the voyage to the site were entitled to equal allocations ofland both inside and outside the city walls These hereditary estates wereinalienable the ruling class strictly discouraged a land market The estates werehuge as much as 25 acres (about 1 hectare) for some families They were thensub-divided by the owner Within the city private land could only be used forhousing Any alienation of land or any agitation for land reform was severelydealt with and could be punishable as for murder (Kostof 1991)

The point is made regularly that grids especially in the USA besides offeringsimplicity in land surveying recording and subsequent ownership transfer alsofavoured a fundamental democracy in property market participation This didnot mean that individual wealth could not appropriate considerable propertybut rather that the basic initial geometry of land parcels bespoke a simpleegalitarianism that invited easy entry into the urban land market The realityhowever is much less admirable The ordinary citizens gained easy access tourban land only at a preliminary phase when cheap rural land was beingurbanized through rapid laying out To the extent that the grid speeded thisprocess and streamlined absentee purchases it may be considered an equalizingsocial device Once the land had been identied with the city however thisadvantage of the initial geometry of land parcels evaporated and even unbuiltlots slipped out of common reach What matters most in the long run is not themystique of the grid geometry then but the luck of rst ownership (Kostof1991)

However for the conventional urban designer a grid is a grid is a grid(Kostof 1991) At best it is a visual theme upon which to play variations he orshe might be concerned with issues like using a true checkerboard design vs

50 A Inam

syncopated block rhythms with cross-axial or other types of emphasis with theplacement of open spaces within the discipline of the grid with the width andhierarchy of streets To Kostof and the meaningful urban designer on the otherhand how and with what intentions the Romans in Britain the builders ofmedieval Wales and Gascony the Spanish in Mexico or the Illinois CentralRailroad Company in the prairies of the Mid-west employed this very samedevice of settlement is the principal substance of a review of orthogonalplanning In fact the grid has accommodated a startling variety of socialstructuresmdashincluding territorial aristocracy in Greek Sicily the agrarianrepublicanism of Thomas Jefferson and the cosmic vision of Joseph Smith inMormon settlements like Salt Lake City Utahmdashand of course capitalist specu-lation

There have been few serious attempts at a comprehensive and normativetheory of urban form Good City Form (Lynch 1981) is an impressive andcourageous attempt by Kevin Lynch as a ldquosystematic effort to state generalrelationships between the form of a place and its valuerdquo (Lynch 1981 p 99)Lynch (1981 p 108) emphasizes ldquothose goals which are as general as possibleand thus do not dictate particular physical solutions and yet whose achievementcan be detected and explicitly linked to physical solutions This is the familiarnotion of performance standards applied at the city scalerdquo Lynch generalizesperformance dimensions which are certain identiable characteristics of citiesdue primarily to their spatial qualities and are measurable scales along whichdifferent groups achieve different positions These performance dimensions arebased on the following thinking

The good city is one in which the continuity of [a] complex ecology ismaintained while progressive change is permitted The fundamentalgood is the continuous development of the individual or the smallgroup and their culture a process of becoming more complex morerichly connected more competent acquiring and realizing new pow-ersmdashintellectual emotional social and physical hellip So that settlement isgood which enhances the continuity of a culture and the survival of itspeople increases a sense of connection in time and space and permitsor spurs individual growth development within continuity via open-ness and connection hellip [a settlement which is] accessible decentralizeddiverse adaptable and tolerant to experiment (Lynch 1981 pp 116ndash117)

In Lynchrsquos theory of good city form there are seven dimensions (Lynch 1981)First is vitality the degree to which an urban form supports the vital func-tions the biological requirements the capabilities of human beings and protectsthe survival of the species (eg adequate throughput of water air food andenergy) Second is sense the degree to which an urban form is clearly perceivedand mentally differentiated as well as structured in time and space and thedegree to which that mental structure connects with the residentsrsquo values andconcepts (eg distinct identity and unconstrained legibility) Third is t thedegree to which urban form matches the pattern and quantity of actionsthat people usually engage in or would like to engage in (eg compatibilitybetween function and form) Fourth is access the ability to reach other peopleactivities resources or places including the quantity and diversity of theelements that can be reached (eg ease of communication and transportation)

Meaningful Urban Design 51

Fifth is control the degree to which the creation of access to use of mainte-nance of and modication to urban spaces and activities are managed by thosewho use work or live in them (eg local power) Sixth is efciency the cost ofcreating and maintaining an urban form (eg less energy-demanding processes)Seventh is justice the way in which urban form costs and benets are dis-tributed among people according to a principle such as intrinsic worth or equity(eg equal protection from environmental hazards such as cars) These dimen-sions are applicable in a wide range of urban contexts because they are derivedfrom fundamental human values and serve as powerful measures of what alsquogoodrsquo urban design project might be

Christopher Alexander (Alexander et al 1977) adopts a problem-solvingapproach to design and explicitly renders the design methodology but moreimportantly describes how a meaningful urban designer might draw directlyfrom empirical evidence (rather than say idiosyncratic impulses) and extensiveresearch as a source of design The book is most useful as a series of thoroughlyanalysed and empirically based guidelines which are broad enough to beadapted to different contexts and architectural styles Each suggested solution isdescribed in a way that provides the key relationships (eg between humanbehaviour and spatial setting) needed to solve the problem but in a generalenough manner to allow for adaptation to particular lifestyles aesthetic tastesand local conditions Each pattern describes a problem which occurs repeatedlyin the built environment archetypal problems of urban form for example Thelongest portion of the description of each pattern describes the empiricalbackground of the pattern the evidence for its validity and the range of differentways the pattern can be manifested or designed

The rst 94 patterns deal with the large-scale structure including the urbanof the environment the growth of city and country the layout of roads andpaths the relationship between work and family the formation of suitablepublic institutions for a neighbourhood and the kinds of public space requiredto support these institutions (Alexander et al 1977) The following two examplesof urban patterns illustrate the value of this design methodology identiableneighbourhood and public outdoor room

According to Alexander et al (1977) and the scientic research they citepeople need an identiable spatial unit to belong to They want to be able toidentify the part of the city where they live as distinct from all others Availableevidence suggests rst that the neighbourhoods which people identify with haveextremely small populations second that they are small in area and third thata major road through a neighbourhood destroys it

What then is the right population for a neighbourhood The neighbourhoodinhabitants should be able to look after their own interests by being able to reachagreement on basic decisions such as about public services and common landand to organize themselves to bring pressure on local governments Anthropo-logical evidence cited by Alexander et al (1977) suggests that a human groupcannot usually co-ordinate itself to reach such decisions if its population is above1500 The experience of organizing community meetings at the local levelsuggests that 500 may be a more realistic gure

As far as the physical diameter is concerned in Philadelphia PA people whowere asked which area they really knew usually limited themselves to a smallarea seldom exceeding the two or three blocks around their house One-quarterof the inhabitants of an area in Milwaukee WI considered a neighbourhood to

52 A Inam

be an area no larger than a block around 300 feet (about 90 metres) One-halfconsidered it to be no more than seven blocks

The rst two features of the neighbourhood small population and small areaare not enough by themselves A neighbourhood can only have a strong identityif it is protected from heavy trafc Research cited by the authors suggests thatthe heavier the trafc in an area the less people think of it as home territory Notonly do residents view the streets with heavy trafc as less personal but theyalso feel the same about the houses along the street ldquoItrsquos not a friendlystreet hellip People are afraid to go out into the street because of the trafc hellip Noisefrom the street intrudes into my homerdquo (cited in Alexander et al 1977 p 83)This study conducted by the University of California at Berkeley found thatwith more than 200 cars per hour the quality of the neighbourhood begins todeteriorate

Therefore the proposed strategy suggests helping people dene the neigh-bourhoods they live in not more than about 300 yards (270 metres) or so acrosswith no more than 500 inhabitants or so and in existing cities encouraging localgroups to organize themselves to form such neighbourhoods and keeping majorroads outside these neighbourhoods While one may disagree with the dimen-sions suggested in this pattern one has to acknowledge that population sizephysical area and trafc ow are critical considerations for the design ofcontemporary neighbourhoods

In the public outdoor room pattern Alexander et al (1977) suggest that thereare very few spots along the streets of modern towns and neighbourhoodswhere people can hang out comfortably for hours at a time Men often seekcorner bars and pubs where they spend hours talking and drinking teenagersespecially boys choose special corners too where they hang around waitingfor their friends Elderly people like a special spot to go to where they canexpect to nd others small children need sandpits mud plants and water toplay with in the open young mothers who go to watch their children oftenuse the childrenrsquos play as a opportunity to meet and talk with other mothersand so on for a variety of groups Because of the diverse and casual natureof these activities they require a space which has a subtle balance of beingdened and yet not too dened so that any activity which is natural to theneighbourhood at any given time can develop freely and yet has something tostart from

What is needed is a framework which is dened just enough so that peoplenaturally tend to stop there and so that curiosity naturally takes people thereand invites them to stay A small open space roofed with columns but withoutwalls at least in part will provide the necessary balance between being open andenclosed Examples of this pattern were built with the assistance of architecturestudents in Cleveland OH on the grounds and on public land surrounding alocal mental health clinic According to staff reports these places changed thelife of the clinic dramatically many more people than usual were drawnoutdoors public talk was more animated and outdoor space that had beendominated by cars became more human In addition in the 12th and 13thcenturies there were many such public structures dotted through the towns andwhich were the scene of auctions open-air meetings and market fairs

Therefore in neighbourhoods and work communities the authors suggestmaking a piece of the common land into an outdoor roommdasha partly enclosedplace with a partial roof columns without walls perhaps with a trellis placing

Meaningful Urban Design 53

Figure 5 A contemporary example of a successful outdoor room which reects theguidelines of the outdoor room patternmdashCitywalk in Los Angeles CA

it beside an important path and within view of houses and workplaces In thisand the other patterns in the book the authors outline an urban designmethodology that is based on archetypal problems (eg public outdoor spaces)analyses of built examples descriptions of historical precedents and the explicitunpacking of design solutions such that they are clear relevant and thoughtful(see Figure 5) The basis for the design patterns was extensive and thoroughresearch carried out over an 8-year period Today there is current and volumin-ous research for example on environment and behaviour (for example seeMoore amp Marans 1997) that is highly relevant and useful for urban designers

Future Directions in Urban Design

Urban designers (eg Beckley 1998) are beginning to question what in fact islsquourbanrsquo in the contemporary environment However few will argue with

54 A Inam

denitions two decades old that are still relevant today a city is a ldquorelativelylarge dense and permanent settlement [or network of settlements] of sociallyheterogeneous individualsrdquo (L Worth cited in Kostof 1991 p 37) and a ldquopoint[or points] of maximum concentration for the power and culture of a com-munityrdquo (L Mumford cited in Kostof 1991 p 37) The urban designerrsquos impera-tive then is to understand cities On the one hand the most enduring featureof the city is its physical build which remains with remarkable persistencegaining increments that are responsive to the most recent economic demand andreective of the latest stylistic vogue but conserving evidence of past urbanculture for present and future generations On the other hand however urbansociety changes more than any other human grouping economic innovationusually comes most rapidly and boldly in cities immigration aims rst at theurban core forcing upon cities the critical role of acculturating refugees frommany countrysides and the winds of intellectual advance blow strong in cities(Vance cited in Kostof 1991)

Based on the new synthesis of ideas proposed in this paper there are threelevels of success of an urban design project These include rst the purelyaesthetically informed notion of urban design as a nished product (eg Does itlook good) The second is the sense of the project as an autonomous object thatfunctions in an affordable convenient and comfortable manner for its users (egDoes it work) The third and new idea is to have the urban design projectgenerate or substantially contribute to socio-economic development processes(eg Does it produce long-term quality of life impacts) In this sense urbandesigners and urban design projects become catalysts for community bettermenteconomic improvement and international understanding

Consequently urban designers should focus more on the lsquourbanrsquo of urbandesign and become less infatuated with the lsquodesignrsquo of urban design Urbandesign must begin with cities how they work and change and what impacts theyhave in creating enabling vs destructive impacts For example urban design hasto be seen within the framework of investment and development policies andas a shaper of those policies Cranersquos (1966) capital web of investment decisionsand Lairsquos (1988) invisible web of laws and norms that guide peoplersquos behaviourAt the same time design and form play a critical role because they are a languageand vocabulary for analysing and intervening in cities

At the most fundamental level all urban design should be responsible forcreating an environment that satises informs and inspires its users (ie thecommunity) This is an urban design that possesses an articulate communicativeprociency Urban design of profound signicance has a poetic quality By themeans of compressing its meanings into a concise formal expression a poeticurban design project draws the mind to a level of perception concealed behindthe conventional presentations of urban form The most effective symbols arethose which while operating within a given set of conventions are imprecisesparse and open-ended in their possible interpretations tending more to themetaphor than the simile Such an approach requires deep cultural understand-ing and social sensitivity

Implications for Education

The pedagogical approach to meaningful urban design will be interdisciplinary(eg examining cities from the perspectives of architects landscape architects

Meaningful Urban Design 55

urban planners policy makers social workers and business interests) teleologi-cal (eg driven by the express purpose of addressing critical urban challengessuch as uncomfortable and unsafe built environments community powerless-ness economic deprivation and fragmented interventions) critical (eg based onin-depth understanding of urban design problems and promises throughanalysis of urban design practice and case studies) and catalytic (eg theformulation of effective urban design strategies that include a focus on urbandesign products such as building complexes and public spaces but also includethe generation of long-term community and economic development processes)

The primary impact on this type of learning for students will be an under-standing of the urban designer as a leader Through an in-depth analysis ofurban issues an interdisciplinary approach to urban problem solving and skillsthat focus not only on issues of urban aesthetics and form but also on purposefulintervention generated by long-term processes students will gain a profoundand empowering understanding of meaningful urban design Students of urbandesign will also gain humility and condence by studying the power structuresof cities (and realizing just how little power urban designers actually have)practising critical thinking and learning to be politically savvy in order toaccomplish their goals A secondary impact on learning for students will be aunique opportunity for them to shape the future direction of urban designthrough readings research discussions case-study analyses and project designsthat will focus on specic urban challenges examine deciencies in currenturban design approaches and projects in addressing those challenges andformulate alternative more meaningful urban design strategies

In order to reach such goals an urban design programme should focus on twomajor sets of skills understanding how cities work and learning to shape citiesUnderstanding cities includes their conception (eg urban theory and form)their evolution (eg history of urban form) their decision-making processes (egurban political economy) and their use and experience (eg urban sociology)Learning to shape cities includes design methods (eg based on empiricalevidence and community participation) and communication skills (eg graphicverbal written and computer-based) The goal of a meaningful urban designpedagogical initiative would be to attract students of the built environment (egarchitects landscape architects and urban planners) who will become sophisti-cated practitioners and inuential leaders of urban design in architectural andplanning rms community organizations public agencies and internationalinstitutions The initiative would thus involve (1) teaching of exploratoryseminars and studios in new urban design methodologies (eg internationalstudios) (2) research into the relevant roles of professionals especially architectsand planners in the urban design of contemporary cities (eg institutionalstructures) and (3) professional work in the form of community outreach andproject analysis (eg evaluating New Urbanism)

In summary a meaningful pedagogical approach to urban design should havethe following characteristics (1) small (ie selective)mdashfocus on key urban designchallenges eg inner city revitalization (2) focused (ie depth)mdashdevelop exper-tise in the urban designurban development nexus (3) distinct (ie cutting-edge)mdashexperiment with new studio formats projects and research eginternational collaboration and cross-cultural learning and (4) existing resources(ie breadth)mdashbuild upon other departments eg social work business naturalresources and environment

56 A Inam

The critical question that guides this meaningful future of urban design issimply So what That is what consequential purpose has been achieved byparticular urban design theories urban design methodologies urban designpractices and urban design practitioners The implication of such probingquestions is that it is far from adequate to consider urban design projects assuccessful if they are only physically appealing or thought-provoking

Conclusion

In conclusion the author would like to return to the provocations that werereferred to at the beginning of this paper While both Rem Koolhaas and MichaelSorkin are emblematic of the image-based architect-driven urban design thatpermeates much of the world and especially the USA they are also contributorsto an urban design strategy that is realistic and contrary to the nostalgia evokedby the New Urbanism and neo-traditional movements Thus for Koolhaas

If there is to be a lsquonew urbanismrsquo it will not be based on the twinfantasies of order and omnipotence hellip but about discovering unnam-able hybrids [as is the case with Los Angeles] hellip Redened urbanismwill not only or mostly be a profession but a way of thinking anideology to accept what exists We were making sand castles Now weswim in the sea that swept them away (Koolhaas 1995 pp 969ndash971)

Koolhaas thus encourages us rst to accept the contemporary urban condition(instead of seeing it through rose-tinted lenses) and second as architects urbandesigners and planners to understand and work with the contemporary urbanforces (instead of imagining a world without cars or highways)

Similarly Sorkin extols us to learn from those urban design projects and urbanenvironments which are successful in terms of the designerrsquos objectives ofattracting people to these environments and the vibrant use of these environ-ments by people Even if the objectives were to differ say in terms of greatersocial interaction and co-operation in a neighbourhood the designers of shop-ping malls gambling casinos and amusement parks at least understand humanbehaviour as it relates to entertainment and consumptionmdashlessons which can beused for other perhaps more noble projects Thus according to Sorkin (1997pp 29ndash31)

Disneyland hellip is foremost a playground of mobility its entertainmentslargely those of pleasured motion And there is something to belearned here It seems undeniable that for all of its depredations all ofits regimentation surveillance and control part of what we experienceas enjoyable at Disneyland is the passage through an environment ofurban density in which both the physical texture and the means ofcirculation are not simply entertaining but stand in invigorating con-trast to the dysfunctional versions back home One extracts fromDisneyland a shred of hope the persuasive example that pedestrianismcoupled with short distance collective transport systems can be bothefcient and fun can thrive in the midst of an environment completelyotherwise constituted and that the space of low sufciently deceler-ated can become the space of exchange

Meaningful Urban Design 57

Figure 6 The design of Disneyland in Los Angeles CAmdashalbeit lsquoarticialrsquo anddesigned to foster consumptionmdashoffers deeper lessons for understanding humanbehaviour and creating exciting environmentsmdashfor say multicultural interac-

tionmdashbased on such understanding

The lsquoshred of hopersquo offered by Disneyland (see Figure 6) is constituted by suchlessons carefully and critically collected from numerous examples of contempor-ary urban design projects and articulatedmdashvia relevant history theory andmethodologymdashinto a meaningful approach to urban design

Acknowledgement

This paper was the second place winner of the 1999 Chicago Institute forArchitecture and Urbanism (CIAU) Award This award administered by theSkidmore Owings amp Merrill Foundation on behalf of the CIAU is for unpub-lished papers and is intended to encourage writing and research on the questionof how architecture infrastructure urban design and planning can contribute toimproving the quality of life of the American city For more information aboutthis award the Foundation can be contacted at somfoundationsomcom

References

Alexander C Ishikawa S Silverstein M Jacobson M Fiksdahl-King I amp Angel S (1977) APattern Language Towns Buildings Construction (New York Oxford University Press)

Attoe W amp Logan D (1989) American Urban Architecture Catalysts in the Design of Cities (BerkeleyUniversity of California Press)

Beauregard R (1995) Theorizing the globalndashlocal connection in P Knox amp P Taylor (Eds) WorldCities in a World System (Cambridge Cambridge University Press)

Beckley R (1998) [Dean Emeritus and Professor of Architecture and Urban Planning College ofArchitecture and Urban Planning University of Michigan] Written interview

Bratt R (1986) Public housing the controversy and the contribution in R Bratt C Hartman amp AMeyerson (Eds) Critical Perspectives in Housing (Philadelphia PA Temple University Press)

Calthorpe P (1993) The Next American Metropolis Ecology Communities and the American Dream (NewYork Princeton Architectural Press)

58 A Inam

Ciriani H (1997) Henri Ciriani (Rockport MA Rockport Publishers)Crane D (1966) Planning and Design in New York A Study of Problems and Processes of its Physical

Environment (New York Institute of Public Administration)Ellin N (1996) Postmodern Urbanism (Cambridge MA Blackwell)Frampton K (1992a) Critical regionalism modern architecture and cultural identityFrampton K (1992b) Modern Architecture A Critical History 3rd edn (London Thames amp Hudson)Frieden B amp Sagalyn L (1989) Downtown Inc How America Rebuilds Cities (Cambridge MA MIT

Press)Garvin A (1996) The American City What Works What Doesnrsquot (New York McGraw-Hill)Gilbert A amp Gugler J (1992) Cities Poverty and Development Urbanization in the Third World 2nd edn

(New York Oxford University Press)Hester R (1990) Community Design Primer (Mendocino CA Ridge Times Press)Inam A (1992) The urban monument symbol memory presence masterrsquos thesis in urban design

Washington University St LouisInam A (1997) Institutions routines and crises post-earthquake housing recovery in Mexico City

and Los Angeles doctoral dissertation in urban planning University of Southern California LosAngeles CA

Jacobs A (1993) Great Streets (Cambridge MA MIT Press)Jacobs J (1961) The Death and Life of Great American Cities (New York Random House)Jones T Pettus W amp Pyatok M (1995) Good Neighbors Affordable Family Housing (New York

McGraw-Hill)Kasprisin R amp Pettinari J (1995) Visual Thinking for Architects and Designers Visualizing Context in

Design (New York Van Nostrand Reinhold)Kelbaugh D (1997) Common Place Toward Neighborhood and Regional Design (Seattle WA University

of Washington Press)Koolhaas R (1995) Small Medium Large Extra Large (Rotterdam 010 Publishers)Kostof S (1991) The City Shaped Urban Patterns and Meanings through History (Boston MA Bulnch

Press)Krumholz N amp Clavel P (1994) Reinventing Cities Equity Planners Tell Their Stories (Philadelphia

Temple University Press)Lagerfeld S (1995) What Main Street can learn from the mall Atlantic Monthly November

pp 110ndash120Lai R T (1988) Law in Urban Design and Planning The Invisible Web (New York Van Nostrand

Reinhold)Loukaitou-Sideris A amp Banerjee T (1998) Urban Design Downtown Poetics and Politics of Form

(Berkeley CA University of California Press)Lynch K (1981) Good City Form (Cambridge MA MIT Press)Moore G amp Marans R (Eds) (1997) Advances in Environment Behavior and Design Toward the

Integration of Theory Methods Research and Utilization (New York Plenum Press)Porter M (1995) The competitive advantage of the inner city Harvard Business Review 73 pp 55ndash71Rowe P (1991) Making a Middle Landscape (Cambridge MA MIT Press)Rowe P (1997) Civic Realism (Cambridge MA MIT Press)Sandercock L (1998) Towards Cosmopolis Planning for Multicultural Cities (Chichester NY John

Wiley)Sassen S (2000) Cities in a World Economy 2nd edn (Thousand Oaks CA Pine Forge Press)Saunders W (1997) Rem Koolhaasrsquos writing on cities poetic perception and gnomic fantasy Journal

of Architectural Education 51 pp 61ndash71Savitch H V (1988) Post-Industrial Cities Politics and Planning in New York Paris and London

(Princeton NJ Princeton University Press)Schneekloth L amp Shibley R (1995) Placemaking The Art and Practice of Building Communities (New

York Wiley)Segal M B (1995) An old commercial district goes from cold to hot Urban Land 54 (11) pp 16ndash18Serageldin I (Ed) (1997) The Architecture of Empowerment People Shelter and Livable Cities (London

Academy Editions)Short J R (1996) The Urban Order An Introduction to Cities Culture and Power (Cambridge MA

Blackwell)Sorkin M (1997) Trafc in Democracy 1997 Raoul Wallenberg Lecture (Ann Arbor MI College of

Architecture and Urban Planning University of Michigan)Urban Design Group (1998) Involving local communities in urban design Urban Design Quarterly 67

pp 15ndash38

38 A Inam

Meaningful Urban Design

There are several critiques of the manner in which urban design is taughtpractised and researched at present The conventional approach to dening theeld of urban design is morphological that is according to the way it isstructured and organized Thus urban design is often regarded as an ambiguouscombination of architecture urban planning landscape architecture and civilengineering This denition puts urban designers at oddsmdashover power andresourcesmdashwith architects planners landscape architects and civil engineers

Another problem with current urban design thought and practice is the sensethat it is architecture only at a larger scale In this school of thought there is fartoo much emphasis on lsquodesignrsquo (eg aesthetics) and not enough of an under-standing of lsquourbanrsquo (eg how cities actually work) The architectural approach tourban design is reected in analysis that is purely conceptual (eg vectors yingoff in all kinds of directions) or too abstract (eg quotations from the latestFrench philosopher in vogue) Attempting to design a city as one designs abuilding is clearly misleading and dangerous because unlike individual build-ings which tend to be objects cities are highly complex large-scale organicentities and contain a bewildering multiplicity of users

Furthermore few contemporary urban designers demonstrate a fundamentalunderstanding of the complex ways in which cities function Especially glaringare a naivety at best an acceptable ignorance and a resistance at worst inunderstanding power structures (ie how and why critical decisions are madeabout the pattern of investment in cities and who makes them) and where urbandesigners t (ie usually marginalized) within such a power structure domi-nated as it is by elected ofcials local bureaucrats and prominent developers

On the basis of a new synthesis of existing ideas (for example see Loukaitou-Sideris 1996) the present author proposes a meaningful approach to urbandesign (ie one that is truly consequential in improving quality of life) thatconsists of being teleological (ie driven by purpose rather than dened bydisciplines) being catalytic (ie generating or contributing to long-term develop-ment processes) and being relevant (ie grounded in rst causes and pertinenthuman values) In this new synthesis urban design is circumscribed primarilyby urban scale and complexity and rests upon an interdisciplinary set of skillsmethodologies and bodies of knowledge

Teleological

In this notion of urban design it is an ongoing process with built form products(eg open spaces blocks streets and neighbourhoods) along the way Primarilyhowever the purpose of urban design is to be a stimulus to other goals whichare more critical to society and to the substantive challenges facing contempor-ary cities These goals and purposes include community development (egempowerment and social integration of marginalized populations) economicdevelopment (eg inner city revitalization) international development (egcross-cultural learning and collaboration) environmental sustainability (egefcient land use) and fecund urban environments (eg neighbourhood safetyrange of urban form choices and interconnected types)

Such an understanding of urban design is teleological that is it is driven bypurpose and not by morphology (ie conventional structures of elds and

Meaningful Urban Design 39

disciplines) Thus the phenomenon of urban sprawl and its attendant problems(eg cost resources and social fragmentation) would be a goal and a challengeinvolving not only design but also economic efciency public policy socialbehaviour cultural understanding and political processes There would be apurpose-driven (rather than discipline-driven) urban design process for increas-ing density in a culture of sprawl that addresses important concerns such asprivacypublicness and a sense of home This would be done for more efcientuse of a scarce resource (ie land) for greater convenience of access and to creategreater and more usable green spaces

In this view the primary purpose of urban design would be the improvementof the fundamental quality of life (ie socio-economic development) rather thanjust the quality of urban form The quality of life is not concerned as much withwhat a built environment looks like as with how a built environment works interms of the community the economy and increasing mutually benecial inter-national exchange For example an urban design project should empower itsusers (ie community development) strengthen the local economy (ie economicdevelopment) and foster international understanding opportunity and exchange(ie international development) Table 1 further articulates these purposes ofteleological urban design and the case studies which follow illustrate theseideas

Specically a teleological urban design would address three critical aspects ofthe urban experience which are the relationships between the city and theeconomy the city and society and the city and power The relationship betweenthe city and the economy considers the economic functioning of the cityincluding the city as a point in the production landscape as well as a site ofinvestment the changing international division of labour and the consequenteffects on the specic urban economies The relationship between the city andsociety focuses on the city as an arena of social interaction the distribution ofsocial groups residential segregation the construction of gender and ethnicidentities and patterns of class formation The relationship between the city andpower is the representation of urban structure and political power and consid-ers the city to be a system of communication a recorder of the distribution ofpower and an arena for the social struggles over the meaning and substance ofthe urban experience

Catalytic

Urban design projects and processes would generate or contribute signicantlyto three types of socio-economic development processesmdashcommunity develop-ment economic development and international developmentmdashwhile simul-taneously enhancing the built environment of cities

Urban Design and Community Development

Urban design as a catalyst for or as an active component of communitydevelopment consists of intelligent community participation in projects facili-tated by dialogue between community representatives and urban designers andcommunity leadership that is representative of community views institutionalpartnerships (eg between private and non-prot sectors) and decision-makingstructures (eg simulations and games) that lead to enabling urban environ-

40 A Inam

Tab

le1

Ele

men

tsof

mea

nin

gfu

lu

rban

des

ign

Spec

ializ

atio

nsW

ith

com

mun

ityW

ithec

onom

icW

ith

inte

rnat

iona

lan

dre

alm

sU

rban

desi

gnco

rede

velo

pmen

td

evel

opm

ent

deve

lopm

ent

Ped

agog

yTe

leol

ogic

alde

sign

Inte

llige

ntpa

rtic

ipat

ion

Geo

grap

hic

info

rmat

ion

Impa

ctof

fore

ign

aid

Skill

sD

esig

nin

urba

nco

ntex

tsdi

alog

uel

eade

rshi

psy

stem

sur

ban

spat

ial

and

Impa

ctof

inte

rnat

iona

lM

etho

dolo

gies

Des

ign

met

hod

olog

ies

Inst

itut

iona

lan

alys

islo

catio

nal

mod

ellin

gpr

ivat

ein

vest

men

tT

opic

sae

sthe

tics

empi

rica

lIn

stit

utio

nal

part

ners

hips

Em

ploy

men

tge

nera

tion

Tens

ion

betw

een

loca

lC

ours

esev

iden

cec

omm

unity

-bas

edD

ecis

ion-

mak

ing

stra

tegi

esin

proj

ects

and

glob

alpr

essu

res

Com

mun

icat

ions

gra

phic

st

ruct

ures

(eg

Sim

City

)Pr

ogra

mm

es(

eg

job

Cro

ss-c

ultu

ral

lear

ning

verb

alw

ritt

enc

ompu

ter

Ong

oing

expe

rien

ceof

trai

ning

)as

urba

nd

esig

nIn

tern

atio

nalc

olla

bora

tion

Urb

ande

sign

asde

cisi

on-

urba

nd

esig

nen

rich

espr

ojec

tsR

ole

ofin

form

alse

ctor

mak

ing

proc

esse

sex

pres

sion

and

iden

tity

Bac

kwar

dan

dfo

rwar

din

deve

lopi

ngco

untr

yci

ties

Set

ofur

ban

arch

etyp

esA

ctiv

ities

eve

nts

linka

ges

inpr

ojec

tsD

eepe

run

ders

tand

ing

ofan

dco

mbi

nati

ons

prog

ram

mes

and

serv

ices

Inte

grat

ing

reta

ilan

ddi

ffer

ent

cultu

res

and

Evol

ving

city

old

vsn

ewas

part

ofur

ban

des

ign

com

mer

cial

faci

litie

spo

litic

alec

onom

ies

wit

hho

usin

gin

stitu

tion

sSt

reet

revi

taliz

atio

nP

ract

ice

Batt

ery

Park

New

Yor

kTh

eA

rkS

anD

iego

CA

NY

NY

Cas

ino

Las

Veg

asN

MIn

dor

eH

ousi

ngI

ndia

Exam

ples

ofpr

ojec

tsM

useu

mby

Stir

ling

Stut

tgar

tD

oyle

Stre

etC

ohou

sing

CA

Dud

ley

Stre

etB

osto

nM

AO

lym

pic

Proj

ects

Bar

celo

naEx

empl

ary

Parc

And

reC

itro

enP

aris

His

men

Hin

-nu

Terr

ace

CA

Cam

den

Yar

dsB

alti

mor

eM

DR

ebui

ldin

gBe

rlin

prac

titio

ners

Broa

dgat

eII

Lon

don

Ente

rpri

seFo

unda

tion

Rob

ert

Gib

bsA

lvar

Aal

toD

uany

and

Plat

er-Z

yber

kSa

mue

lM

ockb

eeBe

rnar

dG

liebe

rman

Raf

aelM

oneo

Cha

nK

rieg

erA

ssoc

iate

sM

icha

elPy

atok

Skid

mor

eO

win

gsM

erri

llA

lvar

oSi

zaM

acha

doan

dSi

lvet

tiD

oug

Kel

baug

hch

aret

tes

Shop

ping

cent

red

esig

ners

BV

Dos

hiR

esea

rch

The

ory

The

ory

The

ory

The

ory

Cas

eSt

udie

sSe

min

albo

oks

Lync

h(1

981)

Jaco

bs(1

961)

San

derc

ock

Port

er(1

995)

Gar

vin

(199

6)Sa

ssen

(200

0)S

avitc

h(1

998)

K

eyar

ticl

es(1

998)

Sera

geld

in(1

997)

Met

hodo

logy

Cas

eSt

udie

sC

ase

Stud

ies

Cha

lleng

esA

lexa

nder

etal

(19

77)

Schn

eekl

oth

ampSh

ible

y(1

995)

Fr

ied

enamp

Saga

lyn

(198

9)

Gilb

ert

ampG

ugle

r(1

992)

Kru

mho

lzamp

Cla

vel

(199

4)A

ttoe

ampL

ogan

(198

9)H

isto

ryM

etho

dolo

gyK

osto

f(1

991)

Met

hodo

logy

Fram

pton

(199

2)R

owe

(199

7)H

este

r(1

990)

Cha

lleng

esSh

ort

(199

6)

Meaningful Urban Design 41

ments and the soft-programming of urban design (eg incorporation of publicexpression and cultural identity and activities events programmes and servicesintegrated with the built forms)

For the urban designer design communication is inherent in the act of designboth as internal communication in the thinking process and as an externalcommunication with the client user or broader community The people withina given context such as homeowners in a residential neighbourhood or businessowners in a commercial downtown are the agents of change aided by acommunication process that speaks to the formal aspects of their environmentThe better this communication process of design the higher the level of publicawareness and sense of ownership the better the internal decisions of changeThere are conventional public involvement formats such as public hearings citycouncil meetings and planning commission presentations There are also infor-mal meetings workshops and brainstorming sessions One of the most powerfuland effective mechanisms for active and intelligent community participation isthe charette

A charette is a short and intense workshop of a day or at the most a few daysin which the urban design team works with a local community and its socialeconomic or political leaders to arrive at a conceptual and implementationstrategy for a particular project (Kasprisin amp Pettinari 1995) The process usuallybegins with a consortium of local citizens and organizations inviting a team ofprivate (eg an architectural rm) or non-prot (eg the American Institute ofArchitects) urban designers to participate often along with a local task forceThe community and team leaders then prepare for the short intense workshopby arranging for publicity student participation work locations and suppliesThe workshop itself may subsequently consist of meetings with different repre-sentatives site tours open town hall meetings personal interviews with variousstakeholders detailed work sessions in groups a written and graphic report anda presentation of ndings (see Figure 1) In some cases there is a follow-upabout a year later in which the urban designer meets with the community toassess the success of the process and provide additional advice

The effectiveness of this community participation methodology and the oftensurprising results it generates have been well documented by Kelbaugh (1997) ina series of charettes in the Seattle region Similarly the Urban Design Group(1998) provides a series of clear concise and extremely useful communityparticipation forums including innovative mechanisms such as street stalls andinteractive displays carried out in different parts of the UK

The popularity of the computer program SimCity a city building simulatorattests to the possibility of designing urban simulation models with broad publicappeal Whether one is teaching urban processes and structures analysingspecic urban problems or most importantly involving the public in urbandesign and planning processes SimCity displays a vast untapped potential ofurban design games and simulations These examples point to creative engagingand benecial forms of not only community participation but also moresignicantly community development because they increase community aware-ness generate community strategies and suggest modes of community interven-tion in the future of their own environments

Another approach to long-term processes of community development isillustrated by the Hismen Hin-nu Terrace housing project in Oakland CA (Joneset al 1995) With a grant from the City of Oakland the architectural rm of

42 A Inam

Figure 1 Community-based charette for an urban design plan for the commercialrevitalization of Bagley Avenue in Detroit MI

Pyatok and Associates studied development scenarios for housing and neigh-bourhood services on several sites in the city The San Antonio CommunityDevelopment Council serving African American Latino and Native Americanresidents expressed interest in developing affordable housing for families andseniors on one of the sites and joined with the East Bay Asian Local Develop-ment Corporation which serves the Asian American community Pyatok andAssociates organized a series of workshops using participatory modelling kits tohelp over 30 neighbourhood participants to design plans for the site and tounderstand the implications of density

The 92 housing units in the project now not only house families and elderlycitizens with low and very low incomes but also help mend a deterioratingneighbourhood by restoring its main boulevard with housing over shops Familyhousing with a day care centre around quiet courtyards built behind a ground-oor market niches for street vendors and a job training centre all contribute tocommunity development in the neighbourhood A multi-ethnic mix of tenants isdepicted in exterior murals frieze panels decorative tiles and steel entry gatesin the form of a burst of sunshine The art is intended to prove that the USArsquoscultural diversity is a source of energy for creating community rather than asource of conict

Urban Design and Economic Development

Urban design as a catalyst for or as an active component of economic develop-ment involves designing projects that generate employment on a long-termbasis attract investment into deprived areas and increase business and taxrevenues In this context a city is not only a spatial concentration of a largenumber of people but also contains a density of economic activities Urban

Meaningful Urban Design 43

Figure 2 Horton Plaza in San Diego CA has not only generated jobs andsuccessfully attracted customers and tourists but has also helped revive the

surrounding areas

designers can be more effective if they understand and indeed encouragebenecial economic activities through physical projects

The Horton Plaza a highly successful shopping centre in San Diego CAgenerated jobs for local residents when city ofcials utilized their position asinvestors in the project to negotiate for positions (Frieden amp Sagalyn 1989) Themayor of the city turned to the Private Industry Council of San Diego Countya training and placement organization to nd jobs for low-income and unem-ployed San Diegans in Horton Plaza and other city-assisted developmentprojects The council then served as the main employment ofce for HortonPlaza By March 1986 store openings had created nearly 1000 new jobs and thecouncil lled half of them (see Figure 2) Of the people placed by the council70 were minority workers and 60 came from high-unemployment low-in-come neighbourhoods targeted for recruitment

Lower Downtown Denverrsquos most exciting commercial sub-market in recentyears provides one model for the economic reinvestment and revitalization ofother historic commercial districts (Segal 1995) The success of this area is basedon an understanding of fundamental changes in the marketplace and publicpolicies designed to complement market forces and represents an incrementalproject-by-project development approach that urban designers can adopt In1987 the Downtown Denver Partnership a non-prot business leadershiporganization established the Lower Downtown Business Support Ofce toprovide services such as business counselling to develop business plans mar-keting strategies and management expertise leasing referrals to direct prospec-tive tenants to available space and the design and implementation ofpublicprivate layered nancing strategies for individual projects Financialsupport was provided by the city of Denver the state governmentrsquos job trainingofce and corporate and foundation grants

44 A Inam

Figure 3 Outdoor seating for cafes is part of the urban design strategy whichcontributed to the economic revival of a historic area in the Lower Downtown area

of Denver CO

A historic district ordinance contributed to Lower Downtownrsquos success bycreating certainty in the marketplace Small business and entrepreneurial in-vestors were lured to the area by its scale and historic character and theknowledge that it will remain that way (see Figure 3) The cityrsquos investment of$19 million in streetscape improvements including new lighting pavementsand street furniture which was contingent upon the adoption of the historicdistrict ordinance also reinforced private investment in Lower DowntownDistrict stakeholders including developers and property owners are repre-sented on the ve-member design review committee which is now seen asbenecial to the area because of its localized control In 4 years the LowerDowntown area through the various strategies described above has attractedmore than $15 million in new investment 500 jobs and a nearby baseballstadium

Urban designers can learn to design environments that increase revenues bystudying the strategies adopted by the often maligned or overlooked designersof shopping centres gambling casinos and amusement or theme parks All ofthese environments are successful to their owners and operators when theyincrease revenues often in a remarkable manner The US landscape architectRobert Gibbs is one such member of this rare breed (Lagerfeld 1995) Accordingto Gibbs a townrsquos retail planning should begin where a shopping centrersquos doesfar from the selling oors For example it is disadvantageous to locate ashopping centre in a place where commuters have to make a left turn Peopletend to shop on their way to work and they are less likely to stop if it involvesmaking a turn against trafc

Most signicantly shopping centre designers know the average shopper (asthe urban designer should know their clientele and constituencies) and under-stand that most shoppers stroll at about 3ndash4 feet per second thus walking past

Meaningful Urban Design 45

a storefront in about 8 seconds That is how long a shop owner has to attract aconsumerrsquos attention with an arresting window display Downtown merchantsmust adapt to the same 8 second rule but they also have to sell to passingmotorists Sophisticated retailers use a variety of subliminal clues to attractshoppers whether it is a high-priced stationery store implying an upscalelifestyle through a window display of an old wood desk embellished withexpensive writing instruments or a small preciously enclosed display thatjewellers use to suggest high quality and prices to match These are but a fewof the examples of the manner in which shopping centre gambling casino andtheme park designers understand human behaviour and create environmentsthat encourage certain types of behaviour such as consumer spending howeverurban designers can focus on other types of behaviour such as the creation ofexciting neighbourhoods that foster greater social interaction and mutual under-standing amongst different ethnic groups

Urban Design and International Development

Urban design as a catalyst for or as an active component of internationaldevelopment takes the guise of sensitivity to context the generation of cross-cul-tural learning and directly addressing issues which arise out of the continuingphenomenon of economic globalization

A seminal essay which suggests an approach which is sensitive to localcontext without resorting to mimicry and which is contemporary without beinga generic modernism is Frampton (1992a) The contemporary paradox of sensi-tivity to context is that on the one hand the region or locality has to root itselfin the soil of its past forge a regional spirit and display this spiritual andcultural resistance before the modernist personality However in order to fullyparticipate in modern civilization it is necessary at the same time to take partin scientic technical and political rationality something which very oftenrequires the abandonment of major portions of a whole cultural past Thus howcan contemporary urban design celebrate an ancient tradition and return tosources while simultaneously becoming modern and participating in universalcivilization

Drawing upon the work of the French philosopher Paul Ricoeur Frampton(1992b) proposes a process of assimilation and reinterpretation wherein sustain-ing any kind of authentic culture in the future depends upon our capacity togenerate vital forms of authentic culture (eg via urban design) of regionalculture while appropriating alien inuences at the level of both the local and theglobal Alvar Aaltorsquos work is exemplary of such processes especially theSaynatsalo Town Hall in Finland (Inam 1992) The collective memory evoked bythe Saynatsalo Town Hall refers to two fundamental cultural traditions theindigenous largely agrarian one and an alien essentially classical one With itssteps overgrown with grass and weeds its variations of silhouette and itsweathered materials Saynatsalo has the air of an ancient complex of buildingswhich had grown slowly Indeed Aalto had identied this rather unique parti ofa lsquogrowing ruinrsquo in his 1941 essay lsquoArchitecture in Kareliarsquo by suggesting that aldquodilapidated Karielan village is somehow similar in appearance to a Greek ruinwhere also the materialrsquos uniformity is a dominant feature though marblereplaces woodrdquo (cited in Inam 1992 p 63)

46 A Inam

Figure 4 The Council Chamber of Saynatsalo Town Hall Finland which reectsthe power of cross-cultural symbolism

Apart from evoking the memory of indigenous environments Aalto remainedfaithful to the belief that a motif borrowed from a different context andtransplanted with sufcient conviction onto Finnish soil became genuinelyFinnish The Italian Renaissance was for Aalto an inalienable part of his heritageand philosophy of life In his view providing the inhabitants of Saynatsalo witha setting in which they could live much as the inhabitants of 14th-century Siennadid was a natural act When the members of the municipal board of buildinginquired if a small poor community like theirs really needed to build a councilchamber 17 m high especially since the brick was expensive Aalto respondedthat the worldrsquos most beautiful and famous town hall in Sienna had a councilchamber 16 m high and thus he proposed to build the one at Saynatsalo 17 mhigh (see Figure 4) Moreover Aalto explicitly referred to the courtyard as apiazza in spite of the fact that it is domestic both in nature and in scale

A contemporary example of sensitivity to context through a process ofassimilation and reinterpretation is the work of the Portuguese architect AlvaroSiza (Frampton 1992b) Siza has grounded his buildings in the conguration ofa specic topography and in the ne-grained texture of the local fabric To thisend his pieces of the built environment are tight responses to the urban landand marinescape of the Porto region Other important factors are his deferencetowards local material craft work and the subtleties of local light a deferencewhich is sustained without falling into the sentimentality of excluding rationalform and modern technique

The generation of cross-cultural learning arises out of understanding andapplying in a sympathetic and appropriate manner urban design methodolo-gies processes and forms from different cultural contexts (Inam 1997) Aninstance of this would be the woeful history of large-scale low-income housing(ie public housing) projects built by the government in various urban contextsin the USA The governmentrsquos quest to provide no-frills housing (eg built at the

Meaningful Urban Design 47

lowest costs on cheap often undesirable land) combined with the privatesectorrsquos unrelenting demands that public housing be different (eg minimalaccommodations which are overly modest and austere) from the rest of thehousing stock undermined the notion that public housing could also be attract-ive housing and possibly even contribute to the surrounding urban contexts(Bratt 1986)

Henri Cirianirsquos social housing projects in France which are the equivalent ofpublic housing projects in the USA serve as a demonstration of how large-scalelow-income housing projects built by the government can constitute positivecontributions to the urban environment instead of being eyesores La Courdan-gle is a large social housing project (ie 130 apartments 230 parking spaces anda day care centre) outside Paris in Saint Denis (Ciriani 1997) The seven-storeybuilding with its striped cladding and geometric frieze rises above the muddleof neighbouring streets and forms a corner in an otherwise loosely structuredurban space By creating a visually strong plan of geometrical precision theproject inspires a still-life composition device in urban design Transformed intoa picture plane the various free-standing buildings as well as high-rise buildingsthat surround the project integrate into a more harmonious urban setting Thecourtyard side of the building is a pure right-angled gure containing aperfectly dened square space The layering of the facades facilitates the articu-lation of the decreasing volumes contains the apartmentsrsquo balconies and terracesand mediates between the architecture of the building and the urbanity of theneighbourhood In this manner La Courdangle constitutes a low-income hous-ing project that is rich in architectural spaces and detail while helping deneand enhance the urban space around it

The phenomenon of increasing economic globalization is rapidly growing andhas been encouraged at the urban level For example in US cities such as NewYork Los Angeles Houston and Minneapolis where foreign investors havebeen active in buying real estate downtown real estate interestsmdashbrokerscommercial banks real estate consultants and property ownersmdashhave welcomedinternational property investment Throughout the 1980s the infusion of foreigncapital into the buying and selling of existing buildings and the construction ofnew building bolstered commercial property markets by raising rents increasingproperty values and generally expanding business opportunities The interactionof forces operating at various spatial scales especially the urban can beillustrated in a variety of ways the construction of an ofce building for aforeign bank using materials from around the world the dynamics of a majorresearch university whose architecture and urban planning faculty consultlocally as well as internationally and the corporate plan location and contractingstrategies of multinational corporations such as Nike and Coca Cola as theybalance local labour conditions regional locational advantages national marketsand international investment opportunities (Beauregard 1995)

The ongoing phenomenon of globalization suggests some strategies for urbandesigners Urban designers must be able to understand and react to inuencesimpinging on their communities regardless of where those inuences originate(eg World Bank funded housing projects in developing countries) and whichactors are responsible (eg US architectural rms designing ofce complexes inLondon) Furthermore urban designers must develop associations and networksthat extend beyond their spatial reach through collaborative endeavours andthereby provide another mechanism for responding to the multitude of actors

48 A Inam

who shape their communities For example the Indian architect B V Doshiutilized an institution the Vastu-Shilpa Foundation for Studies and Research todevelop an internationally (ie World Bank) funded local (ie in the city Indore)housing project in India Aranya Nagar (Serageldin 1997) The project has beenlargely a success due to the Vastu-Shilpa Foundation which carried out con-siderable research including surveys to understand the physical and economicfactors that determine the size type and density of the housing plots that werespecic to the local context

Relevant

Urban design that is relevant is urban design that is pertinent to matters at hand(eg critical urban issues) and that is based on fundamental human and naturalconditions In this section three such relevant approaches to urban design arehighlighted (1) a history of urban form that analyses the determinant processesand human meanings of form (2) a theory of urban form that is normative andbased on human values and (3) a design methodology of urban form that isempirically based and derived from patterns of human behaviour These threeapproaches are discussed by illustrating them with the work of Spiro Kostof(Kostof 1991) Kevin Lynch (Lynch 1981) and Christopher Alexander (Alexan-der et al 1977) but by no means does this suggest that these are the only suchapproaches in urban design Indeed there exist other relevant approaches tourban design (for example see Rowe 1991) but for the illustrative purposes ofthis paper the three examples mentioned above will sufce

Kostof (1991) studies the phenomenon of city making in a historical perspec-tive to consider how and why cities took the shape they did Amalgams of theliving and the built cities are repositories of cultural meaning Behind thearbitrary twist of a lane or the splendid eccentricity of a new skyscraper on theskyline lies a history of previous urban tenure a heritage of long-establishedsocial conventions a string of often bitter compromises between individualrights and the public will In a series of discussions of urban patterns such as thegrid and the city as diagram Kostof adopts a truly interdisciplinary approach bydrawing upon architecture cultural geography and social history to interpret thehidden order ascribed in these patterns

Urban form is related directly to urban process ie the people forces andinstitutions that bring about urban form (Kostof 1991) and a way to examinethis process is to ask probing research questions which are the basis for trulyunderstanding cities For example who actually designs cities What proceduresdo they go through What are the empowering agencies and laws The legal andeconomic history is an enormous and often overlooked subject It involvesownership of urban land and the land market the exercise of eminent domainwhich is the power of government to take over private property for public usethe institution of legally binding master plans building codes and other regula-tions instruments of funding urban change such as property taxes and bondissues and the administrative and more importantly the power structure ofcities Urban designers need not know all of this information but they do needto realize the importance of it why it is important to know where to turn toobtain it and to consider it in their project designs

Urban process also refers to physical change through time The tendency alltoo often is to see urban form as a nite thing and a complicated object

Meaningful Urban Design 49

However thousands of witting and unwitting acts every day alter a cityrsquos linesin ways that are perceptible only over a certain stretch of time City walls arepulled down and lled in once rational grids are slowly obscured a slashingdiagonal boulevard is run through close-grained residential neighbourhoodsrailroad tracks usurp cemeteries and waterfronts and wars res and highwaysannihilate city cores (Kostof 1991)

As an example let us consider the grid The grid is by far the commonestpattern for planned cities in history and it is universal both geographically andchronologically (Kostof 1991) No better solution recommends itself as a stan-dard scheme for disparate sites or as a means for the equal distribution of landor the easy parcelling and selling of real estate The advantage of straightthrough-streets for defence has been recognized since Aristotle and a rectilinearstreet pattern has also been resorted to in order to keep under watch a restlesspopulation However ubiquitous as the grid has always been it is also muchmisunderstood and often treated as if it were one unmodulated idea thatrequires little discrimination On the contrary the grid is an exceedingly exibleand diverse system of planning and hence its enormous success in urban designand planning About the only thing that all grids have in common is that theirstreet pattern is orthogonal that is the right angle rules and street lines in bothdirections lie parallel to each other

Furthermore the political innocence of the grid in the West is a ction In theearly Greek colonies for example the grid far from being a democratic deviceemployed to assure an equitable allotment of property to all citizens was themeans of perpetuating the privileges of the property-owning class descendentfrom the original settlers and for bolstering a territorial aristocracy The rstsettlers who made the voyage to the site were entitled to equal allocations ofland both inside and outside the city walls These hereditary estates wereinalienable the ruling class strictly discouraged a land market The estates werehuge as much as 25 acres (about 1 hectare) for some families They were thensub-divided by the owner Within the city private land could only be used forhousing Any alienation of land or any agitation for land reform was severelydealt with and could be punishable as for murder (Kostof 1991)

The point is made regularly that grids especially in the USA besides offeringsimplicity in land surveying recording and subsequent ownership transfer alsofavoured a fundamental democracy in property market participation This didnot mean that individual wealth could not appropriate considerable propertybut rather that the basic initial geometry of land parcels bespoke a simpleegalitarianism that invited easy entry into the urban land market The realityhowever is much less admirable The ordinary citizens gained easy access tourban land only at a preliminary phase when cheap rural land was beingurbanized through rapid laying out To the extent that the grid speeded thisprocess and streamlined absentee purchases it may be considered an equalizingsocial device Once the land had been identied with the city however thisadvantage of the initial geometry of land parcels evaporated and even unbuiltlots slipped out of common reach What matters most in the long run is not themystique of the grid geometry then but the luck of rst ownership (Kostof1991)

However for the conventional urban designer a grid is a grid is a grid(Kostof 1991) At best it is a visual theme upon which to play variations he orshe might be concerned with issues like using a true checkerboard design vs

50 A Inam

syncopated block rhythms with cross-axial or other types of emphasis with theplacement of open spaces within the discipline of the grid with the width andhierarchy of streets To Kostof and the meaningful urban designer on the otherhand how and with what intentions the Romans in Britain the builders ofmedieval Wales and Gascony the Spanish in Mexico or the Illinois CentralRailroad Company in the prairies of the Mid-west employed this very samedevice of settlement is the principal substance of a review of orthogonalplanning In fact the grid has accommodated a startling variety of socialstructuresmdashincluding territorial aristocracy in Greek Sicily the agrarianrepublicanism of Thomas Jefferson and the cosmic vision of Joseph Smith inMormon settlements like Salt Lake City Utahmdashand of course capitalist specu-lation

There have been few serious attempts at a comprehensive and normativetheory of urban form Good City Form (Lynch 1981) is an impressive andcourageous attempt by Kevin Lynch as a ldquosystematic effort to state generalrelationships between the form of a place and its valuerdquo (Lynch 1981 p 99)Lynch (1981 p 108) emphasizes ldquothose goals which are as general as possibleand thus do not dictate particular physical solutions and yet whose achievementcan be detected and explicitly linked to physical solutions This is the familiarnotion of performance standards applied at the city scalerdquo Lynch generalizesperformance dimensions which are certain identiable characteristics of citiesdue primarily to their spatial qualities and are measurable scales along whichdifferent groups achieve different positions These performance dimensions arebased on the following thinking

The good city is one in which the continuity of [a] complex ecology ismaintained while progressive change is permitted The fundamentalgood is the continuous development of the individual or the smallgroup and their culture a process of becoming more complex morerichly connected more competent acquiring and realizing new pow-ersmdashintellectual emotional social and physical hellip So that settlement isgood which enhances the continuity of a culture and the survival of itspeople increases a sense of connection in time and space and permitsor spurs individual growth development within continuity via open-ness and connection hellip [a settlement which is] accessible decentralizeddiverse adaptable and tolerant to experiment (Lynch 1981 pp 116ndash117)

In Lynchrsquos theory of good city form there are seven dimensions (Lynch 1981)First is vitality the degree to which an urban form supports the vital func-tions the biological requirements the capabilities of human beings and protectsthe survival of the species (eg adequate throughput of water air food andenergy) Second is sense the degree to which an urban form is clearly perceivedand mentally differentiated as well as structured in time and space and thedegree to which that mental structure connects with the residentsrsquo values andconcepts (eg distinct identity and unconstrained legibility) Third is t thedegree to which urban form matches the pattern and quantity of actionsthat people usually engage in or would like to engage in (eg compatibilitybetween function and form) Fourth is access the ability to reach other peopleactivities resources or places including the quantity and diversity of theelements that can be reached (eg ease of communication and transportation)

Meaningful Urban Design 51

Fifth is control the degree to which the creation of access to use of mainte-nance of and modication to urban spaces and activities are managed by thosewho use work or live in them (eg local power) Sixth is efciency the cost ofcreating and maintaining an urban form (eg less energy-demanding processes)Seventh is justice the way in which urban form costs and benets are dis-tributed among people according to a principle such as intrinsic worth or equity(eg equal protection from environmental hazards such as cars) These dimen-sions are applicable in a wide range of urban contexts because they are derivedfrom fundamental human values and serve as powerful measures of what alsquogoodrsquo urban design project might be

Christopher Alexander (Alexander et al 1977) adopts a problem-solvingapproach to design and explicitly renders the design methodology but moreimportantly describes how a meaningful urban designer might draw directlyfrom empirical evidence (rather than say idiosyncratic impulses) and extensiveresearch as a source of design The book is most useful as a series of thoroughlyanalysed and empirically based guidelines which are broad enough to beadapted to different contexts and architectural styles Each suggested solution isdescribed in a way that provides the key relationships (eg between humanbehaviour and spatial setting) needed to solve the problem but in a generalenough manner to allow for adaptation to particular lifestyles aesthetic tastesand local conditions Each pattern describes a problem which occurs repeatedlyin the built environment archetypal problems of urban form for example Thelongest portion of the description of each pattern describes the empiricalbackground of the pattern the evidence for its validity and the range of differentways the pattern can be manifested or designed

The rst 94 patterns deal with the large-scale structure including the urbanof the environment the growth of city and country the layout of roads andpaths the relationship between work and family the formation of suitablepublic institutions for a neighbourhood and the kinds of public space requiredto support these institutions (Alexander et al 1977) The following two examplesof urban patterns illustrate the value of this design methodology identiableneighbourhood and public outdoor room

According to Alexander et al (1977) and the scientic research they citepeople need an identiable spatial unit to belong to They want to be able toidentify the part of the city where they live as distinct from all others Availableevidence suggests rst that the neighbourhoods which people identify with haveextremely small populations second that they are small in area and third thata major road through a neighbourhood destroys it

What then is the right population for a neighbourhood The neighbourhoodinhabitants should be able to look after their own interests by being able to reachagreement on basic decisions such as about public services and common landand to organize themselves to bring pressure on local governments Anthropo-logical evidence cited by Alexander et al (1977) suggests that a human groupcannot usually co-ordinate itself to reach such decisions if its population is above1500 The experience of organizing community meetings at the local levelsuggests that 500 may be a more realistic gure

As far as the physical diameter is concerned in Philadelphia PA people whowere asked which area they really knew usually limited themselves to a smallarea seldom exceeding the two or three blocks around their house One-quarterof the inhabitants of an area in Milwaukee WI considered a neighbourhood to

52 A Inam

be an area no larger than a block around 300 feet (about 90 metres) One-halfconsidered it to be no more than seven blocks

The rst two features of the neighbourhood small population and small areaare not enough by themselves A neighbourhood can only have a strong identityif it is protected from heavy trafc Research cited by the authors suggests thatthe heavier the trafc in an area the less people think of it as home territory Notonly do residents view the streets with heavy trafc as less personal but theyalso feel the same about the houses along the street ldquoItrsquos not a friendlystreet hellip People are afraid to go out into the street because of the trafc hellip Noisefrom the street intrudes into my homerdquo (cited in Alexander et al 1977 p 83)This study conducted by the University of California at Berkeley found thatwith more than 200 cars per hour the quality of the neighbourhood begins todeteriorate

Therefore the proposed strategy suggests helping people dene the neigh-bourhoods they live in not more than about 300 yards (270 metres) or so acrosswith no more than 500 inhabitants or so and in existing cities encouraging localgroups to organize themselves to form such neighbourhoods and keeping majorroads outside these neighbourhoods While one may disagree with the dimen-sions suggested in this pattern one has to acknowledge that population sizephysical area and trafc ow are critical considerations for the design ofcontemporary neighbourhoods

In the public outdoor room pattern Alexander et al (1977) suggest that thereare very few spots along the streets of modern towns and neighbourhoodswhere people can hang out comfortably for hours at a time Men often seekcorner bars and pubs where they spend hours talking and drinking teenagersespecially boys choose special corners too where they hang around waitingfor their friends Elderly people like a special spot to go to where they canexpect to nd others small children need sandpits mud plants and water toplay with in the open young mothers who go to watch their children oftenuse the childrenrsquos play as a opportunity to meet and talk with other mothersand so on for a variety of groups Because of the diverse and casual natureof these activities they require a space which has a subtle balance of beingdened and yet not too dened so that any activity which is natural to theneighbourhood at any given time can develop freely and yet has something tostart from

What is needed is a framework which is dened just enough so that peoplenaturally tend to stop there and so that curiosity naturally takes people thereand invites them to stay A small open space roofed with columns but withoutwalls at least in part will provide the necessary balance between being open andenclosed Examples of this pattern were built with the assistance of architecturestudents in Cleveland OH on the grounds and on public land surrounding alocal mental health clinic According to staff reports these places changed thelife of the clinic dramatically many more people than usual were drawnoutdoors public talk was more animated and outdoor space that had beendominated by cars became more human In addition in the 12th and 13thcenturies there were many such public structures dotted through the towns andwhich were the scene of auctions open-air meetings and market fairs

Therefore in neighbourhoods and work communities the authors suggestmaking a piece of the common land into an outdoor roommdasha partly enclosedplace with a partial roof columns without walls perhaps with a trellis placing

Meaningful Urban Design 53

Figure 5 A contemporary example of a successful outdoor room which reects theguidelines of the outdoor room patternmdashCitywalk in Los Angeles CA

it beside an important path and within view of houses and workplaces In thisand the other patterns in the book the authors outline an urban designmethodology that is based on archetypal problems (eg public outdoor spaces)analyses of built examples descriptions of historical precedents and the explicitunpacking of design solutions such that they are clear relevant and thoughtful(see Figure 5) The basis for the design patterns was extensive and thoroughresearch carried out over an 8-year period Today there is current and volumin-ous research for example on environment and behaviour (for example seeMoore amp Marans 1997) that is highly relevant and useful for urban designers

Future Directions in Urban Design

Urban designers (eg Beckley 1998) are beginning to question what in fact islsquourbanrsquo in the contemporary environment However few will argue with

54 A Inam

denitions two decades old that are still relevant today a city is a ldquorelativelylarge dense and permanent settlement [or network of settlements] of sociallyheterogeneous individualsrdquo (L Worth cited in Kostof 1991 p 37) and a ldquopoint[or points] of maximum concentration for the power and culture of a com-munityrdquo (L Mumford cited in Kostof 1991 p 37) The urban designerrsquos impera-tive then is to understand cities On the one hand the most enduring featureof the city is its physical build which remains with remarkable persistencegaining increments that are responsive to the most recent economic demand andreective of the latest stylistic vogue but conserving evidence of past urbanculture for present and future generations On the other hand however urbansociety changes more than any other human grouping economic innovationusually comes most rapidly and boldly in cities immigration aims rst at theurban core forcing upon cities the critical role of acculturating refugees frommany countrysides and the winds of intellectual advance blow strong in cities(Vance cited in Kostof 1991)

Based on the new synthesis of ideas proposed in this paper there are threelevels of success of an urban design project These include rst the purelyaesthetically informed notion of urban design as a nished product (eg Does itlook good) The second is the sense of the project as an autonomous object thatfunctions in an affordable convenient and comfortable manner for its users (egDoes it work) The third and new idea is to have the urban design projectgenerate or substantially contribute to socio-economic development processes(eg Does it produce long-term quality of life impacts) In this sense urbandesigners and urban design projects become catalysts for community bettermenteconomic improvement and international understanding

Consequently urban designers should focus more on the lsquourbanrsquo of urbandesign and become less infatuated with the lsquodesignrsquo of urban design Urbandesign must begin with cities how they work and change and what impacts theyhave in creating enabling vs destructive impacts For example urban design hasto be seen within the framework of investment and development policies andas a shaper of those policies Cranersquos (1966) capital web of investment decisionsand Lairsquos (1988) invisible web of laws and norms that guide peoplersquos behaviourAt the same time design and form play a critical role because they are a languageand vocabulary for analysing and intervening in cities

At the most fundamental level all urban design should be responsible forcreating an environment that satises informs and inspires its users (ie thecommunity) This is an urban design that possesses an articulate communicativeprociency Urban design of profound signicance has a poetic quality By themeans of compressing its meanings into a concise formal expression a poeticurban design project draws the mind to a level of perception concealed behindthe conventional presentations of urban form The most effective symbols arethose which while operating within a given set of conventions are imprecisesparse and open-ended in their possible interpretations tending more to themetaphor than the simile Such an approach requires deep cultural understand-ing and social sensitivity

Implications for Education

The pedagogical approach to meaningful urban design will be interdisciplinary(eg examining cities from the perspectives of architects landscape architects

Meaningful Urban Design 55

urban planners policy makers social workers and business interests) teleologi-cal (eg driven by the express purpose of addressing critical urban challengessuch as uncomfortable and unsafe built environments community powerless-ness economic deprivation and fragmented interventions) critical (eg based onin-depth understanding of urban design problems and promises throughanalysis of urban design practice and case studies) and catalytic (eg theformulation of effective urban design strategies that include a focus on urbandesign products such as building complexes and public spaces but also includethe generation of long-term community and economic development processes)

The primary impact on this type of learning for students will be an under-standing of the urban designer as a leader Through an in-depth analysis ofurban issues an interdisciplinary approach to urban problem solving and skillsthat focus not only on issues of urban aesthetics and form but also on purposefulintervention generated by long-term processes students will gain a profoundand empowering understanding of meaningful urban design Students of urbandesign will also gain humility and condence by studying the power structuresof cities (and realizing just how little power urban designers actually have)practising critical thinking and learning to be politically savvy in order toaccomplish their goals A secondary impact on learning for students will be aunique opportunity for them to shape the future direction of urban designthrough readings research discussions case-study analyses and project designsthat will focus on specic urban challenges examine deciencies in currenturban design approaches and projects in addressing those challenges andformulate alternative more meaningful urban design strategies

In order to reach such goals an urban design programme should focus on twomajor sets of skills understanding how cities work and learning to shape citiesUnderstanding cities includes their conception (eg urban theory and form)their evolution (eg history of urban form) their decision-making processes (egurban political economy) and their use and experience (eg urban sociology)Learning to shape cities includes design methods (eg based on empiricalevidence and community participation) and communication skills (eg graphicverbal written and computer-based) The goal of a meaningful urban designpedagogical initiative would be to attract students of the built environment (egarchitects landscape architects and urban planners) who will become sophisti-cated practitioners and inuential leaders of urban design in architectural andplanning rms community organizations public agencies and internationalinstitutions The initiative would thus involve (1) teaching of exploratoryseminars and studios in new urban design methodologies (eg internationalstudios) (2) research into the relevant roles of professionals especially architectsand planners in the urban design of contemporary cities (eg institutionalstructures) and (3) professional work in the form of community outreach andproject analysis (eg evaluating New Urbanism)

In summary a meaningful pedagogical approach to urban design should havethe following characteristics (1) small (ie selective)mdashfocus on key urban designchallenges eg inner city revitalization (2) focused (ie depth)mdashdevelop exper-tise in the urban designurban development nexus (3) distinct (ie cutting-edge)mdashexperiment with new studio formats projects and research eginternational collaboration and cross-cultural learning and (4) existing resources(ie breadth)mdashbuild upon other departments eg social work business naturalresources and environment

56 A Inam

The critical question that guides this meaningful future of urban design issimply So what That is what consequential purpose has been achieved byparticular urban design theories urban design methodologies urban designpractices and urban design practitioners The implication of such probingquestions is that it is far from adequate to consider urban design projects assuccessful if they are only physically appealing or thought-provoking

Conclusion

In conclusion the author would like to return to the provocations that werereferred to at the beginning of this paper While both Rem Koolhaas and MichaelSorkin are emblematic of the image-based architect-driven urban design thatpermeates much of the world and especially the USA they are also contributorsto an urban design strategy that is realistic and contrary to the nostalgia evokedby the New Urbanism and neo-traditional movements Thus for Koolhaas

If there is to be a lsquonew urbanismrsquo it will not be based on the twinfantasies of order and omnipotence hellip but about discovering unnam-able hybrids [as is the case with Los Angeles] hellip Redened urbanismwill not only or mostly be a profession but a way of thinking anideology to accept what exists We were making sand castles Now weswim in the sea that swept them away (Koolhaas 1995 pp 969ndash971)

Koolhaas thus encourages us rst to accept the contemporary urban condition(instead of seeing it through rose-tinted lenses) and second as architects urbandesigners and planners to understand and work with the contemporary urbanforces (instead of imagining a world without cars or highways)

Similarly Sorkin extols us to learn from those urban design projects and urbanenvironments which are successful in terms of the designerrsquos objectives ofattracting people to these environments and the vibrant use of these environ-ments by people Even if the objectives were to differ say in terms of greatersocial interaction and co-operation in a neighbourhood the designers of shop-ping malls gambling casinos and amusement parks at least understand humanbehaviour as it relates to entertainment and consumptionmdashlessons which can beused for other perhaps more noble projects Thus according to Sorkin (1997pp 29ndash31)

Disneyland hellip is foremost a playground of mobility its entertainmentslargely those of pleasured motion And there is something to belearned here It seems undeniable that for all of its depredations all ofits regimentation surveillance and control part of what we experienceas enjoyable at Disneyland is the passage through an environment ofurban density in which both the physical texture and the means ofcirculation are not simply entertaining but stand in invigorating con-trast to the dysfunctional versions back home One extracts fromDisneyland a shred of hope the persuasive example that pedestrianismcoupled with short distance collective transport systems can be bothefcient and fun can thrive in the midst of an environment completelyotherwise constituted and that the space of low sufciently deceler-ated can become the space of exchange

Meaningful Urban Design 57

Figure 6 The design of Disneyland in Los Angeles CAmdashalbeit lsquoarticialrsquo anddesigned to foster consumptionmdashoffers deeper lessons for understanding humanbehaviour and creating exciting environmentsmdashfor say multicultural interac-

tionmdashbased on such understanding

The lsquoshred of hopersquo offered by Disneyland (see Figure 6) is constituted by suchlessons carefully and critically collected from numerous examples of contempor-ary urban design projects and articulatedmdashvia relevant history theory andmethodologymdashinto a meaningful approach to urban design

Acknowledgement

This paper was the second place winner of the 1999 Chicago Institute forArchitecture and Urbanism (CIAU) Award This award administered by theSkidmore Owings amp Merrill Foundation on behalf of the CIAU is for unpub-lished papers and is intended to encourage writing and research on the questionof how architecture infrastructure urban design and planning can contribute toimproving the quality of life of the American city For more information aboutthis award the Foundation can be contacted at somfoundationsomcom

References

Alexander C Ishikawa S Silverstein M Jacobson M Fiksdahl-King I amp Angel S (1977) APattern Language Towns Buildings Construction (New York Oxford University Press)

Attoe W amp Logan D (1989) American Urban Architecture Catalysts in the Design of Cities (BerkeleyUniversity of California Press)

Beauregard R (1995) Theorizing the globalndashlocal connection in P Knox amp P Taylor (Eds) WorldCities in a World System (Cambridge Cambridge University Press)

Beckley R (1998) [Dean Emeritus and Professor of Architecture and Urban Planning College ofArchitecture and Urban Planning University of Michigan] Written interview

Bratt R (1986) Public housing the controversy and the contribution in R Bratt C Hartman amp AMeyerson (Eds) Critical Perspectives in Housing (Philadelphia PA Temple University Press)

Calthorpe P (1993) The Next American Metropolis Ecology Communities and the American Dream (NewYork Princeton Architectural Press)

58 A Inam

Ciriani H (1997) Henri Ciriani (Rockport MA Rockport Publishers)Crane D (1966) Planning and Design in New York A Study of Problems and Processes of its Physical

Environment (New York Institute of Public Administration)Ellin N (1996) Postmodern Urbanism (Cambridge MA Blackwell)Frampton K (1992a) Critical regionalism modern architecture and cultural identityFrampton K (1992b) Modern Architecture A Critical History 3rd edn (London Thames amp Hudson)Frieden B amp Sagalyn L (1989) Downtown Inc How America Rebuilds Cities (Cambridge MA MIT

Press)Garvin A (1996) The American City What Works What Doesnrsquot (New York McGraw-Hill)Gilbert A amp Gugler J (1992) Cities Poverty and Development Urbanization in the Third World 2nd edn

(New York Oxford University Press)Hester R (1990) Community Design Primer (Mendocino CA Ridge Times Press)Inam A (1992) The urban monument symbol memory presence masterrsquos thesis in urban design

Washington University St LouisInam A (1997) Institutions routines and crises post-earthquake housing recovery in Mexico City

and Los Angeles doctoral dissertation in urban planning University of Southern California LosAngeles CA

Jacobs A (1993) Great Streets (Cambridge MA MIT Press)Jacobs J (1961) The Death and Life of Great American Cities (New York Random House)Jones T Pettus W amp Pyatok M (1995) Good Neighbors Affordable Family Housing (New York

McGraw-Hill)Kasprisin R amp Pettinari J (1995) Visual Thinking for Architects and Designers Visualizing Context in

Design (New York Van Nostrand Reinhold)Kelbaugh D (1997) Common Place Toward Neighborhood and Regional Design (Seattle WA University

of Washington Press)Koolhaas R (1995) Small Medium Large Extra Large (Rotterdam 010 Publishers)Kostof S (1991) The City Shaped Urban Patterns and Meanings through History (Boston MA Bulnch

Press)Krumholz N amp Clavel P (1994) Reinventing Cities Equity Planners Tell Their Stories (Philadelphia

Temple University Press)Lagerfeld S (1995) What Main Street can learn from the mall Atlantic Monthly November

pp 110ndash120Lai R T (1988) Law in Urban Design and Planning The Invisible Web (New York Van Nostrand

Reinhold)Loukaitou-Sideris A amp Banerjee T (1998) Urban Design Downtown Poetics and Politics of Form

(Berkeley CA University of California Press)Lynch K (1981) Good City Form (Cambridge MA MIT Press)Moore G amp Marans R (Eds) (1997) Advances in Environment Behavior and Design Toward the

Integration of Theory Methods Research and Utilization (New York Plenum Press)Porter M (1995) The competitive advantage of the inner city Harvard Business Review 73 pp 55ndash71Rowe P (1991) Making a Middle Landscape (Cambridge MA MIT Press)Rowe P (1997) Civic Realism (Cambridge MA MIT Press)Sandercock L (1998) Towards Cosmopolis Planning for Multicultural Cities (Chichester NY John

Wiley)Sassen S (2000) Cities in a World Economy 2nd edn (Thousand Oaks CA Pine Forge Press)Saunders W (1997) Rem Koolhaasrsquos writing on cities poetic perception and gnomic fantasy Journal

of Architectural Education 51 pp 61ndash71Savitch H V (1988) Post-Industrial Cities Politics and Planning in New York Paris and London

(Princeton NJ Princeton University Press)Schneekloth L amp Shibley R (1995) Placemaking The Art and Practice of Building Communities (New

York Wiley)Segal M B (1995) An old commercial district goes from cold to hot Urban Land 54 (11) pp 16ndash18Serageldin I (Ed) (1997) The Architecture of Empowerment People Shelter and Livable Cities (London

Academy Editions)Short J R (1996) The Urban Order An Introduction to Cities Culture and Power (Cambridge MA

Blackwell)Sorkin M (1997) Trafc in Democracy 1997 Raoul Wallenberg Lecture (Ann Arbor MI College of

Architecture and Urban Planning University of Michigan)Urban Design Group (1998) Involving local communities in urban design Urban Design Quarterly 67

pp 15ndash38

Meaningful Urban Design 39

disciplines) Thus the phenomenon of urban sprawl and its attendant problems(eg cost resources and social fragmentation) would be a goal and a challengeinvolving not only design but also economic efciency public policy socialbehaviour cultural understanding and political processes There would be apurpose-driven (rather than discipline-driven) urban design process for increas-ing density in a culture of sprawl that addresses important concerns such asprivacypublicness and a sense of home This would be done for more efcientuse of a scarce resource (ie land) for greater convenience of access and to creategreater and more usable green spaces

In this view the primary purpose of urban design would be the improvementof the fundamental quality of life (ie socio-economic development) rather thanjust the quality of urban form The quality of life is not concerned as much withwhat a built environment looks like as with how a built environment works interms of the community the economy and increasing mutually benecial inter-national exchange For example an urban design project should empower itsusers (ie community development) strengthen the local economy (ie economicdevelopment) and foster international understanding opportunity and exchange(ie international development) Table 1 further articulates these purposes ofteleological urban design and the case studies which follow illustrate theseideas

Specically a teleological urban design would address three critical aspects ofthe urban experience which are the relationships between the city and theeconomy the city and society and the city and power The relationship betweenthe city and the economy considers the economic functioning of the cityincluding the city as a point in the production landscape as well as a site ofinvestment the changing international division of labour and the consequenteffects on the specic urban economies The relationship between the city andsociety focuses on the city as an arena of social interaction the distribution ofsocial groups residential segregation the construction of gender and ethnicidentities and patterns of class formation The relationship between the city andpower is the representation of urban structure and political power and consid-ers the city to be a system of communication a recorder of the distribution ofpower and an arena for the social struggles over the meaning and substance ofthe urban experience

Catalytic

Urban design projects and processes would generate or contribute signicantlyto three types of socio-economic development processesmdashcommunity develop-ment economic development and international developmentmdashwhile simul-taneously enhancing the built environment of cities

Urban Design and Community Development

Urban design as a catalyst for or as an active component of communitydevelopment consists of intelligent community participation in projects facili-tated by dialogue between community representatives and urban designers andcommunity leadership that is representative of community views institutionalpartnerships (eg between private and non-prot sectors) and decision-makingstructures (eg simulations and games) that lead to enabling urban environ-

40 A Inam

Tab

le1

Ele

men

tsof

mea

nin

gfu

lu

rban

des

ign

Spec

ializ

atio

nsW

ith

com

mun

ityW

ithec

onom

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ith

inte

rnat

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lan

dre

alm

sU

rban

desi

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rede

velo

pmen

td

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opm

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deve

lopm

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Ped

agog

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leol

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alde

sign

Inte

llige

ntpa

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Geo

grap

hic

info

rmat

ion

Impa

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fore

ign

aid

Skill

sD

esig

nin

urba

nco

ntex

tsdi

alog

uel

eade

rshi

psy

stem

sur

ban

spat

ial

and

Impa

ctof

inte

rnat

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lM

etho

dolo

gies

Des

ign

met

hod

olog

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Inst

itut

iona

lan

alys

islo

catio

nal

mod

ellin

gpr

ivat

ein

vest

men

tT

opic

sae

sthe

tics

empi

rica

lIn

stit

utio

nal

part

ners

hips

Em

ploy

men

tge

nera

tion

Tens

ion

betw

een

loca

lC

ours

esev

iden

cec

omm

unity

-bas

edD

ecis

ion-

mak

ing

stra

tegi

esin

proj

ects

and

glob

alpr

essu

res

Com

mun

icat

ions

gra

phic

st

ruct

ures

(eg

Sim

City

)Pr

ogra

mm

es(

eg

job

Cro

ss-c

ultu

ral

lear

ning

verb

alw

ritt

enc

ompu

ter

Ong

oing

expe

rien

ceof

trai

ning

)as

urba

nd

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tern

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nalc

olla

bora

tion

Urb

ande

sign

asde

cisi

on-

urba

nd

esig

nen

rich

espr

ojec

tsR

ole

ofin

form

alse

ctor

mak

ing

proc

esse

sex

pres

sion

and

iden

tity

Bac

kwar

dan

dfo

rwar

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deve

lopi

ngco

untr

yci

ties

Set

ofur

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arch

etyp

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eve

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linka

ges

inpr

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eepe

run

ders

tand

ing

ofan

dco

mbi

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prog

ram

mes

and

serv

ices

Inte

grat

ing

reta

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ddi

ffer

ent

cultu

res

and

Evol

ving

city

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Meaningful Urban Design 41

ments and the soft-programming of urban design (eg incorporation of publicexpression and cultural identity and activities events programmes and servicesintegrated with the built forms)

For the urban designer design communication is inherent in the act of designboth as internal communication in the thinking process and as an externalcommunication with the client user or broader community The people withina given context such as homeowners in a residential neighbourhood or businessowners in a commercial downtown are the agents of change aided by acommunication process that speaks to the formal aspects of their environmentThe better this communication process of design the higher the level of publicawareness and sense of ownership the better the internal decisions of changeThere are conventional public involvement formats such as public hearings citycouncil meetings and planning commission presentations There are also infor-mal meetings workshops and brainstorming sessions One of the most powerfuland effective mechanisms for active and intelligent community participation isthe charette

A charette is a short and intense workshop of a day or at the most a few daysin which the urban design team works with a local community and its socialeconomic or political leaders to arrive at a conceptual and implementationstrategy for a particular project (Kasprisin amp Pettinari 1995) The process usuallybegins with a consortium of local citizens and organizations inviting a team ofprivate (eg an architectural rm) or non-prot (eg the American Institute ofArchitects) urban designers to participate often along with a local task forceThe community and team leaders then prepare for the short intense workshopby arranging for publicity student participation work locations and suppliesThe workshop itself may subsequently consist of meetings with different repre-sentatives site tours open town hall meetings personal interviews with variousstakeholders detailed work sessions in groups a written and graphic report anda presentation of ndings (see Figure 1) In some cases there is a follow-upabout a year later in which the urban designer meets with the community toassess the success of the process and provide additional advice

The effectiveness of this community participation methodology and the oftensurprising results it generates have been well documented by Kelbaugh (1997) ina series of charettes in the Seattle region Similarly the Urban Design Group(1998) provides a series of clear concise and extremely useful communityparticipation forums including innovative mechanisms such as street stalls andinteractive displays carried out in different parts of the UK

The popularity of the computer program SimCity a city building simulatorattests to the possibility of designing urban simulation models with broad publicappeal Whether one is teaching urban processes and structures analysingspecic urban problems or most importantly involving the public in urbandesign and planning processes SimCity displays a vast untapped potential ofurban design games and simulations These examples point to creative engagingand benecial forms of not only community participation but also moresignicantly community development because they increase community aware-ness generate community strategies and suggest modes of community interven-tion in the future of their own environments

Another approach to long-term processes of community development isillustrated by the Hismen Hin-nu Terrace housing project in Oakland CA (Joneset al 1995) With a grant from the City of Oakland the architectural rm of

42 A Inam

Figure 1 Community-based charette for an urban design plan for the commercialrevitalization of Bagley Avenue in Detroit MI

Pyatok and Associates studied development scenarios for housing and neigh-bourhood services on several sites in the city The San Antonio CommunityDevelopment Council serving African American Latino and Native Americanresidents expressed interest in developing affordable housing for families andseniors on one of the sites and joined with the East Bay Asian Local Develop-ment Corporation which serves the Asian American community Pyatok andAssociates organized a series of workshops using participatory modelling kits tohelp over 30 neighbourhood participants to design plans for the site and tounderstand the implications of density

The 92 housing units in the project now not only house families and elderlycitizens with low and very low incomes but also help mend a deterioratingneighbourhood by restoring its main boulevard with housing over shops Familyhousing with a day care centre around quiet courtyards built behind a ground-oor market niches for street vendors and a job training centre all contribute tocommunity development in the neighbourhood A multi-ethnic mix of tenants isdepicted in exterior murals frieze panels decorative tiles and steel entry gatesin the form of a burst of sunshine The art is intended to prove that the USArsquoscultural diversity is a source of energy for creating community rather than asource of conict

Urban Design and Economic Development

Urban design as a catalyst for or as an active component of economic develop-ment involves designing projects that generate employment on a long-termbasis attract investment into deprived areas and increase business and taxrevenues In this context a city is not only a spatial concentration of a largenumber of people but also contains a density of economic activities Urban

Meaningful Urban Design 43

Figure 2 Horton Plaza in San Diego CA has not only generated jobs andsuccessfully attracted customers and tourists but has also helped revive the

surrounding areas

designers can be more effective if they understand and indeed encouragebenecial economic activities through physical projects

The Horton Plaza a highly successful shopping centre in San Diego CAgenerated jobs for local residents when city ofcials utilized their position asinvestors in the project to negotiate for positions (Frieden amp Sagalyn 1989) Themayor of the city turned to the Private Industry Council of San Diego Countya training and placement organization to nd jobs for low-income and unem-ployed San Diegans in Horton Plaza and other city-assisted developmentprojects The council then served as the main employment ofce for HortonPlaza By March 1986 store openings had created nearly 1000 new jobs and thecouncil lled half of them (see Figure 2) Of the people placed by the council70 were minority workers and 60 came from high-unemployment low-in-come neighbourhoods targeted for recruitment

Lower Downtown Denverrsquos most exciting commercial sub-market in recentyears provides one model for the economic reinvestment and revitalization ofother historic commercial districts (Segal 1995) The success of this area is basedon an understanding of fundamental changes in the marketplace and publicpolicies designed to complement market forces and represents an incrementalproject-by-project development approach that urban designers can adopt In1987 the Downtown Denver Partnership a non-prot business leadershiporganization established the Lower Downtown Business Support Ofce toprovide services such as business counselling to develop business plans mar-keting strategies and management expertise leasing referrals to direct prospec-tive tenants to available space and the design and implementation ofpublicprivate layered nancing strategies for individual projects Financialsupport was provided by the city of Denver the state governmentrsquos job trainingofce and corporate and foundation grants

44 A Inam

Figure 3 Outdoor seating for cafes is part of the urban design strategy whichcontributed to the economic revival of a historic area in the Lower Downtown area

of Denver CO

A historic district ordinance contributed to Lower Downtownrsquos success bycreating certainty in the marketplace Small business and entrepreneurial in-vestors were lured to the area by its scale and historic character and theknowledge that it will remain that way (see Figure 3) The cityrsquos investment of$19 million in streetscape improvements including new lighting pavementsand street furniture which was contingent upon the adoption of the historicdistrict ordinance also reinforced private investment in Lower DowntownDistrict stakeholders including developers and property owners are repre-sented on the ve-member design review committee which is now seen asbenecial to the area because of its localized control In 4 years the LowerDowntown area through the various strategies described above has attractedmore than $15 million in new investment 500 jobs and a nearby baseballstadium

Urban designers can learn to design environments that increase revenues bystudying the strategies adopted by the often maligned or overlooked designersof shopping centres gambling casinos and amusement or theme parks All ofthese environments are successful to their owners and operators when theyincrease revenues often in a remarkable manner The US landscape architectRobert Gibbs is one such member of this rare breed (Lagerfeld 1995) Accordingto Gibbs a townrsquos retail planning should begin where a shopping centrersquos doesfar from the selling oors For example it is disadvantageous to locate ashopping centre in a place where commuters have to make a left turn Peopletend to shop on their way to work and they are less likely to stop if it involvesmaking a turn against trafc

Most signicantly shopping centre designers know the average shopper (asthe urban designer should know their clientele and constituencies) and under-stand that most shoppers stroll at about 3ndash4 feet per second thus walking past

Meaningful Urban Design 45

a storefront in about 8 seconds That is how long a shop owner has to attract aconsumerrsquos attention with an arresting window display Downtown merchantsmust adapt to the same 8 second rule but they also have to sell to passingmotorists Sophisticated retailers use a variety of subliminal clues to attractshoppers whether it is a high-priced stationery store implying an upscalelifestyle through a window display of an old wood desk embellished withexpensive writing instruments or a small preciously enclosed display thatjewellers use to suggest high quality and prices to match These are but a fewof the examples of the manner in which shopping centre gambling casino andtheme park designers understand human behaviour and create environmentsthat encourage certain types of behaviour such as consumer spending howeverurban designers can focus on other types of behaviour such as the creation ofexciting neighbourhoods that foster greater social interaction and mutual under-standing amongst different ethnic groups

Urban Design and International Development

Urban design as a catalyst for or as an active component of internationaldevelopment takes the guise of sensitivity to context the generation of cross-cul-tural learning and directly addressing issues which arise out of the continuingphenomenon of economic globalization

A seminal essay which suggests an approach which is sensitive to localcontext without resorting to mimicry and which is contemporary without beinga generic modernism is Frampton (1992a) The contemporary paradox of sensi-tivity to context is that on the one hand the region or locality has to root itselfin the soil of its past forge a regional spirit and display this spiritual andcultural resistance before the modernist personality However in order to fullyparticipate in modern civilization it is necessary at the same time to take partin scientic technical and political rationality something which very oftenrequires the abandonment of major portions of a whole cultural past Thus howcan contemporary urban design celebrate an ancient tradition and return tosources while simultaneously becoming modern and participating in universalcivilization

Drawing upon the work of the French philosopher Paul Ricoeur Frampton(1992b) proposes a process of assimilation and reinterpretation wherein sustain-ing any kind of authentic culture in the future depends upon our capacity togenerate vital forms of authentic culture (eg via urban design) of regionalculture while appropriating alien inuences at the level of both the local and theglobal Alvar Aaltorsquos work is exemplary of such processes especially theSaynatsalo Town Hall in Finland (Inam 1992) The collective memory evoked bythe Saynatsalo Town Hall refers to two fundamental cultural traditions theindigenous largely agrarian one and an alien essentially classical one With itssteps overgrown with grass and weeds its variations of silhouette and itsweathered materials Saynatsalo has the air of an ancient complex of buildingswhich had grown slowly Indeed Aalto had identied this rather unique parti ofa lsquogrowing ruinrsquo in his 1941 essay lsquoArchitecture in Kareliarsquo by suggesting that aldquodilapidated Karielan village is somehow similar in appearance to a Greek ruinwhere also the materialrsquos uniformity is a dominant feature though marblereplaces woodrdquo (cited in Inam 1992 p 63)

46 A Inam

Figure 4 The Council Chamber of Saynatsalo Town Hall Finland which reectsthe power of cross-cultural symbolism

Apart from evoking the memory of indigenous environments Aalto remainedfaithful to the belief that a motif borrowed from a different context andtransplanted with sufcient conviction onto Finnish soil became genuinelyFinnish The Italian Renaissance was for Aalto an inalienable part of his heritageand philosophy of life In his view providing the inhabitants of Saynatsalo witha setting in which they could live much as the inhabitants of 14th-century Siennadid was a natural act When the members of the municipal board of buildinginquired if a small poor community like theirs really needed to build a councilchamber 17 m high especially since the brick was expensive Aalto respondedthat the worldrsquos most beautiful and famous town hall in Sienna had a councilchamber 16 m high and thus he proposed to build the one at Saynatsalo 17 mhigh (see Figure 4) Moreover Aalto explicitly referred to the courtyard as apiazza in spite of the fact that it is domestic both in nature and in scale

A contemporary example of sensitivity to context through a process ofassimilation and reinterpretation is the work of the Portuguese architect AlvaroSiza (Frampton 1992b) Siza has grounded his buildings in the conguration ofa specic topography and in the ne-grained texture of the local fabric To thisend his pieces of the built environment are tight responses to the urban landand marinescape of the Porto region Other important factors are his deferencetowards local material craft work and the subtleties of local light a deferencewhich is sustained without falling into the sentimentality of excluding rationalform and modern technique

The generation of cross-cultural learning arises out of understanding andapplying in a sympathetic and appropriate manner urban design methodolo-gies processes and forms from different cultural contexts (Inam 1997) Aninstance of this would be the woeful history of large-scale low-income housing(ie public housing) projects built by the government in various urban contextsin the USA The governmentrsquos quest to provide no-frills housing (eg built at the

Meaningful Urban Design 47

lowest costs on cheap often undesirable land) combined with the privatesectorrsquos unrelenting demands that public housing be different (eg minimalaccommodations which are overly modest and austere) from the rest of thehousing stock undermined the notion that public housing could also be attract-ive housing and possibly even contribute to the surrounding urban contexts(Bratt 1986)

Henri Cirianirsquos social housing projects in France which are the equivalent ofpublic housing projects in the USA serve as a demonstration of how large-scalelow-income housing projects built by the government can constitute positivecontributions to the urban environment instead of being eyesores La Courdan-gle is a large social housing project (ie 130 apartments 230 parking spaces anda day care centre) outside Paris in Saint Denis (Ciriani 1997) The seven-storeybuilding with its striped cladding and geometric frieze rises above the muddleof neighbouring streets and forms a corner in an otherwise loosely structuredurban space By creating a visually strong plan of geometrical precision theproject inspires a still-life composition device in urban design Transformed intoa picture plane the various free-standing buildings as well as high-rise buildingsthat surround the project integrate into a more harmonious urban setting Thecourtyard side of the building is a pure right-angled gure containing aperfectly dened square space The layering of the facades facilitates the articu-lation of the decreasing volumes contains the apartmentsrsquo balconies and terracesand mediates between the architecture of the building and the urbanity of theneighbourhood In this manner La Courdangle constitutes a low-income hous-ing project that is rich in architectural spaces and detail while helping deneand enhance the urban space around it

The phenomenon of increasing economic globalization is rapidly growing andhas been encouraged at the urban level For example in US cities such as NewYork Los Angeles Houston and Minneapolis where foreign investors havebeen active in buying real estate downtown real estate interestsmdashbrokerscommercial banks real estate consultants and property ownersmdashhave welcomedinternational property investment Throughout the 1980s the infusion of foreigncapital into the buying and selling of existing buildings and the construction ofnew building bolstered commercial property markets by raising rents increasingproperty values and generally expanding business opportunities The interactionof forces operating at various spatial scales especially the urban can beillustrated in a variety of ways the construction of an ofce building for aforeign bank using materials from around the world the dynamics of a majorresearch university whose architecture and urban planning faculty consultlocally as well as internationally and the corporate plan location and contractingstrategies of multinational corporations such as Nike and Coca Cola as theybalance local labour conditions regional locational advantages national marketsand international investment opportunities (Beauregard 1995)

The ongoing phenomenon of globalization suggests some strategies for urbandesigners Urban designers must be able to understand and react to inuencesimpinging on their communities regardless of where those inuences originate(eg World Bank funded housing projects in developing countries) and whichactors are responsible (eg US architectural rms designing ofce complexes inLondon) Furthermore urban designers must develop associations and networksthat extend beyond their spatial reach through collaborative endeavours andthereby provide another mechanism for responding to the multitude of actors

48 A Inam

who shape their communities For example the Indian architect B V Doshiutilized an institution the Vastu-Shilpa Foundation for Studies and Research todevelop an internationally (ie World Bank) funded local (ie in the city Indore)housing project in India Aranya Nagar (Serageldin 1997) The project has beenlargely a success due to the Vastu-Shilpa Foundation which carried out con-siderable research including surveys to understand the physical and economicfactors that determine the size type and density of the housing plots that werespecic to the local context

Relevant

Urban design that is relevant is urban design that is pertinent to matters at hand(eg critical urban issues) and that is based on fundamental human and naturalconditions In this section three such relevant approaches to urban design arehighlighted (1) a history of urban form that analyses the determinant processesand human meanings of form (2) a theory of urban form that is normative andbased on human values and (3) a design methodology of urban form that isempirically based and derived from patterns of human behaviour These threeapproaches are discussed by illustrating them with the work of Spiro Kostof(Kostof 1991) Kevin Lynch (Lynch 1981) and Christopher Alexander (Alexan-der et al 1977) but by no means does this suggest that these are the only suchapproaches in urban design Indeed there exist other relevant approaches tourban design (for example see Rowe 1991) but for the illustrative purposes ofthis paper the three examples mentioned above will sufce

Kostof (1991) studies the phenomenon of city making in a historical perspec-tive to consider how and why cities took the shape they did Amalgams of theliving and the built cities are repositories of cultural meaning Behind thearbitrary twist of a lane or the splendid eccentricity of a new skyscraper on theskyline lies a history of previous urban tenure a heritage of long-establishedsocial conventions a string of often bitter compromises between individualrights and the public will In a series of discussions of urban patterns such as thegrid and the city as diagram Kostof adopts a truly interdisciplinary approach bydrawing upon architecture cultural geography and social history to interpret thehidden order ascribed in these patterns

Urban form is related directly to urban process ie the people forces andinstitutions that bring about urban form (Kostof 1991) and a way to examinethis process is to ask probing research questions which are the basis for trulyunderstanding cities For example who actually designs cities What proceduresdo they go through What are the empowering agencies and laws The legal andeconomic history is an enormous and often overlooked subject It involvesownership of urban land and the land market the exercise of eminent domainwhich is the power of government to take over private property for public usethe institution of legally binding master plans building codes and other regula-tions instruments of funding urban change such as property taxes and bondissues and the administrative and more importantly the power structure ofcities Urban designers need not know all of this information but they do needto realize the importance of it why it is important to know where to turn toobtain it and to consider it in their project designs

Urban process also refers to physical change through time The tendency alltoo often is to see urban form as a nite thing and a complicated object

Meaningful Urban Design 49

However thousands of witting and unwitting acts every day alter a cityrsquos linesin ways that are perceptible only over a certain stretch of time City walls arepulled down and lled in once rational grids are slowly obscured a slashingdiagonal boulevard is run through close-grained residential neighbourhoodsrailroad tracks usurp cemeteries and waterfronts and wars res and highwaysannihilate city cores (Kostof 1991)

As an example let us consider the grid The grid is by far the commonestpattern for planned cities in history and it is universal both geographically andchronologically (Kostof 1991) No better solution recommends itself as a stan-dard scheme for disparate sites or as a means for the equal distribution of landor the easy parcelling and selling of real estate The advantage of straightthrough-streets for defence has been recognized since Aristotle and a rectilinearstreet pattern has also been resorted to in order to keep under watch a restlesspopulation However ubiquitous as the grid has always been it is also muchmisunderstood and often treated as if it were one unmodulated idea thatrequires little discrimination On the contrary the grid is an exceedingly exibleand diverse system of planning and hence its enormous success in urban designand planning About the only thing that all grids have in common is that theirstreet pattern is orthogonal that is the right angle rules and street lines in bothdirections lie parallel to each other

Furthermore the political innocence of the grid in the West is a ction In theearly Greek colonies for example the grid far from being a democratic deviceemployed to assure an equitable allotment of property to all citizens was themeans of perpetuating the privileges of the property-owning class descendentfrom the original settlers and for bolstering a territorial aristocracy The rstsettlers who made the voyage to the site were entitled to equal allocations ofland both inside and outside the city walls These hereditary estates wereinalienable the ruling class strictly discouraged a land market The estates werehuge as much as 25 acres (about 1 hectare) for some families They were thensub-divided by the owner Within the city private land could only be used forhousing Any alienation of land or any agitation for land reform was severelydealt with and could be punishable as for murder (Kostof 1991)

The point is made regularly that grids especially in the USA besides offeringsimplicity in land surveying recording and subsequent ownership transfer alsofavoured a fundamental democracy in property market participation This didnot mean that individual wealth could not appropriate considerable propertybut rather that the basic initial geometry of land parcels bespoke a simpleegalitarianism that invited easy entry into the urban land market The realityhowever is much less admirable The ordinary citizens gained easy access tourban land only at a preliminary phase when cheap rural land was beingurbanized through rapid laying out To the extent that the grid speeded thisprocess and streamlined absentee purchases it may be considered an equalizingsocial device Once the land had been identied with the city however thisadvantage of the initial geometry of land parcels evaporated and even unbuiltlots slipped out of common reach What matters most in the long run is not themystique of the grid geometry then but the luck of rst ownership (Kostof1991)

However for the conventional urban designer a grid is a grid is a grid(Kostof 1991) At best it is a visual theme upon which to play variations he orshe might be concerned with issues like using a true checkerboard design vs

50 A Inam

syncopated block rhythms with cross-axial or other types of emphasis with theplacement of open spaces within the discipline of the grid with the width andhierarchy of streets To Kostof and the meaningful urban designer on the otherhand how and with what intentions the Romans in Britain the builders ofmedieval Wales and Gascony the Spanish in Mexico or the Illinois CentralRailroad Company in the prairies of the Mid-west employed this very samedevice of settlement is the principal substance of a review of orthogonalplanning In fact the grid has accommodated a startling variety of socialstructuresmdashincluding territorial aristocracy in Greek Sicily the agrarianrepublicanism of Thomas Jefferson and the cosmic vision of Joseph Smith inMormon settlements like Salt Lake City Utahmdashand of course capitalist specu-lation

There have been few serious attempts at a comprehensive and normativetheory of urban form Good City Form (Lynch 1981) is an impressive andcourageous attempt by Kevin Lynch as a ldquosystematic effort to state generalrelationships between the form of a place and its valuerdquo (Lynch 1981 p 99)Lynch (1981 p 108) emphasizes ldquothose goals which are as general as possibleand thus do not dictate particular physical solutions and yet whose achievementcan be detected and explicitly linked to physical solutions This is the familiarnotion of performance standards applied at the city scalerdquo Lynch generalizesperformance dimensions which are certain identiable characteristics of citiesdue primarily to their spatial qualities and are measurable scales along whichdifferent groups achieve different positions These performance dimensions arebased on the following thinking

The good city is one in which the continuity of [a] complex ecology ismaintained while progressive change is permitted The fundamentalgood is the continuous development of the individual or the smallgroup and their culture a process of becoming more complex morerichly connected more competent acquiring and realizing new pow-ersmdashintellectual emotional social and physical hellip So that settlement isgood which enhances the continuity of a culture and the survival of itspeople increases a sense of connection in time and space and permitsor spurs individual growth development within continuity via open-ness and connection hellip [a settlement which is] accessible decentralizeddiverse adaptable and tolerant to experiment (Lynch 1981 pp 116ndash117)

In Lynchrsquos theory of good city form there are seven dimensions (Lynch 1981)First is vitality the degree to which an urban form supports the vital func-tions the biological requirements the capabilities of human beings and protectsthe survival of the species (eg adequate throughput of water air food andenergy) Second is sense the degree to which an urban form is clearly perceivedand mentally differentiated as well as structured in time and space and thedegree to which that mental structure connects with the residentsrsquo values andconcepts (eg distinct identity and unconstrained legibility) Third is t thedegree to which urban form matches the pattern and quantity of actionsthat people usually engage in or would like to engage in (eg compatibilitybetween function and form) Fourth is access the ability to reach other peopleactivities resources or places including the quantity and diversity of theelements that can be reached (eg ease of communication and transportation)

Meaningful Urban Design 51

Fifth is control the degree to which the creation of access to use of mainte-nance of and modication to urban spaces and activities are managed by thosewho use work or live in them (eg local power) Sixth is efciency the cost ofcreating and maintaining an urban form (eg less energy-demanding processes)Seventh is justice the way in which urban form costs and benets are dis-tributed among people according to a principle such as intrinsic worth or equity(eg equal protection from environmental hazards such as cars) These dimen-sions are applicable in a wide range of urban contexts because they are derivedfrom fundamental human values and serve as powerful measures of what alsquogoodrsquo urban design project might be

Christopher Alexander (Alexander et al 1977) adopts a problem-solvingapproach to design and explicitly renders the design methodology but moreimportantly describes how a meaningful urban designer might draw directlyfrom empirical evidence (rather than say idiosyncratic impulses) and extensiveresearch as a source of design The book is most useful as a series of thoroughlyanalysed and empirically based guidelines which are broad enough to beadapted to different contexts and architectural styles Each suggested solution isdescribed in a way that provides the key relationships (eg between humanbehaviour and spatial setting) needed to solve the problem but in a generalenough manner to allow for adaptation to particular lifestyles aesthetic tastesand local conditions Each pattern describes a problem which occurs repeatedlyin the built environment archetypal problems of urban form for example Thelongest portion of the description of each pattern describes the empiricalbackground of the pattern the evidence for its validity and the range of differentways the pattern can be manifested or designed

The rst 94 patterns deal with the large-scale structure including the urbanof the environment the growth of city and country the layout of roads andpaths the relationship between work and family the formation of suitablepublic institutions for a neighbourhood and the kinds of public space requiredto support these institutions (Alexander et al 1977) The following two examplesof urban patterns illustrate the value of this design methodology identiableneighbourhood and public outdoor room

According to Alexander et al (1977) and the scientic research they citepeople need an identiable spatial unit to belong to They want to be able toidentify the part of the city where they live as distinct from all others Availableevidence suggests rst that the neighbourhoods which people identify with haveextremely small populations second that they are small in area and third thata major road through a neighbourhood destroys it

What then is the right population for a neighbourhood The neighbourhoodinhabitants should be able to look after their own interests by being able to reachagreement on basic decisions such as about public services and common landand to organize themselves to bring pressure on local governments Anthropo-logical evidence cited by Alexander et al (1977) suggests that a human groupcannot usually co-ordinate itself to reach such decisions if its population is above1500 The experience of organizing community meetings at the local levelsuggests that 500 may be a more realistic gure

As far as the physical diameter is concerned in Philadelphia PA people whowere asked which area they really knew usually limited themselves to a smallarea seldom exceeding the two or three blocks around their house One-quarterof the inhabitants of an area in Milwaukee WI considered a neighbourhood to

52 A Inam

be an area no larger than a block around 300 feet (about 90 metres) One-halfconsidered it to be no more than seven blocks

The rst two features of the neighbourhood small population and small areaare not enough by themselves A neighbourhood can only have a strong identityif it is protected from heavy trafc Research cited by the authors suggests thatthe heavier the trafc in an area the less people think of it as home territory Notonly do residents view the streets with heavy trafc as less personal but theyalso feel the same about the houses along the street ldquoItrsquos not a friendlystreet hellip People are afraid to go out into the street because of the trafc hellip Noisefrom the street intrudes into my homerdquo (cited in Alexander et al 1977 p 83)This study conducted by the University of California at Berkeley found thatwith more than 200 cars per hour the quality of the neighbourhood begins todeteriorate

Therefore the proposed strategy suggests helping people dene the neigh-bourhoods they live in not more than about 300 yards (270 metres) or so acrosswith no more than 500 inhabitants or so and in existing cities encouraging localgroups to organize themselves to form such neighbourhoods and keeping majorroads outside these neighbourhoods While one may disagree with the dimen-sions suggested in this pattern one has to acknowledge that population sizephysical area and trafc ow are critical considerations for the design ofcontemporary neighbourhoods

In the public outdoor room pattern Alexander et al (1977) suggest that thereare very few spots along the streets of modern towns and neighbourhoodswhere people can hang out comfortably for hours at a time Men often seekcorner bars and pubs where they spend hours talking and drinking teenagersespecially boys choose special corners too where they hang around waitingfor their friends Elderly people like a special spot to go to where they canexpect to nd others small children need sandpits mud plants and water toplay with in the open young mothers who go to watch their children oftenuse the childrenrsquos play as a opportunity to meet and talk with other mothersand so on for a variety of groups Because of the diverse and casual natureof these activities they require a space which has a subtle balance of beingdened and yet not too dened so that any activity which is natural to theneighbourhood at any given time can develop freely and yet has something tostart from

What is needed is a framework which is dened just enough so that peoplenaturally tend to stop there and so that curiosity naturally takes people thereand invites them to stay A small open space roofed with columns but withoutwalls at least in part will provide the necessary balance between being open andenclosed Examples of this pattern were built with the assistance of architecturestudents in Cleveland OH on the grounds and on public land surrounding alocal mental health clinic According to staff reports these places changed thelife of the clinic dramatically many more people than usual were drawnoutdoors public talk was more animated and outdoor space that had beendominated by cars became more human In addition in the 12th and 13thcenturies there were many such public structures dotted through the towns andwhich were the scene of auctions open-air meetings and market fairs

Therefore in neighbourhoods and work communities the authors suggestmaking a piece of the common land into an outdoor roommdasha partly enclosedplace with a partial roof columns without walls perhaps with a trellis placing

Meaningful Urban Design 53

Figure 5 A contemporary example of a successful outdoor room which reects theguidelines of the outdoor room patternmdashCitywalk in Los Angeles CA

it beside an important path and within view of houses and workplaces In thisand the other patterns in the book the authors outline an urban designmethodology that is based on archetypal problems (eg public outdoor spaces)analyses of built examples descriptions of historical precedents and the explicitunpacking of design solutions such that they are clear relevant and thoughtful(see Figure 5) The basis for the design patterns was extensive and thoroughresearch carried out over an 8-year period Today there is current and volumin-ous research for example on environment and behaviour (for example seeMoore amp Marans 1997) that is highly relevant and useful for urban designers

Future Directions in Urban Design

Urban designers (eg Beckley 1998) are beginning to question what in fact islsquourbanrsquo in the contemporary environment However few will argue with

54 A Inam

denitions two decades old that are still relevant today a city is a ldquorelativelylarge dense and permanent settlement [or network of settlements] of sociallyheterogeneous individualsrdquo (L Worth cited in Kostof 1991 p 37) and a ldquopoint[or points] of maximum concentration for the power and culture of a com-munityrdquo (L Mumford cited in Kostof 1991 p 37) The urban designerrsquos impera-tive then is to understand cities On the one hand the most enduring featureof the city is its physical build which remains with remarkable persistencegaining increments that are responsive to the most recent economic demand andreective of the latest stylistic vogue but conserving evidence of past urbanculture for present and future generations On the other hand however urbansociety changes more than any other human grouping economic innovationusually comes most rapidly and boldly in cities immigration aims rst at theurban core forcing upon cities the critical role of acculturating refugees frommany countrysides and the winds of intellectual advance blow strong in cities(Vance cited in Kostof 1991)

Based on the new synthesis of ideas proposed in this paper there are threelevels of success of an urban design project These include rst the purelyaesthetically informed notion of urban design as a nished product (eg Does itlook good) The second is the sense of the project as an autonomous object thatfunctions in an affordable convenient and comfortable manner for its users (egDoes it work) The third and new idea is to have the urban design projectgenerate or substantially contribute to socio-economic development processes(eg Does it produce long-term quality of life impacts) In this sense urbandesigners and urban design projects become catalysts for community bettermenteconomic improvement and international understanding

Consequently urban designers should focus more on the lsquourbanrsquo of urbandesign and become less infatuated with the lsquodesignrsquo of urban design Urbandesign must begin with cities how they work and change and what impacts theyhave in creating enabling vs destructive impacts For example urban design hasto be seen within the framework of investment and development policies andas a shaper of those policies Cranersquos (1966) capital web of investment decisionsand Lairsquos (1988) invisible web of laws and norms that guide peoplersquos behaviourAt the same time design and form play a critical role because they are a languageand vocabulary for analysing and intervening in cities

At the most fundamental level all urban design should be responsible forcreating an environment that satises informs and inspires its users (ie thecommunity) This is an urban design that possesses an articulate communicativeprociency Urban design of profound signicance has a poetic quality By themeans of compressing its meanings into a concise formal expression a poeticurban design project draws the mind to a level of perception concealed behindthe conventional presentations of urban form The most effective symbols arethose which while operating within a given set of conventions are imprecisesparse and open-ended in their possible interpretations tending more to themetaphor than the simile Such an approach requires deep cultural understand-ing and social sensitivity

Implications for Education

The pedagogical approach to meaningful urban design will be interdisciplinary(eg examining cities from the perspectives of architects landscape architects

Meaningful Urban Design 55

urban planners policy makers social workers and business interests) teleologi-cal (eg driven by the express purpose of addressing critical urban challengessuch as uncomfortable and unsafe built environments community powerless-ness economic deprivation and fragmented interventions) critical (eg based onin-depth understanding of urban design problems and promises throughanalysis of urban design practice and case studies) and catalytic (eg theformulation of effective urban design strategies that include a focus on urbandesign products such as building complexes and public spaces but also includethe generation of long-term community and economic development processes)

The primary impact on this type of learning for students will be an under-standing of the urban designer as a leader Through an in-depth analysis ofurban issues an interdisciplinary approach to urban problem solving and skillsthat focus not only on issues of urban aesthetics and form but also on purposefulintervention generated by long-term processes students will gain a profoundand empowering understanding of meaningful urban design Students of urbandesign will also gain humility and condence by studying the power structuresof cities (and realizing just how little power urban designers actually have)practising critical thinking and learning to be politically savvy in order toaccomplish their goals A secondary impact on learning for students will be aunique opportunity for them to shape the future direction of urban designthrough readings research discussions case-study analyses and project designsthat will focus on specic urban challenges examine deciencies in currenturban design approaches and projects in addressing those challenges andformulate alternative more meaningful urban design strategies

In order to reach such goals an urban design programme should focus on twomajor sets of skills understanding how cities work and learning to shape citiesUnderstanding cities includes their conception (eg urban theory and form)their evolution (eg history of urban form) their decision-making processes (egurban political economy) and their use and experience (eg urban sociology)Learning to shape cities includes design methods (eg based on empiricalevidence and community participation) and communication skills (eg graphicverbal written and computer-based) The goal of a meaningful urban designpedagogical initiative would be to attract students of the built environment (egarchitects landscape architects and urban planners) who will become sophisti-cated practitioners and inuential leaders of urban design in architectural andplanning rms community organizations public agencies and internationalinstitutions The initiative would thus involve (1) teaching of exploratoryseminars and studios in new urban design methodologies (eg internationalstudios) (2) research into the relevant roles of professionals especially architectsand planners in the urban design of contemporary cities (eg institutionalstructures) and (3) professional work in the form of community outreach andproject analysis (eg evaluating New Urbanism)

In summary a meaningful pedagogical approach to urban design should havethe following characteristics (1) small (ie selective)mdashfocus on key urban designchallenges eg inner city revitalization (2) focused (ie depth)mdashdevelop exper-tise in the urban designurban development nexus (3) distinct (ie cutting-edge)mdashexperiment with new studio formats projects and research eginternational collaboration and cross-cultural learning and (4) existing resources(ie breadth)mdashbuild upon other departments eg social work business naturalresources and environment

56 A Inam

The critical question that guides this meaningful future of urban design issimply So what That is what consequential purpose has been achieved byparticular urban design theories urban design methodologies urban designpractices and urban design practitioners The implication of such probingquestions is that it is far from adequate to consider urban design projects assuccessful if they are only physically appealing or thought-provoking

Conclusion

In conclusion the author would like to return to the provocations that werereferred to at the beginning of this paper While both Rem Koolhaas and MichaelSorkin are emblematic of the image-based architect-driven urban design thatpermeates much of the world and especially the USA they are also contributorsto an urban design strategy that is realistic and contrary to the nostalgia evokedby the New Urbanism and neo-traditional movements Thus for Koolhaas

If there is to be a lsquonew urbanismrsquo it will not be based on the twinfantasies of order and omnipotence hellip but about discovering unnam-able hybrids [as is the case with Los Angeles] hellip Redened urbanismwill not only or mostly be a profession but a way of thinking anideology to accept what exists We were making sand castles Now weswim in the sea that swept them away (Koolhaas 1995 pp 969ndash971)

Koolhaas thus encourages us rst to accept the contemporary urban condition(instead of seeing it through rose-tinted lenses) and second as architects urbandesigners and planners to understand and work with the contemporary urbanforces (instead of imagining a world without cars or highways)

Similarly Sorkin extols us to learn from those urban design projects and urbanenvironments which are successful in terms of the designerrsquos objectives ofattracting people to these environments and the vibrant use of these environ-ments by people Even if the objectives were to differ say in terms of greatersocial interaction and co-operation in a neighbourhood the designers of shop-ping malls gambling casinos and amusement parks at least understand humanbehaviour as it relates to entertainment and consumptionmdashlessons which can beused for other perhaps more noble projects Thus according to Sorkin (1997pp 29ndash31)

Disneyland hellip is foremost a playground of mobility its entertainmentslargely those of pleasured motion And there is something to belearned here It seems undeniable that for all of its depredations all ofits regimentation surveillance and control part of what we experienceas enjoyable at Disneyland is the passage through an environment ofurban density in which both the physical texture and the means ofcirculation are not simply entertaining but stand in invigorating con-trast to the dysfunctional versions back home One extracts fromDisneyland a shred of hope the persuasive example that pedestrianismcoupled with short distance collective transport systems can be bothefcient and fun can thrive in the midst of an environment completelyotherwise constituted and that the space of low sufciently deceler-ated can become the space of exchange

Meaningful Urban Design 57

Figure 6 The design of Disneyland in Los Angeles CAmdashalbeit lsquoarticialrsquo anddesigned to foster consumptionmdashoffers deeper lessons for understanding humanbehaviour and creating exciting environmentsmdashfor say multicultural interac-

tionmdashbased on such understanding

The lsquoshred of hopersquo offered by Disneyland (see Figure 6) is constituted by suchlessons carefully and critically collected from numerous examples of contempor-ary urban design projects and articulatedmdashvia relevant history theory andmethodologymdashinto a meaningful approach to urban design

Acknowledgement

This paper was the second place winner of the 1999 Chicago Institute forArchitecture and Urbanism (CIAU) Award This award administered by theSkidmore Owings amp Merrill Foundation on behalf of the CIAU is for unpub-lished papers and is intended to encourage writing and research on the questionof how architecture infrastructure urban design and planning can contribute toimproving the quality of life of the American city For more information aboutthis award the Foundation can be contacted at somfoundationsomcom

References

Alexander C Ishikawa S Silverstein M Jacobson M Fiksdahl-King I amp Angel S (1977) APattern Language Towns Buildings Construction (New York Oxford University Press)

Attoe W amp Logan D (1989) American Urban Architecture Catalysts in the Design of Cities (BerkeleyUniversity of California Press)

Beauregard R (1995) Theorizing the globalndashlocal connection in P Knox amp P Taylor (Eds) WorldCities in a World System (Cambridge Cambridge University Press)

Beckley R (1998) [Dean Emeritus and Professor of Architecture and Urban Planning College ofArchitecture and Urban Planning University of Michigan] Written interview

Bratt R (1986) Public housing the controversy and the contribution in R Bratt C Hartman amp AMeyerson (Eds) Critical Perspectives in Housing (Philadelphia PA Temple University Press)

Calthorpe P (1993) The Next American Metropolis Ecology Communities and the American Dream (NewYork Princeton Architectural Press)

58 A Inam

Ciriani H (1997) Henri Ciriani (Rockport MA Rockport Publishers)Crane D (1966) Planning and Design in New York A Study of Problems and Processes of its Physical

Environment (New York Institute of Public Administration)Ellin N (1996) Postmodern Urbanism (Cambridge MA Blackwell)Frampton K (1992a) Critical regionalism modern architecture and cultural identityFrampton K (1992b) Modern Architecture A Critical History 3rd edn (London Thames amp Hudson)Frieden B amp Sagalyn L (1989) Downtown Inc How America Rebuilds Cities (Cambridge MA MIT

Press)Garvin A (1996) The American City What Works What Doesnrsquot (New York McGraw-Hill)Gilbert A amp Gugler J (1992) Cities Poverty and Development Urbanization in the Third World 2nd edn

(New York Oxford University Press)Hester R (1990) Community Design Primer (Mendocino CA Ridge Times Press)Inam A (1992) The urban monument symbol memory presence masterrsquos thesis in urban design

Washington University St LouisInam A (1997) Institutions routines and crises post-earthquake housing recovery in Mexico City

and Los Angeles doctoral dissertation in urban planning University of Southern California LosAngeles CA

Jacobs A (1993) Great Streets (Cambridge MA MIT Press)Jacobs J (1961) The Death and Life of Great American Cities (New York Random House)Jones T Pettus W amp Pyatok M (1995) Good Neighbors Affordable Family Housing (New York

McGraw-Hill)Kasprisin R amp Pettinari J (1995) Visual Thinking for Architects and Designers Visualizing Context in

Design (New York Van Nostrand Reinhold)Kelbaugh D (1997) Common Place Toward Neighborhood and Regional Design (Seattle WA University

of Washington Press)Koolhaas R (1995) Small Medium Large Extra Large (Rotterdam 010 Publishers)Kostof S (1991) The City Shaped Urban Patterns and Meanings through History (Boston MA Bulnch

Press)Krumholz N amp Clavel P (1994) Reinventing Cities Equity Planners Tell Their Stories (Philadelphia

Temple University Press)Lagerfeld S (1995) What Main Street can learn from the mall Atlantic Monthly November

pp 110ndash120Lai R T (1988) Law in Urban Design and Planning The Invisible Web (New York Van Nostrand

Reinhold)Loukaitou-Sideris A amp Banerjee T (1998) Urban Design Downtown Poetics and Politics of Form

(Berkeley CA University of California Press)Lynch K (1981) Good City Form (Cambridge MA MIT Press)Moore G amp Marans R (Eds) (1997) Advances in Environment Behavior and Design Toward the

Integration of Theory Methods Research and Utilization (New York Plenum Press)Porter M (1995) The competitive advantage of the inner city Harvard Business Review 73 pp 55ndash71Rowe P (1991) Making a Middle Landscape (Cambridge MA MIT Press)Rowe P (1997) Civic Realism (Cambridge MA MIT Press)Sandercock L (1998) Towards Cosmopolis Planning for Multicultural Cities (Chichester NY John

Wiley)Sassen S (2000) Cities in a World Economy 2nd edn (Thousand Oaks CA Pine Forge Press)Saunders W (1997) Rem Koolhaasrsquos writing on cities poetic perception and gnomic fantasy Journal

of Architectural Education 51 pp 61ndash71Savitch H V (1988) Post-Industrial Cities Politics and Planning in New York Paris and London

(Princeton NJ Princeton University Press)Schneekloth L amp Shibley R (1995) Placemaking The Art and Practice of Building Communities (New

York Wiley)Segal M B (1995) An old commercial district goes from cold to hot Urban Land 54 (11) pp 16ndash18Serageldin I (Ed) (1997) The Architecture of Empowerment People Shelter and Livable Cities (London

Academy Editions)Short J R (1996) The Urban Order An Introduction to Cities Culture and Power (Cambridge MA

Blackwell)Sorkin M (1997) Trafc in Democracy 1997 Raoul Wallenberg Lecture (Ann Arbor MI College of

Architecture and Urban Planning University of Michigan)Urban Design Group (1998) Involving local communities in urban design Urban Design Quarterly 67

pp 15ndash38

40 A Inam

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Meaningful Urban Design 41

ments and the soft-programming of urban design (eg incorporation of publicexpression and cultural identity and activities events programmes and servicesintegrated with the built forms)

For the urban designer design communication is inherent in the act of designboth as internal communication in the thinking process and as an externalcommunication with the client user or broader community The people withina given context such as homeowners in a residential neighbourhood or businessowners in a commercial downtown are the agents of change aided by acommunication process that speaks to the formal aspects of their environmentThe better this communication process of design the higher the level of publicawareness and sense of ownership the better the internal decisions of changeThere are conventional public involvement formats such as public hearings citycouncil meetings and planning commission presentations There are also infor-mal meetings workshops and brainstorming sessions One of the most powerfuland effective mechanisms for active and intelligent community participation isthe charette

A charette is a short and intense workshop of a day or at the most a few daysin which the urban design team works with a local community and its socialeconomic or political leaders to arrive at a conceptual and implementationstrategy for a particular project (Kasprisin amp Pettinari 1995) The process usuallybegins with a consortium of local citizens and organizations inviting a team ofprivate (eg an architectural rm) or non-prot (eg the American Institute ofArchitects) urban designers to participate often along with a local task forceThe community and team leaders then prepare for the short intense workshopby arranging for publicity student participation work locations and suppliesThe workshop itself may subsequently consist of meetings with different repre-sentatives site tours open town hall meetings personal interviews with variousstakeholders detailed work sessions in groups a written and graphic report anda presentation of ndings (see Figure 1) In some cases there is a follow-upabout a year later in which the urban designer meets with the community toassess the success of the process and provide additional advice

The effectiveness of this community participation methodology and the oftensurprising results it generates have been well documented by Kelbaugh (1997) ina series of charettes in the Seattle region Similarly the Urban Design Group(1998) provides a series of clear concise and extremely useful communityparticipation forums including innovative mechanisms such as street stalls andinteractive displays carried out in different parts of the UK

The popularity of the computer program SimCity a city building simulatorattests to the possibility of designing urban simulation models with broad publicappeal Whether one is teaching urban processes and structures analysingspecic urban problems or most importantly involving the public in urbandesign and planning processes SimCity displays a vast untapped potential ofurban design games and simulations These examples point to creative engagingand benecial forms of not only community participation but also moresignicantly community development because they increase community aware-ness generate community strategies and suggest modes of community interven-tion in the future of their own environments

Another approach to long-term processes of community development isillustrated by the Hismen Hin-nu Terrace housing project in Oakland CA (Joneset al 1995) With a grant from the City of Oakland the architectural rm of

42 A Inam

Figure 1 Community-based charette for an urban design plan for the commercialrevitalization of Bagley Avenue in Detroit MI

Pyatok and Associates studied development scenarios for housing and neigh-bourhood services on several sites in the city The San Antonio CommunityDevelopment Council serving African American Latino and Native Americanresidents expressed interest in developing affordable housing for families andseniors on one of the sites and joined with the East Bay Asian Local Develop-ment Corporation which serves the Asian American community Pyatok andAssociates organized a series of workshops using participatory modelling kits tohelp over 30 neighbourhood participants to design plans for the site and tounderstand the implications of density

The 92 housing units in the project now not only house families and elderlycitizens with low and very low incomes but also help mend a deterioratingneighbourhood by restoring its main boulevard with housing over shops Familyhousing with a day care centre around quiet courtyards built behind a ground-oor market niches for street vendors and a job training centre all contribute tocommunity development in the neighbourhood A multi-ethnic mix of tenants isdepicted in exterior murals frieze panels decorative tiles and steel entry gatesin the form of a burst of sunshine The art is intended to prove that the USArsquoscultural diversity is a source of energy for creating community rather than asource of conict

Urban Design and Economic Development

Urban design as a catalyst for or as an active component of economic develop-ment involves designing projects that generate employment on a long-termbasis attract investment into deprived areas and increase business and taxrevenues In this context a city is not only a spatial concentration of a largenumber of people but also contains a density of economic activities Urban

Meaningful Urban Design 43

Figure 2 Horton Plaza in San Diego CA has not only generated jobs andsuccessfully attracted customers and tourists but has also helped revive the

surrounding areas

designers can be more effective if they understand and indeed encouragebenecial economic activities through physical projects

The Horton Plaza a highly successful shopping centre in San Diego CAgenerated jobs for local residents when city ofcials utilized their position asinvestors in the project to negotiate for positions (Frieden amp Sagalyn 1989) Themayor of the city turned to the Private Industry Council of San Diego Countya training and placement organization to nd jobs for low-income and unem-ployed San Diegans in Horton Plaza and other city-assisted developmentprojects The council then served as the main employment ofce for HortonPlaza By March 1986 store openings had created nearly 1000 new jobs and thecouncil lled half of them (see Figure 2) Of the people placed by the council70 were minority workers and 60 came from high-unemployment low-in-come neighbourhoods targeted for recruitment

Lower Downtown Denverrsquos most exciting commercial sub-market in recentyears provides one model for the economic reinvestment and revitalization ofother historic commercial districts (Segal 1995) The success of this area is basedon an understanding of fundamental changes in the marketplace and publicpolicies designed to complement market forces and represents an incrementalproject-by-project development approach that urban designers can adopt In1987 the Downtown Denver Partnership a non-prot business leadershiporganization established the Lower Downtown Business Support Ofce toprovide services such as business counselling to develop business plans mar-keting strategies and management expertise leasing referrals to direct prospec-tive tenants to available space and the design and implementation ofpublicprivate layered nancing strategies for individual projects Financialsupport was provided by the city of Denver the state governmentrsquos job trainingofce and corporate and foundation grants

44 A Inam

Figure 3 Outdoor seating for cafes is part of the urban design strategy whichcontributed to the economic revival of a historic area in the Lower Downtown area

of Denver CO

A historic district ordinance contributed to Lower Downtownrsquos success bycreating certainty in the marketplace Small business and entrepreneurial in-vestors were lured to the area by its scale and historic character and theknowledge that it will remain that way (see Figure 3) The cityrsquos investment of$19 million in streetscape improvements including new lighting pavementsand street furniture which was contingent upon the adoption of the historicdistrict ordinance also reinforced private investment in Lower DowntownDistrict stakeholders including developers and property owners are repre-sented on the ve-member design review committee which is now seen asbenecial to the area because of its localized control In 4 years the LowerDowntown area through the various strategies described above has attractedmore than $15 million in new investment 500 jobs and a nearby baseballstadium

Urban designers can learn to design environments that increase revenues bystudying the strategies adopted by the often maligned or overlooked designersof shopping centres gambling casinos and amusement or theme parks All ofthese environments are successful to their owners and operators when theyincrease revenues often in a remarkable manner The US landscape architectRobert Gibbs is one such member of this rare breed (Lagerfeld 1995) Accordingto Gibbs a townrsquos retail planning should begin where a shopping centrersquos doesfar from the selling oors For example it is disadvantageous to locate ashopping centre in a place where commuters have to make a left turn Peopletend to shop on their way to work and they are less likely to stop if it involvesmaking a turn against trafc

Most signicantly shopping centre designers know the average shopper (asthe urban designer should know their clientele and constituencies) and under-stand that most shoppers stroll at about 3ndash4 feet per second thus walking past

Meaningful Urban Design 45

a storefront in about 8 seconds That is how long a shop owner has to attract aconsumerrsquos attention with an arresting window display Downtown merchantsmust adapt to the same 8 second rule but they also have to sell to passingmotorists Sophisticated retailers use a variety of subliminal clues to attractshoppers whether it is a high-priced stationery store implying an upscalelifestyle through a window display of an old wood desk embellished withexpensive writing instruments or a small preciously enclosed display thatjewellers use to suggest high quality and prices to match These are but a fewof the examples of the manner in which shopping centre gambling casino andtheme park designers understand human behaviour and create environmentsthat encourage certain types of behaviour such as consumer spending howeverurban designers can focus on other types of behaviour such as the creation ofexciting neighbourhoods that foster greater social interaction and mutual under-standing amongst different ethnic groups

Urban Design and International Development

Urban design as a catalyst for or as an active component of internationaldevelopment takes the guise of sensitivity to context the generation of cross-cul-tural learning and directly addressing issues which arise out of the continuingphenomenon of economic globalization

A seminal essay which suggests an approach which is sensitive to localcontext without resorting to mimicry and which is contemporary without beinga generic modernism is Frampton (1992a) The contemporary paradox of sensi-tivity to context is that on the one hand the region or locality has to root itselfin the soil of its past forge a regional spirit and display this spiritual andcultural resistance before the modernist personality However in order to fullyparticipate in modern civilization it is necessary at the same time to take partin scientic technical and political rationality something which very oftenrequires the abandonment of major portions of a whole cultural past Thus howcan contemporary urban design celebrate an ancient tradition and return tosources while simultaneously becoming modern and participating in universalcivilization

Drawing upon the work of the French philosopher Paul Ricoeur Frampton(1992b) proposes a process of assimilation and reinterpretation wherein sustain-ing any kind of authentic culture in the future depends upon our capacity togenerate vital forms of authentic culture (eg via urban design) of regionalculture while appropriating alien inuences at the level of both the local and theglobal Alvar Aaltorsquos work is exemplary of such processes especially theSaynatsalo Town Hall in Finland (Inam 1992) The collective memory evoked bythe Saynatsalo Town Hall refers to two fundamental cultural traditions theindigenous largely agrarian one and an alien essentially classical one With itssteps overgrown with grass and weeds its variations of silhouette and itsweathered materials Saynatsalo has the air of an ancient complex of buildingswhich had grown slowly Indeed Aalto had identied this rather unique parti ofa lsquogrowing ruinrsquo in his 1941 essay lsquoArchitecture in Kareliarsquo by suggesting that aldquodilapidated Karielan village is somehow similar in appearance to a Greek ruinwhere also the materialrsquos uniformity is a dominant feature though marblereplaces woodrdquo (cited in Inam 1992 p 63)

46 A Inam

Figure 4 The Council Chamber of Saynatsalo Town Hall Finland which reectsthe power of cross-cultural symbolism

Apart from evoking the memory of indigenous environments Aalto remainedfaithful to the belief that a motif borrowed from a different context andtransplanted with sufcient conviction onto Finnish soil became genuinelyFinnish The Italian Renaissance was for Aalto an inalienable part of his heritageand philosophy of life In his view providing the inhabitants of Saynatsalo witha setting in which they could live much as the inhabitants of 14th-century Siennadid was a natural act When the members of the municipal board of buildinginquired if a small poor community like theirs really needed to build a councilchamber 17 m high especially since the brick was expensive Aalto respondedthat the worldrsquos most beautiful and famous town hall in Sienna had a councilchamber 16 m high and thus he proposed to build the one at Saynatsalo 17 mhigh (see Figure 4) Moreover Aalto explicitly referred to the courtyard as apiazza in spite of the fact that it is domestic both in nature and in scale

A contemporary example of sensitivity to context through a process ofassimilation and reinterpretation is the work of the Portuguese architect AlvaroSiza (Frampton 1992b) Siza has grounded his buildings in the conguration ofa specic topography and in the ne-grained texture of the local fabric To thisend his pieces of the built environment are tight responses to the urban landand marinescape of the Porto region Other important factors are his deferencetowards local material craft work and the subtleties of local light a deferencewhich is sustained without falling into the sentimentality of excluding rationalform and modern technique

The generation of cross-cultural learning arises out of understanding andapplying in a sympathetic and appropriate manner urban design methodolo-gies processes and forms from different cultural contexts (Inam 1997) Aninstance of this would be the woeful history of large-scale low-income housing(ie public housing) projects built by the government in various urban contextsin the USA The governmentrsquos quest to provide no-frills housing (eg built at the

Meaningful Urban Design 47

lowest costs on cheap often undesirable land) combined with the privatesectorrsquos unrelenting demands that public housing be different (eg minimalaccommodations which are overly modest and austere) from the rest of thehousing stock undermined the notion that public housing could also be attract-ive housing and possibly even contribute to the surrounding urban contexts(Bratt 1986)

Henri Cirianirsquos social housing projects in France which are the equivalent ofpublic housing projects in the USA serve as a demonstration of how large-scalelow-income housing projects built by the government can constitute positivecontributions to the urban environment instead of being eyesores La Courdan-gle is a large social housing project (ie 130 apartments 230 parking spaces anda day care centre) outside Paris in Saint Denis (Ciriani 1997) The seven-storeybuilding with its striped cladding and geometric frieze rises above the muddleof neighbouring streets and forms a corner in an otherwise loosely structuredurban space By creating a visually strong plan of geometrical precision theproject inspires a still-life composition device in urban design Transformed intoa picture plane the various free-standing buildings as well as high-rise buildingsthat surround the project integrate into a more harmonious urban setting Thecourtyard side of the building is a pure right-angled gure containing aperfectly dened square space The layering of the facades facilitates the articu-lation of the decreasing volumes contains the apartmentsrsquo balconies and terracesand mediates between the architecture of the building and the urbanity of theneighbourhood In this manner La Courdangle constitutes a low-income hous-ing project that is rich in architectural spaces and detail while helping deneand enhance the urban space around it

The phenomenon of increasing economic globalization is rapidly growing andhas been encouraged at the urban level For example in US cities such as NewYork Los Angeles Houston and Minneapolis where foreign investors havebeen active in buying real estate downtown real estate interestsmdashbrokerscommercial banks real estate consultants and property ownersmdashhave welcomedinternational property investment Throughout the 1980s the infusion of foreigncapital into the buying and selling of existing buildings and the construction ofnew building bolstered commercial property markets by raising rents increasingproperty values and generally expanding business opportunities The interactionof forces operating at various spatial scales especially the urban can beillustrated in a variety of ways the construction of an ofce building for aforeign bank using materials from around the world the dynamics of a majorresearch university whose architecture and urban planning faculty consultlocally as well as internationally and the corporate plan location and contractingstrategies of multinational corporations such as Nike and Coca Cola as theybalance local labour conditions regional locational advantages national marketsand international investment opportunities (Beauregard 1995)

The ongoing phenomenon of globalization suggests some strategies for urbandesigners Urban designers must be able to understand and react to inuencesimpinging on their communities regardless of where those inuences originate(eg World Bank funded housing projects in developing countries) and whichactors are responsible (eg US architectural rms designing ofce complexes inLondon) Furthermore urban designers must develop associations and networksthat extend beyond their spatial reach through collaborative endeavours andthereby provide another mechanism for responding to the multitude of actors

48 A Inam

who shape their communities For example the Indian architect B V Doshiutilized an institution the Vastu-Shilpa Foundation for Studies and Research todevelop an internationally (ie World Bank) funded local (ie in the city Indore)housing project in India Aranya Nagar (Serageldin 1997) The project has beenlargely a success due to the Vastu-Shilpa Foundation which carried out con-siderable research including surveys to understand the physical and economicfactors that determine the size type and density of the housing plots that werespecic to the local context

Relevant

Urban design that is relevant is urban design that is pertinent to matters at hand(eg critical urban issues) and that is based on fundamental human and naturalconditions In this section three such relevant approaches to urban design arehighlighted (1) a history of urban form that analyses the determinant processesand human meanings of form (2) a theory of urban form that is normative andbased on human values and (3) a design methodology of urban form that isempirically based and derived from patterns of human behaviour These threeapproaches are discussed by illustrating them with the work of Spiro Kostof(Kostof 1991) Kevin Lynch (Lynch 1981) and Christopher Alexander (Alexan-der et al 1977) but by no means does this suggest that these are the only suchapproaches in urban design Indeed there exist other relevant approaches tourban design (for example see Rowe 1991) but for the illustrative purposes ofthis paper the three examples mentioned above will sufce

Kostof (1991) studies the phenomenon of city making in a historical perspec-tive to consider how and why cities took the shape they did Amalgams of theliving and the built cities are repositories of cultural meaning Behind thearbitrary twist of a lane or the splendid eccentricity of a new skyscraper on theskyline lies a history of previous urban tenure a heritage of long-establishedsocial conventions a string of often bitter compromises between individualrights and the public will In a series of discussions of urban patterns such as thegrid and the city as diagram Kostof adopts a truly interdisciplinary approach bydrawing upon architecture cultural geography and social history to interpret thehidden order ascribed in these patterns

Urban form is related directly to urban process ie the people forces andinstitutions that bring about urban form (Kostof 1991) and a way to examinethis process is to ask probing research questions which are the basis for trulyunderstanding cities For example who actually designs cities What proceduresdo they go through What are the empowering agencies and laws The legal andeconomic history is an enormous and often overlooked subject It involvesownership of urban land and the land market the exercise of eminent domainwhich is the power of government to take over private property for public usethe institution of legally binding master plans building codes and other regula-tions instruments of funding urban change such as property taxes and bondissues and the administrative and more importantly the power structure ofcities Urban designers need not know all of this information but they do needto realize the importance of it why it is important to know where to turn toobtain it and to consider it in their project designs

Urban process also refers to physical change through time The tendency alltoo often is to see urban form as a nite thing and a complicated object

Meaningful Urban Design 49

However thousands of witting and unwitting acts every day alter a cityrsquos linesin ways that are perceptible only over a certain stretch of time City walls arepulled down and lled in once rational grids are slowly obscured a slashingdiagonal boulevard is run through close-grained residential neighbourhoodsrailroad tracks usurp cemeteries and waterfronts and wars res and highwaysannihilate city cores (Kostof 1991)

As an example let us consider the grid The grid is by far the commonestpattern for planned cities in history and it is universal both geographically andchronologically (Kostof 1991) No better solution recommends itself as a stan-dard scheme for disparate sites or as a means for the equal distribution of landor the easy parcelling and selling of real estate The advantage of straightthrough-streets for defence has been recognized since Aristotle and a rectilinearstreet pattern has also been resorted to in order to keep under watch a restlesspopulation However ubiquitous as the grid has always been it is also muchmisunderstood and often treated as if it were one unmodulated idea thatrequires little discrimination On the contrary the grid is an exceedingly exibleand diverse system of planning and hence its enormous success in urban designand planning About the only thing that all grids have in common is that theirstreet pattern is orthogonal that is the right angle rules and street lines in bothdirections lie parallel to each other

Furthermore the political innocence of the grid in the West is a ction In theearly Greek colonies for example the grid far from being a democratic deviceemployed to assure an equitable allotment of property to all citizens was themeans of perpetuating the privileges of the property-owning class descendentfrom the original settlers and for bolstering a territorial aristocracy The rstsettlers who made the voyage to the site were entitled to equal allocations ofland both inside and outside the city walls These hereditary estates wereinalienable the ruling class strictly discouraged a land market The estates werehuge as much as 25 acres (about 1 hectare) for some families They were thensub-divided by the owner Within the city private land could only be used forhousing Any alienation of land or any agitation for land reform was severelydealt with and could be punishable as for murder (Kostof 1991)

The point is made regularly that grids especially in the USA besides offeringsimplicity in land surveying recording and subsequent ownership transfer alsofavoured a fundamental democracy in property market participation This didnot mean that individual wealth could not appropriate considerable propertybut rather that the basic initial geometry of land parcels bespoke a simpleegalitarianism that invited easy entry into the urban land market The realityhowever is much less admirable The ordinary citizens gained easy access tourban land only at a preliminary phase when cheap rural land was beingurbanized through rapid laying out To the extent that the grid speeded thisprocess and streamlined absentee purchases it may be considered an equalizingsocial device Once the land had been identied with the city however thisadvantage of the initial geometry of land parcels evaporated and even unbuiltlots slipped out of common reach What matters most in the long run is not themystique of the grid geometry then but the luck of rst ownership (Kostof1991)

However for the conventional urban designer a grid is a grid is a grid(Kostof 1991) At best it is a visual theme upon which to play variations he orshe might be concerned with issues like using a true checkerboard design vs

50 A Inam

syncopated block rhythms with cross-axial or other types of emphasis with theplacement of open spaces within the discipline of the grid with the width andhierarchy of streets To Kostof and the meaningful urban designer on the otherhand how and with what intentions the Romans in Britain the builders ofmedieval Wales and Gascony the Spanish in Mexico or the Illinois CentralRailroad Company in the prairies of the Mid-west employed this very samedevice of settlement is the principal substance of a review of orthogonalplanning In fact the grid has accommodated a startling variety of socialstructuresmdashincluding territorial aristocracy in Greek Sicily the agrarianrepublicanism of Thomas Jefferson and the cosmic vision of Joseph Smith inMormon settlements like Salt Lake City Utahmdashand of course capitalist specu-lation

There have been few serious attempts at a comprehensive and normativetheory of urban form Good City Form (Lynch 1981) is an impressive andcourageous attempt by Kevin Lynch as a ldquosystematic effort to state generalrelationships between the form of a place and its valuerdquo (Lynch 1981 p 99)Lynch (1981 p 108) emphasizes ldquothose goals which are as general as possibleand thus do not dictate particular physical solutions and yet whose achievementcan be detected and explicitly linked to physical solutions This is the familiarnotion of performance standards applied at the city scalerdquo Lynch generalizesperformance dimensions which are certain identiable characteristics of citiesdue primarily to their spatial qualities and are measurable scales along whichdifferent groups achieve different positions These performance dimensions arebased on the following thinking

The good city is one in which the continuity of [a] complex ecology ismaintained while progressive change is permitted The fundamentalgood is the continuous development of the individual or the smallgroup and their culture a process of becoming more complex morerichly connected more competent acquiring and realizing new pow-ersmdashintellectual emotional social and physical hellip So that settlement isgood which enhances the continuity of a culture and the survival of itspeople increases a sense of connection in time and space and permitsor spurs individual growth development within continuity via open-ness and connection hellip [a settlement which is] accessible decentralizeddiverse adaptable and tolerant to experiment (Lynch 1981 pp 116ndash117)

In Lynchrsquos theory of good city form there are seven dimensions (Lynch 1981)First is vitality the degree to which an urban form supports the vital func-tions the biological requirements the capabilities of human beings and protectsthe survival of the species (eg adequate throughput of water air food andenergy) Second is sense the degree to which an urban form is clearly perceivedand mentally differentiated as well as structured in time and space and thedegree to which that mental structure connects with the residentsrsquo values andconcepts (eg distinct identity and unconstrained legibility) Third is t thedegree to which urban form matches the pattern and quantity of actionsthat people usually engage in or would like to engage in (eg compatibilitybetween function and form) Fourth is access the ability to reach other peopleactivities resources or places including the quantity and diversity of theelements that can be reached (eg ease of communication and transportation)

Meaningful Urban Design 51

Fifth is control the degree to which the creation of access to use of mainte-nance of and modication to urban spaces and activities are managed by thosewho use work or live in them (eg local power) Sixth is efciency the cost ofcreating and maintaining an urban form (eg less energy-demanding processes)Seventh is justice the way in which urban form costs and benets are dis-tributed among people according to a principle such as intrinsic worth or equity(eg equal protection from environmental hazards such as cars) These dimen-sions are applicable in a wide range of urban contexts because they are derivedfrom fundamental human values and serve as powerful measures of what alsquogoodrsquo urban design project might be

Christopher Alexander (Alexander et al 1977) adopts a problem-solvingapproach to design and explicitly renders the design methodology but moreimportantly describes how a meaningful urban designer might draw directlyfrom empirical evidence (rather than say idiosyncratic impulses) and extensiveresearch as a source of design The book is most useful as a series of thoroughlyanalysed and empirically based guidelines which are broad enough to beadapted to different contexts and architectural styles Each suggested solution isdescribed in a way that provides the key relationships (eg between humanbehaviour and spatial setting) needed to solve the problem but in a generalenough manner to allow for adaptation to particular lifestyles aesthetic tastesand local conditions Each pattern describes a problem which occurs repeatedlyin the built environment archetypal problems of urban form for example Thelongest portion of the description of each pattern describes the empiricalbackground of the pattern the evidence for its validity and the range of differentways the pattern can be manifested or designed

The rst 94 patterns deal with the large-scale structure including the urbanof the environment the growth of city and country the layout of roads andpaths the relationship between work and family the formation of suitablepublic institutions for a neighbourhood and the kinds of public space requiredto support these institutions (Alexander et al 1977) The following two examplesof urban patterns illustrate the value of this design methodology identiableneighbourhood and public outdoor room

According to Alexander et al (1977) and the scientic research they citepeople need an identiable spatial unit to belong to They want to be able toidentify the part of the city where they live as distinct from all others Availableevidence suggests rst that the neighbourhoods which people identify with haveextremely small populations second that they are small in area and third thata major road through a neighbourhood destroys it

What then is the right population for a neighbourhood The neighbourhoodinhabitants should be able to look after their own interests by being able to reachagreement on basic decisions such as about public services and common landand to organize themselves to bring pressure on local governments Anthropo-logical evidence cited by Alexander et al (1977) suggests that a human groupcannot usually co-ordinate itself to reach such decisions if its population is above1500 The experience of organizing community meetings at the local levelsuggests that 500 may be a more realistic gure

As far as the physical diameter is concerned in Philadelphia PA people whowere asked which area they really knew usually limited themselves to a smallarea seldom exceeding the two or three blocks around their house One-quarterof the inhabitants of an area in Milwaukee WI considered a neighbourhood to

52 A Inam

be an area no larger than a block around 300 feet (about 90 metres) One-halfconsidered it to be no more than seven blocks

The rst two features of the neighbourhood small population and small areaare not enough by themselves A neighbourhood can only have a strong identityif it is protected from heavy trafc Research cited by the authors suggests thatthe heavier the trafc in an area the less people think of it as home territory Notonly do residents view the streets with heavy trafc as less personal but theyalso feel the same about the houses along the street ldquoItrsquos not a friendlystreet hellip People are afraid to go out into the street because of the trafc hellip Noisefrom the street intrudes into my homerdquo (cited in Alexander et al 1977 p 83)This study conducted by the University of California at Berkeley found thatwith more than 200 cars per hour the quality of the neighbourhood begins todeteriorate

Therefore the proposed strategy suggests helping people dene the neigh-bourhoods they live in not more than about 300 yards (270 metres) or so acrosswith no more than 500 inhabitants or so and in existing cities encouraging localgroups to organize themselves to form such neighbourhoods and keeping majorroads outside these neighbourhoods While one may disagree with the dimen-sions suggested in this pattern one has to acknowledge that population sizephysical area and trafc ow are critical considerations for the design ofcontemporary neighbourhoods

In the public outdoor room pattern Alexander et al (1977) suggest that thereare very few spots along the streets of modern towns and neighbourhoodswhere people can hang out comfortably for hours at a time Men often seekcorner bars and pubs where they spend hours talking and drinking teenagersespecially boys choose special corners too where they hang around waitingfor their friends Elderly people like a special spot to go to where they canexpect to nd others small children need sandpits mud plants and water toplay with in the open young mothers who go to watch their children oftenuse the childrenrsquos play as a opportunity to meet and talk with other mothersand so on for a variety of groups Because of the diverse and casual natureof these activities they require a space which has a subtle balance of beingdened and yet not too dened so that any activity which is natural to theneighbourhood at any given time can develop freely and yet has something tostart from

What is needed is a framework which is dened just enough so that peoplenaturally tend to stop there and so that curiosity naturally takes people thereand invites them to stay A small open space roofed with columns but withoutwalls at least in part will provide the necessary balance between being open andenclosed Examples of this pattern were built with the assistance of architecturestudents in Cleveland OH on the grounds and on public land surrounding alocal mental health clinic According to staff reports these places changed thelife of the clinic dramatically many more people than usual were drawnoutdoors public talk was more animated and outdoor space that had beendominated by cars became more human In addition in the 12th and 13thcenturies there were many such public structures dotted through the towns andwhich were the scene of auctions open-air meetings and market fairs

Therefore in neighbourhoods and work communities the authors suggestmaking a piece of the common land into an outdoor roommdasha partly enclosedplace with a partial roof columns without walls perhaps with a trellis placing

Meaningful Urban Design 53

Figure 5 A contemporary example of a successful outdoor room which reects theguidelines of the outdoor room patternmdashCitywalk in Los Angeles CA

it beside an important path and within view of houses and workplaces In thisand the other patterns in the book the authors outline an urban designmethodology that is based on archetypal problems (eg public outdoor spaces)analyses of built examples descriptions of historical precedents and the explicitunpacking of design solutions such that they are clear relevant and thoughtful(see Figure 5) The basis for the design patterns was extensive and thoroughresearch carried out over an 8-year period Today there is current and volumin-ous research for example on environment and behaviour (for example seeMoore amp Marans 1997) that is highly relevant and useful for urban designers

Future Directions in Urban Design

Urban designers (eg Beckley 1998) are beginning to question what in fact islsquourbanrsquo in the contemporary environment However few will argue with

54 A Inam

denitions two decades old that are still relevant today a city is a ldquorelativelylarge dense and permanent settlement [or network of settlements] of sociallyheterogeneous individualsrdquo (L Worth cited in Kostof 1991 p 37) and a ldquopoint[or points] of maximum concentration for the power and culture of a com-munityrdquo (L Mumford cited in Kostof 1991 p 37) The urban designerrsquos impera-tive then is to understand cities On the one hand the most enduring featureof the city is its physical build which remains with remarkable persistencegaining increments that are responsive to the most recent economic demand andreective of the latest stylistic vogue but conserving evidence of past urbanculture for present and future generations On the other hand however urbansociety changes more than any other human grouping economic innovationusually comes most rapidly and boldly in cities immigration aims rst at theurban core forcing upon cities the critical role of acculturating refugees frommany countrysides and the winds of intellectual advance blow strong in cities(Vance cited in Kostof 1991)

Based on the new synthesis of ideas proposed in this paper there are threelevels of success of an urban design project These include rst the purelyaesthetically informed notion of urban design as a nished product (eg Does itlook good) The second is the sense of the project as an autonomous object thatfunctions in an affordable convenient and comfortable manner for its users (egDoes it work) The third and new idea is to have the urban design projectgenerate or substantially contribute to socio-economic development processes(eg Does it produce long-term quality of life impacts) In this sense urbandesigners and urban design projects become catalysts for community bettermenteconomic improvement and international understanding

Consequently urban designers should focus more on the lsquourbanrsquo of urbandesign and become less infatuated with the lsquodesignrsquo of urban design Urbandesign must begin with cities how they work and change and what impacts theyhave in creating enabling vs destructive impacts For example urban design hasto be seen within the framework of investment and development policies andas a shaper of those policies Cranersquos (1966) capital web of investment decisionsand Lairsquos (1988) invisible web of laws and norms that guide peoplersquos behaviourAt the same time design and form play a critical role because they are a languageand vocabulary for analysing and intervening in cities

At the most fundamental level all urban design should be responsible forcreating an environment that satises informs and inspires its users (ie thecommunity) This is an urban design that possesses an articulate communicativeprociency Urban design of profound signicance has a poetic quality By themeans of compressing its meanings into a concise formal expression a poeticurban design project draws the mind to a level of perception concealed behindthe conventional presentations of urban form The most effective symbols arethose which while operating within a given set of conventions are imprecisesparse and open-ended in their possible interpretations tending more to themetaphor than the simile Such an approach requires deep cultural understand-ing and social sensitivity

Implications for Education

The pedagogical approach to meaningful urban design will be interdisciplinary(eg examining cities from the perspectives of architects landscape architects

Meaningful Urban Design 55

urban planners policy makers social workers and business interests) teleologi-cal (eg driven by the express purpose of addressing critical urban challengessuch as uncomfortable and unsafe built environments community powerless-ness economic deprivation and fragmented interventions) critical (eg based onin-depth understanding of urban design problems and promises throughanalysis of urban design practice and case studies) and catalytic (eg theformulation of effective urban design strategies that include a focus on urbandesign products such as building complexes and public spaces but also includethe generation of long-term community and economic development processes)

The primary impact on this type of learning for students will be an under-standing of the urban designer as a leader Through an in-depth analysis ofurban issues an interdisciplinary approach to urban problem solving and skillsthat focus not only on issues of urban aesthetics and form but also on purposefulintervention generated by long-term processes students will gain a profoundand empowering understanding of meaningful urban design Students of urbandesign will also gain humility and condence by studying the power structuresof cities (and realizing just how little power urban designers actually have)practising critical thinking and learning to be politically savvy in order toaccomplish their goals A secondary impact on learning for students will be aunique opportunity for them to shape the future direction of urban designthrough readings research discussions case-study analyses and project designsthat will focus on specic urban challenges examine deciencies in currenturban design approaches and projects in addressing those challenges andformulate alternative more meaningful urban design strategies

In order to reach such goals an urban design programme should focus on twomajor sets of skills understanding how cities work and learning to shape citiesUnderstanding cities includes their conception (eg urban theory and form)their evolution (eg history of urban form) their decision-making processes (egurban political economy) and their use and experience (eg urban sociology)Learning to shape cities includes design methods (eg based on empiricalevidence and community participation) and communication skills (eg graphicverbal written and computer-based) The goal of a meaningful urban designpedagogical initiative would be to attract students of the built environment (egarchitects landscape architects and urban planners) who will become sophisti-cated practitioners and inuential leaders of urban design in architectural andplanning rms community organizations public agencies and internationalinstitutions The initiative would thus involve (1) teaching of exploratoryseminars and studios in new urban design methodologies (eg internationalstudios) (2) research into the relevant roles of professionals especially architectsand planners in the urban design of contemporary cities (eg institutionalstructures) and (3) professional work in the form of community outreach andproject analysis (eg evaluating New Urbanism)

In summary a meaningful pedagogical approach to urban design should havethe following characteristics (1) small (ie selective)mdashfocus on key urban designchallenges eg inner city revitalization (2) focused (ie depth)mdashdevelop exper-tise in the urban designurban development nexus (3) distinct (ie cutting-edge)mdashexperiment with new studio formats projects and research eginternational collaboration and cross-cultural learning and (4) existing resources(ie breadth)mdashbuild upon other departments eg social work business naturalresources and environment

56 A Inam

The critical question that guides this meaningful future of urban design issimply So what That is what consequential purpose has been achieved byparticular urban design theories urban design methodologies urban designpractices and urban design practitioners The implication of such probingquestions is that it is far from adequate to consider urban design projects assuccessful if they are only physically appealing or thought-provoking

Conclusion

In conclusion the author would like to return to the provocations that werereferred to at the beginning of this paper While both Rem Koolhaas and MichaelSorkin are emblematic of the image-based architect-driven urban design thatpermeates much of the world and especially the USA they are also contributorsto an urban design strategy that is realistic and contrary to the nostalgia evokedby the New Urbanism and neo-traditional movements Thus for Koolhaas

If there is to be a lsquonew urbanismrsquo it will not be based on the twinfantasies of order and omnipotence hellip but about discovering unnam-able hybrids [as is the case with Los Angeles] hellip Redened urbanismwill not only or mostly be a profession but a way of thinking anideology to accept what exists We were making sand castles Now weswim in the sea that swept them away (Koolhaas 1995 pp 969ndash971)

Koolhaas thus encourages us rst to accept the contemporary urban condition(instead of seeing it through rose-tinted lenses) and second as architects urbandesigners and planners to understand and work with the contemporary urbanforces (instead of imagining a world without cars or highways)

Similarly Sorkin extols us to learn from those urban design projects and urbanenvironments which are successful in terms of the designerrsquos objectives ofattracting people to these environments and the vibrant use of these environ-ments by people Even if the objectives were to differ say in terms of greatersocial interaction and co-operation in a neighbourhood the designers of shop-ping malls gambling casinos and amusement parks at least understand humanbehaviour as it relates to entertainment and consumptionmdashlessons which can beused for other perhaps more noble projects Thus according to Sorkin (1997pp 29ndash31)

Disneyland hellip is foremost a playground of mobility its entertainmentslargely those of pleasured motion And there is something to belearned here It seems undeniable that for all of its depredations all ofits regimentation surveillance and control part of what we experienceas enjoyable at Disneyland is the passage through an environment ofurban density in which both the physical texture and the means ofcirculation are not simply entertaining but stand in invigorating con-trast to the dysfunctional versions back home One extracts fromDisneyland a shred of hope the persuasive example that pedestrianismcoupled with short distance collective transport systems can be bothefcient and fun can thrive in the midst of an environment completelyotherwise constituted and that the space of low sufciently deceler-ated can become the space of exchange

Meaningful Urban Design 57

Figure 6 The design of Disneyland in Los Angeles CAmdashalbeit lsquoarticialrsquo anddesigned to foster consumptionmdashoffers deeper lessons for understanding humanbehaviour and creating exciting environmentsmdashfor say multicultural interac-

tionmdashbased on such understanding

The lsquoshred of hopersquo offered by Disneyland (see Figure 6) is constituted by suchlessons carefully and critically collected from numerous examples of contempor-ary urban design projects and articulatedmdashvia relevant history theory andmethodologymdashinto a meaningful approach to urban design

Acknowledgement

This paper was the second place winner of the 1999 Chicago Institute forArchitecture and Urbanism (CIAU) Award This award administered by theSkidmore Owings amp Merrill Foundation on behalf of the CIAU is for unpub-lished papers and is intended to encourage writing and research on the questionof how architecture infrastructure urban design and planning can contribute toimproving the quality of life of the American city For more information aboutthis award the Foundation can be contacted at somfoundationsomcom

References

Alexander C Ishikawa S Silverstein M Jacobson M Fiksdahl-King I amp Angel S (1977) APattern Language Towns Buildings Construction (New York Oxford University Press)

Attoe W amp Logan D (1989) American Urban Architecture Catalysts in the Design of Cities (BerkeleyUniversity of California Press)

Beauregard R (1995) Theorizing the globalndashlocal connection in P Knox amp P Taylor (Eds) WorldCities in a World System (Cambridge Cambridge University Press)

Beckley R (1998) [Dean Emeritus and Professor of Architecture and Urban Planning College ofArchitecture and Urban Planning University of Michigan] Written interview

Bratt R (1986) Public housing the controversy and the contribution in R Bratt C Hartman amp AMeyerson (Eds) Critical Perspectives in Housing (Philadelphia PA Temple University Press)

Calthorpe P (1993) The Next American Metropolis Ecology Communities and the American Dream (NewYork Princeton Architectural Press)

58 A Inam

Ciriani H (1997) Henri Ciriani (Rockport MA Rockport Publishers)Crane D (1966) Planning and Design in New York A Study of Problems and Processes of its Physical

Environment (New York Institute of Public Administration)Ellin N (1996) Postmodern Urbanism (Cambridge MA Blackwell)Frampton K (1992a) Critical regionalism modern architecture and cultural identityFrampton K (1992b) Modern Architecture A Critical History 3rd edn (London Thames amp Hudson)Frieden B amp Sagalyn L (1989) Downtown Inc How America Rebuilds Cities (Cambridge MA MIT

Press)Garvin A (1996) The American City What Works What Doesnrsquot (New York McGraw-Hill)Gilbert A amp Gugler J (1992) Cities Poverty and Development Urbanization in the Third World 2nd edn

(New York Oxford University Press)Hester R (1990) Community Design Primer (Mendocino CA Ridge Times Press)Inam A (1992) The urban monument symbol memory presence masterrsquos thesis in urban design

Washington University St LouisInam A (1997) Institutions routines and crises post-earthquake housing recovery in Mexico City

and Los Angeles doctoral dissertation in urban planning University of Southern California LosAngeles CA

Jacobs A (1993) Great Streets (Cambridge MA MIT Press)Jacobs J (1961) The Death and Life of Great American Cities (New York Random House)Jones T Pettus W amp Pyatok M (1995) Good Neighbors Affordable Family Housing (New York

McGraw-Hill)Kasprisin R amp Pettinari J (1995) Visual Thinking for Architects and Designers Visualizing Context in

Design (New York Van Nostrand Reinhold)Kelbaugh D (1997) Common Place Toward Neighborhood and Regional Design (Seattle WA University

of Washington Press)Koolhaas R (1995) Small Medium Large Extra Large (Rotterdam 010 Publishers)Kostof S (1991) The City Shaped Urban Patterns and Meanings through History (Boston MA Bulnch

Press)Krumholz N amp Clavel P (1994) Reinventing Cities Equity Planners Tell Their Stories (Philadelphia

Temple University Press)Lagerfeld S (1995) What Main Street can learn from the mall Atlantic Monthly November

pp 110ndash120Lai R T (1988) Law in Urban Design and Planning The Invisible Web (New York Van Nostrand

Reinhold)Loukaitou-Sideris A amp Banerjee T (1998) Urban Design Downtown Poetics and Politics of Form

(Berkeley CA University of California Press)Lynch K (1981) Good City Form (Cambridge MA MIT Press)Moore G amp Marans R (Eds) (1997) Advances in Environment Behavior and Design Toward the

Integration of Theory Methods Research and Utilization (New York Plenum Press)Porter M (1995) The competitive advantage of the inner city Harvard Business Review 73 pp 55ndash71Rowe P (1991) Making a Middle Landscape (Cambridge MA MIT Press)Rowe P (1997) Civic Realism (Cambridge MA MIT Press)Sandercock L (1998) Towards Cosmopolis Planning for Multicultural Cities (Chichester NY John

Wiley)Sassen S (2000) Cities in a World Economy 2nd edn (Thousand Oaks CA Pine Forge Press)Saunders W (1997) Rem Koolhaasrsquos writing on cities poetic perception and gnomic fantasy Journal

of Architectural Education 51 pp 61ndash71Savitch H V (1988) Post-Industrial Cities Politics and Planning in New York Paris and London

(Princeton NJ Princeton University Press)Schneekloth L amp Shibley R (1995) Placemaking The Art and Practice of Building Communities (New

York Wiley)Segal M B (1995) An old commercial district goes from cold to hot Urban Land 54 (11) pp 16ndash18Serageldin I (Ed) (1997) The Architecture of Empowerment People Shelter and Livable Cities (London

Academy Editions)Short J R (1996) The Urban Order An Introduction to Cities Culture and Power (Cambridge MA

Blackwell)Sorkin M (1997) Trafc in Democracy 1997 Raoul Wallenberg Lecture (Ann Arbor MI College of

Architecture and Urban Planning University of Michigan)Urban Design Group (1998) Involving local communities in urban design Urban Design Quarterly 67

pp 15ndash38

Meaningful Urban Design 41

ments and the soft-programming of urban design (eg incorporation of publicexpression and cultural identity and activities events programmes and servicesintegrated with the built forms)

For the urban designer design communication is inherent in the act of designboth as internal communication in the thinking process and as an externalcommunication with the client user or broader community The people withina given context such as homeowners in a residential neighbourhood or businessowners in a commercial downtown are the agents of change aided by acommunication process that speaks to the formal aspects of their environmentThe better this communication process of design the higher the level of publicawareness and sense of ownership the better the internal decisions of changeThere are conventional public involvement formats such as public hearings citycouncil meetings and planning commission presentations There are also infor-mal meetings workshops and brainstorming sessions One of the most powerfuland effective mechanisms for active and intelligent community participation isthe charette

A charette is a short and intense workshop of a day or at the most a few daysin which the urban design team works with a local community and its socialeconomic or political leaders to arrive at a conceptual and implementationstrategy for a particular project (Kasprisin amp Pettinari 1995) The process usuallybegins with a consortium of local citizens and organizations inviting a team ofprivate (eg an architectural rm) or non-prot (eg the American Institute ofArchitects) urban designers to participate often along with a local task forceThe community and team leaders then prepare for the short intense workshopby arranging for publicity student participation work locations and suppliesThe workshop itself may subsequently consist of meetings with different repre-sentatives site tours open town hall meetings personal interviews with variousstakeholders detailed work sessions in groups a written and graphic report anda presentation of ndings (see Figure 1) In some cases there is a follow-upabout a year later in which the urban designer meets with the community toassess the success of the process and provide additional advice

The effectiveness of this community participation methodology and the oftensurprising results it generates have been well documented by Kelbaugh (1997) ina series of charettes in the Seattle region Similarly the Urban Design Group(1998) provides a series of clear concise and extremely useful communityparticipation forums including innovative mechanisms such as street stalls andinteractive displays carried out in different parts of the UK

The popularity of the computer program SimCity a city building simulatorattests to the possibility of designing urban simulation models with broad publicappeal Whether one is teaching urban processes and structures analysingspecic urban problems or most importantly involving the public in urbandesign and planning processes SimCity displays a vast untapped potential ofurban design games and simulations These examples point to creative engagingand benecial forms of not only community participation but also moresignicantly community development because they increase community aware-ness generate community strategies and suggest modes of community interven-tion in the future of their own environments

Another approach to long-term processes of community development isillustrated by the Hismen Hin-nu Terrace housing project in Oakland CA (Joneset al 1995) With a grant from the City of Oakland the architectural rm of

42 A Inam

Figure 1 Community-based charette for an urban design plan for the commercialrevitalization of Bagley Avenue in Detroit MI

Pyatok and Associates studied development scenarios for housing and neigh-bourhood services on several sites in the city The San Antonio CommunityDevelopment Council serving African American Latino and Native Americanresidents expressed interest in developing affordable housing for families andseniors on one of the sites and joined with the East Bay Asian Local Develop-ment Corporation which serves the Asian American community Pyatok andAssociates organized a series of workshops using participatory modelling kits tohelp over 30 neighbourhood participants to design plans for the site and tounderstand the implications of density

The 92 housing units in the project now not only house families and elderlycitizens with low and very low incomes but also help mend a deterioratingneighbourhood by restoring its main boulevard with housing over shops Familyhousing with a day care centre around quiet courtyards built behind a ground-oor market niches for street vendors and a job training centre all contribute tocommunity development in the neighbourhood A multi-ethnic mix of tenants isdepicted in exterior murals frieze panels decorative tiles and steel entry gatesin the form of a burst of sunshine The art is intended to prove that the USArsquoscultural diversity is a source of energy for creating community rather than asource of conict

Urban Design and Economic Development

Urban design as a catalyst for or as an active component of economic develop-ment involves designing projects that generate employment on a long-termbasis attract investment into deprived areas and increase business and taxrevenues In this context a city is not only a spatial concentration of a largenumber of people but also contains a density of economic activities Urban

Meaningful Urban Design 43

Figure 2 Horton Plaza in San Diego CA has not only generated jobs andsuccessfully attracted customers and tourists but has also helped revive the

surrounding areas

designers can be more effective if they understand and indeed encouragebenecial economic activities through physical projects

The Horton Plaza a highly successful shopping centre in San Diego CAgenerated jobs for local residents when city ofcials utilized their position asinvestors in the project to negotiate for positions (Frieden amp Sagalyn 1989) Themayor of the city turned to the Private Industry Council of San Diego Countya training and placement organization to nd jobs for low-income and unem-ployed San Diegans in Horton Plaza and other city-assisted developmentprojects The council then served as the main employment ofce for HortonPlaza By March 1986 store openings had created nearly 1000 new jobs and thecouncil lled half of them (see Figure 2) Of the people placed by the council70 were minority workers and 60 came from high-unemployment low-in-come neighbourhoods targeted for recruitment

Lower Downtown Denverrsquos most exciting commercial sub-market in recentyears provides one model for the economic reinvestment and revitalization ofother historic commercial districts (Segal 1995) The success of this area is basedon an understanding of fundamental changes in the marketplace and publicpolicies designed to complement market forces and represents an incrementalproject-by-project development approach that urban designers can adopt In1987 the Downtown Denver Partnership a non-prot business leadershiporganization established the Lower Downtown Business Support Ofce toprovide services such as business counselling to develop business plans mar-keting strategies and management expertise leasing referrals to direct prospec-tive tenants to available space and the design and implementation ofpublicprivate layered nancing strategies for individual projects Financialsupport was provided by the city of Denver the state governmentrsquos job trainingofce and corporate and foundation grants

44 A Inam

Figure 3 Outdoor seating for cafes is part of the urban design strategy whichcontributed to the economic revival of a historic area in the Lower Downtown area

of Denver CO

A historic district ordinance contributed to Lower Downtownrsquos success bycreating certainty in the marketplace Small business and entrepreneurial in-vestors were lured to the area by its scale and historic character and theknowledge that it will remain that way (see Figure 3) The cityrsquos investment of$19 million in streetscape improvements including new lighting pavementsand street furniture which was contingent upon the adoption of the historicdistrict ordinance also reinforced private investment in Lower DowntownDistrict stakeholders including developers and property owners are repre-sented on the ve-member design review committee which is now seen asbenecial to the area because of its localized control In 4 years the LowerDowntown area through the various strategies described above has attractedmore than $15 million in new investment 500 jobs and a nearby baseballstadium

Urban designers can learn to design environments that increase revenues bystudying the strategies adopted by the often maligned or overlooked designersof shopping centres gambling casinos and amusement or theme parks All ofthese environments are successful to their owners and operators when theyincrease revenues often in a remarkable manner The US landscape architectRobert Gibbs is one such member of this rare breed (Lagerfeld 1995) Accordingto Gibbs a townrsquos retail planning should begin where a shopping centrersquos doesfar from the selling oors For example it is disadvantageous to locate ashopping centre in a place where commuters have to make a left turn Peopletend to shop on their way to work and they are less likely to stop if it involvesmaking a turn against trafc

Most signicantly shopping centre designers know the average shopper (asthe urban designer should know their clientele and constituencies) and under-stand that most shoppers stroll at about 3ndash4 feet per second thus walking past

Meaningful Urban Design 45

a storefront in about 8 seconds That is how long a shop owner has to attract aconsumerrsquos attention with an arresting window display Downtown merchantsmust adapt to the same 8 second rule but they also have to sell to passingmotorists Sophisticated retailers use a variety of subliminal clues to attractshoppers whether it is a high-priced stationery store implying an upscalelifestyle through a window display of an old wood desk embellished withexpensive writing instruments or a small preciously enclosed display thatjewellers use to suggest high quality and prices to match These are but a fewof the examples of the manner in which shopping centre gambling casino andtheme park designers understand human behaviour and create environmentsthat encourage certain types of behaviour such as consumer spending howeverurban designers can focus on other types of behaviour such as the creation ofexciting neighbourhoods that foster greater social interaction and mutual under-standing amongst different ethnic groups

Urban Design and International Development

Urban design as a catalyst for or as an active component of internationaldevelopment takes the guise of sensitivity to context the generation of cross-cul-tural learning and directly addressing issues which arise out of the continuingphenomenon of economic globalization

A seminal essay which suggests an approach which is sensitive to localcontext without resorting to mimicry and which is contemporary without beinga generic modernism is Frampton (1992a) The contemporary paradox of sensi-tivity to context is that on the one hand the region or locality has to root itselfin the soil of its past forge a regional spirit and display this spiritual andcultural resistance before the modernist personality However in order to fullyparticipate in modern civilization it is necessary at the same time to take partin scientic technical and political rationality something which very oftenrequires the abandonment of major portions of a whole cultural past Thus howcan contemporary urban design celebrate an ancient tradition and return tosources while simultaneously becoming modern and participating in universalcivilization

Drawing upon the work of the French philosopher Paul Ricoeur Frampton(1992b) proposes a process of assimilation and reinterpretation wherein sustain-ing any kind of authentic culture in the future depends upon our capacity togenerate vital forms of authentic culture (eg via urban design) of regionalculture while appropriating alien inuences at the level of both the local and theglobal Alvar Aaltorsquos work is exemplary of such processes especially theSaynatsalo Town Hall in Finland (Inam 1992) The collective memory evoked bythe Saynatsalo Town Hall refers to two fundamental cultural traditions theindigenous largely agrarian one and an alien essentially classical one With itssteps overgrown with grass and weeds its variations of silhouette and itsweathered materials Saynatsalo has the air of an ancient complex of buildingswhich had grown slowly Indeed Aalto had identied this rather unique parti ofa lsquogrowing ruinrsquo in his 1941 essay lsquoArchitecture in Kareliarsquo by suggesting that aldquodilapidated Karielan village is somehow similar in appearance to a Greek ruinwhere also the materialrsquos uniformity is a dominant feature though marblereplaces woodrdquo (cited in Inam 1992 p 63)

46 A Inam

Figure 4 The Council Chamber of Saynatsalo Town Hall Finland which reectsthe power of cross-cultural symbolism

Apart from evoking the memory of indigenous environments Aalto remainedfaithful to the belief that a motif borrowed from a different context andtransplanted with sufcient conviction onto Finnish soil became genuinelyFinnish The Italian Renaissance was for Aalto an inalienable part of his heritageand philosophy of life In his view providing the inhabitants of Saynatsalo witha setting in which they could live much as the inhabitants of 14th-century Siennadid was a natural act When the members of the municipal board of buildinginquired if a small poor community like theirs really needed to build a councilchamber 17 m high especially since the brick was expensive Aalto respondedthat the worldrsquos most beautiful and famous town hall in Sienna had a councilchamber 16 m high and thus he proposed to build the one at Saynatsalo 17 mhigh (see Figure 4) Moreover Aalto explicitly referred to the courtyard as apiazza in spite of the fact that it is domestic both in nature and in scale

A contemporary example of sensitivity to context through a process ofassimilation and reinterpretation is the work of the Portuguese architect AlvaroSiza (Frampton 1992b) Siza has grounded his buildings in the conguration ofa specic topography and in the ne-grained texture of the local fabric To thisend his pieces of the built environment are tight responses to the urban landand marinescape of the Porto region Other important factors are his deferencetowards local material craft work and the subtleties of local light a deferencewhich is sustained without falling into the sentimentality of excluding rationalform and modern technique

The generation of cross-cultural learning arises out of understanding andapplying in a sympathetic and appropriate manner urban design methodolo-gies processes and forms from different cultural contexts (Inam 1997) Aninstance of this would be the woeful history of large-scale low-income housing(ie public housing) projects built by the government in various urban contextsin the USA The governmentrsquos quest to provide no-frills housing (eg built at the

Meaningful Urban Design 47

lowest costs on cheap often undesirable land) combined with the privatesectorrsquos unrelenting demands that public housing be different (eg minimalaccommodations which are overly modest and austere) from the rest of thehousing stock undermined the notion that public housing could also be attract-ive housing and possibly even contribute to the surrounding urban contexts(Bratt 1986)

Henri Cirianirsquos social housing projects in France which are the equivalent ofpublic housing projects in the USA serve as a demonstration of how large-scalelow-income housing projects built by the government can constitute positivecontributions to the urban environment instead of being eyesores La Courdan-gle is a large social housing project (ie 130 apartments 230 parking spaces anda day care centre) outside Paris in Saint Denis (Ciriani 1997) The seven-storeybuilding with its striped cladding and geometric frieze rises above the muddleof neighbouring streets and forms a corner in an otherwise loosely structuredurban space By creating a visually strong plan of geometrical precision theproject inspires a still-life composition device in urban design Transformed intoa picture plane the various free-standing buildings as well as high-rise buildingsthat surround the project integrate into a more harmonious urban setting Thecourtyard side of the building is a pure right-angled gure containing aperfectly dened square space The layering of the facades facilitates the articu-lation of the decreasing volumes contains the apartmentsrsquo balconies and terracesand mediates between the architecture of the building and the urbanity of theneighbourhood In this manner La Courdangle constitutes a low-income hous-ing project that is rich in architectural spaces and detail while helping deneand enhance the urban space around it

The phenomenon of increasing economic globalization is rapidly growing andhas been encouraged at the urban level For example in US cities such as NewYork Los Angeles Houston and Minneapolis where foreign investors havebeen active in buying real estate downtown real estate interestsmdashbrokerscommercial banks real estate consultants and property ownersmdashhave welcomedinternational property investment Throughout the 1980s the infusion of foreigncapital into the buying and selling of existing buildings and the construction ofnew building bolstered commercial property markets by raising rents increasingproperty values and generally expanding business opportunities The interactionof forces operating at various spatial scales especially the urban can beillustrated in a variety of ways the construction of an ofce building for aforeign bank using materials from around the world the dynamics of a majorresearch university whose architecture and urban planning faculty consultlocally as well as internationally and the corporate plan location and contractingstrategies of multinational corporations such as Nike and Coca Cola as theybalance local labour conditions regional locational advantages national marketsand international investment opportunities (Beauregard 1995)

The ongoing phenomenon of globalization suggests some strategies for urbandesigners Urban designers must be able to understand and react to inuencesimpinging on their communities regardless of where those inuences originate(eg World Bank funded housing projects in developing countries) and whichactors are responsible (eg US architectural rms designing ofce complexes inLondon) Furthermore urban designers must develop associations and networksthat extend beyond their spatial reach through collaborative endeavours andthereby provide another mechanism for responding to the multitude of actors

48 A Inam

who shape their communities For example the Indian architect B V Doshiutilized an institution the Vastu-Shilpa Foundation for Studies and Research todevelop an internationally (ie World Bank) funded local (ie in the city Indore)housing project in India Aranya Nagar (Serageldin 1997) The project has beenlargely a success due to the Vastu-Shilpa Foundation which carried out con-siderable research including surveys to understand the physical and economicfactors that determine the size type and density of the housing plots that werespecic to the local context

Relevant

Urban design that is relevant is urban design that is pertinent to matters at hand(eg critical urban issues) and that is based on fundamental human and naturalconditions In this section three such relevant approaches to urban design arehighlighted (1) a history of urban form that analyses the determinant processesand human meanings of form (2) a theory of urban form that is normative andbased on human values and (3) a design methodology of urban form that isempirically based and derived from patterns of human behaviour These threeapproaches are discussed by illustrating them with the work of Spiro Kostof(Kostof 1991) Kevin Lynch (Lynch 1981) and Christopher Alexander (Alexan-der et al 1977) but by no means does this suggest that these are the only suchapproaches in urban design Indeed there exist other relevant approaches tourban design (for example see Rowe 1991) but for the illustrative purposes ofthis paper the three examples mentioned above will sufce

Kostof (1991) studies the phenomenon of city making in a historical perspec-tive to consider how and why cities took the shape they did Amalgams of theliving and the built cities are repositories of cultural meaning Behind thearbitrary twist of a lane or the splendid eccentricity of a new skyscraper on theskyline lies a history of previous urban tenure a heritage of long-establishedsocial conventions a string of often bitter compromises between individualrights and the public will In a series of discussions of urban patterns such as thegrid and the city as diagram Kostof adopts a truly interdisciplinary approach bydrawing upon architecture cultural geography and social history to interpret thehidden order ascribed in these patterns

Urban form is related directly to urban process ie the people forces andinstitutions that bring about urban form (Kostof 1991) and a way to examinethis process is to ask probing research questions which are the basis for trulyunderstanding cities For example who actually designs cities What proceduresdo they go through What are the empowering agencies and laws The legal andeconomic history is an enormous and often overlooked subject It involvesownership of urban land and the land market the exercise of eminent domainwhich is the power of government to take over private property for public usethe institution of legally binding master plans building codes and other regula-tions instruments of funding urban change such as property taxes and bondissues and the administrative and more importantly the power structure ofcities Urban designers need not know all of this information but they do needto realize the importance of it why it is important to know where to turn toobtain it and to consider it in their project designs

Urban process also refers to physical change through time The tendency alltoo often is to see urban form as a nite thing and a complicated object

Meaningful Urban Design 49

However thousands of witting and unwitting acts every day alter a cityrsquos linesin ways that are perceptible only over a certain stretch of time City walls arepulled down and lled in once rational grids are slowly obscured a slashingdiagonal boulevard is run through close-grained residential neighbourhoodsrailroad tracks usurp cemeteries and waterfronts and wars res and highwaysannihilate city cores (Kostof 1991)

As an example let us consider the grid The grid is by far the commonestpattern for planned cities in history and it is universal both geographically andchronologically (Kostof 1991) No better solution recommends itself as a stan-dard scheme for disparate sites or as a means for the equal distribution of landor the easy parcelling and selling of real estate The advantage of straightthrough-streets for defence has been recognized since Aristotle and a rectilinearstreet pattern has also been resorted to in order to keep under watch a restlesspopulation However ubiquitous as the grid has always been it is also muchmisunderstood and often treated as if it were one unmodulated idea thatrequires little discrimination On the contrary the grid is an exceedingly exibleand diverse system of planning and hence its enormous success in urban designand planning About the only thing that all grids have in common is that theirstreet pattern is orthogonal that is the right angle rules and street lines in bothdirections lie parallel to each other

Furthermore the political innocence of the grid in the West is a ction In theearly Greek colonies for example the grid far from being a democratic deviceemployed to assure an equitable allotment of property to all citizens was themeans of perpetuating the privileges of the property-owning class descendentfrom the original settlers and for bolstering a territorial aristocracy The rstsettlers who made the voyage to the site were entitled to equal allocations ofland both inside and outside the city walls These hereditary estates wereinalienable the ruling class strictly discouraged a land market The estates werehuge as much as 25 acres (about 1 hectare) for some families They were thensub-divided by the owner Within the city private land could only be used forhousing Any alienation of land or any agitation for land reform was severelydealt with and could be punishable as for murder (Kostof 1991)

The point is made regularly that grids especially in the USA besides offeringsimplicity in land surveying recording and subsequent ownership transfer alsofavoured a fundamental democracy in property market participation This didnot mean that individual wealth could not appropriate considerable propertybut rather that the basic initial geometry of land parcels bespoke a simpleegalitarianism that invited easy entry into the urban land market The realityhowever is much less admirable The ordinary citizens gained easy access tourban land only at a preliminary phase when cheap rural land was beingurbanized through rapid laying out To the extent that the grid speeded thisprocess and streamlined absentee purchases it may be considered an equalizingsocial device Once the land had been identied with the city however thisadvantage of the initial geometry of land parcels evaporated and even unbuiltlots slipped out of common reach What matters most in the long run is not themystique of the grid geometry then but the luck of rst ownership (Kostof1991)

However for the conventional urban designer a grid is a grid is a grid(Kostof 1991) At best it is a visual theme upon which to play variations he orshe might be concerned with issues like using a true checkerboard design vs

50 A Inam

syncopated block rhythms with cross-axial or other types of emphasis with theplacement of open spaces within the discipline of the grid with the width andhierarchy of streets To Kostof and the meaningful urban designer on the otherhand how and with what intentions the Romans in Britain the builders ofmedieval Wales and Gascony the Spanish in Mexico or the Illinois CentralRailroad Company in the prairies of the Mid-west employed this very samedevice of settlement is the principal substance of a review of orthogonalplanning In fact the grid has accommodated a startling variety of socialstructuresmdashincluding territorial aristocracy in Greek Sicily the agrarianrepublicanism of Thomas Jefferson and the cosmic vision of Joseph Smith inMormon settlements like Salt Lake City Utahmdashand of course capitalist specu-lation

There have been few serious attempts at a comprehensive and normativetheory of urban form Good City Form (Lynch 1981) is an impressive andcourageous attempt by Kevin Lynch as a ldquosystematic effort to state generalrelationships between the form of a place and its valuerdquo (Lynch 1981 p 99)Lynch (1981 p 108) emphasizes ldquothose goals which are as general as possibleand thus do not dictate particular physical solutions and yet whose achievementcan be detected and explicitly linked to physical solutions This is the familiarnotion of performance standards applied at the city scalerdquo Lynch generalizesperformance dimensions which are certain identiable characteristics of citiesdue primarily to their spatial qualities and are measurable scales along whichdifferent groups achieve different positions These performance dimensions arebased on the following thinking

The good city is one in which the continuity of [a] complex ecology ismaintained while progressive change is permitted The fundamentalgood is the continuous development of the individual or the smallgroup and their culture a process of becoming more complex morerichly connected more competent acquiring and realizing new pow-ersmdashintellectual emotional social and physical hellip So that settlement isgood which enhances the continuity of a culture and the survival of itspeople increases a sense of connection in time and space and permitsor spurs individual growth development within continuity via open-ness and connection hellip [a settlement which is] accessible decentralizeddiverse adaptable and tolerant to experiment (Lynch 1981 pp 116ndash117)

In Lynchrsquos theory of good city form there are seven dimensions (Lynch 1981)First is vitality the degree to which an urban form supports the vital func-tions the biological requirements the capabilities of human beings and protectsthe survival of the species (eg adequate throughput of water air food andenergy) Second is sense the degree to which an urban form is clearly perceivedand mentally differentiated as well as structured in time and space and thedegree to which that mental structure connects with the residentsrsquo values andconcepts (eg distinct identity and unconstrained legibility) Third is t thedegree to which urban form matches the pattern and quantity of actionsthat people usually engage in or would like to engage in (eg compatibilitybetween function and form) Fourth is access the ability to reach other peopleactivities resources or places including the quantity and diversity of theelements that can be reached (eg ease of communication and transportation)

Meaningful Urban Design 51

Fifth is control the degree to which the creation of access to use of mainte-nance of and modication to urban spaces and activities are managed by thosewho use work or live in them (eg local power) Sixth is efciency the cost ofcreating and maintaining an urban form (eg less energy-demanding processes)Seventh is justice the way in which urban form costs and benets are dis-tributed among people according to a principle such as intrinsic worth or equity(eg equal protection from environmental hazards such as cars) These dimen-sions are applicable in a wide range of urban contexts because they are derivedfrom fundamental human values and serve as powerful measures of what alsquogoodrsquo urban design project might be

Christopher Alexander (Alexander et al 1977) adopts a problem-solvingapproach to design and explicitly renders the design methodology but moreimportantly describes how a meaningful urban designer might draw directlyfrom empirical evidence (rather than say idiosyncratic impulses) and extensiveresearch as a source of design The book is most useful as a series of thoroughlyanalysed and empirically based guidelines which are broad enough to beadapted to different contexts and architectural styles Each suggested solution isdescribed in a way that provides the key relationships (eg between humanbehaviour and spatial setting) needed to solve the problem but in a generalenough manner to allow for adaptation to particular lifestyles aesthetic tastesand local conditions Each pattern describes a problem which occurs repeatedlyin the built environment archetypal problems of urban form for example Thelongest portion of the description of each pattern describes the empiricalbackground of the pattern the evidence for its validity and the range of differentways the pattern can be manifested or designed

The rst 94 patterns deal with the large-scale structure including the urbanof the environment the growth of city and country the layout of roads andpaths the relationship between work and family the formation of suitablepublic institutions for a neighbourhood and the kinds of public space requiredto support these institutions (Alexander et al 1977) The following two examplesof urban patterns illustrate the value of this design methodology identiableneighbourhood and public outdoor room

According to Alexander et al (1977) and the scientic research they citepeople need an identiable spatial unit to belong to They want to be able toidentify the part of the city where they live as distinct from all others Availableevidence suggests rst that the neighbourhoods which people identify with haveextremely small populations second that they are small in area and third thata major road through a neighbourhood destroys it

What then is the right population for a neighbourhood The neighbourhoodinhabitants should be able to look after their own interests by being able to reachagreement on basic decisions such as about public services and common landand to organize themselves to bring pressure on local governments Anthropo-logical evidence cited by Alexander et al (1977) suggests that a human groupcannot usually co-ordinate itself to reach such decisions if its population is above1500 The experience of organizing community meetings at the local levelsuggests that 500 may be a more realistic gure

As far as the physical diameter is concerned in Philadelphia PA people whowere asked which area they really knew usually limited themselves to a smallarea seldom exceeding the two or three blocks around their house One-quarterof the inhabitants of an area in Milwaukee WI considered a neighbourhood to

52 A Inam

be an area no larger than a block around 300 feet (about 90 metres) One-halfconsidered it to be no more than seven blocks

The rst two features of the neighbourhood small population and small areaare not enough by themselves A neighbourhood can only have a strong identityif it is protected from heavy trafc Research cited by the authors suggests thatthe heavier the trafc in an area the less people think of it as home territory Notonly do residents view the streets with heavy trafc as less personal but theyalso feel the same about the houses along the street ldquoItrsquos not a friendlystreet hellip People are afraid to go out into the street because of the trafc hellip Noisefrom the street intrudes into my homerdquo (cited in Alexander et al 1977 p 83)This study conducted by the University of California at Berkeley found thatwith more than 200 cars per hour the quality of the neighbourhood begins todeteriorate

Therefore the proposed strategy suggests helping people dene the neigh-bourhoods they live in not more than about 300 yards (270 metres) or so acrosswith no more than 500 inhabitants or so and in existing cities encouraging localgroups to organize themselves to form such neighbourhoods and keeping majorroads outside these neighbourhoods While one may disagree with the dimen-sions suggested in this pattern one has to acknowledge that population sizephysical area and trafc ow are critical considerations for the design ofcontemporary neighbourhoods

In the public outdoor room pattern Alexander et al (1977) suggest that thereare very few spots along the streets of modern towns and neighbourhoodswhere people can hang out comfortably for hours at a time Men often seekcorner bars and pubs where they spend hours talking and drinking teenagersespecially boys choose special corners too where they hang around waitingfor their friends Elderly people like a special spot to go to where they canexpect to nd others small children need sandpits mud plants and water toplay with in the open young mothers who go to watch their children oftenuse the childrenrsquos play as a opportunity to meet and talk with other mothersand so on for a variety of groups Because of the diverse and casual natureof these activities they require a space which has a subtle balance of beingdened and yet not too dened so that any activity which is natural to theneighbourhood at any given time can develop freely and yet has something tostart from

What is needed is a framework which is dened just enough so that peoplenaturally tend to stop there and so that curiosity naturally takes people thereand invites them to stay A small open space roofed with columns but withoutwalls at least in part will provide the necessary balance between being open andenclosed Examples of this pattern were built with the assistance of architecturestudents in Cleveland OH on the grounds and on public land surrounding alocal mental health clinic According to staff reports these places changed thelife of the clinic dramatically many more people than usual were drawnoutdoors public talk was more animated and outdoor space that had beendominated by cars became more human In addition in the 12th and 13thcenturies there were many such public structures dotted through the towns andwhich were the scene of auctions open-air meetings and market fairs

Therefore in neighbourhoods and work communities the authors suggestmaking a piece of the common land into an outdoor roommdasha partly enclosedplace with a partial roof columns without walls perhaps with a trellis placing

Meaningful Urban Design 53

Figure 5 A contemporary example of a successful outdoor room which reects theguidelines of the outdoor room patternmdashCitywalk in Los Angeles CA

it beside an important path and within view of houses and workplaces In thisand the other patterns in the book the authors outline an urban designmethodology that is based on archetypal problems (eg public outdoor spaces)analyses of built examples descriptions of historical precedents and the explicitunpacking of design solutions such that they are clear relevant and thoughtful(see Figure 5) The basis for the design patterns was extensive and thoroughresearch carried out over an 8-year period Today there is current and volumin-ous research for example on environment and behaviour (for example seeMoore amp Marans 1997) that is highly relevant and useful for urban designers

Future Directions in Urban Design

Urban designers (eg Beckley 1998) are beginning to question what in fact islsquourbanrsquo in the contemporary environment However few will argue with

54 A Inam

denitions two decades old that are still relevant today a city is a ldquorelativelylarge dense and permanent settlement [or network of settlements] of sociallyheterogeneous individualsrdquo (L Worth cited in Kostof 1991 p 37) and a ldquopoint[or points] of maximum concentration for the power and culture of a com-munityrdquo (L Mumford cited in Kostof 1991 p 37) The urban designerrsquos impera-tive then is to understand cities On the one hand the most enduring featureof the city is its physical build which remains with remarkable persistencegaining increments that are responsive to the most recent economic demand andreective of the latest stylistic vogue but conserving evidence of past urbanculture for present and future generations On the other hand however urbansociety changes more than any other human grouping economic innovationusually comes most rapidly and boldly in cities immigration aims rst at theurban core forcing upon cities the critical role of acculturating refugees frommany countrysides and the winds of intellectual advance blow strong in cities(Vance cited in Kostof 1991)

Based on the new synthesis of ideas proposed in this paper there are threelevels of success of an urban design project These include rst the purelyaesthetically informed notion of urban design as a nished product (eg Does itlook good) The second is the sense of the project as an autonomous object thatfunctions in an affordable convenient and comfortable manner for its users (egDoes it work) The third and new idea is to have the urban design projectgenerate or substantially contribute to socio-economic development processes(eg Does it produce long-term quality of life impacts) In this sense urbandesigners and urban design projects become catalysts for community bettermenteconomic improvement and international understanding

Consequently urban designers should focus more on the lsquourbanrsquo of urbandesign and become less infatuated with the lsquodesignrsquo of urban design Urbandesign must begin with cities how they work and change and what impacts theyhave in creating enabling vs destructive impacts For example urban design hasto be seen within the framework of investment and development policies andas a shaper of those policies Cranersquos (1966) capital web of investment decisionsand Lairsquos (1988) invisible web of laws and norms that guide peoplersquos behaviourAt the same time design and form play a critical role because they are a languageand vocabulary for analysing and intervening in cities

At the most fundamental level all urban design should be responsible forcreating an environment that satises informs and inspires its users (ie thecommunity) This is an urban design that possesses an articulate communicativeprociency Urban design of profound signicance has a poetic quality By themeans of compressing its meanings into a concise formal expression a poeticurban design project draws the mind to a level of perception concealed behindthe conventional presentations of urban form The most effective symbols arethose which while operating within a given set of conventions are imprecisesparse and open-ended in their possible interpretations tending more to themetaphor than the simile Such an approach requires deep cultural understand-ing and social sensitivity

Implications for Education

The pedagogical approach to meaningful urban design will be interdisciplinary(eg examining cities from the perspectives of architects landscape architects

Meaningful Urban Design 55

urban planners policy makers social workers and business interests) teleologi-cal (eg driven by the express purpose of addressing critical urban challengessuch as uncomfortable and unsafe built environments community powerless-ness economic deprivation and fragmented interventions) critical (eg based onin-depth understanding of urban design problems and promises throughanalysis of urban design practice and case studies) and catalytic (eg theformulation of effective urban design strategies that include a focus on urbandesign products such as building complexes and public spaces but also includethe generation of long-term community and economic development processes)

The primary impact on this type of learning for students will be an under-standing of the urban designer as a leader Through an in-depth analysis ofurban issues an interdisciplinary approach to urban problem solving and skillsthat focus not only on issues of urban aesthetics and form but also on purposefulintervention generated by long-term processes students will gain a profoundand empowering understanding of meaningful urban design Students of urbandesign will also gain humility and condence by studying the power structuresof cities (and realizing just how little power urban designers actually have)practising critical thinking and learning to be politically savvy in order toaccomplish their goals A secondary impact on learning for students will be aunique opportunity for them to shape the future direction of urban designthrough readings research discussions case-study analyses and project designsthat will focus on specic urban challenges examine deciencies in currenturban design approaches and projects in addressing those challenges andformulate alternative more meaningful urban design strategies

In order to reach such goals an urban design programme should focus on twomajor sets of skills understanding how cities work and learning to shape citiesUnderstanding cities includes their conception (eg urban theory and form)their evolution (eg history of urban form) their decision-making processes (egurban political economy) and their use and experience (eg urban sociology)Learning to shape cities includes design methods (eg based on empiricalevidence and community participation) and communication skills (eg graphicverbal written and computer-based) The goal of a meaningful urban designpedagogical initiative would be to attract students of the built environment (egarchitects landscape architects and urban planners) who will become sophisti-cated practitioners and inuential leaders of urban design in architectural andplanning rms community organizations public agencies and internationalinstitutions The initiative would thus involve (1) teaching of exploratoryseminars and studios in new urban design methodologies (eg internationalstudios) (2) research into the relevant roles of professionals especially architectsand planners in the urban design of contemporary cities (eg institutionalstructures) and (3) professional work in the form of community outreach andproject analysis (eg evaluating New Urbanism)

In summary a meaningful pedagogical approach to urban design should havethe following characteristics (1) small (ie selective)mdashfocus on key urban designchallenges eg inner city revitalization (2) focused (ie depth)mdashdevelop exper-tise in the urban designurban development nexus (3) distinct (ie cutting-edge)mdashexperiment with new studio formats projects and research eginternational collaboration and cross-cultural learning and (4) existing resources(ie breadth)mdashbuild upon other departments eg social work business naturalresources and environment

56 A Inam

The critical question that guides this meaningful future of urban design issimply So what That is what consequential purpose has been achieved byparticular urban design theories urban design methodologies urban designpractices and urban design practitioners The implication of such probingquestions is that it is far from adequate to consider urban design projects assuccessful if they are only physically appealing or thought-provoking

Conclusion

In conclusion the author would like to return to the provocations that werereferred to at the beginning of this paper While both Rem Koolhaas and MichaelSorkin are emblematic of the image-based architect-driven urban design thatpermeates much of the world and especially the USA they are also contributorsto an urban design strategy that is realistic and contrary to the nostalgia evokedby the New Urbanism and neo-traditional movements Thus for Koolhaas

If there is to be a lsquonew urbanismrsquo it will not be based on the twinfantasies of order and omnipotence hellip but about discovering unnam-able hybrids [as is the case with Los Angeles] hellip Redened urbanismwill not only or mostly be a profession but a way of thinking anideology to accept what exists We were making sand castles Now weswim in the sea that swept them away (Koolhaas 1995 pp 969ndash971)

Koolhaas thus encourages us rst to accept the contemporary urban condition(instead of seeing it through rose-tinted lenses) and second as architects urbandesigners and planners to understand and work with the contemporary urbanforces (instead of imagining a world without cars or highways)

Similarly Sorkin extols us to learn from those urban design projects and urbanenvironments which are successful in terms of the designerrsquos objectives ofattracting people to these environments and the vibrant use of these environ-ments by people Even if the objectives were to differ say in terms of greatersocial interaction and co-operation in a neighbourhood the designers of shop-ping malls gambling casinos and amusement parks at least understand humanbehaviour as it relates to entertainment and consumptionmdashlessons which can beused for other perhaps more noble projects Thus according to Sorkin (1997pp 29ndash31)

Disneyland hellip is foremost a playground of mobility its entertainmentslargely those of pleasured motion And there is something to belearned here It seems undeniable that for all of its depredations all ofits regimentation surveillance and control part of what we experienceas enjoyable at Disneyland is the passage through an environment ofurban density in which both the physical texture and the means ofcirculation are not simply entertaining but stand in invigorating con-trast to the dysfunctional versions back home One extracts fromDisneyland a shred of hope the persuasive example that pedestrianismcoupled with short distance collective transport systems can be bothefcient and fun can thrive in the midst of an environment completelyotherwise constituted and that the space of low sufciently deceler-ated can become the space of exchange

Meaningful Urban Design 57

Figure 6 The design of Disneyland in Los Angeles CAmdashalbeit lsquoarticialrsquo anddesigned to foster consumptionmdashoffers deeper lessons for understanding humanbehaviour and creating exciting environmentsmdashfor say multicultural interac-

tionmdashbased on such understanding

The lsquoshred of hopersquo offered by Disneyland (see Figure 6) is constituted by suchlessons carefully and critically collected from numerous examples of contempor-ary urban design projects and articulatedmdashvia relevant history theory andmethodologymdashinto a meaningful approach to urban design

Acknowledgement

This paper was the second place winner of the 1999 Chicago Institute forArchitecture and Urbanism (CIAU) Award This award administered by theSkidmore Owings amp Merrill Foundation on behalf of the CIAU is for unpub-lished papers and is intended to encourage writing and research on the questionof how architecture infrastructure urban design and planning can contribute toimproving the quality of life of the American city For more information aboutthis award the Foundation can be contacted at somfoundationsomcom

References

Alexander C Ishikawa S Silverstein M Jacobson M Fiksdahl-King I amp Angel S (1977) APattern Language Towns Buildings Construction (New York Oxford University Press)

Attoe W amp Logan D (1989) American Urban Architecture Catalysts in the Design of Cities (BerkeleyUniversity of California Press)

Beauregard R (1995) Theorizing the globalndashlocal connection in P Knox amp P Taylor (Eds) WorldCities in a World System (Cambridge Cambridge University Press)

Beckley R (1998) [Dean Emeritus and Professor of Architecture and Urban Planning College ofArchitecture and Urban Planning University of Michigan] Written interview

Bratt R (1986) Public housing the controversy and the contribution in R Bratt C Hartman amp AMeyerson (Eds) Critical Perspectives in Housing (Philadelphia PA Temple University Press)

Calthorpe P (1993) The Next American Metropolis Ecology Communities and the American Dream (NewYork Princeton Architectural Press)

58 A Inam

Ciriani H (1997) Henri Ciriani (Rockport MA Rockport Publishers)Crane D (1966) Planning and Design in New York A Study of Problems and Processes of its Physical

Environment (New York Institute of Public Administration)Ellin N (1996) Postmodern Urbanism (Cambridge MA Blackwell)Frampton K (1992a) Critical regionalism modern architecture and cultural identityFrampton K (1992b) Modern Architecture A Critical History 3rd edn (London Thames amp Hudson)Frieden B amp Sagalyn L (1989) Downtown Inc How America Rebuilds Cities (Cambridge MA MIT

Press)Garvin A (1996) The American City What Works What Doesnrsquot (New York McGraw-Hill)Gilbert A amp Gugler J (1992) Cities Poverty and Development Urbanization in the Third World 2nd edn

(New York Oxford University Press)Hester R (1990) Community Design Primer (Mendocino CA Ridge Times Press)Inam A (1992) The urban monument symbol memory presence masterrsquos thesis in urban design

Washington University St LouisInam A (1997) Institutions routines and crises post-earthquake housing recovery in Mexico City

and Los Angeles doctoral dissertation in urban planning University of Southern California LosAngeles CA

Jacobs A (1993) Great Streets (Cambridge MA MIT Press)Jacobs J (1961) The Death and Life of Great American Cities (New York Random House)Jones T Pettus W amp Pyatok M (1995) Good Neighbors Affordable Family Housing (New York

McGraw-Hill)Kasprisin R amp Pettinari J (1995) Visual Thinking for Architects and Designers Visualizing Context in

Design (New York Van Nostrand Reinhold)Kelbaugh D (1997) Common Place Toward Neighborhood and Regional Design (Seattle WA University

of Washington Press)Koolhaas R (1995) Small Medium Large Extra Large (Rotterdam 010 Publishers)Kostof S (1991) The City Shaped Urban Patterns and Meanings through History (Boston MA Bulnch

Press)Krumholz N amp Clavel P (1994) Reinventing Cities Equity Planners Tell Their Stories (Philadelphia

Temple University Press)Lagerfeld S (1995) What Main Street can learn from the mall Atlantic Monthly November

pp 110ndash120Lai R T (1988) Law in Urban Design and Planning The Invisible Web (New York Van Nostrand

Reinhold)Loukaitou-Sideris A amp Banerjee T (1998) Urban Design Downtown Poetics and Politics of Form

(Berkeley CA University of California Press)Lynch K (1981) Good City Form (Cambridge MA MIT Press)Moore G amp Marans R (Eds) (1997) Advances in Environment Behavior and Design Toward the

Integration of Theory Methods Research and Utilization (New York Plenum Press)Porter M (1995) The competitive advantage of the inner city Harvard Business Review 73 pp 55ndash71Rowe P (1991) Making a Middle Landscape (Cambridge MA MIT Press)Rowe P (1997) Civic Realism (Cambridge MA MIT Press)Sandercock L (1998) Towards Cosmopolis Planning for Multicultural Cities (Chichester NY John

Wiley)Sassen S (2000) Cities in a World Economy 2nd edn (Thousand Oaks CA Pine Forge Press)Saunders W (1997) Rem Koolhaasrsquos writing on cities poetic perception and gnomic fantasy Journal

of Architectural Education 51 pp 61ndash71Savitch H V (1988) Post-Industrial Cities Politics and Planning in New York Paris and London

(Princeton NJ Princeton University Press)Schneekloth L amp Shibley R (1995) Placemaking The Art and Practice of Building Communities (New

York Wiley)Segal M B (1995) An old commercial district goes from cold to hot Urban Land 54 (11) pp 16ndash18Serageldin I (Ed) (1997) The Architecture of Empowerment People Shelter and Livable Cities (London

Academy Editions)Short J R (1996) The Urban Order An Introduction to Cities Culture and Power (Cambridge MA

Blackwell)Sorkin M (1997) Trafc in Democracy 1997 Raoul Wallenberg Lecture (Ann Arbor MI College of

Architecture and Urban Planning University of Michigan)Urban Design Group (1998) Involving local communities in urban design Urban Design Quarterly 67

pp 15ndash38

42 A Inam

Figure 1 Community-based charette for an urban design plan for the commercialrevitalization of Bagley Avenue in Detroit MI

Pyatok and Associates studied development scenarios for housing and neigh-bourhood services on several sites in the city The San Antonio CommunityDevelopment Council serving African American Latino and Native Americanresidents expressed interest in developing affordable housing for families andseniors on one of the sites and joined with the East Bay Asian Local Develop-ment Corporation which serves the Asian American community Pyatok andAssociates organized a series of workshops using participatory modelling kits tohelp over 30 neighbourhood participants to design plans for the site and tounderstand the implications of density

The 92 housing units in the project now not only house families and elderlycitizens with low and very low incomes but also help mend a deterioratingneighbourhood by restoring its main boulevard with housing over shops Familyhousing with a day care centre around quiet courtyards built behind a ground-oor market niches for street vendors and a job training centre all contribute tocommunity development in the neighbourhood A multi-ethnic mix of tenants isdepicted in exterior murals frieze panels decorative tiles and steel entry gatesin the form of a burst of sunshine The art is intended to prove that the USArsquoscultural diversity is a source of energy for creating community rather than asource of conict

Urban Design and Economic Development

Urban design as a catalyst for or as an active component of economic develop-ment involves designing projects that generate employment on a long-termbasis attract investment into deprived areas and increase business and taxrevenues In this context a city is not only a spatial concentration of a largenumber of people but also contains a density of economic activities Urban

Meaningful Urban Design 43

Figure 2 Horton Plaza in San Diego CA has not only generated jobs andsuccessfully attracted customers and tourists but has also helped revive the

surrounding areas

designers can be more effective if they understand and indeed encouragebenecial economic activities through physical projects

The Horton Plaza a highly successful shopping centre in San Diego CAgenerated jobs for local residents when city ofcials utilized their position asinvestors in the project to negotiate for positions (Frieden amp Sagalyn 1989) Themayor of the city turned to the Private Industry Council of San Diego Countya training and placement organization to nd jobs for low-income and unem-ployed San Diegans in Horton Plaza and other city-assisted developmentprojects The council then served as the main employment ofce for HortonPlaza By March 1986 store openings had created nearly 1000 new jobs and thecouncil lled half of them (see Figure 2) Of the people placed by the council70 were minority workers and 60 came from high-unemployment low-in-come neighbourhoods targeted for recruitment

Lower Downtown Denverrsquos most exciting commercial sub-market in recentyears provides one model for the economic reinvestment and revitalization ofother historic commercial districts (Segal 1995) The success of this area is basedon an understanding of fundamental changes in the marketplace and publicpolicies designed to complement market forces and represents an incrementalproject-by-project development approach that urban designers can adopt In1987 the Downtown Denver Partnership a non-prot business leadershiporganization established the Lower Downtown Business Support Ofce toprovide services such as business counselling to develop business plans mar-keting strategies and management expertise leasing referrals to direct prospec-tive tenants to available space and the design and implementation ofpublicprivate layered nancing strategies for individual projects Financialsupport was provided by the city of Denver the state governmentrsquos job trainingofce and corporate and foundation grants

44 A Inam

Figure 3 Outdoor seating for cafes is part of the urban design strategy whichcontributed to the economic revival of a historic area in the Lower Downtown area

of Denver CO

A historic district ordinance contributed to Lower Downtownrsquos success bycreating certainty in the marketplace Small business and entrepreneurial in-vestors were lured to the area by its scale and historic character and theknowledge that it will remain that way (see Figure 3) The cityrsquos investment of$19 million in streetscape improvements including new lighting pavementsand street furniture which was contingent upon the adoption of the historicdistrict ordinance also reinforced private investment in Lower DowntownDistrict stakeholders including developers and property owners are repre-sented on the ve-member design review committee which is now seen asbenecial to the area because of its localized control In 4 years the LowerDowntown area through the various strategies described above has attractedmore than $15 million in new investment 500 jobs and a nearby baseballstadium

Urban designers can learn to design environments that increase revenues bystudying the strategies adopted by the often maligned or overlooked designersof shopping centres gambling casinos and amusement or theme parks All ofthese environments are successful to their owners and operators when theyincrease revenues often in a remarkable manner The US landscape architectRobert Gibbs is one such member of this rare breed (Lagerfeld 1995) Accordingto Gibbs a townrsquos retail planning should begin where a shopping centrersquos doesfar from the selling oors For example it is disadvantageous to locate ashopping centre in a place where commuters have to make a left turn Peopletend to shop on their way to work and they are less likely to stop if it involvesmaking a turn against trafc

Most signicantly shopping centre designers know the average shopper (asthe urban designer should know their clientele and constituencies) and under-stand that most shoppers stroll at about 3ndash4 feet per second thus walking past

Meaningful Urban Design 45

a storefront in about 8 seconds That is how long a shop owner has to attract aconsumerrsquos attention with an arresting window display Downtown merchantsmust adapt to the same 8 second rule but they also have to sell to passingmotorists Sophisticated retailers use a variety of subliminal clues to attractshoppers whether it is a high-priced stationery store implying an upscalelifestyle through a window display of an old wood desk embellished withexpensive writing instruments or a small preciously enclosed display thatjewellers use to suggest high quality and prices to match These are but a fewof the examples of the manner in which shopping centre gambling casino andtheme park designers understand human behaviour and create environmentsthat encourage certain types of behaviour such as consumer spending howeverurban designers can focus on other types of behaviour such as the creation ofexciting neighbourhoods that foster greater social interaction and mutual under-standing amongst different ethnic groups

Urban Design and International Development

Urban design as a catalyst for or as an active component of internationaldevelopment takes the guise of sensitivity to context the generation of cross-cul-tural learning and directly addressing issues which arise out of the continuingphenomenon of economic globalization

A seminal essay which suggests an approach which is sensitive to localcontext without resorting to mimicry and which is contemporary without beinga generic modernism is Frampton (1992a) The contemporary paradox of sensi-tivity to context is that on the one hand the region or locality has to root itselfin the soil of its past forge a regional spirit and display this spiritual andcultural resistance before the modernist personality However in order to fullyparticipate in modern civilization it is necessary at the same time to take partin scientic technical and political rationality something which very oftenrequires the abandonment of major portions of a whole cultural past Thus howcan contemporary urban design celebrate an ancient tradition and return tosources while simultaneously becoming modern and participating in universalcivilization

Drawing upon the work of the French philosopher Paul Ricoeur Frampton(1992b) proposes a process of assimilation and reinterpretation wherein sustain-ing any kind of authentic culture in the future depends upon our capacity togenerate vital forms of authentic culture (eg via urban design) of regionalculture while appropriating alien inuences at the level of both the local and theglobal Alvar Aaltorsquos work is exemplary of such processes especially theSaynatsalo Town Hall in Finland (Inam 1992) The collective memory evoked bythe Saynatsalo Town Hall refers to two fundamental cultural traditions theindigenous largely agrarian one and an alien essentially classical one With itssteps overgrown with grass and weeds its variations of silhouette and itsweathered materials Saynatsalo has the air of an ancient complex of buildingswhich had grown slowly Indeed Aalto had identied this rather unique parti ofa lsquogrowing ruinrsquo in his 1941 essay lsquoArchitecture in Kareliarsquo by suggesting that aldquodilapidated Karielan village is somehow similar in appearance to a Greek ruinwhere also the materialrsquos uniformity is a dominant feature though marblereplaces woodrdquo (cited in Inam 1992 p 63)

46 A Inam

Figure 4 The Council Chamber of Saynatsalo Town Hall Finland which reectsthe power of cross-cultural symbolism

Apart from evoking the memory of indigenous environments Aalto remainedfaithful to the belief that a motif borrowed from a different context andtransplanted with sufcient conviction onto Finnish soil became genuinelyFinnish The Italian Renaissance was for Aalto an inalienable part of his heritageand philosophy of life In his view providing the inhabitants of Saynatsalo witha setting in which they could live much as the inhabitants of 14th-century Siennadid was a natural act When the members of the municipal board of buildinginquired if a small poor community like theirs really needed to build a councilchamber 17 m high especially since the brick was expensive Aalto respondedthat the worldrsquos most beautiful and famous town hall in Sienna had a councilchamber 16 m high and thus he proposed to build the one at Saynatsalo 17 mhigh (see Figure 4) Moreover Aalto explicitly referred to the courtyard as apiazza in spite of the fact that it is domestic both in nature and in scale

A contemporary example of sensitivity to context through a process ofassimilation and reinterpretation is the work of the Portuguese architect AlvaroSiza (Frampton 1992b) Siza has grounded his buildings in the conguration ofa specic topography and in the ne-grained texture of the local fabric To thisend his pieces of the built environment are tight responses to the urban landand marinescape of the Porto region Other important factors are his deferencetowards local material craft work and the subtleties of local light a deferencewhich is sustained without falling into the sentimentality of excluding rationalform and modern technique

The generation of cross-cultural learning arises out of understanding andapplying in a sympathetic and appropriate manner urban design methodolo-gies processes and forms from different cultural contexts (Inam 1997) Aninstance of this would be the woeful history of large-scale low-income housing(ie public housing) projects built by the government in various urban contextsin the USA The governmentrsquos quest to provide no-frills housing (eg built at the

Meaningful Urban Design 47

lowest costs on cheap often undesirable land) combined with the privatesectorrsquos unrelenting demands that public housing be different (eg minimalaccommodations which are overly modest and austere) from the rest of thehousing stock undermined the notion that public housing could also be attract-ive housing and possibly even contribute to the surrounding urban contexts(Bratt 1986)

Henri Cirianirsquos social housing projects in France which are the equivalent ofpublic housing projects in the USA serve as a demonstration of how large-scalelow-income housing projects built by the government can constitute positivecontributions to the urban environment instead of being eyesores La Courdan-gle is a large social housing project (ie 130 apartments 230 parking spaces anda day care centre) outside Paris in Saint Denis (Ciriani 1997) The seven-storeybuilding with its striped cladding and geometric frieze rises above the muddleof neighbouring streets and forms a corner in an otherwise loosely structuredurban space By creating a visually strong plan of geometrical precision theproject inspires a still-life composition device in urban design Transformed intoa picture plane the various free-standing buildings as well as high-rise buildingsthat surround the project integrate into a more harmonious urban setting Thecourtyard side of the building is a pure right-angled gure containing aperfectly dened square space The layering of the facades facilitates the articu-lation of the decreasing volumes contains the apartmentsrsquo balconies and terracesand mediates between the architecture of the building and the urbanity of theneighbourhood In this manner La Courdangle constitutes a low-income hous-ing project that is rich in architectural spaces and detail while helping deneand enhance the urban space around it

The phenomenon of increasing economic globalization is rapidly growing andhas been encouraged at the urban level For example in US cities such as NewYork Los Angeles Houston and Minneapolis where foreign investors havebeen active in buying real estate downtown real estate interestsmdashbrokerscommercial banks real estate consultants and property ownersmdashhave welcomedinternational property investment Throughout the 1980s the infusion of foreigncapital into the buying and selling of existing buildings and the construction ofnew building bolstered commercial property markets by raising rents increasingproperty values and generally expanding business opportunities The interactionof forces operating at various spatial scales especially the urban can beillustrated in a variety of ways the construction of an ofce building for aforeign bank using materials from around the world the dynamics of a majorresearch university whose architecture and urban planning faculty consultlocally as well as internationally and the corporate plan location and contractingstrategies of multinational corporations such as Nike and Coca Cola as theybalance local labour conditions regional locational advantages national marketsand international investment opportunities (Beauregard 1995)

The ongoing phenomenon of globalization suggests some strategies for urbandesigners Urban designers must be able to understand and react to inuencesimpinging on their communities regardless of where those inuences originate(eg World Bank funded housing projects in developing countries) and whichactors are responsible (eg US architectural rms designing ofce complexes inLondon) Furthermore urban designers must develop associations and networksthat extend beyond their spatial reach through collaborative endeavours andthereby provide another mechanism for responding to the multitude of actors

48 A Inam

who shape their communities For example the Indian architect B V Doshiutilized an institution the Vastu-Shilpa Foundation for Studies and Research todevelop an internationally (ie World Bank) funded local (ie in the city Indore)housing project in India Aranya Nagar (Serageldin 1997) The project has beenlargely a success due to the Vastu-Shilpa Foundation which carried out con-siderable research including surveys to understand the physical and economicfactors that determine the size type and density of the housing plots that werespecic to the local context

Relevant

Urban design that is relevant is urban design that is pertinent to matters at hand(eg critical urban issues) and that is based on fundamental human and naturalconditions In this section three such relevant approaches to urban design arehighlighted (1) a history of urban form that analyses the determinant processesand human meanings of form (2) a theory of urban form that is normative andbased on human values and (3) a design methodology of urban form that isempirically based and derived from patterns of human behaviour These threeapproaches are discussed by illustrating them with the work of Spiro Kostof(Kostof 1991) Kevin Lynch (Lynch 1981) and Christopher Alexander (Alexan-der et al 1977) but by no means does this suggest that these are the only suchapproaches in urban design Indeed there exist other relevant approaches tourban design (for example see Rowe 1991) but for the illustrative purposes ofthis paper the three examples mentioned above will sufce

Kostof (1991) studies the phenomenon of city making in a historical perspec-tive to consider how and why cities took the shape they did Amalgams of theliving and the built cities are repositories of cultural meaning Behind thearbitrary twist of a lane or the splendid eccentricity of a new skyscraper on theskyline lies a history of previous urban tenure a heritage of long-establishedsocial conventions a string of often bitter compromises between individualrights and the public will In a series of discussions of urban patterns such as thegrid and the city as diagram Kostof adopts a truly interdisciplinary approach bydrawing upon architecture cultural geography and social history to interpret thehidden order ascribed in these patterns

Urban form is related directly to urban process ie the people forces andinstitutions that bring about urban form (Kostof 1991) and a way to examinethis process is to ask probing research questions which are the basis for trulyunderstanding cities For example who actually designs cities What proceduresdo they go through What are the empowering agencies and laws The legal andeconomic history is an enormous and often overlooked subject It involvesownership of urban land and the land market the exercise of eminent domainwhich is the power of government to take over private property for public usethe institution of legally binding master plans building codes and other regula-tions instruments of funding urban change such as property taxes and bondissues and the administrative and more importantly the power structure ofcities Urban designers need not know all of this information but they do needto realize the importance of it why it is important to know where to turn toobtain it and to consider it in their project designs

Urban process also refers to physical change through time The tendency alltoo often is to see urban form as a nite thing and a complicated object

Meaningful Urban Design 49

However thousands of witting and unwitting acts every day alter a cityrsquos linesin ways that are perceptible only over a certain stretch of time City walls arepulled down and lled in once rational grids are slowly obscured a slashingdiagonal boulevard is run through close-grained residential neighbourhoodsrailroad tracks usurp cemeteries and waterfronts and wars res and highwaysannihilate city cores (Kostof 1991)

As an example let us consider the grid The grid is by far the commonestpattern for planned cities in history and it is universal both geographically andchronologically (Kostof 1991) No better solution recommends itself as a stan-dard scheme for disparate sites or as a means for the equal distribution of landor the easy parcelling and selling of real estate The advantage of straightthrough-streets for defence has been recognized since Aristotle and a rectilinearstreet pattern has also been resorted to in order to keep under watch a restlesspopulation However ubiquitous as the grid has always been it is also muchmisunderstood and often treated as if it were one unmodulated idea thatrequires little discrimination On the contrary the grid is an exceedingly exibleand diverse system of planning and hence its enormous success in urban designand planning About the only thing that all grids have in common is that theirstreet pattern is orthogonal that is the right angle rules and street lines in bothdirections lie parallel to each other

Furthermore the political innocence of the grid in the West is a ction In theearly Greek colonies for example the grid far from being a democratic deviceemployed to assure an equitable allotment of property to all citizens was themeans of perpetuating the privileges of the property-owning class descendentfrom the original settlers and for bolstering a territorial aristocracy The rstsettlers who made the voyage to the site were entitled to equal allocations ofland both inside and outside the city walls These hereditary estates wereinalienable the ruling class strictly discouraged a land market The estates werehuge as much as 25 acres (about 1 hectare) for some families They were thensub-divided by the owner Within the city private land could only be used forhousing Any alienation of land or any agitation for land reform was severelydealt with and could be punishable as for murder (Kostof 1991)

The point is made regularly that grids especially in the USA besides offeringsimplicity in land surveying recording and subsequent ownership transfer alsofavoured a fundamental democracy in property market participation This didnot mean that individual wealth could not appropriate considerable propertybut rather that the basic initial geometry of land parcels bespoke a simpleegalitarianism that invited easy entry into the urban land market The realityhowever is much less admirable The ordinary citizens gained easy access tourban land only at a preliminary phase when cheap rural land was beingurbanized through rapid laying out To the extent that the grid speeded thisprocess and streamlined absentee purchases it may be considered an equalizingsocial device Once the land had been identied with the city however thisadvantage of the initial geometry of land parcels evaporated and even unbuiltlots slipped out of common reach What matters most in the long run is not themystique of the grid geometry then but the luck of rst ownership (Kostof1991)

However for the conventional urban designer a grid is a grid is a grid(Kostof 1991) At best it is a visual theme upon which to play variations he orshe might be concerned with issues like using a true checkerboard design vs

50 A Inam

syncopated block rhythms with cross-axial or other types of emphasis with theplacement of open spaces within the discipline of the grid with the width andhierarchy of streets To Kostof and the meaningful urban designer on the otherhand how and with what intentions the Romans in Britain the builders ofmedieval Wales and Gascony the Spanish in Mexico or the Illinois CentralRailroad Company in the prairies of the Mid-west employed this very samedevice of settlement is the principal substance of a review of orthogonalplanning In fact the grid has accommodated a startling variety of socialstructuresmdashincluding territorial aristocracy in Greek Sicily the agrarianrepublicanism of Thomas Jefferson and the cosmic vision of Joseph Smith inMormon settlements like Salt Lake City Utahmdashand of course capitalist specu-lation

There have been few serious attempts at a comprehensive and normativetheory of urban form Good City Form (Lynch 1981) is an impressive andcourageous attempt by Kevin Lynch as a ldquosystematic effort to state generalrelationships between the form of a place and its valuerdquo (Lynch 1981 p 99)Lynch (1981 p 108) emphasizes ldquothose goals which are as general as possibleand thus do not dictate particular physical solutions and yet whose achievementcan be detected and explicitly linked to physical solutions This is the familiarnotion of performance standards applied at the city scalerdquo Lynch generalizesperformance dimensions which are certain identiable characteristics of citiesdue primarily to their spatial qualities and are measurable scales along whichdifferent groups achieve different positions These performance dimensions arebased on the following thinking

The good city is one in which the continuity of [a] complex ecology ismaintained while progressive change is permitted The fundamentalgood is the continuous development of the individual or the smallgroup and their culture a process of becoming more complex morerichly connected more competent acquiring and realizing new pow-ersmdashintellectual emotional social and physical hellip So that settlement isgood which enhances the continuity of a culture and the survival of itspeople increases a sense of connection in time and space and permitsor spurs individual growth development within continuity via open-ness and connection hellip [a settlement which is] accessible decentralizeddiverse adaptable and tolerant to experiment (Lynch 1981 pp 116ndash117)

In Lynchrsquos theory of good city form there are seven dimensions (Lynch 1981)First is vitality the degree to which an urban form supports the vital func-tions the biological requirements the capabilities of human beings and protectsthe survival of the species (eg adequate throughput of water air food andenergy) Second is sense the degree to which an urban form is clearly perceivedand mentally differentiated as well as structured in time and space and thedegree to which that mental structure connects with the residentsrsquo values andconcepts (eg distinct identity and unconstrained legibility) Third is t thedegree to which urban form matches the pattern and quantity of actionsthat people usually engage in or would like to engage in (eg compatibilitybetween function and form) Fourth is access the ability to reach other peopleactivities resources or places including the quantity and diversity of theelements that can be reached (eg ease of communication and transportation)

Meaningful Urban Design 51

Fifth is control the degree to which the creation of access to use of mainte-nance of and modication to urban spaces and activities are managed by thosewho use work or live in them (eg local power) Sixth is efciency the cost ofcreating and maintaining an urban form (eg less energy-demanding processes)Seventh is justice the way in which urban form costs and benets are dis-tributed among people according to a principle such as intrinsic worth or equity(eg equal protection from environmental hazards such as cars) These dimen-sions are applicable in a wide range of urban contexts because they are derivedfrom fundamental human values and serve as powerful measures of what alsquogoodrsquo urban design project might be

Christopher Alexander (Alexander et al 1977) adopts a problem-solvingapproach to design and explicitly renders the design methodology but moreimportantly describes how a meaningful urban designer might draw directlyfrom empirical evidence (rather than say idiosyncratic impulses) and extensiveresearch as a source of design The book is most useful as a series of thoroughlyanalysed and empirically based guidelines which are broad enough to beadapted to different contexts and architectural styles Each suggested solution isdescribed in a way that provides the key relationships (eg between humanbehaviour and spatial setting) needed to solve the problem but in a generalenough manner to allow for adaptation to particular lifestyles aesthetic tastesand local conditions Each pattern describes a problem which occurs repeatedlyin the built environment archetypal problems of urban form for example Thelongest portion of the description of each pattern describes the empiricalbackground of the pattern the evidence for its validity and the range of differentways the pattern can be manifested or designed

The rst 94 patterns deal with the large-scale structure including the urbanof the environment the growth of city and country the layout of roads andpaths the relationship between work and family the formation of suitablepublic institutions for a neighbourhood and the kinds of public space requiredto support these institutions (Alexander et al 1977) The following two examplesof urban patterns illustrate the value of this design methodology identiableneighbourhood and public outdoor room

According to Alexander et al (1977) and the scientic research they citepeople need an identiable spatial unit to belong to They want to be able toidentify the part of the city where they live as distinct from all others Availableevidence suggests rst that the neighbourhoods which people identify with haveextremely small populations second that they are small in area and third thata major road through a neighbourhood destroys it

What then is the right population for a neighbourhood The neighbourhoodinhabitants should be able to look after their own interests by being able to reachagreement on basic decisions such as about public services and common landand to organize themselves to bring pressure on local governments Anthropo-logical evidence cited by Alexander et al (1977) suggests that a human groupcannot usually co-ordinate itself to reach such decisions if its population is above1500 The experience of organizing community meetings at the local levelsuggests that 500 may be a more realistic gure

As far as the physical diameter is concerned in Philadelphia PA people whowere asked which area they really knew usually limited themselves to a smallarea seldom exceeding the two or three blocks around their house One-quarterof the inhabitants of an area in Milwaukee WI considered a neighbourhood to

52 A Inam

be an area no larger than a block around 300 feet (about 90 metres) One-halfconsidered it to be no more than seven blocks

The rst two features of the neighbourhood small population and small areaare not enough by themselves A neighbourhood can only have a strong identityif it is protected from heavy trafc Research cited by the authors suggests thatthe heavier the trafc in an area the less people think of it as home territory Notonly do residents view the streets with heavy trafc as less personal but theyalso feel the same about the houses along the street ldquoItrsquos not a friendlystreet hellip People are afraid to go out into the street because of the trafc hellip Noisefrom the street intrudes into my homerdquo (cited in Alexander et al 1977 p 83)This study conducted by the University of California at Berkeley found thatwith more than 200 cars per hour the quality of the neighbourhood begins todeteriorate

Therefore the proposed strategy suggests helping people dene the neigh-bourhoods they live in not more than about 300 yards (270 metres) or so acrosswith no more than 500 inhabitants or so and in existing cities encouraging localgroups to organize themselves to form such neighbourhoods and keeping majorroads outside these neighbourhoods While one may disagree with the dimen-sions suggested in this pattern one has to acknowledge that population sizephysical area and trafc ow are critical considerations for the design ofcontemporary neighbourhoods

In the public outdoor room pattern Alexander et al (1977) suggest that thereare very few spots along the streets of modern towns and neighbourhoodswhere people can hang out comfortably for hours at a time Men often seekcorner bars and pubs where they spend hours talking and drinking teenagersespecially boys choose special corners too where they hang around waitingfor their friends Elderly people like a special spot to go to where they canexpect to nd others small children need sandpits mud plants and water toplay with in the open young mothers who go to watch their children oftenuse the childrenrsquos play as a opportunity to meet and talk with other mothersand so on for a variety of groups Because of the diverse and casual natureof these activities they require a space which has a subtle balance of beingdened and yet not too dened so that any activity which is natural to theneighbourhood at any given time can develop freely and yet has something tostart from

What is needed is a framework which is dened just enough so that peoplenaturally tend to stop there and so that curiosity naturally takes people thereand invites them to stay A small open space roofed with columns but withoutwalls at least in part will provide the necessary balance between being open andenclosed Examples of this pattern were built with the assistance of architecturestudents in Cleveland OH on the grounds and on public land surrounding alocal mental health clinic According to staff reports these places changed thelife of the clinic dramatically many more people than usual were drawnoutdoors public talk was more animated and outdoor space that had beendominated by cars became more human In addition in the 12th and 13thcenturies there were many such public structures dotted through the towns andwhich were the scene of auctions open-air meetings and market fairs

Therefore in neighbourhoods and work communities the authors suggestmaking a piece of the common land into an outdoor roommdasha partly enclosedplace with a partial roof columns without walls perhaps with a trellis placing

Meaningful Urban Design 53

Figure 5 A contemporary example of a successful outdoor room which reects theguidelines of the outdoor room patternmdashCitywalk in Los Angeles CA

it beside an important path and within view of houses and workplaces In thisand the other patterns in the book the authors outline an urban designmethodology that is based on archetypal problems (eg public outdoor spaces)analyses of built examples descriptions of historical precedents and the explicitunpacking of design solutions such that they are clear relevant and thoughtful(see Figure 5) The basis for the design patterns was extensive and thoroughresearch carried out over an 8-year period Today there is current and volumin-ous research for example on environment and behaviour (for example seeMoore amp Marans 1997) that is highly relevant and useful for urban designers

Future Directions in Urban Design

Urban designers (eg Beckley 1998) are beginning to question what in fact islsquourbanrsquo in the contemporary environment However few will argue with

54 A Inam

denitions two decades old that are still relevant today a city is a ldquorelativelylarge dense and permanent settlement [or network of settlements] of sociallyheterogeneous individualsrdquo (L Worth cited in Kostof 1991 p 37) and a ldquopoint[or points] of maximum concentration for the power and culture of a com-munityrdquo (L Mumford cited in Kostof 1991 p 37) The urban designerrsquos impera-tive then is to understand cities On the one hand the most enduring featureof the city is its physical build which remains with remarkable persistencegaining increments that are responsive to the most recent economic demand andreective of the latest stylistic vogue but conserving evidence of past urbanculture for present and future generations On the other hand however urbansociety changes more than any other human grouping economic innovationusually comes most rapidly and boldly in cities immigration aims rst at theurban core forcing upon cities the critical role of acculturating refugees frommany countrysides and the winds of intellectual advance blow strong in cities(Vance cited in Kostof 1991)

Based on the new synthesis of ideas proposed in this paper there are threelevels of success of an urban design project These include rst the purelyaesthetically informed notion of urban design as a nished product (eg Does itlook good) The second is the sense of the project as an autonomous object thatfunctions in an affordable convenient and comfortable manner for its users (egDoes it work) The third and new idea is to have the urban design projectgenerate or substantially contribute to socio-economic development processes(eg Does it produce long-term quality of life impacts) In this sense urbandesigners and urban design projects become catalysts for community bettermenteconomic improvement and international understanding

Consequently urban designers should focus more on the lsquourbanrsquo of urbandesign and become less infatuated with the lsquodesignrsquo of urban design Urbandesign must begin with cities how they work and change and what impacts theyhave in creating enabling vs destructive impacts For example urban design hasto be seen within the framework of investment and development policies andas a shaper of those policies Cranersquos (1966) capital web of investment decisionsand Lairsquos (1988) invisible web of laws and norms that guide peoplersquos behaviourAt the same time design and form play a critical role because they are a languageand vocabulary for analysing and intervening in cities

At the most fundamental level all urban design should be responsible forcreating an environment that satises informs and inspires its users (ie thecommunity) This is an urban design that possesses an articulate communicativeprociency Urban design of profound signicance has a poetic quality By themeans of compressing its meanings into a concise formal expression a poeticurban design project draws the mind to a level of perception concealed behindthe conventional presentations of urban form The most effective symbols arethose which while operating within a given set of conventions are imprecisesparse and open-ended in their possible interpretations tending more to themetaphor than the simile Such an approach requires deep cultural understand-ing and social sensitivity

Implications for Education

The pedagogical approach to meaningful urban design will be interdisciplinary(eg examining cities from the perspectives of architects landscape architects

Meaningful Urban Design 55

urban planners policy makers social workers and business interests) teleologi-cal (eg driven by the express purpose of addressing critical urban challengessuch as uncomfortable and unsafe built environments community powerless-ness economic deprivation and fragmented interventions) critical (eg based onin-depth understanding of urban design problems and promises throughanalysis of urban design practice and case studies) and catalytic (eg theformulation of effective urban design strategies that include a focus on urbandesign products such as building complexes and public spaces but also includethe generation of long-term community and economic development processes)

The primary impact on this type of learning for students will be an under-standing of the urban designer as a leader Through an in-depth analysis ofurban issues an interdisciplinary approach to urban problem solving and skillsthat focus not only on issues of urban aesthetics and form but also on purposefulintervention generated by long-term processes students will gain a profoundand empowering understanding of meaningful urban design Students of urbandesign will also gain humility and condence by studying the power structuresof cities (and realizing just how little power urban designers actually have)practising critical thinking and learning to be politically savvy in order toaccomplish their goals A secondary impact on learning for students will be aunique opportunity for them to shape the future direction of urban designthrough readings research discussions case-study analyses and project designsthat will focus on specic urban challenges examine deciencies in currenturban design approaches and projects in addressing those challenges andformulate alternative more meaningful urban design strategies

In order to reach such goals an urban design programme should focus on twomajor sets of skills understanding how cities work and learning to shape citiesUnderstanding cities includes their conception (eg urban theory and form)their evolution (eg history of urban form) their decision-making processes (egurban political economy) and their use and experience (eg urban sociology)Learning to shape cities includes design methods (eg based on empiricalevidence and community participation) and communication skills (eg graphicverbal written and computer-based) The goal of a meaningful urban designpedagogical initiative would be to attract students of the built environment (egarchitects landscape architects and urban planners) who will become sophisti-cated practitioners and inuential leaders of urban design in architectural andplanning rms community organizations public agencies and internationalinstitutions The initiative would thus involve (1) teaching of exploratoryseminars and studios in new urban design methodologies (eg internationalstudios) (2) research into the relevant roles of professionals especially architectsand planners in the urban design of contemporary cities (eg institutionalstructures) and (3) professional work in the form of community outreach andproject analysis (eg evaluating New Urbanism)

In summary a meaningful pedagogical approach to urban design should havethe following characteristics (1) small (ie selective)mdashfocus on key urban designchallenges eg inner city revitalization (2) focused (ie depth)mdashdevelop exper-tise in the urban designurban development nexus (3) distinct (ie cutting-edge)mdashexperiment with new studio formats projects and research eginternational collaboration and cross-cultural learning and (4) existing resources(ie breadth)mdashbuild upon other departments eg social work business naturalresources and environment

56 A Inam

The critical question that guides this meaningful future of urban design issimply So what That is what consequential purpose has been achieved byparticular urban design theories urban design methodologies urban designpractices and urban design practitioners The implication of such probingquestions is that it is far from adequate to consider urban design projects assuccessful if they are only physically appealing or thought-provoking

Conclusion

In conclusion the author would like to return to the provocations that werereferred to at the beginning of this paper While both Rem Koolhaas and MichaelSorkin are emblematic of the image-based architect-driven urban design thatpermeates much of the world and especially the USA they are also contributorsto an urban design strategy that is realistic and contrary to the nostalgia evokedby the New Urbanism and neo-traditional movements Thus for Koolhaas

If there is to be a lsquonew urbanismrsquo it will not be based on the twinfantasies of order and omnipotence hellip but about discovering unnam-able hybrids [as is the case with Los Angeles] hellip Redened urbanismwill not only or mostly be a profession but a way of thinking anideology to accept what exists We were making sand castles Now weswim in the sea that swept them away (Koolhaas 1995 pp 969ndash971)

Koolhaas thus encourages us rst to accept the contemporary urban condition(instead of seeing it through rose-tinted lenses) and second as architects urbandesigners and planners to understand and work with the contemporary urbanforces (instead of imagining a world without cars or highways)

Similarly Sorkin extols us to learn from those urban design projects and urbanenvironments which are successful in terms of the designerrsquos objectives ofattracting people to these environments and the vibrant use of these environ-ments by people Even if the objectives were to differ say in terms of greatersocial interaction and co-operation in a neighbourhood the designers of shop-ping malls gambling casinos and amusement parks at least understand humanbehaviour as it relates to entertainment and consumptionmdashlessons which can beused for other perhaps more noble projects Thus according to Sorkin (1997pp 29ndash31)

Disneyland hellip is foremost a playground of mobility its entertainmentslargely those of pleasured motion And there is something to belearned here It seems undeniable that for all of its depredations all ofits regimentation surveillance and control part of what we experienceas enjoyable at Disneyland is the passage through an environment ofurban density in which both the physical texture and the means ofcirculation are not simply entertaining but stand in invigorating con-trast to the dysfunctional versions back home One extracts fromDisneyland a shred of hope the persuasive example that pedestrianismcoupled with short distance collective transport systems can be bothefcient and fun can thrive in the midst of an environment completelyotherwise constituted and that the space of low sufciently deceler-ated can become the space of exchange

Meaningful Urban Design 57

Figure 6 The design of Disneyland in Los Angeles CAmdashalbeit lsquoarticialrsquo anddesigned to foster consumptionmdashoffers deeper lessons for understanding humanbehaviour and creating exciting environmentsmdashfor say multicultural interac-

tionmdashbased on such understanding

The lsquoshred of hopersquo offered by Disneyland (see Figure 6) is constituted by suchlessons carefully and critically collected from numerous examples of contempor-ary urban design projects and articulatedmdashvia relevant history theory andmethodologymdashinto a meaningful approach to urban design

Acknowledgement

This paper was the second place winner of the 1999 Chicago Institute forArchitecture and Urbanism (CIAU) Award This award administered by theSkidmore Owings amp Merrill Foundation on behalf of the CIAU is for unpub-lished papers and is intended to encourage writing and research on the questionof how architecture infrastructure urban design and planning can contribute toimproving the quality of life of the American city For more information aboutthis award the Foundation can be contacted at somfoundationsomcom

References

Alexander C Ishikawa S Silverstein M Jacobson M Fiksdahl-King I amp Angel S (1977) APattern Language Towns Buildings Construction (New York Oxford University Press)

Attoe W amp Logan D (1989) American Urban Architecture Catalysts in the Design of Cities (BerkeleyUniversity of California Press)

Beauregard R (1995) Theorizing the globalndashlocal connection in P Knox amp P Taylor (Eds) WorldCities in a World System (Cambridge Cambridge University Press)

Beckley R (1998) [Dean Emeritus and Professor of Architecture and Urban Planning College ofArchitecture and Urban Planning University of Michigan] Written interview

Bratt R (1986) Public housing the controversy and the contribution in R Bratt C Hartman amp AMeyerson (Eds) Critical Perspectives in Housing (Philadelphia PA Temple University Press)

Calthorpe P (1993) The Next American Metropolis Ecology Communities and the American Dream (NewYork Princeton Architectural Press)

58 A Inam

Ciriani H (1997) Henri Ciriani (Rockport MA Rockport Publishers)Crane D (1966) Planning and Design in New York A Study of Problems and Processes of its Physical

Environment (New York Institute of Public Administration)Ellin N (1996) Postmodern Urbanism (Cambridge MA Blackwell)Frampton K (1992a) Critical regionalism modern architecture and cultural identityFrampton K (1992b) Modern Architecture A Critical History 3rd edn (London Thames amp Hudson)Frieden B amp Sagalyn L (1989) Downtown Inc How America Rebuilds Cities (Cambridge MA MIT

Press)Garvin A (1996) The American City What Works What Doesnrsquot (New York McGraw-Hill)Gilbert A amp Gugler J (1992) Cities Poverty and Development Urbanization in the Third World 2nd edn

(New York Oxford University Press)Hester R (1990) Community Design Primer (Mendocino CA Ridge Times Press)Inam A (1992) The urban monument symbol memory presence masterrsquos thesis in urban design

Washington University St LouisInam A (1997) Institutions routines and crises post-earthquake housing recovery in Mexico City

and Los Angeles doctoral dissertation in urban planning University of Southern California LosAngeles CA

Jacobs A (1993) Great Streets (Cambridge MA MIT Press)Jacobs J (1961) The Death and Life of Great American Cities (New York Random House)Jones T Pettus W amp Pyatok M (1995) Good Neighbors Affordable Family Housing (New York

McGraw-Hill)Kasprisin R amp Pettinari J (1995) Visual Thinking for Architects and Designers Visualizing Context in

Design (New York Van Nostrand Reinhold)Kelbaugh D (1997) Common Place Toward Neighborhood and Regional Design (Seattle WA University

of Washington Press)Koolhaas R (1995) Small Medium Large Extra Large (Rotterdam 010 Publishers)Kostof S (1991) The City Shaped Urban Patterns and Meanings through History (Boston MA Bulnch

Press)Krumholz N amp Clavel P (1994) Reinventing Cities Equity Planners Tell Their Stories (Philadelphia

Temple University Press)Lagerfeld S (1995) What Main Street can learn from the mall Atlantic Monthly November

pp 110ndash120Lai R T (1988) Law in Urban Design and Planning The Invisible Web (New York Van Nostrand

Reinhold)Loukaitou-Sideris A amp Banerjee T (1998) Urban Design Downtown Poetics and Politics of Form

(Berkeley CA University of California Press)Lynch K (1981) Good City Form (Cambridge MA MIT Press)Moore G amp Marans R (Eds) (1997) Advances in Environment Behavior and Design Toward the

Integration of Theory Methods Research and Utilization (New York Plenum Press)Porter M (1995) The competitive advantage of the inner city Harvard Business Review 73 pp 55ndash71Rowe P (1991) Making a Middle Landscape (Cambridge MA MIT Press)Rowe P (1997) Civic Realism (Cambridge MA MIT Press)Sandercock L (1998) Towards Cosmopolis Planning for Multicultural Cities (Chichester NY John

Wiley)Sassen S (2000) Cities in a World Economy 2nd edn (Thousand Oaks CA Pine Forge Press)Saunders W (1997) Rem Koolhaasrsquos writing on cities poetic perception and gnomic fantasy Journal

of Architectural Education 51 pp 61ndash71Savitch H V (1988) Post-Industrial Cities Politics and Planning in New York Paris and London

(Princeton NJ Princeton University Press)Schneekloth L amp Shibley R (1995) Placemaking The Art and Practice of Building Communities (New

York Wiley)Segal M B (1995) An old commercial district goes from cold to hot Urban Land 54 (11) pp 16ndash18Serageldin I (Ed) (1997) The Architecture of Empowerment People Shelter and Livable Cities (London

Academy Editions)Short J R (1996) The Urban Order An Introduction to Cities Culture and Power (Cambridge MA

Blackwell)Sorkin M (1997) Trafc in Democracy 1997 Raoul Wallenberg Lecture (Ann Arbor MI College of

Architecture and Urban Planning University of Michigan)Urban Design Group (1998) Involving local communities in urban design Urban Design Quarterly 67

pp 15ndash38

Meaningful Urban Design 43

Figure 2 Horton Plaza in San Diego CA has not only generated jobs andsuccessfully attracted customers and tourists but has also helped revive the

surrounding areas

designers can be more effective if they understand and indeed encouragebenecial economic activities through physical projects

The Horton Plaza a highly successful shopping centre in San Diego CAgenerated jobs for local residents when city ofcials utilized their position asinvestors in the project to negotiate for positions (Frieden amp Sagalyn 1989) Themayor of the city turned to the Private Industry Council of San Diego Countya training and placement organization to nd jobs for low-income and unem-ployed San Diegans in Horton Plaza and other city-assisted developmentprojects The council then served as the main employment ofce for HortonPlaza By March 1986 store openings had created nearly 1000 new jobs and thecouncil lled half of them (see Figure 2) Of the people placed by the council70 were minority workers and 60 came from high-unemployment low-in-come neighbourhoods targeted for recruitment

Lower Downtown Denverrsquos most exciting commercial sub-market in recentyears provides one model for the economic reinvestment and revitalization ofother historic commercial districts (Segal 1995) The success of this area is basedon an understanding of fundamental changes in the marketplace and publicpolicies designed to complement market forces and represents an incrementalproject-by-project development approach that urban designers can adopt In1987 the Downtown Denver Partnership a non-prot business leadershiporganization established the Lower Downtown Business Support Ofce toprovide services such as business counselling to develop business plans mar-keting strategies and management expertise leasing referrals to direct prospec-tive tenants to available space and the design and implementation ofpublicprivate layered nancing strategies for individual projects Financialsupport was provided by the city of Denver the state governmentrsquos job trainingofce and corporate and foundation grants

44 A Inam

Figure 3 Outdoor seating for cafes is part of the urban design strategy whichcontributed to the economic revival of a historic area in the Lower Downtown area

of Denver CO

A historic district ordinance contributed to Lower Downtownrsquos success bycreating certainty in the marketplace Small business and entrepreneurial in-vestors were lured to the area by its scale and historic character and theknowledge that it will remain that way (see Figure 3) The cityrsquos investment of$19 million in streetscape improvements including new lighting pavementsand street furniture which was contingent upon the adoption of the historicdistrict ordinance also reinforced private investment in Lower DowntownDistrict stakeholders including developers and property owners are repre-sented on the ve-member design review committee which is now seen asbenecial to the area because of its localized control In 4 years the LowerDowntown area through the various strategies described above has attractedmore than $15 million in new investment 500 jobs and a nearby baseballstadium

Urban designers can learn to design environments that increase revenues bystudying the strategies adopted by the often maligned or overlooked designersof shopping centres gambling casinos and amusement or theme parks All ofthese environments are successful to their owners and operators when theyincrease revenues often in a remarkable manner The US landscape architectRobert Gibbs is one such member of this rare breed (Lagerfeld 1995) Accordingto Gibbs a townrsquos retail planning should begin where a shopping centrersquos doesfar from the selling oors For example it is disadvantageous to locate ashopping centre in a place where commuters have to make a left turn Peopletend to shop on their way to work and they are less likely to stop if it involvesmaking a turn against trafc

Most signicantly shopping centre designers know the average shopper (asthe urban designer should know their clientele and constituencies) and under-stand that most shoppers stroll at about 3ndash4 feet per second thus walking past

Meaningful Urban Design 45

a storefront in about 8 seconds That is how long a shop owner has to attract aconsumerrsquos attention with an arresting window display Downtown merchantsmust adapt to the same 8 second rule but they also have to sell to passingmotorists Sophisticated retailers use a variety of subliminal clues to attractshoppers whether it is a high-priced stationery store implying an upscalelifestyle through a window display of an old wood desk embellished withexpensive writing instruments or a small preciously enclosed display thatjewellers use to suggest high quality and prices to match These are but a fewof the examples of the manner in which shopping centre gambling casino andtheme park designers understand human behaviour and create environmentsthat encourage certain types of behaviour such as consumer spending howeverurban designers can focus on other types of behaviour such as the creation ofexciting neighbourhoods that foster greater social interaction and mutual under-standing amongst different ethnic groups

Urban Design and International Development

Urban design as a catalyst for or as an active component of internationaldevelopment takes the guise of sensitivity to context the generation of cross-cul-tural learning and directly addressing issues which arise out of the continuingphenomenon of economic globalization

A seminal essay which suggests an approach which is sensitive to localcontext without resorting to mimicry and which is contemporary without beinga generic modernism is Frampton (1992a) The contemporary paradox of sensi-tivity to context is that on the one hand the region or locality has to root itselfin the soil of its past forge a regional spirit and display this spiritual andcultural resistance before the modernist personality However in order to fullyparticipate in modern civilization it is necessary at the same time to take partin scientic technical and political rationality something which very oftenrequires the abandonment of major portions of a whole cultural past Thus howcan contemporary urban design celebrate an ancient tradition and return tosources while simultaneously becoming modern and participating in universalcivilization

Drawing upon the work of the French philosopher Paul Ricoeur Frampton(1992b) proposes a process of assimilation and reinterpretation wherein sustain-ing any kind of authentic culture in the future depends upon our capacity togenerate vital forms of authentic culture (eg via urban design) of regionalculture while appropriating alien inuences at the level of both the local and theglobal Alvar Aaltorsquos work is exemplary of such processes especially theSaynatsalo Town Hall in Finland (Inam 1992) The collective memory evoked bythe Saynatsalo Town Hall refers to two fundamental cultural traditions theindigenous largely agrarian one and an alien essentially classical one With itssteps overgrown with grass and weeds its variations of silhouette and itsweathered materials Saynatsalo has the air of an ancient complex of buildingswhich had grown slowly Indeed Aalto had identied this rather unique parti ofa lsquogrowing ruinrsquo in his 1941 essay lsquoArchitecture in Kareliarsquo by suggesting that aldquodilapidated Karielan village is somehow similar in appearance to a Greek ruinwhere also the materialrsquos uniformity is a dominant feature though marblereplaces woodrdquo (cited in Inam 1992 p 63)

46 A Inam

Figure 4 The Council Chamber of Saynatsalo Town Hall Finland which reectsthe power of cross-cultural symbolism

Apart from evoking the memory of indigenous environments Aalto remainedfaithful to the belief that a motif borrowed from a different context andtransplanted with sufcient conviction onto Finnish soil became genuinelyFinnish The Italian Renaissance was for Aalto an inalienable part of his heritageand philosophy of life In his view providing the inhabitants of Saynatsalo witha setting in which they could live much as the inhabitants of 14th-century Siennadid was a natural act When the members of the municipal board of buildinginquired if a small poor community like theirs really needed to build a councilchamber 17 m high especially since the brick was expensive Aalto respondedthat the worldrsquos most beautiful and famous town hall in Sienna had a councilchamber 16 m high and thus he proposed to build the one at Saynatsalo 17 mhigh (see Figure 4) Moreover Aalto explicitly referred to the courtyard as apiazza in spite of the fact that it is domestic both in nature and in scale

A contemporary example of sensitivity to context through a process ofassimilation and reinterpretation is the work of the Portuguese architect AlvaroSiza (Frampton 1992b) Siza has grounded his buildings in the conguration ofa specic topography and in the ne-grained texture of the local fabric To thisend his pieces of the built environment are tight responses to the urban landand marinescape of the Porto region Other important factors are his deferencetowards local material craft work and the subtleties of local light a deferencewhich is sustained without falling into the sentimentality of excluding rationalform and modern technique

The generation of cross-cultural learning arises out of understanding andapplying in a sympathetic and appropriate manner urban design methodolo-gies processes and forms from different cultural contexts (Inam 1997) Aninstance of this would be the woeful history of large-scale low-income housing(ie public housing) projects built by the government in various urban contextsin the USA The governmentrsquos quest to provide no-frills housing (eg built at the

Meaningful Urban Design 47

lowest costs on cheap often undesirable land) combined with the privatesectorrsquos unrelenting demands that public housing be different (eg minimalaccommodations which are overly modest and austere) from the rest of thehousing stock undermined the notion that public housing could also be attract-ive housing and possibly even contribute to the surrounding urban contexts(Bratt 1986)

Henri Cirianirsquos social housing projects in France which are the equivalent ofpublic housing projects in the USA serve as a demonstration of how large-scalelow-income housing projects built by the government can constitute positivecontributions to the urban environment instead of being eyesores La Courdan-gle is a large social housing project (ie 130 apartments 230 parking spaces anda day care centre) outside Paris in Saint Denis (Ciriani 1997) The seven-storeybuilding with its striped cladding and geometric frieze rises above the muddleof neighbouring streets and forms a corner in an otherwise loosely structuredurban space By creating a visually strong plan of geometrical precision theproject inspires a still-life composition device in urban design Transformed intoa picture plane the various free-standing buildings as well as high-rise buildingsthat surround the project integrate into a more harmonious urban setting Thecourtyard side of the building is a pure right-angled gure containing aperfectly dened square space The layering of the facades facilitates the articu-lation of the decreasing volumes contains the apartmentsrsquo balconies and terracesand mediates between the architecture of the building and the urbanity of theneighbourhood In this manner La Courdangle constitutes a low-income hous-ing project that is rich in architectural spaces and detail while helping deneand enhance the urban space around it

The phenomenon of increasing economic globalization is rapidly growing andhas been encouraged at the urban level For example in US cities such as NewYork Los Angeles Houston and Minneapolis where foreign investors havebeen active in buying real estate downtown real estate interestsmdashbrokerscommercial banks real estate consultants and property ownersmdashhave welcomedinternational property investment Throughout the 1980s the infusion of foreigncapital into the buying and selling of existing buildings and the construction ofnew building bolstered commercial property markets by raising rents increasingproperty values and generally expanding business opportunities The interactionof forces operating at various spatial scales especially the urban can beillustrated in a variety of ways the construction of an ofce building for aforeign bank using materials from around the world the dynamics of a majorresearch university whose architecture and urban planning faculty consultlocally as well as internationally and the corporate plan location and contractingstrategies of multinational corporations such as Nike and Coca Cola as theybalance local labour conditions regional locational advantages national marketsand international investment opportunities (Beauregard 1995)

The ongoing phenomenon of globalization suggests some strategies for urbandesigners Urban designers must be able to understand and react to inuencesimpinging on their communities regardless of where those inuences originate(eg World Bank funded housing projects in developing countries) and whichactors are responsible (eg US architectural rms designing ofce complexes inLondon) Furthermore urban designers must develop associations and networksthat extend beyond their spatial reach through collaborative endeavours andthereby provide another mechanism for responding to the multitude of actors

48 A Inam

who shape their communities For example the Indian architect B V Doshiutilized an institution the Vastu-Shilpa Foundation for Studies and Research todevelop an internationally (ie World Bank) funded local (ie in the city Indore)housing project in India Aranya Nagar (Serageldin 1997) The project has beenlargely a success due to the Vastu-Shilpa Foundation which carried out con-siderable research including surveys to understand the physical and economicfactors that determine the size type and density of the housing plots that werespecic to the local context

Relevant

Urban design that is relevant is urban design that is pertinent to matters at hand(eg critical urban issues) and that is based on fundamental human and naturalconditions In this section three such relevant approaches to urban design arehighlighted (1) a history of urban form that analyses the determinant processesand human meanings of form (2) a theory of urban form that is normative andbased on human values and (3) a design methodology of urban form that isempirically based and derived from patterns of human behaviour These threeapproaches are discussed by illustrating them with the work of Spiro Kostof(Kostof 1991) Kevin Lynch (Lynch 1981) and Christopher Alexander (Alexan-der et al 1977) but by no means does this suggest that these are the only suchapproaches in urban design Indeed there exist other relevant approaches tourban design (for example see Rowe 1991) but for the illustrative purposes ofthis paper the three examples mentioned above will sufce

Kostof (1991) studies the phenomenon of city making in a historical perspec-tive to consider how and why cities took the shape they did Amalgams of theliving and the built cities are repositories of cultural meaning Behind thearbitrary twist of a lane or the splendid eccentricity of a new skyscraper on theskyline lies a history of previous urban tenure a heritage of long-establishedsocial conventions a string of often bitter compromises between individualrights and the public will In a series of discussions of urban patterns such as thegrid and the city as diagram Kostof adopts a truly interdisciplinary approach bydrawing upon architecture cultural geography and social history to interpret thehidden order ascribed in these patterns

Urban form is related directly to urban process ie the people forces andinstitutions that bring about urban form (Kostof 1991) and a way to examinethis process is to ask probing research questions which are the basis for trulyunderstanding cities For example who actually designs cities What proceduresdo they go through What are the empowering agencies and laws The legal andeconomic history is an enormous and often overlooked subject It involvesownership of urban land and the land market the exercise of eminent domainwhich is the power of government to take over private property for public usethe institution of legally binding master plans building codes and other regula-tions instruments of funding urban change such as property taxes and bondissues and the administrative and more importantly the power structure ofcities Urban designers need not know all of this information but they do needto realize the importance of it why it is important to know where to turn toobtain it and to consider it in their project designs

Urban process also refers to physical change through time The tendency alltoo often is to see urban form as a nite thing and a complicated object

Meaningful Urban Design 49

However thousands of witting and unwitting acts every day alter a cityrsquos linesin ways that are perceptible only over a certain stretch of time City walls arepulled down and lled in once rational grids are slowly obscured a slashingdiagonal boulevard is run through close-grained residential neighbourhoodsrailroad tracks usurp cemeteries and waterfronts and wars res and highwaysannihilate city cores (Kostof 1991)

As an example let us consider the grid The grid is by far the commonestpattern for planned cities in history and it is universal both geographically andchronologically (Kostof 1991) No better solution recommends itself as a stan-dard scheme for disparate sites or as a means for the equal distribution of landor the easy parcelling and selling of real estate The advantage of straightthrough-streets for defence has been recognized since Aristotle and a rectilinearstreet pattern has also been resorted to in order to keep under watch a restlesspopulation However ubiquitous as the grid has always been it is also muchmisunderstood and often treated as if it were one unmodulated idea thatrequires little discrimination On the contrary the grid is an exceedingly exibleand diverse system of planning and hence its enormous success in urban designand planning About the only thing that all grids have in common is that theirstreet pattern is orthogonal that is the right angle rules and street lines in bothdirections lie parallel to each other

Furthermore the political innocence of the grid in the West is a ction In theearly Greek colonies for example the grid far from being a democratic deviceemployed to assure an equitable allotment of property to all citizens was themeans of perpetuating the privileges of the property-owning class descendentfrom the original settlers and for bolstering a territorial aristocracy The rstsettlers who made the voyage to the site were entitled to equal allocations ofland both inside and outside the city walls These hereditary estates wereinalienable the ruling class strictly discouraged a land market The estates werehuge as much as 25 acres (about 1 hectare) for some families They were thensub-divided by the owner Within the city private land could only be used forhousing Any alienation of land or any agitation for land reform was severelydealt with and could be punishable as for murder (Kostof 1991)

The point is made regularly that grids especially in the USA besides offeringsimplicity in land surveying recording and subsequent ownership transfer alsofavoured a fundamental democracy in property market participation This didnot mean that individual wealth could not appropriate considerable propertybut rather that the basic initial geometry of land parcels bespoke a simpleegalitarianism that invited easy entry into the urban land market The realityhowever is much less admirable The ordinary citizens gained easy access tourban land only at a preliminary phase when cheap rural land was beingurbanized through rapid laying out To the extent that the grid speeded thisprocess and streamlined absentee purchases it may be considered an equalizingsocial device Once the land had been identied with the city however thisadvantage of the initial geometry of land parcels evaporated and even unbuiltlots slipped out of common reach What matters most in the long run is not themystique of the grid geometry then but the luck of rst ownership (Kostof1991)

However for the conventional urban designer a grid is a grid is a grid(Kostof 1991) At best it is a visual theme upon which to play variations he orshe might be concerned with issues like using a true checkerboard design vs

50 A Inam

syncopated block rhythms with cross-axial or other types of emphasis with theplacement of open spaces within the discipline of the grid with the width andhierarchy of streets To Kostof and the meaningful urban designer on the otherhand how and with what intentions the Romans in Britain the builders ofmedieval Wales and Gascony the Spanish in Mexico or the Illinois CentralRailroad Company in the prairies of the Mid-west employed this very samedevice of settlement is the principal substance of a review of orthogonalplanning In fact the grid has accommodated a startling variety of socialstructuresmdashincluding territorial aristocracy in Greek Sicily the agrarianrepublicanism of Thomas Jefferson and the cosmic vision of Joseph Smith inMormon settlements like Salt Lake City Utahmdashand of course capitalist specu-lation

There have been few serious attempts at a comprehensive and normativetheory of urban form Good City Form (Lynch 1981) is an impressive andcourageous attempt by Kevin Lynch as a ldquosystematic effort to state generalrelationships between the form of a place and its valuerdquo (Lynch 1981 p 99)Lynch (1981 p 108) emphasizes ldquothose goals which are as general as possibleand thus do not dictate particular physical solutions and yet whose achievementcan be detected and explicitly linked to physical solutions This is the familiarnotion of performance standards applied at the city scalerdquo Lynch generalizesperformance dimensions which are certain identiable characteristics of citiesdue primarily to their spatial qualities and are measurable scales along whichdifferent groups achieve different positions These performance dimensions arebased on the following thinking

The good city is one in which the continuity of [a] complex ecology ismaintained while progressive change is permitted The fundamentalgood is the continuous development of the individual or the smallgroup and their culture a process of becoming more complex morerichly connected more competent acquiring and realizing new pow-ersmdashintellectual emotional social and physical hellip So that settlement isgood which enhances the continuity of a culture and the survival of itspeople increases a sense of connection in time and space and permitsor spurs individual growth development within continuity via open-ness and connection hellip [a settlement which is] accessible decentralizeddiverse adaptable and tolerant to experiment (Lynch 1981 pp 116ndash117)

In Lynchrsquos theory of good city form there are seven dimensions (Lynch 1981)First is vitality the degree to which an urban form supports the vital func-tions the biological requirements the capabilities of human beings and protectsthe survival of the species (eg adequate throughput of water air food andenergy) Second is sense the degree to which an urban form is clearly perceivedand mentally differentiated as well as structured in time and space and thedegree to which that mental structure connects with the residentsrsquo values andconcepts (eg distinct identity and unconstrained legibility) Third is t thedegree to which urban form matches the pattern and quantity of actionsthat people usually engage in or would like to engage in (eg compatibilitybetween function and form) Fourth is access the ability to reach other peopleactivities resources or places including the quantity and diversity of theelements that can be reached (eg ease of communication and transportation)

Meaningful Urban Design 51

Fifth is control the degree to which the creation of access to use of mainte-nance of and modication to urban spaces and activities are managed by thosewho use work or live in them (eg local power) Sixth is efciency the cost ofcreating and maintaining an urban form (eg less energy-demanding processes)Seventh is justice the way in which urban form costs and benets are dis-tributed among people according to a principle such as intrinsic worth or equity(eg equal protection from environmental hazards such as cars) These dimen-sions are applicable in a wide range of urban contexts because they are derivedfrom fundamental human values and serve as powerful measures of what alsquogoodrsquo urban design project might be

Christopher Alexander (Alexander et al 1977) adopts a problem-solvingapproach to design and explicitly renders the design methodology but moreimportantly describes how a meaningful urban designer might draw directlyfrom empirical evidence (rather than say idiosyncratic impulses) and extensiveresearch as a source of design The book is most useful as a series of thoroughlyanalysed and empirically based guidelines which are broad enough to beadapted to different contexts and architectural styles Each suggested solution isdescribed in a way that provides the key relationships (eg between humanbehaviour and spatial setting) needed to solve the problem but in a generalenough manner to allow for adaptation to particular lifestyles aesthetic tastesand local conditions Each pattern describes a problem which occurs repeatedlyin the built environment archetypal problems of urban form for example Thelongest portion of the description of each pattern describes the empiricalbackground of the pattern the evidence for its validity and the range of differentways the pattern can be manifested or designed

The rst 94 patterns deal with the large-scale structure including the urbanof the environment the growth of city and country the layout of roads andpaths the relationship between work and family the formation of suitablepublic institutions for a neighbourhood and the kinds of public space requiredto support these institutions (Alexander et al 1977) The following two examplesof urban patterns illustrate the value of this design methodology identiableneighbourhood and public outdoor room

According to Alexander et al (1977) and the scientic research they citepeople need an identiable spatial unit to belong to They want to be able toidentify the part of the city where they live as distinct from all others Availableevidence suggests rst that the neighbourhoods which people identify with haveextremely small populations second that they are small in area and third thata major road through a neighbourhood destroys it

What then is the right population for a neighbourhood The neighbourhoodinhabitants should be able to look after their own interests by being able to reachagreement on basic decisions such as about public services and common landand to organize themselves to bring pressure on local governments Anthropo-logical evidence cited by Alexander et al (1977) suggests that a human groupcannot usually co-ordinate itself to reach such decisions if its population is above1500 The experience of organizing community meetings at the local levelsuggests that 500 may be a more realistic gure

As far as the physical diameter is concerned in Philadelphia PA people whowere asked which area they really knew usually limited themselves to a smallarea seldom exceeding the two or three blocks around their house One-quarterof the inhabitants of an area in Milwaukee WI considered a neighbourhood to

52 A Inam

be an area no larger than a block around 300 feet (about 90 metres) One-halfconsidered it to be no more than seven blocks

The rst two features of the neighbourhood small population and small areaare not enough by themselves A neighbourhood can only have a strong identityif it is protected from heavy trafc Research cited by the authors suggests thatthe heavier the trafc in an area the less people think of it as home territory Notonly do residents view the streets with heavy trafc as less personal but theyalso feel the same about the houses along the street ldquoItrsquos not a friendlystreet hellip People are afraid to go out into the street because of the trafc hellip Noisefrom the street intrudes into my homerdquo (cited in Alexander et al 1977 p 83)This study conducted by the University of California at Berkeley found thatwith more than 200 cars per hour the quality of the neighbourhood begins todeteriorate

Therefore the proposed strategy suggests helping people dene the neigh-bourhoods they live in not more than about 300 yards (270 metres) or so acrosswith no more than 500 inhabitants or so and in existing cities encouraging localgroups to organize themselves to form such neighbourhoods and keeping majorroads outside these neighbourhoods While one may disagree with the dimen-sions suggested in this pattern one has to acknowledge that population sizephysical area and trafc ow are critical considerations for the design ofcontemporary neighbourhoods

In the public outdoor room pattern Alexander et al (1977) suggest that thereare very few spots along the streets of modern towns and neighbourhoodswhere people can hang out comfortably for hours at a time Men often seekcorner bars and pubs where they spend hours talking and drinking teenagersespecially boys choose special corners too where they hang around waitingfor their friends Elderly people like a special spot to go to where they canexpect to nd others small children need sandpits mud plants and water toplay with in the open young mothers who go to watch their children oftenuse the childrenrsquos play as a opportunity to meet and talk with other mothersand so on for a variety of groups Because of the diverse and casual natureof these activities they require a space which has a subtle balance of beingdened and yet not too dened so that any activity which is natural to theneighbourhood at any given time can develop freely and yet has something tostart from

What is needed is a framework which is dened just enough so that peoplenaturally tend to stop there and so that curiosity naturally takes people thereand invites them to stay A small open space roofed with columns but withoutwalls at least in part will provide the necessary balance between being open andenclosed Examples of this pattern were built with the assistance of architecturestudents in Cleveland OH on the grounds and on public land surrounding alocal mental health clinic According to staff reports these places changed thelife of the clinic dramatically many more people than usual were drawnoutdoors public talk was more animated and outdoor space that had beendominated by cars became more human In addition in the 12th and 13thcenturies there were many such public structures dotted through the towns andwhich were the scene of auctions open-air meetings and market fairs

Therefore in neighbourhoods and work communities the authors suggestmaking a piece of the common land into an outdoor roommdasha partly enclosedplace with a partial roof columns without walls perhaps with a trellis placing

Meaningful Urban Design 53

Figure 5 A contemporary example of a successful outdoor room which reects theguidelines of the outdoor room patternmdashCitywalk in Los Angeles CA

it beside an important path and within view of houses and workplaces In thisand the other patterns in the book the authors outline an urban designmethodology that is based on archetypal problems (eg public outdoor spaces)analyses of built examples descriptions of historical precedents and the explicitunpacking of design solutions such that they are clear relevant and thoughtful(see Figure 5) The basis for the design patterns was extensive and thoroughresearch carried out over an 8-year period Today there is current and volumin-ous research for example on environment and behaviour (for example seeMoore amp Marans 1997) that is highly relevant and useful for urban designers

Future Directions in Urban Design

Urban designers (eg Beckley 1998) are beginning to question what in fact islsquourbanrsquo in the contemporary environment However few will argue with

54 A Inam

denitions two decades old that are still relevant today a city is a ldquorelativelylarge dense and permanent settlement [or network of settlements] of sociallyheterogeneous individualsrdquo (L Worth cited in Kostof 1991 p 37) and a ldquopoint[or points] of maximum concentration for the power and culture of a com-munityrdquo (L Mumford cited in Kostof 1991 p 37) The urban designerrsquos impera-tive then is to understand cities On the one hand the most enduring featureof the city is its physical build which remains with remarkable persistencegaining increments that are responsive to the most recent economic demand andreective of the latest stylistic vogue but conserving evidence of past urbanculture for present and future generations On the other hand however urbansociety changes more than any other human grouping economic innovationusually comes most rapidly and boldly in cities immigration aims rst at theurban core forcing upon cities the critical role of acculturating refugees frommany countrysides and the winds of intellectual advance blow strong in cities(Vance cited in Kostof 1991)

Based on the new synthesis of ideas proposed in this paper there are threelevels of success of an urban design project These include rst the purelyaesthetically informed notion of urban design as a nished product (eg Does itlook good) The second is the sense of the project as an autonomous object thatfunctions in an affordable convenient and comfortable manner for its users (egDoes it work) The third and new idea is to have the urban design projectgenerate or substantially contribute to socio-economic development processes(eg Does it produce long-term quality of life impacts) In this sense urbandesigners and urban design projects become catalysts for community bettermenteconomic improvement and international understanding

Consequently urban designers should focus more on the lsquourbanrsquo of urbandesign and become less infatuated with the lsquodesignrsquo of urban design Urbandesign must begin with cities how they work and change and what impacts theyhave in creating enabling vs destructive impacts For example urban design hasto be seen within the framework of investment and development policies andas a shaper of those policies Cranersquos (1966) capital web of investment decisionsand Lairsquos (1988) invisible web of laws and norms that guide peoplersquos behaviourAt the same time design and form play a critical role because they are a languageand vocabulary for analysing and intervening in cities

At the most fundamental level all urban design should be responsible forcreating an environment that satises informs and inspires its users (ie thecommunity) This is an urban design that possesses an articulate communicativeprociency Urban design of profound signicance has a poetic quality By themeans of compressing its meanings into a concise formal expression a poeticurban design project draws the mind to a level of perception concealed behindthe conventional presentations of urban form The most effective symbols arethose which while operating within a given set of conventions are imprecisesparse and open-ended in their possible interpretations tending more to themetaphor than the simile Such an approach requires deep cultural understand-ing and social sensitivity

Implications for Education

The pedagogical approach to meaningful urban design will be interdisciplinary(eg examining cities from the perspectives of architects landscape architects

Meaningful Urban Design 55

urban planners policy makers social workers and business interests) teleologi-cal (eg driven by the express purpose of addressing critical urban challengessuch as uncomfortable and unsafe built environments community powerless-ness economic deprivation and fragmented interventions) critical (eg based onin-depth understanding of urban design problems and promises throughanalysis of urban design practice and case studies) and catalytic (eg theformulation of effective urban design strategies that include a focus on urbandesign products such as building complexes and public spaces but also includethe generation of long-term community and economic development processes)

The primary impact on this type of learning for students will be an under-standing of the urban designer as a leader Through an in-depth analysis ofurban issues an interdisciplinary approach to urban problem solving and skillsthat focus not only on issues of urban aesthetics and form but also on purposefulintervention generated by long-term processes students will gain a profoundand empowering understanding of meaningful urban design Students of urbandesign will also gain humility and condence by studying the power structuresof cities (and realizing just how little power urban designers actually have)practising critical thinking and learning to be politically savvy in order toaccomplish their goals A secondary impact on learning for students will be aunique opportunity for them to shape the future direction of urban designthrough readings research discussions case-study analyses and project designsthat will focus on specic urban challenges examine deciencies in currenturban design approaches and projects in addressing those challenges andformulate alternative more meaningful urban design strategies

In order to reach such goals an urban design programme should focus on twomajor sets of skills understanding how cities work and learning to shape citiesUnderstanding cities includes their conception (eg urban theory and form)their evolution (eg history of urban form) their decision-making processes (egurban political economy) and their use and experience (eg urban sociology)Learning to shape cities includes design methods (eg based on empiricalevidence and community participation) and communication skills (eg graphicverbal written and computer-based) The goal of a meaningful urban designpedagogical initiative would be to attract students of the built environment (egarchitects landscape architects and urban planners) who will become sophisti-cated practitioners and inuential leaders of urban design in architectural andplanning rms community organizations public agencies and internationalinstitutions The initiative would thus involve (1) teaching of exploratoryseminars and studios in new urban design methodologies (eg internationalstudios) (2) research into the relevant roles of professionals especially architectsand planners in the urban design of contemporary cities (eg institutionalstructures) and (3) professional work in the form of community outreach andproject analysis (eg evaluating New Urbanism)

In summary a meaningful pedagogical approach to urban design should havethe following characteristics (1) small (ie selective)mdashfocus on key urban designchallenges eg inner city revitalization (2) focused (ie depth)mdashdevelop exper-tise in the urban designurban development nexus (3) distinct (ie cutting-edge)mdashexperiment with new studio formats projects and research eginternational collaboration and cross-cultural learning and (4) existing resources(ie breadth)mdashbuild upon other departments eg social work business naturalresources and environment

56 A Inam

The critical question that guides this meaningful future of urban design issimply So what That is what consequential purpose has been achieved byparticular urban design theories urban design methodologies urban designpractices and urban design practitioners The implication of such probingquestions is that it is far from adequate to consider urban design projects assuccessful if they are only physically appealing or thought-provoking

Conclusion

In conclusion the author would like to return to the provocations that werereferred to at the beginning of this paper While both Rem Koolhaas and MichaelSorkin are emblematic of the image-based architect-driven urban design thatpermeates much of the world and especially the USA they are also contributorsto an urban design strategy that is realistic and contrary to the nostalgia evokedby the New Urbanism and neo-traditional movements Thus for Koolhaas

If there is to be a lsquonew urbanismrsquo it will not be based on the twinfantasies of order and omnipotence hellip but about discovering unnam-able hybrids [as is the case with Los Angeles] hellip Redened urbanismwill not only or mostly be a profession but a way of thinking anideology to accept what exists We were making sand castles Now weswim in the sea that swept them away (Koolhaas 1995 pp 969ndash971)

Koolhaas thus encourages us rst to accept the contemporary urban condition(instead of seeing it through rose-tinted lenses) and second as architects urbandesigners and planners to understand and work with the contemporary urbanforces (instead of imagining a world without cars or highways)

Similarly Sorkin extols us to learn from those urban design projects and urbanenvironments which are successful in terms of the designerrsquos objectives ofattracting people to these environments and the vibrant use of these environ-ments by people Even if the objectives were to differ say in terms of greatersocial interaction and co-operation in a neighbourhood the designers of shop-ping malls gambling casinos and amusement parks at least understand humanbehaviour as it relates to entertainment and consumptionmdashlessons which can beused for other perhaps more noble projects Thus according to Sorkin (1997pp 29ndash31)

Disneyland hellip is foremost a playground of mobility its entertainmentslargely those of pleasured motion And there is something to belearned here It seems undeniable that for all of its depredations all ofits regimentation surveillance and control part of what we experienceas enjoyable at Disneyland is the passage through an environment ofurban density in which both the physical texture and the means ofcirculation are not simply entertaining but stand in invigorating con-trast to the dysfunctional versions back home One extracts fromDisneyland a shred of hope the persuasive example that pedestrianismcoupled with short distance collective transport systems can be bothefcient and fun can thrive in the midst of an environment completelyotherwise constituted and that the space of low sufciently deceler-ated can become the space of exchange

Meaningful Urban Design 57

Figure 6 The design of Disneyland in Los Angeles CAmdashalbeit lsquoarticialrsquo anddesigned to foster consumptionmdashoffers deeper lessons for understanding humanbehaviour and creating exciting environmentsmdashfor say multicultural interac-

tionmdashbased on such understanding

The lsquoshred of hopersquo offered by Disneyland (see Figure 6) is constituted by suchlessons carefully and critically collected from numerous examples of contempor-ary urban design projects and articulatedmdashvia relevant history theory andmethodologymdashinto a meaningful approach to urban design

Acknowledgement

This paper was the second place winner of the 1999 Chicago Institute forArchitecture and Urbanism (CIAU) Award This award administered by theSkidmore Owings amp Merrill Foundation on behalf of the CIAU is for unpub-lished papers and is intended to encourage writing and research on the questionof how architecture infrastructure urban design and planning can contribute toimproving the quality of life of the American city For more information aboutthis award the Foundation can be contacted at somfoundationsomcom

References

Alexander C Ishikawa S Silverstein M Jacobson M Fiksdahl-King I amp Angel S (1977) APattern Language Towns Buildings Construction (New York Oxford University Press)

Attoe W amp Logan D (1989) American Urban Architecture Catalysts in the Design of Cities (BerkeleyUniversity of California Press)

Beauregard R (1995) Theorizing the globalndashlocal connection in P Knox amp P Taylor (Eds) WorldCities in a World System (Cambridge Cambridge University Press)

Beckley R (1998) [Dean Emeritus and Professor of Architecture and Urban Planning College ofArchitecture and Urban Planning University of Michigan] Written interview

Bratt R (1986) Public housing the controversy and the contribution in R Bratt C Hartman amp AMeyerson (Eds) Critical Perspectives in Housing (Philadelphia PA Temple University Press)

Calthorpe P (1993) The Next American Metropolis Ecology Communities and the American Dream (NewYork Princeton Architectural Press)

58 A Inam

Ciriani H (1997) Henri Ciriani (Rockport MA Rockport Publishers)Crane D (1966) Planning and Design in New York A Study of Problems and Processes of its Physical

Environment (New York Institute of Public Administration)Ellin N (1996) Postmodern Urbanism (Cambridge MA Blackwell)Frampton K (1992a) Critical regionalism modern architecture and cultural identityFrampton K (1992b) Modern Architecture A Critical History 3rd edn (London Thames amp Hudson)Frieden B amp Sagalyn L (1989) Downtown Inc How America Rebuilds Cities (Cambridge MA MIT

Press)Garvin A (1996) The American City What Works What Doesnrsquot (New York McGraw-Hill)Gilbert A amp Gugler J (1992) Cities Poverty and Development Urbanization in the Third World 2nd edn

(New York Oxford University Press)Hester R (1990) Community Design Primer (Mendocino CA Ridge Times Press)Inam A (1992) The urban monument symbol memory presence masterrsquos thesis in urban design

Washington University St LouisInam A (1997) Institutions routines and crises post-earthquake housing recovery in Mexico City

and Los Angeles doctoral dissertation in urban planning University of Southern California LosAngeles CA

Jacobs A (1993) Great Streets (Cambridge MA MIT Press)Jacobs J (1961) The Death and Life of Great American Cities (New York Random House)Jones T Pettus W amp Pyatok M (1995) Good Neighbors Affordable Family Housing (New York

McGraw-Hill)Kasprisin R amp Pettinari J (1995) Visual Thinking for Architects and Designers Visualizing Context in

Design (New York Van Nostrand Reinhold)Kelbaugh D (1997) Common Place Toward Neighborhood and Regional Design (Seattle WA University

of Washington Press)Koolhaas R (1995) Small Medium Large Extra Large (Rotterdam 010 Publishers)Kostof S (1991) The City Shaped Urban Patterns and Meanings through History (Boston MA Bulnch

Press)Krumholz N amp Clavel P (1994) Reinventing Cities Equity Planners Tell Their Stories (Philadelphia

Temple University Press)Lagerfeld S (1995) What Main Street can learn from the mall Atlantic Monthly November

pp 110ndash120Lai R T (1988) Law in Urban Design and Planning The Invisible Web (New York Van Nostrand

Reinhold)Loukaitou-Sideris A amp Banerjee T (1998) Urban Design Downtown Poetics and Politics of Form

(Berkeley CA University of California Press)Lynch K (1981) Good City Form (Cambridge MA MIT Press)Moore G amp Marans R (Eds) (1997) Advances in Environment Behavior and Design Toward the

Integration of Theory Methods Research and Utilization (New York Plenum Press)Porter M (1995) The competitive advantage of the inner city Harvard Business Review 73 pp 55ndash71Rowe P (1991) Making a Middle Landscape (Cambridge MA MIT Press)Rowe P (1997) Civic Realism (Cambridge MA MIT Press)Sandercock L (1998) Towards Cosmopolis Planning for Multicultural Cities (Chichester NY John

Wiley)Sassen S (2000) Cities in a World Economy 2nd edn (Thousand Oaks CA Pine Forge Press)Saunders W (1997) Rem Koolhaasrsquos writing on cities poetic perception and gnomic fantasy Journal

of Architectural Education 51 pp 61ndash71Savitch H V (1988) Post-Industrial Cities Politics and Planning in New York Paris and London

(Princeton NJ Princeton University Press)Schneekloth L amp Shibley R (1995) Placemaking The Art and Practice of Building Communities (New

York Wiley)Segal M B (1995) An old commercial district goes from cold to hot Urban Land 54 (11) pp 16ndash18Serageldin I (Ed) (1997) The Architecture of Empowerment People Shelter and Livable Cities (London

Academy Editions)Short J R (1996) The Urban Order An Introduction to Cities Culture and Power (Cambridge MA

Blackwell)Sorkin M (1997) Trafc in Democracy 1997 Raoul Wallenberg Lecture (Ann Arbor MI College of

Architecture and Urban Planning University of Michigan)Urban Design Group (1998) Involving local communities in urban design Urban Design Quarterly 67

pp 15ndash38

44 A Inam

Figure 3 Outdoor seating for cafes is part of the urban design strategy whichcontributed to the economic revival of a historic area in the Lower Downtown area

of Denver CO

A historic district ordinance contributed to Lower Downtownrsquos success bycreating certainty in the marketplace Small business and entrepreneurial in-vestors were lured to the area by its scale and historic character and theknowledge that it will remain that way (see Figure 3) The cityrsquos investment of$19 million in streetscape improvements including new lighting pavementsand street furniture which was contingent upon the adoption of the historicdistrict ordinance also reinforced private investment in Lower DowntownDistrict stakeholders including developers and property owners are repre-sented on the ve-member design review committee which is now seen asbenecial to the area because of its localized control In 4 years the LowerDowntown area through the various strategies described above has attractedmore than $15 million in new investment 500 jobs and a nearby baseballstadium

Urban designers can learn to design environments that increase revenues bystudying the strategies adopted by the often maligned or overlooked designersof shopping centres gambling casinos and amusement or theme parks All ofthese environments are successful to their owners and operators when theyincrease revenues often in a remarkable manner The US landscape architectRobert Gibbs is one such member of this rare breed (Lagerfeld 1995) Accordingto Gibbs a townrsquos retail planning should begin where a shopping centrersquos doesfar from the selling oors For example it is disadvantageous to locate ashopping centre in a place where commuters have to make a left turn Peopletend to shop on their way to work and they are less likely to stop if it involvesmaking a turn against trafc

Most signicantly shopping centre designers know the average shopper (asthe urban designer should know their clientele and constituencies) and under-stand that most shoppers stroll at about 3ndash4 feet per second thus walking past

Meaningful Urban Design 45

a storefront in about 8 seconds That is how long a shop owner has to attract aconsumerrsquos attention with an arresting window display Downtown merchantsmust adapt to the same 8 second rule but they also have to sell to passingmotorists Sophisticated retailers use a variety of subliminal clues to attractshoppers whether it is a high-priced stationery store implying an upscalelifestyle through a window display of an old wood desk embellished withexpensive writing instruments or a small preciously enclosed display thatjewellers use to suggest high quality and prices to match These are but a fewof the examples of the manner in which shopping centre gambling casino andtheme park designers understand human behaviour and create environmentsthat encourage certain types of behaviour such as consumer spending howeverurban designers can focus on other types of behaviour such as the creation ofexciting neighbourhoods that foster greater social interaction and mutual under-standing amongst different ethnic groups

Urban Design and International Development

Urban design as a catalyst for or as an active component of internationaldevelopment takes the guise of sensitivity to context the generation of cross-cul-tural learning and directly addressing issues which arise out of the continuingphenomenon of economic globalization

A seminal essay which suggests an approach which is sensitive to localcontext without resorting to mimicry and which is contemporary without beinga generic modernism is Frampton (1992a) The contemporary paradox of sensi-tivity to context is that on the one hand the region or locality has to root itselfin the soil of its past forge a regional spirit and display this spiritual andcultural resistance before the modernist personality However in order to fullyparticipate in modern civilization it is necessary at the same time to take partin scientic technical and political rationality something which very oftenrequires the abandonment of major portions of a whole cultural past Thus howcan contemporary urban design celebrate an ancient tradition and return tosources while simultaneously becoming modern and participating in universalcivilization

Drawing upon the work of the French philosopher Paul Ricoeur Frampton(1992b) proposes a process of assimilation and reinterpretation wherein sustain-ing any kind of authentic culture in the future depends upon our capacity togenerate vital forms of authentic culture (eg via urban design) of regionalculture while appropriating alien inuences at the level of both the local and theglobal Alvar Aaltorsquos work is exemplary of such processes especially theSaynatsalo Town Hall in Finland (Inam 1992) The collective memory evoked bythe Saynatsalo Town Hall refers to two fundamental cultural traditions theindigenous largely agrarian one and an alien essentially classical one With itssteps overgrown with grass and weeds its variations of silhouette and itsweathered materials Saynatsalo has the air of an ancient complex of buildingswhich had grown slowly Indeed Aalto had identied this rather unique parti ofa lsquogrowing ruinrsquo in his 1941 essay lsquoArchitecture in Kareliarsquo by suggesting that aldquodilapidated Karielan village is somehow similar in appearance to a Greek ruinwhere also the materialrsquos uniformity is a dominant feature though marblereplaces woodrdquo (cited in Inam 1992 p 63)

46 A Inam

Figure 4 The Council Chamber of Saynatsalo Town Hall Finland which reectsthe power of cross-cultural symbolism

Apart from evoking the memory of indigenous environments Aalto remainedfaithful to the belief that a motif borrowed from a different context andtransplanted with sufcient conviction onto Finnish soil became genuinelyFinnish The Italian Renaissance was for Aalto an inalienable part of his heritageand philosophy of life In his view providing the inhabitants of Saynatsalo witha setting in which they could live much as the inhabitants of 14th-century Siennadid was a natural act When the members of the municipal board of buildinginquired if a small poor community like theirs really needed to build a councilchamber 17 m high especially since the brick was expensive Aalto respondedthat the worldrsquos most beautiful and famous town hall in Sienna had a councilchamber 16 m high and thus he proposed to build the one at Saynatsalo 17 mhigh (see Figure 4) Moreover Aalto explicitly referred to the courtyard as apiazza in spite of the fact that it is domestic both in nature and in scale

A contemporary example of sensitivity to context through a process ofassimilation and reinterpretation is the work of the Portuguese architect AlvaroSiza (Frampton 1992b) Siza has grounded his buildings in the conguration ofa specic topography and in the ne-grained texture of the local fabric To thisend his pieces of the built environment are tight responses to the urban landand marinescape of the Porto region Other important factors are his deferencetowards local material craft work and the subtleties of local light a deferencewhich is sustained without falling into the sentimentality of excluding rationalform and modern technique

The generation of cross-cultural learning arises out of understanding andapplying in a sympathetic and appropriate manner urban design methodolo-gies processes and forms from different cultural contexts (Inam 1997) Aninstance of this would be the woeful history of large-scale low-income housing(ie public housing) projects built by the government in various urban contextsin the USA The governmentrsquos quest to provide no-frills housing (eg built at the

Meaningful Urban Design 47

lowest costs on cheap often undesirable land) combined with the privatesectorrsquos unrelenting demands that public housing be different (eg minimalaccommodations which are overly modest and austere) from the rest of thehousing stock undermined the notion that public housing could also be attract-ive housing and possibly even contribute to the surrounding urban contexts(Bratt 1986)

Henri Cirianirsquos social housing projects in France which are the equivalent ofpublic housing projects in the USA serve as a demonstration of how large-scalelow-income housing projects built by the government can constitute positivecontributions to the urban environment instead of being eyesores La Courdan-gle is a large social housing project (ie 130 apartments 230 parking spaces anda day care centre) outside Paris in Saint Denis (Ciriani 1997) The seven-storeybuilding with its striped cladding and geometric frieze rises above the muddleof neighbouring streets and forms a corner in an otherwise loosely structuredurban space By creating a visually strong plan of geometrical precision theproject inspires a still-life composition device in urban design Transformed intoa picture plane the various free-standing buildings as well as high-rise buildingsthat surround the project integrate into a more harmonious urban setting Thecourtyard side of the building is a pure right-angled gure containing aperfectly dened square space The layering of the facades facilitates the articu-lation of the decreasing volumes contains the apartmentsrsquo balconies and terracesand mediates between the architecture of the building and the urbanity of theneighbourhood In this manner La Courdangle constitutes a low-income hous-ing project that is rich in architectural spaces and detail while helping deneand enhance the urban space around it

The phenomenon of increasing economic globalization is rapidly growing andhas been encouraged at the urban level For example in US cities such as NewYork Los Angeles Houston and Minneapolis where foreign investors havebeen active in buying real estate downtown real estate interestsmdashbrokerscommercial banks real estate consultants and property ownersmdashhave welcomedinternational property investment Throughout the 1980s the infusion of foreigncapital into the buying and selling of existing buildings and the construction ofnew building bolstered commercial property markets by raising rents increasingproperty values and generally expanding business opportunities The interactionof forces operating at various spatial scales especially the urban can beillustrated in a variety of ways the construction of an ofce building for aforeign bank using materials from around the world the dynamics of a majorresearch university whose architecture and urban planning faculty consultlocally as well as internationally and the corporate plan location and contractingstrategies of multinational corporations such as Nike and Coca Cola as theybalance local labour conditions regional locational advantages national marketsand international investment opportunities (Beauregard 1995)

The ongoing phenomenon of globalization suggests some strategies for urbandesigners Urban designers must be able to understand and react to inuencesimpinging on their communities regardless of where those inuences originate(eg World Bank funded housing projects in developing countries) and whichactors are responsible (eg US architectural rms designing ofce complexes inLondon) Furthermore urban designers must develop associations and networksthat extend beyond their spatial reach through collaborative endeavours andthereby provide another mechanism for responding to the multitude of actors

48 A Inam

who shape their communities For example the Indian architect B V Doshiutilized an institution the Vastu-Shilpa Foundation for Studies and Research todevelop an internationally (ie World Bank) funded local (ie in the city Indore)housing project in India Aranya Nagar (Serageldin 1997) The project has beenlargely a success due to the Vastu-Shilpa Foundation which carried out con-siderable research including surveys to understand the physical and economicfactors that determine the size type and density of the housing plots that werespecic to the local context

Relevant

Urban design that is relevant is urban design that is pertinent to matters at hand(eg critical urban issues) and that is based on fundamental human and naturalconditions In this section three such relevant approaches to urban design arehighlighted (1) a history of urban form that analyses the determinant processesand human meanings of form (2) a theory of urban form that is normative andbased on human values and (3) a design methodology of urban form that isempirically based and derived from patterns of human behaviour These threeapproaches are discussed by illustrating them with the work of Spiro Kostof(Kostof 1991) Kevin Lynch (Lynch 1981) and Christopher Alexander (Alexan-der et al 1977) but by no means does this suggest that these are the only suchapproaches in urban design Indeed there exist other relevant approaches tourban design (for example see Rowe 1991) but for the illustrative purposes ofthis paper the three examples mentioned above will sufce

Kostof (1991) studies the phenomenon of city making in a historical perspec-tive to consider how and why cities took the shape they did Amalgams of theliving and the built cities are repositories of cultural meaning Behind thearbitrary twist of a lane or the splendid eccentricity of a new skyscraper on theskyline lies a history of previous urban tenure a heritage of long-establishedsocial conventions a string of often bitter compromises between individualrights and the public will In a series of discussions of urban patterns such as thegrid and the city as diagram Kostof adopts a truly interdisciplinary approach bydrawing upon architecture cultural geography and social history to interpret thehidden order ascribed in these patterns

Urban form is related directly to urban process ie the people forces andinstitutions that bring about urban form (Kostof 1991) and a way to examinethis process is to ask probing research questions which are the basis for trulyunderstanding cities For example who actually designs cities What proceduresdo they go through What are the empowering agencies and laws The legal andeconomic history is an enormous and often overlooked subject It involvesownership of urban land and the land market the exercise of eminent domainwhich is the power of government to take over private property for public usethe institution of legally binding master plans building codes and other regula-tions instruments of funding urban change such as property taxes and bondissues and the administrative and more importantly the power structure ofcities Urban designers need not know all of this information but they do needto realize the importance of it why it is important to know where to turn toobtain it and to consider it in their project designs

Urban process also refers to physical change through time The tendency alltoo often is to see urban form as a nite thing and a complicated object

Meaningful Urban Design 49

However thousands of witting and unwitting acts every day alter a cityrsquos linesin ways that are perceptible only over a certain stretch of time City walls arepulled down and lled in once rational grids are slowly obscured a slashingdiagonal boulevard is run through close-grained residential neighbourhoodsrailroad tracks usurp cemeteries and waterfronts and wars res and highwaysannihilate city cores (Kostof 1991)

As an example let us consider the grid The grid is by far the commonestpattern for planned cities in history and it is universal both geographically andchronologically (Kostof 1991) No better solution recommends itself as a stan-dard scheme for disparate sites or as a means for the equal distribution of landor the easy parcelling and selling of real estate The advantage of straightthrough-streets for defence has been recognized since Aristotle and a rectilinearstreet pattern has also been resorted to in order to keep under watch a restlesspopulation However ubiquitous as the grid has always been it is also muchmisunderstood and often treated as if it were one unmodulated idea thatrequires little discrimination On the contrary the grid is an exceedingly exibleand diverse system of planning and hence its enormous success in urban designand planning About the only thing that all grids have in common is that theirstreet pattern is orthogonal that is the right angle rules and street lines in bothdirections lie parallel to each other

Furthermore the political innocence of the grid in the West is a ction In theearly Greek colonies for example the grid far from being a democratic deviceemployed to assure an equitable allotment of property to all citizens was themeans of perpetuating the privileges of the property-owning class descendentfrom the original settlers and for bolstering a territorial aristocracy The rstsettlers who made the voyage to the site were entitled to equal allocations ofland both inside and outside the city walls These hereditary estates wereinalienable the ruling class strictly discouraged a land market The estates werehuge as much as 25 acres (about 1 hectare) for some families They were thensub-divided by the owner Within the city private land could only be used forhousing Any alienation of land or any agitation for land reform was severelydealt with and could be punishable as for murder (Kostof 1991)

The point is made regularly that grids especially in the USA besides offeringsimplicity in land surveying recording and subsequent ownership transfer alsofavoured a fundamental democracy in property market participation This didnot mean that individual wealth could not appropriate considerable propertybut rather that the basic initial geometry of land parcels bespoke a simpleegalitarianism that invited easy entry into the urban land market The realityhowever is much less admirable The ordinary citizens gained easy access tourban land only at a preliminary phase when cheap rural land was beingurbanized through rapid laying out To the extent that the grid speeded thisprocess and streamlined absentee purchases it may be considered an equalizingsocial device Once the land had been identied with the city however thisadvantage of the initial geometry of land parcels evaporated and even unbuiltlots slipped out of common reach What matters most in the long run is not themystique of the grid geometry then but the luck of rst ownership (Kostof1991)

However for the conventional urban designer a grid is a grid is a grid(Kostof 1991) At best it is a visual theme upon which to play variations he orshe might be concerned with issues like using a true checkerboard design vs

50 A Inam

syncopated block rhythms with cross-axial or other types of emphasis with theplacement of open spaces within the discipline of the grid with the width andhierarchy of streets To Kostof and the meaningful urban designer on the otherhand how and with what intentions the Romans in Britain the builders ofmedieval Wales and Gascony the Spanish in Mexico or the Illinois CentralRailroad Company in the prairies of the Mid-west employed this very samedevice of settlement is the principal substance of a review of orthogonalplanning In fact the grid has accommodated a startling variety of socialstructuresmdashincluding territorial aristocracy in Greek Sicily the agrarianrepublicanism of Thomas Jefferson and the cosmic vision of Joseph Smith inMormon settlements like Salt Lake City Utahmdashand of course capitalist specu-lation

There have been few serious attempts at a comprehensive and normativetheory of urban form Good City Form (Lynch 1981) is an impressive andcourageous attempt by Kevin Lynch as a ldquosystematic effort to state generalrelationships between the form of a place and its valuerdquo (Lynch 1981 p 99)Lynch (1981 p 108) emphasizes ldquothose goals which are as general as possibleand thus do not dictate particular physical solutions and yet whose achievementcan be detected and explicitly linked to physical solutions This is the familiarnotion of performance standards applied at the city scalerdquo Lynch generalizesperformance dimensions which are certain identiable characteristics of citiesdue primarily to their spatial qualities and are measurable scales along whichdifferent groups achieve different positions These performance dimensions arebased on the following thinking

The good city is one in which the continuity of [a] complex ecology ismaintained while progressive change is permitted The fundamentalgood is the continuous development of the individual or the smallgroup and their culture a process of becoming more complex morerichly connected more competent acquiring and realizing new pow-ersmdashintellectual emotional social and physical hellip So that settlement isgood which enhances the continuity of a culture and the survival of itspeople increases a sense of connection in time and space and permitsor spurs individual growth development within continuity via open-ness and connection hellip [a settlement which is] accessible decentralizeddiverse adaptable and tolerant to experiment (Lynch 1981 pp 116ndash117)

In Lynchrsquos theory of good city form there are seven dimensions (Lynch 1981)First is vitality the degree to which an urban form supports the vital func-tions the biological requirements the capabilities of human beings and protectsthe survival of the species (eg adequate throughput of water air food andenergy) Second is sense the degree to which an urban form is clearly perceivedand mentally differentiated as well as structured in time and space and thedegree to which that mental structure connects with the residentsrsquo values andconcepts (eg distinct identity and unconstrained legibility) Third is t thedegree to which urban form matches the pattern and quantity of actionsthat people usually engage in or would like to engage in (eg compatibilitybetween function and form) Fourth is access the ability to reach other peopleactivities resources or places including the quantity and diversity of theelements that can be reached (eg ease of communication and transportation)

Meaningful Urban Design 51

Fifth is control the degree to which the creation of access to use of mainte-nance of and modication to urban spaces and activities are managed by thosewho use work or live in them (eg local power) Sixth is efciency the cost ofcreating and maintaining an urban form (eg less energy-demanding processes)Seventh is justice the way in which urban form costs and benets are dis-tributed among people according to a principle such as intrinsic worth or equity(eg equal protection from environmental hazards such as cars) These dimen-sions are applicable in a wide range of urban contexts because they are derivedfrom fundamental human values and serve as powerful measures of what alsquogoodrsquo urban design project might be

Christopher Alexander (Alexander et al 1977) adopts a problem-solvingapproach to design and explicitly renders the design methodology but moreimportantly describes how a meaningful urban designer might draw directlyfrom empirical evidence (rather than say idiosyncratic impulses) and extensiveresearch as a source of design The book is most useful as a series of thoroughlyanalysed and empirically based guidelines which are broad enough to beadapted to different contexts and architectural styles Each suggested solution isdescribed in a way that provides the key relationships (eg between humanbehaviour and spatial setting) needed to solve the problem but in a generalenough manner to allow for adaptation to particular lifestyles aesthetic tastesand local conditions Each pattern describes a problem which occurs repeatedlyin the built environment archetypal problems of urban form for example Thelongest portion of the description of each pattern describes the empiricalbackground of the pattern the evidence for its validity and the range of differentways the pattern can be manifested or designed

The rst 94 patterns deal with the large-scale structure including the urbanof the environment the growth of city and country the layout of roads andpaths the relationship between work and family the formation of suitablepublic institutions for a neighbourhood and the kinds of public space requiredto support these institutions (Alexander et al 1977) The following two examplesof urban patterns illustrate the value of this design methodology identiableneighbourhood and public outdoor room

According to Alexander et al (1977) and the scientic research they citepeople need an identiable spatial unit to belong to They want to be able toidentify the part of the city where they live as distinct from all others Availableevidence suggests rst that the neighbourhoods which people identify with haveextremely small populations second that they are small in area and third thata major road through a neighbourhood destroys it

What then is the right population for a neighbourhood The neighbourhoodinhabitants should be able to look after their own interests by being able to reachagreement on basic decisions such as about public services and common landand to organize themselves to bring pressure on local governments Anthropo-logical evidence cited by Alexander et al (1977) suggests that a human groupcannot usually co-ordinate itself to reach such decisions if its population is above1500 The experience of organizing community meetings at the local levelsuggests that 500 may be a more realistic gure

As far as the physical diameter is concerned in Philadelphia PA people whowere asked which area they really knew usually limited themselves to a smallarea seldom exceeding the two or three blocks around their house One-quarterof the inhabitants of an area in Milwaukee WI considered a neighbourhood to

52 A Inam

be an area no larger than a block around 300 feet (about 90 metres) One-halfconsidered it to be no more than seven blocks

The rst two features of the neighbourhood small population and small areaare not enough by themselves A neighbourhood can only have a strong identityif it is protected from heavy trafc Research cited by the authors suggests thatthe heavier the trafc in an area the less people think of it as home territory Notonly do residents view the streets with heavy trafc as less personal but theyalso feel the same about the houses along the street ldquoItrsquos not a friendlystreet hellip People are afraid to go out into the street because of the trafc hellip Noisefrom the street intrudes into my homerdquo (cited in Alexander et al 1977 p 83)This study conducted by the University of California at Berkeley found thatwith more than 200 cars per hour the quality of the neighbourhood begins todeteriorate

Therefore the proposed strategy suggests helping people dene the neigh-bourhoods they live in not more than about 300 yards (270 metres) or so acrosswith no more than 500 inhabitants or so and in existing cities encouraging localgroups to organize themselves to form such neighbourhoods and keeping majorroads outside these neighbourhoods While one may disagree with the dimen-sions suggested in this pattern one has to acknowledge that population sizephysical area and trafc ow are critical considerations for the design ofcontemporary neighbourhoods

In the public outdoor room pattern Alexander et al (1977) suggest that thereare very few spots along the streets of modern towns and neighbourhoodswhere people can hang out comfortably for hours at a time Men often seekcorner bars and pubs where they spend hours talking and drinking teenagersespecially boys choose special corners too where they hang around waitingfor their friends Elderly people like a special spot to go to where they canexpect to nd others small children need sandpits mud plants and water toplay with in the open young mothers who go to watch their children oftenuse the childrenrsquos play as a opportunity to meet and talk with other mothersand so on for a variety of groups Because of the diverse and casual natureof these activities they require a space which has a subtle balance of beingdened and yet not too dened so that any activity which is natural to theneighbourhood at any given time can develop freely and yet has something tostart from

What is needed is a framework which is dened just enough so that peoplenaturally tend to stop there and so that curiosity naturally takes people thereand invites them to stay A small open space roofed with columns but withoutwalls at least in part will provide the necessary balance between being open andenclosed Examples of this pattern were built with the assistance of architecturestudents in Cleveland OH on the grounds and on public land surrounding alocal mental health clinic According to staff reports these places changed thelife of the clinic dramatically many more people than usual were drawnoutdoors public talk was more animated and outdoor space that had beendominated by cars became more human In addition in the 12th and 13thcenturies there were many such public structures dotted through the towns andwhich were the scene of auctions open-air meetings and market fairs

Therefore in neighbourhoods and work communities the authors suggestmaking a piece of the common land into an outdoor roommdasha partly enclosedplace with a partial roof columns without walls perhaps with a trellis placing

Meaningful Urban Design 53

Figure 5 A contemporary example of a successful outdoor room which reects theguidelines of the outdoor room patternmdashCitywalk in Los Angeles CA

it beside an important path and within view of houses and workplaces In thisand the other patterns in the book the authors outline an urban designmethodology that is based on archetypal problems (eg public outdoor spaces)analyses of built examples descriptions of historical precedents and the explicitunpacking of design solutions such that they are clear relevant and thoughtful(see Figure 5) The basis for the design patterns was extensive and thoroughresearch carried out over an 8-year period Today there is current and volumin-ous research for example on environment and behaviour (for example seeMoore amp Marans 1997) that is highly relevant and useful for urban designers

Future Directions in Urban Design

Urban designers (eg Beckley 1998) are beginning to question what in fact islsquourbanrsquo in the contemporary environment However few will argue with

54 A Inam

denitions two decades old that are still relevant today a city is a ldquorelativelylarge dense and permanent settlement [or network of settlements] of sociallyheterogeneous individualsrdquo (L Worth cited in Kostof 1991 p 37) and a ldquopoint[or points] of maximum concentration for the power and culture of a com-munityrdquo (L Mumford cited in Kostof 1991 p 37) The urban designerrsquos impera-tive then is to understand cities On the one hand the most enduring featureof the city is its physical build which remains with remarkable persistencegaining increments that are responsive to the most recent economic demand andreective of the latest stylistic vogue but conserving evidence of past urbanculture for present and future generations On the other hand however urbansociety changes more than any other human grouping economic innovationusually comes most rapidly and boldly in cities immigration aims rst at theurban core forcing upon cities the critical role of acculturating refugees frommany countrysides and the winds of intellectual advance blow strong in cities(Vance cited in Kostof 1991)

Based on the new synthesis of ideas proposed in this paper there are threelevels of success of an urban design project These include rst the purelyaesthetically informed notion of urban design as a nished product (eg Does itlook good) The second is the sense of the project as an autonomous object thatfunctions in an affordable convenient and comfortable manner for its users (egDoes it work) The third and new idea is to have the urban design projectgenerate or substantially contribute to socio-economic development processes(eg Does it produce long-term quality of life impacts) In this sense urbandesigners and urban design projects become catalysts for community bettermenteconomic improvement and international understanding

Consequently urban designers should focus more on the lsquourbanrsquo of urbandesign and become less infatuated with the lsquodesignrsquo of urban design Urbandesign must begin with cities how they work and change and what impacts theyhave in creating enabling vs destructive impacts For example urban design hasto be seen within the framework of investment and development policies andas a shaper of those policies Cranersquos (1966) capital web of investment decisionsand Lairsquos (1988) invisible web of laws and norms that guide peoplersquos behaviourAt the same time design and form play a critical role because they are a languageand vocabulary for analysing and intervening in cities

At the most fundamental level all urban design should be responsible forcreating an environment that satises informs and inspires its users (ie thecommunity) This is an urban design that possesses an articulate communicativeprociency Urban design of profound signicance has a poetic quality By themeans of compressing its meanings into a concise formal expression a poeticurban design project draws the mind to a level of perception concealed behindthe conventional presentations of urban form The most effective symbols arethose which while operating within a given set of conventions are imprecisesparse and open-ended in their possible interpretations tending more to themetaphor than the simile Such an approach requires deep cultural understand-ing and social sensitivity

Implications for Education

The pedagogical approach to meaningful urban design will be interdisciplinary(eg examining cities from the perspectives of architects landscape architects

Meaningful Urban Design 55

urban planners policy makers social workers and business interests) teleologi-cal (eg driven by the express purpose of addressing critical urban challengessuch as uncomfortable and unsafe built environments community powerless-ness economic deprivation and fragmented interventions) critical (eg based onin-depth understanding of urban design problems and promises throughanalysis of urban design practice and case studies) and catalytic (eg theformulation of effective urban design strategies that include a focus on urbandesign products such as building complexes and public spaces but also includethe generation of long-term community and economic development processes)

The primary impact on this type of learning for students will be an under-standing of the urban designer as a leader Through an in-depth analysis ofurban issues an interdisciplinary approach to urban problem solving and skillsthat focus not only on issues of urban aesthetics and form but also on purposefulintervention generated by long-term processes students will gain a profoundand empowering understanding of meaningful urban design Students of urbandesign will also gain humility and condence by studying the power structuresof cities (and realizing just how little power urban designers actually have)practising critical thinking and learning to be politically savvy in order toaccomplish their goals A secondary impact on learning for students will be aunique opportunity for them to shape the future direction of urban designthrough readings research discussions case-study analyses and project designsthat will focus on specic urban challenges examine deciencies in currenturban design approaches and projects in addressing those challenges andformulate alternative more meaningful urban design strategies

In order to reach such goals an urban design programme should focus on twomajor sets of skills understanding how cities work and learning to shape citiesUnderstanding cities includes their conception (eg urban theory and form)their evolution (eg history of urban form) their decision-making processes (egurban political economy) and their use and experience (eg urban sociology)Learning to shape cities includes design methods (eg based on empiricalevidence and community participation) and communication skills (eg graphicverbal written and computer-based) The goal of a meaningful urban designpedagogical initiative would be to attract students of the built environment (egarchitects landscape architects and urban planners) who will become sophisti-cated practitioners and inuential leaders of urban design in architectural andplanning rms community organizations public agencies and internationalinstitutions The initiative would thus involve (1) teaching of exploratoryseminars and studios in new urban design methodologies (eg internationalstudios) (2) research into the relevant roles of professionals especially architectsand planners in the urban design of contemporary cities (eg institutionalstructures) and (3) professional work in the form of community outreach andproject analysis (eg evaluating New Urbanism)

In summary a meaningful pedagogical approach to urban design should havethe following characteristics (1) small (ie selective)mdashfocus on key urban designchallenges eg inner city revitalization (2) focused (ie depth)mdashdevelop exper-tise in the urban designurban development nexus (3) distinct (ie cutting-edge)mdashexperiment with new studio formats projects and research eginternational collaboration and cross-cultural learning and (4) existing resources(ie breadth)mdashbuild upon other departments eg social work business naturalresources and environment

56 A Inam

The critical question that guides this meaningful future of urban design issimply So what That is what consequential purpose has been achieved byparticular urban design theories urban design methodologies urban designpractices and urban design practitioners The implication of such probingquestions is that it is far from adequate to consider urban design projects assuccessful if they are only physically appealing or thought-provoking

Conclusion

In conclusion the author would like to return to the provocations that werereferred to at the beginning of this paper While both Rem Koolhaas and MichaelSorkin are emblematic of the image-based architect-driven urban design thatpermeates much of the world and especially the USA they are also contributorsto an urban design strategy that is realistic and contrary to the nostalgia evokedby the New Urbanism and neo-traditional movements Thus for Koolhaas

If there is to be a lsquonew urbanismrsquo it will not be based on the twinfantasies of order and omnipotence hellip but about discovering unnam-able hybrids [as is the case with Los Angeles] hellip Redened urbanismwill not only or mostly be a profession but a way of thinking anideology to accept what exists We were making sand castles Now weswim in the sea that swept them away (Koolhaas 1995 pp 969ndash971)

Koolhaas thus encourages us rst to accept the contemporary urban condition(instead of seeing it through rose-tinted lenses) and second as architects urbandesigners and planners to understand and work with the contemporary urbanforces (instead of imagining a world without cars or highways)

Similarly Sorkin extols us to learn from those urban design projects and urbanenvironments which are successful in terms of the designerrsquos objectives ofattracting people to these environments and the vibrant use of these environ-ments by people Even if the objectives were to differ say in terms of greatersocial interaction and co-operation in a neighbourhood the designers of shop-ping malls gambling casinos and amusement parks at least understand humanbehaviour as it relates to entertainment and consumptionmdashlessons which can beused for other perhaps more noble projects Thus according to Sorkin (1997pp 29ndash31)

Disneyland hellip is foremost a playground of mobility its entertainmentslargely those of pleasured motion And there is something to belearned here It seems undeniable that for all of its depredations all ofits regimentation surveillance and control part of what we experienceas enjoyable at Disneyland is the passage through an environment ofurban density in which both the physical texture and the means ofcirculation are not simply entertaining but stand in invigorating con-trast to the dysfunctional versions back home One extracts fromDisneyland a shred of hope the persuasive example that pedestrianismcoupled with short distance collective transport systems can be bothefcient and fun can thrive in the midst of an environment completelyotherwise constituted and that the space of low sufciently deceler-ated can become the space of exchange

Meaningful Urban Design 57

Figure 6 The design of Disneyland in Los Angeles CAmdashalbeit lsquoarticialrsquo anddesigned to foster consumptionmdashoffers deeper lessons for understanding humanbehaviour and creating exciting environmentsmdashfor say multicultural interac-

tionmdashbased on such understanding

The lsquoshred of hopersquo offered by Disneyland (see Figure 6) is constituted by suchlessons carefully and critically collected from numerous examples of contempor-ary urban design projects and articulatedmdashvia relevant history theory andmethodologymdashinto a meaningful approach to urban design

Acknowledgement

This paper was the second place winner of the 1999 Chicago Institute forArchitecture and Urbanism (CIAU) Award This award administered by theSkidmore Owings amp Merrill Foundation on behalf of the CIAU is for unpub-lished papers and is intended to encourage writing and research on the questionof how architecture infrastructure urban design and planning can contribute toimproving the quality of life of the American city For more information aboutthis award the Foundation can be contacted at somfoundationsomcom

References

Alexander C Ishikawa S Silverstein M Jacobson M Fiksdahl-King I amp Angel S (1977) APattern Language Towns Buildings Construction (New York Oxford University Press)

Attoe W amp Logan D (1989) American Urban Architecture Catalysts in the Design of Cities (BerkeleyUniversity of California Press)

Beauregard R (1995) Theorizing the globalndashlocal connection in P Knox amp P Taylor (Eds) WorldCities in a World System (Cambridge Cambridge University Press)

Beckley R (1998) [Dean Emeritus and Professor of Architecture and Urban Planning College ofArchitecture and Urban Planning University of Michigan] Written interview

Bratt R (1986) Public housing the controversy and the contribution in R Bratt C Hartman amp AMeyerson (Eds) Critical Perspectives in Housing (Philadelphia PA Temple University Press)

Calthorpe P (1993) The Next American Metropolis Ecology Communities and the American Dream (NewYork Princeton Architectural Press)

58 A Inam

Ciriani H (1997) Henri Ciriani (Rockport MA Rockport Publishers)Crane D (1966) Planning and Design in New York A Study of Problems and Processes of its Physical

Environment (New York Institute of Public Administration)Ellin N (1996) Postmodern Urbanism (Cambridge MA Blackwell)Frampton K (1992a) Critical regionalism modern architecture and cultural identityFrampton K (1992b) Modern Architecture A Critical History 3rd edn (London Thames amp Hudson)Frieden B amp Sagalyn L (1989) Downtown Inc How America Rebuilds Cities (Cambridge MA MIT

Press)Garvin A (1996) The American City What Works What Doesnrsquot (New York McGraw-Hill)Gilbert A amp Gugler J (1992) Cities Poverty and Development Urbanization in the Third World 2nd edn

(New York Oxford University Press)Hester R (1990) Community Design Primer (Mendocino CA Ridge Times Press)Inam A (1992) The urban monument symbol memory presence masterrsquos thesis in urban design

Washington University St LouisInam A (1997) Institutions routines and crises post-earthquake housing recovery in Mexico City

and Los Angeles doctoral dissertation in urban planning University of Southern California LosAngeles CA

Jacobs A (1993) Great Streets (Cambridge MA MIT Press)Jacobs J (1961) The Death and Life of Great American Cities (New York Random House)Jones T Pettus W amp Pyatok M (1995) Good Neighbors Affordable Family Housing (New York

McGraw-Hill)Kasprisin R amp Pettinari J (1995) Visual Thinking for Architects and Designers Visualizing Context in

Design (New York Van Nostrand Reinhold)Kelbaugh D (1997) Common Place Toward Neighborhood and Regional Design (Seattle WA University

of Washington Press)Koolhaas R (1995) Small Medium Large Extra Large (Rotterdam 010 Publishers)Kostof S (1991) The City Shaped Urban Patterns and Meanings through History (Boston MA Bulnch

Press)Krumholz N amp Clavel P (1994) Reinventing Cities Equity Planners Tell Their Stories (Philadelphia

Temple University Press)Lagerfeld S (1995) What Main Street can learn from the mall Atlantic Monthly November

pp 110ndash120Lai R T (1988) Law in Urban Design and Planning The Invisible Web (New York Van Nostrand

Reinhold)Loukaitou-Sideris A amp Banerjee T (1998) Urban Design Downtown Poetics and Politics of Form

(Berkeley CA University of California Press)Lynch K (1981) Good City Form (Cambridge MA MIT Press)Moore G amp Marans R (Eds) (1997) Advances in Environment Behavior and Design Toward the

Integration of Theory Methods Research and Utilization (New York Plenum Press)Porter M (1995) The competitive advantage of the inner city Harvard Business Review 73 pp 55ndash71Rowe P (1991) Making a Middle Landscape (Cambridge MA MIT Press)Rowe P (1997) Civic Realism (Cambridge MA MIT Press)Sandercock L (1998) Towards Cosmopolis Planning for Multicultural Cities (Chichester NY John

Wiley)Sassen S (2000) Cities in a World Economy 2nd edn (Thousand Oaks CA Pine Forge Press)Saunders W (1997) Rem Koolhaasrsquos writing on cities poetic perception and gnomic fantasy Journal

of Architectural Education 51 pp 61ndash71Savitch H V (1988) Post-Industrial Cities Politics and Planning in New York Paris and London

(Princeton NJ Princeton University Press)Schneekloth L amp Shibley R (1995) Placemaking The Art and Practice of Building Communities (New

York Wiley)Segal M B (1995) An old commercial district goes from cold to hot Urban Land 54 (11) pp 16ndash18Serageldin I (Ed) (1997) The Architecture of Empowerment People Shelter and Livable Cities (London

Academy Editions)Short J R (1996) The Urban Order An Introduction to Cities Culture and Power (Cambridge MA

Blackwell)Sorkin M (1997) Trafc in Democracy 1997 Raoul Wallenberg Lecture (Ann Arbor MI College of

Architecture and Urban Planning University of Michigan)Urban Design Group (1998) Involving local communities in urban design Urban Design Quarterly 67

pp 15ndash38

Meaningful Urban Design 45

a storefront in about 8 seconds That is how long a shop owner has to attract aconsumerrsquos attention with an arresting window display Downtown merchantsmust adapt to the same 8 second rule but they also have to sell to passingmotorists Sophisticated retailers use a variety of subliminal clues to attractshoppers whether it is a high-priced stationery store implying an upscalelifestyle through a window display of an old wood desk embellished withexpensive writing instruments or a small preciously enclosed display thatjewellers use to suggest high quality and prices to match These are but a fewof the examples of the manner in which shopping centre gambling casino andtheme park designers understand human behaviour and create environmentsthat encourage certain types of behaviour such as consumer spending howeverurban designers can focus on other types of behaviour such as the creation ofexciting neighbourhoods that foster greater social interaction and mutual under-standing amongst different ethnic groups

Urban Design and International Development

Urban design as a catalyst for or as an active component of internationaldevelopment takes the guise of sensitivity to context the generation of cross-cul-tural learning and directly addressing issues which arise out of the continuingphenomenon of economic globalization

A seminal essay which suggests an approach which is sensitive to localcontext without resorting to mimicry and which is contemporary without beinga generic modernism is Frampton (1992a) The contemporary paradox of sensi-tivity to context is that on the one hand the region or locality has to root itselfin the soil of its past forge a regional spirit and display this spiritual andcultural resistance before the modernist personality However in order to fullyparticipate in modern civilization it is necessary at the same time to take partin scientic technical and political rationality something which very oftenrequires the abandonment of major portions of a whole cultural past Thus howcan contemporary urban design celebrate an ancient tradition and return tosources while simultaneously becoming modern and participating in universalcivilization

Drawing upon the work of the French philosopher Paul Ricoeur Frampton(1992b) proposes a process of assimilation and reinterpretation wherein sustain-ing any kind of authentic culture in the future depends upon our capacity togenerate vital forms of authentic culture (eg via urban design) of regionalculture while appropriating alien inuences at the level of both the local and theglobal Alvar Aaltorsquos work is exemplary of such processes especially theSaynatsalo Town Hall in Finland (Inam 1992) The collective memory evoked bythe Saynatsalo Town Hall refers to two fundamental cultural traditions theindigenous largely agrarian one and an alien essentially classical one With itssteps overgrown with grass and weeds its variations of silhouette and itsweathered materials Saynatsalo has the air of an ancient complex of buildingswhich had grown slowly Indeed Aalto had identied this rather unique parti ofa lsquogrowing ruinrsquo in his 1941 essay lsquoArchitecture in Kareliarsquo by suggesting that aldquodilapidated Karielan village is somehow similar in appearance to a Greek ruinwhere also the materialrsquos uniformity is a dominant feature though marblereplaces woodrdquo (cited in Inam 1992 p 63)

46 A Inam

Figure 4 The Council Chamber of Saynatsalo Town Hall Finland which reectsthe power of cross-cultural symbolism

Apart from evoking the memory of indigenous environments Aalto remainedfaithful to the belief that a motif borrowed from a different context andtransplanted with sufcient conviction onto Finnish soil became genuinelyFinnish The Italian Renaissance was for Aalto an inalienable part of his heritageand philosophy of life In his view providing the inhabitants of Saynatsalo witha setting in which they could live much as the inhabitants of 14th-century Siennadid was a natural act When the members of the municipal board of buildinginquired if a small poor community like theirs really needed to build a councilchamber 17 m high especially since the brick was expensive Aalto respondedthat the worldrsquos most beautiful and famous town hall in Sienna had a councilchamber 16 m high and thus he proposed to build the one at Saynatsalo 17 mhigh (see Figure 4) Moreover Aalto explicitly referred to the courtyard as apiazza in spite of the fact that it is domestic both in nature and in scale

A contemporary example of sensitivity to context through a process ofassimilation and reinterpretation is the work of the Portuguese architect AlvaroSiza (Frampton 1992b) Siza has grounded his buildings in the conguration ofa specic topography and in the ne-grained texture of the local fabric To thisend his pieces of the built environment are tight responses to the urban landand marinescape of the Porto region Other important factors are his deferencetowards local material craft work and the subtleties of local light a deferencewhich is sustained without falling into the sentimentality of excluding rationalform and modern technique

The generation of cross-cultural learning arises out of understanding andapplying in a sympathetic and appropriate manner urban design methodolo-gies processes and forms from different cultural contexts (Inam 1997) Aninstance of this would be the woeful history of large-scale low-income housing(ie public housing) projects built by the government in various urban contextsin the USA The governmentrsquos quest to provide no-frills housing (eg built at the

Meaningful Urban Design 47

lowest costs on cheap often undesirable land) combined with the privatesectorrsquos unrelenting demands that public housing be different (eg minimalaccommodations which are overly modest and austere) from the rest of thehousing stock undermined the notion that public housing could also be attract-ive housing and possibly even contribute to the surrounding urban contexts(Bratt 1986)

Henri Cirianirsquos social housing projects in France which are the equivalent ofpublic housing projects in the USA serve as a demonstration of how large-scalelow-income housing projects built by the government can constitute positivecontributions to the urban environment instead of being eyesores La Courdan-gle is a large social housing project (ie 130 apartments 230 parking spaces anda day care centre) outside Paris in Saint Denis (Ciriani 1997) The seven-storeybuilding with its striped cladding and geometric frieze rises above the muddleof neighbouring streets and forms a corner in an otherwise loosely structuredurban space By creating a visually strong plan of geometrical precision theproject inspires a still-life composition device in urban design Transformed intoa picture plane the various free-standing buildings as well as high-rise buildingsthat surround the project integrate into a more harmonious urban setting Thecourtyard side of the building is a pure right-angled gure containing aperfectly dened square space The layering of the facades facilitates the articu-lation of the decreasing volumes contains the apartmentsrsquo balconies and terracesand mediates between the architecture of the building and the urbanity of theneighbourhood In this manner La Courdangle constitutes a low-income hous-ing project that is rich in architectural spaces and detail while helping deneand enhance the urban space around it

The phenomenon of increasing economic globalization is rapidly growing andhas been encouraged at the urban level For example in US cities such as NewYork Los Angeles Houston and Minneapolis where foreign investors havebeen active in buying real estate downtown real estate interestsmdashbrokerscommercial banks real estate consultants and property ownersmdashhave welcomedinternational property investment Throughout the 1980s the infusion of foreigncapital into the buying and selling of existing buildings and the construction ofnew building bolstered commercial property markets by raising rents increasingproperty values and generally expanding business opportunities The interactionof forces operating at various spatial scales especially the urban can beillustrated in a variety of ways the construction of an ofce building for aforeign bank using materials from around the world the dynamics of a majorresearch university whose architecture and urban planning faculty consultlocally as well as internationally and the corporate plan location and contractingstrategies of multinational corporations such as Nike and Coca Cola as theybalance local labour conditions regional locational advantages national marketsand international investment opportunities (Beauregard 1995)

The ongoing phenomenon of globalization suggests some strategies for urbandesigners Urban designers must be able to understand and react to inuencesimpinging on their communities regardless of where those inuences originate(eg World Bank funded housing projects in developing countries) and whichactors are responsible (eg US architectural rms designing ofce complexes inLondon) Furthermore urban designers must develop associations and networksthat extend beyond their spatial reach through collaborative endeavours andthereby provide another mechanism for responding to the multitude of actors

48 A Inam

who shape their communities For example the Indian architect B V Doshiutilized an institution the Vastu-Shilpa Foundation for Studies and Research todevelop an internationally (ie World Bank) funded local (ie in the city Indore)housing project in India Aranya Nagar (Serageldin 1997) The project has beenlargely a success due to the Vastu-Shilpa Foundation which carried out con-siderable research including surveys to understand the physical and economicfactors that determine the size type and density of the housing plots that werespecic to the local context

Relevant

Urban design that is relevant is urban design that is pertinent to matters at hand(eg critical urban issues) and that is based on fundamental human and naturalconditions In this section three such relevant approaches to urban design arehighlighted (1) a history of urban form that analyses the determinant processesand human meanings of form (2) a theory of urban form that is normative andbased on human values and (3) a design methodology of urban form that isempirically based and derived from patterns of human behaviour These threeapproaches are discussed by illustrating them with the work of Spiro Kostof(Kostof 1991) Kevin Lynch (Lynch 1981) and Christopher Alexander (Alexan-der et al 1977) but by no means does this suggest that these are the only suchapproaches in urban design Indeed there exist other relevant approaches tourban design (for example see Rowe 1991) but for the illustrative purposes ofthis paper the three examples mentioned above will sufce

Kostof (1991) studies the phenomenon of city making in a historical perspec-tive to consider how and why cities took the shape they did Amalgams of theliving and the built cities are repositories of cultural meaning Behind thearbitrary twist of a lane or the splendid eccentricity of a new skyscraper on theskyline lies a history of previous urban tenure a heritage of long-establishedsocial conventions a string of often bitter compromises between individualrights and the public will In a series of discussions of urban patterns such as thegrid and the city as diagram Kostof adopts a truly interdisciplinary approach bydrawing upon architecture cultural geography and social history to interpret thehidden order ascribed in these patterns

Urban form is related directly to urban process ie the people forces andinstitutions that bring about urban form (Kostof 1991) and a way to examinethis process is to ask probing research questions which are the basis for trulyunderstanding cities For example who actually designs cities What proceduresdo they go through What are the empowering agencies and laws The legal andeconomic history is an enormous and often overlooked subject It involvesownership of urban land and the land market the exercise of eminent domainwhich is the power of government to take over private property for public usethe institution of legally binding master plans building codes and other regula-tions instruments of funding urban change such as property taxes and bondissues and the administrative and more importantly the power structure ofcities Urban designers need not know all of this information but they do needto realize the importance of it why it is important to know where to turn toobtain it and to consider it in their project designs

Urban process also refers to physical change through time The tendency alltoo often is to see urban form as a nite thing and a complicated object

Meaningful Urban Design 49

However thousands of witting and unwitting acts every day alter a cityrsquos linesin ways that are perceptible only over a certain stretch of time City walls arepulled down and lled in once rational grids are slowly obscured a slashingdiagonal boulevard is run through close-grained residential neighbourhoodsrailroad tracks usurp cemeteries and waterfronts and wars res and highwaysannihilate city cores (Kostof 1991)

As an example let us consider the grid The grid is by far the commonestpattern for planned cities in history and it is universal both geographically andchronologically (Kostof 1991) No better solution recommends itself as a stan-dard scheme for disparate sites or as a means for the equal distribution of landor the easy parcelling and selling of real estate The advantage of straightthrough-streets for defence has been recognized since Aristotle and a rectilinearstreet pattern has also been resorted to in order to keep under watch a restlesspopulation However ubiquitous as the grid has always been it is also muchmisunderstood and often treated as if it were one unmodulated idea thatrequires little discrimination On the contrary the grid is an exceedingly exibleand diverse system of planning and hence its enormous success in urban designand planning About the only thing that all grids have in common is that theirstreet pattern is orthogonal that is the right angle rules and street lines in bothdirections lie parallel to each other

Furthermore the political innocence of the grid in the West is a ction In theearly Greek colonies for example the grid far from being a democratic deviceemployed to assure an equitable allotment of property to all citizens was themeans of perpetuating the privileges of the property-owning class descendentfrom the original settlers and for bolstering a territorial aristocracy The rstsettlers who made the voyage to the site were entitled to equal allocations ofland both inside and outside the city walls These hereditary estates wereinalienable the ruling class strictly discouraged a land market The estates werehuge as much as 25 acres (about 1 hectare) for some families They were thensub-divided by the owner Within the city private land could only be used forhousing Any alienation of land or any agitation for land reform was severelydealt with and could be punishable as for murder (Kostof 1991)

The point is made regularly that grids especially in the USA besides offeringsimplicity in land surveying recording and subsequent ownership transfer alsofavoured a fundamental democracy in property market participation This didnot mean that individual wealth could not appropriate considerable propertybut rather that the basic initial geometry of land parcels bespoke a simpleegalitarianism that invited easy entry into the urban land market The realityhowever is much less admirable The ordinary citizens gained easy access tourban land only at a preliminary phase when cheap rural land was beingurbanized through rapid laying out To the extent that the grid speeded thisprocess and streamlined absentee purchases it may be considered an equalizingsocial device Once the land had been identied with the city however thisadvantage of the initial geometry of land parcels evaporated and even unbuiltlots slipped out of common reach What matters most in the long run is not themystique of the grid geometry then but the luck of rst ownership (Kostof1991)

However for the conventional urban designer a grid is a grid is a grid(Kostof 1991) At best it is a visual theme upon which to play variations he orshe might be concerned with issues like using a true checkerboard design vs

50 A Inam

syncopated block rhythms with cross-axial or other types of emphasis with theplacement of open spaces within the discipline of the grid with the width andhierarchy of streets To Kostof and the meaningful urban designer on the otherhand how and with what intentions the Romans in Britain the builders ofmedieval Wales and Gascony the Spanish in Mexico or the Illinois CentralRailroad Company in the prairies of the Mid-west employed this very samedevice of settlement is the principal substance of a review of orthogonalplanning In fact the grid has accommodated a startling variety of socialstructuresmdashincluding territorial aristocracy in Greek Sicily the agrarianrepublicanism of Thomas Jefferson and the cosmic vision of Joseph Smith inMormon settlements like Salt Lake City Utahmdashand of course capitalist specu-lation

There have been few serious attempts at a comprehensive and normativetheory of urban form Good City Form (Lynch 1981) is an impressive andcourageous attempt by Kevin Lynch as a ldquosystematic effort to state generalrelationships between the form of a place and its valuerdquo (Lynch 1981 p 99)Lynch (1981 p 108) emphasizes ldquothose goals which are as general as possibleand thus do not dictate particular physical solutions and yet whose achievementcan be detected and explicitly linked to physical solutions This is the familiarnotion of performance standards applied at the city scalerdquo Lynch generalizesperformance dimensions which are certain identiable characteristics of citiesdue primarily to their spatial qualities and are measurable scales along whichdifferent groups achieve different positions These performance dimensions arebased on the following thinking

The good city is one in which the continuity of [a] complex ecology ismaintained while progressive change is permitted The fundamentalgood is the continuous development of the individual or the smallgroup and their culture a process of becoming more complex morerichly connected more competent acquiring and realizing new pow-ersmdashintellectual emotional social and physical hellip So that settlement isgood which enhances the continuity of a culture and the survival of itspeople increases a sense of connection in time and space and permitsor spurs individual growth development within continuity via open-ness and connection hellip [a settlement which is] accessible decentralizeddiverse adaptable and tolerant to experiment (Lynch 1981 pp 116ndash117)

In Lynchrsquos theory of good city form there are seven dimensions (Lynch 1981)First is vitality the degree to which an urban form supports the vital func-tions the biological requirements the capabilities of human beings and protectsthe survival of the species (eg adequate throughput of water air food andenergy) Second is sense the degree to which an urban form is clearly perceivedand mentally differentiated as well as structured in time and space and thedegree to which that mental structure connects with the residentsrsquo values andconcepts (eg distinct identity and unconstrained legibility) Third is t thedegree to which urban form matches the pattern and quantity of actionsthat people usually engage in or would like to engage in (eg compatibilitybetween function and form) Fourth is access the ability to reach other peopleactivities resources or places including the quantity and diversity of theelements that can be reached (eg ease of communication and transportation)

Meaningful Urban Design 51

Fifth is control the degree to which the creation of access to use of mainte-nance of and modication to urban spaces and activities are managed by thosewho use work or live in them (eg local power) Sixth is efciency the cost ofcreating and maintaining an urban form (eg less energy-demanding processes)Seventh is justice the way in which urban form costs and benets are dis-tributed among people according to a principle such as intrinsic worth or equity(eg equal protection from environmental hazards such as cars) These dimen-sions are applicable in a wide range of urban contexts because they are derivedfrom fundamental human values and serve as powerful measures of what alsquogoodrsquo urban design project might be

Christopher Alexander (Alexander et al 1977) adopts a problem-solvingapproach to design and explicitly renders the design methodology but moreimportantly describes how a meaningful urban designer might draw directlyfrom empirical evidence (rather than say idiosyncratic impulses) and extensiveresearch as a source of design The book is most useful as a series of thoroughlyanalysed and empirically based guidelines which are broad enough to beadapted to different contexts and architectural styles Each suggested solution isdescribed in a way that provides the key relationships (eg between humanbehaviour and spatial setting) needed to solve the problem but in a generalenough manner to allow for adaptation to particular lifestyles aesthetic tastesand local conditions Each pattern describes a problem which occurs repeatedlyin the built environment archetypal problems of urban form for example Thelongest portion of the description of each pattern describes the empiricalbackground of the pattern the evidence for its validity and the range of differentways the pattern can be manifested or designed

The rst 94 patterns deal with the large-scale structure including the urbanof the environment the growth of city and country the layout of roads andpaths the relationship between work and family the formation of suitablepublic institutions for a neighbourhood and the kinds of public space requiredto support these institutions (Alexander et al 1977) The following two examplesof urban patterns illustrate the value of this design methodology identiableneighbourhood and public outdoor room

According to Alexander et al (1977) and the scientic research they citepeople need an identiable spatial unit to belong to They want to be able toidentify the part of the city where they live as distinct from all others Availableevidence suggests rst that the neighbourhoods which people identify with haveextremely small populations second that they are small in area and third thata major road through a neighbourhood destroys it

What then is the right population for a neighbourhood The neighbourhoodinhabitants should be able to look after their own interests by being able to reachagreement on basic decisions such as about public services and common landand to organize themselves to bring pressure on local governments Anthropo-logical evidence cited by Alexander et al (1977) suggests that a human groupcannot usually co-ordinate itself to reach such decisions if its population is above1500 The experience of organizing community meetings at the local levelsuggests that 500 may be a more realistic gure

As far as the physical diameter is concerned in Philadelphia PA people whowere asked which area they really knew usually limited themselves to a smallarea seldom exceeding the two or three blocks around their house One-quarterof the inhabitants of an area in Milwaukee WI considered a neighbourhood to

52 A Inam

be an area no larger than a block around 300 feet (about 90 metres) One-halfconsidered it to be no more than seven blocks

The rst two features of the neighbourhood small population and small areaare not enough by themselves A neighbourhood can only have a strong identityif it is protected from heavy trafc Research cited by the authors suggests thatthe heavier the trafc in an area the less people think of it as home territory Notonly do residents view the streets with heavy trafc as less personal but theyalso feel the same about the houses along the street ldquoItrsquos not a friendlystreet hellip People are afraid to go out into the street because of the trafc hellip Noisefrom the street intrudes into my homerdquo (cited in Alexander et al 1977 p 83)This study conducted by the University of California at Berkeley found thatwith more than 200 cars per hour the quality of the neighbourhood begins todeteriorate

Therefore the proposed strategy suggests helping people dene the neigh-bourhoods they live in not more than about 300 yards (270 metres) or so acrosswith no more than 500 inhabitants or so and in existing cities encouraging localgroups to organize themselves to form such neighbourhoods and keeping majorroads outside these neighbourhoods While one may disagree with the dimen-sions suggested in this pattern one has to acknowledge that population sizephysical area and trafc ow are critical considerations for the design ofcontemporary neighbourhoods

In the public outdoor room pattern Alexander et al (1977) suggest that thereare very few spots along the streets of modern towns and neighbourhoodswhere people can hang out comfortably for hours at a time Men often seekcorner bars and pubs where they spend hours talking and drinking teenagersespecially boys choose special corners too where they hang around waitingfor their friends Elderly people like a special spot to go to where they canexpect to nd others small children need sandpits mud plants and water toplay with in the open young mothers who go to watch their children oftenuse the childrenrsquos play as a opportunity to meet and talk with other mothersand so on for a variety of groups Because of the diverse and casual natureof these activities they require a space which has a subtle balance of beingdened and yet not too dened so that any activity which is natural to theneighbourhood at any given time can develop freely and yet has something tostart from

What is needed is a framework which is dened just enough so that peoplenaturally tend to stop there and so that curiosity naturally takes people thereand invites them to stay A small open space roofed with columns but withoutwalls at least in part will provide the necessary balance between being open andenclosed Examples of this pattern were built with the assistance of architecturestudents in Cleveland OH on the grounds and on public land surrounding alocal mental health clinic According to staff reports these places changed thelife of the clinic dramatically many more people than usual were drawnoutdoors public talk was more animated and outdoor space that had beendominated by cars became more human In addition in the 12th and 13thcenturies there were many such public structures dotted through the towns andwhich were the scene of auctions open-air meetings and market fairs

Therefore in neighbourhoods and work communities the authors suggestmaking a piece of the common land into an outdoor roommdasha partly enclosedplace with a partial roof columns without walls perhaps with a trellis placing

Meaningful Urban Design 53

Figure 5 A contemporary example of a successful outdoor room which reects theguidelines of the outdoor room patternmdashCitywalk in Los Angeles CA

it beside an important path and within view of houses and workplaces In thisand the other patterns in the book the authors outline an urban designmethodology that is based on archetypal problems (eg public outdoor spaces)analyses of built examples descriptions of historical precedents and the explicitunpacking of design solutions such that they are clear relevant and thoughtful(see Figure 5) The basis for the design patterns was extensive and thoroughresearch carried out over an 8-year period Today there is current and volumin-ous research for example on environment and behaviour (for example seeMoore amp Marans 1997) that is highly relevant and useful for urban designers

Future Directions in Urban Design

Urban designers (eg Beckley 1998) are beginning to question what in fact islsquourbanrsquo in the contemporary environment However few will argue with

54 A Inam

denitions two decades old that are still relevant today a city is a ldquorelativelylarge dense and permanent settlement [or network of settlements] of sociallyheterogeneous individualsrdquo (L Worth cited in Kostof 1991 p 37) and a ldquopoint[or points] of maximum concentration for the power and culture of a com-munityrdquo (L Mumford cited in Kostof 1991 p 37) The urban designerrsquos impera-tive then is to understand cities On the one hand the most enduring featureof the city is its physical build which remains with remarkable persistencegaining increments that are responsive to the most recent economic demand andreective of the latest stylistic vogue but conserving evidence of past urbanculture for present and future generations On the other hand however urbansociety changes more than any other human grouping economic innovationusually comes most rapidly and boldly in cities immigration aims rst at theurban core forcing upon cities the critical role of acculturating refugees frommany countrysides and the winds of intellectual advance blow strong in cities(Vance cited in Kostof 1991)

Based on the new synthesis of ideas proposed in this paper there are threelevels of success of an urban design project These include rst the purelyaesthetically informed notion of urban design as a nished product (eg Does itlook good) The second is the sense of the project as an autonomous object thatfunctions in an affordable convenient and comfortable manner for its users (egDoes it work) The third and new idea is to have the urban design projectgenerate or substantially contribute to socio-economic development processes(eg Does it produce long-term quality of life impacts) In this sense urbandesigners and urban design projects become catalysts for community bettermenteconomic improvement and international understanding

Consequently urban designers should focus more on the lsquourbanrsquo of urbandesign and become less infatuated with the lsquodesignrsquo of urban design Urbandesign must begin with cities how they work and change and what impacts theyhave in creating enabling vs destructive impacts For example urban design hasto be seen within the framework of investment and development policies andas a shaper of those policies Cranersquos (1966) capital web of investment decisionsand Lairsquos (1988) invisible web of laws and norms that guide peoplersquos behaviourAt the same time design and form play a critical role because they are a languageand vocabulary for analysing and intervening in cities

At the most fundamental level all urban design should be responsible forcreating an environment that satises informs and inspires its users (ie thecommunity) This is an urban design that possesses an articulate communicativeprociency Urban design of profound signicance has a poetic quality By themeans of compressing its meanings into a concise formal expression a poeticurban design project draws the mind to a level of perception concealed behindthe conventional presentations of urban form The most effective symbols arethose which while operating within a given set of conventions are imprecisesparse and open-ended in their possible interpretations tending more to themetaphor than the simile Such an approach requires deep cultural understand-ing and social sensitivity

Implications for Education

The pedagogical approach to meaningful urban design will be interdisciplinary(eg examining cities from the perspectives of architects landscape architects

Meaningful Urban Design 55

urban planners policy makers social workers and business interests) teleologi-cal (eg driven by the express purpose of addressing critical urban challengessuch as uncomfortable and unsafe built environments community powerless-ness economic deprivation and fragmented interventions) critical (eg based onin-depth understanding of urban design problems and promises throughanalysis of urban design practice and case studies) and catalytic (eg theformulation of effective urban design strategies that include a focus on urbandesign products such as building complexes and public spaces but also includethe generation of long-term community and economic development processes)

The primary impact on this type of learning for students will be an under-standing of the urban designer as a leader Through an in-depth analysis ofurban issues an interdisciplinary approach to urban problem solving and skillsthat focus not only on issues of urban aesthetics and form but also on purposefulintervention generated by long-term processes students will gain a profoundand empowering understanding of meaningful urban design Students of urbandesign will also gain humility and condence by studying the power structuresof cities (and realizing just how little power urban designers actually have)practising critical thinking and learning to be politically savvy in order toaccomplish their goals A secondary impact on learning for students will be aunique opportunity for them to shape the future direction of urban designthrough readings research discussions case-study analyses and project designsthat will focus on specic urban challenges examine deciencies in currenturban design approaches and projects in addressing those challenges andformulate alternative more meaningful urban design strategies

In order to reach such goals an urban design programme should focus on twomajor sets of skills understanding how cities work and learning to shape citiesUnderstanding cities includes their conception (eg urban theory and form)their evolution (eg history of urban form) their decision-making processes (egurban political economy) and their use and experience (eg urban sociology)Learning to shape cities includes design methods (eg based on empiricalevidence and community participation) and communication skills (eg graphicverbal written and computer-based) The goal of a meaningful urban designpedagogical initiative would be to attract students of the built environment (egarchitects landscape architects and urban planners) who will become sophisti-cated practitioners and inuential leaders of urban design in architectural andplanning rms community organizations public agencies and internationalinstitutions The initiative would thus involve (1) teaching of exploratoryseminars and studios in new urban design methodologies (eg internationalstudios) (2) research into the relevant roles of professionals especially architectsand planners in the urban design of contemporary cities (eg institutionalstructures) and (3) professional work in the form of community outreach andproject analysis (eg evaluating New Urbanism)

In summary a meaningful pedagogical approach to urban design should havethe following characteristics (1) small (ie selective)mdashfocus on key urban designchallenges eg inner city revitalization (2) focused (ie depth)mdashdevelop exper-tise in the urban designurban development nexus (3) distinct (ie cutting-edge)mdashexperiment with new studio formats projects and research eginternational collaboration and cross-cultural learning and (4) existing resources(ie breadth)mdashbuild upon other departments eg social work business naturalresources and environment

56 A Inam

The critical question that guides this meaningful future of urban design issimply So what That is what consequential purpose has been achieved byparticular urban design theories urban design methodologies urban designpractices and urban design practitioners The implication of such probingquestions is that it is far from adequate to consider urban design projects assuccessful if they are only physically appealing or thought-provoking

Conclusion

In conclusion the author would like to return to the provocations that werereferred to at the beginning of this paper While both Rem Koolhaas and MichaelSorkin are emblematic of the image-based architect-driven urban design thatpermeates much of the world and especially the USA they are also contributorsto an urban design strategy that is realistic and contrary to the nostalgia evokedby the New Urbanism and neo-traditional movements Thus for Koolhaas

If there is to be a lsquonew urbanismrsquo it will not be based on the twinfantasies of order and omnipotence hellip but about discovering unnam-able hybrids [as is the case with Los Angeles] hellip Redened urbanismwill not only or mostly be a profession but a way of thinking anideology to accept what exists We were making sand castles Now weswim in the sea that swept them away (Koolhaas 1995 pp 969ndash971)

Koolhaas thus encourages us rst to accept the contemporary urban condition(instead of seeing it through rose-tinted lenses) and second as architects urbandesigners and planners to understand and work with the contemporary urbanforces (instead of imagining a world without cars or highways)

Similarly Sorkin extols us to learn from those urban design projects and urbanenvironments which are successful in terms of the designerrsquos objectives ofattracting people to these environments and the vibrant use of these environ-ments by people Even if the objectives were to differ say in terms of greatersocial interaction and co-operation in a neighbourhood the designers of shop-ping malls gambling casinos and amusement parks at least understand humanbehaviour as it relates to entertainment and consumptionmdashlessons which can beused for other perhaps more noble projects Thus according to Sorkin (1997pp 29ndash31)

Disneyland hellip is foremost a playground of mobility its entertainmentslargely those of pleasured motion And there is something to belearned here It seems undeniable that for all of its depredations all ofits regimentation surveillance and control part of what we experienceas enjoyable at Disneyland is the passage through an environment ofurban density in which both the physical texture and the means ofcirculation are not simply entertaining but stand in invigorating con-trast to the dysfunctional versions back home One extracts fromDisneyland a shred of hope the persuasive example that pedestrianismcoupled with short distance collective transport systems can be bothefcient and fun can thrive in the midst of an environment completelyotherwise constituted and that the space of low sufciently deceler-ated can become the space of exchange

Meaningful Urban Design 57

Figure 6 The design of Disneyland in Los Angeles CAmdashalbeit lsquoarticialrsquo anddesigned to foster consumptionmdashoffers deeper lessons for understanding humanbehaviour and creating exciting environmentsmdashfor say multicultural interac-

tionmdashbased on such understanding

The lsquoshred of hopersquo offered by Disneyland (see Figure 6) is constituted by suchlessons carefully and critically collected from numerous examples of contempor-ary urban design projects and articulatedmdashvia relevant history theory andmethodologymdashinto a meaningful approach to urban design

Acknowledgement

This paper was the second place winner of the 1999 Chicago Institute forArchitecture and Urbanism (CIAU) Award This award administered by theSkidmore Owings amp Merrill Foundation on behalf of the CIAU is for unpub-lished papers and is intended to encourage writing and research on the questionof how architecture infrastructure urban design and planning can contribute toimproving the quality of life of the American city For more information aboutthis award the Foundation can be contacted at somfoundationsomcom

References

Alexander C Ishikawa S Silverstein M Jacobson M Fiksdahl-King I amp Angel S (1977) APattern Language Towns Buildings Construction (New York Oxford University Press)

Attoe W amp Logan D (1989) American Urban Architecture Catalysts in the Design of Cities (BerkeleyUniversity of California Press)

Beauregard R (1995) Theorizing the globalndashlocal connection in P Knox amp P Taylor (Eds) WorldCities in a World System (Cambridge Cambridge University Press)

Beckley R (1998) [Dean Emeritus and Professor of Architecture and Urban Planning College ofArchitecture and Urban Planning University of Michigan] Written interview

Bratt R (1986) Public housing the controversy and the contribution in R Bratt C Hartman amp AMeyerson (Eds) Critical Perspectives in Housing (Philadelphia PA Temple University Press)

Calthorpe P (1993) The Next American Metropolis Ecology Communities and the American Dream (NewYork Princeton Architectural Press)

58 A Inam

Ciriani H (1997) Henri Ciriani (Rockport MA Rockport Publishers)Crane D (1966) Planning and Design in New York A Study of Problems and Processes of its Physical

Environment (New York Institute of Public Administration)Ellin N (1996) Postmodern Urbanism (Cambridge MA Blackwell)Frampton K (1992a) Critical regionalism modern architecture and cultural identityFrampton K (1992b) Modern Architecture A Critical History 3rd edn (London Thames amp Hudson)Frieden B amp Sagalyn L (1989) Downtown Inc How America Rebuilds Cities (Cambridge MA MIT

Press)Garvin A (1996) The American City What Works What Doesnrsquot (New York McGraw-Hill)Gilbert A amp Gugler J (1992) Cities Poverty and Development Urbanization in the Third World 2nd edn

(New York Oxford University Press)Hester R (1990) Community Design Primer (Mendocino CA Ridge Times Press)Inam A (1992) The urban monument symbol memory presence masterrsquos thesis in urban design

Washington University St LouisInam A (1997) Institutions routines and crises post-earthquake housing recovery in Mexico City

and Los Angeles doctoral dissertation in urban planning University of Southern California LosAngeles CA

Jacobs A (1993) Great Streets (Cambridge MA MIT Press)Jacobs J (1961) The Death and Life of Great American Cities (New York Random House)Jones T Pettus W amp Pyatok M (1995) Good Neighbors Affordable Family Housing (New York

McGraw-Hill)Kasprisin R amp Pettinari J (1995) Visual Thinking for Architects and Designers Visualizing Context in

Design (New York Van Nostrand Reinhold)Kelbaugh D (1997) Common Place Toward Neighborhood and Regional Design (Seattle WA University

of Washington Press)Koolhaas R (1995) Small Medium Large Extra Large (Rotterdam 010 Publishers)Kostof S (1991) The City Shaped Urban Patterns and Meanings through History (Boston MA Bulnch

Press)Krumholz N amp Clavel P (1994) Reinventing Cities Equity Planners Tell Their Stories (Philadelphia

Temple University Press)Lagerfeld S (1995) What Main Street can learn from the mall Atlantic Monthly November

pp 110ndash120Lai R T (1988) Law in Urban Design and Planning The Invisible Web (New York Van Nostrand

Reinhold)Loukaitou-Sideris A amp Banerjee T (1998) Urban Design Downtown Poetics and Politics of Form

(Berkeley CA University of California Press)Lynch K (1981) Good City Form (Cambridge MA MIT Press)Moore G amp Marans R (Eds) (1997) Advances in Environment Behavior and Design Toward the

Integration of Theory Methods Research and Utilization (New York Plenum Press)Porter M (1995) The competitive advantage of the inner city Harvard Business Review 73 pp 55ndash71Rowe P (1991) Making a Middle Landscape (Cambridge MA MIT Press)Rowe P (1997) Civic Realism (Cambridge MA MIT Press)Sandercock L (1998) Towards Cosmopolis Planning for Multicultural Cities (Chichester NY John

Wiley)Sassen S (2000) Cities in a World Economy 2nd edn (Thousand Oaks CA Pine Forge Press)Saunders W (1997) Rem Koolhaasrsquos writing on cities poetic perception and gnomic fantasy Journal

of Architectural Education 51 pp 61ndash71Savitch H V (1988) Post-Industrial Cities Politics and Planning in New York Paris and London

(Princeton NJ Princeton University Press)Schneekloth L amp Shibley R (1995) Placemaking The Art and Practice of Building Communities (New

York Wiley)Segal M B (1995) An old commercial district goes from cold to hot Urban Land 54 (11) pp 16ndash18Serageldin I (Ed) (1997) The Architecture of Empowerment People Shelter and Livable Cities (London

Academy Editions)Short J R (1996) The Urban Order An Introduction to Cities Culture and Power (Cambridge MA

Blackwell)Sorkin M (1997) Trafc in Democracy 1997 Raoul Wallenberg Lecture (Ann Arbor MI College of

Architecture and Urban Planning University of Michigan)Urban Design Group (1998) Involving local communities in urban design Urban Design Quarterly 67

pp 15ndash38

46 A Inam

Figure 4 The Council Chamber of Saynatsalo Town Hall Finland which reectsthe power of cross-cultural symbolism

Apart from evoking the memory of indigenous environments Aalto remainedfaithful to the belief that a motif borrowed from a different context andtransplanted with sufcient conviction onto Finnish soil became genuinelyFinnish The Italian Renaissance was for Aalto an inalienable part of his heritageand philosophy of life In his view providing the inhabitants of Saynatsalo witha setting in which they could live much as the inhabitants of 14th-century Siennadid was a natural act When the members of the municipal board of buildinginquired if a small poor community like theirs really needed to build a councilchamber 17 m high especially since the brick was expensive Aalto respondedthat the worldrsquos most beautiful and famous town hall in Sienna had a councilchamber 16 m high and thus he proposed to build the one at Saynatsalo 17 mhigh (see Figure 4) Moreover Aalto explicitly referred to the courtyard as apiazza in spite of the fact that it is domestic both in nature and in scale

A contemporary example of sensitivity to context through a process ofassimilation and reinterpretation is the work of the Portuguese architect AlvaroSiza (Frampton 1992b) Siza has grounded his buildings in the conguration ofa specic topography and in the ne-grained texture of the local fabric To thisend his pieces of the built environment are tight responses to the urban landand marinescape of the Porto region Other important factors are his deferencetowards local material craft work and the subtleties of local light a deferencewhich is sustained without falling into the sentimentality of excluding rationalform and modern technique

The generation of cross-cultural learning arises out of understanding andapplying in a sympathetic and appropriate manner urban design methodolo-gies processes and forms from different cultural contexts (Inam 1997) Aninstance of this would be the woeful history of large-scale low-income housing(ie public housing) projects built by the government in various urban contextsin the USA The governmentrsquos quest to provide no-frills housing (eg built at the

Meaningful Urban Design 47

lowest costs on cheap often undesirable land) combined with the privatesectorrsquos unrelenting demands that public housing be different (eg minimalaccommodations which are overly modest and austere) from the rest of thehousing stock undermined the notion that public housing could also be attract-ive housing and possibly even contribute to the surrounding urban contexts(Bratt 1986)

Henri Cirianirsquos social housing projects in France which are the equivalent ofpublic housing projects in the USA serve as a demonstration of how large-scalelow-income housing projects built by the government can constitute positivecontributions to the urban environment instead of being eyesores La Courdan-gle is a large social housing project (ie 130 apartments 230 parking spaces anda day care centre) outside Paris in Saint Denis (Ciriani 1997) The seven-storeybuilding with its striped cladding and geometric frieze rises above the muddleof neighbouring streets and forms a corner in an otherwise loosely structuredurban space By creating a visually strong plan of geometrical precision theproject inspires a still-life composition device in urban design Transformed intoa picture plane the various free-standing buildings as well as high-rise buildingsthat surround the project integrate into a more harmonious urban setting Thecourtyard side of the building is a pure right-angled gure containing aperfectly dened square space The layering of the facades facilitates the articu-lation of the decreasing volumes contains the apartmentsrsquo balconies and terracesand mediates between the architecture of the building and the urbanity of theneighbourhood In this manner La Courdangle constitutes a low-income hous-ing project that is rich in architectural spaces and detail while helping deneand enhance the urban space around it

The phenomenon of increasing economic globalization is rapidly growing andhas been encouraged at the urban level For example in US cities such as NewYork Los Angeles Houston and Minneapolis where foreign investors havebeen active in buying real estate downtown real estate interestsmdashbrokerscommercial banks real estate consultants and property ownersmdashhave welcomedinternational property investment Throughout the 1980s the infusion of foreigncapital into the buying and selling of existing buildings and the construction ofnew building bolstered commercial property markets by raising rents increasingproperty values and generally expanding business opportunities The interactionof forces operating at various spatial scales especially the urban can beillustrated in a variety of ways the construction of an ofce building for aforeign bank using materials from around the world the dynamics of a majorresearch university whose architecture and urban planning faculty consultlocally as well as internationally and the corporate plan location and contractingstrategies of multinational corporations such as Nike and Coca Cola as theybalance local labour conditions regional locational advantages national marketsand international investment opportunities (Beauregard 1995)

The ongoing phenomenon of globalization suggests some strategies for urbandesigners Urban designers must be able to understand and react to inuencesimpinging on their communities regardless of where those inuences originate(eg World Bank funded housing projects in developing countries) and whichactors are responsible (eg US architectural rms designing ofce complexes inLondon) Furthermore urban designers must develop associations and networksthat extend beyond their spatial reach through collaborative endeavours andthereby provide another mechanism for responding to the multitude of actors

48 A Inam

who shape their communities For example the Indian architect B V Doshiutilized an institution the Vastu-Shilpa Foundation for Studies and Research todevelop an internationally (ie World Bank) funded local (ie in the city Indore)housing project in India Aranya Nagar (Serageldin 1997) The project has beenlargely a success due to the Vastu-Shilpa Foundation which carried out con-siderable research including surveys to understand the physical and economicfactors that determine the size type and density of the housing plots that werespecic to the local context

Relevant

Urban design that is relevant is urban design that is pertinent to matters at hand(eg critical urban issues) and that is based on fundamental human and naturalconditions In this section three such relevant approaches to urban design arehighlighted (1) a history of urban form that analyses the determinant processesand human meanings of form (2) a theory of urban form that is normative andbased on human values and (3) a design methodology of urban form that isempirically based and derived from patterns of human behaviour These threeapproaches are discussed by illustrating them with the work of Spiro Kostof(Kostof 1991) Kevin Lynch (Lynch 1981) and Christopher Alexander (Alexan-der et al 1977) but by no means does this suggest that these are the only suchapproaches in urban design Indeed there exist other relevant approaches tourban design (for example see Rowe 1991) but for the illustrative purposes ofthis paper the three examples mentioned above will sufce

Kostof (1991) studies the phenomenon of city making in a historical perspec-tive to consider how and why cities took the shape they did Amalgams of theliving and the built cities are repositories of cultural meaning Behind thearbitrary twist of a lane or the splendid eccentricity of a new skyscraper on theskyline lies a history of previous urban tenure a heritage of long-establishedsocial conventions a string of often bitter compromises between individualrights and the public will In a series of discussions of urban patterns such as thegrid and the city as diagram Kostof adopts a truly interdisciplinary approach bydrawing upon architecture cultural geography and social history to interpret thehidden order ascribed in these patterns

Urban form is related directly to urban process ie the people forces andinstitutions that bring about urban form (Kostof 1991) and a way to examinethis process is to ask probing research questions which are the basis for trulyunderstanding cities For example who actually designs cities What proceduresdo they go through What are the empowering agencies and laws The legal andeconomic history is an enormous and often overlooked subject It involvesownership of urban land and the land market the exercise of eminent domainwhich is the power of government to take over private property for public usethe institution of legally binding master plans building codes and other regula-tions instruments of funding urban change such as property taxes and bondissues and the administrative and more importantly the power structure ofcities Urban designers need not know all of this information but they do needto realize the importance of it why it is important to know where to turn toobtain it and to consider it in their project designs

Urban process also refers to physical change through time The tendency alltoo often is to see urban form as a nite thing and a complicated object

Meaningful Urban Design 49

However thousands of witting and unwitting acts every day alter a cityrsquos linesin ways that are perceptible only over a certain stretch of time City walls arepulled down and lled in once rational grids are slowly obscured a slashingdiagonal boulevard is run through close-grained residential neighbourhoodsrailroad tracks usurp cemeteries and waterfronts and wars res and highwaysannihilate city cores (Kostof 1991)

As an example let us consider the grid The grid is by far the commonestpattern for planned cities in history and it is universal both geographically andchronologically (Kostof 1991) No better solution recommends itself as a stan-dard scheme for disparate sites or as a means for the equal distribution of landor the easy parcelling and selling of real estate The advantage of straightthrough-streets for defence has been recognized since Aristotle and a rectilinearstreet pattern has also been resorted to in order to keep under watch a restlesspopulation However ubiquitous as the grid has always been it is also muchmisunderstood and often treated as if it were one unmodulated idea thatrequires little discrimination On the contrary the grid is an exceedingly exibleand diverse system of planning and hence its enormous success in urban designand planning About the only thing that all grids have in common is that theirstreet pattern is orthogonal that is the right angle rules and street lines in bothdirections lie parallel to each other

Furthermore the political innocence of the grid in the West is a ction In theearly Greek colonies for example the grid far from being a democratic deviceemployed to assure an equitable allotment of property to all citizens was themeans of perpetuating the privileges of the property-owning class descendentfrom the original settlers and for bolstering a territorial aristocracy The rstsettlers who made the voyage to the site were entitled to equal allocations ofland both inside and outside the city walls These hereditary estates wereinalienable the ruling class strictly discouraged a land market The estates werehuge as much as 25 acres (about 1 hectare) for some families They were thensub-divided by the owner Within the city private land could only be used forhousing Any alienation of land or any agitation for land reform was severelydealt with and could be punishable as for murder (Kostof 1991)

The point is made regularly that grids especially in the USA besides offeringsimplicity in land surveying recording and subsequent ownership transfer alsofavoured a fundamental democracy in property market participation This didnot mean that individual wealth could not appropriate considerable propertybut rather that the basic initial geometry of land parcels bespoke a simpleegalitarianism that invited easy entry into the urban land market The realityhowever is much less admirable The ordinary citizens gained easy access tourban land only at a preliminary phase when cheap rural land was beingurbanized through rapid laying out To the extent that the grid speeded thisprocess and streamlined absentee purchases it may be considered an equalizingsocial device Once the land had been identied with the city however thisadvantage of the initial geometry of land parcels evaporated and even unbuiltlots slipped out of common reach What matters most in the long run is not themystique of the grid geometry then but the luck of rst ownership (Kostof1991)

However for the conventional urban designer a grid is a grid is a grid(Kostof 1991) At best it is a visual theme upon which to play variations he orshe might be concerned with issues like using a true checkerboard design vs

50 A Inam

syncopated block rhythms with cross-axial or other types of emphasis with theplacement of open spaces within the discipline of the grid with the width andhierarchy of streets To Kostof and the meaningful urban designer on the otherhand how and with what intentions the Romans in Britain the builders ofmedieval Wales and Gascony the Spanish in Mexico or the Illinois CentralRailroad Company in the prairies of the Mid-west employed this very samedevice of settlement is the principal substance of a review of orthogonalplanning In fact the grid has accommodated a startling variety of socialstructuresmdashincluding territorial aristocracy in Greek Sicily the agrarianrepublicanism of Thomas Jefferson and the cosmic vision of Joseph Smith inMormon settlements like Salt Lake City Utahmdashand of course capitalist specu-lation

There have been few serious attempts at a comprehensive and normativetheory of urban form Good City Form (Lynch 1981) is an impressive andcourageous attempt by Kevin Lynch as a ldquosystematic effort to state generalrelationships between the form of a place and its valuerdquo (Lynch 1981 p 99)Lynch (1981 p 108) emphasizes ldquothose goals which are as general as possibleand thus do not dictate particular physical solutions and yet whose achievementcan be detected and explicitly linked to physical solutions This is the familiarnotion of performance standards applied at the city scalerdquo Lynch generalizesperformance dimensions which are certain identiable characteristics of citiesdue primarily to their spatial qualities and are measurable scales along whichdifferent groups achieve different positions These performance dimensions arebased on the following thinking

The good city is one in which the continuity of [a] complex ecology ismaintained while progressive change is permitted The fundamentalgood is the continuous development of the individual or the smallgroup and their culture a process of becoming more complex morerichly connected more competent acquiring and realizing new pow-ersmdashintellectual emotional social and physical hellip So that settlement isgood which enhances the continuity of a culture and the survival of itspeople increases a sense of connection in time and space and permitsor spurs individual growth development within continuity via open-ness and connection hellip [a settlement which is] accessible decentralizeddiverse adaptable and tolerant to experiment (Lynch 1981 pp 116ndash117)

In Lynchrsquos theory of good city form there are seven dimensions (Lynch 1981)First is vitality the degree to which an urban form supports the vital func-tions the biological requirements the capabilities of human beings and protectsthe survival of the species (eg adequate throughput of water air food andenergy) Second is sense the degree to which an urban form is clearly perceivedand mentally differentiated as well as structured in time and space and thedegree to which that mental structure connects with the residentsrsquo values andconcepts (eg distinct identity and unconstrained legibility) Third is t thedegree to which urban form matches the pattern and quantity of actionsthat people usually engage in or would like to engage in (eg compatibilitybetween function and form) Fourth is access the ability to reach other peopleactivities resources or places including the quantity and diversity of theelements that can be reached (eg ease of communication and transportation)

Meaningful Urban Design 51

Fifth is control the degree to which the creation of access to use of mainte-nance of and modication to urban spaces and activities are managed by thosewho use work or live in them (eg local power) Sixth is efciency the cost ofcreating and maintaining an urban form (eg less energy-demanding processes)Seventh is justice the way in which urban form costs and benets are dis-tributed among people according to a principle such as intrinsic worth or equity(eg equal protection from environmental hazards such as cars) These dimen-sions are applicable in a wide range of urban contexts because they are derivedfrom fundamental human values and serve as powerful measures of what alsquogoodrsquo urban design project might be

Christopher Alexander (Alexander et al 1977) adopts a problem-solvingapproach to design and explicitly renders the design methodology but moreimportantly describes how a meaningful urban designer might draw directlyfrom empirical evidence (rather than say idiosyncratic impulses) and extensiveresearch as a source of design The book is most useful as a series of thoroughlyanalysed and empirically based guidelines which are broad enough to beadapted to different contexts and architectural styles Each suggested solution isdescribed in a way that provides the key relationships (eg between humanbehaviour and spatial setting) needed to solve the problem but in a generalenough manner to allow for adaptation to particular lifestyles aesthetic tastesand local conditions Each pattern describes a problem which occurs repeatedlyin the built environment archetypal problems of urban form for example Thelongest portion of the description of each pattern describes the empiricalbackground of the pattern the evidence for its validity and the range of differentways the pattern can be manifested or designed

The rst 94 patterns deal with the large-scale structure including the urbanof the environment the growth of city and country the layout of roads andpaths the relationship between work and family the formation of suitablepublic institutions for a neighbourhood and the kinds of public space requiredto support these institutions (Alexander et al 1977) The following two examplesof urban patterns illustrate the value of this design methodology identiableneighbourhood and public outdoor room

According to Alexander et al (1977) and the scientic research they citepeople need an identiable spatial unit to belong to They want to be able toidentify the part of the city where they live as distinct from all others Availableevidence suggests rst that the neighbourhoods which people identify with haveextremely small populations second that they are small in area and third thata major road through a neighbourhood destroys it

What then is the right population for a neighbourhood The neighbourhoodinhabitants should be able to look after their own interests by being able to reachagreement on basic decisions such as about public services and common landand to organize themselves to bring pressure on local governments Anthropo-logical evidence cited by Alexander et al (1977) suggests that a human groupcannot usually co-ordinate itself to reach such decisions if its population is above1500 The experience of organizing community meetings at the local levelsuggests that 500 may be a more realistic gure

As far as the physical diameter is concerned in Philadelphia PA people whowere asked which area they really knew usually limited themselves to a smallarea seldom exceeding the two or three blocks around their house One-quarterof the inhabitants of an area in Milwaukee WI considered a neighbourhood to

52 A Inam

be an area no larger than a block around 300 feet (about 90 metres) One-halfconsidered it to be no more than seven blocks

The rst two features of the neighbourhood small population and small areaare not enough by themselves A neighbourhood can only have a strong identityif it is protected from heavy trafc Research cited by the authors suggests thatthe heavier the trafc in an area the less people think of it as home territory Notonly do residents view the streets with heavy trafc as less personal but theyalso feel the same about the houses along the street ldquoItrsquos not a friendlystreet hellip People are afraid to go out into the street because of the trafc hellip Noisefrom the street intrudes into my homerdquo (cited in Alexander et al 1977 p 83)This study conducted by the University of California at Berkeley found thatwith more than 200 cars per hour the quality of the neighbourhood begins todeteriorate

Therefore the proposed strategy suggests helping people dene the neigh-bourhoods they live in not more than about 300 yards (270 metres) or so acrosswith no more than 500 inhabitants or so and in existing cities encouraging localgroups to organize themselves to form such neighbourhoods and keeping majorroads outside these neighbourhoods While one may disagree with the dimen-sions suggested in this pattern one has to acknowledge that population sizephysical area and trafc ow are critical considerations for the design ofcontemporary neighbourhoods

In the public outdoor room pattern Alexander et al (1977) suggest that thereare very few spots along the streets of modern towns and neighbourhoodswhere people can hang out comfortably for hours at a time Men often seekcorner bars and pubs where they spend hours talking and drinking teenagersespecially boys choose special corners too where they hang around waitingfor their friends Elderly people like a special spot to go to where they canexpect to nd others small children need sandpits mud plants and water toplay with in the open young mothers who go to watch their children oftenuse the childrenrsquos play as a opportunity to meet and talk with other mothersand so on for a variety of groups Because of the diverse and casual natureof these activities they require a space which has a subtle balance of beingdened and yet not too dened so that any activity which is natural to theneighbourhood at any given time can develop freely and yet has something tostart from

What is needed is a framework which is dened just enough so that peoplenaturally tend to stop there and so that curiosity naturally takes people thereand invites them to stay A small open space roofed with columns but withoutwalls at least in part will provide the necessary balance between being open andenclosed Examples of this pattern were built with the assistance of architecturestudents in Cleveland OH on the grounds and on public land surrounding alocal mental health clinic According to staff reports these places changed thelife of the clinic dramatically many more people than usual were drawnoutdoors public talk was more animated and outdoor space that had beendominated by cars became more human In addition in the 12th and 13thcenturies there were many such public structures dotted through the towns andwhich were the scene of auctions open-air meetings and market fairs

Therefore in neighbourhoods and work communities the authors suggestmaking a piece of the common land into an outdoor roommdasha partly enclosedplace with a partial roof columns without walls perhaps with a trellis placing

Meaningful Urban Design 53

Figure 5 A contemporary example of a successful outdoor room which reects theguidelines of the outdoor room patternmdashCitywalk in Los Angeles CA

it beside an important path and within view of houses and workplaces In thisand the other patterns in the book the authors outline an urban designmethodology that is based on archetypal problems (eg public outdoor spaces)analyses of built examples descriptions of historical precedents and the explicitunpacking of design solutions such that they are clear relevant and thoughtful(see Figure 5) The basis for the design patterns was extensive and thoroughresearch carried out over an 8-year period Today there is current and volumin-ous research for example on environment and behaviour (for example seeMoore amp Marans 1997) that is highly relevant and useful for urban designers

Future Directions in Urban Design

Urban designers (eg Beckley 1998) are beginning to question what in fact islsquourbanrsquo in the contemporary environment However few will argue with

54 A Inam

denitions two decades old that are still relevant today a city is a ldquorelativelylarge dense and permanent settlement [or network of settlements] of sociallyheterogeneous individualsrdquo (L Worth cited in Kostof 1991 p 37) and a ldquopoint[or points] of maximum concentration for the power and culture of a com-munityrdquo (L Mumford cited in Kostof 1991 p 37) The urban designerrsquos impera-tive then is to understand cities On the one hand the most enduring featureof the city is its physical build which remains with remarkable persistencegaining increments that are responsive to the most recent economic demand andreective of the latest stylistic vogue but conserving evidence of past urbanculture for present and future generations On the other hand however urbansociety changes more than any other human grouping economic innovationusually comes most rapidly and boldly in cities immigration aims rst at theurban core forcing upon cities the critical role of acculturating refugees frommany countrysides and the winds of intellectual advance blow strong in cities(Vance cited in Kostof 1991)

Based on the new synthesis of ideas proposed in this paper there are threelevels of success of an urban design project These include rst the purelyaesthetically informed notion of urban design as a nished product (eg Does itlook good) The second is the sense of the project as an autonomous object thatfunctions in an affordable convenient and comfortable manner for its users (egDoes it work) The third and new idea is to have the urban design projectgenerate or substantially contribute to socio-economic development processes(eg Does it produce long-term quality of life impacts) In this sense urbandesigners and urban design projects become catalysts for community bettermenteconomic improvement and international understanding

Consequently urban designers should focus more on the lsquourbanrsquo of urbandesign and become less infatuated with the lsquodesignrsquo of urban design Urbandesign must begin with cities how they work and change and what impacts theyhave in creating enabling vs destructive impacts For example urban design hasto be seen within the framework of investment and development policies andas a shaper of those policies Cranersquos (1966) capital web of investment decisionsand Lairsquos (1988) invisible web of laws and norms that guide peoplersquos behaviourAt the same time design and form play a critical role because they are a languageand vocabulary for analysing and intervening in cities

At the most fundamental level all urban design should be responsible forcreating an environment that satises informs and inspires its users (ie thecommunity) This is an urban design that possesses an articulate communicativeprociency Urban design of profound signicance has a poetic quality By themeans of compressing its meanings into a concise formal expression a poeticurban design project draws the mind to a level of perception concealed behindthe conventional presentations of urban form The most effective symbols arethose which while operating within a given set of conventions are imprecisesparse and open-ended in their possible interpretations tending more to themetaphor than the simile Such an approach requires deep cultural understand-ing and social sensitivity

Implications for Education

The pedagogical approach to meaningful urban design will be interdisciplinary(eg examining cities from the perspectives of architects landscape architects

Meaningful Urban Design 55

urban planners policy makers social workers and business interests) teleologi-cal (eg driven by the express purpose of addressing critical urban challengessuch as uncomfortable and unsafe built environments community powerless-ness economic deprivation and fragmented interventions) critical (eg based onin-depth understanding of urban design problems and promises throughanalysis of urban design practice and case studies) and catalytic (eg theformulation of effective urban design strategies that include a focus on urbandesign products such as building complexes and public spaces but also includethe generation of long-term community and economic development processes)

The primary impact on this type of learning for students will be an under-standing of the urban designer as a leader Through an in-depth analysis ofurban issues an interdisciplinary approach to urban problem solving and skillsthat focus not only on issues of urban aesthetics and form but also on purposefulintervention generated by long-term processes students will gain a profoundand empowering understanding of meaningful urban design Students of urbandesign will also gain humility and condence by studying the power structuresof cities (and realizing just how little power urban designers actually have)practising critical thinking and learning to be politically savvy in order toaccomplish their goals A secondary impact on learning for students will be aunique opportunity for them to shape the future direction of urban designthrough readings research discussions case-study analyses and project designsthat will focus on specic urban challenges examine deciencies in currenturban design approaches and projects in addressing those challenges andformulate alternative more meaningful urban design strategies

In order to reach such goals an urban design programme should focus on twomajor sets of skills understanding how cities work and learning to shape citiesUnderstanding cities includes their conception (eg urban theory and form)their evolution (eg history of urban form) their decision-making processes (egurban political economy) and their use and experience (eg urban sociology)Learning to shape cities includes design methods (eg based on empiricalevidence and community participation) and communication skills (eg graphicverbal written and computer-based) The goal of a meaningful urban designpedagogical initiative would be to attract students of the built environment (egarchitects landscape architects and urban planners) who will become sophisti-cated practitioners and inuential leaders of urban design in architectural andplanning rms community organizations public agencies and internationalinstitutions The initiative would thus involve (1) teaching of exploratoryseminars and studios in new urban design methodologies (eg internationalstudios) (2) research into the relevant roles of professionals especially architectsand planners in the urban design of contemporary cities (eg institutionalstructures) and (3) professional work in the form of community outreach andproject analysis (eg evaluating New Urbanism)

In summary a meaningful pedagogical approach to urban design should havethe following characteristics (1) small (ie selective)mdashfocus on key urban designchallenges eg inner city revitalization (2) focused (ie depth)mdashdevelop exper-tise in the urban designurban development nexus (3) distinct (ie cutting-edge)mdashexperiment with new studio formats projects and research eginternational collaboration and cross-cultural learning and (4) existing resources(ie breadth)mdashbuild upon other departments eg social work business naturalresources and environment

56 A Inam

The critical question that guides this meaningful future of urban design issimply So what That is what consequential purpose has been achieved byparticular urban design theories urban design methodologies urban designpractices and urban design practitioners The implication of such probingquestions is that it is far from adequate to consider urban design projects assuccessful if they are only physically appealing or thought-provoking

Conclusion

In conclusion the author would like to return to the provocations that werereferred to at the beginning of this paper While both Rem Koolhaas and MichaelSorkin are emblematic of the image-based architect-driven urban design thatpermeates much of the world and especially the USA they are also contributorsto an urban design strategy that is realistic and contrary to the nostalgia evokedby the New Urbanism and neo-traditional movements Thus for Koolhaas

If there is to be a lsquonew urbanismrsquo it will not be based on the twinfantasies of order and omnipotence hellip but about discovering unnam-able hybrids [as is the case with Los Angeles] hellip Redened urbanismwill not only or mostly be a profession but a way of thinking anideology to accept what exists We were making sand castles Now weswim in the sea that swept them away (Koolhaas 1995 pp 969ndash971)

Koolhaas thus encourages us rst to accept the contemporary urban condition(instead of seeing it through rose-tinted lenses) and second as architects urbandesigners and planners to understand and work with the contemporary urbanforces (instead of imagining a world without cars or highways)

Similarly Sorkin extols us to learn from those urban design projects and urbanenvironments which are successful in terms of the designerrsquos objectives ofattracting people to these environments and the vibrant use of these environ-ments by people Even if the objectives were to differ say in terms of greatersocial interaction and co-operation in a neighbourhood the designers of shop-ping malls gambling casinos and amusement parks at least understand humanbehaviour as it relates to entertainment and consumptionmdashlessons which can beused for other perhaps more noble projects Thus according to Sorkin (1997pp 29ndash31)

Disneyland hellip is foremost a playground of mobility its entertainmentslargely those of pleasured motion And there is something to belearned here It seems undeniable that for all of its depredations all ofits regimentation surveillance and control part of what we experienceas enjoyable at Disneyland is the passage through an environment ofurban density in which both the physical texture and the means ofcirculation are not simply entertaining but stand in invigorating con-trast to the dysfunctional versions back home One extracts fromDisneyland a shred of hope the persuasive example that pedestrianismcoupled with short distance collective transport systems can be bothefcient and fun can thrive in the midst of an environment completelyotherwise constituted and that the space of low sufciently deceler-ated can become the space of exchange

Meaningful Urban Design 57

Figure 6 The design of Disneyland in Los Angeles CAmdashalbeit lsquoarticialrsquo anddesigned to foster consumptionmdashoffers deeper lessons for understanding humanbehaviour and creating exciting environmentsmdashfor say multicultural interac-

tionmdashbased on such understanding

The lsquoshred of hopersquo offered by Disneyland (see Figure 6) is constituted by suchlessons carefully and critically collected from numerous examples of contempor-ary urban design projects and articulatedmdashvia relevant history theory andmethodologymdashinto a meaningful approach to urban design

Acknowledgement

This paper was the second place winner of the 1999 Chicago Institute forArchitecture and Urbanism (CIAU) Award This award administered by theSkidmore Owings amp Merrill Foundation on behalf of the CIAU is for unpub-lished papers and is intended to encourage writing and research on the questionof how architecture infrastructure urban design and planning can contribute toimproving the quality of life of the American city For more information aboutthis award the Foundation can be contacted at somfoundationsomcom

References

Alexander C Ishikawa S Silverstein M Jacobson M Fiksdahl-King I amp Angel S (1977) APattern Language Towns Buildings Construction (New York Oxford University Press)

Attoe W amp Logan D (1989) American Urban Architecture Catalysts in the Design of Cities (BerkeleyUniversity of California Press)

Beauregard R (1995) Theorizing the globalndashlocal connection in P Knox amp P Taylor (Eds) WorldCities in a World System (Cambridge Cambridge University Press)

Beckley R (1998) [Dean Emeritus and Professor of Architecture and Urban Planning College ofArchitecture and Urban Planning University of Michigan] Written interview

Bratt R (1986) Public housing the controversy and the contribution in R Bratt C Hartman amp AMeyerson (Eds) Critical Perspectives in Housing (Philadelphia PA Temple University Press)

Calthorpe P (1993) The Next American Metropolis Ecology Communities and the American Dream (NewYork Princeton Architectural Press)

58 A Inam

Ciriani H (1997) Henri Ciriani (Rockport MA Rockport Publishers)Crane D (1966) Planning and Design in New York A Study of Problems and Processes of its Physical

Environment (New York Institute of Public Administration)Ellin N (1996) Postmodern Urbanism (Cambridge MA Blackwell)Frampton K (1992a) Critical regionalism modern architecture and cultural identityFrampton K (1992b) Modern Architecture A Critical History 3rd edn (London Thames amp Hudson)Frieden B amp Sagalyn L (1989) Downtown Inc How America Rebuilds Cities (Cambridge MA MIT

Press)Garvin A (1996) The American City What Works What Doesnrsquot (New York McGraw-Hill)Gilbert A amp Gugler J (1992) Cities Poverty and Development Urbanization in the Third World 2nd edn

(New York Oxford University Press)Hester R (1990) Community Design Primer (Mendocino CA Ridge Times Press)Inam A (1992) The urban monument symbol memory presence masterrsquos thesis in urban design

Washington University St LouisInam A (1997) Institutions routines and crises post-earthquake housing recovery in Mexico City

and Los Angeles doctoral dissertation in urban planning University of Southern California LosAngeles CA

Jacobs A (1993) Great Streets (Cambridge MA MIT Press)Jacobs J (1961) The Death and Life of Great American Cities (New York Random House)Jones T Pettus W amp Pyatok M (1995) Good Neighbors Affordable Family Housing (New York

McGraw-Hill)Kasprisin R amp Pettinari J (1995) Visual Thinking for Architects and Designers Visualizing Context in

Design (New York Van Nostrand Reinhold)Kelbaugh D (1997) Common Place Toward Neighborhood and Regional Design (Seattle WA University

of Washington Press)Koolhaas R (1995) Small Medium Large Extra Large (Rotterdam 010 Publishers)Kostof S (1991) The City Shaped Urban Patterns and Meanings through History (Boston MA Bulnch

Press)Krumholz N amp Clavel P (1994) Reinventing Cities Equity Planners Tell Their Stories (Philadelphia

Temple University Press)Lagerfeld S (1995) What Main Street can learn from the mall Atlantic Monthly November

pp 110ndash120Lai R T (1988) Law in Urban Design and Planning The Invisible Web (New York Van Nostrand

Reinhold)Loukaitou-Sideris A amp Banerjee T (1998) Urban Design Downtown Poetics and Politics of Form

(Berkeley CA University of California Press)Lynch K (1981) Good City Form (Cambridge MA MIT Press)Moore G amp Marans R (Eds) (1997) Advances in Environment Behavior and Design Toward the

Integration of Theory Methods Research and Utilization (New York Plenum Press)Porter M (1995) The competitive advantage of the inner city Harvard Business Review 73 pp 55ndash71Rowe P (1991) Making a Middle Landscape (Cambridge MA MIT Press)Rowe P (1997) Civic Realism (Cambridge MA MIT Press)Sandercock L (1998) Towards Cosmopolis Planning for Multicultural Cities (Chichester NY John

Wiley)Sassen S (2000) Cities in a World Economy 2nd edn (Thousand Oaks CA Pine Forge Press)Saunders W (1997) Rem Koolhaasrsquos writing on cities poetic perception and gnomic fantasy Journal

of Architectural Education 51 pp 61ndash71Savitch H V (1988) Post-Industrial Cities Politics and Planning in New York Paris and London

(Princeton NJ Princeton University Press)Schneekloth L amp Shibley R (1995) Placemaking The Art and Practice of Building Communities (New

York Wiley)Segal M B (1995) An old commercial district goes from cold to hot Urban Land 54 (11) pp 16ndash18Serageldin I (Ed) (1997) The Architecture of Empowerment People Shelter and Livable Cities (London

Academy Editions)Short J R (1996) The Urban Order An Introduction to Cities Culture and Power (Cambridge MA

Blackwell)Sorkin M (1997) Trafc in Democracy 1997 Raoul Wallenberg Lecture (Ann Arbor MI College of

Architecture and Urban Planning University of Michigan)Urban Design Group (1998) Involving local communities in urban design Urban Design Quarterly 67

pp 15ndash38

Meaningful Urban Design 47

lowest costs on cheap often undesirable land) combined with the privatesectorrsquos unrelenting demands that public housing be different (eg minimalaccommodations which are overly modest and austere) from the rest of thehousing stock undermined the notion that public housing could also be attract-ive housing and possibly even contribute to the surrounding urban contexts(Bratt 1986)

Henri Cirianirsquos social housing projects in France which are the equivalent ofpublic housing projects in the USA serve as a demonstration of how large-scalelow-income housing projects built by the government can constitute positivecontributions to the urban environment instead of being eyesores La Courdan-gle is a large social housing project (ie 130 apartments 230 parking spaces anda day care centre) outside Paris in Saint Denis (Ciriani 1997) The seven-storeybuilding with its striped cladding and geometric frieze rises above the muddleof neighbouring streets and forms a corner in an otherwise loosely structuredurban space By creating a visually strong plan of geometrical precision theproject inspires a still-life composition device in urban design Transformed intoa picture plane the various free-standing buildings as well as high-rise buildingsthat surround the project integrate into a more harmonious urban setting Thecourtyard side of the building is a pure right-angled gure containing aperfectly dened square space The layering of the facades facilitates the articu-lation of the decreasing volumes contains the apartmentsrsquo balconies and terracesand mediates between the architecture of the building and the urbanity of theneighbourhood In this manner La Courdangle constitutes a low-income hous-ing project that is rich in architectural spaces and detail while helping deneand enhance the urban space around it

The phenomenon of increasing economic globalization is rapidly growing andhas been encouraged at the urban level For example in US cities such as NewYork Los Angeles Houston and Minneapolis where foreign investors havebeen active in buying real estate downtown real estate interestsmdashbrokerscommercial banks real estate consultants and property ownersmdashhave welcomedinternational property investment Throughout the 1980s the infusion of foreigncapital into the buying and selling of existing buildings and the construction ofnew building bolstered commercial property markets by raising rents increasingproperty values and generally expanding business opportunities The interactionof forces operating at various spatial scales especially the urban can beillustrated in a variety of ways the construction of an ofce building for aforeign bank using materials from around the world the dynamics of a majorresearch university whose architecture and urban planning faculty consultlocally as well as internationally and the corporate plan location and contractingstrategies of multinational corporations such as Nike and Coca Cola as theybalance local labour conditions regional locational advantages national marketsand international investment opportunities (Beauregard 1995)

The ongoing phenomenon of globalization suggests some strategies for urbandesigners Urban designers must be able to understand and react to inuencesimpinging on their communities regardless of where those inuences originate(eg World Bank funded housing projects in developing countries) and whichactors are responsible (eg US architectural rms designing ofce complexes inLondon) Furthermore urban designers must develop associations and networksthat extend beyond their spatial reach through collaborative endeavours andthereby provide another mechanism for responding to the multitude of actors

48 A Inam

who shape their communities For example the Indian architect B V Doshiutilized an institution the Vastu-Shilpa Foundation for Studies and Research todevelop an internationally (ie World Bank) funded local (ie in the city Indore)housing project in India Aranya Nagar (Serageldin 1997) The project has beenlargely a success due to the Vastu-Shilpa Foundation which carried out con-siderable research including surveys to understand the physical and economicfactors that determine the size type and density of the housing plots that werespecic to the local context

Relevant

Urban design that is relevant is urban design that is pertinent to matters at hand(eg critical urban issues) and that is based on fundamental human and naturalconditions In this section three such relevant approaches to urban design arehighlighted (1) a history of urban form that analyses the determinant processesand human meanings of form (2) a theory of urban form that is normative andbased on human values and (3) a design methodology of urban form that isempirically based and derived from patterns of human behaviour These threeapproaches are discussed by illustrating them with the work of Spiro Kostof(Kostof 1991) Kevin Lynch (Lynch 1981) and Christopher Alexander (Alexan-der et al 1977) but by no means does this suggest that these are the only suchapproaches in urban design Indeed there exist other relevant approaches tourban design (for example see Rowe 1991) but for the illustrative purposes ofthis paper the three examples mentioned above will sufce

Kostof (1991) studies the phenomenon of city making in a historical perspec-tive to consider how and why cities took the shape they did Amalgams of theliving and the built cities are repositories of cultural meaning Behind thearbitrary twist of a lane or the splendid eccentricity of a new skyscraper on theskyline lies a history of previous urban tenure a heritage of long-establishedsocial conventions a string of often bitter compromises between individualrights and the public will In a series of discussions of urban patterns such as thegrid and the city as diagram Kostof adopts a truly interdisciplinary approach bydrawing upon architecture cultural geography and social history to interpret thehidden order ascribed in these patterns

Urban form is related directly to urban process ie the people forces andinstitutions that bring about urban form (Kostof 1991) and a way to examinethis process is to ask probing research questions which are the basis for trulyunderstanding cities For example who actually designs cities What proceduresdo they go through What are the empowering agencies and laws The legal andeconomic history is an enormous and often overlooked subject It involvesownership of urban land and the land market the exercise of eminent domainwhich is the power of government to take over private property for public usethe institution of legally binding master plans building codes and other regula-tions instruments of funding urban change such as property taxes and bondissues and the administrative and more importantly the power structure ofcities Urban designers need not know all of this information but they do needto realize the importance of it why it is important to know where to turn toobtain it and to consider it in their project designs

Urban process also refers to physical change through time The tendency alltoo often is to see urban form as a nite thing and a complicated object

Meaningful Urban Design 49

However thousands of witting and unwitting acts every day alter a cityrsquos linesin ways that are perceptible only over a certain stretch of time City walls arepulled down and lled in once rational grids are slowly obscured a slashingdiagonal boulevard is run through close-grained residential neighbourhoodsrailroad tracks usurp cemeteries and waterfronts and wars res and highwaysannihilate city cores (Kostof 1991)

As an example let us consider the grid The grid is by far the commonestpattern for planned cities in history and it is universal both geographically andchronologically (Kostof 1991) No better solution recommends itself as a stan-dard scheme for disparate sites or as a means for the equal distribution of landor the easy parcelling and selling of real estate The advantage of straightthrough-streets for defence has been recognized since Aristotle and a rectilinearstreet pattern has also been resorted to in order to keep under watch a restlesspopulation However ubiquitous as the grid has always been it is also muchmisunderstood and often treated as if it were one unmodulated idea thatrequires little discrimination On the contrary the grid is an exceedingly exibleand diverse system of planning and hence its enormous success in urban designand planning About the only thing that all grids have in common is that theirstreet pattern is orthogonal that is the right angle rules and street lines in bothdirections lie parallel to each other

Furthermore the political innocence of the grid in the West is a ction In theearly Greek colonies for example the grid far from being a democratic deviceemployed to assure an equitable allotment of property to all citizens was themeans of perpetuating the privileges of the property-owning class descendentfrom the original settlers and for bolstering a territorial aristocracy The rstsettlers who made the voyage to the site were entitled to equal allocations ofland both inside and outside the city walls These hereditary estates wereinalienable the ruling class strictly discouraged a land market The estates werehuge as much as 25 acres (about 1 hectare) for some families They were thensub-divided by the owner Within the city private land could only be used forhousing Any alienation of land or any agitation for land reform was severelydealt with and could be punishable as for murder (Kostof 1991)

The point is made regularly that grids especially in the USA besides offeringsimplicity in land surveying recording and subsequent ownership transfer alsofavoured a fundamental democracy in property market participation This didnot mean that individual wealth could not appropriate considerable propertybut rather that the basic initial geometry of land parcels bespoke a simpleegalitarianism that invited easy entry into the urban land market The realityhowever is much less admirable The ordinary citizens gained easy access tourban land only at a preliminary phase when cheap rural land was beingurbanized through rapid laying out To the extent that the grid speeded thisprocess and streamlined absentee purchases it may be considered an equalizingsocial device Once the land had been identied with the city however thisadvantage of the initial geometry of land parcels evaporated and even unbuiltlots slipped out of common reach What matters most in the long run is not themystique of the grid geometry then but the luck of rst ownership (Kostof1991)

However for the conventional urban designer a grid is a grid is a grid(Kostof 1991) At best it is a visual theme upon which to play variations he orshe might be concerned with issues like using a true checkerboard design vs

50 A Inam

syncopated block rhythms with cross-axial or other types of emphasis with theplacement of open spaces within the discipline of the grid with the width andhierarchy of streets To Kostof and the meaningful urban designer on the otherhand how and with what intentions the Romans in Britain the builders ofmedieval Wales and Gascony the Spanish in Mexico or the Illinois CentralRailroad Company in the prairies of the Mid-west employed this very samedevice of settlement is the principal substance of a review of orthogonalplanning In fact the grid has accommodated a startling variety of socialstructuresmdashincluding territorial aristocracy in Greek Sicily the agrarianrepublicanism of Thomas Jefferson and the cosmic vision of Joseph Smith inMormon settlements like Salt Lake City Utahmdashand of course capitalist specu-lation

There have been few serious attempts at a comprehensive and normativetheory of urban form Good City Form (Lynch 1981) is an impressive andcourageous attempt by Kevin Lynch as a ldquosystematic effort to state generalrelationships between the form of a place and its valuerdquo (Lynch 1981 p 99)Lynch (1981 p 108) emphasizes ldquothose goals which are as general as possibleand thus do not dictate particular physical solutions and yet whose achievementcan be detected and explicitly linked to physical solutions This is the familiarnotion of performance standards applied at the city scalerdquo Lynch generalizesperformance dimensions which are certain identiable characteristics of citiesdue primarily to their spatial qualities and are measurable scales along whichdifferent groups achieve different positions These performance dimensions arebased on the following thinking

The good city is one in which the continuity of [a] complex ecology ismaintained while progressive change is permitted The fundamentalgood is the continuous development of the individual or the smallgroup and their culture a process of becoming more complex morerichly connected more competent acquiring and realizing new pow-ersmdashintellectual emotional social and physical hellip So that settlement isgood which enhances the continuity of a culture and the survival of itspeople increases a sense of connection in time and space and permitsor spurs individual growth development within continuity via open-ness and connection hellip [a settlement which is] accessible decentralizeddiverse adaptable and tolerant to experiment (Lynch 1981 pp 116ndash117)

In Lynchrsquos theory of good city form there are seven dimensions (Lynch 1981)First is vitality the degree to which an urban form supports the vital func-tions the biological requirements the capabilities of human beings and protectsthe survival of the species (eg adequate throughput of water air food andenergy) Second is sense the degree to which an urban form is clearly perceivedand mentally differentiated as well as structured in time and space and thedegree to which that mental structure connects with the residentsrsquo values andconcepts (eg distinct identity and unconstrained legibility) Third is t thedegree to which urban form matches the pattern and quantity of actionsthat people usually engage in or would like to engage in (eg compatibilitybetween function and form) Fourth is access the ability to reach other peopleactivities resources or places including the quantity and diversity of theelements that can be reached (eg ease of communication and transportation)

Meaningful Urban Design 51

Fifth is control the degree to which the creation of access to use of mainte-nance of and modication to urban spaces and activities are managed by thosewho use work or live in them (eg local power) Sixth is efciency the cost ofcreating and maintaining an urban form (eg less energy-demanding processes)Seventh is justice the way in which urban form costs and benets are dis-tributed among people according to a principle such as intrinsic worth or equity(eg equal protection from environmental hazards such as cars) These dimen-sions are applicable in a wide range of urban contexts because they are derivedfrom fundamental human values and serve as powerful measures of what alsquogoodrsquo urban design project might be

Christopher Alexander (Alexander et al 1977) adopts a problem-solvingapproach to design and explicitly renders the design methodology but moreimportantly describes how a meaningful urban designer might draw directlyfrom empirical evidence (rather than say idiosyncratic impulses) and extensiveresearch as a source of design The book is most useful as a series of thoroughlyanalysed and empirically based guidelines which are broad enough to beadapted to different contexts and architectural styles Each suggested solution isdescribed in a way that provides the key relationships (eg between humanbehaviour and spatial setting) needed to solve the problem but in a generalenough manner to allow for adaptation to particular lifestyles aesthetic tastesand local conditions Each pattern describes a problem which occurs repeatedlyin the built environment archetypal problems of urban form for example Thelongest portion of the description of each pattern describes the empiricalbackground of the pattern the evidence for its validity and the range of differentways the pattern can be manifested or designed

The rst 94 patterns deal with the large-scale structure including the urbanof the environment the growth of city and country the layout of roads andpaths the relationship between work and family the formation of suitablepublic institutions for a neighbourhood and the kinds of public space requiredto support these institutions (Alexander et al 1977) The following two examplesof urban patterns illustrate the value of this design methodology identiableneighbourhood and public outdoor room

According to Alexander et al (1977) and the scientic research they citepeople need an identiable spatial unit to belong to They want to be able toidentify the part of the city where they live as distinct from all others Availableevidence suggests rst that the neighbourhoods which people identify with haveextremely small populations second that they are small in area and third thata major road through a neighbourhood destroys it

What then is the right population for a neighbourhood The neighbourhoodinhabitants should be able to look after their own interests by being able to reachagreement on basic decisions such as about public services and common landand to organize themselves to bring pressure on local governments Anthropo-logical evidence cited by Alexander et al (1977) suggests that a human groupcannot usually co-ordinate itself to reach such decisions if its population is above1500 The experience of organizing community meetings at the local levelsuggests that 500 may be a more realistic gure

As far as the physical diameter is concerned in Philadelphia PA people whowere asked which area they really knew usually limited themselves to a smallarea seldom exceeding the two or three blocks around their house One-quarterof the inhabitants of an area in Milwaukee WI considered a neighbourhood to

52 A Inam

be an area no larger than a block around 300 feet (about 90 metres) One-halfconsidered it to be no more than seven blocks

The rst two features of the neighbourhood small population and small areaare not enough by themselves A neighbourhood can only have a strong identityif it is protected from heavy trafc Research cited by the authors suggests thatthe heavier the trafc in an area the less people think of it as home territory Notonly do residents view the streets with heavy trafc as less personal but theyalso feel the same about the houses along the street ldquoItrsquos not a friendlystreet hellip People are afraid to go out into the street because of the trafc hellip Noisefrom the street intrudes into my homerdquo (cited in Alexander et al 1977 p 83)This study conducted by the University of California at Berkeley found thatwith more than 200 cars per hour the quality of the neighbourhood begins todeteriorate

Therefore the proposed strategy suggests helping people dene the neigh-bourhoods they live in not more than about 300 yards (270 metres) or so acrosswith no more than 500 inhabitants or so and in existing cities encouraging localgroups to organize themselves to form such neighbourhoods and keeping majorroads outside these neighbourhoods While one may disagree with the dimen-sions suggested in this pattern one has to acknowledge that population sizephysical area and trafc ow are critical considerations for the design ofcontemporary neighbourhoods

In the public outdoor room pattern Alexander et al (1977) suggest that thereare very few spots along the streets of modern towns and neighbourhoodswhere people can hang out comfortably for hours at a time Men often seekcorner bars and pubs where they spend hours talking and drinking teenagersespecially boys choose special corners too where they hang around waitingfor their friends Elderly people like a special spot to go to where they canexpect to nd others small children need sandpits mud plants and water toplay with in the open young mothers who go to watch their children oftenuse the childrenrsquos play as a opportunity to meet and talk with other mothersand so on for a variety of groups Because of the diverse and casual natureof these activities they require a space which has a subtle balance of beingdened and yet not too dened so that any activity which is natural to theneighbourhood at any given time can develop freely and yet has something tostart from

What is needed is a framework which is dened just enough so that peoplenaturally tend to stop there and so that curiosity naturally takes people thereand invites them to stay A small open space roofed with columns but withoutwalls at least in part will provide the necessary balance between being open andenclosed Examples of this pattern were built with the assistance of architecturestudents in Cleveland OH on the grounds and on public land surrounding alocal mental health clinic According to staff reports these places changed thelife of the clinic dramatically many more people than usual were drawnoutdoors public talk was more animated and outdoor space that had beendominated by cars became more human In addition in the 12th and 13thcenturies there were many such public structures dotted through the towns andwhich were the scene of auctions open-air meetings and market fairs

Therefore in neighbourhoods and work communities the authors suggestmaking a piece of the common land into an outdoor roommdasha partly enclosedplace with a partial roof columns without walls perhaps with a trellis placing

Meaningful Urban Design 53

Figure 5 A contemporary example of a successful outdoor room which reects theguidelines of the outdoor room patternmdashCitywalk in Los Angeles CA

it beside an important path and within view of houses and workplaces In thisand the other patterns in the book the authors outline an urban designmethodology that is based on archetypal problems (eg public outdoor spaces)analyses of built examples descriptions of historical precedents and the explicitunpacking of design solutions such that they are clear relevant and thoughtful(see Figure 5) The basis for the design patterns was extensive and thoroughresearch carried out over an 8-year period Today there is current and volumin-ous research for example on environment and behaviour (for example seeMoore amp Marans 1997) that is highly relevant and useful for urban designers

Future Directions in Urban Design

Urban designers (eg Beckley 1998) are beginning to question what in fact islsquourbanrsquo in the contemporary environment However few will argue with

54 A Inam

denitions two decades old that are still relevant today a city is a ldquorelativelylarge dense and permanent settlement [or network of settlements] of sociallyheterogeneous individualsrdquo (L Worth cited in Kostof 1991 p 37) and a ldquopoint[or points] of maximum concentration for the power and culture of a com-munityrdquo (L Mumford cited in Kostof 1991 p 37) The urban designerrsquos impera-tive then is to understand cities On the one hand the most enduring featureof the city is its physical build which remains with remarkable persistencegaining increments that are responsive to the most recent economic demand andreective of the latest stylistic vogue but conserving evidence of past urbanculture for present and future generations On the other hand however urbansociety changes more than any other human grouping economic innovationusually comes most rapidly and boldly in cities immigration aims rst at theurban core forcing upon cities the critical role of acculturating refugees frommany countrysides and the winds of intellectual advance blow strong in cities(Vance cited in Kostof 1991)

Based on the new synthesis of ideas proposed in this paper there are threelevels of success of an urban design project These include rst the purelyaesthetically informed notion of urban design as a nished product (eg Does itlook good) The second is the sense of the project as an autonomous object thatfunctions in an affordable convenient and comfortable manner for its users (egDoes it work) The third and new idea is to have the urban design projectgenerate or substantially contribute to socio-economic development processes(eg Does it produce long-term quality of life impacts) In this sense urbandesigners and urban design projects become catalysts for community bettermenteconomic improvement and international understanding

Consequently urban designers should focus more on the lsquourbanrsquo of urbandesign and become less infatuated with the lsquodesignrsquo of urban design Urbandesign must begin with cities how they work and change and what impacts theyhave in creating enabling vs destructive impacts For example urban design hasto be seen within the framework of investment and development policies andas a shaper of those policies Cranersquos (1966) capital web of investment decisionsand Lairsquos (1988) invisible web of laws and norms that guide peoplersquos behaviourAt the same time design and form play a critical role because they are a languageand vocabulary for analysing and intervening in cities

At the most fundamental level all urban design should be responsible forcreating an environment that satises informs and inspires its users (ie thecommunity) This is an urban design that possesses an articulate communicativeprociency Urban design of profound signicance has a poetic quality By themeans of compressing its meanings into a concise formal expression a poeticurban design project draws the mind to a level of perception concealed behindthe conventional presentations of urban form The most effective symbols arethose which while operating within a given set of conventions are imprecisesparse and open-ended in their possible interpretations tending more to themetaphor than the simile Such an approach requires deep cultural understand-ing and social sensitivity

Implications for Education

The pedagogical approach to meaningful urban design will be interdisciplinary(eg examining cities from the perspectives of architects landscape architects

Meaningful Urban Design 55

urban planners policy makers social workers and business interests) teleologi-cal (eg driven by the express purpose of addressing critical urban challengessuch as uncomfortable and unsafe built environments community powerless-ness economic deprivation and fragmented interventions) critical (eg based onin-depth understanding of urban design problems and promises throughanalysis of urban design practice and case studies) and catalytic (eg theformulation of effective urban design strategies that include a focus on urbandesign products such as building complexes and public spaces but also includethe generation of long-term community and economic development processes)

The primary impact on this type of learning for students will be an under-standing of the urban designer as a leader Through an in-depth analysis ofurban issues an interdisciplinary approach to urban problem solving and skillsthat focus not only on issues of urban aesthetics and form but also on purposefulintervention generated by long-term processes students will gain a profoundand empowering understanding of meaningful urban design Students of urbandesign will also gain humility and condence by studying the power structuresof cities (and realizing just how little power urban designers actually have)practising critical thinking and learning to be politically savvy in order toaccomplish their goals A secondary impact on learning for students will be aunique opportunity for them to shape the future direction of urban designthrough readings research discussions case-study analyses and project designsthat will focus on specic urban challenges examine deciencies in currenturban design approaches and projects in addressing those challenges andformulate alternative more meaningful urban design strategies

In order to reach such goals an urban design programme should focus on twomajor sets of skills understanding how cities work and learning to shape citiesUnderstanding cities includes their conception (eg urban theory and form)their evolution (eg history of urban form) their decision-making processes (egurban political economy) and their use and experience (eg urban sociology)Learning to shape cities includes design methods (eg based on empiricalevidence and community participation) and communication skills (eg graphicverbal written and computer-based) The goal of a meaningful urban designpedagogical initiative would be to attract students of the built environment (egarchitects landscape architects and urban planners) who will become sophisti-cated practitioners and inuential leaders of urban design in architectural andplanning rms community organizations public agencies and internationalinstitutions The initiative would thus involve (1) teaching of exploratoryseminars and studios in new urban design methodologies (eg internationalstudios) (2) research into the relevant roles of professionals especially architectsand planners in the urban design of contemporary cities (eg institutionalstructures) and (3) professional work in the form of community outreach andproject analysis (eg evaluating New Urbanism)

In summary a meaningful pedagogical approach to urban design should havethe following characteristics (1) small (ie selective)mdashfocus on key urban designchallenges eg inner city revitalization (2) focused (ie depth)mdashdevelop exper-tise in the urban designurban development nexus (3) distinct (ie cutting-edge)mdashexperiment with new studio formats projects and research eginternational collaboration and cross-cultural learning and (4) existing resources(ie breadth)mdashbuild upon other departments eg social work business naturalresources and environment

56 A Inam

The critical question that guides this meaningful future of urban design issimply So what That is what consequential purpose has been achieved byparticular urban design theories urban design methodologies urban designpractices and urban design practitioners The implication of such probingquestions is that it is far from adequate to consider urban design projects assuccessful if they are only physically appealing or thought-provoking

Conclusion

In conclusion the author would like to return to the provocations that werereferred to at the beginning of this paper While both Rem Koolhaas and MichaelSorkin are emblematic of the image-based architect-driven urban design thatpermeates much of the world and especially the USA they are also contributorsto an urban design strategy that is realistic and contrary to the nostalgia evokedby the New Urbanism and neo-traditional movements Thus for Koolhaas

If there is to be a lsquonew urbanismrsquo it will not be based on the twinfantasies of order and omnipotence hellip but about discovering unnam-able hybrids [as is the case with Los Angeles] hellip Redened urbanismwill not only or mostly be a profession but a way of thinking anideology to accept what exists We were making sand castles Now weswim in the sea that swept them away (Koolhaas 1995 pp 969ndash971)

Koolhaas thus encourages us rst to accept the contemporary urban condition(instead of seeing it through rose-tinted lenses) and second as architects urbandesigners and planners to understand and work with the contemporary urbanforces (instead of imagining a world without cars or highways)

Similarly Sorkin extols us to learn from those urban design projects and urbanenvironments which are successful in terms of the designerrsquos objectives ofattracting people to these environments and the vibrant use of these environ-ments by people Even if the objectives were to differ say in terms of greatersocial interaction and co-operation in a neighbourhood the designers of shop-ping malls gambling casinos and amusement parks at least understand humanbehaviour as it relates to entertainment and consumptionmdashlessons which can beused for other perhaps more noble projects Thus according to Sorkin (1997pp 29ndash31)

Disneyland hellip is foremost a playground of mobility its entertainmentslargely those of pleasured motion And there is something to belearned here It seems undeniable that for all of its depredations all ofits regimentation surveillance and control part of what we experienceas enjoyable at Disneyland is the passage through an environment ofurban density in which both the physical texture and the means ofcirculation are not simply entertaining but stand in invigorating con-trast to the dysfunctional versions back home One extracts fromDisneyland a shred of hope the persuasive example that pedestrianismcoupled with short distance collective transport systems can be bothefcient and fun can thrive in the midst of an environment completelyotherwise constituted and that the space of low sufciently deceler-ated can become the space of exchange

Meaningful Urban Design 57

Figure 6 The design of Disneyland in Los Angeles CAmdashalbeit lsquoarticialrsquo anddesigned to foster consumptionmdashoffers deeper lessons for understanding humanbehaviour and creating exciting environmentsmdashfor say multicultural interac-

tionmdashbased on such understanding

The lsquoshred of hopersquo offered by Disneyland (see Figure 6) is constituted by suchlessons carefully and critically collected from numerous examples of contempor-ary urban design projects and articulatedmdashvia relevant history theory andmethodologymdashinto a meaningful approach to urban design

Acknowledgement

This paper was the second place winner of the 1999 Chicago Institute forArchitecture and Urbanism (CIAU) Award This award administered by theSkidmore Owings amp Merrill Foundation on behalf of the CIAU is for unpub-lished papers and is intended to encourage writing and research on the questionof how architecture infrastructure urban design and planning can contribute toimproving the quality of life of the American city For more information aboutthis award the Foundation can be contacted at somfoundationsomcom

References

Alexander C Ishikawa S Silverstein M Jacobson M Fiksdahl-King I amp Angel S (1977) APattern Language Towns Buildings Construction (New York Oxford University Press)

Attoe W amp Logan D (1989) American Urban Architecture Catalysts in the Design of Cities (BerkeleyUniversity of California Press)

Beauregard R (1995) Theorizing the globalndashlocal connection in P Knox amp P Taylor (Eds) WorldCities in a World System (Cambridge Cambridge University Press)

Beckley R (1998) [Dean Emeritus and Professor of Architecture and Urban Planning College ofArchitecture and Urban Planning University of Michigan] Written interview

Bratt R (1986) Public housing the controversy and the contribution in R Bratt C Hartman amp AMeyerson (Eds) Critical Perspectives in Housing (Philadelphia PA Temple University Press)

Calthorpe P (1993) The Next American Metropolis Ecology Communities and the American Dream (NewYork Princeton Architectural Press)

58 A Inam

Ciriani H (1997) Henri Ciriani (Rockport MA Rockport Publishers)Crane D (1966) Planning and Design in New York A Study of Problems and Processes of its Physical

Environment (New York Institute of Public Administration)Ellin N (1996) Postmodern Urbanism (Cambridge MA Blackwell)Frampton K (1992a) Critical regionalism modern architecture and cultural identityFrampton K (1992b) Modern Architecture A Critical History 3rd edn (London Thames amp Hudson)Frieden B amp Sagalyn L (1989) Downtown Inc How America Rebuilds Cities (Cambridge MA MIT

Press)Garvin A (1996) The American City What Works What Doesnrsquot (New York McGraw-Hill)Gilbert A amp Gugler J (1992) Cities Poverty and Development Urbanization in the Third World 2nd edn

(New York Oxford University Press)Hester R (1990) Community Design Primer (Mendocino CA Ridge Times Press)Inam A (1992) The urban monument symbol memory presence masterrsquos thesis in urban design

Washington University St LouisInam A (1997) Institutions routines and crises post-earthquake housing recovery in Mexico City

and Los Angeles doctoral dissertation in urban planning University of Southern California LosAngeles CA

Jacobs A (1993) Great Streets (Cambridge MA MIT Press)Jacobs J (1961) The Death and Life of Great American Cities (New York Random House)Jones T Pettus W amp Pyatok M (1995) Good Neighbors Affordable Family Housing (New York

McGraw-Hill)Kasprisin R amp Pettinari J (1995) Visual Thinking for Architects and Designers Visualizing Context in

Design (New York Van Nostrand Reinhold)Kelbaugh D (1997) Common Place Toward Neighborhood and Regional Design (Seattle WA University

of Washington Press)Koolhaas R (1995) Small Medium Large Extra Large (Rotterdam 010 Publishers)Kostof S (1991) The City Shaped Urban Patterns and Meanings through History (Boston MA Bulnch

Press)Krumholz N amp Clavel P (1994) Reinventing Cities Equity Planners Tell Their Stories (Philadelphia

Temple University Press)Lagerfeld S (1995) What Main Street can learn from the mall Atlantic Monthly November

pp 110ndash120Lai R T (1988) Law in Urban Design and Planning The Invisible Web (New York Van Nostrand

Reinhold)Loukaitou-Sideris A amp Banerjee T (1998) Urban Design Downtown Poetics and Politics of Form

(Berkeley CA University of California Press)Lynch K (1981) Good City Form (Cambridge MA MIT Press)Moore G amp Marans R (Eds) (1997) Advances in Environment Behavior and Design Toward the

Integration of Theory Methods Research and Utilization (New York Plenum Press)Porter M (1995) The competitive advantage of the inner city Harvard Business Review 73 pp 55ndash71Rowe P (1991) Making a Middle Landscape (Cambridge MA MIT Press)Rowe P (1997) Civic Realism (Cambridge MA MIT Press)Sandercock L (1998) Towards Cosmopolis Planning for Multicultural Cities (Chichester NY John

Wiley)Sassen S (2000) Cities in a World Economy 2nd edn (Thousand Oaks CA Pine Forge Press)Saunders W (1997) Rem Koolhaasrsquos writing on cities poetic perception and gnomic fantasy Journal

of Architectural Education 51 pp 61ndash71Savitch H V (1988) Post-Industrial Cities Politics and Planning in New York Paris and London

(Princeton NJ Princeton University Press)Schneekloth L amp Shibley R (1995) Placemaking The Art and Practice of Building Communities (New

York Wiley)Segal M B (1995) An old commercial district goes from cold to hot Urban Land 54 (11) pp 16ndash18Serageldin I (Ed) (1997) The Architecture of Empowerment People Shelter and Livable Cities (London

Academy Editions)Short J R (1996) The Urban Order An Introduction to Cities Culture and Power (Cambridge MA

Blackwell)Sorkin M (1997) Trafc in Democracy 1997 Raoul Wallenberg Lecture (Ann Arbor MI College of

Architecture and Urban Planning University of Michigan)Urban Design Group (1998) Involving local communities in urban design Urban Design Quarterly 67

pp 15ndash38

48 A Inam

who shape their communities For example the Indian architect B V Doshiutilized an institution the Vastu-Shilpa Foundation for Studies and Research todevelop an internationally (ie World Bank) funded local (ie in the city Indore)housing project in India Aranya Nagar (Serageldin 1997) The project has beenlargely a success due to the Vastu-Shilpa Foundation which carried out con-siderable research including surveys to understand the physical and economicfactors that determine the size type and density of the housing plots that werespecic to the local context

Relevant

Urban design that is relevant is urban design that is pertinent to matters at hand(eg critical urban issues) and that is based on fundamental human and naturalconditions In this section three such relevant approaches to urban design arehighlighted (1) a history of urban form that analyses the determinant processesand human meanings of form (2) a theory of urban form that is normative andbased on human values and (3) a design methodology of urban form that isempirically based and derived from patterns of human behaviour These threeapproaches are discussed by illustrating them with the work of Spiro Kostof(Kostof 1991) Kevin Lynch (Lynch 1981) and Christopher Alexander (Alexan-der et al 1977) but by no means does this suggest that these are the only suchapproaches in urban design Indeed there exist other relevant approaches tourban design (for example see Rowe 1991) but for the illustrative purposes ofthis paper the three examples mentioned above will sufce

Kostof (1991) studies the phenomenon of city making in a historical perspec-tive to consider how and why cities took the shape they did Amalgams of theliving and the built cities are repositories of cultural meaning Behind thearbitrary twist of a lane or the splendid eccentricity of a new skyscraper on theskyline lies a history of previous urban tenure a heritage of long-establishedsocial conventions a string of often bitter compromises between individualrights and the public will In a series of discussions of urban patterns such as thegrid and the city as diagram Kostof adopts a truly interdisciplinary approach bydrawing upon architecture cultural geography and social history to interpret thehidden order ascribed in these patterns

Urban form is related directly to urban process ie the people forces andinstitutions that bring about urban form (Kostof 1991) and a way to examinethis process is to ask probing research questions which are the basis for trulyunderstanding cities For example who actually designs cities What proceduresdo they go through What are the empowering agencies and laws The legal andeconomic history is an enormous and often overlooked subject It involvesownership of urban land and the land market the exercise of eminent domainwhich is the power of government to take over private property for public usethe institution of legally binding master plans building codes and other regula-tions instruments of funding urban change such as property taxes and bondissues and the administrative and more importantly the power structure ofcities Urban designers need not know all of this information but they do needto realize the importance of it why it is important to know where to turn toobtain it and to consider it in their project designs

Urban process also refers to physical change through time The tendency alltoo often is to see urban form as a nite thing and a complicated object

Meaningful Urban Design 49

However thousands of witting and unwitting acts every day alter a cityrsquos linesin ways that are perceptible only over a certain stretch of time City walls arepulled down and lled in once rational grids are slowly obscured a slashingdiagonal boulevard is run through close-grained residential neighbourhoodsrailroad tracks usurp cemeteries and waterfronts and wars res and highwaysannihilate city cores (Kostof 1991)

As an example let us consider the grid The grid is by far the commonestpattern for planned cities in history and it is universal both geographically andchronologically (Kostof 1991) No better solution recommends itself as a stan-dard scheme for disparate sites or as a means for the equal distribution of landor the easy parcelling and selling of real estate The advantage of straightthrough-streets for defence has been recognized since Aristotle and a rectilinearstreet pattern has also been resorted to in order to keep under watch a restlesspopulation However ubiquitous as the grid has always been it is also muchmisunderstood and often treated as if it were one unmodulated idea thatrequires little discrimination On the contrary the grid is an exceedingly exibleand diverse system of planning and hence its enormous success in urban designand planning About the only thing that all grids have in common is that theirstreet pattern is orthogonal that is the right angle rules and street lines in bothdirections lie parallel to each other

Furthermore the political innocence of the grid in the West is a ction In theearly Greek colonies for example the grid far from being a democratic deviceemployed to assure an equitable allotment of property to all citizens was themeans of perpetuating the privileges of the property-owning class descendentfrom the original settlers and for bolstering a territorial aristocracy The rstsettlers who made the voyage to the site were entitled to equal allocations ofland both inside and outside the city walls These hereditary estates wereinalienable the ruling class strictly discouraged a land market The estates werehuge as much as 25 acres (about 1 hectare) for some families They were thensub-divided by the owner Within the city private land could only be used forhousing Any alienation of land or any agitation for land reform was severelydealt with and could be punishable as for murder (Kostof 1991)

The point is made regularly that grids especially in the USA besides offeringsimplicity in land surveying recording and subsequent ownership transfer alsofavoured a fundamental democracy in property market participation This didnot mean that individual wealth could not appropriate considerable propertybut rather that the basic initial geometry of land parcels bespoke a simpleegalitarianism that invited easy entry into the urban land market The realityhowever is much less admirable The ordinary citizens gained easy access tourban land only at a preliminary phase when cheap rural land was beingurbanized through rapid laying out To the extent that the grid speeded thisprocess and streamlined absentee purchases it may be considered an equalizingsocial device Once the land had been identied with the city however thisadvantage of the initial geometry of land parcels evaporated and even unbuiltlots slipped out of common reach What matters most in the long run is not themystique of the grid geometry then but the luck of rst ownership (Kostof1991)

However for the conventional urban designer a grid is a grid is a grid(Kostof 1991) At best it is a visual theme upon which to play variations he orshe might be concerned with issues like using a true checkerboard design vs

50 A Inam

syncopated block rhythms with cross-axial or other types of emphasis with theplacement of open spaces within the discipline of the grid with the width andhierarchy of streets To Kostof and the meaningful urban designer on the otherhand how and with what intentions the Romans in Britain the builders ofmedieval Wales and Gascony the Spanish in Mexico or the Illinois CentralRailroad Company in the prairies of the Mid-west employed this very samedevice of settlement is the principal substance of a review of orthogonalplanning In fact the grid has accommodated a startling variety of socialstructuresmdashincluding territorial aristocracy in Greek Sicily the agrarianrepublicanism of Thomas Jefferson and the cosmic vision of Joseph Smith inMormon settlements like Salt Lake City Utahmdashand of course capitalist specu-lation

There have been few serious attempts at a comprehensive and normativetheory of urban form Good City Form (Lynch 1981) is an impressive andcourageous attempt by Kevin Lynch as a ldquosystematic effort to state generalrelationships between the form of a place and its valuerdquo (Lynch 1981 p 99)Lynch (1981 p 108) emphasizes ldquothose goals which are as general as possibleand thus do not dictate particular physical solutions and yet whose achievementcan be detected and explicitly linked to physical solutions This is the familiarnotion of performance standards applied at the city scalerdquo Lynch generalizesperformance dimensions which are certain identiable characteristics of citiesdue primarily to their spatial qualities and are measurable scales along whichdifferent groups achieve different positions These performance dimensions arebased on the following thinking

The good city is one in which the continuity of [a] complex ecology ismaintained while progressive change is permitted The fundamentalgood is the continuous development of the individual or the smallgroup and their culture a process of becoming more complex morerichly connected more competent acquiring and realizing new pow-ersmdashintellectual emotional social and physical hellip So that settlement isgood which enhances the continuity of a culture and the survival of itspeople increases a sense of connection in time and space and permitsor spurs individual growth development within continuity via open-ness and connection hellip [a settlement which is] accessible decentralizeddiverse adaptable and tolerant to experiment (Lynch 1981 pp 116ndash117)

In Lynchrsquos theory of good city form there are seven dimensions (Lynch 1981)First is vitality the degree to which an urban form supports the vital func-tions the biological requirements the capabilities of human beings and protectsthe survival of the species (eg adequate throughput of water air food andenergy) Second is sense the degree to which an urban form is clearly perceivedand mentally differentiated as well as structured in time and space and thedegree to which that mental structure connects with the residentsrsquo values andconcepts (eg distinct identity and unconstrained legibility) Third is t thedegree to which urban form matches the pattern and quantity of actionsthat people usually engage in or would like to engage in (eg compatibilitybetween function and form) Fourth is access the ability to reach other peopleactivities resources or places including the quantity and diversity of theelements that can be reached (eg ease of communication and transportation)

Meaningful Urban Design 51

Fifth is control the degree to which the creation of access to use of mainte-nance of and modication to urban spaces and activities are managed by thosewho use work or live in them (eg local power) Sixth is efciency the cost ofcreating and maintaining an urban form (eg less energy-demanding processes)Seventh is justice the way in which urban form costs and benets are dis-tributed among people according to a principle such as intrinsic worth or equity(eg equal protection from environmental hazards such as cars) These dimen-sions are applicable in a wide range of urban contexts because they are derivedfrom fundamental human values and serve as powerful measures of what alsquogoodrsquo urban design project might be

Christopher Alexander (Alexander et al 1977) adopts a problem-solvingapproach to design and explicitly renders the design methodology but moreimportantly describes how a meaningful urban designer might draw directlyfrom empirical evidence (rather than say idiosyncratic impulses) and extensiveresearch as a source of design The book is most useful as a series of thoroughlyanalysed and empirically based guidelines which are broad enough to beadapted to different contexts and architectural styles Each suggested solution isdescribed in a way that provides the key relationships (eg between humanbehaviour and spatial setting) needed to solve the problem but in a generalenough manner to allow for adaptation to particular lifestyles aesthetic tastesand local conditions Each pattern describes a problem which occurs repeatedlyin the built environment archetypal problems of urban form for example Thelongest portion of the description of each pattern describes the empiricalbackground of the pattern the evidence for its validity and the range of differentways the pattern can be manifested or designed

The rst 94 patterns deal with the large-scale structure including the urbanof the environment the growth of city and country the layout of roads andpaths the relationship between work and family the formation of suitablepublic institutions for a neighbourhood and the kinds of public space requiredto support these institutions (Alexander et al 1977) The following two examplesof urban patterns illustrate the value of this design methodology identiableneighbourhood and public outdoor room

According to Alexander et al (1977) and the scientic research they citepeople need an identiable spatial unit to belong to They want to be able toidentify the part of the city where they live as distinct from all others Availableevidence suggests rst that the neighbourhoods which people identify with haveextremely small populations second that they are small in area and third thata major road through a neighbourhood destroys it

What then is the right population for a neighbourhood The neighbourhoodinhabitants should be able to look after their own interests by being able to reachagreement on basic decisions such as about public services and common landand to organize themselves to bring pressure on local governments Anthropo-logical evidence cited by Alexander et al (1977) suggests that a human groupcannot usually co-ordinate itself to reach such decisions if its population is above1500 The experience of organizing community meetings at the local levelsuggests that 500 may be a more realistic gure

As far as the physical diameter is concerned in Philadelphia PA people whowere asked which area they really knew usually limited themselves to a smallarea seldom exceeding the two or three blocks around their house One-quarterof the inhabitants of an area in Milwaukee WI considered a neighbourhood to

52 A Inam

be an area no larger than a block around 300 feet (about 90 metres) One-halfconsidered it to be no more than seven blocks

The rst two features of the neighbourhood small population and small areaare not enough by themselves A neighbourhood can only have a strong identityif it is protected from heavy trafc Research cited by the authors suggests thatthe heavier the trafc in an area the less people think of it as home territory Notonly do residents view the streets with heavy trafc as less personal but theyalso feel the same about the houses along the street ldquoItrsquos not a friendlystreet hellip People are afraid to go out into the street because of the trafc hellip Noisefrom the street intrudes into my homerdquo (cited in Alexander et al 1977 p 83)This study conducted by the University of California at Berkeley found thatwith more than 200 cars per hour the quality of the neighbourhood begins todeteriorate

Therefore the proposed strategy suggests helping people dene the neigh-bourhoods they live in not more than about 300 yards (270 metres) or so acrosswith no more than 500 inhabitants or so and in existing cities encouraging localgroups to organize themselves to form such neighbourhoods and keeping majorroads outside these neighbourhoods While one may disagree with the dimen-sions suggested in this pattern one has to acknowledge that population sizephysical area and trafc ow are critical considerations for the design ofcontemporary neighbourhoods

In the public outdoor room pattern Alexander et al (1977) suggest that thereare very few spots along the streets of modern towns and neighbourhoodswhere people can hang out comfortably for hours at a time Men often seekcorner bars and pubs where they spend hours talking and drinking teenagersespecially boys choose special corners too where they hang around waitingfor their friends Elderly people like a special spot to go to where they canexpect to nd others small children need sandpits mud plants and water toplay with in the open young mothers who go to watch their children oftenuse the childrenrsquos play as a opportunity to meet and talk with other mothersand so on for a variety of groups Because of the diverse and casual natureof these activities they require a space which has a subtle balance of beingdened and yet not too dened so that any activity which is natural to theneighbourhood at any given time can develop freely and yet has something tostart from

What is needed is a framework which is dened just enough so that peoplenaturally tend to stop there and so that curiosity naturally takes people thereand invites them to stay A small open space roofed with columns but withoutwalls at least in part will provide the necessary balance between being open andenclosed Examples of this pattern were built with the assistance of architecturestudents in Cleveland OH on the grounds and on public land surrounding alocal mental health clinic According to staff reports these places changed thelife of the clinic dramatically many more people than usual were drawnoutdoors public talk was more animated and outdoor space that had beendominated by cars became more human In addition in the 12th and 13thcenturies there were many such public structures dotted through the towns andwhich were the scene of auctions open-air meetings and market fairs

Therefore in neighbourhoods and work communities the authors suggestmaking a piece of the common land into an outdoor roommdasha partly enclosedplace with a partial roof columns without walls perhaps with a trellis placing

Meaningful Urban Design 53

Figure 5 A contemporary example of a successful outdoor room which reects theguidelines of the outdoor room patternmdashCitywalk in Los Angeles CA

it beside an important path and within view of houses and workplaces In thisand the other patterns in the book the authors outline an urban designmethodology that is based on archetypal problems (eg public outdoor spaces)analyses of built examples descriptions of historical precedents and the explicitunpacking of design solutions such that they are clear relevant and thoughtful(see Figure 5) The basis for the design patterns was extensive and thoroughresearch carried out over an 8-year period Today there is current and volumin-ous research for example on environment and behaviour (for example seeMoore amp Marans 1997) that is highly relevant and useful for urban designers

Future Directions in Urban Design

Urban designers (eg Beckley 1998) are beginning to question what in fact islsquourbanrsquo in the contemporary environment However few will argue with

54 A Inam

denitions two decades old that are still relevant today a city is a ldquorelativelylarge dense and permanent settlement [or network of settlements] of sociallyheterogeneous individualsrdquo (L Worth cited in Kostof 1991 p 37) and a ldquopoint[or points] of maximum concentration for the power and culture of a com-munityrdquo (L Mumford cited in Kostof 1991 p 37) The urban designerrsquos impera-tive then is to understand cities On the one hand the most enduring featureof the city is its physical build which remains with remarkable persistencegaining increments that are responsive to the most recent economic demand andreective of the latest stylistic vogue but conserving evidence of past urbanculture for present and future generations On the other hand however urbansociety changes more than any other human grouping economic innovationusually comes most rapidly and boldly in cities immigration aims rst at theurban core forcing upon cities the critical role of acculturating refugees frommany countrysides and the winds of intellectual advance blow strong in cities(Vance cited in Kostof 1991)

Based on the new synthesis of ideas proposed in this paper there are threelevels of success of an urban design project These include rst the purelyaesthetically informed notion of urban design as a nished product (eg Does itlook good) The second is the sense of the project as an autonomous object thatfunctions in an affordable convenient and comfortable manner for its users (egDoes it work) The third and new idea is to have the urban design projectgenerate or substantially contribute to socio-economic development processes(eg Does it produce long-term quality of life impacts) In this sense urbandesigners and urban design projects become catalysts for community bettermenteconomic improvement and international understanding

Consequently urban designers should focus more on the lsquourbanrsquo of urbandesign and become less infatuated with the lsquodesignrsquo of urban design Urbandesign must begin with cities how they work and change and what impacts theyhave in creating enabling vs destructive impacts For example urban design hasto be seen within the framework of investment and development policies andas a shaper of those policies Cranersquos (1966) capital web of investment decisionsand Lairsquos (1988) invisible web of laws and norms that guide peoplersquos behaviourAt the same time design and form play a critical role because they are a languageand vocabulary for analysing and intervening in cities

At the most fundamental level all urban design should be responsible forcreating an environment that satises informs and inspires its users (ie thecommunity) This is an urban design that possesses an articulate communicativeprociency Urban design of profound signicance has a poetic quality By themeans of compressing its meanings into a concise formal expression a poeticurban design project draws the mind to a level of perception concealed behindthe conventional presentations of urban form The most effective symbols arethose which while operating within a given set of conventions are imprecisesparse and open-ended in their possible interpretations tending more to themetaphor than the simile Such an approach requires deep cultural understand-ing and social sensitivity

Implications for Education

The pedagogical approach to meaningful urban design will be interdisciplinary(eg examining cities from the perspectives of architects landscape architects

Meaningful Urban Design 55

urban planners policy makers social workers and business interests) teleologi-cal (eg driven by the express purpose of addressing critical urban challengessuch as uncomfortable and unsafe built environments community powerless-ness economic deprivation and fragmented interventions) critical (eg based onin-depth understanding of urban design problems and promises throughanalysis of urban design practice and case studies) and catalytic (eg theformulation of effective urban design strategies that include a focus on urbandesign products such as building complexes and public spaces but also includethe generation of long-term community and economic development processes)

The primary impact on this type of learning for students will be an under-standing of the urban designer as a leader Through an in-depth analysis ofurban issues an interdisciplinary approach to urban problem solving and skillsthat focus not only on issues of urban aesthetics and form but also on purposefulintervention generated by long-term processes students will gain a profoundand empowering understanding of meaningful urban design Students of urbandesign will also gain humility and condence by studying the power structuresof cities (and realizing just how little power urban designers actually have)practising critical thinking and learning to be politically savvy in order toaccomplish their goals A secondary impact on learning for students will be aunique opportunity for them to shape the future direction of urban designthrough readings research discussions case-study analyses and project designsthat will focus on specic urban challenges examine deciencies in currenturban design approaches and projects in addressing those challenges andformulate alternative more meaningful urban design strategies

In order to reach such goals an urban design programme should focus on twomajor sets of skills understanding how cities work and learning to shape citiesUnderstanding cities includes their conception (eg urban theory and form)their evolution (eg history of urban form) their decision-making processes (egurban political economy) and their use and experience (eg urban sociology)Learning to shape cities includes design methods (eg based on empiricalevidence and community participation) and communication skills (eg graphicverbal written and computer-based) The goal of a meaningful urban designpedagogical initiative would be to attract students of the built environment (egarchitects landscape architects and urban planners) who will become sophisti-cated practitioners and inuential leaders of urban design in architectural andplanning rms community organizations public agencies and internationalinstitutions The initiative would thus involve (1) teaching of exploratoryseminars and studios in new urban design methodologies (eg internationalstudios) (2) research into the relevant roles of professionals especially architectsand planners in the urban design of contemporary cities (eg institutionalstructures) and (3) professional work in the form of community outreach andproject analysis (eg evaluating New Urbanism)

In summary a meaningful pedagogical approach to urban design should havethe following characteristics (1) small (ie selective)mdashfocus on key urban designchallenges eg inner city revitalization (2) focused (ie depth)mdashdevelop exper-tise in the urban designurban development nexus (3) distinct (ie cutting-edge)mdashexperiment with new studio formats projects and research eginternational collaboration and cross-cultural learning and (4) existing resources(ie breadth)mdashbuild upon other departments eg social work business naturalresources and environment

56 A Inam

The critical question that guides this meaningful future of urban design issimply So what That is what consequential purpose has been achieved byparticular urban design theories urban design methodologies urban designpractices and urban design practitioners The implication of such probingquestions is that it is far from adequate to consider urban design projects assuccessful if they are only physically appealing or thought-provoking

Conclusion

In conclusion the author would like to return to the provocations that werereferred to at the beginning of this paper While both Rem Koolhaas and MichaelSorkin are emblematic of the image-based architect-driven urban design thatpermeates much of the world and especially the USA they are also contributorsto an urban design strategy that is realistic and contrary to the nostalgia evokedby the New Urbanism and neo-traditional movements Thus for Koolhaas

If there is to be a lsquonew urbanismrsquo it will not be based on the twinfantasies of order and omnipotence hellip but about discovering unnam-able hybrids [as is the case with Los Angeles] hellip Redened urbanismwill not only or mostly be a profession but a way of thinking anideology to accept what exists We were making sand castles Now weswim in the sea that swept them away (Koolhaas 1995 pp 969ndash971)

Koolhaas thus encourages us rst to accept the contemporary urban condition(instead of seeing it through rose-tinted lenses) and second as architects urbandesigners and planners to understand and work with the contemporary urbanforces (instead of imagining a world without cars or highways)

Similarly Sorkin extols us to learn from those urban design projects and urbanenvironments which are successful in terms of the designerrsquos objectives ofattracting people to these environments and the vibrant use of these environ-ments by people Even if the objectives were to differ say in terms of greatersocial interaction and co-operation in a neighbourhood the designers of shop-ping malls gambling casinos and amusement parks at least understand humanbehaviour as it relates to entertainment and consumptionmdashlessons which can beused for other perhaps more noble projects Thus according to Sorkin (1997pp 29ndash31)

Disneyland hellip is foremost a playground of mobility its entertainmentslargely those of pleasured motion And there is something to belearned here It seems undeniable that for all of its depredations all ofits regimentation surveillance and control part of what we experienceas enjoyable at Disneyland is the passage through an environment ofurban density in which both the physical texture and the means ofcirculation are not simply entertaining but stand in invigorating con-trast to the dysfunctional versions back home One extracts fromDisneyland a shred of hope the persuasive example that pedestrianismcoupled with short distance collective transport systems can be bothefcient and fun can thrive in the midst of an environment completelyotherwise constituted and that the space of low sufciently deceler-ated can become the space of exchange

Meaningful Urban Design 57

Figure 6 The design of Disneyland in Los Angeles CAmdashalbeit lsquoarticialrsquo anddesigned to foster consumptionmdashoffers deeper lessons for understanding humanbehaviour and creating exciting environmentsmdashfor say multicultural interac-

tionmdashbased on such understanding

The lsquoshred of hopersquo offered by Disneyland (see Figure 6) is constituted by suchlessons carefully and critically collected from numerous examples of contempor-ary urban design projects and articulatedmdashvia relevant history theory andmethodologymdashinto a meaningful approach to urban design

Acknowledgement

This paper was the second place winner of the 1999 Chicago Institute forArchitecture and Urbanism (CIAU) Award This award administered by theSkidmore Owings amp Merrill Foundation on behalf of the CIAU is for unpub-lished papers and is intended to encourage writing and research on the questionof how architecture infrastructure urban design and planning can contribute toimproving the quality of life of the American city For more information aboutthis award the Foundation can be contacted at somfoundationsomcom

References

Alexander C Ishikawa S Silverstein M Jacobson M Fiksdahl-King I amp Angel S (1977) APattern Language Towns Buildings Construction (New York Oxford University Press)

Attoe W amp Logan D (1989) American Urban Architecture Catalysts in the Design of Cities (BerkeleyUniversity of California Press)

Beauregard R (1995) Theorizing the globalndashlocal connection in P Knox amp P Taylor (Eds) WorldCities in a World System (Cambridge Cambridge University Press)

Beckley R (1998) [Dean Emeritus and Professor of Architecture and Urban Planning College ofArchitecture and Urban Planning University of Michigan] Written interview

Bratt R (1986) Public housing the controversy and the contribution in R Bratt C Hartman amp AMeyerson (Eds) Critical Perspectives in Housing (Philadelphia PA Temple University Press)

Calthorpe P (1993) The Next American Metropolis Ecology Communities and the American Dream (NewYork Princeton Architectural Press)

58 A Inam

Ciriani H (1997) Henri Ciriani (Rockport MA Rockport Publishers)Crane D (1966) Planning and Design in New York A Study of Problems and Processes of its Physical

Environment (New York Institute of Public Administration)Ellin N (1996) Postmodern Urbanism (Cambridge MA Blackwell)Frampton K (1992a) Critical regionalism modern architecture and cultural identityFrampton K (1992b) Modern Architecture A Critical History 3rd edn (London Thames amp Hudson)Frieden B amp Sagalyn L (1989) Downtown Inc How America Rebuilds Cities (Cambridge MA MIT

Press)Garvin A (1996) The American City What Works What Doesnrsquot (New York McGraw-Hill)Gilbert A amp Gugler J (1992) Cities Poverty and Development Urbanization in the Third World 2nd edn

(New York Oxford University Press)Hester R (1990) Community Design Primer (Mendocino CA Ridge Times Press)Inam A (1992) The urban monument symbol memory presence masterrsquos thesis in urban design

Washington University St LouisInam A (1997) Institutions routines and crises post-earthquake housing recovery in Mexico City

and Los Angeles doctoral dissertation in urban planning University of Southern California LosAngeles CA

Jacobs A (1993) Great Streets (Cambridge MA MIT Press)Jacobs J (1961) The Death and Life of Great American Cities (New York Random House)Jones T Pettus W amp Pyatok M (1995) Good Neighbors Affordable Family Housing (New York

McGraw-Hill)Kasprisin R amp Pettinari J (1995) Visual Thinking for Architects and Designers Visualizing Context in

Design (New York Van Nostrand Reinhold)Kelbaugh D (1997) Common Place Toward Neighborhood and Regional Design (Seattle WA University

of Washington Press)Koolhaas R (1995) Small Medium Large Extra Large (Rotterdam 010 Publishers)Kostof S (1991) The City Shaped Urban Patterns and Meanings through History (Boston MA Bulnch

Press)Krumholz N amp Clavel P (1994) Reinventing Cities Equity Planners Tell Their Stories (Philadelphia

Temple University Press)Lagerfeld S (1995) What Main Street can learn from the mall Atlantic Monthly November

pp 110ndash120Lai R T (1988) Law in Urban Design and Planning The Invisible Web (New York Van Nostrand

Reinhold)Loukaitou-Sideris A amp Banerjee T (1998) Urban Design Downtown Poetics and Politics of Form

(Berkeley CA University of California Press)Lynch K (1981) Good City Form (Cambridge MA MIT Press)Moore G amp Marans R (Eds) (1997) Advances in Environment Behavior and Design Toward the

Integration of Theory Methods Research and Utilization (New York Plenum Press)Porter M (1995) The competitive advantage of the inner city Harvard Business Review 73 pp 55ndash71Rowe P (1991) Making a Middle Landscape (Cambridge MA MIT Press)Rowe P (1997) Civic Realism (Cambridge MA MIT Press)Sandercock L (1998) Towards Cosmopolis Planning for Multicultural Cities (Chichester NY John

Wiley)Sassen S (2000) Cities in a World Economy 2nd edn (Thousand Oaks CA Pine Forge Press)Saunders W (1997) Rem Koolhaasrsquos writing on cities poetic perception and gnomic fantasy Journal

of Architectural Education 51 pp 61ndash71Savitch H V (1988) Post-Industrial Cities Politics and Planning in New York Paris and London

(Princeton NJ Princeton University Press)Schneekloth L amp Shibley R (1995) Placemaking The Art and Practice of Building Communities (New

York Wiley)Segal M B (1995) An old commercial district goes from cold to hot Urban Land 54 (11) pp 16ndash18Serageldin I (Ed) (1997) The Architecture of Empowerment People Shelter and Livable Cities (London

Academy Editions)Short J R (1996) The Urban Order An Introduction to Cities Culture and Power (Cambridge MA

Blackwell)Sorkin M (1997) Trafc in Democracy 1997 Raoul Wallenberg Lecture (Ann Arbor MI College of

Architecture and Urban Planning University of Michigan)Urban Design Group (1998) Involving local communities in urban design Urban Design Quarterly 67

pp 15ndash38

Meaningful Urban Design 49

However thousands of witting and unwitting acts every day alter a cityrsquos linesin ways that are perceptible only over a certain stretch of time City walls arepulled down and lled in once rational grids are slowly obscured a slashingdiagonal boulevard is run through close-grained residential neighbourhoodsrailroad tracks usurp cemeteries and waterfronts and wars res and highwaysannihilate city cores (Kostof 1991)

As an example let us consider the grid The grid is by far the commonestpattern for planned cities in history and it is universal both geographically andchronologically (Kostof 1991) No better solution recommends itself as a stan-dard scheme for disparate sites or as a means for the equal distribution of landor the easy parcelling and selling of real estate The advantage of straightthrough-streets for defence has been recognized since Aristotle and a rectilinearstreet pattern has also been resorted to in order to keep under watch a restlesspopulation However ubiquitous as the grid has always been it is also muchmisunderstood and often treated as if it were one unmodulated idea thatrequires little discrimination On the contrary the grid is an exceedingly exibleand diverse system of planning and hence its enormous success in urban designand planning About the only thing that all grids have in common is that theirstreet pattern is orthogonal that is the right angle rules and street lines in bothdirections lie parallel to each other

Furthermore the political innocence of the grid in the West is a ction In theearly Greek colonies for example the grid far from being a democratic deviceemployed to assure an equitable allotment of property to all citizens was themeans of perpetuating the privileges of the property-owning class descendentfrom the original settlers and for bolstering a territorial aristocracy The rstsettlers who made the voyage to the site were entitled to equal allocations ofland both inside and outside the city walls These hereditary estates wereinalienable the ruling class strictly discouraged a land market The estates werehuge as much as 25 acres (about 1 hectare) for some families They were thensub-divided by the owner Within the city private land could only be used forhousing Any alienation of land or any agitation for land reform was severelydealt with and could be punishable as for murder (Kostof 1991)

The point is made regularly that grids especially in the USA besides offeringsimplicity in land surveying recording and subsequent ownership transfer alsofavoured a fundamental democracy in property market participation This didnot mean that individual wealth could not appropriate considerable propertybut rather that the basic initial geometry of land parcels bespoke a simpleegalitarianism that invited easy entry into the urban land market The realityhowever is much less admirable The ordinary citizens gained easy access tourban land only at a preliminary phase when cheap rural land was beingurbanized through rapid laying out To the extent that the grid speeded thisprocess and streamlined absentee purchases it may be considered an equalizingsocial device Once the land had been identied with the city however thisadvantage of the initial geometry of land parcels evaporated and even unbuiltlots slipped out of common reach What matters most in the long run is not themystique of the grid geometry then but the luck of rst ownership (Kostof1991)

However for the conventional urban designer a grid is a grid is a grid(Kostof 1991) At best it is a visual theme upon which to play variations he orshe might be concerned with issues like using a true checkerboard design vs

50 A Inam

syncopated block rhythms with cross-axial or other types of emphasis with theplacement of open spaces within the discipline of the grid with the width andhierarchy of streets To Kostof and the meaningful urban designer on the otherhand how and with what intentions the Romans in Britain the builders ofmedieval Wales and Gascony the Spanish in Mexico or the Illinois CentralRailroad Company in the prairies of the Mid-west employed this very samedevice of settlement is the principal substance of a review of orthogonalplanning In fact the grid has accommodated a startling variety of socialstructuresmdashincluding territorial aristocracy in Greek Sicily the agrarianrepublicanism of Thomas Jefferson and the cosmic vision of Joseph Smith inMormon settlements like Salt Lake City Utahmdashand of course capitalist specu-lation

There have been few serious attempts at a comprehensive and normativetheory of urban form Good City Form (Lynch 1981) is an impressive andcourageous attempt by Kevin Lynch as a ldquosystematic effort to state generalrelationships between the form of a place and its valuerdquo (Lynch 1981 p 99)Lynch (1981 p 108) emphasizes ldquothose goals which are as general as possibleand thus do not dictate particular physical solutions and yet whose achievementcan be detected and explicitly linked to physical solutions This is the familiarnotion of performance standards applied at the city scalerdquo Lynch generalizesperformance dimensions which are certain identiable characteristics of citiesdue primarily to their spatial qualities and are measurable scales along whichdifferent groups achieve different positions These performance dimensions arebased on the following thinking

The good city is one in which the continuity of [a] complex ecology ismaintained while progressive change is permitted The fundamentalgood is the continuous development of the individual or the smallgroup and their culture a process of becoming more complex morerichly connected more competent acquiring and realizing new pow-ersmdashintellectual emotional social and physical hellip So that settlement isgood which enhances the continuity of a culture and the survival of itspeople increases a sense of connection in time and space and permitsor spurs individual growth development within continuity via open-ness and connection hellip [a settlement which is] accessible decentralizeddiverse adaptable and tolerant to experiment (Lynch 1981 pp 116ndash117)

In Lynchrsquos theory of good city form there are seven dimensions (Lynch 1981)First is vitality the degree to which an urban form supports the vital func-tions the biological requirements the capabilities of human beings and protectsthe survival of the species (eg adequate throughput of water air food andenergy) Second is sense the degree to which an urban form is clearly perceivedand mentally differentiated as well as structured in time and space and thedegree to which that mental structure connects with the residentsrsquo values andconcepts (eg distinct identity and unconstrained legibility) Third is t thedegree to which urban form matches the pattern and quantity of actionsthat people usually engage in or would like to engage in (eg compatibilitybetween function and form) Fourth is access the ability to reach other peopleactivities resources or places including the quantity and diversity of theelements that can be reached (eg ease of communication and transportation)

Meaningful Urban Design 51

Fifth is control the degree to which the creation of access to use of mainte-nance of and modication to urban spaces and activities are managed by thosewho use work or live in them (eg local power) Sixth is efciency the cost ofcreating and maintaining an urban form (eg less energy-demanding processes)Seventh is justice the way in which urban form costs and benets are dis-tributed among people according to a principle such as intrinsic worth or equity(eg equal protection from environmental hazards such as cars) These dimen-sions are applicable in a wide range of urban contexts because they are derivedfrom fundamental human values and serve as powerful measures of what alsquogoodrsquo urban design project might be

Christopher Alexander (Alexander et al 1977) adopts a problem-solvingapproach to design and explicitly renders the design methodology but moreimportantly describes how a meaningful urban designer might draw directlyfrom empirical evidence (rather than say idiosyncratic impulses) and extensiveresearch as a source of design The book is most useful as a series of thoroughlyanalysed and empirically based guidelines which are broad enough to beadapted to different contexts and architectural styles Each suggested solution isdescribed in a way that provides the key relationships (eg between humanbehaviour and spatial setting) needed to solve the problem but in a generalenough manner to allow for adaptation to particular lifestyles aesthetic tastesand local conditions Each pattern describes a problem which occurs repeatedlyin the built environment archetypal problems of urban form for example Thelongest portion of the description of each pattern describes the empiricalbackground of the pattern the evidence for its validity and the range of differentways the pattern can be manifested or designed

The rst 94 patterns deal with the large-scale structure including the urbanof the environment the growth of city and country the layout of roads andpaths the relationship between work and family the formation of suitablepublic institutions for a neighbourhood and the kinds of public space requiredto support these institutions (Alexander et al 1977) The following two examplesof urban patterns illustrate the value of this design methodology identiableneighbourhood and public outdoor room

According to Alexander et al (1977) and the scientic research they citepeople need an identiable spatial unit to belong to They want to be able toidentify the part of the city where they live as distinct from all others Availableevidence suggests rst that the neighbourhoods which people identify with haveextremely small populations second that they are small in area and third thata major road through a neighbourhood destroys it

What then is the right population for a neighbourhood The neighbourhoodinhabitants should be able to look after their own interests by being able to reachagreement on basic decisions such as about public services and common landand to organize themselves to bring pressure on local governments Anthropo-logical evidence cited by Alexander et al (1977) suggests that a human groupcannot usually co-ordinate itself to reach such decisions if its population is above1500 The experience of organizing community meetings at the local levelsuggests that 500 may be a more realistic gure

As far as the physical diameter is concerned in Philadelphia PA people whowere asked which area they really knew usually limited themselves to a smallarea seldom exceeding the two or three blocks around their house One-quarterof the inhabitants of an area in Milwaukee WI considered a neighbourhood to

52 A Inam

be an area no larger than a block around 300 feet (about 90 metres) One-halfconsidered it to be no more than seven blocks

The rst two features of the neighbourhood small population and small areaare not enough by themselves A neighbourhood can only have a strong identityif it is protected from heavy trafc Research cited by the authors suggests thatthe heavier the trafc in an area the less people think of it as home territory Notonly do residents view the streets with heavy trafc as less personal but theyalso feel the same about the houses along the street ldquoItrsquos not a friendlystreet hellip People are afraid to go out into the street because of the trafc hellip Noisefrom the street intrudes into my homerdquo (cited in Alexander et al 1977 p 83)This study conducted by the University of California at Berkeley found thatwith more than 200 cars per hour the quality of the neighbourhood begins todeteriorate

Therefore the proposed strategy suggests helping people dene the neigh-bourhoods they live in not more than about 300 yards (270 metres) or so acrosswith no more than 500 inhabitants or so and in existing cities encouraging localgroups to organize themselves to form such neighbourhoods and keeping majorroads outside these neighbourhoods While one may disagree with the dimen-sions suggested in this pattern one has to acknowledge that population sizephysical area and trafc ow are critical considerations for the design ofcontemporary neighbourhoods

In the public outdoor room pattern Alexander et al (1977) suggest that thereare very few spots along the streets of modern towns and neighbourhoodswhere people can hang out comfortably for hours at a time Men often seekcorner bars and pubs where they spend hours talking and drinking teenagersespecially boys choose special corners too where they hang around waitingfor their friends Elderly people like a special spot to go to where they canexpect to nd others small children need sandpits mud plants and water toplay with in the open young mothers who go to watch their children oftenuse the childrenrsquos play as a opportunity to meet and talk with other mothersand so on for a variety of groups Because of the diverse and casual natureof these activities they require a space which has a subtle balance of beingdened and yet not too dened so that any activity which is natural to theneighbourhood at any given time can develop freely and yet has something tostart from

What is needed is a framework which is dened just enough so that peoplenaturally tend to stop there and so that curiosity naturally takes people thereand invites them to stay A small open space roofed with columns but withoutwalls at least in part will provide the necessary balance between being open andenclosed Examples of this pattern were built with the assistance of architecturestudents in Cleveland OH on the grounds and on public land surrounding alocal mental health clinic According to staff reports these places changed thelife of the clinic dramatically many more people than usual were drawnoutdoors public talk was more animated and outdoor space that had beendominated by cars became more human In addition in the 12th and 13thcenturies there were many such public structures dotted through the towns andwhich were the scene of auctions open-air meetings and market fairs

Therefore in neighbourhoods and work communities the authors suggestmaking a piece of the common land into an outdoor roommdasha partly enclosedplace with a partial roof columns without walls perhaps with a trellis placing

Meaningful Urban Design 53

Figure 5 A contemporary example of a successful outdoor room which reects theguidelines of the outdoor room patternmdashCitywalk in Los Angeles CA

it beside an important path and within view of houses and workplaces In thisand the other patterns in the book the authors outline an urban designmethodology that is based on archetypal problems (eg public outdoor spaces)analyses of built examples descriptions of historical precedents and the explicitunpacking of design solutions such that they are clear relevant and thoughtful(see Figure 5) The basis for the design patterns was extensive and thoroughresearch carried out over an 8-year period Today there is current and volumin-ous research for example on environment and behaviour (for example seeMoore amp Marans 1997) that is highly relevant and useful for urban designers

Future Directions in Urban Design

Urban designers (eg Beckley 1998) are beginning to question what in fact islsquourbanrsquo in the contemporary environment However few will argue with

54 A Inam

denitions two decades old that are still relevant today a city is a ldquorelativelylarge dense and permanent settlement [or network of settlements] of sociallyheterogeneous individualsrdquo (L Worth cited in Kostof 1991 p 37) and a ldquopoint[or points] of maximum concentration for the power and culture of a com-munityrdquo (L Mumford cited in Kostof 1991 p 37) The urban designerrsquos impera-tive then is to understand cities On the one hand the most enduring featureof the city is its physical build which remains with remarkable persistencegaining increments that are responsive to the most recent economic demand andreective of the latest stylistic vogue but conserving evidence of past urbanculture for present and future generations On the other hand however urbansociety changes more than any other human grouping economic innovationusually comes most rapidly and boldly in cities immigration aims rst at theurban core forcing upon cities the critical role of acculturating refugees frommany countrysides and the winds of intellectual advance blow strong in cities(Vance cited in Kostof 1991)

Based on the new synthesis of ideas proposed in this paper there are threelevels of success of an urban design project These include rst the purelyaesthetically informed notion of urban design as a nished product (eg Does itlook good) The second is the sense of the project as an autonomous object thatfunctions in an affordable convenient and comfortable manner for its users (egDoes it work) The third and new idea is to have the urban design projectgenerate or substantially contribute to socio-economic development processes(eg Does it produce long-term quality of life impacts) In this sense urbandesigners and urban design projects become catalysts for community bettermenteconomic improvement and international understanding

Consequently urban designers should focus more on the lsquourbanrsquo of urbandesign and become less infatuated with the lsquodesignrsquo of urban design Urbandesign must begin with cities how they work and change and what impacts theyhave in creating enabling vs destructive impacts For example urban design hasto be seen within the framework of investment and development policies andas a shaper of those policies Cranersquos (1966) capital web of investment decisionsand Lairsquos (1988) invisible web of laws and norms that guide peoplersquos behaviourAt the same time design and form play a critical role because they are a languageand vocabulary for analysing and intervening in cities

At the most fundamental level all urban design should be responsible forcreating an environment that satises informs and inspires its users (ie thecommunity) This is an urban design that possesses an articulate communicativeprociency Urban design of profound signicance has a poetic quality By themeans of compressing its meanings into a concise formal expression a poeticurban design project draws the mind to a level of perception concealed behindthe conventional presentations of urban form The most effective symbols arethose which while operating within a given set of conventions are imprecisesparse and open-ended in their possible interpretations tending more to themetaphor than the simile Such an approach requires deep cultural understand-ing and social sensitivity

Implications for Education

The pedagogical approach to meaningful urban design will be interdisciplinary(eg examining cities from the perspectives of architects landscape architects

Meaningful Urban Design 55

urban planners policy makers social workers and business interests) teleologi-cal (eg driven by the express purpose of addressing critical urban challengessuch as uncomfortable and unsafe built environments community powerless-ness economic deprivation and fragmented interventions) critical (eg based onin-depth understanding of urban design problems and promises throughanalysis of urban design practice and case studies) and catalytic (eg theformulation of effective urban design strategies that include a focus on urbandesign products such as building complexes and public spaces but also includethe generation of long-term community and economic development processes)

The primary impact on this type of learning for students will be an under-standing of the urban designer as a leader Through an in-depth analysis ofurban issues an interdisciplinary approach to urban problem solving and skillsthat focus not only on issues of urban aesthetics and form but also on purposefulintervention generated by long-term processes students will gain a profoundand empowering understanding of meaningful urban design Students of urbandesign will also gain humility and condence by studying the power structuresof cities (and realizing just how little power urban designers actually have)practising critical thinking and learning to be politically savvy in order toaccomplish their goals A secondary impact on learning for students will be aunique opportunity for them to shape the future direction of urban designthrough readings research discussions case-study analyses and project designsthat will focus on specic urban challenges examine deciencies in currenturban design approaches and projects in addressing those challenges andformulate alternative more meaningful urban design strategies

In order to reach such goals an urban design programme should focus on twomajor sets of skills understanding how cities work and learning to shape citiesUnderstanding cities includes their conception (eg urban theory and form)their evolution (eg history of urban form) their decision-making processes (egurban political economy) and their use and experience (eg urban sociology)Learning to shape cities includes design methods (eg based on empiricalevidence and community participation) and communication skills (eg graphicverbal written and computer-based) The goal of a meaningful urban designpedagogical initiative would be to attract students of the built environment (egarchitects landscape architects and urban planners) who will become sophisti-cated practitioners and inuential leaders of urban design in architectural andplanning rms community organizations public agencies and internationalinstitutions The initiative would thus involve (1) teaching of exploratoryseminars and studios in new urban design methodologies (eg internationalstudios) (2) research into the relevant roles of professionals especially architectsand planners in the urban design of contemporary cities (eg institutionalstructures) and (3) professional work in the form of community outreach andproject analysis (eg evaluating New Urbanism)

In summary a meaningful pedagogical approach to urban design should havethe following characteristics (1) small (ie selective)mdashfocus on key urban designchallenges eg inner city revitalization (2) focused (ie depth)mdashdevelop exper-tise in the urban designurban development nexus (3) distinct (ie cutting-edge)mdashexperiment with new studio formats projects and research eginternational collaboration and cross-cultural learning and (4) existing resources(ie breadth)mdashbuild upon other departments eg social work business naturalresources and environment

56 A Inam

The critical question that guides this meaningful future of urban design issimply So what That is what consequential purpose has been achieved byparticular urban design theories urban design methodologies urban designpractices and urban design practitioners The implication of such probingquestions is that it is far from adequate to consider urban design projects assuccessful if they are only physically appealing or thought-provoking

Conclusion

In conclusion the author would like to return to the provocations that werereferred to at the beginning of this paper While both Rem Koolhaas and MichaelSorkin are emblematic of the image-based architect-driven urban design thatpermeates much of the world and especially the USA they are also contributorsto an urban design strategy that is realistic and contrary to the nostalgia evokedby the New Urbanism and neo-traditional movements Thus for Koolhaas

If there is to be a lsquonew urbanismrsquo it will not be based on the twinfantasies of order and omnipotence hellip but about discovering unnam-able hybrids [as is the case with Los Angeles] hellip Redened urbanismwill not only or mostly be a profession but a way of thinking anideology to accept what exists We were making sand castles Now weswim in the sea that swept them away (Koolhaas 1995 pp 969ndash971)

Koolhaas thus encourages us rst to accept the contemporary urban condition(instead of seeing it through rose-tinted lenses) and second as architects urbandesigners and planners to understand and work with the contemporary urbanforces (instead of imagining a world without cars or highways)

Similarly Sorkin extols us to learn from those urban design projects and urbanenvironments which are successful in terms of the designerrsquos objectives ofattracting people to these environments and the vibrant use of these environ-ments by people Even if the objectives were to differ say in terms of greatersocial interaction and co-operation in a neighbourhood the designers of shop-ping malls gambling casinos and amusement parks at least understand humanbehaviour as it relates to entertainment and consumptionmdashlessons which can beused for other perhaps more noble projects Thus according to Sorkin (1997pp 29ndash31)

Disneyland hellip is foremost a playground of mobility its entertainmentslargely those of pleasured motion And there is something to belearned here It seems undeniable that for all of its depredations all ofits regimentation surveillance and control part of what we experienceas enjoyable at Disneyland is the passage through an environment ofurban density in which both the physical texture and the means ofcirculation are not simply entertaining but stand in invigorating con-trast to the dysfunctional versions back home One extracts fromDisneyland a shred of hope the persuasive example that pedestrianismcoupled with short distance collective transport systems can be bothefcient and fun can thrive in the midst of an environment completelyotherwise constituted and that the space of low sufciently deceler-ated can become the space of exchange

Meaningful Urban Design 57

Figure 6 The design of Disneyland in Los Angeles CAmdashalbeit lsquoarticialrsquo anddesigned to foster consumptionmdashoffers deeper lessons for understanding humanbehaviour and creating exciting environmentsmdashfor say multicultural interac-

tionmdashbased on such understanding

The lsquoshred of hopersquo offered by Disneyland (see Figure 6) is constituted by suchlessons carefully and critically collected from numerous examples of contempor-ary urban design projects and articulatedmdashvia relevant history theory andmethodologymdashinto a meaningful approach to urban design

Acknowledgement

This paper was the second place winner of the 1999 Chicago Institute forArchitecture and Urbanism (CIAU) Award This award administered by theSkidmore Owings amp Merrill Foundation on behalf of the CIAU is for unpub-lished papers and is intended to encourage writing and research on the questionof how architecture infrastructure urban design and planning can contribute toimproving the quality of life of the American city For more information aboutthis award the Foundation can be contacted at somfoundationsomcom

References

Alexander C Ishikawa S Silverstein M Jacobson M Fiksdahl-King I amp Angel S (1977) APattern Language Towns Buildings Construction (New York Oxford University Press)

Attoe W amp Logan D (1989) American Urban Architecture Catalysts in the Design of Cities (BerkeleyUniversity of California Press)

Beauregard R (1995) Theorizing the globalndashlocal connection in P Knox amp P Taylor (Eds) WorldCities in a World System (Cambridge Cambridge University Press)

Beckley R (1998) [Dean Emeritus and Professor of Architecture and Urban Planning College ofArchitecture and Urban Planning University of Michigan] Written interview

Bratt R (1986) Public housing the controversy and the contribution in R Bratt C Hartman amp AMeyerson (Eds) Critical Perspectives in Housing (Philadelphia PA Temple University Press)

Calthorpe P (1993) The Next American Metropolis Ecology Communities and the American Dream (NewYork Princeton Architectural Press)

58 A Inam

Ciriani H (1997) Henri Ciriani (Rockport MA Rockport Publishers)Crane D (1966) Planning and Design in New York A Study of Problems and Processes of its Physical

Environment (New York Institute of Public Administration)Ellin N (1996) Postmodern Urbanism (Cambridge MA Blackwell)Frampton K (1992a) Critical regionalism modern architecture and cultural identityFrampton K (1992b) Modern Architecture A Critical History 3rd edn (London Thames amp Hudson)Frieden B amp Sagalyn L (1989) Downtown Inc How America Rebuilds Cities (Cambridge MA MIT

Press)Garvin A (1996) The American City What Works What Doesnrsquot (New York McGraw-Hill)Gilbert A amp Gugler J (1992) Cities Poverty and Development Urbanization in the Third World 2nd edn

(New York Oxford University Press)Hester R (1990) Community Design Primer (Mendocino CA Ridge Times Press)Inam A (1992) The urban monument symbol memory presence masterrsquos thesis in urban design

Washington University St LouisInam A (1997) Institutions routines and crises post-earthquake housing recovery in Mexico City

and Los Angeles doctoral dissertation in urban planning University of Southern California LosAngeles CA

Jacobs A (1993) Great Streets (Cambridge MA MIT Press)Jacobs J (1961) The Death and Life of Great American Cities (New York Random House)Jones T Pettus W amp Pyatok M (1995) Good Neighbors Affordable Family Housing (New York

McGraw-Hill)Kasprisin R amp Pettinari J (1995) Visual Thinking for Architects and Designers Visualizing Context in

Design (New York Van Nostrand Reinhold)Kelbaugh D (1997) Common Place Toward Neighborhood and Regional Design (Seattle WA University

of Washington Press)Koolhaas R (1995) Small Medium Large Extra Large (Rotterdam 010 Publishers)Kostof S (1991) The City Shaped Urban Patterns and Meanings through History (Boston MA Bulnch

Press)Krumholz N amp Clavel P (1994) Reinventing Cities Equity Planners Tell Their Stories (Philadelphia

Temple University Press)Lagerfeld S (1995) What Main Street can learn from the mall Atlantic Monthly November

pp 110ndash120Lai R T (1988) Law in Urban Design and Planning The Invisible Web (New York Van Nostrand

Reinhold)Loukaitou-Sideris A amp Banerjee T (1998) Urban Design Downtown Poetics and Politics of Form

(Berkeley CA University of California Press)Lynch K (1981) Good City Form (Cambridge MA MIT Press)Moore G amp Marans R (Eds) (1997) Advances in Environment Behavior and Design Toward the

Integration of Theory Methods Research and Utilization (New York Plenum Press)Porter M (1995) The competitive advantage of the inner city Harvard Business Review 73 pp 55ndash71Rowe P (1991) Making a Middle Landscape (Cambridge MA MIT Press)Rowe P (1997) Civic Realism (Cambridge MA MIT Press)Sandercock L (1998) Towards Cosmopolis Planning for Multicultural Cities (Chichester NY John

Wiley)Sassen S (2000) Cities in a World Economy 2nd edn (Thousand Oaks CA Pine Forge Press)Saunders W (1997) Rem Koolhaasrsquos writing on cities poetic perception and gnomic fantasy Journal

of Architectural Education 51 pp 61ndash71Savitch H V (1988) Post-Industrial Cities Politics and Planning in New York Paris and London

(Princeton NJ Princeton University Press)Schneekloth L amp Shibley R (1995) Placemaking The Art and Practice of Building Communities (New

York Wiley)Segal M B (1995) An old commercial district goes from cold to hot Urban Land 54 (11) pp 16ndash18Serageldin I (Ed) (1997) The Architecture of Empowerment People Shelter and Livable Cities (London

Academy Editions)Short J R (1996) The Urban Order An Introduction to Cities Culture and Power (Cambridge MA

Blackwell)Sorkin M (1997) Trafc in Democracy 1997 Raoul Wallenberg Lecture (Ann Arbor MI College of

Architecture and Urban Planning University of Michigan)Urban Design Group (1998) Involving local communities in urban design Urban Design Quarterly 67

pp 15ndash38

50 A Inam

syncopated block rhythms with cross-axial or other types of emphasis with theplacement of open spaces within the discipline of the grid with the width andhierarchy of streets To Kostof and the meaningful urban designer on the otherhand how and with what intentions the Romans in Britain the builders ofmedieval Wales and Gascony the Spanish in Mexico or the Illinois CentralRailroad Company in the prairies of the Mid-west employed this very samedevice of settlement is the principal substance of a review of orthogonalplanning In fact the grid has accommodated a startling variety of socialstructuresmdashincluding territorial aristocracy in Greek Sicily the agrarianrepublicanism of Thomas Jefferson and the cosmic vision of Joseph Smith inMormon settlements like Salt Lake City Utahmdashand of course capitalist specu-lation

There have been few serious attempts at a comprehensive and normativetheory of urban form Good City Form (Lynch 1981) is an impressive andcourageous attempt by Kevin Lynch as a ldquosystematic effort to state generalrelationships between the form of a place and its valuerdquo (Lynch 1981 p 99)Lynch (1981 p 108) emphasizes ldquothose goals which are as general as possibleand thus do not dictate particular physical solutions and yet whose achievementcan be detected and explicitly linked to physical solutions This is the familiarnotion of performance standards applied at the city scalerdquo Lynch generalizesperformance dimensions which are certain identiable characteristics of citiesdue primarily to their spatial qualities and are measurable scales along whichdifferent groups achieve different positions These performance dimensions arebased on the following thinking

The good city is one in which the continuity of [a] complex ecology ismaintained while progressive change is permitted The fundamentalgood is the continuous development of the individual or the smallgroup and their culture a process of becoming more complex morerichly connected more competent acquiring and realizing new pow-ersmdashintellectual emotional social and physical hellip So that settlement isgood which enhances the continuity of a culture and the survival of itspeople increases a sense of connection in time and space and permitsor spurs individual growth development within continuity via open-ness and connection hellip [a settlement which is] accessible decentralizeddiverse adaptable and tolerant to experiment (Lynch 1981 pp 116ndash117)

In Lynchrsquos theory of good city form there are seven dimensions (Lynch 1981)First is vitality the degree to which an urban form supports the vital func-tions the biological requirements the capabilities of human beings and protectsthe survival of the species (eg adequate throughput of water air food andenergy) Second is sense the degree to which an urban form is clearly perceivedand mentally differentiated as well as structured in time and space and thedegree to which that mental structure connects with the residentsrsquo values andconcepts (eg distinct identity and unconstrained legibility) Third is t thedegree to which urban form matches the pattern and quantity of actionsthat people usually engage in or would like to engage in (eg compatibilitybetween function and form) Fourth is access the ability to reach other peopleactivities resources or places including the quantity and diversity of theelements that can be reached (eg ease of communication and transportation)

Meaningful Urban Design 51

Fifth is control the degree to which the creation of access to use of mainte-nance of and modication to urban spaces and activities are managed by thosewho use work or live in them (eg local power) Sixth is efciency the cost ofcreating and maintaining an urban form (eg less energy-demanding processes)Seventh is justice the way in which urban form costs and benets are dis-tributed among people according to a principle such as intrinsic worth or equity(eg equal protection from environmental hazards such as cars) These dimen-sions are applicable in a wide range of urban contexts because they are derivedfrom fundamental human values and serve as powerful measures of what alsquogoodrsquo urban design project might be

Christopher Alexander (Alexander et al 1977) adopts a problem-solvingapproach to design and explicitly renders the design methodology but moreimportantly describes how a meaningful urban designer might draw directlyfrom empirical evidence (rather than say idiosyncratic impulses) and extensiveresearch as a source of design The book is most useful as a series of thoroughlyanalysed and empirically based guidelines which are broad enough to beadapted to different contexts and architectural styles Each suggested solution isdescribed in a way that provides the key relationships (eg between humanbehaviour and spatial setting) needed to solve the problem but in a generalenough manner to allow for adaptation to particular lifestyles aesthetic tastesand local conditions Each pattern describes a problem which occurs repeatedlyin the built environment archetypal problems of urban form for example Thelongest portion of the description of each pattern describes the empiricalbackground of the pattern the evidence for its validity and the range of differentways the pattern can be manifested or designed

The rst 94 patterns deal with the large-scale structure including the urbanof the environment the growth of city and country the layout of roads andpaths the relationship between work and family the formation of suitablepublic institutions for a neighbourhood and the kinds of public space requiredto support these institutions (Alexander et al 1977) The following two examplesof urban patterns illustrate the value of this design methodology identiableneighbourhood and public outdoor room

According to Alexander et al (1977) and the scientic research they citepeople need an identiable spatial unit to belong to They want to be able toidentify the part of the city where they live as distinct from all others Availableevidence suggests rst that the neighbourhoods which people identify with haveextremely small populations second that they are small in area and third thata major road through a neighbourhood destroys it

What then is the right population for a neighbourhood The neighbourhoodinhabitants should be able to look after their own interests by being able to reachagreement on basic decisions such as about public services and common landand to organize themselves to bring pressure on local governments Anthropo-logical evidence cited by Alexander et al (1977) suggests that a human groupcannot usually co-ordinate itself to reach such decisions if its population is above1500 The experience of organizing community meetings at the local levelsuggests that 500 may be a more realistic gure

As far as the physical diameter is concerned in Philadelphia PA people whowere asked which area they really knew usually limited themselves to a smallarea seldom exceeding the two or three blocks around their house One-quarterof the inhabitants of an area in Milwaukee WI considered a neighbourhood to

52 A Inam

be an area no larger than a block around 300 feet (about 90 metres) One-halfconsidered it to be no more than seven blocks

The rst two features of the neighbourhood small population and small areaare not enough by themselves A neighbourhood can only have a strong identityif it is protected from heavy trafc Research cited by the authors suggests thatthe heavier the trafc in an area the less people think of it as home territory Notonly do residents view the streets with heavy trafc as less personal but theyalso feel the same about the houses along the street ldquoItrsquos not a friendlystreet hellip People are afraid to go out into the street because of the trafc hellip Noisefrom the street intrudes into my homerdquo (cited in Alexander et al 1977 p 83)This study conducted by the University of California at Berkeley found thatwith more than 200 cars per hour the quality of the neighbourhood begins todeteriorate

Therefore the proposed strategy suggests helping people dene the neigh-bourhoods they live in not more than about 300 yards (270 metres) or so acrosswith no more than 500 inhabitants or so and in existing cities encouraging localgroups to organize themselves to form such neighbourhoods and keeping majorroads outside these neighbourhoods While one may disagree with the dimen-sions suggested in this pattern one has to acknowledge that population sizephysical area and trafc ow are critical considerations for the design ofcontemporary neighbourhoods

In the public outdoor room pattern Alexander et al (1977) suggest that thereare very few spots along the streets of modern towns and neighbourhoodswhere people can hang out comfortably for hours at a time Men often seekcorner bars and pubs where they spend hours talking and drinking teenagersespecially boys choose special corners too where they hang around waitingfor their friends Elderly people like a special spot to go to where they canexpect to nd others small children need sandpits mud plants and water toplay with in the open young mothers who go to watch their children oftenuse the childrenrsquos play as a opportunity to meet and talk with other mothersand so on for a variety of groups Because of the diverse and casual natureof these activities they require a space which has a subtle balance of beingdened and yet not too dened so that any activity which is natural to theneighbourhood at any given time can develop freely and yet has something tostart from

What is needed is a framework which is dened just enough so that peoplenaturally tend to stop there and so that curiosity naturally takes people thereand invites them to stay A small open space roofed with columns but withoutwalls at least in part will provide the necessary balance between being open andenclosed Examples of this pattern were built with the assistance of architecturestudents in Cleveland OH on the grounds and on public land surrounding alocal mental health clinic According to staff reports these places changed thelife of the clinic dramatically many more people than usual were drawnoutdoors public talk was more animated and outdoor space that had beendominated by cars became more human In addition in the 12th and 13thcenturies there were many such public structures dotted through the towns andwhich were the scene of auctions open-air meetings and market fairs

Therefore in neighbourhoods and work communities the authors suggestmaking a piece of the common land into an outdoor roommdasha partly enclosedplace with a partial roof columns without walls perhaps with a trellis placing

Meaningful Urban Design 53

Figure 5 A contemporary example of a successful outdoor room which reects theguidelines of the outdoor room patternmdashCitywalk in Los Angeles CA

it beside an important path and within view of houses and workplaces In thisand the other patterns in the book the authors outline an urban designmethodology that is based on archetypal problems (eg public outdoor spaces)analyses of built examples descriptions of historical precedents and the explicitunpacking of design solutions such that they are clear relevant and thoughtful(see Figure 5) The basis for the design patterns was extensive and thoroughresearch carried out over an 8-year period Today there is current and volumin-ous research for example on environment and behaviour (for example seeMoore amp Marans 1997) that is highly relevant and useful for urban designers

Future Directions in Urban Design

Urban designers (eg Beckley 1998) are beginning to question what in fact islsquourbanrsquo in the contemporary environment However few will argue with

54 A Inam

denitions two decades old that are still relevant today a city is a ldquorelativelylarge dense and permanent settlement [or network of settlements] of sociallyheterogeneous individualsrdquo (L Worth cited in Kostof 1991 p 37) and a ldquopoint[or points] of maximum concentration for the power and culture of a com-munityrdquo (L Mumford cited in Kostof 1991 p 37) The urban designerrsquos impera-tive then is to understand cities On the one hand the most enduring featureof the city is its physical build which remains with remarkable persistencegaining increments that are responsive to the most recent economic demand andreective of the latest stylistic vogue but conserving evidence of past urbanculture for present and future generations On the other hand however urbansociety changes more than any other human grouping economic innovationusually comes most rapidly and boldly in cities immigration aims rst at theurban core forcing upon cities the critical role of acculturating refugees frommany countrysides and the winds of intellectual advance blow strong in cities(Vance cited in Kostof 1991)

Based on the new synthesis of ideas proposed in this paper there are threelevels of success of an urban design project These include rst the purelyaesthetically informed notion of urban design as a nished product (eg Does itlook good) The second is the sense of the project as an autonomous object thatfunctions in an affordable convenient and comfortable manner for its users (egDoes it work) The third and new idea is to have the urban design projectgenerate or substantially contribute to socio-economic development processes(eg Does it produce long-term quality of life impacts) In this sense urbandesigners and urban design projects become catalysts for community bettermenteconomic improvement and international understanding

Consequently urban designers should focus more on the lsquourbanrsquo of urbandesign and become less infatuated with the lsquodesignrsquo of urban design Urbandesign must begin with cities how they work and change and what impacts theyhave in creating enabling vs destructive impacts For example urban design hasto be seen within the framework of investment and development policies andas a shaper of those policies Cranersquos (1966) capital web of investment decisionsand Lairsquos (1988) invisible web of laws and norms that guide peoplersquos behaviourAt the same time design and form play a critical role because they are a languageand vocabulary for analysing and intervening in cities

At the most fundamental level all urban design should be responsible forcreating an environment that satises informs and inspires its users (ie thecommunity) This is an urban design that possesses an articulate communicativeprociency Urban design of profound signicance has a poetic quality By themeans of compressing its meanings into a concise formal expression a poeticurban design project draws the mind to a level of perception concealed behindthe conventional presentations of urban form The most effective symbols arethose which while operating within a given set of conventions are imprecisesparse and open-ended in their possible interpretations tending more to themetaphor than the simile Such an approach requires deep cultural understand-ing and social sensitivity

Implications for Education

The pedagogical approach to meaningful urban design will be interdisciplinary(eg examining cities from the perspectives of architects landscape architects

Meaningful Urban Design 55

urban planners policy makers social workers and business interests) teleologi-cal (eg driven by the express purpose of addressing critical urban challengessuch as uncomfortable and unsafe built environments community powerless-ness economic deprivation and fragmented interventions) critical (eg based onin-depth understanding of urban design problems and promises throughanalysis of urban design practice and case studies) and catalytic (eg theformulation of effective urban design strategies that include a focus on urbandesign products such as building complexes and public spaces but also includethe generation of long-term community and economic development processes)

The primary impact on this type of learning for students will be an under-standing of the urban designer as a leader Through an in-depth analysis ofurban issues an interdisciplinary approach to urban problem solving and skillsthat focus not only on issues of urban aesthetics and form but also on purposefulintervention generated by long-term processes students will gain a profoundand empowering understanding of meaningful urban design Students of urbandesign will also gain humility and condence by studying the power structuresof cities (and realizing just how little power urban designers actually have)practising critical thinking and learning to be politically savvy in order toaccomplish their goals A secondary impact on learning for students will be aunique opportunity for them to shape the future direction of urban designthrough readings research discussions case-study analyses and project designsthat will focus on specic urban challenges examine deciencies in currenturban design approaches and projects in addressing those challenges andformulate alternative more meaningful urban design strategies

In order to reach such goals an urban design programme should focus on twomajor sets of skills understanding how cities work and learning to shape citiesUnderstanding cities includes their conception (eg urban theory and form)their evolution (eg history of urban form) their decision-making processes (egurban political economy) and their use and experience (eg urban sociology)Learning to shape cities includes design methods (eg based on empiricalevidence and community participation) and communication skills (eg graphicverbal written and computer-based) The goal of a meaningful urban designpedagogical initiative would be to attract students of the built environment (egarchitects landscape architects and urban planners) who will become sophisti-cated practitioners and inuential leaders of urban design in architectural andplanning rms community organizations public agencies and internationalinstitutions The initiative would thus involve (1) teaching of exploratoryseminars and studios in new urban design methodologies (eg internationalstudios) (2) research into the relevant roles of professionals especially architectsand planners in the urban design of contemporary cities (eg institutionalstructures) and (3) professional work in the form of community outreach andproject analysis (eg evaluating New Urbanism)

In summary a meaningful pedagogical approach to urban design should havethe following characteristics (1) small (ie selective)mdashfocus on key urban designchallenges eg inner city revitalization (2) focused (ie depth)mdashdevelop exper-tise in the urban designurban development nexus (3) distinct (ie cutting-edge)mdashexperiment with new studio formats projects and research eginternational collaboration and cross-cultural learning and (4) existing resources(ie breadth)mdashbuild upon other departments eg social work business naturalresources and environment

56 A Inam

The critical question that guides this meaningful future of urban design issimply So what That is what consequential purpose has been achieved byparticular urban design theories urban design methodologies urban designpractices and urban design practitioners The implication of such probingquestions is that it is far from adequate to consider urban design projects assuccessful if they are only physically appealing or thought-provoking

Conclusion

In conclusion the author would like to return to the provocations that werereferred to at the beginning of this paper While both Rem Koolhaas and MichaelSorkin are emblematic of the image-based architect-driven urban design thatpermeates much of the world and especially the USA they are also contributorsto an urban design strategy that is realistic and contrary to the nostalgia evokedby the New Urbanism and neo-traditional movements Thus for Koolhaas

If there is to be a lsquonew urbanismrsquo it will not be based on the twinfantasies of order and omnipotence hellip but about discovering unnam-able hybrids [as is the case with Los Angeles] hellip Redened urbanismwill not only or mostly be a profession but a way of thinking anideology to accept what exists We were making sand castles Now weswim in the sea that swept them away (Koolhaas 1995 pp 969ndash971)

Koolhaas thus encourages us rst to accept the contemporary urban condition(instead of seeing it through rose-tinted lenses) and second as architects urbandesigners and planners to understand and work with the contemporary urbanforces (instead of imagining a world without cars or highways)

Similarly Sorkin extols us to learn from those urban design projects and urbanenvironments which are successful in terms of the designerrsquos objectives ofattracting people to these environments and the vibrant use of these environ-ments by people Even if the objectives were to differ say in terms of greatersocial interaction and co-operation in a neighbourhood the designers of shop-ping malls gambling casinos and amusement parks at least understand humanbehaviour as it relates to entertainment and consumptionmdashlessons which can beused for other perhaps more noble projects Thus according to Sorkin (1997pp 29ndash31)

Disneyland hellip is foremost a playground of mobility its entertainmentslargely those of pleasured motion And there is something to belearned here It seems undeniable that for all of its depredations all ofits regimentation surveillance and control part of what we experienceas enjoyable at Disneyland is the passage through an environment ofurban density in which both the physical texture and the means ofcirculation are not simply entertaining but stand in invigorating con-trast to the dysfunctional versions back home One extracts fromDisneyland a shred of hope the persuasive example that pedestrianismcoupled with short distance collective transport systems can be bothefcient and fun can thrive in the midst of an environment completelyotherwise constituted and that the space of low sufciently deceler-ated can become the space of exchange

Meaningful Urban Design 57

Figure 6 The design of Disneyland in Los Angeles CAmdashalbeit lsquoarticialrsquo anddesigned to foster consumptionmdashoffers deeper lessons for understanding humanbehaviour and creating exciting environmentsmdashfor say multicultural interac-

tionmdashbased on such understanding

The lsquoshred of hopersquo offered by Disneyland (see Figure 6) is constituted by suchlessons carefully and critically collected from numerous examples of contempor-ary urban design projects and articulatedmdashvia relevant history theory andmethodologymdashinto a meaningful approach to urban design

Acknowledgement

This paper was the second place winner of the 1999 Chicago Institute forArchitecture and Urbanism (CIAU) Award This award administered by theSkidmore Owings amp Merrill Foundation on behalf of the CIAU is for unpub-lished papers and is intended to encourage writing and research on the questionof how architecture infrastructure urban design and planning can contribute toimproving the quality of life of the American city For more information aboutthis award the Foundation can be contacted at somfoundationsomcom

References

Alexander C Ishikawa S Silverstein M Jacobson M Fiksdahl-King I amp Angel S (1977) APattern Language Towns Buildings Construction (New York Oxford University Press)

Attoe W amp Logan D (1989) American Urban Architecture Catalysts in the Design of Cities (BerkeleyUniversity of California Press)

Beauregard R (1995) Theorizing the globalndashlocal connection in P Knox amp P Taylor (Eds) WorldCities in a World System (Cambridge Cambridge University Press)

Beckley R (1998) [Dean Emeritus and Professor of Architecture and Urban Planning College ofArchitecture and Urban Planning University of Michigan] Written interview

Bratt R (1986) Public housing the controversy and the contribution in R Bratt C Hartman amp AMeyerson (Eds) Critical Perspectives in Housing (Philadelphia PA Temple University Press)

Calthorpe P (1993) The Next American Metropolis Ecology Communities and the American Dream (NewYork Princeton Architectural Press)

58 A Inam

Ciriani H (1997) Henri Ciriani (Rockport MA Rockport Publishers)Crane D (1966) Planning and Design in New York A Study of Problems and Processes of its Physical

Environment (New York Institute of Public Administration)Ellin N (1996) Postmodern Urbanism (Cambridge MA Blackwell)Frampton K (1992a) Critical regionalism modern architecture and cultural identityFrampton K (1992b) Modern Architecture A Critical History 3rd edn (London Thames amp Hudson)Frieden B amp Sagalyn L (1989) Downtown Inc How America Rebuilds Cities (Cambridge MA MIT

Press)Garvin A (1996) The American City What Works What Doesnrsquot (New York McGraw-Hill)Gilbert A amp Gugler J (1992) Cities Poverty and Development Urbanization in the Third World 2nd edn

(New York Oxford University Press)Hester R (1990) Community Design Primer (Mendocino CA Ridge Times Press)Inam A (1992) The urban monument symbol memory presence masterrsquos thesis in urban design

Washington University St LouisInam A (1997) Institutions routines and crises post-earthquake housing recovery in Mexico City

and Los Angeles doctoral dissertation in urban planning University of Southern California LosAngeles CA

Jacobs A (1993) Great Streets (Cambridge MA MIT Press)Jacobs J (1961) The Death and Life of Great American Cities (New York Random House)Jones T Pettus W amp Pyatok M (1995) Good Neighbors Affordable Family Housing (New York

McGraw-Hill)Kasprisin R amp Pettinari J (1995) Visual Thinking for Architects and Designers Visualizing Context in

Design (New York Van Nostrand Reinhold)Kelbaugh D (1997) Common Place Toward Neighborhood and Regional Design (Seattle WA University

of Washington Press)Koolhaas R (1995) Small Medium Large Extra Large (Rotterdam 010 Publishers)Kostof S (1991) The City Shaped Urban Patterns and Meanings through History (Boston MA Bulnch

Press)Krumholz N amp Clavel P (1994) Reinventing Cities Equity Planners Tell Their Stories (Philadelphia

Temple University Press)Lagerfeld S (1995) What Main Street can learn from the mall Atlantic Monthly November

pp 110ndash120Lai R T (1988) Law in Urban Design and Planning The Invisible Web (New York Van Nostrand

Reinhold)Loukaitou-Sideris A amp Banerjee T (1998) Urban Design Downtown Poetics and Politics of Form

(Berkeley CA University of California Press)Lynch K (1981) Good City Form (Cambridge MA MIT Press)Moore G amp Marans R (Eds) (1997) Advances in Environment Behavior and Design Toward the

Integration of Theory Methods Research and Utilization (New York Plenum Press)Porter M (1995) The competitive advantage of the inner city Harvard Business Review 73 pp 55ndash71Rowe P (1991) Making a Middle Landscape (Cambridge MA MIT Press)Rowe P (1997) Civic Realism (Cambridge MA MIT Press)Sandercock L (1998) Towards Cosmopolis Planning for Multicultural Cities (Chichester NY John

Wiley)Sassen S (2000) Cities in a World Economy 2nd edn (Thousand Oaks CA Pine Forge Press)Saunders W (1997) Rem Koolhaasrsquos writing on cities poetic perception and gnomic fantasy Journal

of Architectural Education 51 pp 61ndash71Savitch H V (1988) Post-Industrial Cities Politics and Planning in New York Paris and London

(Princeton NJ Princeton University Press)Schneekloth L amp Shibley R (1995) Placemaking The Art and Practice of Building Communities (New

York Wiley)Segal M B (1995) An old commercial district goes from cold to hot Urban Land 54 (11) pp 16ndash18Serageldin I (Ed) (1997) The Architecture of Empowerment People Shelter and Livable Cities (London

Academy Editions)Short J R (1996) The Urban Order An Introduction to Cities Culture and Power (Cambridge MA

Blackwell)Sorkin M (1997) Trafc in Democracy 1997 Raoul Wallenberg Lecture (Ann Arbor MI College of

Architecture and Urban Planning University of Michigan)Urban Design Group (1998) Involving local communities in urban design Urban Design Quarterly 67

pp 15ndash38

Meaningful Urban Design 51

Fifth is control the degree to which the creation of access to use of mainte-nance of and modication to urban spaces and activities are managed by thosewho use work or live in them (eg local power) Sixth is efciency the cost ofcreating and maintaining an urban form (eg less energy-demanding processes)Seventh is justice the way in which urban form costs and benets are dis-tributed among people according to a principle such as intrinsic worth or equity(eg equal protection from environmental hazards such as cars) These dimen-sions are applicable in a wide range of urban contexts because they are derivedfrom fundamental human values and serve as powerful measures of what alsquogoodrsquo urban design project might be

Christopher Alexander (Alexander et al 1977) adopts a problem-solvingapproach to design and explicitly renders the design methodology but moreimportantly describes how a meaningful urban designer might draw directlyfrom empirical evidence (rather than say idiosyncratic impulses) and extensiveresearch as a source of design The book is most useful as a series of thoroughlyanalysed and empirically based guidelines which are broad enough to beadapted to different contexts and architectural styles Each suggested solution isdescribed in a way that provides the key relationships (eg between humanbehaviour and spatial setting) needed to solve the problem but in a generalenough manner to allow for adaptation to particular lifestyles aesthetic tastesand local conditions Each pattern describes a problem which occurs repeatedlyin the built environment archetypal problems of urban form for example Thelongest portion of the description of each pattern describes the empiricalbackground of the pattern the evidence for its validity and the range of differentways the pattern can be manifested or designed

The rst 94 patterns deal with the large-scale structure including the urbanof the environment the growth of city and country the layout of roads andpaths the relationship between work and family the formation of suitablepublic institutions for a neighbourhood and the kinds of public space requiredto support these institutions (Alexander et al 1977) The following two examplesof urban patterns illustrate the value of this design methodology identiableneighbourhood and public outdoor room

According to Alexander et al (1977) and the scientic research they citepeople need an identiable spatial unit to belong to They want to be able toidentify the part of the city where they live as distinct from all others Availableevidence suggests rst that the neighbourhoods which people identify with haveextremely small populations second that they are small in area and third thata major road through a neighbourhood destroys it

What then is the right population for a neighbourhood The neighbourhoodinhabitants should be able to look after their own interests by being able to reachagreement on basic decisions such as about public services and common landand to organize themselves to bring pressure on local governments Anthropo-logical evidence cited by Alexander et al (1977) suggests that a human groupcannot usually co-ordinate itself to reach such decisions if its population is above1500 The experience of organizing community meetings at the local levelsuggests that 500 may be a more realistic gure

As far as the physical diameter is concerned in Philadelphia PA people whowere asked which area they really knew usually limited themselves to a smallarea seldom exceeding the two or three blocks around their house One-quarterof the inhabitants of an area in Milwaukee WI considered a neighbourhood to

52 A Inam

be an area no larger than a block around 300 feet (about 90 metres) One-halfconsidered it to be no more than seven blocks

The rst two features of the neighbourhood small population and small areaare not enough by themselves A neighbourhood can only have a strong identityif it is protected from heavy trafc Research cited by the authors suggests thatthe heavier the trafc in an area the less people think of it as home territory Notonly do residents view the streets with heavy trafc as less personal but theyalso feel the same about the houses along the street ldquoItrsquos not a friendlystreet hellip People are afraid to go out into the street because of the trafc hellip Noisefrom the street intrudes into my homerdquo (cited in Alexander et al 1977 p 83)This study conducted by the University of California at Berkeley found thatwith more than 200 cars per hour the quality of the neighbourhood begins todeteriorate

Therefore the proposed strategy suggests helping people dene the neigh-bourhoods they live in not more than about 300 yards (270 metres) or so acrosswith no more than 500 inhabitants or so and in existing cities encouraging localgroups to organize themselves to form such neighbourhoods and keeping majorroads outside these neighbourhoods While one may disagree with the dimen-sions suggested in this pattern one has to acknowledge that population sizephysical area and trafc ow are critical considerations for the design ofcontemporary neighbourhoods

In the public outdoor room pattern Alexander et al (1977) suggest that thereare very few spots along the streets of modern towns and neighbourhoodswhere people can hang out comfortably for hours at a time Men often seekcorner bars and pubs where they spend hours talking and drinking teenagersespecially boys choose special corners too where they hang around waitingfor their friends Elderly people like a special spot to go to where they canexpect to nd others small children need sandpits mud plants and water toplay with in the open young mothers who go to watch their children oftenuse the childrenrsquos play as a opportunity to meet and talk with other mothersand so on for a variety of groups Because of the diverse and casual natureof these activities they require a space which has a subtle balance of beingdened and yet not too dened so that any activity which is natural to theneighbourhood at any given time can develop freely and yet has something tostart from

What is needed is a framework which is dened just enough so that peoplenaturally tend to stop there and so that curiosity naturally takes people thereand invites them to stay A small open space roofed with columns but withoutwalls at least in part will provide the necessary balance between being open andenclosed Examples of this pattern were built with the assistance of architecturestudents in Cleveland OH on the grounds and on public land surrounding alocal mental health clinic According to staff reports these places changed thelife of the clinic dramatically many more people than usual were drawnoutdoors public talk was more animated and outdoor space that had beendominated by cars became more human In addition in the 12th and 13thcenturies there were many such public structures dotted through the towns andwhich were the scene of auctions open-air meetings and market fairs

Therefore in neighbourhoods and work communities the authors suggestmaking a piece of the common land into an outdoor roommdasha partly enclosedplace with a partial roof columns without walls perhaps with a trellis placing

Meaningful Urban Design 53

Figure 5 A contemporary example of a successful outdoor room which reects theguidelines of the outdoor room patternmdashCitywalk in Los Angeles CA

it beside an important path and within view of houses and workplaces In thisand the other patterns in the book the authors outline an urban designmethodology that is based on archetypal problems (eg public outdoor spaces)analyses of built examples descriptions of historical precedents and the explicitunpacking of design solutions such that they are clear relevant and thoughtful(see Figure 5) The basis for the design patterns was extensive and thoroughresearch carried out over an 8-year period Today there is current and volumin-ous research for example on environment and behaviour (for example seeMoore amp Marans 1997) that is highly relevant and useful for urban designers

Future Directions in Urban Design

Urban designers (eg Beckley 1998) are beginning to question what in fact islsquourbanrsquo in the contemporary environment However few will argue with

54 A Inam

denitions two decades old that are still relevant today a city is a ldquorelativelylarge dense and permanent settlement [or network of settlements] of sociallyheterogeneous individualsrdquo (L Worth cited in Kostof 1991 p 37) and a ldquopoint[or points] of maximum concentration for the power and culture of a com-munityrdquo (L Mumford cited in Kostof 1991 p 37) The urban designerrsquos impera-tive then is to understand cities On the one hand the most enduring featureof the city is its physical build which remains with remarkable persistencegaining increments that are responsive to the most recent economic demand andreective of the latest stylistic vogue but conserving evidence of past urbanculture for present and future generations On the other hand however urbansociety changes more than any other human grouping economic innovationusually comes most rapidly and boldly in cities immigration aims rst at theurban core forcing upon cities the critical role of acculturating refugees frommany countrysides and the winds of intellectual advance blow strong in cities(Vance cited in Kostof 1991)

Based on the new synthesis of ideas proposed in this paper there are threelevels of success of an urban design project These include rst the purelyaesthetically informed notion of urban design as a nished product (eg Does itlook good) The second is the sense of the project as an autonomous object thatfunctions in an affordable convenient and comfortable manner for its users (egDoes it work) The third and new idea is to have the urban design projectgenerate or substantially contribute to socio-economic development processes(eg Does it produce long-term quality of life impacts) In this sense urbandesigners and urban design projects become catalysts for community bettermenteconomic improvement and international understanding

Consequently urban designers should focus more on the lsquourbanrsquo of urbandesign and become less infatuated with the lsquodesignrsquo of urban design Urbandesign must begin with cities how they work and change and what impacts theyhave in creating enabling vs destructive impacts For example urban design hasto be seen within the framework of investment and development policies andas a shaper of those policies Cranersquos (1966) capital web of investment decisionsand Lairsquos (1988) invisible web of laws and norms that guide peoplersquos behaviourAt the same time design and form play a critical role because they are a languageand vocabulary for analysing and intervening in cities

At the most fundamental level all urban design should be responsible forcreating an environment that satises informs and inspires its users (ie thecommunity) This is an urban design that possesses an articulate communicativeprociency Urban design of profound signicance has a poetic quality By themeans of compressing its meanings into a concise formal expression a poeticurban design project draws the mind to a level of perception concealed behindthe conventional presentations of urban form The most effective symbols arethose which while operating within a given set of conventions are imprecisesparse and open-ended in their possible interpretations tending more to themetaphor than the simile Such an approach requires deep cultural understand-ing and social sensitivity

Implications for Education

The pedagogical approach to meaningful urban design will be interdisciplinary(eg examining cities from the perspectives of architects landscape architects

Meaningful Urban Design 55

urban planners policy makers social workers and business interests) teleologi-cal (eg driven by the express purpose of addressing critical urban challengessuch as uncomfortable and unsafe built environments community powerless-ness economic deprivation and fragmented interventions) critical (eg based onin-depth understanding of urban design problems and promises throughanalysis of urban design practice and case studies) and catalytic (eg theformulation of effective urban design strategies that include a focus on urbandesign products such as building complexes and public spaces but also includethe generation of long-term community and economic development processes)

The primary impact on this type of learning for students will be an under-standing of the urban designer as a leader Through an in-depth analysis ofurban issues an interdisciplinary approach to urban problem solving and skillsthat focus not only on issues of urban aesthetics and form but also on purposefulintervention generated by long-term processes students will gain a profoundand empowering understanding of meaningful urban design Students of urbandesign will also gain humility and condence by studying the power structuresof cities (and realizing just how little power urban designers actually have)practising critical thinking and learning to be politically savvy in order toaccomplish their goals A secondary impact on learning for students will be aunique opportunity for them to shape the future direction of urban designthrough readings research discussions case-study analyses and project designsthat will focus on specic urban challenges examine deciencies in currenturban design approaches and projects in addressing those challenges andformulate alternative more meaningful urban design strategies

In order to reach such goals an urban design programme should focus on twomajor sets of skills understanding how cities work and learning to shape citiesUnderstanding cities includes their conception (eg urban theory and form)their evolution (eg history of urban form) their decision-making processes (egurban political economy) and their use and experience (eg urban sociology)Learning to shape cities includes design methods (eg based on empiricalevidence and community participation) and communication skills (eg graphicverbal written and computer-based) The goal of a meaningful urban designpedagogical initiative would be to attract students of the built environment (egarchitects landscape architects and urban planners) who will become sophisti-cated practitioners and inuential leaders of urban design in architectural andplanning rms community organizations public agencies and internationalinstitutions The initiative would thus involve (1) teaching of exploratoryseminars and studios in new urban design methodologies (eg internationalstudios) (2) research into the relevant roles of professionals especially architectsand planners in the urban design of contemporary cities (eg institutionalstructures) and (3) professional work in the form of community outreach andproject analysis (eg evaluating New Urbanism)

In summary a meaningful pedagogical approach to urban design should havethe following characteristics (1) small (ie selective)mdashfocus on key urban designchallenges eg inner city revitalization (2) focused (ie depth)mdashdevelop exper-tise in the urban designurban development nexus (3) distinct (ie cutting-edge)mdashexperiment with new studio formats projects and research eginternational collaboration and cross-cultural learning and (4) existing resources(ie breadth)mdashbuild upon other departments eg social work business naturalresources and environment

56 A Inam

The critical question that guides this meaningful future of urban design issimply So what That is what consequential purpose has been achieved byparticular urban design theories urban design methodologies urban designpractices and urban design practitioners The implication of such probingquestions is that it is far from adequate to consider urban design projects assuccessful if they are only physically appealing or thought-provoking

Conclusion

In conclusion the author would like to return to the provocations that werereferred to at the beginning of this paper While both Rem Koolhaas and MichaelSorkin are emblematic of the image-based architect-driven urban design thatpermeates much of the world and especially the USA they are also contributorsto an urban design strategy that is realistic and contrary to the nostalgia evokedby the New Urbanism and neo-traditional movements Thus for Koolhaas

If there is to be a lsquonew urbanismrsquo it will not be based on the twinfantasies of order and omnipotence hellip but about discovering unnam-able hybrids [as is the case with Los Angeles] hellip Redened urbanismwill not only or mostly be a profession but a way of thinking anideology to accept what exists We were making sand castles Now weswim in the sea that swept them away (Koolhaas 1995 pp 969ndash971)

Koolhaas thus encourages us rst to accept the contemporary urban condition(instead of seeing it through rose-tinted lenses) and second as architects urbandesigners and planners to understand and work with the contemporary urbanforces (instead of imagining a world without cars or highways)

Similarly Sorkin extols us to learn from those urban design projects and urbanenvironments which are successful in terms of the designerrsquos objectives ofattracting people to these environments and the vibrant use of these environ-ments by people Even if the objectives were to differ say in terms of greatersocial interaction and co-operation in a neighbourhood the designers of shop-ping malls gambling casinos and amusement parks at least understand humanbehaviour as it relates to entertainment and consumptionmdashlessons which can beused for other perhaps more noble projects Thus according to Sorkin (1997pp 29ndash31)

Disneyland hellip is foremost a playground of mobility its entertainmentslargely those of pleasured motion And there is something to belearned here It seems undeniable that for all of its depredations all ofits regimentation surveillance and control part of what we experienceas enjoyable at Disneyland is the passage through an environment ofurban density in which both the physical texture and the means ofcirculation are not simply entertaining but stand in invigorating con-trast to the dysfunctional versions back home One extracts fromDisneyland a shred of hope the persuasive example that pedestrianismcoupled with short distance collective transport systems can be bothefcient and fun can thrive in the midst of an environment completelyotherwise constituted and that the space of low sufciently deceler-ated can become the space of exchange

Meaningful Urban Design 57

Figure 6 The design of Disneyland in Los Angeles CAmdashalbeit lsquoarticialrsquo anddesigned to foster consumptionmdashoffers deeper lessons for understanding humanbehaviour and creating exciting environmentsmdashfor say multicultural interac-

tionmdashbased on such understanding

The lsquoshred of hopersquo offered by Disneyland (see Figure 6) is constituted by suchlessons carefully and critically collected from numerous examples of contempor-ary urban design projects and articulatedmdashvia relevant history theory andmethodologymdashinto a meaningful approach to urban design

Acknowledgement

This paper was the second place winner of the 1999 Chicago Institute forArchitecture and Urbanism (CIAU) Award This award administered by theSkidmore Owings amp Merrill Foundation on behalf of the CIAU is for unpub-lished papers and is intended to encourage writing and research on the questionof how architecture infrastructure urban design and planning can contribute toimproving the quality of life of the American city For more information aboutthis award the Foundation can be contacted at somfoundationsomcom

References

Alexander C Ishikawa S Silverstein M Jacobson M Fiksdahl-King I amp Angel S (1977) APattern Language Towns Buildings Construction (New York Oxford University Press)

Attoe W amp Logan D (1989) American Urban Architecture Catalysts in the Design of Cities (BerkeleyUniversity of California Press)

Beauregard R (1995) Theorizing the globalndashlocal connection in P Knox amp P Taylor (Eds) WorldCities in a World System (Cambridge Cambridge University Press)

Beckley R (1998) [Dean Emeritus and Professor of Architecture and Urban Planning College ofArchitecture and Urban Planning University of Michigan] Written interview

Bratt R (1986) Public housing the controversy and the contribution in R Bratt C Hartman amp AMeyerson (Eds) Critical Perspectives in Housing (Philadelphia PA Temple University Press)

Calthorpe P (1993) The Next American Metropolis Ecology Communities and the American Dream (NewYork Princeton Architectural Press)

58 A Inam

Ciriani H (1997) Henri Ciriani (Rockport MA Rockport Publishers)Crane D (1966) Planning and Design in New York A Study of Problems and Processes of its Physical

Environment (New York Institute of Public Administration)Ellin N (1996) Postmodern Urbanism (Cambridge MA Blackwell)Frampton K (1992a) Critical regionalism modern architecture and cultural identityFrampton K (1992b) Modern Architecture A Critical History 3rd edn (London Thames amp Hudson)Frieden B amp Sagalyn L (1989) Downtown Inc How America Rebuilds Cities (Cambridge MA MIT

Press)Garvin A (1996) The American City What Works What Doesnrsquot (New York McGraw-Hill)Gilbert A amp Gugler J (1992) Cities Poverty and Development Urbanization in the Third World 2nd edn

(New York Oxford University Press)Hester R (1990) Community Design Primer (Mendocino CA Ridge Times Press)Inam A (1992) The urban monument symbol memory presence masterrsquos thesis in urban design

Washington University St LouisInam A (1997) Institutions routines and crises post-earthquake housing recovery in Mexico City

and Los Angeles doctoral dissertation in urban planning University of Southern California LosAngeles CA

Jacobs A (1993) Great Streets (Cambridge MA MIT Press)Jacobs J (1961) The Death and Life of Great American Cities (New York Random House)Jones T Pettus W amp Pyatok M (1995) Good Neighbors Affordable Family Housing (New York

McGraw-Hill)Kasprisin R amp Pettinari J (1995) Visual Thinking for Architects and Designers Visualizing Context in

Design (New York Van Nostrand Reinhold)Kelbaugh D (1997) Common Place Toward Neighborhood and Regional Design (Seattle WA University

of Washington Press)Koolhaas R (1995) Small Medium Large Extra Large (Rotterdam 010 Publishers)Kostof S (1991) The City Shaped Urban Patterns and Meanings through History (Boston MA Bulnch

Press)Krumholz N amp Clavel P (1994) Reinventing Cities Equity Planners Tell Their Stories (Philadelphia

Temple University Press)Lagerfeld S (1995) What Main Street can learn from the mall Atlantic Monthly November

pp 110ndash120Lai R T (1988) Law in Urban Design and Planning The Invisible Web (New York Van Nostrand

Reinhold)Loukaitou-Sideris A amp Banerjee T (1998) Urban Design Downtown Poetics and Politics of Form

(Berkeley CA University of California Press)Lynch K (1981) Good City Form (Cambridge MA MIT Press)Moore G amp Marans R (Eds) (1997) Advances in Environment Behavior and Design Toward the

Integration of Theory Methods Research and Utilization (New York Plenum Press)Porter M (1995) The competitive advantage of the inner city Harvard Business Review 73 pp 55ndash71Rowe P (1991) Making a Middle Landscape (Cambridge MA MIT Press)Rowe P (1997) Civic Realism (Cambridge MA MIT Press)Sandercock L (1998) Towards Cosmopolis Planning for Multicultural Cities (Chichester NY John

Wiley)Sassen S (2000) Cities in a World Economy 2nd edn (Thousand Oaks CA Pine Forge Press)Saunders W (1997) Rem Koolhaasrsquos writing on cities poetic perception and gnomic fantasy Journal

of Architectural Education 51 pp 61ndash71Savitch H V (1988) Post-Industrial Cities Politics and Planning in New York Paris and London

(Princeton NJ Princeton University Press)Schneekloth L amp Shibley R (1995) Placemaking The Art and Practice of Building Communities (New

York Wiley)Segal M B (1995) An old commercial district goes from cold to hot Urban Land 54 (11) pp 16ndash18Serageldin I (Ed) (1997) The Architecture of Empowerment People Shelter and Livable Cities (London

Academy Editions)Short J R (1996) The Urban Order An Introduction to Cities Culture and Power (Cambridge MA

Blackwell)Sorkin M (1997) Trafc in Democracy 1997 Raoul Wallenberg Lecture (Ann Arbor MI College of

Architecture and Urban Planning University of Michigan)Urban Design Group (1998) Involving local communities in urban design Urban Design Quarterly 67

pp 15ndash38

52 A Inam

be an area no larger than a block around 300 feet (about 90 metres) One-halfconsidered it to be no more than seven blocks

The rst two features of the neighbourhood small population and small areaare not enough by themselves A neighbourhood can only have a strong identityif it is protected from heavy trafc Research cited by the authors suggests thatthe heavier the trafc in an area the less people think of it as home territory Notonly do residents view the streets with heavy trafc as less personal but theyalso feel the same about the houses along the street ldquoItrsquos not a friendlystreet hellip People are afraid to go out into the street because of the trafc hellip Noisefrom the street intrudes into my homerdquo (cited in Alexander et al 1977 p 83)This study conducted by the University of California at Berkeley found thatwith more than 200 cars per hour the quality of the neighbourhood begins todeteriorate

Therefore the proposed strategy suggests helping people dene the neigh-bourhoods they live in not more than about 300 yards (270 metres) or so acrosswith no more than 500 inhabitants or so and in existing cities encouraging localgroups to organize themselves to form such neighbourhoods and keeping majorroads outside these neighbourhoods While one may disagree with the dimen-sions suggested in this pattern one has to acknowledge that population sizephysical area and trafc ow are critical considerations for the design ofcontemporary neighbourhoods

In the public outdoor room pattern Alexander et al (1977) suggest that thereare very few spots along the streets of modern towns and neighbourhoodswhere people can hang out comfortably for hours at a time Men often seekcorner bars and pubs where they spend hours talking and drinking teenagersespecially boys choose special corners too where they hang around waitingfor their friends Elderly people like a special spot to go to where they canexpect to nd others small children need sandpits mud plants and water toplay with in the open young mothers who go to watch their children oftenuse the childrenrsquos play as a opportunity to meet and talk with other mothersand so on for a variety of groups Because of the diverse and casual natureof these activities they require a space which has a subtle balance of beingdened and yet not too dened so that any activity which is natural to theneighbourhood at any given time can develop freely and yet has something tostart from

What is needed is a framework which is dened just enough so that peoplenaturally tend to stop there and so that curiosity naturally takes people thereand invites them to stay A small open space roofed with columns but withoutwalls at least in part will provide the necessary balance between being open andenclosed Examples of this pattern were built with the assistance of architecturestudents in Cleveland OH on the grounds and on public land surrounding alocal mental health clinic According to staff reports these places changed thelife of the clinic dramatically many more people than usual were drawnoutdoors public talk was more animated and outdoor space that had beendominated by cars became more human In addition in the 12th and 13thcenturies there were many such public structures dotted through the towns andwhich were the scene of auctions open-air meetings and market fairs

Therefore in neighbourhoods and work communities the authors suggestmaking a piece of the common land into an outdoor roommdasha partly enclosedplace with a partial roof columns without walls perhaps with a trellis placing

Meaningful Urban Design 53

Figure 5 A contemporary example of a successful outdoor room which reects theguidelines of the outdoor room patternmdashCitywalk in Los Angeles CA

it beside an important path and within view of houses and workplaces In thisand the other patterns in the book the authors outline an urban designmethodology that is based on archetypal problems (eg public outdoor spaces)analyses of built examples descriptions of historical precedents and the explicitunpacking of design solutions such that they are clear relevant and thoughtful(see Figure 5) The basis for the design patterns was extensive and thoroughresearch carried out over an 8-year period Today there is current and volumin-ous research for example on environment and behaviour (for example seeMoore amp Marans 1997) that is highly relevant and useful for urban designers

Future Directions in Urban Design

Urban designers (eg Beckley 1998) are beginning to question what in fact islsquourbanrsquo in the contemporary environment However few will argue with

54 A Inam

denitions two decades old that are still relevant today a city is a ldquorelativelylarge dense and permanent settlement [or network of settlements] of sociallyheterogeneous individualsrdquo (L Worth cited in Kostof 1991 p 37) and a ldquopoint[or points] of maximum concentration for the power and culture of a com-munityrdquo (L Mumford cited in Kostof 1991 p 37) The urban designerrsquos impera-tive then is to understand cities On the one hand the most enduring featureof the city is its physical build which remains with remarkable persistencegaining increments that are responsive to the most recent economic demand andreective of the latest stylistic vogue but conserving evidence of past urbanculture for present and future generations On the other hand however urbansociety changes more than any other human grouping economic innovationusually comes most rapidly and boldly in cities immigration aims rst at theurban core forcing upon cities the critical role of acculturating refugees frommany countrysides and the winds of intellectual advance blow strong in cities(Vance cited in Kostof 1991)

Based on the new synthesis of ideas proposed in this paper there are threelevels of success of an urban design project These include rst the purelyaesthetically informed notion of urban design as a nished product (eg Does itlook good) The second is the sense of the project as an autonomous object thatfunctions in an affordable convenient and comfortable manner for its users (egDoes it work) The third and new idea is to have the urban design projectgenerate or substantially contribute to socio-economic development processes(eg Does it produce long-term quality of life impacts) In this sense urbandesigners and urban design projects become catalysts for community bettermenteconomic improvement and international understanding

Consequently urban designers should focus more on the lsquourbanrsquo of urbandesign and become less infatuated with the lsquodesignrsquo of urban design Urbandesign must begin with cities how they work and change and what impacts theyhave in creating enabling vs destructive impacts For example urban design hasto be seen within the framework of investment and development policies andas a shaper of those policies Cranersquos (1966) capital web of investment decisionsand Lairsquos (1988) invisible web of laws and norms that guide peoplersquos behaviourAt the same time design and form play a critical role because they are a languageand vocabulary for analysing and intervening in cities

At the most fundamental level all urban design should be responsible forcreating an environment that satises informs and inspires its users (ie thecommunity) This is an urban design that possesses an articulate communicativeprociency Urban design of profound signicance has a poetic quality By themeans of compressing its meanings into a concise formal expression a poeticurban design project draws the mind to a level of perception concealed behindthe conventional presentations of urban form The most effective symbols arethose which while operating within a given set of conventions are imprecisesparse and open-ended in their possible interpretations tending more to themetaphor than the simile Such an approach requires deep cultural understand-ing and social sensitivity

Implications for Education

The pedagogical approach to meaningful urban design will be interdisciplinary(eg examining cities from the perspectives of architects landscape architects

Meaningful Urban Design 55

urban planners policy makers social workers and business interests) teleologi-cal (eg driven by the express purpose of addressing critical urban challengessuch as uncomfortable and unsafe built environments community powerless-ness economic deprivation and fragmented interventions) critical (eg based onin-depth understanding of urban design problems and promises throughanalysis of urban design practice and case studies) and catalytic (eg theformulation of effective urban design strategies that include a focus on urbandesign products such as building complexes and public spaces but also includethe generation of long-term community and economic development processes)

The primary impact on this type of learning for students will be an under-standing of the urban designer as a leader Through an in-depth analysis ofurban issues an interdisciplinary approach to urban problem solving and skillsthat focus not only on issues of urban aesthetics and form but also on purposefulintervention generated by long-term processes students will gain a profoundand empowering understanding of meaningful urban design Students of urbandesign will also gain humility and condence by studying the power structuresof cities (and realizing just how little power urban designers actually have)practising critical thinking and learning to be politically savvy in order toaccomplish their goals A secondary impact on learning for students will be aunique opportunity for them to shape the future direction of urban designthrough readings research discussions case-study analyses and project designsthat will focus on specic urban challenges examine deciencies in currenturban design approaches and projects in addressing those challenges andformulate alternative more meaningful urban design strategies

In order to reach such goals an urban design programme should focus on twomajor sets of skills understanding how cities work and learning to shape citiesUnderstanding cities includes their conception (eg urban theory and form)their evolution (eg history of urban form) their decision-making processes (egurban political economy) and their use and experience (eg urban sociology)Learning to shape cities includes design methods (eg based on empiricalevidence and community participation) and communication skills (eg graphicverbal written and computer-based) The goal of a meaningful urban designpedagogical initiative would be to attract students of the built environment (egarchitects landscape architects and urban planners) who will become sophisti-cated practitioners and inuential leaders of urban design in architectural andplanning rms community organizations public agencies and internationalinstitutions The initiative would thus involve (1) teaching of exploratoryseminars and studios in new urban design methodologies (eg internationalstudios) (2) research into the relevant roles of professionals especially architectsand planners in the urban design of contemporary cities (eg institutionalstructures) and (3) professional work in the form of community outreach andproject analysis (eg evaluating New Urbanism)

In summary a meaningful pedagogical approach to urban design should havethe following characteristics (1) small (ie selective)mdashfocus on key urban designchallenges eg inner city revitalization (2) focused (ie depth)mdashdevelop exper-tise in the urban designurban development nexus (3) distinct (ie cutting-edge)mdashexperiment with new studio formats projects and research eginternational collaboration and cross-cultural learning and (4) existing resources(ie breadth)mdashbuild upon other departments eg social work business naturalresources and environment

56 A Inam

The critical question that guides this meaningful future of urban design issimply So what That is what consequential purpose has been achieved byparticular urban design theories urban design methodologies urban designpractices and urban design practitioners The implication of such probingquestions is that it is far from adequate to consider urban design projects assuccessful if they are only physically appealing or thought-provoking

Conclusion

In conclusion the author would like to return to the provocations that werereferred to at the beginning of this paper While both Rem Koolhaas and MichaelSorkin are emblematic of the image-based architect-driven urban design thatpermeates much of the world and especially the USA they are also contributorsto an urban design strategy that is realistic and contrary to the nostalgia evokedby the New Urbanism and neo-traditional movements Thus for Koolhaas

If there is to be a lsquonew urbanismrsquo it will not be based on the twinfantasies of order and omnipotence hellip but about discovering unnam-able hybrids [as is the case with Los Angeles] hellip Redened urbanismwill not only or mostly be a profession but a way of thinking anideology to accept what exists We were making sand castles Now weswim in the sea that swept them away (Koolhaas 1995 pp 969ndash971)

Koolhaas thus encourages us rst to accept the contemporary urban condition(instead of seeing it through rose-tinted lenses) and second as architects urbandesigners and planners to understand and work with the contemporary urbanforces (instead of imagining a world without cars or highways)

Similarly Sorkin extols us to learn from those urban design projects and urbanenvironments which are successful in terms of the designerrsquos objectives ofattracting people to these environments and the vibrant use of these environ-ments by people Even if the objectives were to differ say in terms of greatersocial interaction and co-operation in a neighbourhood the designers of shop-ping malls gambling casinos and amusement parks at least understand humanbehaviour as it relates to entertainment and consumptionmdashlessons which can beused for other perhaps more noble projects Thus according to Sorkin (1997pp 29ndash31)

Disneyland hellip is foremost a playground of mobility its entertainmentslargely those of pleasured motion And there is something to belearned here It seems undeniable that for all of its depredations all ofits regimentation surveillance and control part of what we experienceas enjoyable at Disneyland is the passage through an environment ofurban density in which both the physical texture and the means ofcirculation are not simply entertaining but stand in invigorating con-trast to the dysfunctional versions back home One extracts fromDisneyland a shred of hope the persuasive example that pedestrianismcoupled with short distance collective transport systems can be bothefcient and fun can thrive in the midst of an environment completelyotherwise constituted and that the space of low sufciently deceler-ated can become the space of exchange

Meaningful Urban Design 57

Figure 6 The design of Disneyland in Los Angeles CAmdashalbeit lsquoarticialrsquo anddesigned to foster consumptionmdashoffers deeper lessons for understanding humanbehaviour and creating exciting environmentsmdashfor say multicultural interac-

tionmdashbased on such understanding

The lsquoshred of hopersquo offered by Disneyland (see Figure 6) is constituted by suchlessons carefully and critically collected from numerous examples of contempor-ary urban design projects and articulatedmdashvia relevant history theory andmethodologymdashinto a meaningful approach to urban design

Acknowledgement

This paper was the second place winner of the 1999 Chicago Institute forArchitecture and Urbanism (CIAU) Award This award administered by theSkidmore Owings amp Merrill Foundation on behalf of the CIAU is for unpub-lished papers and is intended to encourage writing and research on the questionof how architecture infrastructure urban design and planning can contribute toimproving the quality of life of the American city For more information aboutthis award the Foundation can be contacted at somfoundationsomcom

References

Alexander C Ishikawa S Silverstein M Jacobson M Fiksdahl-King I amp Angel S (1977) APattern Language Towns Buildings Construction (New York Oxford University Press)

Attoe W amp Logan D (1989) American Urban Architecture Catalysts in the Design of Cities (BerkeleyUniversity of California Press)

Beauregard R (1995) Theorizing the globalndashlocal connection in P Knox amp P Taylor (Eds) WorldCities in a World System (Cambridge Cambridge University Press)

Beckley R (1998) [Dean Emeritus and Professor of Architecture and Urban Planning College ofArchitecture and Urban Planning University of Michigan] Written interview

Bratt R (1986) Public housing the controversy and the contribution in R Bratt C Hartman amp AMeyerson (Eds) Critical Perspectives in Housing (Philadelphia PA Temple University Press)

Calthorpe P (1993) The Next American Metropolis Ecology Communities and the American Dream (NewYork Princeton Architectural Press)

58 A Inam

Ciriani H (1997) Henri Ciriani (Rockport MA Rockport Publishers)Crane D (1966) Planning and Design in New York A Study of Problems and Processes of its Physical

Environment (New York Institute of Public Administration)Ellin N (1996) Postmodern Urbanism (Cambridge MA Blackwell)Frampton K (1992a) Critical regionalism modern architecture and cultural identityFrampton K (1992b) Modern Architecture A Critical History 3rd edn (London Thames amp Hudson)Frieden B amp Sagalyn L (1989) Downtown Inc How America Rebuilds Cities (Cambridge MA MIT

Press)Garvin A (1996) The American City What Works What Doesnrsquot (New York McGraw-Hill)Gilbert A amp Gugler J (1992) Cities Poverty and Development Urbanization in the Third World 2nd edn

(New York Oxford University Press)Hester R (1990) Community Design Primer (Mendocino CA Ridge Times Press)Inam A (1992) The urban monument symbol memory presence masterrsquos thesis in urban design

Washington University St LouisInam A (1997) Institutions routines and crises post-earthquake housing recovery in Mexico City

and Los Angeles doctoral dissertation in urban planning University of Southern California LosAngeles CA

Jacobs A (1993) Great Streets (Cambridge MA MIT Press)Jacobs J (1961) The Death and Life of Great American Cities (New York Random House)Jones T Pettus W amp Pyatok M (1995) Good Neighbors Affordable Family Housing (New York

McGraw-Hill)Kasprisin R amp Pettinari J (1995) Visual Thinking for Architects and Designers Visualizing Context in

Design (New York Van Nostrand Reinhold)Kelbaugh D (1997) Common Place Toward Neighborhood and Regional Design (Seattle WA University

of Washington Press)Koolhaas R (1995) Small Medium Large Extra Large (Rotterdam 010 Publishers)Kostof S (1991) The City Shaped Urban Patterns and Meanings through History (Boston MA Bulnch

Press)Krumholz N amp Clavel P (1994) Reinventing Cities Equity Planners Tell Their Stories (Philadelphia

Temple University Press)Lagerfeld S (1995) What Main Street can learn from the mall Atlantic Monthly November

pp 110ndash120Lai R T (1988) Law in Urban Design and Planning The Invisible Web (New York Van Nostrand

Reinhold)Loukaitou-Sideris A amp Banerjee T (1998) Urban Design Downtown Poetics and Politics of Form

(Berkeley CA University of California Press)Lynch K (1981) Good City Form (Cambridge MA MIT Press)Moore G amp Marans R (Eds) (1997) Advances in Environment Behavior and Design Toward the

Integration of Theory Methods Research and Utilization (New York Plenum Press)Porter M (1995) The competitive advantage of the inner city Harvard Business Review 73 pp 55ndash71Rowe P (1991) Making a Middle Landscape (Cambridge MA MIT Press)Rowe P (1997) Civic Realism (Cambridge MA MIT Press)Sandercock L (1998) Towards Cosmopolis Planning for Multicultural Cities (Chichester NY John

Wiley)Sassen S (2000) Cities in a World Economy 2nd edn (Thousand Oaks CA Pine Forge Press)Saunders W (1997) Rem Koolhaasrsquos writing on cities poetic perception and gnomic fantasy Journal

of Architectural Education 51 pp 61ndash71Savitch H V (1988) Post-Industrial Cities Politics and Planning in New York Paris and London

(Princeton NJ Princeton University Press)Schneekloth L amp Shibley R (1995) Placemaking The Art and Practice of Building Communities (New

York Wiley)Segal M B (1995) An old commercial district goes from cold to hot Urban Land 54 (11) pp 16ndash18Serageldin I (Ed) (1997) The Architecture of Empowerment People Shelter and Livable Cities (London

Academy Editions)Short J R (1996) The Urban Order An Introduction to Cities Culture and Power (Cambridge MA

Blackwell)Sorkin M (1997) Trafc in Democracy 1997 Raoul Wallenberg Lecture (Ann Arbor MI College of

Architecture and Urban Planning University of Michigan)Urban Design Group (1998) Involving local communities in urban design Urban Design Quarterly 67

pp 15ndash38

Meaningful Urban Design 53

Figure 5 A contemporary example of a successful outdoor room which reects theguidelines of the outdoor room patternmdashCitywalk in Los Angeles CA

it beside an important path and within view of houses and workplaces In thisand the other patterns in the book the authors outline an urban designmethodology that is based on archetypal problems (eg public outdoor spaces)analyses of built examples descriptions of historical precedents and the explicitunpacking of design solutions such that they are clear relevant and thoughtful(see Figure 5) The basis for the design patterns was extensive and thoroughresearch carried out over an 8-year period Today there is current and volumin-ous research for example on environment and behaviour (for example seeMoore amp Marans 1997) that is highly relevant and useful for urban designers

Future Directions in Urban Design

Urban designers (eg Beckley 1998) are beginning to question what in fact islsquourbanrsquo in the contemporary environment However few will argue with

54 A Inam

denitions two decades old that are still relevant today a city is a ldquorelativelylarge dense and permanent settlement [or network of settlements] of sociallyheterogeneous individualsrdquo (L Worth cited in Kostof 1991 p 37) and a ldquopoint[or points] of maximum concentration for the power and culture of a com-munityrdquo (L Mumford cited in Kostof 1991 p 37) The urban designerrsquos impera-tive then is to understand cities On the one hand the most enduring featureof the city is its physical build which remains with remarkable persistencegaining increments that are responsive to the most recent economic demand andreective of the latest stylistic vogue but conserving evidence of past urbanculture for present and future generations On the other hand however urbansociety changes more than any other human grouping economic innovationusually comes most rapidly and boldly in cities immigration aims rst at theurban core forcing upon cities the critical role of acculturating refugees frommany countrysides and the winds of intellectual advance blow strong in cities(Vance cited in Kostof 1991)

Based on the new synthesis of ideas proposed in this paper there are threelevels of success of an urban design project These include rst the purelyaesthetically informed notion of urban design as a nished product (eg Does itlook good) The second is the sense of the project as an autonomous object thatfunctions in an affordable convenient and comfortable manner for its users (egDoes it work) The third and new idea is to have the urban design projectgenerate or substantially contribute to socio-economic development processes(eg Does it produce long-term quality of life impacts) In this sense urbandesigners and urban design projects become catalysts for community bettermenteconomic improvement and international understanding

Consequently urban designers should focus more on the lsquourbanrsquo of urbandesign and become less infatuated with the lsquodesignrsquo of urban design Urbandesign must begin with cities how they work and change and what impacts theyhave in creating enabling vs destructive impacts For example urban design hasto be seen within the framework of investment and development policies andas a shaper of those policies Cranersquos (1966) capital web of investment decisionsand Lairsquos (1988) invisible web of laws and norms that guide peoplersquos behaviourAt the same time design and form play a critical role because they are a languageand vocabulary for analysing and intervening in cities

At the most fundamental level all urban design should be responsible forcreating an environment that satises informs and inspires its users (ie thecommunity) This is an urban design that possesses an articulate communicativeprociency Urban design of profound signicance has a poetic quality By themeans of compressing its meanings into a concise formal expression a poeticurban design project draws the mind to a level of perception concealed behindthe conventional presentations of urban form The most effective symbols arethose which while operating within a given set of conventions are imprecisesparse and open-ended in their possible interpretations tending more to themetaphor than the simile Such an approach requires deep cultural understand-ing and social sensitivity

Implications for Education

The pedagogical approach to meaningful urban design will be interdisciplinary(eg examining cities from the perspectives of architects landscape architects

Meaningful Urban Design 55

urban planners policy makers social workers and business interests) teleologi-cal (eg driven by the express purpose of addressing critical urban challengessuch as uncomfortable and unsafe built environments community powerless-ness economic deprivation and fragmented interventions) critical (eg based onin-depth understanding of urban design problems and promises throughanalysis of urban design practice and case studies) and catalytic (eg theformulation of effective urban design strategies that include a focus on urbandesign products such as building complexes and public spaces but also includethe generation of long-term community and economic development processes)

The primary impact on this type of learning for students will be an under-standing of the urban designer as a leader Through an in-depth analysis ofurban issues an interdisciplinary approach to urban problem solving and skillsthat focus not only on issues of urban aesthetics and form but also on purposefulintervention generated by long-term processes students will gain a profoundand empowering understanding of meaningful urban design Students of urbandesign will also gain humility and condence by studying the power structuresof cities (and realizing just how little power urban designers actually have)practising critical thinking and learning to be politically savvy in order toaccomplish their goals A secondary impact on learning for students will be aunique opportunity for them to shape the future direction of urban designthrough readings research discussions case-study analyses and project designsthat will focus on specic urban challenges examine deciencies in currenturban design approaches and projects in addressing those challenges andformulate alternative more meaningful urban design strategies

In order to reach such goals an urban design programme should focus on twomajor sets of skills understanding how cities work and learning to shape citiesUnderstanding cities includes their conception (eg urban theory and form)their evolution (eg history of urban form) their decision-making processes (egurban political economy) and their use and experience (eg urban sociology)Learning to shape cities includes design methods (eg based on empiricalevidence and community participation) and communication skills (eg graphicverbal written and computer-based) The goal of a meaningful urban designpedagogical initiative would be to attract students of the built environment (egarchitects landscape architects and urban planners) who will become sophisti-cated practitioners and inuential leaders of urban design in architectural andplanning rms community organizations public agencies and internationalinstitutions The initiative would thus involve (1) teaching of exploratoryseminars and studios in new urban design methodologies (eg internationalstudios) (2) research into the relevant roles of professionals especially architectsand planners in the urban design of contemporary cities (eg institutionalstructures) and (3) professional work in the form of community outreach andproject analysis (eg evaluating New Urbanism)

In summary a meaningful pedagogical approach to urban design should havethe following characteristics (1) small (ie selective)mdashfocus on key urban designchallenges eg inner city revitalization (2) focused (ie depth)mdashdevelop exper-tise in the urban designurban development nexus (3) distinct (ie cutting-edge)mdashexperiment with new studio formats projects and research eginternational collaboration and cross-cultural learning and (4) existing resources(ie breadth)mdashbuild upon other departments eg social work business naturalresources and environment

56 A Inam

The critical question that guides this meaningful future of urban design issimply So what That is what consequential purpose has been achieved byparticular urban design theories urban design methodologies urban designpractices and urban design practitioners The implication of such probingquestions is that it is far from adequate to consider urban design projects assuccessful if they are only physically appealing or thought-provoking

Conclusion

In conclusion the author would like to return to the provocations that werereferred to at the beginning of this paper While both Rem Koolhaas and MichaelSorkin are emblematic of the image-based architect-driven urban design thatpermeates much of the world and especially the USA they are also contributorsto an urban design strategy that is realistic and contrary to the nostalgia evokedby the New Urbanism and neo-traditional movements Thus for Koolhaas

If there is to be a lsquonew urbanismrsquo it will not be based on the twinfantasies of order and omnipotence hellip but about discovering unnam-able hybrids [as is the case with Los Angeles] hellip Redened urbanismwill not only or mostly be a profession but a way of thinking anideology to accept what exists We were making sand castles Now weswim in the sea that swept them away (Koolhaas 1995 pp 969ndash971)

Koolhaas thus encourages us rst to accept the contemporary urban condition(instead of seeing it through rose-tinted lenses) and second as architects urbandesigners and planners to understand and work with the contemporary urbanforces (instead of imagining a world without cars or highways)

Similarly Sorkin extols us to learn from those urban design projects and urbanenvironments which are successful in terms of the designerrsquos objectives ofattracting people to these environments and the vibrant use of these environ-ments by people Even if the objectives were to differ say in terms of greatersocial interaction and co-operation in a neighbourhood the designers of shop-ping malls gambling casinos and amusement parks at least understand humanbehaviour as it relates to entertainment and consumptionmdashlessons which can beused for other perhaps more noble projects Thus according to Sorkin (1997pp 29ndash31)

Disneyland hellip is foremost a playground of mobility its entertainmentslargely those of pleasured motion And there is something to belearned here It seems undeniable that for all of its depredations all ofits regimentation surveillance and control part of what we experienceas enjoyable at Disneyland is the passage through an environment ofurban density in which both the physical texture and the means ofcirculation are not simply entertaining but stand in invigorating con-trast to the dysfunctional versions back home One extracts fromDisneyland a shred of hope the persuasive example that pedestrianismcoupled with short distance collective transport systems can be bothefcient and fun can thrive in the midst of an environment completelyotherwise constituted and that the space of low sufciently deceler-ated can become the space of exchange

Meaningful Urban Design 57

Figure 6 The design of Disneyland in Los Angeles CAmdashalbeit lsquoarticialrsquo anddesigned to foster consumptionmdashoffers deeper lessons for understanding humanbehaviour and creating exciting environmentsmdashfor say multicultural interac-

tionmdashbased on such understanding

The lsquoshred of hopersquo offered by Disneyland (see Figure 6) is constituted by suchlessons carefully and critically collected from numerous examples of contempor-ary urban design projects and articulatedmdashvia relevant history theory andmethodologymdashinto a meaningful approach to urban design

Acknowledgement

This paper was the second place winner of the 1999 Chicago Institute forArchitecture and Urbanism (CIAU) Award This award administered by theSkidmore Owings amp Merrill Foundation on behalf of the CIAU is for unpub-lished papers and is intended to encourage writing and research on the questionof how architecture infrastructure urban design and planning can contribute toimproving the quality of life of the American city For more information aboutthis award the Foundation can be contacted at somfoundationsomcom

References

Alexander C Ishikawa S Silverstein M Jacobson M Fiksdahl-King I amp Angel S (1977) APattern Language Towns Buildings Construction (New York Oxford University Press)

Attoe W amp Logan D (1989) American Urban Architecture Catalysts in the Design of Cities (BerkeleyUniversity of California Press)

Beauregard R (1995) Theorizing the globalndashlocal connection in P Knox amp P Taylor (Eds) WorldCities in a World System (Cambridge Cambridge University Press)

Beckley R (1998) [Dean Emeritus and Professor of Architecture and Urban Planning College ofArchitecture and Urban Planning University of Michigan] Written interview

Bratt R (1986) Public housing the controversy and the contribution in R Bratt C Hartman amp AMeyerson (Eds) Critical Perspectives in Housing (Philadelphia PA Temple University Press)

Calthorpe P (1993) The Next American Metropolis Ecology Communities and the American Dream (NewYork Princeton Architectural Press)

58 A Inam

Ciriani H (1997) Henri Ciriani (Rockport MA Rockport Publishers)Crane D (1966) Planning and Design in New York A Study of Problems and Processes of its Physical

Environment (New York Institute of Public Administration)Ellin N (1996) Postmodern Urbanism (Cambridge MA Blackwell)Frampton K (1992a) Critical regionalism modern architecture and cultural identityFrampton K (1992b) Modern Architecture A Critical History 3rd edn (London Thames amp Hudson)Frieden B amp Sagalyn L (1989) Downtown Inc How America Rebuilds Cities (Cambridge MA MIT

Press)Garvin A (1996) The American City What Works What Doesnrsquot (New York McGraw-Hill)Gilbert A amp Gugler J (1992) Cities Poverty and Development Urbanization in the Third World 2nd edn

(New York Oxford University Press)Hester R (1990) Community Design Primer (Mendocino CA Ridge Times Press)Inam A (1992) The urban monument symbol memory presence masterrsquos thesis in urban design

Washington University St LouisInam A (1997) Institutions routines and crises post-earthquake housing recovery in Mexico City

and Los Angeles doctoral dissertation in urban planning University of Southern California LosAngeles CA

Jacobs A (1993) Great Streets (Cambridge MA MIT Press)Jacobs J (1961) The Death and Life of Great American Cities (New York Random House)Jones T Pettus W amp Pyatok M (1995) Good Neighbors Affordable Family Housing (New York

McGraw-Hill)Kasprisin R amp Pettinari J (1995) Visual Thinking for Architects and Designers Visualizing Context in

Design (New York Van Nostrand Reinhold)Kelbaugh D (1997) Common Place Toward Neighborhood and Regional Design (Seattle WA University

of Washington Press)Koolhaas R (1995) Small Medium Large Extra Large (Rotterdam 010 Publishers)Kostof S (1991) The City Shaped Urban Patterns and Meanings through History (Boston MA Bulnch

Press)Krumholz N amp Clavel P (1994) Reinventing Cities Equity Planners Tell Their Stories (Philadelphia

Temple University Press)Lagerfeld S (1995) What Main Street can learn from the mall Atlantic Monthly November

pp 110ndash120Lai R T (1988) Law in Urban Design and Planning The Invisible Web (New York Van Nostrand

Reinhold)Loukaitou-Sideris A amp Banerjee T (1998) Urban Design Downtown Poetics and Politics of Form

(Berkeley CA University of California Press)Lynch K (1981) Good City Form (Cambridge MA MIT Press)Moore G amp Marans R (Eds) (1997) Advances in Environment Behavior and Design Toward the

Integration of Theory Methods Research and Utilization (New York Plenum Press)Porter M (1995) The competitive advantage of the inner city Harvard Business Review 73 pp 55ndash71Rowe P (1991) Making a Middle Landscape (Cambridge MA MIT Press)Rowe P (1997) Civic Realism (Cambridge MA MIT Press)Sandercock L (1998) Towards Cosmopolis Planning for Multicultural Cities (Chichester NY John

Wiley)Sassen S (2000) Cities in a World Economy 2nd edn (Thousand Oaks CA Pine Forge Press)Saunders W (1997) Rem Koolhaasrsquos writing on cities poetic perception and gnomic fantasy Journal

of Architectural Education 51 pp 61ndash71Savitch H V (1988) Post-Industrial Cities Politics and Planning in New York Paris and London

(Princeton NJ Princeton University Press)Schneekloth L amp Shibley R (1995) Placemaking The Art and Practice of Building Communities (New

York Wiley)Segal M B (1995) An old commercial district goes from cold to hot Urban Land 54 (11) pp 16ndash18Serageldin I (Ed) (1997) The Architecture of Empowerment People Shelter and Livable Cities (London

Academy Editions)Short J R (1996) The Urban Order An Introduction to Cities Culture and Power (Cambridge MA

Blackwell)Sorkin M (1997) Trafc in Democracy 1997 Raoul Wallenberg Lecture (Ann Arbor MI College of

Architecture and Urban Planning University of Michigan)Urban Design Group (1998) Involving local communities in urban design Urban Design Quarterly 67

pp 15ndash38

54 A Inam

denitions two decades old that are still relevant today a city is a ldquorelativelylarge dense and permanent settlement [or network of settlements] of sociallyheterogeneous individualsrdquo (L Worth cited in Kostof 1991 p 37) and a ldquopoint[or points] of maximum concentration for the power and culture of a com-munityrdquo (L Mumford cited in Kostof 1991 p 37) The urban designerrsquos impera-tive then is to understand cities On the one hand the most enduring featureof the city is its physical build which remains with remarkable persistencegaining increments that are responsive to the most recent economic demand andreective of the latest stylistic vogue but conserving evidence of past urbanculture for present and future generations On the other hand however urbansociety changes more than any other human grouping economic innovationusually comes most rapidly and boldly in cities immigration aims rst at theurban core forcing upon cities the critical role of acculturating refugees frommany countrysides and the winds of intellectual advance blow strong in cities(Vance cited in Kostof 1991)

Based on the new synthesis of ideas proposed in this paper there are threelevels of success of an urban design project These include rst the purelyaesthetically informed notion of urban design as a nished product (eg Does itlook good) The second is the sense of the project as an autonomous object thatfunctions in an affordable convenient and comfortable manner for its users (egDoes it work) The third and new idea is to have the urban design projectgenerate or substantially contribute to socio-economic development processes(eg Does it produce long-term quality of life impacts) In this sense urbandesigners and urban design projects become catalysts for community bettermenteconomic improvement and international understanding

Consequently urban designers should focus more on the lsquourbanrsquo of urbandesign and become less infatuated with the lsquodesignrsquo of urban design Urbandesign must begin with cities how they work and change and what impacts theyhave in creating enabling vs destructive impacts For example urban design hasto be seen within the framework of investment and development policies andas a shaper of those policies Cranersquos (1966) capital web of investment decisionsand Lairsquos (1988) invisible web of laws and norms that guide peoplersquos behaviourAt the same time design and form play a critical role because they are a languageand vocabulary for analysing and intervening in cities

At the most fundamental level all urban design should be responsible forcreating an environment that satises informs and inspires its users (ie thecommunity) This is an urban design that possesses an articulate communicativeprociency Urban design of profound signicance has a poetic quality By themeans of compressing its meanings into a concise formal expression a poeticurban design project draws the mind to a level of perception concealed behindthe conventional presentations of urban form The most effective symbols arethose which while operating within a given set of conventions are imprecisesparse and open-ended in their possible interpretations tending more to themetaphor than the simile Such an approach requires deep cultural understand-ing and social sensitivity

Implications for Education

The pedagogical approach to meaningful urban design will be interdisciplinary(eg examining cities from the perspectives of architects landscape architects

Meaningful Urban Design 55

urban planners policy makers social workers and business interests) teleologi-cal (eg driven by the express purpose of addressing critical urban challengessuch as uncomfortable and unsafe built environments community powerless-ness economic deprivation and fragmented interventions) critical (eg based onin-depth understanding of urban design problems and promises throughanalysis of urban design practice and case studies) and catalytic (eg theformulation of effective urban design strategies that include a focus on urbandesign products such as building complexes and public spaces but also includethe generation of long-term community and economic development processes)

The primary impact on this type of learning for students will be an under-standing of the urban designer as a leader Through an in-depth analysis ofurban issues an interdisciplinary approach to urban problem solving and skillsthat focus not only on issues of urban aesthetics and form but also on purposefulintervention generated by long-term processes students will gain a profoundand empowering understanding of meaningful urban design Students of urbandesign will also gain humility and condence by studying the power structuresof cities (and realizing just how little power urban designers actually have)practising critical thinking and learning to be politically savvy in order toaccomplish their goals A secondary impact on learning for students will be aunique opportunity for them to shape the future direction of urban designthrough readings research discussions case-study analyses and project designsthat will focus on specic urban challenges examine deciencies in currenturban design approaches and projects in addressing those challenges andformulate alternative more meaningful urban design strategies

In order to reach such goals an urban design programme should focus on twomajor sets of skills understanding how cities work and learning to shape citiesUnderstanding cities includes their conception (eg urban theory and form)their evolution (eg history of urban form) their decision-making processes (egurban political economy) and their use and experience (eg urban sociology)Learning to shape cities includes design methods (eg based on empiricalevidence and community participation) and communication skills (eg graphicverbal written and computer-based) The goal of a meaningful urban designpedagogical initiative would be to attract students of the built environment (egarchitects landscape architects and urban planners) who will become sophisti-cated practitioners and inuential leaders of urban design in architectural andplanning rms community organizations public agencies and internationalinstitutions The initiative would thus involve (1) teaching of exploratoryseminars and studios in new urban design methodologies (eg internationalstudios) (2) research into the relevant roles of professionals especially architectsand planners in the urban design of contemporary cities (eg institutionalstructures) and (3) professional work in the form of community outreach andproject analysis (eg evaluating New Urbanism)

In summary a meaningful pedagogical approach to urban design should havethe following characteristics (1) small (ie selective)mdashfocus on key urban designchallenges eg inner city revitalization (2) focused (ie depth)mdashdevelop exper-tise in the urban designurban development nexus (3) distinct (ie cutting-edge)mdashexperiment with new studio formats projects and research eginternational collaboration and cross-cultural learning and (4) existing resources(ie breadth)mdashbuild upon other departments eg social work business naturalresources and environment

56 A Inam

The critical question that guides this meaningful future of urban design issimply So what That is what consequential purpose has been achieved byparticular urban design theories urban design methodologies urban designpractices and urban design practitioners The implication of such probingquestions is that it is far from adequate to consider urban design projects assuccessful if they are only physically appealing or thought-provoking

Conclusion

In conclusion the author would like to return to the provocations that werereferred to at the beginning of this paper While both Rem Koolhaas and MichaelSorkin are emblematic of the image-based architect-driven urban design thatpermeates much of the world and especially the USA they are also contributorsto an urban design strategy that is realistic and contrary to the nostalgia evokedby the New Urbanism and neo-traditional movements Thus for Koolhaas

If there is to be a lsquonew urbanismrsquo it will not be based on the twinfantasies of order and omnipotence hellip but about discovering unnam-able hybrids [as is the case with Los Angeles] hellip Redened urbanismwill not only or mostly be a profession but a way of thinking anideology to accept what exists We were making sand castles Now weswim in the sea that swept them away (Koolhaas 1995 pp 969ndash971)

Koolhaas thus encourages us rst to accept the contemporary urban condition(instead of seeing it through rose-tinted lenses) and second as architects urbandesigners and planners to understand and work with the contemporary urbanforces (instead of imagining a world without cars or highways)

Similarly Sorkin extols us to learn from those urban design projects and urbanenvironments which are successful in terms of the designerrsquos objectives ofattracting people to these environments and the vibrant use of these environ-ments by people Even if the objectives were to differ say in terms of greatersocial interaction and co-operation in a neighbourhood the designers of shop-ping malls gambling casinos and amusement parks at least understand humanbehaviour as it relates to entertainment and consumptionmdashlessons which can beused for other perhaps more noble projects Thus according to Sorkin (1997pp 29ndash31)

Disneyland hellip is foremost a playground of mobility its entertainmentslargely those of pleasured motion And there is something to belearned here It seems undeniable that for all of its depredations all ofits regimentation surveillance and control part of what we experienceas enjoyable at Disneyland is the passage through an environment ofurban density in which both the physical texture and the means ofcirculation are not simply entertaining but stand in invigorating con-trast to the dysfunctional versions back home One extracts fromDisneyland a shred of hope the persuasive example that pedestrianismcoupled with short distance collective transport systems can be bothefcient and fun can thrive in the midst of an environment completelyotherwise constituted and that the space of low sufciently deceler-ated can become the space of exchange

Meaningful Urban Design 57

Figure 6 The design of Disneyland in Los Angeles CAmdashalbeit lsquoarticialrsquo anddesigned to foster consumptionmdashoffers deeper lessons for understanding humanbehaviour and creating exciting environmentsmdashfor say multicultural interac-

tionmdashbased on such understanding

The lsquoshred of hopersquo offered by Disneyland (see Figure 6) is constituted by suchlessons carefully and critically collected from numerous examples of contempor-ary urban design projects and articulatedmdashvia relevant history theory andmethodologymdashinto a meaningful approach to urban design

Acknowledgement

This paper was the second place winner of the 1999 Chicago Institute forArchitecture and Urbanism (CIAU) Award This award administered by theSkidmore Owings amp Merrill Foundation on behalf of the CIAU is for unpub-lished papers and is intended to encourage writing and research on the questionof how architecture infrastructure urban design and planning can contribute toimproving the quality of life of the American city For more information aboutthis award the Foundation can be contacted at somfoundationsomcom

References

Alexander C Ishikawa S Silverstein M Jacobson M Fiksdahl-King I amp Angel S (1977) APattern Language Towns Buildings Construction (New York Oxford University Press)

Attoe W amp Logan D (1989) American Urban Architecture Catalysts in the Design of Cities (BerkeleyUniversity of California Press)

Beauregard R (1995) Theorizing the globalndashlocal connection in P Knox amp P Taylor (Eds) WorldCities in a World System (Cambridge Cambridge University Press)

Beckley R (1998) [Dean Emeritus and Professor of Architecture and Urban Planning College ofArchitecture and Urban Planning University of Michigan] Written interview

Bratt R (1986) Public housing the controversy and the contribution in R Bratt C Hartman amp AMeyerson (Eds) Critical Perspectives in Housing (Philadelphia PA Temple University Press)

Calthorpe P (1993) The Next American Metropolis Ecology Communities and the American Dream (NewYork Princeton Architectural Press)

58 A Inam

Ciriani H (1997) Henri Ciriani (Rockport MA Rockport Publishers)Crane D (1966) Planning and Design in New York A Study of Problems and Processes of its Physical

Environment (New York Institute of Public Administration)Ellin N (1996) Postmodern Urbanism (Cambridge MA Blackwell)Frampton K (1992a) Critical regionalism modern architecture and cultural identityFrampton K (1992b) Modern Architecture A Critical History 3rd edn (London Thames amp Hudson)Frieden B amp Sagalyn L (1989) Downtown Inc How America Rebuilds Cities (Cambridge MA MIT

Press)Garvin A (1996) The American City What Works What Doesnrsquot (New York McGraw-Hill)Gilbert A amp Gugler J (1992) Cities Poverty and Development Urbanization in the Third World 2nd edn

(New York Oxford University Press)Hester R (1990) Community Design Primer (Mendocino CA Ridge Times Press)Inam A (1992) The urban monument symbol memory presence masterrsquos thesis in urban design

Washington University St LouisInam A (1997) Institutions routines and crises post-earthquake housing recovery in Mexico City

and Los Angeles doctoral dissertation in urban planning University of Southern California LosAngeles CA

Jacobs A (1993) Great Streets (Cambridge MA MIT Press)Jacobs J (1961) The Death and Life of Great American Cities (New York Random House)Jones T Pettus W amp Pyatok M (1995) Good Neighbors Affordable Family Housing (New York

McGraw-Hill)Kasprisin R amp Pettinari J (1995) Visual Thinking for Architects and Designers Visualizing Context in

Design (New York Van Nostrand Reinhold)Kelbaugh D (1997) Common Place Toward Neighborhood and Regional Design (Seattle WA University

of Washington Press)Koolhaas R (1995) Small Medium Large Extra Large (Rotterdam 010 Publishers)Kostof S (1991) The City Shaped Urban Patterns and Meanings through History (Boston MA Bulnch

Press)Krumholz N amp Clavel P (1994) Reinventing Cities Equity Planners Tell Their Stories (Philadelphia

Temple University Press)Lagerfeld S (1995) What Main Street can learn from the mall Atlantic Monthly November

pp 110ndash120Lai R T (1988) Law in Urban Design and Planning The Invisible Web (New York Van Nostrand

Reinhold)Loukaitou-Sideris A amp Banerjee T (1998) Urban Design Downtown Poetics and Politics of Form

(Berkeley CA University of California Press)Lynch K (1981) Good City Form (Cambridge MA MIT Press)Moore G amp Marans R (Eds) (1997) Advances in Environment Behavior and Design Toward the

Integration of Theory Methods Research and Utilization (New York Plenum Press)Porter M (1995) The competitive advantage of the inner city Harvard Business Review 73 pp 55ndash71Rowe P (1991) Making a Middle Landscape (Cambridge MA MIT Press)Rowe P (1997) Civic Realism (Cambridge MA MIT Press)Sandercock L (1998) Towards Cosmopolis Planning for Multicultural Cities (Chichester NY John

Wiley)Sassen S (2000) Cities in a World Economy 2nd edn (Thousand Oaks CA Pine Forge Press)Saunders W (1997) Rem Koolhaasrsquos writing on cities poetic perception and gnomic fantasy Journal

of Architectural Education 51 pp 61ndash71Savitch H V (1988) Post-Industrial Cities Politics and Planning in New York Paris and London

(Princeton NJ Princeton University Press)Schneekloth L amp Shibley R (1995) Placemaking The Art and Practice of Building Communities (New

York Wiley)Segal M B (1995) An old commercial district goes from cold to hot Urban Land 54 (11) pp 16ndash18Serageldin I (Ed) (1997) The Architecture of Empowerment People Shelter and Livable Cities (London

Academy Editions)Short J R (1996) The Urban Order An Introduction to Cities Culture and Power (Cambridge MA

Blackwell)Sorkin M (1997) Trafc in Democracy 1997 Raoul Wallenberg Lecture (Ann Arbor MI College of

Architecture and Urban Planning University of Michigan)Urban Design Group (1998) Involving local communities in urban design Urban Design Quarterly 67

pp 15ndash38

Meaningful Urban Design 55

urban planners policy makers social workers and business interests) teleologi-cal (eg driven by the express purpose of addressing critical urban challengessuch as uncomfortable and unsafe built environments community powerless-ness economic deprivation and fragmented interventions) critical (eg based onin-depth understanding of urban design problems and promises throughanalysis of urban design practice and case studies) and catalytic (eg theformulation of effective urban design strategies that include a focus on urbandesign products such as building complexes and public spaces but also includethe generation of long-term community and economic development processes)

The primary impact on this type of learning for students will be an under-standing of the urban designer as a leader Through an in-depth analysis ofurban issues an interdisciplinary approach to urban problem solving and skillsthat focus not only on issues of urban aesthetics and form but also on purposefulintervention generated by long-term processes students will gain a profoundand empowering understanding of meaningful urban design Students of urbandesign will also gain humility and condence by studying the power structuresof cities (and realizing just how little power urban designers actually have)practising critical thinking and learning to be politically savvy in order toaccomplish their goals A secondary impact on learning for students will be aunique opportunity for them to shape the future direction of urban designthrough readings research discussions case-study analyses and project designsthat will focus on specic urban challenges examine deciencies in currenturban design approaches and projects in addressing those challenges andformulate alternative more meaningful urban design strategies

In order to reach such goals an urban design programme should focus on twomajor sets of skills understanding how cities work and learning to shape citiesUnderstanding cities includes their conception (eg urban theory and form)their evolution (eg history of urban form) their decision-making processes (egurban political economy) and their use and experience (eg urban sociology)Learning to shape cities includes design methods (eg based on empiricalevidence and community participation) and communication skills (eg graphicverbal written and computer-based) The goal of a meaningful urban designpedagogical initiative would be to attract students of the built environment (egarchitects landscape architects and urban planners) who will become sophisti-cated practitioners and inuential leaders of urban design in architectural andplanning rms community organizations public agencies and internationalinstitutions The initiative would thus involve (1) teaching of exploratoryseminars and studios in new urban design methodologies (eg internationalstudios) (2) research into the relevant roles of professionals especially architectsand planners in the urban design of contemporary cities (eg institutionalstructures) and (3) professional work in the form of community outreach andproject analysis (eg evaluating New Urbanism)

In summary a meaningful pedagogical approach to urban design should havethe following characteristics (1) small (ie selective)mdashfocus on key urban designchallenges eg inner city revitalization (2) focused (ie depth)mdashdevelop exper-tise in the urban designurban development nexus (3) distinct (ie cutting-edge)mdashexperiment with new studio formats projects and research eginternational collaboration and cross-cultural learning and (4) existing resources(ie breadth)mdashbuild upon other departments eg social work business naturalresources and environment

56 A Inam

The critical question that guides this meaningful future of urban design issimply So what That is what consequential purpose has been achieved byparticular urban design theories urban design methodologies urban designpractices and urban design practitioners The implication of such probingquestions is that it is far from adequate to consider urban design projects assuccessful if they are only physically appealing or thought-provoking

Conclusion

In conclusion the author would like to return to the provocations that werereferred to at the beginning of this paper While both Rem Koolhaas and MichaelSorkin are emblematic of the image-based architect-driven urban design thatpermeates much of the world and especially the USA they are also contributorsto an urban design strategy that is realistic and contrary to the nostalgia evokedby the New Urbanism and neo-traditional movements Thus for Koolhaas

If there is to be a lsquonew urbanismrsquo it will not be based on the twinfantasies of order and omnipotence hellip but about discovering unnam-able hybrids [as is the case with Los Angeles] hellip Redened urbanismwill not only or mostly be a profession but a way of thinking anideology to accept what exists We were making sand castles Now weswim in the sea that swept them away (Koolhaas 1995 pp 969ndash971)

Koolhaas thus encourages us rst to accept the contemporary urban condition(instead of seeing it through rose-tinted lenses) and second as architects urbandesigners and planners to understand and work with the contemporary urbanforces (instead of imagining a world without cars or highways)

Similarly Sorkin extols us to learn from those urban design projects and urbanenvironments which are successful in terms of the designerrsquos objectives ofattracting people to these environments and the vibrant use of these environ-ments by people Even if the objectives were to differ say in terms of greatersocial interaction and co-operation in a neighbourhood the designers of shop-ping malls gambling casinos and amusement parks at least understand humanbehaviour as it relates to entertainment and consumptionmdashlessons which can beused for other perhaps more noble projects Thus according to Sorkin (1997pp 29ndash31)

Disneyland hellip is foremost a playground of mobility its entertainmentslargely those of pleasured motion And there is something to belearned here It seems undeniable that for all of its depredations all ofits regimentation surveillance and control part of what we experienceas enjoyable at Disneyland is the passage through an environment ofurban density in which both the physical texture and the means ofcirculation are not simply entertaining but stand in invigorating con-trast to the dysfunctional versions back home One extracts fromDisneyland a shred of hope the persuasive example that pedestrianismcoupled with short distance collective transport systems can be bothefcient and fun can thrive in the midst of an environment completelyotherwise constituted and that the space of low sufciently deceler-ated can become the space of exchange

Meaningful Urban Design 57

Figure 6 The design of Disneyland in Los Angeles CAmdashalbeit lsquoarticialrsquo anddesigned to foster consumptionmdashoffers deeper lessons for understanding humanbehaviour and creating exciting environmentsmdashfor say multicultural interac-

tionmdashbased on such understanding

The lsquoshred of hopersquo offered by Disneyland (see Figure 6) is constituted by suchlessons carefully and critically collected from numerous examples of contempor-ary urban design projects and articulatedmdashvia relevant history theory andmethodologymdashinto a meaningful approach to urban design

Acknowledgement

This paper was the second place winner of the 1999 Chicago Institute forArchitecture and Urbanism (CIAU) Award This award administered by theSkidmore Owings amp Merrill Foundation on behalf of the CIAU is for unpub-lished papers and is intended to encourage writing and research on the questionof how architecture infrastructure urban design and planning can contribute toimproving the quality of life of the American city For more information aboutthis award the Foundation can be contacted at somfoundationsomcom

References

Alexander C Ishikawa S Silverstein M Jacobson M Fiksdahl-King I amp Angel S (1977) APattern Language Towns Buildings Construction (New York Oxford University Press)

Attoe W amp Logan D (1989) American Urban Architecture Catalysts in the Design of Cities (BerkeleyUniversity of California Press)

Beauregard R (1995) Theorizing the globalndashlocal connection in P Knox amp P Taylor (Eds) WorldCities in a World System (Cambridge Cambridge University Press)

Beckley R (1998) [Dean Emeritus and Professor of Architecture and Urban Planning College ofArchitecture and Urban Planning University of Michigan] Written interview

Bratt R (1986) Public housing the controversy and the contribution in R Bratt C Hartman amp AMeyerson (Eds) Critical Perspectives in Housing (Philadelphia PA Temple University Press)

Calthorpe P (1993) The Next American Metropolis Ecology Communities and the American Dream (NewYork Princeton Architectural Press)

58 A Inam

Ciriani H (1997) Henri Ciriani (Rockport MA Rockport Publishers)Crane D (1966) Planning and Design in New York A Study of Problems and Processes of its Physical

Environment (New York Institute of Public Administration)Ellin N (1996) Postmodern Urbanism (Cambridge MA Blackwell)Frampton K (1992a) Critical regionalism modern architecture and cultural identityFrampton K (1992b) Modern Architecture A Critical History 3rd edn (London Thames amp Hudson)Frieden B amp Sagalyn L (1989) Downtown Inc How America Rebuilds Cities (Cambridge MA MIT

Press)Garvin A (1996) The American City What Works What Doesnrsquot (New York McGraw-Hill)Gilbert A amp Gugler J (1992) Cities Poverty and Development Urbanization in the Third World 2nd edn

(New York Oxford University Press)Hester R (1990) Community Design Primer (Mendocino CA Ridge Times Press)Inam A (1992) The urban monument symbol memory presence masterrsquos thesis in urban design

Washington University St LouisInam A (1997) Institutions routines and crises post-earthquake housing recovery in Mexico City

and Los Angeles doctoral dissertation in urban planning University of Southern California LosAngeles CA

Jacobs A (1993) Great Streets (Cambridge MA MIT Press)Jacobs J (1961) The Death and Life of Great American Cities (New York Random House)Jones T Pettus W amp Pyatok M (1995) Good Neighbors Affordable Family Housing (New York

McGraw-Hill)Kasprisin R amp Pettinari J (1995) Visual Thinking for Architects and Designers Visualizing Context in

Design (New York Van Nostrand Reinhold)Kelbaugh D (1997) Common Place Toward Neighborhood and Regional Design (Seattle WA University

of Washington Press)Koolhaas R (1995) Small Medium Large Extra Large (Rotterdam 010 Publishers)Kostof S (1991) The City Shaped Urban Patterns and Meanings through History (Boston MA Bulnch

Press)Krumholz N amp Clavel P (1994) Reinventing Cities Equity Planners Tell Their Stories (Philadelphia

Temple University Press)Lagerfeld S (1995) What Main Street can learn from the mall Atlantic Monthly November

pp 110ndash120Lai R T (1988) Law in Urban Design and Planning The Invisible Web (New York Van Nostrand

Reinhold)Loukaitou-Sideris A amp Banerjee T (1998) Urban Design Downtown Poetics and Politics of Form

(Berkeley CA University of California Press)Lynch K (1981) Good City Form (Cambridge MA MIT Press)Moore G amp Marans R (Eds) (1997) Advances in Environment Behavior and Design Toward the

Integration of Theory Methods Research and Utilization (New York Plenum Press)Porter M (1995) The competitive advantage of the inner city Harvard Business Review 73 pp 55ndash71Rowe P (1991) Making a Middle Landscape (Cambridge MA MIT Press)Rowe P (1997) Civic Realism (Cambridge MA MIT Press)Sandercock L (1998) Towards Cosmopolis Planning for Multicultural Cities (Chichester NY John

Wiley)Sassen S (2000) Cities in a World Economy 2nd edn (Thousand Oaks CA Pine Forge Press)Saunders W (1997) Rem Koolhaasrsquos writing on cities poetic perception and gnomic fantasy Journal

of Architectural Education 51 pp 61ndash71Savitch H V (1988) Post-Industrial Cities Politics and Planning in New York Paris and London

(Princeton NJ Princeton University Press)Schneekloth L amp Shibley R (1995) Placemaking The Art and Practice of Building Communities (New

York Wiley)Segal M B (1995) An old commercial district goes from cold to hot Urban Land 54 (11) pp 16ndash18Serageldin I (Ed) (1997) The Architecture of Empowerment People Shelter and Livable Cities (London

Academy Editions)Short J R (1996) The Urban Order An Introduction to Cities Culture and Power (Cambridge MA

Blackwell)Sorkin M (1997) Trafc in Democracy 1997 Raoul Wallenberg Lecture (Ann Arbor MI College of

Architecture and Urban Planning University of Michigan)Urban Design Group (1998) Involving local communities in urban design Urban Design Quarterly 67

pp 15ndash38

56 A Inam

The critical question that guides this meaningful future of urban design issimply So what That is what consequential purpose has been achieved byparticular urban design theories urban design methodologies urban designpractices and urban design practitioners The implication of such probingquestions is that it is far from adequate to consider urban design projects assuccessful if they are only physically appealing or thought-provoking

Conclusion

In conclusion the author would like to return to the provocations that werereferred to at the beginning of this paper While both Rem Koolhaas and MichaelSorkin are emblematic of the image-based architect-driven urban design thatpermeates much of the world and especially the USA they are also contributorsto an urban design strategy that is realistic and contrary to the nostalgia evokedby the New Urbanism and neo-traditional movements Thus for Koolhaas

If there is to be a lsquonew urbanismrsquo it will not be based on the twinfantasies of order and omnipotence hellip but about discovering unnam-able hybrids [as is the case with Los Angeles] hellip Redened urbanismwill not only or mostly be a profession but a way of thinking anideology to accept what exists We were making sand castles Now weswim in the sea that swept them away (Koolhaas 1995 pp 969ndash971)

Koolhaas thus encourages us rst to accept the contemporary urban condition(instead of seeing it through rose-tinted lenses) and second as architects urbandesigners and planners to understand and work with the contemporary urbanforces (instead of imagining a world without cars or highways)

Similarly Sorkin extols us to learn from those urban design projects and urbanenvironments which are successful in terms of the designerrsquos objectives ofattracting people to these environments and the vibrant use of these environ-ments by people Even if the objectives were to differ say in terms of greatersocial interaction and co-operation in a neighbourhood the designers of shop-ping malls gambling casinos and amusement parks at least understand humanbehaviour as it relates to entertainment and consumptionmdashlessons which can beused for other perhaps more noble projects Thus according to Sorkin (1997pp 29ndash31)

Disneyland hellip is foremost a playground of mobility its entertainmentslargely those of pleasured motion And there is something to belearned here It seems undeniable that for all of its depredations all ofits regimentation surveillance and control part of what we experienceas enjoyable at Disneyland is the passage through an environment ofurban density in which both the physical texture and the means ofcirculation are not simply entertaining but stand in invigorating con-trast to the dysfunctional versions back home One extracts fromDisneyland a shred of hope the persuasive example that pedestrianismcoupled with short distance collective transport systems can be bothefcient and fun can thrive in the midst of an environment completelyotherwise constituted and that the space of low sufciently deceler-ated can become the space of exchange

Meaningful Urban Design 57

Figure 6 The design of Disneyland in Los Angeles CAmdashalbeit lsquoarticialrsquo anddesigned to foster consumptionmdashoffers deeper lessons for understanding humanbehaviour and creating exciting environmentsmdashfor say multicultural interac-

tionmdashbased on such understanding

The lsquoshred of hopersquo offered by Disneyland (see Figure 6) is constituted by suchlessons carefully and critically collected from numerous examples of contempor-ary urban design projects and articulatedmdashvia relevant history theory andmethodologymdashinto a meaningful approach to urban design

Acknowledgement

This paper was the second place winner of the 1999 Chicago Institute forArchitecture and Urbanism (CIAU) Award This award administered by theSkidmore Owings amp Merrill Foundation on behalf of the CIAU is for unpub-lished papers and is intended to encourage writing and research on the questionof how architecture infrastructure urban design and planning can contribute toimproving the quality of life of the American city For more information aboutthis award the Foundation can be contacted at somfoundationsomcom

References

Alexander C Ishikawa S Silverstein M Jacobson M Fiksdahl-King I amp Angel S (1977) APattern Language Towns Buildings Construction (New York Oxford University Press)

Attoe W amp Logan D (1989) American Urban Architecture Catalysts in the Design of Cities (BerkeleyUniversity of California Press)

Beauregard R (1995) Theorizing the globalndashlocal connection in P Knox amp P Taylor (Eds) WorldCities in a World System (Cambridge Cambridge University Press)

Beckley R (1998) [Dean Emeritus and Professor of Architecture and Urban Planning College ofArchitecture and Urban Planning University of Michigan] Written interview

Bratt R (1986) Public housing the controversy and the contribution in R Bratt C Hartman amp AMeyerson (Eds) Critical Perspectives in Housing (Philadelphia PA Temple University Press)

Calthorpe P (1993) The Next American Metropolis Ecology Communities and the American Dream (NewYork Princeton Architectural Press)

58 A Inam

Ciriani H (1997) Henri Ciriani (Rockport MA Rockport Publishers)Crane D (1966) Planning and Design in New York A Study of Problems and Processes of its Physical

Environment (New York Institute of Public Administration)Ellin N (1996) Postmodern Urbanism (Cambridge MA Blackwell)Frampton K (1992a) Critical regionalism modern architecture and cultural identityFrampton K (1992b) Modern Architecture A Critical History 3rd edn (London Thames amp Hudson)Frieden B amp Sagalyn L (1989) Downtown Inc How America Rebuilds Cities (Cambridge MA MIT

Press)Garvin A (1996) The American City What Works What Doesnrsquot (New York McGraw-Hill)Gilbert A amp Gugler J (1992) Cities Poverty and Development Urbanization in the Third World 2nd edn

(New York Oxford University Press)Hester R (1990) Community Design Primer (Mendocino CA Ridge Times Press)Inam A (1992) The urban monument symbol memory presence masterrsquos thesis in urban design

Washington University St LouisInam A (1997) Institutions routines and crises post-earthquake housing recovery in Mexico City

and Los Angeles doctoral dissertation in urban planning University of Southern California LosAngeles CA

Jacobs A (1993) Great Streets (Cambridge MA MIT Press)Jacobs J (1961) The Death and Life of Great American Cities (New York Random House)Jones T Pettus W amp Pyatok M (1995) Good Neighbors Affordable Family Housing (New York

McGraw-Hill)Kasprisin R amp Pettinari J (1995) Visual Thinking for Architects and Designers Visualizing Context in

Design (New York Van Nostrand Reinhold)Kelbaugh D (1997) Common Place Toward Neighborhood and Regional Design (Seattle WA University

of Washington Press)Koolhaas R (1995) Small Medium Large Extra Large (Rotterdam 010 Publishers)Kostof S (1991) The City Shaped Urban Patterns and Meanings through History (Boston MA Bulnch

Press)Krumholz N amp Clavel P (1994) Reinventing Cities Equity Planners Tell Their Stories (Philadelphia

Temple University Press)Lagerfeld S (1995) What Main Street can learn from the mall Atlantic Monthly November

pp 110ndash120Lai R T (1988) Law in Urban Design and Planning The Invisible Web (New York Van Nostrand

Reinhold)Loukaitou-Sideris A amp Banerjee T (1998) Urban Design Downtown Poetics and Politics of Form

(Berkeley CA University of California Press)Lynch K (1981) Good City Form (Cambridge MA MIT Press)Moore G amp Marans R (Eds) (1997) Advances in Environment Behavior and Design Toward the

Integration of Theory Methods Research and Utilization (New York Plenum Press)Porter M (1995) The competitive advantage of the inner city Harvard Business Review 73 pp 55ndash71Rowe P (1991) Making a Middle Landscape (Cambridge MA MIT Press)Rowe P (1997) Civic Realism (Cambridge MA MIT Press)Sandercock L (1998) Towards Cosmopolis Planning for Multicultural Cities (Chichester NY John

Wiley)Sassen S (2000) Cities in a World Economy 2nd edn (Thousand Oaks CA Pine Forge Press)Saunders W (1997) Rem Koolhaasrsquos writing on cities poetic perception and gnomic fantasy Journal

of Architectural Education 51 pp 61ndash71Savitch H V (1988) Post-Industrial Cities Politics and Planning in New York Paris and London

(Princeton NJ Princeton University Press)Schneekloth L amp Shibley R (1995) Placemaking The Art and Practice of Building Communities (New

York Wiley)Segal M B (1995) An old commercial district goes from cold to hot Urban Land 54 (11) pp 16ndash18Serageldin I (Ed) (1997) The Architecture of Empowerment People Shelter and Livable Cities (London

Academy Editions)Short J R (1996) The Urban Order An Introduction to Cities Culture and Power (Cambridge MA

Blackwell)Sorkin M (1997) Trafc in Democracy 1997 Raoul Wallenberg Lecture (Ann Arbor MI College of

Architecture and Urban Planning University of Michigan)Urban Design Group (1998) Involving local communities in urban design Urban Design Quarterly 67

pp 15ndash38

Meaningful Urban Design 57

Figure 6 The design of Disneyland in Los Angeles CAmdashalbeit lsquoarticialrsquo anddesigned to foster consumptionmdashoffers deeper lessons for understanding humanbehaviour and creating exciting environmentsmdashfor say multicultural interac-

tionmdashbased on such understanding

The lsquoshred of hopersquo offered by Disneyland (see Figure 6) is constituted by suchlessons carefully and critically collected from numerous examples of contempor-ary urban design projects and articulatedmdashvia relevant history theory andmethodologymdashinto a meaningful approach to urban design

Acknowledgement

This paper was the second place winner of the 1999 Chicago Institute forArchitecture and Urbanism (CIAU) Award This award administered by theSkidmore Owings amp Merrill Foundation on behalf of the CIAU is for unpub-lished papers and is intended to encourage writing and research on the questionof how architecture infrastructure urban design and planning can contribute toimproving the quality of life of the American city For more information aboutthis award the Foundation can be contacted at somfoundationsomcom

References

Alexander C Ishikawa S Silverstein M Jacobson M Fiksdahl-King I amp Angel S (1977) APattern Language Towns Buildings Construction (New York Oxford University Press)

Attoe W amp Logan D (1989) American Urban Architecture Catalysts in the Design of Cities (BerkeleyUniversity of California Press)

Beauregard R (1995) Theorizing the globalndashlocal connection in P Knox amp P Taylor (Eds) WorldCities in a World System (Cambridge Cambridge University Press)

Beckley R (1998) [Dean Emeritus and Professor of Architecture and Urban Planning College ofArchitecture and Urban Planning University of Michigan] Written interview

Bratt R (1986) Public housing the controversy and the contribution in R Bratt C Hartman amp AMeyerson (Eds) Critical Perspectives in Housing (Philadelphia PA Temple University Press)

Calthorpe P (1993) The Next American Metropolis Ecology Communities and the American Dream (NewYork Princeton Architectural Press)

58 A Inam

Ciriani H (1997) Henri Ciriani (Rockport MA Rockport Publishers)Crane D (1966) Planning and Design in New York A Study of Problems and Processes of its Physical

Environment (New York Institute of Public Administration)Ellin N (1996) Postmodern Urbanism (Cambridge MA Blackwell)Frampton K (1992a) Critical regionalism modern architecture and cultural identityFrampton K (1992b) Modern Architecture A Critical History 3rd edn (London Thames amp Hudson)Frieden B amp Sagalyn L (1989) Downtown Inc How America Rebuilds Cities (Cambridge MA MIT

Press)Garvin A (1996) The American City What Works What Doesnrsquot (New York McGraw-Hill)Gilbert A amp Gugler J (1992) Cities Poverty and Development Urbanization in the Third World 2nd edn

(New York Oxford University Press)Hester R (1990) Community Design Primer (Mendocino CA Ridge Times Press)Inam A (1992) The urban monument symbol memory presence masterrsquos thesis in urban design

Washington University St LouisInam A (1997) Institutions routines and crises post-earthquake housing recovery in Mexico City

and Los Angeles doctoral dissertation in urban planning University of Southern California LosAngeles CA

Jacobs A (1993) Great Streets (Cambridge MA MIT Press)Jacobs J (1961) The Death and Life of Great American Cities (New York Random House)Jones T Pettus W amp Pyatok M (1995) Good Neighbors Affordable Family Housing (New York

McGraw-Hill)Kasprisin R amp Pettinari J (1995) Visual Thinking for Architects and Designers Visualizing Context in

Design (New York Van Nostrand Reinhold)Kelbaugh D (1997) Common Place Toward Neighborhood and Regional Design (Seattle WA University

of Washington Press)Koolhaas R (1995) Small Medium Large Extra Large (Rotterdam 010 Publishers)Kostof S (1991) The City Shaped Urban Patterns and Meanings through History (Boston MA Bulnch

Press)Krumholz N amp Clavel P (1994) Reinventing Cities Equity Planners Tell Their Stories (Philadelphia

Temple University Press)Lagerfeld S (1995) What Main Street can learn from the mall Atlantic Monthly November

pp 110ndash120Lai R T (1988) Law in Urban Design and Planning The Invisible Web (New York Van Nostrand

Reinhold)Loukaitou-Sideris A amp Banerjee T (1998) Urban Design Downtown Poetics and Politics of Form

(Berkeley CA University of California Press)Lynch K (1981) Good City Form (Cambridge MA MIT Press)Moore G amp Marans R (Eds) (1997) Advances in Environment Behavior and Design Toward the

Integration of Theory Methods Research and Utilization (New York Plenum Press)Porter M (1995) The competitive advantage of the inner city Harvard Business Review 73 pp 55ndash71Rowe P (1991) Making a Middle Landscape (Cambridge MA MIT Press)Rowe P (1997) Civic Realism (Cambridge MA MIT Press)Sandercock L (1998) Towards Cosmopolis Planning for Multicultural Cities (Chichester NY John

Wiley)Sassen S (2000) Cities in a World Economy 2nd edn (Thousand Oaks CA Pine Forge Press)Saunders W (1997) Rem Koolhaasrsquos writing on cities poetic perception and gnomic fantasy Journal

of Architectural Education 51 pp 61ndash71Savitch H V (1988) Post-Industrial Cities Politics and Planning in New York Paris and London

(Princeton NJ Princeton University Press)Schneekloth L amp Shibley R (1995) Placemaking The Art and Practice of Building Communities (New

York Wiley)Segal M B (1995) An old commercial district goes from cold to hot Urban Land 54 (11) pp 16ndash18Serageldin I (Ed) (1997) The Architecture of Empowerment People Shelter and Livable Cities (London

Academy Editions)Short J R (1996) The Urban Order An Introduction to Cities Culture and Power (Cambridge MA

Blackwell)Sorkin M (1997) Trafc in Democracy 1997 Raoul Wallenberg Lecture (Ann Arbor MI College of

Architecture and Urban Planning University of Michigan)Urban Design Group (1998) Involving local communities in urban design Urban Design Quarterly 67

pp 15ndash38

58 A Inam

Ciriani H (1997) Henri Ciriani (Rockport MA Rockport Publishers)Crane D (1966) Planning and Design in New York A Study of Problems and Processes of its Physical

Environment (New York Institute of Public Administration)Ellin N (1996) Postmodern Urbanism (Cambridge MA Blackwell)Frampton K (1992a) Critical regionalism modern architecture and cultural identityFrampton K (1992b) Modern Architecture A Critical History 3rd edn (London Thames amp Hudson)Frieden B amp Sagalyn L (1989) Downtown Inc How America Rebuilds Cities (Cambridge MA MIT

Press)Garvin A (1996) The American City What Works What Doesnrsquot (New York McGraw-Hill)Gilbert A amp Gugler J (1992) Cities Poverty and Development Urbanization in the Third World 2nd edn

(New York Oxford University Press)Hester R (1990) Community Design Primer (Mendocino CA Ridge Times Press)Inam A (1992) The urban monument symbol memory presence masterrsquos thesis in urban design

Washington University St LouisInam A (1997) Institutions routines and crises post-earthquake housing recovery in Mexico City

and Los Angeles doctoral dissertation in urban planning University of Southern California LosAngeles CA

Jacobs A (1993) Great Streets (Cambridge MA MIT Press)Jacobs J (1961) The Death and Life of Great American Cities (New York Random House)Jones T Pettus W amp Pyatok M (1995) Good Neighbors Affordable Family Housing (New York

McGraw-Hill)Kasprisin R amp Pettinari J (1995) Visual Thinking for Architects and Designers Visualizing Context in

Design (New York Van Nostrand Reinhold)Kelbaugh D (1997) Common Place Toward Neighborhood and Regional Design (Seattle WA University

of Washington Press)Koolhaas R (1995) Small Medium Large Extra Large (Rotterdam 010 Publishers)Kostof S (1991) The City Shaped Urban Patterns and Meanings through History (Boston MA Bulnch

Press)Krumholz N amp Clavel P (1994) Reinventing Cities Equity Planners Tell Their Stories (Philadelphia

Temple University Press)Lagerfeld S (1995) What Main Street can learn from the mall Atlantic Monthly November

pp 110ndash120Lai R T (1988) Law in Urban Design and Planning The Invisible Web (New York Van Nostrand

Reinhold)Loukaitou-Sideris A amp Banerjee T (1998) Urban Design Downtown Poetics and Politics of Form

(Berkeley CA University of California Press)Lynch K (1981) Good City Form (Cambridge MA MIT Press)Moore G amp Marans R (Eds) (1997) Advances in Environment Behavior and Design Toward the

Integration of Theory Methods Research and Utilization (New York Plenum Press)Porter M (1995) The competitive advantage of the inner city Harvard Business Review 73 pp 55ndash71Rowe P (1991) Making a Middle Landscape (Cambridge MA MIT Press)Rowe P (1997) Civic Realism (Cambridge MA MIT Press)Sandercock L (1998) Towards Cosmopolis Planning for Multicultural Cities (Chichester NY John

Wiley)Sassen S (2000) Cities in a World Economy 2nd edn (Thousand Oaks CA Pine Forge Press)Saunders W (1997) Rem Koolhaasrsquos writing on cities poetic perception and gnomic fantasy Journal

of Architectural Education 51 pp 61ndash71Savitch H V (1988) Post-Industrial Cities Politics and Planning in New York Paris and London

(Princeton NJ Princeton University Press)Schneekloth L amp Shibley R (1995) Placemaking The Art and Practice of Building Communities (New

York Wiley)Segal M B (1995) An old commercial district goes from cold to hot Urban Land 54 (11) pp 16ndash18Serageldin I (Ed) (1997) The Architecture of Empowerment People Shelter and Livable Cities (London

Academy Editions)Short J R (1996) The Urban Order An Introduction to Cities Culture and Power (Cambridge MA

Blackwell)Sorkin M (1997) Trafc in Democracy 1997 Raoul Wallenberg Lecture (Ann Arbor MI College of

Architecture and Urban Planning University of Michigan)Urban Design Group (1998) Involving local communities in urban design Urban Design Quarterly 67

pp 15ndash38