ARCH 161 REVIEWER (2nd LE)

LEC 6 | Urban Form and Function

OUTLINE
• Lost space: poor planning practices that affect urban form
• Economic models: economic factors that define urban form
• Urban ecological processes: natural processes that influence urban form
• City functions: socio-cultural, economic, and political functions that affect urban form

LOST SPACES
Factors that Cause Lost Space
1. THE AUTOMOBILE
• Large percentage of urban land → devoted to storage and movement of vehicles

2. MODERN MOVEMENT
• Founded on abstract ideals for the design of free standing buildings
o QC Memorial: surrounded by roads; inaccessible
o Turning Torso: people would rather live in normal walk up condos than here; closer to work;
no need to commute
o Olympic Spaces: used for a while then becomes useless in the long run
• Malls and high-rise towers create a disconnect of space
o Greenbelt Parks: have to park to get to park
o Resortsworld Manila: trying to create an “outdoor environment”
o Living in condos on high floors

3. URBAN RENEWAL, ZONING, AND LAND USE POLICIES

• Zoning legislations: separate functions that used to be integrated
o RESULT: city subdivided into homogeneous districts subdivided by traffic arteries
o Areas between districts: lost spaces in urban fabric
• Cluster Zoning: creating special zoning policies and regulations for medium to large sized
controlled developments
• Incentive Zoning: allowing more space of desirable features (plazas, arcades, open spaces) are
provided to the public
o New York: can build as high as you want, but need to allot open space

4. PRIVATIZATION OF PUBLIC SPACE

• Traditional social spaces → converted to private recreation areas
• City of collective spaces → transformed to city of private icons
• Tierra Pura: “pay to play” → dilapidated because no one uses it → teens hide out in the trees to
smoke and drink

5. CHANGING LAND USE

• Changing patterns in land use have redefined inner city spaces and have led to outmigration from
the city
o Reclaimed land and new developments
o Farm lands → new developments built near → crops die
ECONOMIC MODELS
Concentric Zone Model
• Formulated by E.W. Burgess
• Includes transition zone for eventual CBD expansion
• City grows OUTWARD from the CBD
• Has some deficiencies but simplicity stood the test of time

Sector Model
• Conceptualized by Homer Hoyt
• Developed under the premise that other uses grow with CBD
• Consistent with observation that most cities grow in the DIRECTION OF HIGHER INCOME
• High rent areas tend to grow…
o From a given point along lines of transportation
o Towards the high ground, free from flooding
o Towards the open country
• High rent areas tend to…
o Pull office buildings, banks, and stores along with them
o Continue to grow in the SAME direction for a long period
Multiple Nuclei Model
• By Chauncy Harris and Edward Pullman
• Uses don't evolve around a single core but at SEVERAL NODES AND FOCAL POINTS

4 FACTORS THAT GIVE RISE TO SEPARATE NUCLEI

• Certain activities have special requirements
o CBD = accessibility; warehousing/docks = waterfront; low density housing = land
• Some activities group together because they profit from cohesion
o Financial/office district; medical; retail districts
• Other activities are detrimental to each other
o Heavy industry and high rent residential; meat packing plants and funeral homes
• Certain activities can't afford high rents
o Forced together in the low rent areas
Urban Realms Model
• By James Vance
• Presents emergence of SELF-SUFFICIENT SECTORS
• Independent urban realms brought by impact of automobile

URBAN ECOLOGICAL PROCESSES

Invasion
• Entrance of a new population and/or facilities in an already occupied area

Centralization
• Increase in population at a certain geographic center
• Originally caused by urban functions like
o Centralized governmental power, security, amusement, trade and industry, education,
transportation, finance and banking, utilities

Decentralization
• Represents an exodus of residential population from central areas to the periphery

Suburbanization
• Moving to outskirts/hinterlands to escape "ills" of inner city

Block-boosting
• "Forcing" old population out of area because of social or racial differences
• Example: black people crossing the railroad tracks to live in white-dominated community
o White neighbors who lived nearby moved out because they felt that their safety was being
threatened
o Black people would move in newly unoccupied homes
Gentrification
• Improving physical set-up and consequently affecting the market for previously run-down areas

CITY FUNCTIONS
Economic
• Basic and continuing function
• City acts as producers and marketplaces
• Historically, cities were located at strategic points for exchange of goods
• Location of airports in relation to city centers → important economic factor

Defense and Protection

• Ancient urban functions of city (obsolete at present)
• Cities once built to withstand sieges from migrating tribes, or frequent raids from enemies

Worship and Government

• Prime function of city throughout history
• Cities built around temples, shrines, and pyramids (ancient Egypt, Greece, and Rome)
• Medieval cathedral: center of city (as were renaissance palaces and castles)

Transportation
• Greatly influences size and location of cities
• New means of transportation → enabled people to live in larger and more spread out cities
• Great contributions but has also done serious damage to physical and social fabric

Education
• Cities have always been the seat of academy and scholarship (continuing function)
• City is seen as an educator (due to diversity of people, ideas, jobs, etc.)

Cultural
• Ancient Greece and Rome: theater performances and education → vital functions of each city
• Ancient theaters, religious festivals, city beautification → reflection of cultural pride
o Sacrificed in favor of temporary economic concerns :(

Housing
• Largest and simplest function of a city
• Industrialization and modern transportation → completely changed housing patterns
• Industrial revolution: housing functions built to satisfy economic demands
• Through the years: housing functions of inner city have shifted to outlying areas
LEC 7 | City Comforts: How to Build an
Urban Village
• Shift in focus from grand strategic plans/vision to small details
• Presents a metaphor: the urban village
• Presents an oxymoron: urban (big city) and village (small settlement)

THE CHANCE ENCOUNTER

"The possibility of the accidental meeting is what makes the city a fertile place."
• Provide seats
o A seat is an explicit invitation to stay
o Plaza Sta. Cruz: plaza surrounded by cars (cars parked instead of people sitting by the
fountain) → hot; poor people stay there instead
• Let people purchase food or drinks
o Food attracts people
• Offer a conversation piece
o To send attention to an external object
• Encourage the chance encounter
o "The virtual office will succeed if there is a virtual watercooler"
• Build neighborhoods for the social stroll
• Build close to the sidewalk
o Conversation can be encouraged by physical proximity
o Power of suggestion can work on passerby who sees customers enjoying
• Put public space in the sun
• Put your cards (or chess pieces) on the table
o "People enjoy the amusement and challenge"
• Provide a place for music
o Pleasure of sound
o Unobtrusive way to bring people together
• Build bus shelters with public services
• Use sound to permit conversation
o White noise can provide privacy
• Build-in bus-stop seating
• Let readers sip
o Libraries/bookstores + coffee = <3

KNOWING WHERE YOU ARE

"A village is small enough to be comprehensible."
• Create gateways for neighborhoods
o Can create identity and enhance neighborhood spirit
• Give people the time of day
o Simple urban comfort
• Tell time by the sun
o Get help from environment
• Put maps on sidewalks
 o Helping us know where we are makes the city more comfortable
• Build bulletin boards

CHILDREN IN THE CITY

"Children are like the canaries in the coal mine: an indicator species of urban health."
• Place playgrounds in shopping districts
o Combine adult seating with playgrounds in business districts and place them at easily
accessible location
• Place playgrounds in restaurants
• Place playgrounds in residential districts
• Build to child scale
• Let children play in the streets (and make sure it's safe)

FEELING SAFE
"The basic technique of urban security is natural surveillance. The second territoriality: people must view
the public space as their own."
• Open the storefront to the street
o Delicate, slow, and uncommitted entrance
• Fully open windows
o Provides invitation and surveillance
• Engage walkers with interesting storefronts
o Interesting sidewalks are busy; busy sidewalks are safe
• Allow street vendors → node of activity
• Could you "keep an eye on things?"
o Eyes on the street promotes safety
• Make main entrance visible → best to be able to see front door
• Scatter police → the more visible, the better
• Put cops on bikes

LITTLE NECESSITIES
"A myriad of small elements adds comfort to the city."
• Some places still have community wells
• Shelter the telephone
o Phones are safety equipment -- they should be protected
• Public toilets are a comfort
• House the garbage can
• Keep your head dry/free from the sun
• Celebrate the station: let the mundane be pleasing

SMOOTHING EDGES
"Our most valued places are often sites which lack out most valued possession: cars."
"The purpose of urban buffers is to smooth the edge between the place of cars and the place of people"
• Soften walls
o Most concrete walls are blank and forbidding
o Can be made more interesting while still being functional
• Soften with green
• Trellis blank walls
 • Reclaim and people the parking lot
o Makes parking lot more humane
o Provides additional attraction to customers
• Maintain parking lot landscape
• Shield with elevation
o Parking can be placed below or above ground (or anywhere but the front)
• Plant street trees for premium value
• Save even one tree
• Make fences low enough to see over
o If only to act as boundary
• Noise control
o If inevitable, block or mask it
• Waterfalls
• Glass

FITTING IN
"Conversations between buildings, as among humans, is a poignant sign of neighborliness."
• Look next door for context and follow the rules
• Use a similar roofline
o Specialized spaces don't need to look out of place
• Mimic older building's details
• Look smaller from the sidewalk
• Allow the corner grocery
o Let it be reached by foot (or bicycle)
• Camouflage the parking garage

WASTE NOT, WANT NOT

Discover Spaces
"The natural operation of capitalist economies draws out and brings to use all sorts of under-used
resources."
• Consider the alley as a retail street
o "Useless" space made useful
• Allow alley houses (for economy and safety)
• Turn leftovers into parks
• Place shops in bridges
• Bridge freeways to re-link neighborhoods
o Air space is valuable space
o Reconnects districts
• Reclaim the "international style" plaza
o Filling up these barren places can recreate a streetscape for the walker and economic
activity for building owner
• Bring dead corners to life
o Corners of parking lots: generally unusable for parking
o Use corners to give life to street and interest to building
• Use side yards for seating
• Make recycling second nature
GETTING AROUND
"…we still all drive too fast for the posted speed limits. We do it because the roads are designed to
encourage us to do so."
• Traffic calming
• Bulb the corners for more pedestrian space
• Decrease turning radius
o Sharper turn → must drive slower
• Make blocks short
• Build streets on a grid…but don't let drivers everywhere on the grid
o Vary the grid with devices for traffic calming and visual diversity

• Use shortcuts to create a grid

o Not all sidewalks need streets
• Slow traffic with circles
o Deliberate obstruction in stream of traffic → forces cars to slow down + provides good
neighborhood decoration
• Curve roads to narrow sight lines
• Street jogs to calm traffic

• Raise crosswalk
• Widen busy sidewalks
 • Provide curb ramps
o Convenient for disabled + people w/ walkers and strollers
• Allow shortcuts in parking lots for people
o Walkers find the shortest path
o Urge to cut across should be acknowledged and welcomed
• Encourage biking

PERSONALIZE THE CITY WITH ART

"Public art and decoration is a city comfort because it functions as a conversation piece to remind us that
we are not alone."
• Art can protect us
• Art can inspire us
• Art can clarify
• Art can celebrate everyday experiences
• Decorate blank walls with murals
• Let children confuse art and toys
• Let art be interactive

CONCLUSION: to sleep in public - SAFE SPACE

LEC 8.1 | Emerging Theories: PUDs, EUDs,

TODs, & TNDs
SPRAWL
Suburban Sprawl brought about by
• The industrial revolution • Mortgage systems
• Early urban design movements • The "American Dream"
• The automobile • World War 2
• Petroleum interests • Open economy
• Voracity of developers • In-migration/out-migration
• Shortsightedness of civic officials • Suburbs and slums

SUBURBAN SPRAWL
Suburban Patterns
 • Not one defined CBD
o There are many scattered CBDs
• Cluster of zones and only 1 main road
• Landscape dominated by parking lots and…
• Strip malls
o Expansive parking
o Generic architecture = boring
o Located in the middle of nowhere
• Cities, town, districts, and neighborhoods connected by a maze of freeways
• Disrupted districts
• Suburban developments at the edge of freeways
o Low-density monotonous suburban developments
• Garage becomes the main feature of suburban homes
• Traffic!!!!
• Segregation (pedestrian vs. vehicle) and social segregation
o Wealthy drive cars, non-wealthy commute

Suburban Sprawl creates

• An automobile dominated landscape
• Environmental degradation
• Economic losses
• A fractured social and cultural fabric

PLANNED UNIT DEVELOPMENTS (PUDs) - descendant of the Barbican Development

• Usually consists of a variety of uses, anchored by commercial establishments and supported by
office and residential space
• PUDs are cluster zones: areas that are being intensively developed where ordinary zoning
regulations can be suspended

EMERGING URBAN DISTRICTS (EUDs)

• New Urban Growth Centers independent of CBDs
• With mixed uses, commonly anchored by office parks like BPOs or financial institutions

TRANSIT ORIENTED DEVELOPMENTS (TODs)

• Mixed use community
• 600-700 meter distance of a transit stop and commercial core area
• Mixed residential, retail, office, open space, and public uses in a walkable environment
o Convenient for residents and employees to travel by transit, bicycle, foot, or car

Urban TODs
• Located directly on the trunk line transit network: at light rail, heavy rail, or express bus stops
• Should be developed with high commercial intensities, job clusters, and moderate to high
residential densities
• Optimum density = 18 du/ac
Neighborhood TODs
• On a local feeder bus line within 10 minutes transit time (no more than 3 miles) from a trunk line
transit stop
• Should place an emphasis on moderate density residential, service, retail, entertainment, civic,
and recreational uses
• Density = 12-15 du/ac

Streets and Circulation

• Local street system:
o Recognizable and interconnected
o Converging to transit stops
o Core commercial areas or open spaces
• Streets must be pedestrian friendly
• Healthy walking environment → can succeed without transit
• Transit system → CAN'T exist without pedestrians

Distribution
• Should be located to maximize access to core commercial areas
• TODs w/ major competing retail centers should be spaced a minimum of 1 mile apart
o Distributed to serve different neighborhoods

Transit Systems
1. LIGHT RAIL/RAPID TRANSIT
• Most efficient and practical transit system
• Can be above ground, underground, or along the surface (most economical)
2. EXPRESS BUS
3. HIGH OCCUPANCY VEHICLES (HOVs)

TRADITIONAL NEIGHBORHOOD DEVELOPMENTS (TNDs)

• Complete neighborhood/town using traditional town planning principles
• May occur in infill settings and involve adaptive reuse of existing buildings
o Often involves all-new construction on previously undeveloped land
• To qualify as TND, project should…
o Include range of housing types
o Network of well-connected streets and blocks
o Humane public spaces
o Have amenities like stores, schools, and places of worship within walking distance of
residences

LEC 8.2 | Emerging Theories: New Urbanism

NEW URBANISM
• Formed by the Congress for New Urbanism (CNU)
• Founders
o Andres Duany
o Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk
 o Peter Calthorpe
o Peter Katz
o Daniel Solomon

The Charter of New Urbanism

The Congress for the New Urbanism views…
• Disinvestment in central cities
• The spread of placeless sprawl
• Increasing separation by race and income
• Environmental deterioration
• Loss of agricultural lands and wilderness and;
• The erosion of society's built heritage
…as one interrelated community-building challenge.

We advocate the restructuring of public policy and development practices to support the ff. principles:
• Cities and towns should be physically defined and universally accessible public spaces and
community institutions
• Urban places should be framed by architecture and landscape design that celebrates local history,
climate, ecology, and building practice
• Infill development which conserves environmental resources, economic investment, and the
social fabric, while reclaiming marginal and abandoned areas, should be encouraged
• Cities and towns should bring into proximity a broad spectrum of public and private uses to
support a regional economy that benefits people of all incomes
• Affordable housing should be distributed throughout the region to match job opportunities and
to avoid concentrations of poverty

The Neighborhood, the District, and the Corridor

These 3 are the fundamental organizing elements of New Urbanism

1. Neighborhoods: urbanized areas with a balanced mix of human activity

2. Districts: areas dominated by a single activity
3. Corridors: connectors and separators of neighborhoods and districts

The Street, the Block, and the Building

The form of New Urbanism is realized by the deliberate assembly of these three

1. Streets: not the dividing lines within a city, BUT are to be

2. Blocks: field on which unfolds both the building fabric and public realm of city
3. Buildings: smallest increment of growth in city

New Urbanism Guidelines

• The neighborhood has a discernible center and/or a focal point
• Most of the dwellings are within a 5-minute walk of the center, an average of ~600-700m
• Within neighborhoods…
o Broad range of housing types and price levels → can bring people of diverse ages, races, and
incomes into daily interaction → strengthens personal and civic bonds essential to an
authentic community
• Mix of land uses should be provided for energy efficiency and practical convenience
 • Interconnected networks of streets should be designed to
o Encourage walking
o Reduce number and length of automobile trips
o Conserve energy
• A grid pattern disperse traffic → provides variety of pedestrian and vehicular routes to any
destination
• Schools should be sized and located to enable children to walk or bicycle to them
• Range of parks should be distributed within neighborhoods
• Streets and sidewalks: covered with rows of trees/other landscaping elements
o Shade for pedestrians
o Overall pleasant environment
• On-street parallel parking → encouraged
• Sidewalks should be wide, at least 3m
o Free from dangerous obstructions except landscaping elements and street furniture that
invite pedestrians to sit
• Storefronts should be built close to the sidewalk
o Wide window openings
o Visible entrances → inviting to pedestrian
• Buildings in the neighborhood center are placed close to street → creates well-defined "outdoor
room"
• Prominent sites at termination of street vistas/in neighborhood center → reserved for civic
buildings
• Parking lots and garage doors: should not front street
o Parking relegated to underground, multilevel structures, or to rear of buildings (accessed by
alleys)
• Build facing the water (if there are any)
• Neighborhood: organized to be self-governing
o A formal association debates and decides matters of maintenance, security, and physical
change

Case Studies
1. SEASIDE
o Walton County, Florida
o 80 acres
o DPZ architects

➔ Strong sense of community w/ variety of dwelling units built close to each other
➔ Complete neighborhood amenities, open spaces, terminating vistas, etc.
➔ Terminating vistas give importance to public buildings
➔ Architectural guidelines include requirement for porches facing the road

2. LAGUNA WEST
o Sacramento County, California
o 1045 acres
o Peter Calthorpe and Associates

➔ System of public spaces: organizing structure of community

 ➔ Town center: located at terminus of radial boulevards which originate in neighborhood
parks

3. KENTLANDS
o Gaithersburg, Maryland
o 355 acres
o DPZ architects

➔ Contains buildings from original Kentlands, many variety of residences, commercial and civic
district, amidst open space, including protected natural areas and pocket parks
➔ Neotraditional downtown

4. RIVIERA BEACH
o Riviera Beach, Florida
o 1600 acres
o Mark Schimmenti

➔ Redevelopment plan to protect historical downtown from unplanned, uncontrolled growth

➔ Redevelopment begins at the building level, then at the street level

5. JACKSON TAYLOR
o San Jose California
o 75 acres
o Peter Calthorpe and Associates

➔ Redevelopment of an underutilized industrial site

➔ Design presents three different block types
• BLOCK 1: mixed use commercial-office-residential
• BLOCK 2: high density residential
• BLOCK 3: lower density residential

6. GREEN CITY
o Metro Manila
o 1000 acres
o Peter Calthorpe and Associates
o Design client: Town and Villas, Inc.
o Design completed in 1997

7. DOS RIOS
o Laguna
o 140 Ha
o DPZ architects

➔ Bet. foothills of Taal and area around Manila bay with 2 town centers within 10-min walk
➔ CAMELLA DOS RIOS
• 20-hectare Mediterranean-inspired development
• Close to industrial parks which house multinational corporations
• Country Club Golf Course and EK are nearby
LEC 9 | Urban Revitalization
OUTLINE
• Urban renewal
• Urban regeneration
• Redevelopment
• Gentrification

REBUILDING ROME
• 1585: Domenico Fontana tasked to redevelop urban center of Rome
• Objective: create a street plan that would make pedestrian movement of Christians between
churches more efficient
• Method: mark special sites and shrines w/ obelisks from Roman Empire

REBUILDING PARIS
• 1853-1870: Baron Haussmann's renovation of Paris
• Included
o Demolition of crowded and unhealthy neighborhoods
o Building of wide avenues, parks, and squares
o Annexation of suburbs
o Construction of new sewers, fountains, aqueducts
o Creating linear connections

URBAN RENEWAL
• 20th century
• Became a strategy for improving degrading condition of old urban centers (e.g. harbor areas,
industrial districts)
• Involved
o Slum upgrading - relocation of people
o Demolition of old structures and building of new ones
o Relocation of economic activities
o Eminent domain
Rebuilding Pittsburgh
• Pittsburgh: driven by steel industry; was an industrial city until the 1850s
• Improved river environment and city development followed
• Large section of downtown at heart of city → demolished and converted to parks, office buildings,
and a sports and civic arena
• Arena intended to bring people into the city
• To make room for arena → city used eminent domain to displace 8,000 residents and 400
businesses from lower hill district

Boston's Renewal
• Boston Massachusetts, 1950s-60s
• 1990-2007: THE BIG DIG
o Project cost 24 billion dollars
o Took more than 15 years to complete

REPLACING HIGHWAYS
Tom McCall Waterfront Portland, Oregon
• 1942: Harbor Drive was completed
• 1968: plan to widen Harbor Drive due to traffic projections
• Instead, highway was replaced by 38-acre park
• 1985: mixed used development with a hotel, housing, an athletic club, and retail space, was
completed
• 1999: area was doubled, extending to South End

RECOVERING NATURE
Cheonggyecheon, Seoul, Korea
• 1950s: migrants occupied banks of the Cheonggyecheon stream
• 1958: city started to covert stream
• 1960s: paving of Cheonggyecheon
• 1976: a 5.6km and 16m wide elevated highway was completed
• July 2003: Seoul Mayor Lee Myung Bak started the removal of elevated highway and revival of
8.5km steam
• Cheonggyecheon was opened to the public in Sept. 2005, bringing together the north and south
sides of the stream
• Project achieved heritage restoration, community development, improvement of water quality
and overall improvement of the environment, reduced vehicular traffic, and improved the urban
economy
• Mayor Lee Myung Bak: became president of South Korea (2008-2013)

INTRODUCING NATURE
MFO Park, Oerlikon District, Zurich, and Switzerland
Creating Community Space through Landscaping
• By Burckhardt + Partner and Raderschall Landschaftsarchitekten AG
• 1st prize in design competition for a park
• Inaugurated in 2002
• Design similarly scaled as the building it replaced and those around it
• 100m long, 25m wide, 17m high
ENCOURAGING PEDESTRIANIZATION
Stroget, Copenhagen, Denmark
Creating a Pleasant and Safe Walking Environment
Diversity of Activities
• 1960s: motor vehicles were increasing and creating traffic congestion in Copenhagen's main
shopping district
• City decided to close Stroget to automobiles in 1962

LEC 10 | 3 Paradigms of Urbanism

1. New Urbanism
2. Post Urbanism
3. Everyday Urbanism

NEW URBANISM
• UTOPIAN
o Aspires to a social ethic with communities in ways that equitably mix different people and
uses
• Most PRECEDENT BASED
o Tries to learn and extrapolate from best historical examples and traditions as they intersect
contemporary environmental, technological, social, economic and cultural practices
• Most NORMATIVE, often adopting PRESCRIPTIVE CODES rather than proscriptive zoning
• Caters to a comprehensive PLANNED development
• STRUCTURED
o Maintains that there is a structural relationship between social behavior and physical form
• Values overall coherence, legibility, and HUMAN SCALE
• Designs for PEDESTRIAN FRIENDLY environments
• INSPIRATIONAL
o Sponsors public architecture and public space that attempt to make citizens feel they are
part, even proud, of a culture that is more significant than their individual, private worlds
o Not like Megaworld: Venice mall, Eastwood, Mckinley Hill (copying other architecture)
• SUSTAINABLE
o Concentrating on protecting and conserving the environment
• Considers AESTHETICS as an important factor of livability…but also borders on being ARTIFICIAL

POST URBANISM
• Accepts and expresses the techno-flow of a global world, both real and virtual
• Is EXPLORATIVE rather than normative and likes to subvert codes and convention
• LIBERATING because it allows "for new forms of knowledge, new hybrid possibilities, new
unpredictable forms of freedom"
• Operates as LONE GENIUSES contributing a monologue to media marketplace
o Little interest in weaving or reweaving a consistent or continuous urban or ecologic fabric
over space time
• For shopping mall enthusiasts and "free range" tourists
• Deals with and influences SUBURBAN design
 • AUTO-ORIENTED
• SENSATIONAL and ABSTRACT
• PROVOCATIVE and EXCITING
• Has the tendency to be OVER SCALED and EMPTY
• Can be MANIPULATIVE
o CCP and Film Center: creating something via dictatorship
• FUTURISTIC and markets itself as such
• Argues that shared values are no longer possible in a world that is increasingly fragmented and
composed of isolated zones

EVERYDAY URBANISM
• NON-UTOPIAN because it celebrates and builds on everyday, ordinary life and reality, with little
pretense about the possibility of a perfectible, tidy or idea built environment
• LESS NORMATIVE → more about reassembling and intensifying existing, everyday conditions than
overturning them and starting over with a different model
• Form and function seen to be STRUCTURALLY CONNECTED
o Highlights CULTURE more than design as a determinant of behavior
• Colorful
• Vibrant
• Dynamic
• Ingenious
• Enterprising
• Organic
o Cambodia: poor man’s Venice
▪ Fishermen along river and farmers along mangroves
▪ Moved around in boats
• Spontaneous
o Road turned market
o Impermanent tricycle terminal
• Designed by DEFAULT
o Ugly, but it works
• Draws attention to otherwise neglected ways of promoting street-life
• Everyday residents metaphorically extend their living rooms into the streets
• It happens because we allow it to; we can’t control it
o Informal economy: don’t pay taxes
• Expression of residents' exploitation of the economic, political, and social situations
• Stands in contrast to the carefully planned, officially designated, and often underused public
spaces
• Puts very little space to waste
o Infill developments (slums)
o No unused areas in Manila
• Rather than seek grand utopian visions, it investigates specific urban conditions, and learns from
them
• Responsive
LEC 11 | Cutting Edge Poverty: The Slums of
Manila
INTRODUCTION
• Industrial revolution
• The automobile
• Flight from the city
• Suburbs
• Uncontrolled growth
• Slums
• Suez canal opening
• Manila Dagupan line
• Burnham plan construction
• Intramuros slums
• WW2
• Urban in-migration

CONTEMPORARY URBANISM CONCEPTS

• New Urbanism
• Transit Oriented Developments (TODs)
• Planned Unit Developments (PUDs)
• Sustainable Urban Design

Who are these for? What about the poor?

• Relocated to sites that are the antithesis of contemporary urban concepts
• New urban concepts attempt to represent a progressive society
• This "progress" is all at the expense of regressive housing patterns for the poor

Primitive Settlements
• Built quickly like squatter homes
• Abandoned buildings → cave dwelling
 o Make shift housing from available materials
• Live near bodies of water → slums live in canals or by the river
• Balon: pumps/water supply
o Public water well; city refuses to supply water to slums because they won't be able to pay
for it
• IN REALITY, they actually pay higher for the mineral water they bring in
• Occupying land that's not yours then defending it

Slum Urbanism
• KEY ELEMENTS OF CONTEMPORARY URBANISM CONCEPTS
o Mix Land Uses: reduces daily travel time from one point to another
o Pedestrianization and Mass Transit Systems: to reduce traffic volume
o Compact Settlements with High Density Living: to stop building of new suburban
developments and preserve the environment
• Shelters: sustainable materials
• Commonality: look the same (same materials) but no 2 are alike
• Commons: no matter how dense, always have a little opening
o Community center: everyone contributes
• Edge definition
o Barong-barong, lean-to's, shallow and continuous makes a strong edge
• Permeability
o Pathways and alleys connected to one another like in Venice
• Waterfront developments
• Citizen participation
o Like in primitive times → squatters need to band together for survival → fosters a strong
sense of community → will never be found in modern day "utopian" villages
o Slums have organizations and associations

CONCLUSION
• Labeled as slums, squatter colonies, ghettos, or informal settlements
• Real communities with character and vibrancy
• Has every feature that modern day "cutting edge" urbanism concepts are trying to relive
• For squatters → objectives of these urbanism concepts are SECONDARY to attainment and
affordability of basic needs
• Objectives of modern urbanism concepts → sound and legitimate and should be pursued
• Focus must not be on the wealthy minority
• For the poor → more important objective is maintaining and improving what they already have
• If only the safety, sanitation, health, and services standards of slums were improved, these would
be the real utopias