PLANNING PRINCIPLES & TECHNIQUES

ASSIGNMENT NO:1

PLANNED CITIES OF
THE WORLD

PRESENTED BY:
COPENHAGEN ARUNIMA KT
____ DENMARK ___
55.6761° N, 12.5683° E M200355AR
TOWN PLANNING OF CANBERRA,
AUSTRALIA
 AUSTRALIA
AUSTRALIA 1901 - Six independent colonies forms commonwealth of
Australia
• Locate and name the capital city

1911 - International design competition seeking master

plan for brand new capital
• 12th march 1913 Lady Denman names the federal
capital “ CANBERRA”

POPULATION -3,58,222 as on 31
March 2011
DENSITY - 428.6/km²
AREA - 814.2 km²
LOCATION 286 km SW of Sydney
(New South Wales)
669 km NE of Melbourne
 Walter Burley Griffin & Marion Mahony Griffin
• Chicago landscape architects
• First prize-winners of the International Competition
• Griffin’s design approach was greatly influenced by
topography and landscape
• However, it was also criticized as extravagant.

https://www.griffinsociety.org/australia-canberra/
PLANNING CONCEPT
Griffin’s design of Canberra was influenced by two popular movements.
1. City Beautiful‖-- An idea used in Chicago City Plan by Daniel Burnham
2. English Garden City‖ --by Ebenezer Howard
 MOUNT
AINSLIE

BLACK
MOUNTAIN

 Geometrical Concept
 The site considered as an
MOUNT irregular amphitheatre – with
PLEASENT Ainslie at the north-east in the rear,
flanked on either side by Black
Mountain and Pleasant Hill, all
forming the top galleries; with slopes
to the water - the auditorium; with
the waterway and flood basin, the
arena

CANBERRA,
BASED ON GRIFFIN’S PLAN, 1912.
  Defined two bisecting axes
-land and water
- that determine the central part of the
design of Canberra. land axis begins at
Mount Ainslie, continues across the
water axis, and passes through
Parliament House, the large building in
the foreground with the tripod flagpole.
 Equilateral triangle lies at the
heart of the city
-its is formed by three monumental
avenues linking the capital and national
govt. group on the south city hall and
commercial center on the north of the
lake

CANBERRA,
BASED ON GRIFFIN’S PLAN, 1912.
Early plans for the National Capital Authority drawn up by Walter and Marion Griffin
Views for the National Capital Authority drawn up by Walter and Marion Griffin
1913 - Griffin was invited to Australia to help the
Board with the development of the City.
• He was appointed the Federal Capital Director of Design
and Construction
1914 - World war 1.
• Lack of money slowed progress of the city but several
major works were undertaken
1920 - Griffin was fired , with little work done due to
lack of funding.
1920 to 1957 - Further expansion of Canberra in the
absence of Griffin.
1927 - Federal legislature moved to Canberra
1936 - Walter Burley Griffin died in India
1941 - Australian war memorial
1954 - Australian-American Memorial
https://www.griffinsociety.org/australia-canberra
• Immediately after the end of the war, Canberra was criticized for
resembling a village, and its disorganized collection of buildings
was deemed ugly.
• Griffin originally designed the city for a population of 75,000
people.
• The population grew by more than 50% in every five-year period
from 1955 to 1975.

1957- Established the National Capital Development

Commission (NCDC) to create a capital city of which all Emerging civic center 1960s
Australians would be proud.
1961-1970
•Kings Avenue Bridge (1962)
•Commonwealth Avenue Bridge (1963)
•Lake Burley Griffin formed in 1963.
•The National Library ( 1968)
•National Botanic Gardens (1970)

New (satellite) towns started forming

TODAY’S CANBERRA
 As the seat of the government of Australia,
Canberra is the site of Parliament House, the
High Court and numerous government
departments and agencies.
 It is also the location of many social and
cultural institutions of national significance,
such as the Australian War Memorial,
Australian National University, Australian
Institute of Sport, National Gallery, National
Museum etc
 Australian Defence Force Academy is also
located in the capital.
 The unemployment rate is lower and the
average income higher than the national
average.
 Tertiary education levels are higher, while the
population is younger.
TODAY’S CANBERRA

Parliament house

War memorial

National museum

Canberra city
GRIFFIN’S (PARLIAMENTARY) TRIANGLE RESIDENCES AND ROAD NETWORK

The National Triangle was a significant Major roads follow a wheel-and-spoke

feature of Walter Burley Griffin's Plan for pattern rather than a grid.
Canberra.  Griffin's proposal had an abundance of
The apices of the triangle are  geometric patterns, including concentric
 Parliament House, the seat of government hexagonal and octagonal streets emanating
 The Defence Headquarters at Russell from several radii.
 City Hill, representing the civilian part of  The outer areas of the city, built later, are not
Canberra laid out geometrically.
INFERENCES
From a landscape viewpoint, Canberra deserves the
name of ―Garden City.‖
• The planned city has a combination of natural landscapes, hill
backdrops and water basins.
• Used topographical elements to form its structure.

Canberra is not often appreciated as a successful

planned city with a high quality of life. It is not generally
recognized for its success or its ‘uniqueness’. Despite its
successes, Canberra is rarely mentioned in global city
planning literature.

Capital city Canberra is so little known overseas and so

little loved within Australia
 Sources

1. https://www.nfsa.gov.au/collection/curate
d/walter-scott-griffiths-glass-slides-alterna
tive-plans-canberra
2. https://www.griffinsociety.org/australia-ca
nberra/
3. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ny9kk
-0xtHI
4. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ySP5v
2l5fkg
5 FINGERS PLAN OF COPENHAGEN, DENMARK
 COPENHAGEN, DENMARK
 Copenhagen, cultural, economic and governmental
capital of Denmark
 High GDP and good quality of life, known for being
bicycle-friendly city, and having numerous parks,
bridges and waterfronts.
 Copenhagen is the heart of a metropolitan area
populated by just over 2 million inhabitants, with an
interesting urbanization specificity:
 EVOLUTION OF COPENHAGEN
1: The medieval city
Until mid 19th century the city was surrounded by ramparts and
130,000 inhabitants were living on just 3 Km² in the fortified city.

2: The Tram City

In the beginning of the 20th century Copenhagen incorporated
some of its neighbouring towns and the middle class working
areas that was developing there was subsequently served by an
extended network of trams.

3: The pre-WW2 city served by S-trains

In the 1930s the population of the capital passed one million
making further layer-bylayer growths impossible.

4: The post-WW2 radial, suburban development

The Finger plan-city.
 FINGER STRUCTURE
 Copenhagen’s regional
framework– The 5
Fingers concept –was
originally conceived in
the 1940s.
 In the palm is the city
center while the
nicknamed “fingers” are
urban areas in linear
corridors, extending out
from the center and well
connected by roads and
public transport.
 Green wedges protected
from urban development
fills in the space between
the linear corridors.
PLANNERS AND PRINCIPLES
 The Five Finger Plan, was developed in 1947 through Urban
Planning Laboratory in collaboration with urban planners Steen
Eiler Rasmussen and Peter Bredsdorff,
 Planning was Inspired from
1. Garden city
• Proximity to nature, presence of public amenities and related to a
network of other cities
• however, its shape strongly contrast with other Garden-City
application which usually have more monocentric patterns.
Garden-city also inspired “Green belt” while in the Finger Plan,
the green parts have a totally different spatial configuration since
they are wedges and not circular
2. Transport oriented development
• pioneer of transport oriented development, based on radial
transit lines.
• The main concept was to have a mixed land use with a high
density around stations. The design was based on existing or
planned transport, especially S-train lines.
 1939 - First Danish planning act was passed by the
national government.
PLANNING TIMELINE

1947 - The Finger Plan was developed and passed.

1948 to 1956 - Was a period characterized by weak

planning efforts, municipal infighting, and antagonistic
relationships between Copenhagen, the central city and its
suburbs.

1960’s - Apex of an ‘urban crisis’ 1948 1961

Led to support for increased government experimentation in
the field of Planning.

1961 - The Thumb & Forefinger

The end result was criticized due to its unfair separation of
social classes. Public frustration with the segregation of rich
and poor led to the forming of a regional planning authority

1966 - Regional Planning Authority Formed

 1974 to 1989 - Greater Copenhagen Council was
formed.
PLANNING TIMELINE

Whole Denmark adopted a zoning system dividing land into

urban, rural and areas for summer houses.
This system, in combination with regional and municipal
planning system, has been powerful instruments to structure
urban growth in the metropolitan area.
1989 - Regional Plan followed the Finger plan:
It imposes that industrial and services activities locate within
one kilometer of stations.
1995 - Master Plan focused on urban development
around stations from a new light rail metro system,
that was the core of development. 
2007 -  first official “Finger Plan” regulation passed
,later updated in 2013.
Since 2007,planning in the Greater Copenhagen has been
the Minister of Environment‘s responsibility.
1980
TODAY’S COPENHAGEN
 Plan creators were acute
thinkers, they couldn’t
fully anticipate the massive
demand for urbanization
development.
• The population in Greater
Copenhagen increased by
60% from 1947 to 2004
• The plan couldn’t stop the
inevitable trend of
suburbanization: urban
sprawl continued to spread
out and cause traffic jams.
http://www.naaayul.com/new-gallery/b2k0vt7f5gnwipkrr71rea42jw7fow
 The Finger-city plan structure
is still clearly distinguishable in the contemporary landscape, but the palm is becoming larger than
planned and the finger are enlarging and lengthening, In some cases, the wedges were reduced to
narrow corridors. 
 Current

POPULATION
Core city
638,324 inhabitants
(2011)
6579 inhabitants /km²
385,959 work places
http://www.naaayul.com/new-
(2009)
gallery/b2k0vt7f5gnwipkrr71rea42jw7fow
 TODAY’S COPENHAGEN
 The efficient transit systems, from buses and
trains to one of the world's most extensive cycle
lane networks, are impossible to ignore. city was
also praised as a "green economy leader“.
 Although there are paradoxes, limits in the
“Finger plan”, it looks like a melting between the
dense and compact city.
It is in an original response to the growing
urbanization of the city of Copenhagen while
preserving nature and its attractiveness.
 The Finger Plan seems a bit outmoded today. In
2010, an urban design firm called BIG proposed
a whole new innovative plan for Copenhagen’s
future.
The Loop City. It is a regional master plan that
reaches beyond Denmark but also aim to update the
cities from being suburbs of Copenhagen.
Will the Loop city concept be as successful as its predecessor Finger Plan ?

Sources:
1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0m
zJmhonK-U
2. https://theurbanweb.wordpress.com/2
016/11/06/the-finger-plan-of-copenhag
en-a-planning-solution/
3. https://theurbanweb.wordpress.com/2
016/11/07/finger-plan-in-copenhagen-f
rom-a-spatial-answer-to-urban-sprawl-t
o-a-tool-for-sustainability/
4. Study on Green Transportation System
of International Metropolises - Han-ru Li
LET US DISCUSS…

COPENHAGEN
THANK YOU ____ DENMARK ___
55.6761° N, 12.5683° E