UNITY UNIVERSITY COLLEGE

Department of Architecture and Urban planning

URBAN PLANNING

A CITY FORM

An over view

1
 Cities/towns
An overview, image, forms, elements and
pattern

a multi purpose shifting organization

a tent for many functions
raised by many hands and with relative speed
with no complete specialization
plastic to the purpose and perception of its citizens
 Stages of human development

• Paleolithic>>Neolithic>>urban>>ind.revo
Hunting and gathering
Settled agriculture
Manufacturing
New big industries
According to some archeologists cities appeared some
5500 years ago in Mesopotamia
Findings>> wheels, writings, plow
 City origins in western Europe
• Centers of assembly
• Meeting places
• Observance of religious rites
• Markets
• Political, judicial gatherings
• Military needs
 organization
• Rectangular
• Fortified/with gates
• With circular or rectangular spaces
• Empty but used occasionally for the above
purposes as the animation continues what
first had been only an occasional center
become a city
 The growth of cities
why cities grow
• Migration>> ind. Revolution
• Natural growth
Physical growth/not development/
development of transportation
proliferation of squatters
proliferation of many small agglomerations
joining together afterwards
 Expansion as a process
• Ideal Area I

construction/growth Area II

of cities to expand Area IIIi

1. CBD Area IV

2. Transition area business, light

manuf.
3. Workers in the industry/escaping
II

4. High class residential area

Beyond the cities sub urban or
satellite towns.
 A city form
• Social political cultural physical economic conditions
influence city form
According to Christopher Alexander
Natural cities; arise spontaneously many years before
Like, Liverpool, kyoto, Manhattan
Artificial cities; designed by man like chandigarh and
some british new towns
One has a complicated organization
And the other organized as atree
 A city form contd..
According to Kevin lynch
Form of cities Is linked with imagiabity which
is; facilitating its visual identification, and
structure
visibility>> coherence>>and clarity
visibly organized and sharply identified
 Contd..
• Fundamental urban elements/functions which make a city form
expressive
Paths; streets, walk ways. along which people move are predominant
in the image
Edges; turnings, lateral references, barriers, boundaries between two
parts
Districts, medium large section of the city, having two dimensional
extent, recognizable, common identifying character
Nodes; junctions and strategic spots; transportation terminals,
roundabouts squares…
Land marks; points of references, a simply defined physical object
seen from different directions, like monuments status, big trees,
hills, domes…used as clue of identity
 Contd..
• Images and forms of cities perceived differently and
these in terms of theire
Density,
texture,
structure,
arrangement,
and relationship
 Typology of spatial city forms
• There are three urban forms
Linear urban forms
• mostly the products of the industrial revolution
• have a rapid and efficent mass movement of
people and goods with in and between cities
• Most cities in England in 1960
Inconveniences
Inefficient land use
High transportation cost
 Grid system urban forms
• Used as a symbol of religious/china
• For land regulation/in colonial cities by Romans
• Visual order and simplicity
• Permits the expansion of cities in different directions
• Efficient land development, arrangement, sale
Adopted mostly in china and India but more segrigatve
 Centralized cities
• Forms adopted in the medieval cities of the Arab world
• For privacy of clans
• It may be the inspiration of green planners
• Similar to the garden city idea
• Lack the idea of CBD
• During renaissance, Palma nova of Italy some european
and American cities partially
 Conclusion
All forms can bring development according
the situation used
Public transport and ecological strategies
are very determinant
References;
Cliff moughitin, urban design, green dimension 1996
Kevin lynch, the image of the city, 1960
The city reader, Richard R. Le gates, 19996