City in layers-part 6- An urban design concept

The city between (2000-2015)

Organizing & connecting  the city systems

City plan in the 19^th centaury includes several transport matrices. They are connected arbitrarily, and in some areas planned by nodes. Every matrix is physically understood as a city layer. These layers connect the suburban to the city’s vital heart. City heart became a busy commercial center attracting commuters from other cities. The inner city could not take the increase in traffic volume that created congestion. Authority officials continuously put solution plans for the unplanned areas. They redesigned the transport network to become well connected and organized.

On ground, train lines connect the other cities to the heart transport nodes. Underground train lines included excavation under buildings to reorganize the lines and link them to over ground train lines nodes. Underground train lines in many city areas follow the road network system. Water transport lines (blue ribbon) from the industrial revolution era used to transport goods. Officials prepared plans to develop the lines (to make a layer) that connect other transport layers in major transport nodes. Transport nodes in the city took advantage of open urban space and public areas to develop new transport nodes.

Voids in the city heart including: open urban space, public spaces, squares, and round about where transformed to nodes to connect the transport systems. Complexity of some of these voids in terms of location made officials to keep them out of these plans. Voids existed in many areas in the city that made officials select some of them to keep the transport system organized. Feasibility of construction was another factor to include voids that make the system easy to construct. Voids in the city that were a good location to connect all transport systems lines became development priority.

City Green space includes large-scale parks, small parks, gardens, and landscape within squares. Open spaces offer people sports grounds, diversity of wildlife, and a place for special events and social gathering. Former royal parks used for hunting become public parks. These public parks located always near water beds for irrigation, and flood control. Were unplanned accidentally located in relations to population. Council officials always targeted a plan to connect all green spaces in the city. They planned to rearrange and organize these green spaces to form a network of parks and gardens.

Towards high density & mix use development .

The country approach with its new policies towards global funds. Several large-scale developments started with the global fund support. Qatar base funds to develop London bridge railway station. European funds, Chinese former expo 2010 companies to fund royal docks project. Public sector planners focused on Brownfields, old residential areas, former industrial zones regeneration. Projects designed to increase high rise masses and connection with urban space. All buildings took mix use building construction approach. City population was shifted with their related factories and workshops to boundaries in earlier years.

The unplanned transport lines of several types in the city created more problems than traffic jam. Redesign the transport types to become organized systems happened in late 19^th century. The voids in the city were subject to transformation to link the transit nodes. Parks and gardens became a green space system. The open green space was connected with the transport system nodes. Urban development focused on clearing out old buildings and Brownfield areas. Building’s design was changed to high rise and mix use connected by urban space.

To sum up, the city witnessed unplanned design activities. Buildings were not located properly in relation to densities and green areas required. Green areas plotted randomly and water lakes located to serve industry. Train lines built when access to lands was easy. Underground train lines dug in easy to build areas. Planners and relevant responsible work was uncoordinated. Rearranging and reorganizing these systems required big funds and global intervention. The failure falls on the city council and their planners and architects to achieve good working systems. The proper approach is to design and plan every part of the city as a layer. Every team designing or planning any layer to coordinate with others. And finally, a responsible to watch the design, plan, manage, coordinate, and implement all this work is the URBAN DESIGNER.   

in the following article I will reflect the city in layers concept on one of my urban developments I have worked on in the Middle east as the urban design in practice.        

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