City in layers: urban design in practice

City in layers: urban design in practice is the seventh article of a series of articles defining and analyzing the new urban design concept. In this article, I will summarize the previous articles identifying their main theme and go into discussing and analyzing the urban design process in practice and reflecting on all the previous articles’ themes and the new urban design concept.

In my first article, I have identified the role of the urban designer in creating the urban form layer within the metropolis. The urban form since the old times was created organically and naturally based on the human needs in the city. Government or private entities build and construct new architecture considering its location and related environment. In recent years various specialists have studied different cities in the world like Barcelona and built their research on analyzing the city based on theories and methods like the linkage theory and its contribution in creating the urban form.

The second article illustrates the effect of various factors in creating the urban form of a city like the research presented by Cuthbert ¹, He provides a framework to understand city creation by studying the impact of: history, politics, culture, typologies, environment, and so on. These factors are the main contributors to the evolution of the urban form and the city. Returning to the linkage theory which is integrated into this research it defines the creation of the urban form in three categories compositional form, mega form, and group form. My analysis introduced is that the urban form is created by a main urban design element the people movement which is the paths and urban open space nodes.

In the third article School of Chicago sociology theories based on economic development define the city and its urban form creation based on land uses. These three theories are geographic theories studying the city and its urban form the concentric theory, the sector theory, and the multiple–nuclei theory of Harris and Ulman. These theories presented a blueprint of land use in cities that were criticized later for segregation and social isolation, leading to derelict areas, abundant places, and city deprivation. The theories introduced several important factors in urban planning and urban design for consideration: design and living conditions, efficiency of infrastructure, tackling environmental issues, transit network availability, and affordability. Identifying a main defect in these theories which was the urban transit and network effect on the creation of the city form, and land uses. Here one of the main city layers, the urban transit network and roads network, are directly correlated to the land uses defined by the urban designers and planners.

The fourth article shows the government intervention to respond to many city problems when starting a development plan for the city. Deprivation in many sectors of the city is a cause of economic decline which needs direct and fast intervention by the government. Deprivation leads to abundant buildings and spaces, the decline of several types of businesses, environmental problems, and defects in the profitability of public transport and even road networks. Plotting problems and finding solutions is the major activity in building a local development plan. Cities like Barcelona have developed effectively when plotting deprived industrial land use and the approach to changing its land use type. Changing land use type has a direct effect on the road network public transit system and even water transportation system. Environmental problems and derelict and abundant urban space received great attention in many cities in the world. In the event of developing the urban space, a direct correlation is introduced between them and the use of transit systems, road networks, and movement in the city. This illustrates that the urban space identified by the green space system, public art, and open space is a layer that is connected to the other layers that affect each other and visa-vis.

The fifth article identifies the rise of international interest and concern especially after the world wars about the urban planning defects in developing the city and the design. Strategies like urban regeneration, and urban renewal and their interrelated strategies like gentrification, townscape, and intensification affected the city’s form and design. The articles showed these strategies in the city base of the study the city of London. The shift of population to the boundaries and related change of land uses. The transfer of the major heavy industries because of their pollution effect and the development of the related transport systems. The congestion, the lack of proper light, and polluted air and urban space were also some of the major problems in developing the inner city. The reformation of trade centers and activities in the city received major attention to rebuild the city’s image. My article showed the chaos in urban planning procedures, strategies, and outcomes. I have identified in this article how to integrate all strategies to define which of the city layers is mostly affected and what are the reasons to plot a solution for that. Adding to that the direct correlation and effect of that on all other city layers.

The sixth article I have showed the city politicians’ activities and their planning directions to develop the city and the urban design approaches. The first start was the urban regeneration of London docks by attracting international investment. Public sector planners focused on Brownfields, old residential areas, and former industrial zones regeneration. Projects designed to increase high-rise masses and connection with urban space. All buildings took a mixed-use building construction approach. The city population was shifted with their related factories and workshops to boundaries in earlier years. A revolution of urban design projects that included every element in the city. I have shown that the city layers were unconnected properly, but the politicians understood this matter only after World War II when the destruction happened.

Now I will go through how urban design is conducted in practice by working on various scales of urban development in the Middle East. Reflecting on what I have illustrated, analyzed, and presented as a new urban design concept I will take one of the mega projects I worked on in uae. Legends is one of the mega projects consisting of 500 villas, 9-hole golf courses, a golf club, 12 multistory G+12 residential buildings, 5 hotel apartments, a large-scale mall, a 5-star hotel, and a leisure and water park. See Figure 1 perspective view, Figure 2 urban design layout before change.

The client, Saudi Saudi-based developer joint venture with Gulf Finance House, approached an international consultant in France who specialized in planning and architecture. The consultant received from the developer a plot and started to conduct the urban design, planning, and architecture for the development. When the developer announced the development in the country through an official ceremony and launch the consultant was invited. A meeting was held in the developer office and my boss asked me if we could proceed to obtain the planning permit. I informed him that he does not have a license in the country so the government will not allow him to proceed. He tried to sign an agreement with a local foreign consultant to proceed but did not succeed. This is one of the main problems is the lack of knowledge about government rules and regulations.  The developer canceled the contract with the consultant and was replaced by another one.

The consultant designed and planned the development considering many, layers initially, urban design elements which were altered and changed in later stages. Client requirements had a massive effect on the development design. The developer asked us to study and give a report on selecting another consultant. I have presented five foreign consultants and one local consultant. The developer wanted to proceed with the 500 villas first and to delay the other parts to other stages. Through my manager, I have presented an urban design review for the project that led to changing one of the transport artery’s locations, the 12 residential building’s location, and the location of the mall. See Figure 3 artery location shifted inside the development near the residential buildings.  

The road network in the development was changed totally and I have identified that the north-south main artery will create traffic jams in the peak times because it connects two highways. Adding to that this artery is not serving the development but only the 12 buildings located near it. The road network, layer, was changed and redesigned to serve the new urban design layout.

The new consultant, A London-based base architecture firm, redesigned the villas and plotted road layouts that were not connected properly with the network but only considering the form of the development and other client requirements. My manager informed me to prepare an urban design review of the new consultant development design. The problems in the new layout where there is one road entry to the 500 villas, the green space is not connected to serve all the villas, the form of the villas was not connected to the whole development in terms of scale and hierarchy, the villas were designed in rows where the first row only has the advantage of the view to the golf course, and most of the villas in the behind rows where less in value which makes the development not beneficial. In the opening ceremonies, one of my colleagues informed me that the developer was sad and not in the mood because the villas in the behind rows were estimated at lower selling prices. I informed my manager that there was a solution for that, and the consultant needed to adjust the layout. The behind rows earth level go higher than the ones in the front to obtain a view of the golf course and access to green space in the layout. The green space layer, the urban form of buildings layer, and the road network layer were not designed and planned properly.  

In reviewing the development as a whole regarding human movement it was not considered. The whole development was car-dependent, and the development lacked urban space, public space, and a green space system. The development did not respond to the world’s directions to sustainable development and the world environment policy of reducing pollution impact and CO2 emission. One of the main and important cities layers the human movement paths is neglected totally.

The urban development design neglected the strong relationship between the road network, the green space, the human movement, and the urban form scale and hierarchy layers. These layers must be connected for the development to achieve success in different factors like finances, operations, and its local image in the country. The development faced various defects throughout its life cycle from the first initiation and selection of the first international consultant and the other two who followed him. The developer halted the development two times once deliberately when he realized that the international consultants were not reading the market properly and he was forced to start part of the project. The second time was when the global crisis hit the world in 2008 and the development halted totally.

The foreign international consultant did not present professional and powerful urban design and planning in considering this development. They are not different than the local consultants in the Middle East in doing consultancy for large-scale development. In every country in the world, many local consultants are professional and powerful in doing urban design and planning and the list is very long which I don’t want to mention. It is apparent that international consultants when reading their research, papers, and studies do not follow the academic, professional, and best practices in providing consultancy works. Finally, you can refer to my series of articles on the local development plan defects for more details.

References

1. Cuthbert, A.R. (2011) Understanding cities: Method in urban design. Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge.