DYNAMICS OF BUILT FABRIC AND

URBAN SPACES -Building Place & Defining Space

Wan Nurul Mardiah Wan Mohd Rani (PhD)

Urban Dynamics and Regeneration (MRSS 1153)

Wan Nurul Mardiah Wan Mohd Rani (PhD)

UTM Razak School of Engineering and Advanced

Technology

Important elements of the built fabric and urban space

• The block structure and patterns of access

• The scale of streets

• Limit the use of buffers

• Orientate for direct sunlight

• Protect privacy

• Provide outdoor space

• Environmental sustainability by design

• Features of an environmentally benign lifestyle

• Design good green spaces

• Design with density in mind

• Favour environmentally benign travel

• Reuse old buildings and land

• Watercourses and drainage

• Energy efficient residential forms

What is place or space?

• The notion of a place is something that has complex

social connotations–what one person may regard as a

place or places may not match that of another–but with

reference to design it can refer to a sense of individuality

or difference within the environment which forms from the

combination of location, landscape, building forms, urban

spaces and human activity.

• Regions are environmentally, as well as socially or

culturally, distinctive. This is influenced not only by

environmental factors such as topography, flora and fauna

or climate; but also by how societies or cultures have

responded to this context when they have built buildings

and put them together over time to form villages, towns or

cities.

• Urban environments that do not have this character are

called placeless, and often the only way to fully appreciate

the contribution that place makes to our lives is to spend

time in placeless environments.

• Relph (1976, p. 90) defines placelessness as ‘…a

weakening of the identity of places to the point where they

not only look alike but feel alike and offer the same bland

possibilities of experience.’

Placeless uniformity in Sacramento, Dallas, Las Vegas and Miami

Placeslessness in residential environments results from:

● Road environments that have no direct relationship with

the uses and activities along them

● Uniformity and standardisation within the built

environment (previous figure)

● The adoption of synthetic, nostalgic or inauthentic themes

in the design of either buildings or urban spaces, which

ultimately become common between different schemes.

Distinctive, individual places should be the goal of residential layout

URBAN FORM

Places result from the way that individual

buildings are brought together to create urban

form.

Streets and squares are types of urban

form resulting from how individual buildings

are brought together in the design, and just as

we might carefully design an individual

building, the form of a street or square, or the

pattern of streets and squares that go

together to make an entire scheme, should

not be left to chance.

TYPES OF URBAN SPACE

Urban space is not merely distinguishable as either outdoor or indoor.

Instead, from an urban design perspective, it is better to distinguish

between four types of outdoor space which reflect who will have access to

the space and something about how it will be perceived and used.

Public space: Public space refers to urban

space which is easily accessible to the

general public at any time of day or night

(Refer Figure).

Streets are an obvious type of public space

which people can physically enter and exit.

There is a degree of management or control

of what you can do within street space

which is influenced by laws and cultures,

whilst the physical design shapes quite

clearly if it lends itself to, for example,

playing sports, walking, running, cycling or

driving.

Despite tremendous variation in what you

might do in public space, however, physical

access is maintained.Public space

Semi-public space: Compared to public space, semi-public space is

a type of space in which some greater degree of control is exerted over

when access is allowed. These tend to be spaces which allow general

public access. However, due to a far stronger management regime,

they might, for example, be closed for certain hours.

Semi-public and

public spaces

Semi-private front gardens

A semi-private space is a piece of the urban environment

that tends to be private and which a member of the general

public will only enter if they have a reason to. The clearest

example of a semi-private space is a front garden or yard (Figure

3.7).

This might be a small space that is distinguished from the paved

public street by only a change of surface (a gravel path and grass

lawn, for example), but still we tend to be socially conditioned to

only enter that space if we are visiting the property.

Another type of semi-private space might

be a communal garden area for use only by specific residents. If

the park, referred to in the discussion on semi-public space above,

is only available to certain residents living around the square, then

it would, despite its identical design, be semi-private. Sometimes,

however, semi-private spaces are also included behind houses for

residents living in an urban block to share (Figure 3.8).

Private space:

Private spaces

The final space is exclusively for the use of the

residents of a property. Outdoor private spaces

form gardens, although sometimes roof

gardens or balconies serve an identical

purpose

Such spaces allow private residents complete

control and a higher degree of both security

and privacy, so that they can use the space for

what they wish; for example, gardening,

storing rubbish, sunbathing, playing or fixing

the bike.

A residential area is made up of these types of space, and differently

designed urban forms will result in different patterns and relationships

emerging between these types of space. Public spaces tend to form a

network which provides a pattern of access for residents.

RESIDENTIAL BLOCK STRUCTURES

Residential block structures result from the way designers compose the

buildings and urban spaces to create urban form.

By creating residential blocks the designers are defining the location of, and

relationships between, the types of urban space and the pattern of access

that will be allowed in general through the area; whilst they are also starting

to consider the character of the layout and whether a sense of place will be

achieved.

Common residential block structures

A periphery block

The periphery block was probably the most common form of block structure

until the 1930s when other block structures were experimented with.

Apartments in periphery blocks with

shared open space: Often, if apartments

are developed, semi-private courtyards are

introduced into the centre of the blocks

where, for example, planting is introduced,

residents can relax, children can play or

washing can be dried. Such a space allows

apartment residents access to outdoor

space which is managed for the block as a

whole, and which for children and some

residents might be preferable to a small

private garden.

Apartments in periphery blocks with

shared open space: Often, if apartments

are developed, semi-private courtyards are

introduced into the centre of the blocks

where, for example, planting is introduced,

residents can relax, children can play or

washing can be dried. Such a space allows

apartment residents access to outdoor

space which is managed for the block as a

whole, and which for children and some

residents might be preferable to a small

private garden.

Apartments in a

periphery block with

shared open space

Apartments with a shared courtyard

Variations in how private space is considered in a periphery block, but

they also allow physical definition of the public realm, as the fronts of

these homes face and give a physical form to the street environment.

Periphery block housing with a communal

central space

Apartments in a periphery block with private and semi-

private spaces

Free standing blocks

Since the early twentieth century, apartments in particular have been developed

in free standing or point blocks.

Rationales :

● provide a form of residential environment that provided air and

light to homes

● free people from what were regarded as the constraints of the

depressing street environments of the nineteenth century

● provide new, and unconstrained open spaces around the homes

● accommodate the newly popular car (something that the older

streets struggled to do)

● use new building techniques, technologies and materials

● provide more communal ways of living.

Point blocks

Free standing blocks can be

used to define attractive public

and private spaces

Free standing 5 storey

apartment blocks

Linear block arrangements

Evolving during the early twentieth century, linear block arrangements are also

still popular. This is a configuration of housing or apartments particularly

common in parts of continental Europe, and reflects the fact that orientation of

living space to the sun is given a high priority. In such a configuration the backs

of houses can face the fronts of others, or the houses can face each other

across a traditional street or pedestrian route.

Linear blocks can fail to acknowledge

neighbouring streets or open spacesLinear blocks

Super blocksDesigners often configured blocks of housing, typically in the form of

apartments, to form super blocks which encircle or ‘protect’ other types

of housing or open spaces. This is a form sometimes used where sites for

development abut a difficult context such as larger urban roads or frequently

used railways.

Cul-de-sacsHousing arranged into cul-de-sacs do not really result in a block structure, but

during the 1980s in the UK it was the most common configuration for new

housing. This form creates quiet domestic arrangements, stopping any form of

through traffic, and dissuading non-resident access. It is less common today

as it discriminates against pedestrians and often offers areas of very poor

surveillance of the public realm.

Courtyards

Rather than an organising principle for a residential urban form, courtyard

housing might be added to an existing block structure. Normally the housing is

grouped around a shared space which might be used for parking, otherwise it

will probably be landscaped for collective use by residents

An example of courtyard houses

SCALE OF STREET

Vary the scale of streets to reflect the role of the

street within the layout

Creating distinctive places within

residential areas involves designing a

variety of scales into the block structure

that is adopted. This can be achieved in a

number of ways, but when considering the

block structure the most relevant thing to

consider is the need to introduce some

kind of spatial hierarchy into the pattern of

streets and spaces to be created.

With the exception of the cul-de-sac

arrangement, adopting a particular type

of block structure does not have a

significant impact on the pattern of

pedestrian or vehicular access that

might be adopted within the public realm

of the scheme, as many block structures

can adapt to a variety of patterns

The same block structure can

accommodate different patterns of

access

USE OF BUFFERS NEAR STREETS

Larger streets

should focus on

larger open spaces

whilst smaller

streets should lead

to neighbourhood

spaces

Limit the use of buffers

CASE STUDIES

Qingpu New

City 2009

Source:

https://architizer.com/pro

jects/qingpu-new-city-

2009/

• Design Challenge was to show Qingpu unique landscape and cultural characteristic in design, to interact the greens, water and ecology with urban activity in design, to connect the neighbor area and shape the city brand of Qingpu New City,to create the local characteristic.Tocreate new urban space and take into account its local culture background, natural features and historic texture we searched in the history. The legend of nine dragons inspired us. Their plasticity of motions, power, force and deep connection with water became the answer. The form has found the soul. Nine main volumes, developing from the park, personify nine dragons appearing from a water element. Volumes interlace , forming difficult composition, issuing dragons game.Green net strings volumes fully, makes way even inward,where it forms green atriums. It strings buildings from above and from below. The park and buildings exist inseparably. It is impossible exactly to designate cut where one is closed and other begins. And the dynamic soul of dragon lives in this symbiosis

Urban Gardens

in Sicily / Luca

Bullaro

Architettura

Source:

http://www.archdaily.com

/76483/urban-gardens-

in-sicily-luca-bullaro-

archittetura

• From the architect. The gardens are in the

Bagheria town centre, a few metres from the

entrances to Villa Palagonia, Villa Trabia and

Villa Valguarnera.

• The completed portion is a small part of a

broader project to redesign Corso Umberto I and

Piazza Garibaldi.

Some larger spaces at the busiest junctions have been turned into stopping places and feature ample

seating and a pool of water. The zones adjacent to car parks are paved with grey Billiemistone; the

paving inside the gardens is grey river pebbles, typical of local building tradition. These are interspersed

with 20cm-wide bands of stone that respond to the design of the adjacent pavements

The project includes the streets

surrounding the gardens, the

public car-park system and the

pavements, considerably

widened to encourage people to

walk around the town centre. The

layout of the gardens is based on

a study of pedestrian flows and

the desire to create a network of

routes winding around the

existing tall trees.