Urban Design - Essay Example

?Urban design Urban design is a term that is used in the of the process of shaping and designing cities, villages and towns. Urban designers are involved in addressing a large scale, i.e. groups of buildings, public spaces, districts, whole neighborhoods, cities in order to make urban areas attractive, practical and sustainable (Kasprisn 2001). The definition of the public realm is all outside places, any pathways, publicly owned streets, open spaces accessible by the public, civil and public buildings and facilities, parks and right of ways that are accessed by anyone regardless of ownership. These places also include bikeways, plazas, waterfronts, view corridors, transportation hubs, and natural features, building interfaces, landmarks, squares, nodes, pedestrian ways and bridges. To maintain high quality public realm, arc must be the overall driving force. In some cities, the public realm is not an original person’s idea; some ideas are gotten from cities that the public realm has worked. Public realm has four categories: public spaces, streetscapes, parks and coastal areas. Coastal areas – these areas include all areas of land that are along or adjacent to large water bodies. Parks – these are open spaces to the community that are used as recreational facilities; parks include wadi systems, mountain ridges comprised of natural areas. Public places – include open areas that surround the community that is used for public assembly or gathering and is visible to the entire public. Streetscapes – these are elements of the streets which comprise visual objects, and they include trees, roads, sidewalks, open spaces, street furniture, benches and trees – all these combined to form the street’s character. Reasons why urban designers should pay attention to the public realm are to satisfy their clients’ needs, who include the entire public. Their satisfaction should be given most attention because the public realm is basically their surrounding or places of their dwellings. It should be in a position to marry a people’s culture in order for it to serve as an environment conducive to education and adding to the richness of the whole public. The public realm should put into understanding the behaviors of people, or how they are to react against the set design; there are many aspects of the public that are to be put into consideration. Caring for the public and paying attention to the public realm example in the open squares and park is important because this is a convergence place for the interaction of the public. The ways in which the public has access to the towns or areas of interest is dictated by the mode in which the “public realm” was set. Buildings and all that encompasses the public realm should be designed in a way that maximum safety is offered and the public is at its optimum security while accessing such public places. If these places are safe, then running of business will be smooth, and everything will be flowing according to what they are planning in the short and in the long run. Attention should also be given to the ways in which the roads are designed, i.e. there should be pedestrian crosses in the roads where there is much public usage. There should be road signs along the highways, and the roads should be properly calibrated if it is a two way road. Strategies and techniques used by designers to enhance the public realm are to ensure places retain their uniqueness by not changing the place’s physicality, making sure that development does not greatly interfere with the way the layout of the street is. Designers enhance this by holding open forums with the public where they discuss emerging issues in their cities, towns, villages or places of their dwellings. In their discussions, they come up with ways to solve the emerging issues or find solutions to their problems. Other strategies that designers use are acquiring ideas from places with well descent established public realm and incorporating the ideas into places where it has not been tried. Though this is a challenge because “ones man’s meat is another man’s poison”, the ideas most of the time do not work because people’s culture differ from place to place. Therefore, even if ideas are taken from elsewhere, the public must or should be involved in the decision making process in order for a public realm to be perfect or at least near perfection. Another important aspect is designers not going against a place’s objective when they abide by the locality’s rules and regulations, the planning and governing councils of a place are consulted when changes are to be made or if new structures are to be erected. Consistencies in cities and towns are taken into great consideration for uniformity in buildings, public paths, recreational sites and pedestrian walks. Another strategy that designers use in enhancing public realm is coming up with new ideas so that a place where public realm is to be enhanced has a unique sense of belonging. Coming up with new ideas is important in that a place does not look like a copy or a duplicate of designers’ ones. This enhances places characteristics. Some of the major challenges that designers face in enhancing public realm is resistance from the public. This occurs when the public does not satisfy the designer’s plans or designs because of various reasons such as the designs are going to interfere with the place’s uniqueness, area of coverage of public amenities is less or occupies a large space depending on the basis of their argument, the final project will make the place not to be secure for the entire public. Designers are also faced with the challenges of fast growing technology. They are expected to be up to date with the levels of the technology involved in their industry, e.g. software, equipment used for analyzing raw facts in their profession and converting the facts into data. They are required to know various ways to bring solutions where design oriented problems occur (Lofland 1998). An example of a successful public realm is San Francisco which is officially known as the City and County of San Francisco. It has a populace of 7.5 million people including Oakland and San Jose. It covers a land area of approximately 46.9 square miles giving it population density of 17,179 people per square mile. The earliest evidence of habitation in this city dates back to 3000 BC. San Francisco location is on United State’s west coast. This city has a public realm plan to reinvigorate the public spaces and streets of Fisherman’s Wharf. The central elements of the plan are the streets, but in this plan it also includes a circulation plan and revamped parking, a new development design guideline, streetscapes, new designs for Wharf streets which were not designed earlier, and public open spaces refurbishment. The public realm in this city has helped in the solidifying of the future economic vitality of Wharf as well as strengthening the city’s connection. Public realm in San Francisco supports an active and diverse life on the historical roots of Wharf as the home where fishing fleet works. Beverly Hills is a city with a less successful public realm in that to access a public realm you have to pay. The public realm is not used intensively by the public as it is supposed to. It is disappointing to be in a position that you are supposed to pay for a public utility and access a public amenity. Therefore, as a challenge, the council of Beverly Hills should meet with the public and search for other ways to get revenue, but not from the public realm (Scott and Soja 1998). References Kasprisn, R 2001. Urban design: the composition of complexity, Routledge, New York. Lofland, L 1998. The public realm: exploring the city's quintessential social territory, Aldine de Gruyter, Berlin.  Scott, J & Soja, E 1998. The city: Los Angeles and urban theory at the end of the twentieth century, University of California Press, California. Read More