Comparative Analysis Of Urban Design - Essay Example

COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF URBAN DESIGN Introduction Urban design would entail the whole process of arranging and designing public spaces, buildings, transport systems, and other social amenities. This process involves giving form, shape, and character to particular groups of buildings, to the whole neighborhoods, as well as the entire city. The urban design orders and organizes the elements into a network of streets, squares and blocks. In addition, this framework brings together architecture, landscape architecture and city or town planning so as to make urban areas relatively attractive and functional. Generally, the art of urban design is meant to make connections between people and places, as well as movement and urban form, its nature and the built fabric. The process brings together the several strands of place-making, environmental stewardship, the social equity, and economic viability into creation of places with distinct beauty and identity. Urban design creates a vision for a given town setting coupled with development economics, available resources, planning and urban policies. Moreover, the limited resources and skills are employed in realizing the vision of the given town. There are several towns and cities across the globe which have distinctive urban design. These designs would include all the three aspects of an urban design setting comprising the infrastructure, architecture and the public spaces. These three aspects must be prioritized in any urban design. Some of the examples of great urban designs would include: Cartagena in Columbia, Washington DC, Copenhagen in Denmark, Aleppo in Syria, Siena in Italy and Salt Lake City among others. Norwood and Golden Grove in Adelaide Norwood is an older suburb compared to the Golden Grove, both of them found in Adelaide. While Norwood promotes a sense of community through its scale; which is a mixed- use development pattern, the Golden Grove has high quality movement networks as well as landscaped recreational spaces. The Street Design The major focus is the connectivity, safety, convenience, and street furniture. The dispersed development and separation of uses in Golden Grove do little favors to walk able communities. On the other hand, traditional street design of Norwood Parade emphasizes pedestrian friendly features that include sidewalks, on-street parking, pathways, short blocks and green medians. Parade Grove is therefore considered as a multi-purpose or shared street thus not just meant for motorists alone. Block length should be short to increase the degree of interconnectivity. This lead to ability to permit multiple routes and shorten walking distances. Local street networks servicing a residential neighborhood should have good interconnectivity with each other as well as appropriate connection with main roads. In addition, Golden Grove has habitually applied circuitous roads. This cannot be reconnected to the neighboring street network without great cost. Hence, it is comparatively expensive. Although cul-de-sac idea mainly targets the safety and privacy of people and property, but these values can be accomplished through other measures (Southworth & Ben-Joseph 2004). Meanwhile, a gridiron network that provides multiple pedestrian and cyclist routes with proper connections to adjacent streets, essentially open spaces, bus stops and local commercial units is more efficient. The pattern of Golden Grove streets also lacks legibility that is hardly understood. The higher proportion of cul-de-sacs and the dead ends – 60% for Golden Grove, evolve walking long because of inadequate links to nearby destinations. Developing on large lots makes the routes less permeable as compared with shorter blocks and smaller lot sizes. Moreover, flexibility of grid network in Norwood, gives room for more choice of movement alternatives within the neighborhood area. Convenience for both pedestrian and cyclists is achieved through constructing proper footpaths. The bicycle routes should have clear lines, smooth and free of obstacles. Also they have to be well connected to the network to enhance the directness of travel. Street furniture, landscaping, and architecture may encourage walking, provided that they do not obstruct footpaths. In Norwood, most of local streets have paved sidewalks on both sides, but in a few cases, the vegetation hinders them. Furthermore, the sidewalks are separated from the street by a planting verge as buffer. Shade trees are often spaced in the edge to help define the street edge and moderate summer temperatures. However, there are a few blind spots and places with inappropriate breadth. Separate bicycle lanes are provided in Norwood, in a few streets. The practice of on-street parking helps to slow traffic and thus improving safety of pedestrians and cyclists. In Golden Grove however, in some streets, sidewalks have been shared with the motorized traffic where it is considered insecure. The design of Golden Grove streets, also considered pavement only on one side. The hilly geography of Golden Grove disheartens both pedestrian and bicycle users. Streets should provide a sense of security for pedestrians. This is facilitated by building and activity centers such as cafés, restaurants and grocery shops being oriented to the street. The proper lighting and signage support the feeling of personal security. Unfortunately, both Norwood and Golden Grove suffer from poor lighting. In Golden Grove, shorter height lights make streets much brightness, and a specific design in some areas is attractive. In Norwood, poor lighting is of main challenges for both pedestrians after dark. Safety measures thus need to be reducing the potential danger. Street furniture found to be related in encouraging sustainable travel. Attractive and coordinated street furniture, signage, lighting, increase pedestrian and cyclists’ amenity. Buildings and their pedestrian entrances should be oriented to the street. The infra-structural design has a big impact on people’s culture and beliefs. Thus plays a fundamental role in shaping up the communities living in Golden Glove and Norwood. Location just like cultural orientation plays a leading role in determining the architectural designs as well as the colors used by the urban designers. In the end, the whole blend impacts on the language of the people inhabiting the urban places. Norwood Parade Some of the colors were also used as assistive weapons to the frequent wars that arose in the ancient das. The brown and grey colors were used in most of the paintings as it provided a background that military solders could hide. An example of the wars that made grey and brown color in Alabama to be used was to provide a background where the solders could hide for their enemies. AN example of the wars is that of the Vietnam. The Vietnam was considered to be very dangerous and cause many damages. Color in this case helped a lot in fighting the guerilla tactic of war. The religious leaders came up with the idea of the color paintings as they were in the bid of enhancing peace in the cities. A lot of the resistance to World War I came from religious minorities like the Mennonites, and Manikins, and other religious groups that did not believe in violence. The resistance also came from other quarters for instance it also came from the women suffrage movement. This movement exclusively championed and fought for women’s rights. Women who were struggling for the right, vote in America, opposed the war, because they thought America had no right to declare it wants to make the “world safe for democracy”, before it gives women right to vote in America. Nevertheless, the most important opposition to World War I came from the socialist Party. The Socialist Party, which was also commonly known as the Wobbles under the leadership of Eugene Dabs, opposed the war, because they thought the war was going to be the richer, and the working class was going to have to fight and die. In 1914 at Ludlow Massacre, machine guns were used to kill striking miners. This cause America to be a lot of problems ranging from economic, social and political. America was in a serious economic recession, civil unrests and on the verge of revolution. The leader of the socialist movement, Eugene Debs was a very radical leader and he led his people and the Socialist movement to oppose the war. This was also because they thought the war would create an artificial community of interest between rich and poor, and people instead of becoming socialist revolutionaries, would instead become American patriots and nationalist (Klein, 1962). This tension also leads to the introduction of color designs that favored each city. The uniform of the military was also to match the color of the buildings within the town. There are some other reasons as to why various colors were of great significance to most of the cities. Bright colors were not also recommended due to reflection of light that could interfere with the normal eye sight of a person. Color is vital in a real life situation as it is used to show various symbols or signs that cannot be communicated verbally. For instance, red is always used to shoe danger, green for vegetation and white foe peace. Many cities apart from color being a weapon, it is used an esthetic. Color is actually used to add some bit of esthetic value to a substance. The buildings of most cities were also painted using various colors to beautify them. Generally, color can be considered very vital in every aspect of life. Without color, vision can cease to exist and the world can be a boring place to live. Color in conclusion, is a basic need and without it, nothing can be pimped to perfection. References Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) (2001) Census of Population and Housing: Journey to Work datasheets, Australia Government of South Australia (1999) Metropolitan Adelaide Household Travel Survey (MAHTS), Department of Transport and Planning, March Klein, Bernard. (1962) Guide to American Directories.  Fifth ed. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, Read More