LYNCH AND CULLEN

URBAN PLANNING AND DESIGN

LYNCH AND CULLEN

EMPIRCISM

Idealistic assumptionsPresent and past for inspiration

“How the world should function and how people should behave rather than how it actually does and they do.”

NEO-EMPIRICISM

Direct descendent of the garden city movement.

Arouses in response to the limitations of garden city.

Traditional forms have much to be admired and replicated.

Traffic and industries were major catalysts.

KEVIN ANDREW LYNCH (1918 - 1984)

visual elements cognitive concepts of the

urban environment. innovative way of conceiving

of the urban environment was presented with a deep design knowledge that changed the attitudes of both professionals and scholars.

urban form that consists of physical and psychological elements

BIOGRAPHY

Born in 1918

educated at Yale University, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

consultant to the state of Rhode Island, New England Medical Center, Boston Redevelopment Authority, Puerto Rico I.D.C,M.I.T. Planning Office.

At MIT, he went on to gain Professorship in 1963, and eventually earned professor emeritus status

he produced seven books. His most famous work, Image of the City (1960)

BOOKS BY LYNCH

Wrote 7 books:The image of the city.

City sense and city design.

Good city form.

Site planning

LYNCH’S GOAL?

Combating Modernism’s unified, monolithic depersonalized city through reasserting the human role in the interpretation of the city.

Kevin Lynch

Interviewed urbanites in Boston Jersey City, and Los Angeles

Most established a “generalized mental picture of the external physical world”

The mental picture was very similar

Their images emerged in a two way process:

▪ They made distinctions among the various physical parts of the city

▪ They organized these parts in a personally meaningful way

IDEAS OF LYNCH

He was concerned by the look of the cities and whether this look is of any importance , or whether this look can be changed.

he introduced the theory of urban form. An urban environment is a complex system of

interactions between people (users) and various surrounding objects

Lynch described two things important for a subsequent explanation of the whole theory: first, physical elements of the city and second, the psychological, mental image of the city.

PHYSICAL ELEMENTS OF THE CITY

IMAGE OF THE ENVIRONMENT

ELEMENTS OF THE CITY

DIMENSION OF PERFORMANCE

IMAGE OF THE ENVIRONMENT

Legibility

Building the image

Structure and identity

Imageability

Apparent clarity

2 –way process

Long familiarityStriking featuresNew object

IdentityStructure meaning

Well formedDistinctRemarkableInvite eye and ear

STRENGTHEN IMAGE DEVELOPMENT

Symbolic devices.

Install machines.

Reshaping ones surrounding.

Retraining the perceiver.

ELEMENTS OF THE CITY

PATHS

EDGES

DISTRICT

NODES

LANDMMARK

PATHS

customarilyoccasionallypotentially

PATHS

Customary travel Special use or activity Spatial qualities Façade characteristics Identity continuity Direction Path destination and origin points Scale Alignment Abrupt directional shift crossings

DESIGNING THE CITY PATHS

Singular qualityContinuityHierarchyDirectionGradientKinesthetic IdentitySimplicity

EDGES

Boundaries

Barriers

Breaks

seam

DESIGNING THE CITY EDGESContinuityStrength GradientDefinite terminiAccessibility

DISTRICTS

Theme Building types Topography Noise Population Lettering of signs Boundaries Communities Introvert Extrovert

DISTRICTS

DESIGNING THE CITY DISTRICTS

ContinuityDefinitenessClosureStructured within itselfConnection with other district

NODES

NODES

JunctionBreak in transportationSubway stationsRailroad stationAirportsStreet intersectionShopping areas

DESIGNING THE CITY NODES

Identity Boundary themeBreak in transportationclosure

LANDMARKS

LANDMARKS

Singularity UniquenessContrast (small/big, new/old, dirty/clean)NavigationSymbolicSizeProminence of spatial locationFamiliarity breeds landmarks

DESIGNING THE CITY LANDMARKS

SingularContrast with contextSizeLocation Spatial quality

DIMENSION OF PERFORMANCEVitalitySenseFitAccessControlEfficiency justice

GOOD CITY FORM

VISIBLE COHERENT

CLEAR

SENSE OF WHOLE

METROPOLITAN FORM

Entire region may be composed as a static hierarchy.

Use one or two very large dominant elements to which many smaller things may b related.

ANALYSIS

THOMAS GORDON CULLEN (1914-1994)

Influential English architect and urban designer

key motivator in the Townscape movement.

he wrote and published Townscape.

He was a key figure and activist in the development of British theories of urban design in the post-war period.

BIOGRAPHY

Born in calverle, pudsey, 9 Aug 1914

He studied architecture at the polytechnic of central London

Cullen became a freelance writer and consultant in 1956, he advised the cities of Liverpool and Peterborough on their reconstruction and redevelopment plans.

Between 1944 and 1946 he worked in the planning office of the Development and Welfare Department in Barbados.

His most famous work, Townscape

BOOKS BY CULLEN

Townscape

Concise townscape

Visions of urban design

Urban design and townscape

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  THE IDEAS OF CULLEN

Gordon Cullen is one of the authors who had incorporated the idea

of an observer in movement as basic element for the perception of the

constructed space, and in the workmanship Urban Landscape

considers the notion of serial vision for the first time as a conceptual

instrument for an urban reading.

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THE CONCEPT OF SERIAL VISION

Drawings of Cullen defining Serial Vision

Sequence of images of Westminster: the emotion and the sensation of the discovery

Sense of being in a particular place conjure different visual images and feelings w.r.t place characteristics.

Occupied territoryPossession in movementEnclavesEnclosuresFocal point Precincts

THE CONCEPT OF PLACE

THE CONCEPT OF PLACE

Block house insubstantial space Defining spaceHere and thereTruncation change of levelSilhouette

Grandiose vistaScreened vistaDeflectionProjection and recessionPunctuationNarrows infinity

THE CONCEPT OF PLACE

Categories of environment its mood and which enliven the space by creating drama.

Juxtaposition ImmediacySeeing in detail IntricacyProprietyBluntness and vigor

THE CONCEPT OF CONTENT

THE CONCEPT OF CONTENTExposure IllusionGeometryFoilsRelationshipScaleDistortionCalligraphypublicity

THE FUNCTIONAL TRADITION

Intrinsic quality of things which creates the environment.

StructureRailingFencesStepsTexture Lettering

SQUARES FOR ALL TASTE

The private square: enclosed

The private square: open

The popular square The square as

quadrangle: municipal The square as

quadrangle: collegiate

CROSS AS FOCAL POINT

Anchorage for humans

ImmovableSecurity from

traffic

CLOSURE

The subdivision(human scale)

The provision of incident

The sense of unrolling and revealing

identification

LEGS AND WHEELS

Variety and character to ground surface

Pedestrians onlyPedestrian

priority

HAZARDS

BoundariesRailingsPlantingConcealed

hazardsChange of level

THE FLOOR

AdventureFunctional

patternStandardizing the

codeMaterialsarticulation

PRAIRIE PLANNING

STREET LIGHTING

Code of practiceKinetic unityProprietyTowards flexibility

THE WALL

Seeing in detailCatching the eyeExploiting the

surfaceMaking the most

of it

TREES INCORPORATED

Shadow ScreenLineGeometryMobilesculpture

ANALYSIS