Considering My Place to Create Place

http://www.urbandynamics.co.za/urban-design.html

Working through the concepts presented on Urban Design, I can’t help but relate all that I read to my studies in Landscape Architecture.  What is it that defines Urban Design as a separate study from that of Landscape Architecture? 

I imagine that many of you were doing the same from your own perspectives and fields of study.  As designers, we are all asked to take in the broader picture: to not only consider aesthetics and flow, function and form, but to incorporate those things into the fabric of what is there.  That includes being intimately knowledgeable about the social connections, historical background, natural processes and the local perceptions surrounding all of these things to define a particular place.  These ideas are not new to us, but perhaps the separation of the Urban Design field is.

I think there is a tendency amongst designers/creators/builders to believe we can proficiently accomplish the skills of one another.  Part of this assumption may arise from the fact that those who create, as a necessity, must have a high level of confidence and assuredness to present their ideas as the best possible solution.  The other aspect of this pompous inclination is the natural overlapping of our skills and professions.  As we read, Urban Design falls at the intersection of Architecture, Landscape Architecture and Planning and Engineering. 

Urban Design did not just arise as a profession to exclude the layman like, say, realtors or lawyers.  (No offense to any of you who may practice or know people who practice—I’m kidding, mostly.)  It arose in response to conditions that were not being addressed during a time of rapid development.  Landscape Architecture was concerned with greenspaces, Architecture with buildings, Planning with economic and social efficiency, and Engineering with, you know, that technical stuff. 

The work of Jane Jacobs, both written and in the public realm, cannot be understated about its influence in bringing up the issues that provide the basis for Urban Design.  Succinctly stated by Robert A.M. Stern in Ric Burns’ PBS documentary Jane Jacobs vs. Robert Moses: Urban Fight of the Century, “. . .she went through the litany of what Le Corbusier and other ideologues had imagined what a city should be as opposed to what a city really was” (emphasis added).  He went on to say, “. . . it returned discussion of what urbanism should be about. . . from big land games to individuals, shops, streets, cars, crosswalks, networks of people, people rich and poor living more closely together, less concerned with the elevator to the 35^th floor and more concerned with the life of the 5-storey walk-up.”

Today, these ideas of Urban Design have gained validity and acceptance, if not significantly applied.  In our training as designers, we know we need look past just the aesthetic.  As a Landscape Architect, I can work at both small and large scales, from a back yard to the layout of a neighborhood or larger.  I will admit, though, that the buildings in my plans remain colored blocks.  Similarly in an Architect’s plan, the landscape may be green and indicate trees, but the details will be lacking.  The Planner develops the zones and lots; the Engineer makes sure it is all structurally sound.  And the Urban Designer marries it all, along with the people encompassed within the plan and those that enact it.

Urban Design is not a separate field just as the streets cannot be separated from the people who use them and the landscape cannot exist without the natural processes that maintain it.  Urban Design is part of the fabric that makes up all of our design professions, an interwoven element inseparable from the larger tapestry of our cities and towns.