Urban Design

The Composition of Complexity

Ron Kasprisin

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2019
• ISBN:
  9781351618496
• Edition: 2
• Topic: Architecture
• Subtopic: Architecture Design

Urban design is a process of establishing a structural order within human settlements; responding to dynamic emergent meanings and functions in a constant state of flux. The planning/design process is complex due to the myriad of ongoing (urban) organizational and structural relationships and contexts. This book reconnects the process with outcomes on the ground, and puts thinking about design back at the heart of what planners do. Mixing accessible theory, practical examples and carefully designed exercises in composition from simple to complex settings, Urban Design is an essential textbook for classrooms and design studios across the full spectrum of planning and urban studies fields. Filled with color illustrations and graphics of excellent projects, it gives students tools to enable them to sketch, draw, design and, above all, think.

This new edition remains focused on instructing the student, professional and layperson in the elements and principles of design composition, so that they can diverge from conventional and packaged solutions in pursuit of a meaningful and creative urbanism. This edition builds upon established design principles and encourages the student in creative ways to depart from them as appropriate in dealing with the complexity of culture, space and time dynamics of cities. The book identifies the elements and principles of compositions and explores compositional order and structure as they relate to the meaning and functionality of cities. It discusses new directions and methods, and outlines the importance of both buildings and the open spaces between them.

Part I

Human settlement dynamics

Foundations for spatial compositions

Chapter 1

Introduction

My initial formal effort, beyond course work, to establish a stronger connection between urban planning/urban studies analyses and design composition/spatial structure resulted in the first edition of Urban Design: The Composition of Complexity (Routledge, 2011). This second edition is a complete revision of that effort that seeks to further strengthen the connections between key theoretical considerations of cities as complex living systems and the importance of design composition as a spatial language necessary to portray and interpret those considerations into real built form. Based on the living systems perspective, change is constant and outcomes are uncertain—and this as we will explore makes design even more critical in the city-building process. At the heart of this work is the desire to enable urban studies students—including and beyond established designers—to understand and actively participate in the making of built form through (urban) design.

The book also seeks to advance new ideas and methods in design composition that relate to the theoretical base associated with Complexity Theory and creative systems. There are those in the design professions who argue that complexity is not a theory, whereas I argue it is both a theory or set of phenomena affecting our cities and a state of condition in our cities. There are no formulae for success to be found in the book—it seeks to promote a creative problem-solving process, seeking discovery, novelty and innovation. It is a dialogue with interested students, practitioners and other urbanists about how design is inherent in this process, and a demonstration and experimentation of alternate approaches to urban design. Different from the first edition, this contains examples that I hope can stimulate and guide interested readers in engaging design. It is my hope that this dialogue can generate a myriad of other experimentation points among those readers.

Premise

All actions and decisions associated with the meaning and functionality of human settlements—the urban dynamic—have spatial manifestations; and these manifestations are inherent in and not separated from the analysis of that dynamic. Consequently, and regardless of the varying levels of expertise in design and planning among professionals, students and laypeople, all participants are better able to address complex contexts and affect the quality of the built environment through a basic understanding of the basic elements and principles of design composition. Urban design has a key role in not only the generation of ideas for the built form but in the testing and evaluation of those ideas and consequently the overall education and awareness of the public regarding a quality urban form.

Organization and flow of the book

Urban design is a field or domain of many facets. This book focuses on relationships between and among the following:

• the umbrella: creative (or living) systems theory relative to human settlements: complexity thinking and its implications for design
• basis for complexity in human settlements: the trialectic of culture/space/time—the CST matrix
• creative problem-solving (CPS): engaging complexity
• composition of complexity: the elements and principles of spatial organization and structure.

For those professionals, students and laypeople involved in decision-making regarding the built environment, being able to intentionally guide urban spatial structure is a critical aspiration and responsibility; beyond analysis and rhetoric. It requires a working knowledge of the dynamics of cities and (urban) design composition/compositional structure, particularly in light of the adaptive and emerging patterns within human settlements. Urban planning and urban studies provide the base means and methods to analyse and understand the complex interactions and resulting relationships of urban living. This provides the conventional basis for design determinants used by architects, landscape architects, urban designers and planners (including laypeople) to affect meaningful spatial structure, from the individual building and open space to the larger urban structure and composition.

Making the connection between those relationships (as outcomes of the CST matrix) and the built form is often diluted or compartmentalized and assigned to the “designers”. Analysis and comprehensive understanding of urban issues and “design” often go in separate directions, resulting in fragmented or packaged urban design solutions. There is an increasing dependency on packaged outcomes, branded and market-suitable, as opposed to relevant and contextually responsive. And collaboration among disciplines does not seem sufficient to address these challenges. How can we improve this collaboration?

Mission 1: Explore complexity as a part of a creative urbanism, a distinct departure from established conventions; and redefine and make the connection for the role of urban design in this creative process.

This book discusses, explores and demonstrates ways and means to address complexity from a design perspective through creative problem-solving. Complexity comes from the Latin plexus, meaning interwoven, where a complex system has elements which interact and affect each other, making it difficult to separate the behavior of individual elements. The fields of urban study have tendencies to separate and specialize these elements for the efficient management of means and methods of analysis.

This book strives to explore the presence of design as an inherent part of this urban dynamic and to make the connection between design engagement and urban complexity (CST—the interactions of cultural, spatial and temporal forces) (Soja, 1996): designing for difference and creativity—for all participants in built environment-shaping. I have witnessed too many urban design-related studios where the planners are designated as the resource/analysis people and the architects and landscape architects as the designers—an immediate disconnect. Both groups fail to understand the inherent connections between comprehensive analysis and design composition and urban form; between divergent and convergent thinking; between linear or normative and creative problem-solving. Urban design is about design composition for this complexity, requiring all participants to engage in meaningful ways.

The detailed discussions of complexity incorporate work from many sources, including the emergent CTC domain—the complexity theory of cities that analyses them as complex self-organizing systems; a direction of study that grew exponentially as students and professionals in urban studies became engaged with this new paradigm of complexity and self-organization (Portugali et al., 2012).

And this is about more than improved coordination and communication among the various specializations of urban investigation; it is about the inherent and inseparable connections and interactions between (better) understanding of the complexities of urban living and ways to affect the qualitative spatial structure within which that living occurs. Yes, there are levels of experience and expertise in the design process; they will always remain. And the argument in this book is that the fundamental elements and principles of design (spatial) composition are not only available but required for all participants at appropriate levels who engage in related built environment decision-making—especially in complex situations.

Mission 2: Understand urban design composition as the inherent structural assemblage or order for the complex dynamics of human settlements.

(Urban) design composition forms the skeleton spatial framework for communities large and small. And as a result of the constantly changing nature of cities, this framework can influence quality spatial structure and resulting built form infill over extended time periods. Consequently, understanding the elements and principles of compositional structure is a necessary responsibility for all involved in urban design and planning, not just specialists. Design composition is explored in the book as the structural assemblage for the CST interactions, ever-changing in dynamic human settlements. This requires more in-depth response from the urban design community, not less.

Part II of the book establishes the basic fundamentals of design composition as functions of art, and also builds on the work of educator Friedrich Froebel, the “inventor” of kindergarten, an educational process involving play as a free activity that influenced Frank Lloyd Wright, Buckminster Fuller, Walter Gropius, Wassily Kandinsky, Zentrum Paul Klee, Johannes Itten and many more artists, architects and educators. Losing these principles in a tidal wave of technological means and methods has far-reaching impacts on creative solutions to urban challenges. This does not condemn technology but argues for a plurality of and appropriate use of means and methods in design. We revisit these principles in design composition.

Part II begins with basic exercises in design composition for the beginner and advances to compositional explorations of key and unique factors of complexity and “creative urbanism” dynamics, with a focus on creative problem-solving. The basic premise at work is that if a creative problem-solving process is engaged, then what are the nature and characteristics of the creative outcome—possibly novel and innovative? How do we forge design compositions with and for this creative outcome and its connections to the larger built environment?

More on this later in the book.

Mission 3: Describe the necessity of direct engagement in urban design composition in order to understand the dynamics of human settlements.

There is a significant difference in the rhetoric of urban design and a direct engagement in design-making. It is the difference between linear or normative problem-solving and creative problem-solving (Kasprisin, 2016). Urban planners who develop planning and design policy (statements of action) are at a disadvantage if they cannot perceive of the spatial ramifications and outcomes of that policy—much to the detriment of the built environment. Planning and urban design then become trapped or ensnared in forging regulations that are in response to poor or inadequate planning decisions—or the lack thereof.

Urban design is also a way in which community members can visualize, process and understand the spatial implications of urban development. And I don’t mean the perspective views of baby carriages and balloons along a nice waterfront walkway. Urban design can increase the awareness of the public and stakeholders through a quality and meaningful spatial language that is accessible and interactive—achievable through a variety of appropriate representational forms.

Mission 4: Differentiate between the creative generation of urban design composition and its simulation through historical patterns, conventional typologies, and packaged models.

As we go through design experimentation and examples, I make the distinction between creative outcomes responsive to need and context versus the convenient, packaged, often thematic or nostalgic models that are fully available to cities around the globe, contributing little to local authenticity. There is a tension between authenticity of a community’s built form and one that is branded or contrived: the difference between a community that is creative in its process and one that brands itself as a “creative city” as a marketing ploy. Creative urbanism addresses a search for authenticity through the creative process with uncertain outcomes versus form applications devoid of significant contextual reality.

The reader can form his or her own opinions on these missions. They are the result of reflections on my years of experience in practice and teaching. I hope that these can be the foundations of an ongoing dialogue regarding the importance of urban design and its new directions.

Setting the stage for urban design: structuring human settlements

(The many) definitions and approaches to urban design

As I discussed in the first edition, when the definition of urban design is approached among design and planning colleagues, there are lots of viewpoints depending on their educational backgrounds and field experience, if any. And that is a good place to start for students and professionals alike. Why? Because the term elicits a wide array of agendas, points of view, approaches, theories, politics and philosophies of “urbanisms”. Agendas can range from designing major portions of cities to public involvement and education to policy and regulatory perspectives. Specific foci can range from site design, downtown redevelopment, design guidelines, social justice and food production and distribution to cultural and behavioral principles; and all are valid components within the larger definition. As my graduate mentor Myer R. Wolfe (University of Washington, 1960s to 1980s) adequately impressed upon us: “Urban design is inherent in the comprehensive planning process.”

As an architect and urban planner, I state at the beginning that urban design in the context of this book is defined as the spatial relationship between urban—the interactions of cultures, space and time—and design—the making of structural compositions and orders. Urban design as explored here is a design-based process founded in an urban studies context where design decisions emanate from awareness and understanding of complex urban forces. And design is inherent i...