Urban Ecological Design

A Process for Regenerative Places

Danilo Palazzo,Frederick R. Steiner

• Publisher: Island Press
• Year: 2012
• ISBN:
  9781610912266
• Topic: Architecture
• Subtopic: Architecture General

This trailblazing book outlines an interdisciplinary "process model" for urban design that has been developed and tested over time. Its goal is not to explain how to design a specific city precinct or public space, but to describe useful steps to approach the transformation of urban spaces. Urban Ecological Design illustrates the different stages in which the process is organized, using theories, techniques, images, and case studies. In essence, it presents a "how-to" method to transform the urban landscape that is thoroughly informed by theory and practice.The authors note that urban design is viewed as an interface between different disciplines. They describe the field as "peacefully overrun, invaded, and occupied" by city planners, architects, engineers, and landscape architects (with developers and politicians frequently joining in). They suggest that environmental concerns demand the consideration of ecology and sustainability issues in urban design. It is, after all, the urban designer who helps to orchestrate human relationships with other living organisms in the built environment.The overall objective of the book is to reinforce the role of the urban designer as an honest broker and promoter of design processes and as an active agent of social creativity in the production of the public realm.

1. Processes

Urban design connects knowledge to action through a systematic process that adapts to the specific circumstances of the project. The urban designer brings knowledge from previous experience, generates new intelligence about the project, and guides the process through to its realization.

We apply a model to urban design to help designers be more effective project managers. In this capacity, the designer plans, controls, and coordinates “a project from conception to completion ... on behalf of a client [and] is concerned with the identification of the client’s objectives in terms of utility, function, quality, time, and cost and in the establishment of relationships between [available] resources” (Blyth and Worthington 2001, xii).

Sticking to a process does not necessarily guarantee a successful project. However, an organized process can aid in collaboration and can clarify expectations of all involved parties. It can also help to make the best use of available resources, including time and money.

In the design and planning literature, several examples of processes and models are useful in considering a specific process for urban design. Michael Brawne (2003, 8) investigates the architectural design process or, to say it in a different way, how architects and designers “proceed from the past and present to a forecast of the future.” Brawne assumes that the way architects proceed can be assimilated to sequence in the same way Karl Popper explained how scientific theories come into being. Popper’s explanation appeared mainly in The Logic of Scientific Discovery, first published in German in 1935 and then in English in 1959. Brawne described the Popper sequence as a process that starts with “the recognition of a problem, then put[s] forward a hypothesis, a kind of tentative theory which need[s] to be tested in order to eliminate errors and end[s] with a corroborated theory which is, however, the start of a new sequence in which it becomes the initial problem” (Brawne 2003, 38). Brawne then concludes that “although clearly architecture is not a scientific pursuit ... I nevertheless believe that the problem, tentative solution, error elimination, problem sequence is the most accurate description of the design process” (38).

In the field of planning, a well-known and heavily discussed dictum is survey before plan, coined by Scottish biologist and planner Patrick Geddes and then further elaborated on by English planner Patrick Abercrombie (Hall 1995). This succinct dictum establishes the framework for linking knowledge to action in the process. Theoretical reflections on planning and design, particularly after the Second World War, have resulted in many examples of processes applied to planning and design. Some examples, in order of appearance in the literature, follow.

In 1980, the Royal Institute of British Architects, in the Handbook of Architectural Practice and Management, proposed in the field of urban design a process model divided into four phases (RIBA 1980, quoted in Moughtin et al. 2004, 6):

1. Assimilation—the accumulation of general information and information specifically related to the problem
2. General Study—the investigation of the nature of the problem; the investigation of a possible solution
3. Development—the development of one or more solutions
4. Communication—the communication of the chosen solution/s to the client

Hamid Shirvani (1985) distinguishes six groups of design methods: internalized, synoptic, incremental, fragmental, pluralistic, and radical. The internalized method is the intuitive one: “The designer who uses the intuitive method first develops a design for the project in his or her mind, with the benefit and assistance of memory, training, and experience” (106).

The synoptic method, which is also commonly described as “rational” or “comprehensive,” is usually composed of seven steps (Shirvani 1985, 111):

1. Data collection, survey of existing conditions (natural, built, and socioeconomic);
2. Data analysis, identification of all opportunities and limitations;
3. Formulation of goals and objectives;
4. Generation of alternative concepts;
5. Elaboration of each concept into workable solutions;
6. Evaluation of alternative solutions; and
7. Translation of solutions into policies, plans, guidelines, and programs.

The incremental method is described by Shirvani as another version of the synoptic method in which “the designer establishes a goal and then develops incremental steps to achieve it” (116). The fragmental process is similar to the synoptic, except that it is incomplete. The designer can “go through four out of the total seven steps suggested for the synoptic process” (116). The pluralistic process is an approach that incorporates into the design process the inhabitants’ value system and the functional/social structure of the urban area involved in the design. Shirvani’s final approach, the radical process, has as an underlying concept that “in order to understand and design for a complex urban setting, social processes must be understood first” (118).

A process of ecological planning, consisting of eleven steps, was proposed by Frederick Steiner in The Living Landscape (2008) (see Figure 1.1). These eleven interacting steps are as follows:

Step 1. Problem and/or opportunity identification

Step 2. Goal establishment

Step 3. Regional-level inventory and analysis

Step 4. Local-level inventory and analysis

Step 5. Detailed studies

Step 6. Planning concept

Step 7. Landscape plan

Step 8. Education and citizen involvement

Step 9. Detailed designs

Step 10. Plan and design implementation

Step 11. Administration

This ecological planning model synthesizes other processes of regional and landscape planning. Its main references are the ecological methods for design and planning formulated since the 1960s by Ian McHarg (1966, 1969, 1981) (see Figure 1.2). The principal idea links environmental information through ecological knowledge to design and planning decisions by what McHarg called the “layer-cake model.”

In the field of urban planning, Larz Anderson, on behalf of the American Planning Association (1995), defines an urban planning process as composed of nine strongly interconnected phases. The process of plan making was viewed as a continuous cycle that recognizes the iterative and interactive nature of planning (see Figure 1.3; Steiner and Butler 2007, 3):

1. Identify issues.
2. State goals, objectives, and priorities.
3. Collect and interpret data.
4. Prepare plans.
5. Draft programs for plan implementation.
6. Evaluate impacts of plans and implementation programs.
7. Review and adopt plans.
8. Review and adopt implementation programs.
9. Administer implementation programs.

Figure 1.1 Ecological planning model. (From Steiner 2008, 11.)

Planning involves managing land uses in cities, agricultural areas, and forests. Planning is studied and practiced in terms of process. The planning and management of natural resources can be accomplished using the principles of stewardship, which can be defined as “the call to care for the Earth,” counting on human and individual responsibility to “guide individuals toward the common goal [ ... of the preservation of] Earth’s beauty and productivity for future generations” (President’s Council on Sustainable Development 1996, 8) and can be undertaken, according to Sexton et al. (1999), using the seven-step process summarized below:

1. Identify the problem, decision makers, their authorities, the stakeholders, and the decision-making process.
2. Define the problem and refine the objectives.
3. Develop alternative actions to achieve the objectives.
4. Compare each alternative with the objective.
5. Choose a preferred alternative.
6. Implement the chosen alternative.
7. Monitor and evaluate. (Reynolds et al. 1999, 690-92)

Figure 1.2 Layer-cake model. (From Steiner 2008, 15.)

Figure 1.3 The process of plan making as a continuous cycle. (From Anderson 1995, in Steiner and Butler 2007, 3.)

Tony Lloyd Jones (2001), discussing the urban design process, distinguishes between artistic inspiration and Geddesian analysis. The first approach (which barely can be considered a process) is driven by the view of “many designers who see themselves as ... gifted artists” (51). Therefore, according to Lloyd Jones, “the stress is on beautifying the city through grand and often formal street layouts and landscaping interventions” (51). This very clearly relegates the landscape to decoration (“landscaping”) in the grand plan, rather than the deeper meaning of landscape as a synthesis of nature and cultural processes with clear ecological implications. On the opposite side of the “artistic inspiration,” there is the Geddesian approach that views the design action as a problem-solving activity

concerned with the issue of spatial organisation to meet functional need.... [This] approach [also labeled “functionalist” because of its engineering origin] suggests that if we analyse the problems that the design sets out to address in sufficient detail and in a scientific manner, a spatial solution will emerge from this analysis or “programme”. It suggests that design is a linear process, which, if carried out with sufficient rigor, will lead to a single, optimum solution. (51)

Lloyd Jones suggests that there is a third option that overcomes the inspirational and the deterministic approaches. This approach takes the form of a cyclic process of analysis-composition-evaluation: “an attempt to reconcile factors that relate to client or user needs, factors that relate to...