by David Dixon, FAIA
The process of creating an achievable vision—which some urban
designers liken to a political campaign, a sort of battle for the hearts
and minds of participants—incorporates steps analogous to designing
a building but with a very different emphasis. By the time an architect
designs a building, decisions have been made about its size, use, and
design character. Such decisions are the products of the urban design
process, which is ultimately about creating ideas that will find expression
in policy documents, reports, and drawings.
A note of caution is sounded by my colleague David Spillane, RIBA, who
quotes various British statesmen as saying, “Anything worth doing
is messy in the middle.” Applied to urban design, this comment
reflects the fact that this type of design is an iterative process and
participants often find themselves returning to earlier steps in light
of subsequent observations and new ideas. In the end, however, the process
of creating an achievable vision falls into four stages of exploration
and resolution.
Define the project
A number of aspects need to be clarified to set the parameters of an
urban design project.
- Who are the key participants and
what approaches will best integrate them into a collaborative process: A stakeholder task force? A series
of community workshops? Regular community meetings? A charrette? At Goody
Clancy we interview as many stakeholders as possible at the start of
each project to determine the most effective kinds of outreach and build
a foundation of mutual understanding and communication.
- What are the key milestones? Does
a public agency need to file legislation or does a developer have
a financing deadline? What are the core opportunities and challenges—truly
significant design, program, or other opportunities? What broader
social, economic, or environmental goals can be achieved? For example,
is there an opportunity to establish a neighborhood identity or call
for green building and site planning?
- What technical, political, or other challenges stand in the way?
- What are the options for implementation? This last question might
seem premature, but it is critical to start asking it at the outset and
keep it in mind at each stage of a project to ensure the final recommendations
are achievable.
Identify and analyze the key issues
What technical issues are critical to producing meaningful recommendations?
For a given project, transportation, real estate economics, environmental,
or other issues will drive the study process.
What role should community values, history, and other subjective issues
play? For example, in Boston, tall buildings raise concerns, while in
Chicago, many people view height as a symbol of civic pride.
This step is really about education, and it should be highly interactive.
The urban designer and other support staff work with the client and community
to ensure all participants have an opportunity to learn from each other,
usually through workshops and community meetings.
Articulate a vision
What qualities and aspirations should give shape and character to the
urban design plans and recommendations that will result from a project?
For example, if a new or revitalized neighborhood is to be walkable,
this implies certain things about its density, mix of uses, and street
pattern. Defining a vision also helps participants make difficult trade-offs.
Nowhere is perfection more the enemy of progress than in urban design.
Historic preservationists, advocates of affordable housing, environmentalists,
and others can all enrich a vision. However, the urban designer must
work with all stakeholders to find the balance that makes it possible
to achieve much—though rarely all—of what they seek in
an urban design process.
Develop a plan
This last step usually begins by identifying the alternatives a project
presents and working with participants to evaluate them. Gathering
the best elements from each often forms the basis for a final product.
Urban design products tend to focus on materials that communicate ideas—planning
concepts, conceptual site designs, or the scale and character of potential
buildings and public spaces. The product may take the form of a printed
document—a plan, guideline, or report—or it may involve conceptual
and illustrative drawings, three-dimensional computer models, “fly-through” computer
animations, PowerPoint, or other presentation materials for public meetings,
Web sites, posters, and other communication tools. Although a well-conceived
and –produced report can take three months to complete, and professionally
rendered sketches can cost several thousand dollars, preparation of urban
design products is far less time intensive than preparing working drawings
and other highly technical documents required for designing a building.
Copyright 2005 The American Institute of Architects.
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