LYNCH AND CULLEN

URBAN PLANNING AND

DESIGN
 LYNCH AND
CULLEN
EMPIRCISM

 Idealistic assumptions
 Present 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
BIOGRAPHY
consultant to the
state of Rhode
Island, New
England Medical
Center, Boston
Redevelopment he produced seven
Authority, Puerto books. His most
Rico I.D.C,M.I.T. famous work,
Born in 1918 Planning Office. Image of the City
(1960)

educated at Yale At MIT, he went

University, on to gain
Rensselaer Professorship in
Polytechnic 1963, and
Institute eventually
Massachusetts earned professor
Institute of emeritus status
Technology.
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 Apparent clarity


 Building the 2 –way process

image Long familiarity

Identity
Striking features
 Structure and Structure
New object
meaning
identity Well formed
 Distinct
 Imageability Remarkable
Invite 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

occasionally customarily
potentially
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 quality
 Continuity
 Hierarchy
 Direction
 Gradient
 Kinesthetic
 Identity
 Simplicity



EDGES

 Boundaries

 Barriers



 Breaks


 seam


DESIGNING THE CITY
EDGES
 Continuity
 Strength
 Gradient
 Definite termini
 Accessibility
DISTRICTS
DISTRICTS

 Theme
 Building types
 Topography
 Noise
 Population
 Lettering of signs
 Boundaries
 Communities
 Introvert
 Extrovert

DESIGNING THE CITY
DISTRICTS
 Continuity
 Definiteness
 Closure
 Structured within itself
 Connection with other district
NODES
NODES

 Junction
 Break in transportation
 Subway stations
 Railroad station
 Airports
 Street intersection
 Shopping areas

DESIGNING THE CITY
NODES
 Identity
 Boundary
 theme
 Break in transportation
 closure
LANDMARKS
LANDMARKS

 Singularity
 Uniqueness
 Contrast
(small/big, new/old, dirty/clean)


 Navigation
 Symbolic
 Size
 Prominence of spatial location
 Familiarity breeds landmarks

DESIGNING THE CITY
LANDMARKS
 Singular
 Contrast with context
 Size
 Location
 Spatial quality





DIMENSION OF
PERFORMANCE
 Vitality
 Sense
 Fit
 Access
 Control
 Efficiency
 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
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
BIOGRAPHY
Cullen became a
freelance writer
and consultant in
1956
, he advised the
cities of Liverpool
and Peterborough on
B o rn in ca lve rle , their His most famous
p u d se y , 9 A u g reconstruction and work, Townscape
redevelopment
1914 plans.

Between 1944 and

He studied 1946 he worked
architecture at the in the planning
polytechnic of office of the
central London Development and
Welfare
Department in
Barbados.
BOOKS BY CULLEN


 Townscape


 Concise townscape


 Visionsof urban
design

 Urban design and
townscape
  THE IDEAS OF CULLEN

qGordon 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.

36
THE CONCEPT OF SERIAL
VISION

Drawings of Cullen defining Sequence of images of Westminster:

Serial Vision the emotion and the sensation of the
discovery
37
THE CONCEPT OF PLACE

Sense of being in a particular place conjure



different visual images and feelings w.r.t place

characteristics.
 Occupied territory
 Possession in movement
 Enclaves
 Enclosures
 Focal point
 Precincts

THE CONCEPT OF PLACE

 Block house
 insubstantial space
 Defining space
 Here and there
 Truncation
 change of level
 Silhouette


THE CONCEPT OF PLACE

 Grandiose vista
 Screened vista
 Deflection
 Projection and recession
 Punctuation
 Narrows
 infinity
THE CONCEPT OF
CONTENT
Categories of environment its mood


and which enliven the space by

creating drama.
 Juxtaposition
 Immediacy
 Seeing in detail
 Intricacy
 Propriety
 Bluntness and vigor
THE CONCEPT OF
CONTENT
 Exposure
 Illusion
 Geometry
 Foils
 Relationship
 Scale
 Distortion
 Calligraphy
 publicity
THE FUNCTIONAL
TRADITION
Intrinsic quality of things which creates


the environment.
 Structure
 Railing
 Fences
 Steps
 Texture
 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:
CROSS AS FOCAL POINT

 Anchorage for
humans
 Immovable
 Security from
traffic
CLOSURE

 The
subdivision(hu
man scale)
 The provision of
incident
 The sense of
unrolling and
revealing
 identification
LEGS AND WHEELS

 Variety and
character to
ground surface
 Pedestrians only
 Pedestrian
priority
HAZARDS

 Boundaries
 Railings
 Planting
 Concealed
hazards
 Change of level
THE FLOOR

 Adventure
 Functional
pattern
 Standardizing
the code
 Materials
 articulation
PRAIRIE PLANNING
STREET LIGHTING

 Code of practice
 Kinetic unity
 Propriety
 Towards flexibility

THE WALL

 Seeing in detail
 Catching the eye
 Exploiting the
surface
 Making the most
of it

TREES INCORPORATED

 Shadow
 Screen
 Line
 Geometry
 Mobile
 sculpture
ANALYSIS