ARC 822: RESEARCH SEMINAR

TOPIC: CONCEPT OF URBAN VILLAGE

NAME: ONWUBIKO ENYINNAYA K.

159051003

WHAT IS A VILLAGE?
There is no clear-cut distinction between a hamlet and a village nor between
a village and a town. It is generally assumed that a hamlet is smaller and
less compact than a village and that it lacks some of its amenities, just as a
village in turn is less built up than a town and is without some of the facilities
that a town provides.
A village is more closely related to its immediate surroundings than a town
and it more completely typifies the kind of region in which neither
manufacturing industry nor commerce are highly significant. In most villages,
the majority of the workers are occupied in farming, but it is generally agreed
that besides agricultural villages there also exist forest villages, mining and
quarrying villages, fishing villages,
They tend to be small enough so that everyone can be recognized there
are no strangers yet large enough so that all essential economic functions
the necessities of life can be produced or serviced entirely within that
habitation system; this makes them very self-reliant in a way the hamlet
could never be, with a strong sense of collective identity and purpose that
starts to disperse at town scale;

Villages tend to maintain their population levels, in a self-organizing way,

within the ecological carrying capacity of their encompassing environs and
there are social taboos to compel this;

 Villages, as self-contained organic unities, are capable of enforcing their

own laws internally, without the need of a state-sponsored police force; and
these laws are consistently derivative of natural laws.

URBAN VILLAGE
In urban planning and design, an urban village is an urban development
typically

characterized

by medium-density

housing, mixed

use zoning,

good public transit and an emphasis on pedestrianization and public space.

Urban villages are seen to create self-contained communities that reduce the
need to travel large distances and reduce the subsequent reliance on the
automobile. The decline of noxious industry and the emergence of
the service economy allows the mixing of employment and residential
activities without detriment to residents. This is in contrast to the singleuse zoning that

helped

fuel

urban

sprawl

during

the

industrial

and

manufacturing eras. Through more consolidated development, urban villages

can reduce the intrusion of urban growth on the countryside. These
environmental consequences of urban sprawl have come to dominate
discussion promoting urban villages in recent years
AIM
The number of housing units required exceeds the amount of land available
to build on. Medium to high density housing has huge potential as an

affordable urban solution to the issues of sprawl and population growth

driving the ongoing intensification of the city. This research project is to focus
on housing design and how to produce adequate living environments for the
growing population through a more efficient use of land. Being able to
accommodate the growing population in affordable and sustainable housing
that caters to individual needs while enhancing a sense of community will be
a focus in the future development of medium to high density housing
schemes throughout the country. It is the aim of this project to demonstrate
how we can achieve this objective without sacrificing architectural quality.

The research question is: HOW CAN ARCHITECTS DESIGN AFFORDABLE

MEDIUM-DENSITY HOUSING TO AID THE DEVELOPMENT OF AN
URBAN VILLAGE?