Tuesday, June 10, 2008

MODULE 4: Planning 3 History Part 3

PLANNING IN THE PHILIPPINES:

PRE-COLONIAL TIMES:

Like other cities in the world the earliest Filipino communities developed out of the need for their inhabitants to band together.

They were formed for security, or to be close to critical resources like food and water. Most of the earliest towns were by the coast for the fisherfolk or were where there was abundant agricultural land for the farmers.

The basic socio-political unit was the barangay, consisting of 30 to 100 families; decentralized; located along coast lines and riverbanks; agricultural and fishing villages

SPANISH COLONIAL TIMES:

Manila became capital

1573 – Laws of the Indies pronounced by King Philipp II – Spanish town planning influenced by the Romans and the Piazza planning of Italian Renaissance

1596 – spatial segregation along racial and social lines – Indios and Chinese have separate districts; Parian or market – spatial concentration of merchants and artisans to regulate the exchange of goods

1600s to 1700s – process of Hispanization through the founding of cabeceras (poblaciones) and visitas (barrios); natives living on the unplanned fringes of the neighborhood; debajo de las campanas

Laws of the Indies:
- In 1573, King Philip II proclaimed the Laws of the Indies that established uniform standards and planning procedures for colonial settlements.
- These laws provided guidelines for site selection, layout and dimensioning of streets and squares, the location of civic and religious buildings, open space, cultivation and pasturing lands, and even the main procedural phases of planning and construction.

The Plaza Complex:
- a result of several ordinances of the Laws of the Indies.
- The plaza is surrounded by important buildings such as the Catholic church, municipal hall, Marketplace and merchant’s stores, elementary school, the homes of the “principalia”, and other government buildings

Intramuros - the walled City of Manila
- 1.2 sq. KM in area; perimeter is 3.4 KM
- home of the Spanish (except for the friars & the high ranking officials)
- decentralization occurred and settlements were built in Malate, San Miguel, and Paco, among other areas

early 1600s – Manila became the first primate city in Southeast Asia.

1650 – chapels or small churches in the cabecera were built to attract tenacious natives from the barrios (hinterlands) through fiestas and processions

1790s – opening of the Manila- Acapulco galleon trade; emergence of semi-urban places in the provinces

1850s-late 1800s – Chinese dominated central commercial business districts in al settlements; commercial shops on the ground floors of centrally located houses; no more spatially segregated peripheral clusters of Chinese.; decentralized residential pattern for Spaniards

THE AMERICAN PERIOD:

1890s – other port cities continue to become regional urban centers; bridges were built along postal routes facilitating transport in Luzon.

1903 – City of Manila was incorporated covering Intramuros and 12 fast-growing suburban towns.

The American Agenda:
- guide urban growth and physical development
- put more emphasis on other values such as sanitation, housing, and aesthetic improvements.

1905 – Manila and Baguio Plans of Daniel Burnham introduced the City Beautiful western type of town planning.

Burnham’s Design for Manila:
- Designed with grand avenues & a strong central civic core
- Included a civic mall to house national buildings (only the Finance
&Agriculture buildings were built)
- Fronted Manila Bay like most Baroque plans fronted a large body of water

1910 – rebuilding of settlements complete with hygiene and sanitary facilities and drainage systems called sanitary barrios.

1920s - Barrio Obrero or the working class district evolved as government response to the needs of low-income labor families in urban areas.

1928 – zoning ordinance for Manila promulgated but took effect only in 1940; zoning became popular in America in the 1920s.

Manila as the First Chartered City:
- On July 31, 1903, by virtue of Act No. 183, the city of Manila was incorporated
- Manila encompassed Intramuros, and the towns of Binondo, Tondo, Sta. Cruz, Malate, Ermita, Paco, and Pandacan.
- The population then was 190,000 people

Growth of Manila:
The Arrabales
Quiapo- the illustrado territory; the enclave of the rich and powerful. Also the manifestation of folk religiosity.
Binondo- the trading port developed by the Chinese and Arabs
Sta. Cruz- the main commercial district with swirls of shops, movie houses, restaurants, etc.
San Nicolas- also a commercial town built by the Spanish with streets of “specialized” categories (i.e. ceramics, soap, etc.)
Sampaloc- centered on two churches (Our Lady of Loreto and Saint Anthony of Padua). Also known as the first “University Town”.

FURTHER SUBURBANIZATION:

After the war - RA 333 designated Quezon city as new Capital and master planning it by the Capital City Planning Commission.

In 1939, Commonwealth Act No. 457, authorized the transfer of the capitol to an area of 1572 hectares

A master plan of Quezon City was completed in 1941 by Architects Juan Arellano, Harry T. Frost, Louis Croft, and Eng. A.D. Williams

“City beautiful” plan reflected the aspirations of an emerging nation and the visions of a passionate leader

Constitution Hill:
- In 1946, a search committee was formed to find a new site
- a 158 ha area in the Novaliches watershed was selected and called Constitution Hill and National Government Center
- The three seats of government were to form a triangle at the center of the complex
- It included a 20 hectare civic Space referred to as the Plaza of the Republic

1950s - National Planning Commission (later on as NEDA) was established.

RA 2264 – local Autonomy Act of 1959 empowered LGUs to enact zoning ordinances and subdivision rules; all towns and cities required to form planning boards to craft development plans under the guidance of the NPC

1987 Constitution and Local Government Code of 1991 – devolved powers to LGUs; local autonomy; developments plans under the supervision of NEDA.

HOUSING DEVELOPMENTS:

Philippine Homesite and Housing Corporation
- Precursor of the National Housing Authority
- Built homes for the masses (“the projects”, i.e. proj.4, proj. 6, etc.)

Philamlife Homes
- icon of middle class suburbanization
- Master Plan designed by Architect and Planner, Carlos P. Arguelles, based on suburban developments in California with modifications

BLISS (bagong lipunan sites and services)
- Walk-up developments for government sector

MODULE 4: Planning 3 History Part 2

INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION:

The “Owenite Communities”:
- New Harmony, Indiana, USA by Owens, Jr.
- Brook Farm, Massachusetts, by a group of
New England Planners
- Icarus, Red River, Texas, by Cabet
(eventually, Cabet joined the Mormons in laying out Salt-lake City, Utah)
- Bournville, outside Birmingham built by chocolate manufacturer George Cadbury
- Port Sunlight, in the Mersy built by William Lever

Tony Garnier, 1868-1948 (Une Cite Industrielle )
- like Howard’s garden city, was to be a self- contained new settlement with its own industries and housing close by.
- Locational features may have been a precursor to modern zoning
- Ideas and theories adopted by Dutch Architect JJP Oud in the design of
Rotterdam

THE CONSERVATIONISTS AND THE PARK MOVEMENT:

Frederick Law Olmstead - Believed that cities should be planned two generations ahead; maintain sufficient breathing space, be constantly renewed and that suburban design should embrace the whole city.
- Use of open space as element of urban system; despoilment of land through landscape system; urban park as an aid to social reform.

THE GARDEN CITY MOVEMENT:

Ebenezer Howard
Author of “Tomorrow: A Peaceful Path to Social Reform
- “Garden City of Tomorrow” – one of the most important books in the history of urban planning.

cluster with a mother town of 58,000 to 65,000 with smaller “garden cities” of 30,000 to 32,000 each with permanent green space separating the cities with the towns serving as horizontal fence of farmland; rails and roads would link the towns with industries and nearby towns supplying fresh food.

Idea of Howard:
• all of the industry was decentralized deliberately from the city or at least from its inner sectors.
• new town was built around the decentralized plant.
• Combining working and living in a healthy environment.
• the first garden cities.

Who influenced Howard?:
EDWARD GIBBON WAKEFIELD had advocated the planned movement of population.
JAMES SICK BUCKINGHAM- developed the idea of a model city.
ALFRED MARSHALL- invented the idea of the new town as an answer to the problems of the city.

Howard advocated the concept of ‘Social City’ – polycentric settlement, growth without limit, surrounded by a greenbelt; town grows by cellular addition into a complex multi-centered agglomeration of towns set against a green background of open country.

The 3 magnets in his paradigm depicted both the city and the countryside had a indisoluble mixture of advantages and disadvantages – the city has the opportunities offered through jobs and urban services of all kinds, which resulted in poor natural environment; the countryside offered an excellent natural environment but virtually no opportunities of any kind

Garden City combined the advantages of the town by way of access and all the advantages of the country by way of the environment without any of the disadvantages of either. Achieved by planned decentralization of workers and their places of employment thus transferring the advantages of urban agglomeration en bloc to the new settlement.

The Garden City Association
• established by Howard in 1899

Letchworth:
first Garden City designed by Raymond Unwin & Barry Parker in 1902
- Consisted of 4,500 acres (3000 for agriculture, 1500 for city proper)

Welwyn, 1920 (by Louis de Soisson) - brought formality and Georgian taste

Followers of Howard:
SIR FREDERICK OSBORNE
RAYMUND UNWIN
BARRY PARKER
- Hampstead Garden Suburbs opened in 1907
meant only for housing but with a variety of housing types lined along streets with terminating axes on civic buildings in a
large common green
- Wythenshawe - called the 3rd garden city meant only for housing but with a variety of housing types lined along streets with terminating axes on civic buildings in a large common green

Modifications on Howard’s principles:
- Background of open space instead of greenbelts (adaptation of inter-urban railway)
- Dividing the town into clearly articulated neighborhood units

Ernst May
Germany city planner and architect

Ernst May (1886-1970), developed a series of satellite towns (Trabantenstadte) on open land outside the built-up limits, and separated from the city proper by a green belt.

May combined uncompromising use of the then new functional style of architecture with a free use of low-ride apartment blocks, all set in a park landscape.

May's "brigade" of German architects and planners established twenty cities in three years, including Magnitogorsk

successfully applied urban design techniques to the city of Frankfurt, "one of the most remarkable city planning experiments in the twentieth century".

THE CITY BEAUTIFUL ERA (1900 to 1945)

Daniel Burnham – Father of American City Planning
spearheaded the movement with his design for Chicago and his famous words: “make no little plans…”
- Influenced by the world fairs of the late 19th century, like the 1891Columbian Exposition in Chicago
- Emphasis was on grand formal designs, with wide boulevards, civic spaces, arts, etc.
- Also credited for the designs of San Francisco and Cleveland

Golden era of urban design in the US; according to Burnham, city was totally designed system of main circulation arteries., a network of parks and clusters or focal buildings or building blocks of civic centers incl. City hall, a country court house, a library, an opera house, a museum, and a plaza

Total concentration on the monumental and on the superficial, on architecture as symbols of power, and an almost complete lack of interest on the wider social purposes of planning. Planning was intended to impress or for display.

Daniel Burnham wrote “Chicago Plan” but was heavily criticized & referred to as centro-centrist; based on business core with no conscious provision for business expansion in the rest of the city; planned as an aristocratic city for merchant princess; not in accord with the realities of downtown real estate development which demanded overbuilding and congestion; utopian
- castigated by Lewis Mumford as cosmetic, comparing Burnham’s approach with planning practiced in totalitarian regimes; approach ignored housing, schools & sanitation. According to Abercrombie, beauty stood supreme for Burnham, commercial convenience was significant but health and sanitation concerns were almost nowhere. Burnham’s plan devoted scant attention to zoning.

Baron George Eugene Hausmann- worked on the reconstruction of Paris- linear connection between the Place de Concord, Arc de Triomph, Eiffel Tower and others

THE URBAN THEORIST:

Constantine Doxiadis - Addressed problem of urbanization on a worldwide scale and his major designs have been made for countries where the economy and productive system can be coordinated by policy and decree such as the new developing countries of Africa and the MiddleEast.

Published his “Ekistics Grid” a system for recording planning data and ordering the planning process.
Approaches town planning as a science which includes planning and design as well as contributions from the sociologist, geographer, economist, demographer, politician, social anthropologist, ecologist, etc. all these he assembles into a total rational and human approach which he calls “Ekistics” – the science of human settlements.

THE NEW COMMUNITIES MOVEMENT (EARLY 1920s):

Clarence Stein, Lewis Mumford, Frederick Lee Ackerman

- Piecemeal development of residential communities on endless gridiron tracts was wasteful & unnecessary; practice of laying out block pattern streets prevented clustered community design & the interspersal of open and built-up spaces.
- One of the aims of the group was the creation of neighborhood centers and the physical delineation of neighborhood groups

Christopher Alexander
“a city is not a tree” - suggested that sociologically, different people had varied needs for local services & the privilege* of choice was paramount.

Alker Tripp
- assistant commissioner of police at London’s Scotland Yard.
- published a book called TOWN PLANNING & TRAFFIC.
- idea that after the war, cities should be reconstructed in the basis of PRECINTS.
- hierarchy of roads in which main arterial or sub arterial roads were sharply segregated from the local streets with only occasional access and also were free of direct frontage development.
- influenced Patrick Abercrombie and Forshaw (called for application of the PRECINTUAL PRINCIPLE to London.)

Clarence Stein - The Radburn Idea or “new town idea” was to create a series of superblocks (an island of greens, bordered by homes and carefully skirted by peripheral auto roads), each around open green spaces which are themselves interconnected. The greenways were the pedestrian ways.

The basic layout of the community introduced the ff:
- "super-block" concept
- cul-de-sac (cluster) grouping
- interior parklands
- and separation of vehicular and pedestrian traffic to promote safety.
Every home was planned with access to park walks.

TOWN & COUNTRY PLANNING OF BRITAIN:

The Neighborhood Unit
-book by Clarence Perry (1929)
-the embryo of NEIGHBORHOOD UNIT AREA- certain services which are provided everyday for groups of population who can’t or do not travel far, should be provided at an accessible central place for a small community w/in walking distance.
-defined as the physical environment wherein social, cultural, educational,
and commercial are within easy reach of each other
-he discussed the idea of organized towns into cohesive neighborhoods which was applicable not only to new towns but to large city areas.
- concerns self sustainability of smaller units
- Principle based on the natural catchment area of community facilities such as primary schools and local shops. the elementary school as the center of development, determines the size of the neighborhood

THE REGIONAL CITY:

Patrick Geddes - “Survey before plan
- The answer to the sordid congestion of the giant city is a vast program of regional planning within which each sub-regional part would be harmoniously developed on the basis of its own natural resources with total respect for the principles of ecological balance and resource renewal. Cities in the scheme became subordinate to the region; old cities and new towns alike would grow just as necessary parts of the regional scheme.
- Planning must start with a survey of the resources of such a region and of human responses to it, and of the resulting complexities of the cultural landscape; emphasis on survey method.
- Wrote “Cities in Evolution” (1915); coined the term “conurbation” which meant conglomeration of town aggregates; describing the waves of population to large cities followed by overcrowding and slum formation, and the wave of backflow; the whole process resulting in amorphic sprawl, waste and unnecessary obsolescence; stressed social basis of the city – concerned with the relationship between people and cities and how they affect one another;

Stages in the creation of conurbation:
Inflow - build-up - backflow(central slums) - sprawling mass (central blight)

THE REGIONAL CITY:

Patrick Abercrombie
- most notable professional planner in Britain in the Anglo American period.
- most notable contribution to planning to a wider scale: the scale which region around it in a single planning exercise.
- did the Greater London Plan 1944

Lewis Mumford
- Geddes Follower
- wrote CULTURE OF CITIES, the Bible of regional planning movement

P.G.F. Le Play
-stressed the intimate and subtle relationship between human settlement and the land through the nature of local economy.
PLACE-WORK-FOLK
Le Play’s famous triad- was the fundamental study of men living and on their land; social-survey method of determining relationships of the family and worker to the environment.

MODERN ARCHITECTURE AND PLANNING:

Charles-Eduoard Jeanneret - Popularly known as Le Corbusier.

- His most outstanding contribution as a thinker and writer was an urban planner on the grand scale.

- the most notable are his Unite’ d’ Habitation (1946-52) at Marseilles in France, a self-contained 'vertical city', with modular housing units for 1600 people, internal streets and community services.

In 1933, proposed “La Ville Radieuse (Radiant City)” anchored on objective to decongest the centers of our cities by increasing their densities by building high on small part of the total ground area. Accordingly, every great city must rebuild on centers

Le Corbusier also conceptualized Le Contemporaine, high-rise offices and residential buildings with a greenbelt for a population of 3,000,000 people

Last of the City Beautiful planners, he commented that it was hard to build a City Beautiful amidst the confusion of democracy and the market.

Chandigarh
Capital of Punjab province of India, and the only realized plan of Le Corbusier: criticized for shifting from a planning style to an architectural style, meaning a shift towards the preoccupation with visual form, symbolism, imagery, and aesthetics rather than the problems of the Indian population; plan was completely impervious to economic and human considerations.
- A regular grid of major roads for rapid transport surrounding residential superblocks or sections each based on the rectangle and measuring 800x1200 meters
- The whole plan represents a large scale application of the Radburn principle regularized by Le Corbusier’s predilection for the rectilinear and the monumental.

Two important books- The City of Tomorrow (1922) and The Radiant City;
small number of propositions:
- traditional city has become functionally obsolete, due to increasing size and increasing congestion at the centre. As the urban mass grew through concentric additions, more and more strain was placed on the communications of the innermost areas, above all the central business district, which had the greatest accessibility and where all business wanted to be.
- the paradox that the congestion could be cured by increasing the density. There was a key to this, of course: the density was to be increased at one scale of analysis, but decreased at another. Locally, there would be very high densities in the form of massive, tall structures; but around each of these a very high proportion of the available ground space- Corbusier advocated 95%- could and should be left open.
- concerned the distribution of densities within the city.
- argued that this new urban form could be accommodate a new and highly efficient urban transportation system, incorporating both rail lines and completely segregated elevated motorways, running above the ground level, though, of course, below the levels at which most people lived.

- he did teach planners in general the importance of scale in analysis.
- his insistence on the elementary truth that dense local concentrations of people helped support a viable, frequent mass-transportations system.

BRASILIA
- capital of Brazil and a completely new twentieth-century city, the biggest planning exercise of the 20th century
- designed by Lucio Costa with a lot of influence from Le Corbusier, his plans or schemes did not include a single population projection, economic analyses, land use schedule, model or mechanical drawing, yet it was awarded to him; plan did not attempt to resolve pedestrian-vehicle conflicts. Unplanned city grew up beside the planned one.
• with two huge axes in the sign of the cross, one for gov’t, commerce, and entertainment, the other for the residential component
Oscar Niemeyer was among the architects employed to design the buildings

Frank Lloyd Wright
In the 1930s, he wrote the “The Disappearing City” and later “Broadacres” – proposing that every family live on an acre of land and where the city would be built by its inhabitants using mass-produced components; this met difficulties in land supply and logistics as the population increased.

“Broadacres”
- it was desirable to preserve the sort of codependent rural life of the homesteaders.
- that mass car would allow cities to spread widely into countryside.
- homes would be connected by super highways.
Easy and fast travel by car to any direction.
- he anticipated “out- of-town shopping center”

Problems with lack of land lead to his design of the Mile High Tower.
• Proposed to house a significant amount of Manhattan residents to free up space for Greenfields
• 10 or more of these could possibly replace all Manhattan buildings

URBAN RENEWAL:

Jane Jacobs - Wrote the “The Death and Life of the Great American Cities” – one of the most influential books in the history of city planning.
- She argued that there was nothing wrong with high urban densities of people so long as they did not entail overcrowding in buildings. She prescribed keeping the inner-city neighborhood more or less as it was before the planners had got their hands on it. It should have mixed functions and therefore land uses to ensure that people were there for different purposes, of different time schedules, but using many facilties in common. Dense concentrations of people and residents, mixed blocks of different age and conditions resulted in the “yuppification” of the city.


RADICAL IDEAS:

The Arcology Alternative - the 3D city by Paolo Soleri

Motopia - proposed by Edgar Chambless (Vehicular traffic will be along rooftops
of a continuous network of buildings, while the streets will be for pedestrian use only)

Science Cities - Proposed by the “metabolism group”; visionary urban designers that proposed underwater cities, “biological” cities, cities in pyramids, etc.

The Floating City - Kiyonori Kikutake

The Barbican City - a 63 acre area. mixed used development that was built in response to the pressures of the automobile. An early type of Planned Urban development that had all amenities in one compound with multi-level circulation patterns.

MODULE 4: Planning 3 History Part 1

MODULE 4: HISTORY OF PLANNING

ANCIENT TIMES:

- Innovations that influenced the development of the earliest cities
a) The plow and rectilinear farming.
b) Circular and radiocentric planning (for herding and eventually for defense)

NEOLITHIC CITIES:

* Jericho: early settlement in Israel -9000 BC
- A well-organized community of about 3000 people
- Built around a reliable source of freshwater
- Only 3 hectares and enclosed with a circular stone wall
- Overrun in about 6500 b.c., rectangular layouts followed

* Khirokitia: early settlement in Cyprus - 5500 BC
- First documented settlement with streets
- The main street heading uphill was narrow but had a wider terminal, which may have been a social spot

2000-4000 B.C.

Cities in the Fertile Crescent were formed by the Tigris and Euphrates river valleys of Mesopotamia
- Eridu- acknowledged as the oldest city.
- Damascus- oldest continually inhabited city
- Babylon- the largest city with 80,000 inhabitants

Rectilinear plotting with the use of the plow – suited all the needs of agriculture societies on the Nile, Tigris, and the Euphrates river for easy land division for crop planning, land ownership and land plotting and reapportionment after a flood.

3000 B.C.

Cities of Thebes and Memphis along the Nile Valley
- characterized by monumental architecture
- cities had monumental avenues, colossal temple plazas and tombs
- worker’s communities were built in cells along
narrow roads

Egyptian Civilization:
- No need for defensive walls
- Urban mobility
- Little evidence of controlled planning
- No zoning, no defined blocks for housing
- Social classes determined housing sites
- Workers’ camps
- Dependence on Nile River
- Egyptians built reservoirs to store water, and dug canals to carry it to the fields

2500 B.C.

Indus Valley (present day Pakistan)
Cities of Mohenjo – Daro and Harrapa:
- administrative-religious centers with 40,000 inhabitants
- archeological evidence indicates an advanced civilization lived here as there were housing variations, sanitary and sewage systems, etc.

1900 B.C.

Yellow River Valley of China
“land within the passes”. Precursor of Linear City.

800 B.C.

Beijing
founded in approximately same location it’s in today
- present form originated in the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644)

B.C. to A.D.

Elaborate network of cities in Mesoamerica were built by the Zapotecs, Mextecs, and Aztecs in rough rugged land.

Teotijuacan and Dzibilchatun were the largest cities

ANCIENT GREECE

Greek cities spread to the Aegean region – Westward to France and Spain
“polis” : defined as a “city-state”. Most famous is the Acropolis- a religious and defensive structure up on the hills, with no definite geometrical plan

Neopolis and Paleopolis (new and old cities)
Sparta and Athens : the largest cities (100-150T)
Compact urban form
Never planned as a whole
Started with natural springs
Integration of social and civic life
Components
Acropolis
Main Harbors
Agora Complex
Cultural and leisure facilities

Acropolis- visible relationship between buildings and nature; sacred
Agora- buildings served as facades to form an enclosed urban space; grouped around central open space

Hippodamus of Miletus (Father of Town Planning) - Greek Architect who emphasized geometric designs grid pattern of streets. The first noted urban planner, he introduced the grid system and the Agora (public marketplace)

Miletus: 3 sections: for artisans, farmers, and the military

ANCIENT ROME

Roman Cities : adopted Greek forms but with different scale- monumental, had a social hierarchy

During the Etruscans’ reign, Rome grew into a great city built on seven hills along the Tiber.

Vitruvius - 10-volume treatise “De Arkitectura” – relates experience of Roman architecture and town design; treats architecture and town design as a single theme; suggested location of streets in relation to prevailing wind; the siting of public buildings; the testing of drinking water; design of plazas

Organization of towns - a system of gridiron streets enclosed by a wall; theater, arena and market were common places for public assembly

Perfected enclosed urban and architectural space – collonaded plazas with a temple or basilica at the end of the space.

Romans as engineers- built aqueducts (serving 200 cities), elaborate plumbing systems for public baths, network of paved roads (covering 50,000 miles), drainage systems, large open interiors for public gatherings
Romans incorporated public works and arts into city designs.
Romans as conquerors- built forum after forum

Developed housing variations and other spaces:
• Basilica- covered markets; later, law courts
• Curia- the local meeting hall; later, the capitol
• Domus- traditional Roman house; with a central atrium
• Insulae- 3 to 6- storey apartments with storefronts

MEDIEVAL AGES:

Decline of Roman power left many outposts all over Europe, where growth revolved around either a monastery or castle, assumed a radiocentric pattern; relied on protective town walls or fortification for security
Towns were fine and intimate with winding roads and sequenced views of cathedrals or military fortifications

Sienna and Constantinople: signified the rise of the Church
Feudalism affected the urban design of most towns
11th century towns in Europe: Coastal port towns (many of these coastal towns grew from military fortifications, but expansion was limited to what the city
could support)
Mercantilist cities : continuous increase in size
World trade and travel created major population concentrations like Florence, Paris, and Venice
Growth eventually led to congestion and slums

RENAISSANCE & BAROQUE PERIODS:

Rebirth of classical towns ; piazza planning in Venice; grandeur in civic structure and public spaces; streets were wide regular and circumferential with the piazza at the center as in Italy.
- Piazza de San Antonio Marco
- Vatican Square

15th Century France: display of power
Arts and architecture became a major element of town planning and urban design
Geometrical forms of cities were proposed

Vienna emerged as the city of culture and the arts - the first “university town”
Landscape architecture showcased palaces and gardens
- Karlsruhe (Germany)
- Versailles (France)

Pierre Charles L’Enfant - Prepared plan for Washington, DC.
- Axial plan of the Mall, Washington, D.C.: the Reflecting Pool and Lincoln Memorial extend the central axis

ROME (1500s)

Leonardo da Vinci
In his “Codex Atlanticus” he described a new concept of urban planning that was suited for Milan – sketched a city straddling a river where upstream, the river was directed into 6 or 7 branches, all parallel to the main stream and rejoining it below the city.

1844:

Arturo Soria Y Mata – Spanish Engineer
Suggested the idea of “Linear City” from Cadiz, Spain across Europe through St. Petersburg, Russia in which he proposed that the logic of linear utility line should be the basis of all city lay-out. Houses and buildings could be set alongside linear utility systems supplying water, communications and electricity. Proposed high-speed, high-intensity transport from an existing

N.A Milyutin, 1930 - Stalingrad

SETTLEMENTS IN THE AMERICAS:

Medieval Organic City
- taken after the “boug” (military town) and “fauborg” (citizen’s town) of the medieval ages

Medieval Bastide
- taken from the French bastide (eventually referred to as “new towns”)
- came in the form of grids or radial plans reflecting flexibility

The Spanish “Laws of the Indies” town
- King Philip II’s city guidelines that produced 3 types of towns- the pueblo (civil), the presidio (military), and the mission (religious)

The English Renaissance
- “the European Planned City” – ex. Savannah (designed by James Oglethorpe), Charleston, Annapolis, and Williamsburg (Col. Francis Nicholson)
- Today, Savannah is the world’s largest officially recognized historical district

Annapolis - government bldgs were focal points of the plan, though a civic square
was also provided
Williamsburg - plan was anchored by the Governor’s palace, the state capitol, and the College of William and Mary

The Speculator’s Town
- developments were driven by speculation
- Philadelphia (built between the Delaware and Scool Kill) – designed by William Penn

Monday, June 9, 2008

Module 3: Planning 3 Location Theory

(see Module 2: http://pupclass.blogspot.com/2008/05/planning-3-module-2-ekistics.html)

MODULE 3 – LOCATION THEORY

Dissatisfaction on the part of individuals and groups concerning their relationships with the environment will lead them to take modifying actions. These changes could include:
- the nature of the activity itself
- the space in which it was carried out
- its location with respect to all other activities
- the kinds of communications made with activities at other locations
- the channels which served to carry or transmit them

Modifying actions cause repercussions on other activities, spaces, communications, and channels. Ex. when a man decides to leave his car for work and uses the train, his action causes repercussions though how trivial and unnoticeable. But if several hundred are to do the same, then the effects would be noticeable

Actions taken by individuals and groups in interest can bring about conditions which give rise to serious social, economic, and aesthetic problems connected with the use of land.

Planning seeks to…
a) regulate or control the activity of individual and groups in such a way as to minimize the bad effects which may arise.
b) promote better performance of the physical environment in accordance with a set of broad aims and more specific objectives set out in a plan.

Location theory…
� explains the pattern of land use
� indicates a solution to the problem of what is the most rational use of land suggesting ways in which the current pattern can be improved.


Johann Heinrich von Thunen (1826)…

� postulated that around a central town
-rural land of constant fertility assumed different forms
(the type of land use varies with distance away from the market)
- land use diminishing intensively in reverse relationship to increased distance from the town.
(The intensity of production declines with distance away from the market)
� land in greatest demand would be as near as possible to the market on account of low transport costs.
- the highest rent would be gained for this advantage and the highest value output per hectare would accrue.
� outer belt would have little demand for land because of transport costs.
- rent would be low and the value of extensive production would be correspondingly low.


Modifications…
� overall use pattern might be modified by the existence of a navigable river.
…cost of river transport are low especially for bulky commodities compared to fairly high transport cost overland.
…river would have the effect of extending the different land uses almost parallel along its course.
� further modification might occur if a small city with its own production zones is located within the land use pattern of the main settlements.


Von Thunen model assumed unlikely conditions such as production taking place around an isolated market place and soil being of constant fertility. However, it established a distance-cost relationship which recently became the basis of urban location theory.
© as price mechanism largely decides the profitability or utility of goods and services, it subsequently determines the location of activity and the spatial structure of the urban area supplying these goods and services


William Alonso…
� rents diminish outward from the center of a city to offset both lower revenue and higher operating costs and not least transport costs.
…a rent gradient would compensate for falling revenue and higher operating costs
…different land uses would have different rent gradients, the use with the highest gradient prevailing.


use “a” prevails up to a distance of 2kms from the CBD, from 2 to 5kms use “b” is dominant, and beyond 5kms use “c” prevails.
a change of use could be expected to take place through the price mechanism when one gradient falls below another.
Alonso model did not specify the type of land use associated with each bid-gradient.
assumed that the urban area has a single nucleus and that the market for land is perfect.


Locational determinants of commercial and industrial use…

A. COST
� price and rent of land fall with increased distance from the CBD.
� wages are higher in the center
…local demand for labor being greater than local supply.
…commuting costs need to be offset by higher remuneration. (transport cost more of a reflection of accessibility than distance)
� locations close to junctions, nodes and terminals are particularly favored maximizing proximity to suppliers and markets.
� decentralized shopping centers are being developed following road improvement and increased car ownership.
� modern manufacturing industry relies increasingly on heavy road vehicles for long distance transportation and incurs lower transport costs on the fringes of cities than at more central locations.

B. REVENUE
� retailing revenue is determined by the size of the shopping catchment area or hinterland, not just in terms of population but in terms of purchasing power.
� distribution of the day-time population and points of maximum transit (where people cluster together) are also important.
� in the case of offices, the spatial distribution, number and size of client establishments determine revenue.
� revenue is thus greatest within the CBD and so are the aggregate costs.
…as distance from the center increases, revenue falls and aggregate costs (after falling initially) rises.
…this is due to the upward pull of transport costs, which are no longer offset sufficiently by economies in the use of land and labor.
…only within a fairly short distance from the CBD are commercial users able to realize high profitability.

C. PROFITABILITY
� to maximize profits, firms need to locate where they can benefit from both the greatest revenue and from the lowest costs.
� specialized functions and activities serving the urban market as a whole will locate centrally.
� firms requiring large sites and those attempting to reduce costs of over-concentration will be attracted to the suburbs.
� firms locating close together to benefit from complementary will incur lower costs because of external economies and enjoy higher revenue due to joint demand.
…since there is a high degree of inertia, most firms find it difficult to adjust their locations to the optimum.
…a satisfactory rather than ideal location moreover is established by zoning and land use controls.

A mixture of interacting influences usually explain each locational decision.
.....as price mechanism largely decides the profitability or utility of goods and services, it subsequently determines the location of activity and the spatial structure of the urban area supplying these goods and services
.....high levels of accessibility within the CBD are reflected in low transport cost attracting greatest demand for commercial sites
.....conversely, low over-all accessibility and high transport cost outside urban areas will attract a much lower level of demand.
.....other possible influences: changes in population, technology and transportation, pressures from redeveloped central areas and local and central government policy.

D. LOCATION
A factor which, as propagated by the adage “location, location, location” is considered to be the foremost determinant in the catalyzing of the decision to purchase.

True in the practice of conventional suburban development

Downside being that a preexistence of excellence in location is invariably associated with high cost of land acquisition

Created by proximity to a desirable factor such as transportation, a waterfront, a slope, a long vista, a pleasant climate, a popular resort, or a desirable community

Only method to economically achieve the value added by location is to create it on inexpensive land through Planned Neighborhood Development.

Wednesday, June 4, 2008

YP Design Challenge

TAO Pilipinas is very pleased to inform everybody about the launch of the YP Design Challenge, a design ideas competition for young professionals and students that aims to generate ideas and design solutions for sustainable community development in urban poor settlements.

The YP Design Challenge is comprised of three design challenges, working around themes of sustainable community development. Each category has its own set of competition guidelines, judging criteria and prizes. Participants may choose to join in any or all of the following design challenge categories:
Design Challenge 1: Sustainable Shelter
Design Challenge 2: Trash Transformation
Design Challenge 3: Portable Playground

For partners in the academe, TAO Pilipinas is encouraging architecture/id, planning and engineering schools in Metro Manila to consider the design challenges in this competition as student design plate/project requirements for a semester. The competition is seen as a vehicle for the students to directly deal with sustainability issues in their academic design assignments and offers design educators an opportunity to orient and guide the students on important ideas on sustainability in their design studios.

The YP Design Challenge Launch will be on June 06, 2008 (Friday) at ISO-Ateneo (1:30pm). During the launch, the competition rules and guidelines will be introduced as well as its website, http://www.ypdesignchallenge.tao-pilipinas.org/. (This website can already be accessed for more information about the competition.)


Sunday, June 1, 2008

Amendments to BP 220

I have recently discovered amendments to the IRR of BP220.

Some of these are the following:
Pricing:
Socialized - P300,000 and below
Economic (Low-cost) - P300,000 to P1,250,000
PD957
Low-cost - P1.25M - P2M
Medium-cost- P2M - P4M
Open market - P4M

Also:
Min frontage for rowhouse is 4mtrs and not 3.5mtrs

Setback requirements:
Front - 1.5mtrs
Sides - 1.5mtrs.
Rear - 2mtrs.

refer to http://www3.hlurb.gov.ph/laws/IRRPD957.pdf
and http://www3.hlurb.gov.ph/laws/IRRBP220.pdf
and http://www.hlurb.gov.ph/article/view/382/

ss_blog_claim=be01f5d3e903a686fe9317bb41e1c79a