Planning as Regulation

I came across this comment from architect Pip Cheshire:

I don't think planning should exist. Ever. Not anywhere. Not within the university. Not anywhere. I think we're all sort of past planning now. Planners were an offshoot of architecture, they slithered off to organise the great dream. It was a great 20th century idea but the world's too complicated for planning now. What planning tries to do is regulate human endeavour, human activity by sets of rules which fit most situations but not specifically any. I have a hunch that they should either transform into urban design or just fold their tents.

(Source: The Disappearing of Peggy Deamer, F. Walsh, 2007, Metro, 316: 84–94.)

Perhaps he is looking at planning in terms of a district plan / zoning / rules perspective. Strategic and community planning and other urban policy development may thus escape from his definition.

I must admit that the 'great dream' is an exciting idea for me. Ebenezer Howard, Le Corbusier, Frank Lloyd Wright, industrial philanthropists all had interesting visions.

However, I do worry about all these rules. Often there seems to be no reasoning for their existence, they seem to serve to perpetuate the suburban landscape, by permitting the lowest common standard of single-house-with-yards-on-each-side development.

The rules in the district plan about height, yards, set backs, floor area ratio, height in relation to boundary are based on permitting this single style of building.

(Source: City of Auckland District Plan.)

This is far removed from the principles that A Pattern Language articulates. Sometimes I think it might be better if all these rules were gotten rid of, and instead everybody just built what they wanted, or if perhaps all buildings were subject to planning permission, and just had to show how they were contributing positively to the urban landscape.

A Pattern Language

This website has a summary of Christopher Alexander's A Pattern Language (Alexander, C., Ishikawa, S. and Silverstein, M., with Jacobson, M., Fiksdahl-King, I. and Angel, S., 1977, A Pattern Language: Towns, Buildings, Construction, New York: Oxford University Press). This book is quite inspiring in its articulation of urban design criteria, and I use it as a reference when I struggle to find the words to explain the ideas of urban form that I know are worthwhile and important.

(Image source: http://thearchitectstake.com/wpb/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/a-pattern-language-book-cover1.jpg.)

Some of the principles, such as 133 Staircase as a Stage—a staircase is not just a way to get from one floor to another, it is a space in itself; if the staircase is not treated as a room, it will be a dead spot, and disconnect the building—I felt like I had an instinctive understanding of, but had not articulated in the terms that Alexander uses or in so comprehensive and connected a way. This criterion is something that I had noticed in houses and buildings. Staircases are a space that connect two whole floors, and therefore play a key role in maintaining social connection. A large, central, exciting staircase means that people can see other people sitting, entering, and seeing for themselves.

The imagery used is interesting. Perhaps this is the 'pattern language' that he approaches across the whole work. It is a unique system of descriptions and nuances and metaphors in articulating verbally and physically the ideas and forms of the city. Other examples include 106 Positive Outdoor Space and 107 Wings of Light (another favourite of mine: buildings should be in narrow wings, so that no one is more than 5 metres from the natural light of a window). There is something more than just description going on here. Language makes a big difference on the way that we see things.

Growth Strategy

In the preparation of a growth strategy for the Rodney district, included looking at a variety of ways that cities have grown in the past and the theories of their spatial development. This included the early urban morphology and settlement patterns put forward by Burgess, Hoyt, Christaller, and then the later theories of Doxiadis.

In this project I found it overwhelming to be considering growth of the city at the regional scale. There were so many issues to consider: transport, employment, residential density, ecological and agricultural. These were confounded by further questions such as where does Rodney begin and end? and where does the Auckland region begin and end?

Then there are the issues at the local scale (while recognising that these decisions will affect all of the above issues). Peter Calthorpe's pedestrian pockets, New Urbanism from everyone's favourite architect–planners Andrés Duany and Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk, Le Corbusier's Radiant City, and Ebenezer Howard's garden cities were all looked at.

I find this area of planning interesting. There was also an interesting article 'Iwitiniopolis' by Rae and Anderson (Planning Quarterly, March 2000, p. 20–22), which related the theory of Ekistics to the upper North Island, and the continuing growth in the Auckland–Waikato–Bay of Plenty region.

Below is the final growth strategy. The executive summary of the report reads: 'The Growth Strategy for Rodney District creates connections at different scales of the urban region. New Garden City settlements in the northern part of Rodney create employment and form the wider connections. More physically directive Transit-Oriented Developments create local connections between the west and east coasts, and also divert growth from areas of coastal erosion. Their high dwelling densities and complementary functions prevent the large, unaffordable detached dwelling being perpetuated across the ecological and social landscape.'

Freeman's Bay Study

In this project we looked at the possible situation of increasing the density of the site bounded by Franklin Road, Wellington Street and Hepburn Street in Freeman's Bay, from the current 32 dwellings per hectare to between 70 and 120 dwellings per hectare.

The classic land-use map reveals some interesting features of the site.

Large areas of communal space were created for residents in the spaces surrounding the individual private garden spaces of the new terraced houses that were constructed round culs-de-sac in what was considered to be a slum area.

The spaces are quite beautiful, but are not used. That I was able to take this photograph shows that the communal space is in fact accessible to the public, through various narrow walkways.
This layout does not follow the principles of the perimeter block in keeping the rear open space private, and this is perhaps why nobody uses it.
The final design that our group came up with for the site followed what I think is a common pattern — low-rise (up to 6-storey) blocks of flats surrounding communal open space, in a number of smaller urban blocks than currently on site. This type of development can be seen in the various masterplans for the Viaduct Harbour and other new urbanism-type plans such as Wynyard Wharf (http://www.seacity.co.nz/design_concept_masterplan.htm). Has the perfect medium-density urban layout thus been found?

I hope not. One thing that is interesting about Freeman's Bay is the variety of typologies that were included in the 1970s redevelopment: terraced houses, 'star flats' and courtyard housing. In preparation for this project we looked at different residential typologies. The ones I liked the most were outside of the usual categories, such as maze-type projects in the United States: dwellings on various levels, of different sizes and types, stacked vertically and horizontally and with crazy elevated paths and staircases. Developments like these I think might make for exciting and interesting urban environments.