Urban Design: Who Needs It?

Urban Design— Who Needs It? Francis Tibbalds It is an oversimplification— but in large measure true— to say that in the United Kingdom and other European countries greater emphasis is placed upon place-making and the setting for a building than on the building itself. Consequently, we tend to have few great buildings but a lot of nice places. The converse may be observed in many other countries, including the United States. In fact, it's amusing to photograph a beautiful and/ or famous new building and then to step back and photograph the nature of the setting—all too often a proliferation of advertisements and uncared-for public space. United Kingdom, academic courses have dwindled to a mere four, which are struggling for financial survival. The independently formed Urban Design Group (founded in 1978) attempts to hold together the like minds and committed individuals here, to hold meetings and conferences, to publish a quarterly journal, and to argue for the much- needed breaking down of the traditional and institution­ alized separation between the various professions concerned with the built environment. in which to work, to live, and to play, and their subsequent care and management. The development of proposals for urban sites ranging in size from one to five hundred hectares. A vital bridge, giving structure and reality to two-dimensional master plans and abstract planning briefs before detailed architectural or engineering design can take place. The design of built up areas at the local scale, including the groupings of buildings for different use, the movement systems and services associated with them, and the spaces and urban landscape between them, within a context of continuous change in the social, political, administrative, economic, and physical structures of towns and cities. The creative activity by which the form and character of the urban environment at the local scale may be devised, modified, and controlled in circumstances of social, economic, technological, and/or political change. And so on. Some people think of urban design as lots of architecture or the space between buildings or a thoughtful municipal policy or everything you can see out of the window. The Social Science Research Council in the United Kingdom invented a rather more wordy definition of it as located at the interface between architecture, landscape architecture and t o w n planning, drawing on the design tradition of architecture and landscape architecture and the environmental management and social science tradition of contemporary planning. Who Does It? The aspect of urban design most relevant to this article is that it occupies the central ground between the existing recognized environmental professions—architecture, planning, landscape architecture, engineering, transport planning, estate management, and so on. This wide range of professions are involved either separately or collectively in the practice of urban design. N o t only design skills are important, but a sensitive approach to the care and management of places is also required, as is an understanding of the economic and social dynamics of change and the ability to seize opportunities as they are presented. Urban designers do not necessarily need to be architects, although historically many have been. They can equally well be t o w n planners, engineers, landscape architects, or just good managers. First and foremost they need to be top quality people with breadth This article sets out a few of my thoughts and prejudices about urban design and its value in place-making. I apologize to American readers for this slightly unkind generalization. But it does enable me to proceed to point out the irony that, despite its rich history of place-making, the United Kingdom has largely failed to recognize the importance and value of urban design as a professional and academic discipline. What should have been a central focus or common ground between the environmental professions— architects, engineers, planners, landscape architects, and social scientists—is largely a void, which a handful of us are now trying to fill. In the United States, urban design courses appear strong, journals proliferate, and an Institute of Urban Design has been founded. In the What Is It? There is, to my knowledge, no easy, single, agreed definition of urban design. The following alternative attempts at a definition, taken together, do, however, give a reasonably clear picture of what is meant by two words that are not yet universally understood and to many people conjure up images of Cullenesque cobblescape and bollards: The coming together of business, government, development, planning, and design. The interface between architecture, town planning, and related professions. The three-dimensional design of places for people Places/ Volume 1, Number 3