Todays lecture discussed the design of cities, which can be broken down into three different categories consisting of utopia, view and power. The Utopian design of a city involves the idea of perfection in all of its elements such as its geometrical layout and style. The View design of a city concentrates on the perspective and visual experience of the city, such as curved streets to hinder the view of enemies or to make the city seem larger than it is. Finally the Power design of a city relies on the administrative, cultural and symbolic components to establish the idea of power, such as large open spaces decorated by government.
The lecture also discussed how to recognise the origin of a city and whether or not it was of Roman, Spanish, American or British design. The image below shows some examples of these city layouts:
Project #2
Using the information from the lecture today, I would say that Kabul is a city that uses a combination of layouts similar to the British style. The streets of Kabul are wide and the distinction between the city and countryside are clearly defined, however the country follows the city template which is a design aspect of roman cities.
In tutorials today our group discussed our site selection, which research components needed attention and how to arrange our maps for the poster. The below image shows our 3 preferred site choices for our model, each square contains part of the river as well as major intersections and variances in city style.
For my part of the research, I've collected various maps of the Kabul city showing a variety of different data, from major tourist highlights to future development plans. The future development plans are the most interesting piece of information that I have researched so far, since in its current state Kabul is in ruin. Belows is a site plan for the new Kabul referred to as the city of light:
Reflections
This week has been productive in regards to the project #2 workload, I have done a lot of relevant research and considered how this would work into our poster and report. I have also thought about the weeks lecture and how cities are categorised into certain styles. I find that selecting which styles influenced which city layout to be a challenging task. A lot of the cities I have seen have been a complicated combination of the various types. For example, Brisbane's central area seems to follow the Spanish layout with the use of the 45 degree grid, however this grid is lost in the rest of the city which seems to follow a British layout. The purpose of learning these layouts is purely from an origination perspective, but it's clear that today most cities tend to use the parts they favor from previous designs.
The lecture also discussed how to recognise the origin of a city and whether or not it was of Roman, Spanish, American or British design. The image below shows some examples of these city layouts:
Roman - Follows a castrum layout that extends into the countryside, they also considered main environmental features such as mountains and rivers.
Spaniard - The city grid in rotated 45 degrees in respect to North
American - They have subdivided the land into townships consisting of squares (6 miles long) and follow a grid that is north to south.
British - Have wide streets with land subdivided into one square mile sections. There is also a clear distinction between town and country by the use of a green belt or common land (parklands).
Project #2
Using the information from the lecture today, I would say that Kabul is a city that uses a combination of layouts similar to the British style. The streets of Kabul are wide and the distinction between the city and countryside are clearly defined, however the country follows the city template which is a design aspect of roman cities.
In tutorials today our group discussed our site selection, which research components needed attention and how to arrange our maps for the poster. The below image shows our 3 preferred site choices for our model, each square contains part of the river as well as major intersections and variances in city style.
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| Site selection options |
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| City of Light development plan |
Reflections
This week has been productive in regards to the project #2 workload, I have done a lot of relevant research and considered how this would work into our poster and report. I have also thought about the weeks lecture and how cities are categorised into certain styles. I find that selecting which styles influenced which city layout to be a challenging task. A lot of the cities I have seen have been a complicated combination of the various types. For example, Brisbane's central area seems to follow the Spanish layout with the use of the 45 degree grid, however this grid is lost in the rest of the city which seems to follow a British layout. The purpose of learning these layouts is purely from an origination perspective, but it's clear that today most cities tend to use the parts they favor from previous designs.
