The SOLUTIONS project and Urban Structuring

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The SOLUTIONS project and Urban Structuring

• Stephen Marshall
• Bartlett School of Planning

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SOLUTIONS

• Sustainability Of Land Use and Transport In Outer
  NeighbourhoodS
• 4 year project funded by EPSRC
• 5 academic partners (Cambridge U, UWE, Leeds U,
  UCL, Newcastle U)
• Testing alternative options for urban expansion
  in terms of sustainability

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Option 1 Compact Settlements

PLUS POINT Anti-Sprawl MINUS POINT Town
Cramming??
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Option 2 Joined-Up High Streets
PLUS POINT Multi-way Accessibility MINUS
POINT Ribbon Development??
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Option 3 Urban/Rural Patchwork
PLUS POINT Maximimum Consumer Choice MINUS
POINT Suburbanisation of the Countryside??
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Urban Structuring work-package

• Relationship between processes and patterns
• What kinds of processes can (re)create desirable
  urban patterns?
• How to relate the theoretical aspects of
  morphogenetics with the practicalities of
  planning and design guidance and policy?

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Conjunction of three agendas

• Urban growth
• Sustainable Communities
• Urban extensions
• Physical planning and design

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Conjunction of three agendas

• Urban growth
• Sustainable Communities
• Urban extensions
• Physical planning and design

• Urban design coding
• ODPM/CABE piloting
• BSP research
• New Urbanism
• Pattern books

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Conjunction of three agendas

• Urban growth
• Sustainable Communities
• Urban extensions
• Physical planning and design

• Urban design coding
• ODPM/CABE piloting
• BSP research
• New Urbanism
• Pattern books

• Complexity
• City as a complex adaptive system
• Bottom up processes
• Indeterminate or emergent outcomes
• Hence urban evolution rather than city design

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Macro scale order

• Whether and how to replicate traditional urban
  forms (e.g. cities, centres, etc.) that were not
  necessarily planned in the first place?

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Micro scale order

• Whether and how to replicate the intricate
  functionality and complex order of traditional
  urban structures, that were not necessarily
  planned in the first place?

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Patterns and processes

• What kinds of processes or programs give rise to
  different urban patterns?

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(a) Point origin
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(a) Point origin
(b) Radio-concentric program
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(a) Point origin
(b) Radio-concentric program
(c) Linear pattern
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Replication of blueprint?
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Poundbury multiplied?
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Cut and pasted blueprint
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Generative coding
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Alternative means of Urban Structuring

• Master Plan
• Fixed target
• Pattern
• Top-down
• Configurational
• Determinate form

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Alternative means of Urban Structuring

• Master Plan
• Fixed target
• Pattern
• Top-down
• Specify the whole
• Determinate form

• Urban Code
• Growth-oriented
• Program
• Bottom-up
• Specify relationships
• Diversity of forms

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Possible street-based coding
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Mixed use without planning
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Integrated street-based code
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Overall urban structuring question

• How best to generate urban structure?
• to start with a vision for a whole settlement,
  and break down into large zones and specify
  allowable land uses, and then break down into
  smaller areas, work out the details of road
  layout and building forms once the macro
  structure is decided? or
• to start with individual building-blocks of urban
  structure such as building types, land use types,
  street types, and allow structure be fixed
  locally according to local factors and allowable
  relationships, and allow macro structure to
  emerge spontaneously? or
• some balance between the two and if so, what
  balance?

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More specialised questions

• What building blocks and generative processes
  are available?
• What spontaneous structures emerge, left to their
  own devices?
• What results would be obtained in different urban
  / regulatory contexts?
• How might different building blocks of urban
  structure be best used together (e.g. land uses,
  zones, streets, building types, etc.)?
• What kinds of planning regulation or design
  guidance are workable (other than conventional
  means) and in what combinations?
• What would be the wider impacts for planning and
  the growth of settlements?

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Overarching question for discussion at workshop

• What can we learn from
• understanding of historical morphology,
• practical experience of urban coding and rule
  systems, and
• theoretical morphogenetic explorations
• for informing policy/ guidance for planning /
  designing todays new growth areas?