Regeneration – Master Planning in the Existing City

An example of how areas within an existing city are zoned for specific uses can be seen in the spatial master plan developed by the City of Bath as it sought to develop its Western Riverside area – a site with significant architectural heritage and conservation challenges and constraints (http://www.bathnes.gov.uk/sites/default/files/sitedocuments/Planning-and-Building-Control/Planning-Policy/SPDs/BWRSPD-Part2SpatialMasterplanPlan2-1to2-4.pdf).

On the plan 2.3, page 21, in the City of Bath, Western Riverside Area Summary Masterplan, the relationship between key pedestrian routes (shown by red dots), the three main vehicle access points (red circle/white arrow) public realm leisure/cultural activity areas (blue dotted circles), architectural landmarks (white star on purple background), proposed uses on the site (residential, retail/offices/leisure mixed use and the new offices for Wessex Water) are shown on this zoning diagram. Note how the proposed landmarks and public realm areas are located on the access and transit points and along the ‘prime’ river frontage in order to draw people to the site.

Property developers are always keen to get the most out of the land and buildings they own and measure this in terms of financial return. In order to maximise this, they will seek to ensure that any emerging local planning policy is favourable to development potential they may perceive and work with local planning authorities to try to achieve as successful a planning approval as possible. Within that context, developers will seek to derive as much utility from their sites as possible whilst recognising that providing a mixture of property uses and high-quality public realm is often likely to improve overall performance of a development scheme. It is for this reason that leading developers have policies which seek to provide for the amenity of residents and local workforces, a good example being British Land’s “Places People Prefer” approach (http://www.britishland.com/; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CbgGVLrcdqs):

High-quality schemes such as British Land’s Regents Place and Paddington Basin provide excellent examples of a mix of office, retail and leisure uses on urban sites.

On the City Core master plan for the Curzon Street neighbourhood of the City of Birmingham (http://bigcityplan.birmingham.gov.uk/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/Big-City-Plan-Part-2.pdf – pages 36 & 37):

1. the designers propose new public realm open spaces for theatre and exhibitions etc. at the edges of the site (see plan at locations 7, 9, 10, 15–17) and improved public squares to provide retail and restaurants within the existing city blocks at the heart of the scheme (at 1, 4, 5, 11–13). Both devices are intended to attract visitors and to generate vibrant and commercially viable neighbourhoods.

Primary and local walking routes (shown in green and black dotted lines) are also identified on this plan, showing main access ways to and across the site as well as linking important transport hubs (Metro stops and rail stations). Identifying principle walking routes is important in identifying potential retail use along thoroughfares with good footfall and well-known retailers and restaurateurs can also be used as a magnet to draw people to parts of a scheme which might otherwise remain peripheral. The existing city blocks are shown in white and whilst others have been earmarked for regeneration (orange) or new development (pale blue). Improvements to some of the surrounding roads including making them less of a barrier to pedestrian access are shown in red.

Throughout the master plan, architectural massing, height, style and materials of proposed buildings as well as the design of public squares and thoroughfares, landscaping and street furniture are shown using CGI and visualisationshttp://www.birmingham.gov.uk/cs/Satellite?blobcol=urldata&blobheader=application%2Fpdf&blobheadername1=Content-Disposition&blobkey=id&blobtable=MungoBlobs&blobwhere=1223546561368&ssbinary=true&blobheadervalue1=attachment%3B+filename%3D766661Curzon_HS2_Masterplan_Part_2.pdfhttp://bigcityplan.birmingham.gov.uk/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/Big-City-Plan-Part-1.pdfhttps://www.birminghambeheard.org.uk/development/birmingham-curzon-hs2-masterplan-for-growth/supporting_documents/Curzon%20HS2%20Masterplan%20Part%201.pdf.

New urban development schemes where pedestrians can move easily and comfortably between shops, restaurants, public amenities and (sometimes) residential districts along appropriately scaled streets, represent a relatively new approach to contemporary master planning. Whilst many traditional towns and historic city centres still retain their network of pedestrian friendly streets and public squares, an accessible, vibrant public realm provision has often not been a feature of large-scale master-planning development or regeneration over the last 80 years.

Throughout the 20th century, in particular in United Kingdom during the 1950s and the 1960s, many town and city centres were blighted by new large-scale commercial developments comprising huge, monolithic shopping centres, office blocks and multi-story car parks and by an approach to town planning which prioritised motor vehicles over pedestrians and speculative development over communities and small businesses. Existing urban blocks and streets were swept away to accommodate featureless, windswept expanses of wide, fast roads, flyovers and roundabouts and many of the problems associated with a desolate public realm (which can be seen in parts of cities like Birmingham) are still being addressed by city master planners today.

The origin of many of the problems epitomised by the worst of 1950s and 1960s master planning, lies in some of the ‘Modernist’ ideas developed in the early 20th century and widely adopted internationally after 1945.

The socially motivated pioneers of Modernism hoped that cities based on rationally planned grids of modular blocks utilising Industrial Age building techniques and materials, would deliver a utopian society with improved standard of living for all (http://architizer.com/blog/modernist-utopian-architecture/).

Believing that the political and economic structures of the 19th century had ‘failed’ (the carnage of the First World War being used as undeniable proof of this) and that the lavishly decorated, stylistic excesses of the past were socially divisive, many Modernists thought that the brave new world of the machine age, clean, honest and uncorrupted, held the key to a new, more democratic and happier life for all.

With its strict grid planning and extensive use of new building materials and technologies, Le Corbusier’s 1925 scheme for Paris envisaged traditional streets and the historic city centre being largely demolished and replaced by modern 60-storey steel and concrete towers with metal-framed windows and glass curtain walling, each served by wide roads set in a vast, open landscape. These ideas were further developed and published in his book ‘The Radiant City' in 1935 and were to become particularly influential in post-1945 master planning and development (http://www.archdaily.com/411878/ad-classics-ville-radieuse-le-corbusier).

As war-damaged buildings and poorer quality neighbourhoods were swept away in United Kingdom after the Second World War, so too was the historic urban grain of many towns and cities. The new large-scale, high-rise housing and office developments of the 1950s and the 1960s were often built on the sites of demolished small-scale, low-rise buildings, whilst traditional high streets were replaced by shopping malls adjoining multi-storey car parks served by wide dual carriageways, underpasses and elevated ring-road systems.

After cars became affordable for the average family in the 1950s and the 1960s and freight began to be carried by lorry rather than by an ageing railway system, road networks and car parking came to be the dominant considerations when master planning both existing and new towns and cities.

In the Radiant City, the separation of road and pedestrian circulation can be clearly seen in the architects’ impressions. Pedestrian ‘streets in the sky’, exposed to the elements, are set in a vast, unrelieved concrete landscape of infinite perspective.

The photograph of the construction of Croydon Flyover in the 1960s below, shows how new road systems of dual carriageways and gyratories often cut through low-rise buildings and historic streets and neighbourhoods:

1. https://www.paimages.co.uk/image-details/2.13191762 (Press Association Archive)

See also: https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2015/may/27/the-magic-of-croydon-is-londons-punchline-having-the-last-laugh

Photographs of low-rise, compact Croydon in the 1930s: http://www.disused-stations.org.uk/c/central_croydon/

In the 1950s Britain, even when new road systems were planned only as part of a town’s future development, temporary road systems and the threat of demolition could blight entire neighbourhoods for years (http://www.cbrd.co.uk/articles/croydon-ring-road/history.shtml).

Where urban regeneration or extension is required, there is inevitably a balance to be struck between renewing what may be impoverished, damaged or of poor quality and retaining those positive features of existing neighbourhoods which can provide social amenity and continuity.

Urban Renewal in History

There are many historical examples of large-scale urban renewal being planned and in some instances implemented, in the aftermath of natural disaster or in response to rapid social or political drivers. In Wren’s plans for London after the Great Fire of 1666, Maia’s re-planning of Lisbon after the earthquake of 1755 and in Haussmann’s redesign of the centre of Paris in 1852, master plans were designed around grids of avenues and carefully arranged axes, vistas, squares, piazzas, public monuments and parks but also required parts of existing street networks to be demolished as regulations on sanitation (and even on the design of building frontages) were introduced.

1. See Wren’s plan for London following the Great Fire at: http://www.londonancestor.com/maps/map-wren.htm
2. Wren’s plan for London as visualised by the artist Paul Draper: http://www.draperdrawings.com

Also see:

1. http://londontopia.net/culture/art/great-london-art-sir-christopher-wrens-full-vision-fire-ravaged-london/
2. https://www.insightguides.com/inspire-me/blog/wrens-plans-for-a-new-london
3. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_Wren

A plan of Haussmann’s work in Paris (1853–1870) showing the boulevards and streets built by Napoleon III and Haussmann during the Second Empire can be seen at:

1. https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=15714684
2. http://www.arthistoryarchive.com/arthistory/architecture/Haussmanns-Architectural-Paris.html
3. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rue_de_Rivoli#/media/File:Paris_as_seen_and_described_by_famous_writers_(1900)_(14804499333).jpg
4. https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=455220

They also built the Bois de Boulogne, Bois de Vincennes, Parc des Buttes-Chaumont, Parc Montsouris and many smaller parks and squares, but in doing so, cut through some of the pre-existing fabric of medieval Paris. See the photo of The Rue St. Nicolas du Charonnet, one of the narrow medieval streets near the Pantheon on the Left Bank before its demolition and redevelopment (https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=30709098).

The plan by Manuel da Maia and others (da Maia (1667–1768), Eugénio dos Santos (1711–1760) and Carlos Mardel (1696–1763)) for rebuilding the Lower Town of Lisbon after the earthquake of 1755 can be seen at the website below. Note the gridded street plan and its contrast with the more organic patterns of the original city shown on the right of the plan in pink.

1. https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=19182281
2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manuel_da_Maia

The approach of architect planners like Wren, Haussmann and their Renaissance predecessors, was based on the principles of Classicism. Their vision for the city was for centrally planned, organised urban spaces which would provide visual delight and a longed-for sense of order, in contrast to the often chaotic, squalid conditions found in tightly packed, unregulated cities.

See The Ideal City c 1480 by Fra Carnevale (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fra_Carnevale#/media/File:Fra_Carnevale_-_The_Ideal_City_-_Walters_37677.jpg).

In these ambitious city plans, the massing and height of the urban blocks and buildings was restricted by the materials and technologies of the time and so, unlike their 20th century counterparts, visual and experiential impact was limited. Similarly, transportation in the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries was by riverboat, carriage or cart rather than by car and so street networks, whilst important arteries for trade and communication did not dominate pedestrian use. The new tree-lined avenues and boulevards of Paris and Lisbon were primarily intended to be enjoyed by their citizens.

Remodelling existing towns and cities can still be achieved without resorting to wholesale clearances and the austere architecture of the Modernist approach. It has been to these earlier, classically inspired examples that contemporary master planning has looked in recent years for direction.

By the end of the 1960s, many aspects of city planning (in particular high-rise mass housing) had acquired a negative image. There was an obvious public dislike of large-scale unadorned, Modernist design and a concern that it was a contributing factor in increasing social problems, vandalism and criminality.

See the example of the Sheffield Park Hill estate, 1960s at:

1. http://www.dezeen.com/2014/09/10/brutalist-buildings-park-hill-jack-lynn-ivor-smith/
2. http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/the-camera-eye/2014/mar/05/park-hill-sheffield-utopian-estate-left-to-die

The collapse of a high-rise block of flats in east London in 1968 in which three people died and a 1974 corruption case involving some 23 Local Authorities responsible for the planning, building and management of large-scale public housing and urban renewal schemes, further damaged the credibility of the Modernist project and led to alternatives being explored (http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/march/15/newsid_4223000/4223045.stm; http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/may/16/newsid_2514000/2514277.stm).

In the mid-1970s, a ‘post-Modernist’ approach to planning and architecture emerged which acknowledged the importance of individualism, variety and diversity. Many of the so-called ‘rules of Modernism’ (i.e. simple, clear, rational planning which was derived directly from the required function, was free of decoration and usually built ‘on grid’ from modern materials with a strong horizontal and vertical emphasis) were challenged by the possibilities of mixing historical styles and materials to respond to the special requirements of the location, architectural context and the building users. In housing schemes in particular, planning and design which met the needs of specific user groups, were developed through smaller scale projects by Housing Cooperatives and Associations as well as by many Local Authorities.

A good example of this alternative approach in the 1970s can be seen in the St Marks Road, London, Local Authority Housing scheme by Jeremy Dixon built 1975–1979. An early ‘post-modern’ response to the mass housing which had gone before, these small-scale, terraced houses set within an existing street, were constructed from traditional materials and provided a stark contrast to the1960s’ modular, high-rise, concrete and steel-framed flats (http://www.c20society.org.uk/botm/st-marks-road-housing-london/).

In the 1970s, Winchester Council housing scheme shown on the website below, bungalows and maisonettes are grouped around a green space:

1. http://www.winchester.gov.uk/housing/

However, the social problems and poor conditions associated with poorly designed, badly managed Modernist housing schemes of the 1950s and the 1960s remain in some areas (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2316072/Poignant-pictures-decaying-crime-ridden-housing-estate-fallen-ruin-remaining-residents-await-bulldozers.html).

Whilst in housing schemes, alternatives to Modernism were widely developed throughout the 1980s, a new approach to larger scale, commercial city planning and development took longer to appear. In 1988, the Broadgate development in London finally broke the mould and demonstrated the merits of providing accessible, vibrant public space and amenity as opposed to creating only that space which can be sold, let or used for essential access and circulation. In this large, mixed-use scheme, master planned by Arup and the developer, Rosehaugh Stanhope, an early decision was taken to make the internal public spaces traffic-free. Vehicle access and circulation were to be below ground, leaving the central arena space and new streets and squares, quiet and safe for public events, street cafes and shopping. The layout of this scheme was generated largely by the patterns of movement to-and-from the nearby railway terminus of Liverpool Street station and by the intersections with the existing pattern of city blocks. The development has continued to evolve over time and remains a commercially successful, viable urban space.http://www.arupassociates.com/en/projects/broadgate-circle/http://www.broadgate.co.uk/Content/PDF/BroadgateArchitectureLeaflet.pdfhttp://www.arupassociates.com/en/projects/broadgate-development/http://static.london.gov.uk/mayor/strategies/noise/docs/urbandes/01broadgate.pdf.

Broadgate Circle, London, UK.

Source: Image courtesy of Arup Associates.

A ‘New Urbanism’

Throughout the 1990s, the master planners of some new residential projects sought to return to the model of the traditional street where smaller scale housing developments would be reintegrated with neighbourhood shops, workplaces, schools, parks and other civil amenities and linked by networks of footpaths and streets where cars were not dominanthttp://www.botsfor.no/publikasjoner/Litteratur/New%20Urbanism/About%20New%20Urbanism%20by%20Robert%20Steuteville.pdfhttp://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/10511482.2000.9521387#.VcnER3FVikohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Urbanism

This New Urbanism had much in common with the Garden City movement that sought to deliver good quality homes which acknowledged the continuing importance of craftsmanship and were made from traditional materials (http://www.sacred-texts.com/utopia/gcot/index.htm).

Socially beneficial amenities and tree-lined thoroughfares were intended as markers of civic identity whilst at the same time, physical well-being was enhanced by a renewed relationship with the natural environment through the use of town centre green space and landscaping. Through thoughtful, sensitive design, New Urbanism sought to re-introduce a sense of community which had, it was said, been largely lost in the Modernist era.

The ‘New Urbanism’ regeneration of Stockholm’s Sankt Eriksomradet quarter involved both new-build and restoration of older buildings and can be seen at the website below. Between 1995 and 1998, a total of 770 new homes was completed.

1. https://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/S:t_Eriksområdet

At the 1990s development at Jakriborg, near Malmo, Sweden, the use of pre-industrial revolution, traditional materials, small architectural scale and a ‘village’ design approach taken have been compared to the ‘new town’ of Poundbury, United Kingdom (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jakriborg; http://www.a10.eu/magazine/issues/1/housing_jakriborg.html; http://bettercities.net/article/20-poundbury-winning-converts-20839).

Significantly, as New Urbanism stressed the importance of a more responsible attitude to the natural environment, it also helped set the scene for the emergence of sustainability as an important part of many city planning schemes from the 1990s onwards.

One of the first UK schemes which embraced the principles of both New Urbanism and sustainability was the BedZED project in London in 2002. This scheme was made up of high-density, mixed-use, low environmental impact rectilinear urban blocks comprising 82 homes and 2500 m² of live-work space (http://www.zedfactory.com/zed/?q=www.zedfactory.com/zedlife; http://www.bioregional.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/BedZED_toolkit_part_2.pdf).

If designers like Arup can be said to have reminded property professionals of the importance of a high-quality local public realm in schemes such as Broadgate by adding architectural, social and financial value to the city, then the environmental movement of the 1990s can claim to have encouraged developers, architects and planners to consider the global public realm by placing a value on the world’s natural resources and ecosystems.

The emergence of a sustainable urbanism stressed the importance of neighbourhood and community involvement certainly, but it also sought to reduce ecological footprints through better care of flora and fauna, encourage more compact city areas which mitigated urban sprawl and transport impacts, minimise pollution, emissions and waste, use water more efficiently and deliver energy from renewable sources.

Good examples of this can be seen at the low environment impact Candlestick Point project, San Francisco, completed in 2007 (http://www.sfocii.org/ftp/uploadedfiles/Projects/HPS-Phase1-OpenSpace-Streetscape-Masterplan.pdf; http://www.usgbc.org/projects/shipyardcandlestick-point?view=overview).

In the redevelopment of the area of North Manchester (NOMA) near Victoria station begun in 2009, the master planners at Arup were acutely aware of how ‘place making’ can shape the future of a location. With the Co-operative Group’s new NOMA HQ building at its heart, the regeneration initiative for this part of the city delivers redefined urban working and living environments that will attract local and international investment, transforming the future of the city centre (http://www.noma-manchester.com/media/1171/noma-interactive-developments_2014.pdf; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J_Krk2zb88I).

The NOMA redevelopment project, Manchester, UK.

Source: Image courtesy of Arup Associates.

As urban environments become increasingly complex, issues such as changes to household size and local demographics, land scarcity, air quality and noise pollution, require innovative solutions derived from a whole systems understanding of the built environment.

There are now many fine examples of lower environmental impact projects all over the world and comprehensive guidance to help master planners and communities deal better with even the most challenging regeneration projects.

The American LEED-ND programme sets out a list of desirable environmental features which should be present in a master plan and provides guidance on how these might be achieved. This includes advice on Neighbourhood Patterns for Connected and Open Communities through providing:

• Walkable Streets
• Compact Development
• Mixed-Use Neighbourhood Centres
• Mixed-Income Diverse Communities
• Reduced Parking Footprint
• Transit Facilities and Transportation Demand Management
• Access to Civic and Public Spaces
• Access to Recreation Facilities
• Community Outreach and Involvement
• Local Food Production
• Tree-Lined and Shaded Streets
• Neighbourhood Schools

From: http://www.usgbc.org/redirect.php?DocumentID=6407; showing checklists and environmental credit spread sheet.

Also see the resources below which explain the LEED-ND Neighbourhood Pattern and Design criteria for measuring ‘sustainable’ neighbourhoods:

1. https://www.nrdc.org/cities/smartgrowth/files/citizens_guide_LEED-ND.pdf
2. https://escholarship.org/uc/item/49f234rd#page-6

In addition to the LEED-ND programme, the LUDA regeneration process sets out a project analysis and sustainable decision-making model for the regeneration of Large Urban Distressed Areas (LUDA) which ensures that all the stakeholders are involved in a joint learning process:

• Diagnosis
• Visioning
• Programming
• Implementing
• Monitoring

See ‘LUDA: Improving quality of life in Large Urban Distressed Areas' project – Research funded by the European Commission, EVK4-CT2002-00081 which has been developed to identify what activities should underpin the decision-making in the sustainable urban regeneration and what methods and techniques can be used to do this.

1. http://www.luda-project.net/compendium/pdf/hbe4_annex.pdf
2. http://www.luda-project.net/compendium/handbookE5.htm

Both the LEED-ND programme and the LUDA protocols provide useful guidance on and insight into, the contemporary approach to master planning in the city. Whilst LUDA is primarily an appraisal checklist tool for regeneration projects, many of the principles set out are equally applicable to wholly new build schemes or projects which are a mix of refurbishment, alteration, extension and new build.

Other UK regeneration projects can be seen at:

1. http://www.urbansplash.co.uk/residential/park-hill
2. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-37088796
3. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q84yo3wwWJo
4. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MBGHOEH2v_c
5. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qNR-_syoCdA&feature=youtu.be
6. http://www.urbansplash.co.uk/residential/new-islington
7. http://www.urbansplash.co.uk/gallery/new-islington

New Settlements and Large-Scale Urban Growth

Many of the earliest known centrally planned new settlements and cities of the ancient world (as opposed to communities which grew ‘organically’ over time) were built to establish a colonial presence in often hostile environments. The grid plan of classical Greek cities such as Miletus (around 5th century BC) was laid out to be easily defendable and to move goods and troops into, across or through the new city in the most efficient way possible. They were however, not merely military trading posts but had at their heart, civic, religious and cultural public spaces (http://www.goddess-athena.org/Museum/Temples/Miletus/Miletus_map.html).

At the Greek colonial city of Paestum in Italy in the 6th century BC, public space was considered of such importance that the Agora (meaning the Town Square – from the Greek ‘to talk’) covered some 4 ha. Allocating sizeable areas of towns and cities such as Paestum, Priene and Roman Timgad as public amenity was in sharp contrast to earlier Greek cities such as Mycenae (c1500 BC) where the plan of the city consisted of groups of buildings which were clustered around the palace of the king (Wallace-Hadrill, 2015).

1. http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b067922h
2. http://historum.com/ancient-history/83155-ptsd-ancient-times-new-evidence-11.html
3. http://www.ancient-wisdom.com/greecemycenae.htm

Although not ‘centrally planned’, the rulers of ancient Rome dedicated much valuable city centre real estate to public use as Roman engineers took the provision of infrastructure to new levels of sophistication. With many public fountains and large-scale baths kept in operation by eleven aqueducts for a population in 300 AD of over one million, Rome before its fall in 400 AD was arguably the world’s first megacity (http://rkgregory.cmswiki.wikispaces.net/Ancient+Rome; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MqMXIRwQniA; http://scanlabprojects.co.uk/projects/bbcrome; https://vimeo.com/157700425?from=outro-embed).

It is perhaps the provision of these two features, public space and large scale engineered infrastructure, which can be said to define the city as we know it. By contrast, earlier settlements such as Mycenae, Jericho and Catalhoyuk in 7500 BC appear to us to be more a collection of buildings arranged in an ad-hoc manner (http://www.sci-news.com/archaeology/science-catalhoyuk-map-mural-volcanic-eruption-01681.html; http://www.catalhoyuk.com/).

Large-scale, planned urban growth and new settlements were (and often continue to be) prompted by rapid population increase, political, social and economic change (e.g. the extensions of Edinburgh in the 1800s, Barcelona in the mid-19th century and Tel Aviv in the 1920s) as well as by lucrative development opportunities (e.g. the development of the Georgian city of Bath, United Kingdom, from the 1760s onwards; http://www.18thc-cities.paris-sorbonne.fr/index-3.php?lang=fr).

In Bath, new town houses built by Architect John Wood and others, arranged around a Classically inspired Grand Circus, elegant City Squares and a Royal Crescent, offered affluent would-be purchasers, a home in an 18th century arcadia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_Crescent).

In the development of Edinburgh in the 18th century, a new circus, squares, park gardens and streets ‘on grid’ contrast markedly with the informal layouts of the older parts of the city (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Town,_Edinburgh; http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/british/civil_war_revolution/scotland_edinburgh_01.shtml).

Cerda’s plans for the enlargement of Barcelona in the 1860s (today’s Eixample area of the city), took the art of master planning to a new level of socially conscious design. Five hundred and fifty residential city blocks were built around carefully sunlight-orientated central gardens to help improve the health of residents and facilitate social engagement (see Cerda’s General Theory of Urbanisation, 1867 and Busquets, Joan (2005) Barcelona, the urban evolution of a compact city, ISBN 88-8447-204-0, Harvard University, p. 122; https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:PlaCerda1859b.jpg).

1. (From Ildefons Cerdà i Sunyer, Museu d'Historia de la Ciutat, Barcelona)

In contrast to such a progressive approach to city living, the unregulated development in many of Britain’s towns and cities in the 19th century continued to lead to overcrowded, unhealthy and crime-ridden environments, often with very poor water supply and sanitation.

Records show that in the 1840s, in the largely rural Home County of Surrey, the average life expectancy was 45, whereas it was 37 in London and in the industrial port city of Liverpool, 26. At the time of death, the average age of manual labourers and those in domestic service was 15.

The statistics from the Registrar General in 1841 also show that in densely populated parts of the East End of London such as Bermondsey, Shoreditch and Whitechapel, mortality rates could be twice those of middle-class Londoners (see Chadwick’s ‘Report on an Enquiry into the Sanitary Condition of the Labouring Population of Great Britain', 1842).

1. http://www.victorianweb.org/history/chad1.html

Poor sanitation and overcrowding had also meant that between 1830 and 1850, epidemics of typhus, influenza and cholera swept through English cities killing tens of thousands and led to the first Public Health laws in 1848. Concerned religious groups such as the Wesleyan Methodists (founding the Salvation Army in the East End of London in 1865) and the work of ‘social cartographers’ such as Charles Booth who, between 1886 and 1903, produced a map of London where each street was coloured to show social class and deprivation, further raised awareness of the dire state of many cities and their inhabitants (see Booth’s ‘Inquiry into Life and Labour in London’ and http://booth.lse.ac.uk/static/a/4.html). The conditions in which the poorest in society were continuing to live, combined with a fear of political unrest, therefore, remained a major cause of public concern and led to the emergence of a New Liberalism towards the end of the 19th century (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Salvation_Army; http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayAbstract?fromPage=online&aid=3326652; http://www.victorianweb.org/science/health/health10.html).

In an attempt to counteract the more negative effects of the laissez-faire political and economic culture of the 19th century, the social reforms of the New Liberalism which occurred at the end of the 1900s and in the early years of the 20th century were founded on the principle of ‘collectiveness’. New Acts which passed through Parliament included welfare support for the poorest in society, a National Insurance scheme (for health care and unemployment benefits), a Factory Act to improve health and safety in the workplace, a revised and extended Public Health Act and free school education. The Housing and Town Planning Act of 1909 set out regulations to prevent further building of back-to-back terraced housing and required Local Authorities to introduce town planning procedures and ensure that all homes were built to a good standard of functional and spatial amenity. It was against this political backdrop that an urban planning model emerged whereby working people could lead happier, healthier lives (https://openlibrary.org/books/OL23305443M/Housing_town_planning_etc._act_1909).

A number of 19th-century philanthropic industrialists had built ‘model villages’ for their workers; many founded on the Quaker principles of temperance and social justice. Good quality new homes were often built utilising traditional ‘arts and crafts’ designs, styles and materials and the schemes also provided access to nature, parks and leisure amenities for their workers. The mill owner, Titus Salt, built Saltaire near Bradford in 1851, the industrialists George and Richard Cadbury created Bourneville near Birmingham between 1893 and 1900 and Joseph Rowntree built New Earswick in Yorkshire (1902–1904).

1. http://whc.unesco.org/en/list/1028
2. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/3056286.stm
3. http://www.bbc.co.uk/northyorkshire/content/articles/2005/10/06/nwe_earswick_places_feature.shtml

William Lever set up Port Sunlight in Cheshire between 1899 and 1914 seeking to ‘socialise and Christianise business relations and get back to that close family brotherhood that existed in the good old days of hand labour'. In exercising this benign paternalism, Lever continued to invest the profits from his business into the village ‘ …to provide for you everything that makes life pleasant – nice houses, comfortable homes, and healthy recreation' (http://www.theunbrokenthread.com/blog/2015/05/09/lady-lever-art-gallery/; http://bournvillevillage.com/old-bournville/cadbury-how-it-put-bournville-on-the-map-literally/; http://www.libraryofbirmingham.com/article/bournville-village-trust-catalogue).

Ebenezer Howard’s Garden City movement further developed the philanthropist’s idea of building new manufacturing and living centres outside the traditional city, so that entire communities could live and work in healthier, happier environments nearer the countryside (http://www.sacred-texts.com/utopia/gcot/index.htm).

In the section showing the 1902 edition of ‘Garden Cities of Tomorrow’ at the website below, Ebenezer Howard’s plans for urban expansion occurring through ‘off-shoots’; self-sufficient communities planned on a concentric layout of boulevards, parks and open spaces, can be seen. The Garden City is intended to be a ‘satellite’ of a central city of no more than 50,000 people, all linked together by a modern road and rail network. Also see the earlier 1898 diagrams No. 3 & No. 7.

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ebenezer_Howard

First at Letchworth, 34 miles north-west from London (1904), and at Hampstead Garden Suburb (commenced 1906), then later at Welwyn, Hertfordshire (from 1920), the ideas of the Garden City movement started to be used in commercially funded housing projects. Howard and the architects and Town Planners, Unwin and Parker, designed and developed affordable, low-density housing projects, with leafy roads, green spaces and, in the case of ‘new towns’ such as Letchworth and Welwyn, extensive ‘green belt’ areas surrounding them. The layouts, however, often did not utilise Howard’s strict geometric plan forms, opting instead for less formal, more ‘organic’ patterns of roads, amenities and public spaces (Purdom, C.B. (1925), The Building of Satellite Towns).

1. For more on Welwyn: http://cashewnut.me.uk/WGCbooks/web-WGC-books-1925-1.php
2. For Letchworth: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Letchworth
3. For Hampstead Garden Suburb: http://www.hgstrust.org/the-suburb/history-of-the-suburb.shtml

The ideas of the Garden City movement were also being adopted in other countries. In United States, at Forest Hills Gardens in the Queens district of New York in 1904 and later, in 1929 in Radburn, New Jersey, elements of Howard’s vision were being adopted in the planning of new, leafy town suburbs and ‘Neighbourhood Units', concepts which would go on to influence many future residential developments in North America (http://www.queensnewyork.com/forest/about.html; http://repository.upenn.edu/cplan_papers/31/ ).

The early years of the 20th century also saw the emergence of Town Planning and Urban Design as professions in their own right. The campaigning Town and Country Planning Association was set up in 1899, pre-dating the founding of the professional body, the Royal Town Planning Institute in 1914. The first recognised academic course was started at the University of Liverpool in 1909 and at Harvard in 1924.

Using many of the ideas of the Garden City, a Scottish biologist, sociologist and town planner, Patrick Geddes, adopted a location-sensitive, small-scale approach to master planning in north Tel Aviv in 1927. Built to enlarge the historical city of Jaffa, the new town of Tel Aviv was commissioned by the British Government at that time, as Palestine was part of the British Mandate in the Middle East.

The scheme consisted of shaded avenues and a free-flowing street pattern; orientated east-west to catch the sea breezes. In Geddes’s master plan, public parks, squares, civic amenities and around 40 residential blocks with small, inner gardens at their centre were arranged around a network of streets and pathways where roads and traffic were relegated in the planning hierarchy in favour of the pedestrian (http://0-www.tandfonline.com.alpha2.latrobe.edu.au/doi/abs/10.1080/02665439508725829; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geddes_Plan_for_Tel_Aviv).

The approach taken to Town Planning and the design of new homes after the First World War, appears to have been driven by both utopian ideals and practical considerations. Many of the objectives of the Garden City Movement, that is good quality homes, gardens, public amenity and access to green space providing the right conditions for a happy family life, continued to be pursued, but were also now subject to the constraints of urgent demand and economics as the country tackled a shortage of decent homes for returning troops and their families (http://www.locallocalhistory.co.uk/municipal-housing/heroes/).

Schemes such as the Becontree Estate near Dagenham in Essex (where 25,000 homes were built between 1921 and 1935) and other large-scale projects in and around London, show that many of the ideals of the Garden City Movement were subject to compromise in the wider interests of speed and economy (Whitehead, J. (1995) The Growth of Muswell Hill; https://www.lbbd.gov.uk/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/Infosheet16-Becontree-Estate.pdf).

However, the challenge of re-housing large numbers of residents of the increasingly decaying towns and cities of the 19th century as well as catering for population growth and new factories for modern, production-line type manufacturing processes, led many Town Planners and politicians in the 1920s and the1930s to look to the ideas of Modernism rather than the Garden City model to provide solutions.

In a strange irony, Modernist architects and planners shared many objectives with the champions of the Garden City Movement. Both sought to provide high-quality family living environments, good public space, decent amenities and to integrate arts and crafts in daily life. There was, in short, a common desire to reshape and improve towns and cities for the greater good, but the design principles which Modernism adopted to achieve these ends, could hardly have been more different from their predecessors (https://municipaldreams.wordpress.com/2013/11/05/stevenage-new-town-building-for-the-new-way-of-life/; http://www.skyscrapercity.com/showthread.php?t=342217&page=2; http://www.liverpoolcityregion.uk/key-projects-in-halton.html; https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=File%3ANew_Town_COI.ogv ).

New cities were also built to establish centres for civic administration (e.g. Melbourne, Chandigarh and Brasilia).

1. http://www.slideshare.net/MrudhulaKoshy/urban-planning-in-chandigarh-a-reflection
2. http://archiveofaffinities.tumblr.com/post/5032022816/le-corbusier-west-front-of-the-secretariat
3. http://www.fastcodesign.com/1671306/bras-lia-and-chandigarh-symbols-of-modernist-hope-and-failure

Following United Kingdom’s post-Second World War re-building programme, the construction of the New Towns of the 1950s and the 1960s and the subsequent accusations of failed ‘social engineering’ by master planners and architects, there has been an understandable nervousness about building entire stand-alone communities in rural areas. Although most residential development since the 1970s tended to extend existing conurbations in an incremental manner, what were in effect ‘New Towns’ were built at Milton Keynes (begun in 1970), at South Woodham Ferrers, Essex (from 1972) and at Poundbury, Dorset (from 1994) (http://www.bdonline.co.uk/milton-keynes-the-making-of-a-suburban-dream/3092485.article; http://www.rudi.net/files/34C883261E9D499EA3241201F5A612E7.pdf ).

South Woodham Ferrers in Essex was built on the principles set out in the highly influential Essex Design Guide in which the County Council provided guidance on such master-planning issues as providing traffic-free public spaces, ensuring urban ‘privacy by design’ for residents and architectural forms, landscaping and materials which responded to and respected the local vernacular. There was an emphasis on providing winding street patterns which provided intimate neighbourhoods with green courtyards, lanes and pathways to serve small-scale, richly landscaped, informally laid out new housing. The guide set out principles which were widely adopted in housing master plans of the 1970s, some of which can still be seen in schemes today (http://www.placeservices.co.uk/media/56456/essex-design-guide_1973-all.pdf; https://www.essex.gov.uk/Environment%20Planning/Planning/Transport-planning/Infomation-for-developers/Documents/19715_essexdesignguide.pdf).

In Leon Krier’s 1994 master plan for Poundbury, a small civic centre was surrounded by informally laid out networks of streets and mixed-use development (http://duchyofcornwall.org/assets/images/documents/Poundbury%20Factsheet%202015.pdf; http://www.bdonline.co.uk/leon-krier%E2%80%99s-secret-code-for-poundbury-revisited/3126807.article).

In recent years, ‘New Towns’ or even large-scale ‘urban extensions’ often do not get further than the concept stage. Requiring a huge front-end investment in terms of money, time and expertise, proposed new settlements are subject to Local Authority and Regional Development Control constraints, infrastructure and transport demands, local and national political debate as well as requiring extensive consultation with stakeholders which may include residents, businesses, nature conservancy and architectural conservation groups.

However, successive UK governments have recognised the shortage of housing in the country; in particular, of affordable properties. In also acknowledging the importance of sustainability, the Government stated its intention to support the building of up to 10 new Eco-towns in 2007. A short list of 15 schemes was drawn up in 2008 which was further reduced to 4 in 2009. As of 2015, after cuts in government budgets and a review of the sustainability standards being required of developers, Bicester Eco-town in Oxfordshire (North West Bicester) is the only one of the schemes to have begun construction to the original green standards (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_towns_in_the_United_Kingdom; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eco-towns).

Bicester Eco-town

The current plan for Bicester comprises 6000 new homes plus business premises, schools, health and community centres, nurseries, a community farm, allotments, an orchard, a country park and a nature reserve; all of which are set in green space equivalent to 40% of the gross development area. The new town will have a town square and much of the energy supply to the largely low-carbon buildings will be provided from renewable sources (http://nwbicester.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/13016_Masterplan_Vision_290514_email.pdf; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_West_Bicester; http://nwbicester.co.uk/2014/01/construction-begins-on-the-uks-first-eco-town/; http://www.bioregional.com/our-work/).

Taking many of the ideas of the Garden City, the Essex Design Guide and from urban planning pioneers such as Geddes, the Bicester scheme places great emphasis on green space utilising the existing natural landscape and water features as a setting for new tree-lined boulevards and informal street patterns which link low-carbon neighbourhoods, businesses and public amenities (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-_IpG7Ntjlg#t=52; http://nwbicester.co.uk/masterplan/masterplan-proposals/draft-masterplan/).

At Bicester, the existing hedgerows, woodlands, streams, bridleways and footpaths are to be retained to form the framework for new green corridors which also contain new reed beds, ponds and areas for wild flowers. The routes and connectors within the development include traffic-free cycle routes and pedestrian-friendly pathways which will be used to provide access to new green space and activity areas (http://nwbicester.co.uk/masterplan/masterplan-proposals/draft-masterplan/green-spaces-and-landscaping/; http://nwbicester.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/Masterplan_Vision_and_Objectives.pdf).

Built on the edge of the Bicester conurbation, the new Ecotown has been master planned to act as a transition between the higher density urban environment of the existing town and the open farmland in the north. Consequently, higher housing densities (shown in darker yellow) can be seen in the southern development area, becoming lower density as the scheme reaches the more rural areas to the north and north-west.

Higher density housing is located alongside more intense land uses in the south-east corner of the site. Densities then become lower as the scheme follows the existing Bure Stream as it runs north-west from the south-east corner of the site towards the rural landscape beyond the new town.

The contrast between the envisaged high-density ‘high street’ development proposed for the south of the town and the treatment of the ‘rural edge’ can be seen in sketch design proposals in the master plan.

The master plan also sets out detailed design principles for a range of town planning issues such as biodiversity, play areas, living and working, social amenities, transport, employment, energy, water use, recycling and an environmental strategy for the design of individual homes. See page 105 of master plan at website:

1. http://nwbicester.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/Masterplan_Vision_and_Objectives.pdf

Preston Beach, Western Australia

At Preston Beach, south of Perth, the master planners at Arup were faced with the challenge of developing a New Town scheme close to an environmentally sensitive area which had historically been subject to unregulated development and use as poor quality agricultural and grazing land.

Preston Beach Development site near the Yalgorup National Park.

Source: Image courtesy of Arup Associates.

The 900 ha site, approximately 80 miles south of the growing city of Perth, needed to provide housing for up to 10,000 people on around 4500 tenant lots. One of the ways in which the master planners were able to resolve the tension between the need for development and the desired restoration and subsequent protection of the natural environment of the site, was to fashion bushfire-resistant ecological buffers into a series of ‘xeriscape’ parks (landscaping which requires no supplementary irrigation), resulting in a net gain of ecological habitats.

The site lies off the Old Coast Road next to the Yalgorup National Park which includes the protected hyper-saline aquatic ecosystems and dunes which lie next to the Indian Ocean in this part of Western Australia.

The surrounding area is a complex environmental system of forests, lakes and wetlands and a precious habitat for a range of wildlife, in particular many types of water birds. These sites also contain thrombolites; rock-like formations which resemble limestone boulders made from microorganisms, individually too small for the human eye to see. The Park is one of the very few places on earth where it is possible to see these living structures.

See Thrombolites at Lake Clifton, Yalgorup National Park:

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Clifton,_Western_Australia
2. http://www.westernaustralia-travellersguide.com/thrombolites.html

From the outset of the project, all master-planning decisions were subject to the principles of Arup’s Integrated Urbanism, that is:

• To protect Human Health, manage the Natural Environment, promote Economic Vitality and Individual Prosperity, ensure responsible Energy production, develop Urban–Rural Linkages through better Mobility and Access and facilitate good Governance and Civic Engagement.
• Develop responsible Water and Flood management systems.
• Achieve Sustainable Land uses through a balance of agricultural, industrial, residential and commercial uses.

Master planning the Preston Beach project was undertaken in three key stages:

1. 1. The Visioning Process: establishing the high-level performance requirements of the project. This was carried out in workshops with the client (Preston Beach Developments JV Pty Ltd.), the design team including the structural and services engineers, and Local Authority Planners. This phase of the project also included ‘risk’ workshops where key areas were identified and evaluated and where risk avoidance and minimisation strategies were outlined.
2. 2. Setting the Parameters of the development: a document-based and research-based exercise – that is evidence based, which looked at effects of, and on, the scheme of demographics, transport, Environmental Impacts, infrastructure requirements and so on.
3. 3. Exploring the design options and their implications. For example, if the design was to go to the higher end of environmental performance, what would it mean in terms of costs, time, resourcing and so on and what other aspects of the project would this affect, for example procurement? This phase required a design team of around 20 for about three months.

One of the aims of the project was to achieve the right balance among the density of the development (and hence its profitability), its functional requirements and its architectural and environmental value. High residential densities were achieved, but contained within designated areas separated by sports fields and pathways down to the sea which, in turn, acted as retreat zones in the event of bushfires.

By acknowledging the developers’ financial imperatives whilst at the same time seeking to respond to the technical demands of the site and maintain the public realm and open space standards of the original vision, the design team was able to give the scheme a uniqueness to the project which otherwise might have been missed. The design solutions achieved at Preston Beach demonstrate the importance of ‘designing for the place’ and of remaining open to the idea that a problem could become an opportunity.

Arup prepared a comprehensive water and wastewater strategy as part of the integrated master plan; the implementation of water sensitive urban design was central to restoring and enhancing the sensitive ecosystem in the area, whilst complementing natural drainage patterns and integrating storm-water management into the landscape. The water strategy was developed to provide a high level of flood protection to the area and ensure a sustainable supply of water which significantly reduces water demand. The strategy incorporates measures such as wastewater recycling which helps maximise the synergy between managing the supply of water with other benefits to ecology and landscape (Alchon, 2003).

At Wanzhuang eco-city in China, the client brief was to develop a sustainable master plan to accommodate the growth of an eco-city within a landscape formed of sporadic small-scale settlements, orchards and farmland.

The rural landscape of the Wanzhuang eco-city development promotes close contact with nature.

Source: Image courtesy of Arup Associates.

As agricultural land disappears in China following rapid urbanisation and desertification, Wanzhuang provides a unique opportunity to explore eco-city development and, with water management an increasingly important issue, uses a focus on agriculture as a starting point.

Located halfway between Beijing and the port city of Tianjin, the 80 km² site has been selected by the Chinese Government for development into a city that will accommodate approximately 400,000 people by 2025.

Preserving, utilising and enhancing the local knowledge and farming skills of Wanzhuang’s residents are vital. The rural landscape promotes close contact with nature, a proven source of well-being.

Arup assembled a multi-disciplinary design team to prepare the detailed master plan and sustainability design guidelines. A best practice, evidence-based sustainability appraisal process was used to integrate the urban design, landscape, agricultural, economic development, cultural, sustainable resettlement, transport, logistics, energy, water, waste and resources, environmental, and commercial framework strategies.

The emerging concept of the proposal is a cluster of villages around a shared town centre, connected to the Beijing-Tianjin corridor. The compact, mixed-use development proposed around the existing villages allows for the conservation of important productive land and agricultural heritage, the existing urban fabrics of the villages and other elements of the existing natural landscape.

Wanzhuang eco-city.

Source: Image courtesy of Arup Associates.

The successful development of Wanzhuang eco-city will help to explore a new way to solve China’s urban-rural gap and to achieve harmonious urbanisation.

Analysing the site and its economic, environmental and social context, the strategy Arup developed looked to preserve and protect the natural features of the site’s landscape, including its existing settlements and local industries, whilst allowing for sensitive low-impact growth in the form of ‘expanded villages’.

Wanzhuang eco-city, China. Client: SIIC China.

Source: Image courtesy of Arup Associates.

The following is from a piece by Katie Scott in Wired magazine:

‘Peter Head of Arup and author of a Future Cities report foresees a possibility that in the future, we may live in ‘a network of decentralised mixed-use settlements, or clusters connected by high speed public transport and broadband communications' and this, he argues, is ‘a more sustainable and resilient solution' than simply building towards the skies.

The Wanzhuang eco-city proposal was created for an area that suffers from ‘huge water shortages', writes Head. ‘Arup's urban designers proposed an integrated urban agriculture and food system which replaces extensive wheat and corn cropping with labour-intensive vegetable and fruit cropping.

In doing so, the strategy delivers 100 percent food security for fresh fruit and vegetables for the new community and significantly reduces water consumption, as well as doubling farming income and increasing the number of jobs related to agriculture in the area by 50 percent.

But in United Kingdom, Head recognises that we simply do not have the space to create new settlements and therefore must ‘retrofit' our cities. He writes: ‘In low density suburbs, like those common in the US, retrofitting could start with putting very high density mixed-used interventions into new public transport node points, thereby creating a new vibrancy and services without dramatically changing the landscape of the suburb itself.'

‘The streetscape can then be refashioned by introducing walking and cycle routes, renewable energy capture, and car clubs to reduce car use, all of which would serve to deliver a significant reduction in CO2 emissions.' He adds that these may lead to some areas being abandoned and returned to greenfield sites suitable for agriculture.

However, Head admits that this proposal is not just based around a new form of urban architecture, but would require a complete shift in public attitudes – everything from how we live and how we travel to our awareness of our carbon consumption. In fact, Head suggests penalties for those who over-consume; but also, to counter this, legislation to ensure that everyone can access renewable energy even if it is relatively more expensive compared to fossil fuels.

But financing remains an issue. In China, there are many new cities under construction and new ideas about sustainability are therefore welcome; but will people in United Kingdom consider, for example, accepting responsibility for their own energy consumption? Or that they should move into smaller settlements after years of megacity living’.

For full article see:

1. http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2011-07/01/arup-model-cities

Bibliography

1. Alchon, S. (2003) A Pest in the Land: New World Epidemics in a Global Perspective , University of New Mexico Press, p. 21. ISBN 0-8263-2871-7.
2. Howard, E. (1965) Lewis Mumford (Introduction), in Garden Cities of To-Morrow (1898 & 1902) , 1st edn (ed. F.J. Osborn ), Faber https://archive.org/details/gardencitiestom00howagoog,.
3. Ove Arup (2014). Future Cities, http://www.arup.com/design_book/future_cities & http://publications.arup.com/publications/f/future_cities_uk_capabilities_for_urban_innovation (accessed 14 June 2014).
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