Biweekly Report 6

SUMMARY OF MATERIALS

AKHMAD BAIQUNI MUHAEMIN

February 2, 2017
Authored by: Q
 Biweekly Report 6
SUMMARY OF MATERIALS

BO O KS

Living Streets: Strategies for Crafting Public Spaces

Leslie Bain, Barbara Gray, Dave Rodgers, 2012
The paradigm is that streets can be used to best support the life of communities in a variety of roles.
James Kunstler notes people like to feel sheltered and protected, buildings therefore are used to define
and control space, and by making it comprehensible to human mind, make that space appear safe and
welcoming.
Some designer suggest proportion
height to ratio of wide streets = under
1:4, 1:3 (two story), 1:2 (three story)
feel more comfortable. Not only the
height but also the continuity matters.
Climate and materials is varies,
Phoenix city, 1:2 balanced heat gain
and release of buildings. In less
sunlight climate, width increase
maybe better.
Placemaking, mobility, natural systems is the main point of the book, the components of the design
were those three things working together.
The highest point is the people who want to go through. On the mobility
functions, bicycle and walking will be prioritize. Fred Kent in People for Public
Spaces note if you plan for cars, and traffic you get cars and traffic. If you plan
for people and places, you get people and places. The benefit ; reduce
transportation cost, time spent n cars, offer mobility options, increase property
values.
The level of movement class : Principal Arterials, Minor arterials, collectors,
Local streets. Based on travel speed and time, distance, volume, tipycal land
use (commercial, residential, industrial).
The level of service ( traffic flows at or above the speed limit) determine
improvement policies too. If level A then It will be improved by widening etc.
But these two level are not the same with pedestrian movement. Maybe streets
are not free flowing but desirable for pedestrian. The right measurement tools
are not yet conceived.
Elements
Streets element doesnt have to be perfectly aligned. Pedestrian through routes
(privately owned) can break down lost connection. Materials longevity like stone
or concrete last longer.
Bike lane could be bike boxes (green), or only signed routes, greenways, end
of trip facilities and signage ( with new philosophies that enviro clues are the
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sign itself so less signage is better ) Laweiplein case study by Hans

Monderman.

Street furnishing can shape the way interaction

happened, with only benches. Street light
usually best as consistent element.
Street trees and landscaping can be Swales
(see right) and Gardens, with porous
pavements, or porous underwater pipe.
It can be helpful to have standards for :

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minimum sidewalk, wider sidewalk, mountable curbs, clearances, curb radii, curb to curb widths, min/max
lane width.
There are some case studies on some typologies : Residential Streets, Green Streets, Alleys (can be a
stormwater resource see below), Main Streets, Thoroughfares (urban arterials, interstate route usually
lost the cyclist and pedestrian in the planning), Festival Streets, Shared Spaces streets.

Becoming An Urban Planner

Michael Bayer, Nancy Frank, Jason Valerius, 2010
Planners work to ensure that cities have what they need to grow and prosper ; places where people can
live, recreate and want to be, employers can build shops, offices, factories, transportation facilities, clean
water for drinking washing and manage waste, community development, supplies of energy. After 1920
two tracks of planning : envisioned landscaping, and how it would look like, and about the skeleton of the
city which is mapping zone and putting local ordinance.
Planners are asked to solve many complex problems and capitalize on opportunities, a simple case is
connectivity, which can result to poor safety and congestion. Planners need some skills in analyzing
numbers : population, housing unit, jobs, bike trail miles, money in tax property.
Classes future planner should take ;
Environmental studies, environmental conditions,
Economics
Art and Design, understand space, scale and building mass
Geography, what if relates to environmental conditions
Ethnic studies to gain cultural competence, population dynamics, conduct community conditions :
public service and infrastructure, transportation services, other things.
Social psychology
Government and political science to understand role and limitation of govt policy like housing and
development practices, regional transportation networks linking neighbourhood is essential for the
future of carbon neutral city.
Ideas can be presented in three different Biweekly Report 6 | 2/2/2017

views, plan, elevation and perspective.

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 Some technical details like exploring the conceptual of building roundabouts with engineering and effects
that it might have on nearby businesses, pedestrian, bike movement, and aesthetics is common to
student learning planning.
Understanding water quality and water quantity
helps planner do a better job on managing effect
of rainwater in cities. Polluted rainfall is the
source of water pollution in many places today.
Stormwater management is crucial. Today
concrete linings from urban streams are to be
cleared and replaced by more natural vegetated
bioswales. The picture on the right is some
concept design for development with a sense of
living in a rural settings by Lane Kendig who
greatly influenced by Ian McHarg.
Trees and native grasses can help to clean pollutant before they reach urban streams, decrease intensity
of summer heat, and provide habitat (Center for resilient cities,2007).
To bring planning alive there are book and movie recommendation in
www.plannersnetwork.org/publications/pdfs/disorientation_guide.pdf
Geographic scale ;
Site plan for laying out buildings, streets, driveways, walkways and other features of a proposed
development site.
District and corridor plans for reconsidering issues of access, identity, economic developmentis a
specially designated district or street corridor. Usually required detailed three dimensional
perspective that has specific location of streets light, trees, planters, parking, and pavement
types.
Neighbourhood plans that consider all issues.
Citywide plans similar to above, or focusing on single issue such as park plan, transit plan or
economic dev plans.
State or regional plan, encompassing multiple communities both urban rural, like water supply
plan or statewide energy plan.
Heritage resources planning goal is to bring together resources, sites and communities that have
relationship across a common set of historic themes to improve quality of life in these area and attracts
visitor. It has economic, stewardship, education, and interpretation component. P.203
Some example of good land use = Density, Diversity, Design, Destinations.
New principle ; transit-oriented development (integrating transit and land use), livability (planning for
cycling and pedestrian, hazard), placemaking, smart growth, new urbanism, sustainability,

Urban Code : 100 lessons for understanding the city

Anne Mikoleit, Moritz Purckhauer, 2011
Urban Code, provides 100 pointer for understanding an area. The user-perception model of urban
designs are presented as numbered elements sourced from their observing and deconstructing the SoHo
neighborhood of Lower Manhattan. It is somewhat a general truths in urban design and experience, the
variability and individualistic attributes of a great place, some descriptive, others prescriptive, some
reason-based, others historical. The source bibliography of this book consist from Jane Jacobs, Kevin
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Lynch, and Christopher Alexander, with Rem Koolhas and also William Hollingworth, and Camillo Sitte.
While it can be a mundane and straight forward common things such as lesson 72 Groups walk slowly
than individual, sometimes it has insightful lesson like 94 traffic light create traffic noise, and lesson 100
fractures create friction. Comparative assessment, however, is kind of difficult, because of the
background of Soho district and the eye of the researcher, because maybe the experience of a 55 year
old is different from a 5 year old.
I have recap the 100 lesson below :
1. People walk in the sunshine.
2. Street vendors are positioned according to the path of the sun.
3. Street vendors facilitate pedestrian movement.

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4. Safe surroundings increase profits.
5. High turnover makes up for high rent.
6. Rents rise with increasing pedestrian density.
7. Global shops sell their wares on popular streets.
8. Salespeople possess analytical knowledge of the district.
9. Passersby have an intuitive knowledge of the district.
10. Familiar chain stores are landmarks.
11. Brand names attract people. People attract brand names.
12. Shops attract other shops.
13. Tourists carry bags.
14. Shops give away bags.
15. Street vendors complement the surrounding selection of shops.
16. Human traffic complies with shop opening times.
17. Street vendors reinforce fluctuations.
18. People attract people.
19. Places of concentration depend on places of emptiness.
20. Cars can park in niches.
21. Cars park on top of one another.
22. Street vendors follow wrecking balls.
23. Constant grids afford manifold patterns of movement.
24. Equal grids provoke unequal blocks.
25. Buildings outlive uses.
26. A block consists of many buildings.
27. Each building has at least one entrance.
28. No entrance is the same as any other entrance.
29. Entrances are meeting points.
30. Entrances are hurdles.
31. Shops attract pedestrians into the depths of the block.
32. Each building houses a business.
33. Small, specialized shops are essential to maintaining a districts vitality.
34. Display windows are mirrors.
35. Pedestrians are potential buyers.
36. Pedestrians walk on sidewalks.
37. The sidewalk is a cellar entrance.
38. Wares are stored in the cellar.
39. Deliveries are limited to the early hours of the morning.
40. Delivery vans block the streets.
41. Locals and tourists use the streets at different times.
42. People walk more slowly in the afternoon.
43. Rituals result from parallel working hours.
44. The day to day happens on the street.
45. Workers wear work clothes.
46. Taxi drivers live on the street.
47. Locals have dogs.
48. Every thirtieth pedestrian has gray hair.
49. Old people sit on benches.
50. Benches are found on public square.
51. Playgrounds draw children in.
52. Not every playground is a playground. (what essential is for letting imagination of a child loose)
53. Fathers meet fathers on playgrounds.
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54. Small public squares are busier than large public squares.
55. Crossroads are public squares.
56. People wait at crossroads.
57. Hot dog stands are at crossroads.
58. Snack stands smell of food.
59. Shops lead people.
60. Shops are new, houses are old.
61. Shop owners put their trash bags out on the street.
62. A city is made up of characteristic parts.
63. Streets were once communal spaces.
64. Public squares and niches create positive outside spaces.

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 65. People sit with their back protected.
66. Sitting people observe their environment.
67. Pedestrians lost in thought are not lost.
68. Tourists stand still. Residents pass.
69. When people stand still, groups develop.
70. Groups attract people.
71. Street performers animate public spaces.
72. Groups walk more slowly than individuals.
73. Nightlife hotspots increase pedestrian traffic.
74. People are afraid of the dark.
75. Many lights illuminate the night.
76. Street cafs lie at the center of events.
77. Subway stations thicken pedestrian traffic.
78. Narrow streets carry many pedestrians.
79. Narrow streets carry little traffic.
80. Cobblestones tell stories.
81. Local Streets are one way streets.
82. Cars drive down main roads faster than down side streets.
83. Pedestrians walk on a red signal, if traffic is slow.
84. Traffic jams tend to bring out aggression.
85. Weeds reduce aggression.
86. The counterpart to the urban everyday is the urban park.
87. People who walk have a destination in mind.
88. Good walkways have a good range of destinations along them.
89. Destinations are more attractive when they invite a stay.
90. Grocery stores are important local destinations.
91. Grocery stores on street corners have an advantage.
92. The livelihood of a street begins at crossroads.
93. SoHo life begins with traffic lights.
94. Traffic lights create traffic noise.
95. People wait for taxis. Taxis wait for people.
96. Taxis compensate for public transportation.
97. Subway stations are at borders.
98. A neighborhood has borders.
99. Through streets are borders.
100. Fractures create friction (but this is what made SOHO alive from its inner city wasteland origin
seventy years ago).

Cities for People

Jan Gehl , 2010
In this book, the author tries to build the tools needed to design public spaces, and with it the betterment
of the qualities og city lives. In the first chapter the human dimension is contrasted to modernism which
separate the uses of the city and emphasizes free-standing individual buildings. Dynamic mized use
urban areas is the goal that the author pursue. Greater focus on the needs of the people will be
imperative to build lively, safe, sustainable (social, natural) and healthy cities. Within this context we see
travel by foot, bike or public transport.
The prerequisite of city life is a good walking
opportunities. It will increase encounter with city
as a meeting place. Walking invites direct
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experiences for all senses as well as attractive

extra opportunities to exchange smiles and
glances. The street reflect linear movement
pattern of feet and square represent the area th
eye can take in, the basic element of city
architecture are movement space and experience
space.
More roads more traffic, fewer roads less traffic.
Copenhagen is an example in which a better city
space is equal with more city life. We have to
question if it is a choice like optional or non

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optional part of everyday. Necessary activities are integrated, and we have no choice. Optional activities
are recreational and fun, with all types of contact between people and take place everywhere in city
space. In Brighton England, pedestrian priority street were developed leading up to 600% stay and 62%
pedestrian traffic. We have to document city life for details of the effect of development.
A good city life have standard necessary
activities, huge optional activities and medium
social activities (by invitation or not) right
picture.
In senses and scale, we learn about social field
of vision. The 100m is the point at which we
can see people in motion to-25m the one which
we can decode facial expression and emotion.
7-0 m we can use all senses. In vertical plane
6.5m is an important threshold for facial
expression. People walk 5km/h max such is
the portion of architectural benchmark which
we could built (building close together, detail,
rich sensory experience). Some example city
Venice built as 5km/h city, Dubai is a 100km/h city (large signal, noise level). Large distance 1,2-3,7m
social distance, above 3,7 social distance. 45-120cm is personal distance (at arms length), 0-45cm
intimate distance.

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Small scale means eventful, intense and warm cities. Large spaces and large buildings signals an
impersonal, formal urban enviro. Some example of human scale architecture : Byker complex in
Newcastle, Boo1 complex in malmo, Sweden, Aker Brygge quarter in Oslo, and housing in Vauban
Freiburg.
Chapter 3. The question for lively city is not so linear, is it number or time, dense or inviting city space
with people who wants to use it. In Japan there are many high density building but poor city spaces. Key
words : compact direct logical routes, modest space dimension, clear hierarchy which spaces the most
important. Venice have direct route to major bridges, important squares and transit terminals.
Soft edges(where bulding and city streets meets) = lively cities. Edges could be exchange zone, staying
zone, defining space, with fine detail and new experience in lower floor and vertical relief faade (in a

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 5km/h scale). 2003 study of Copenhagen, 7 times greater activity in active faade (Gehl, Kaefer et al.
2006). Edge zones in residential area is a semiprivate front area. In A Pattern Language : If an edges
fails, then the space never becomes lively (Alexander 1977)p.600.
Safety issues are about edge from traffic. For Copenhagen it could be parked cars, or mixing it with
pedestrian as a priority. Security = soft edges, lighting, life in buildings, clear cut territories (Sibelius Park
a housing in Copenhagen).
Sustainable city means cycling and walking. Bicycle path have room for 5 times more traffic than cars,
sidewalk has room for 20 times more traveler. 10 bicycle fit 1 car garage. Transport Oriented
Development. Social sustainability is a complex concept, equality in options, with city act as democratic
tools.

Chapter 4. The quality of a city at an eye level scale starts with walking, sitting, standing, listening and
talking. Factors impacting walking ; quality of route (what is acceptable always about distance and
quality), surface, strength of crowds, age and mobility of walker. Most city centers measure 1km2 enables
pedestrian have all city functions. Pedestrian underpasses are last option. Pedestrian take the shortest
route rather than the safest.
City quality could be measure by staying activities. Stationery
activity is a degree of necessities (situation, weather and site are
decisive). Elements = edges, support points, niche(partial public
appearance option). Caf culture has spread rapidly and guest
stay because it is enjoyable. Meeting place require lower noise,
and talkscapes. Sometimes a bench in a corner under a tree is a
good place, with cat philosophy :
When a cat comes out of a doorstep, it stops and slowly checks
out the surroundings, after which it carefully moves towards
indisputable best place in order to curl up with majestic dignity.
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The opportunity to enjoy good weather is important. Sun or shade is optional. Building big means more
wind. Climate between buildings must be assessed. The presence of green means recreation,
introspection, beauty, sustainability and diversity.
In many cities, bycycle traffic continues to be not much more than political sweet talk, and bicycle
infrastructure typically consist of unconnected stretches of path here and there rather than the object of a
genuine, wholehearted and useful approach.p.182
In Copenhagen 37% to and from work or school is by bicycle, and majority is women. Good visibility at
intersection is vital. Shift in culture with a more safer and practicality in mind build a considerable
development in Scandinavia, germany and Holland cycling. Ciclovia project in bogota, and new York 5
borough bicycle network is on its way.
To plan we need to reverse the order : first life, then space, then buildings.
On toolbox : 5 planning principles
1. Carefully locate the citys functions to ensure shorter distances between them and critical mass of
people
2. Integrate various functions in cities to ensure versatility, wealth of experience, social sustainability
and a feeling of security in individual city district.
3. Design city space so that it is inviting and safe for pedestrian and bicycling traffic.
4. Open up the edges between the city and buildings so that life inside and outside buildings in city
spaces can work together.
5. Work to strengthen invitations to push longer stays in city space, because a few people in long
time spent have same effect as many people in short time spent. This is most simplest and most
effective.
Inviting requires unobstructive views, short distances, low speeds, staying on the same level and
orientation towards. 12 quality criteria concerning pedestrian below :

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 Reference
Alexander, C. (1977). A pattern language: towns, buildings, construction, Oxford University Press.
Gehl, J., et al. (2006). "Close encounters with buildings." Urban Design International 11(1): 29-47.

SUMMARY

Living Streets is a book about placemaking, mobility, and natural systems, the components of the design
were those three things working together. There are a great example of case studies on some typologies
: Residential Streets, Green Streets, Alleys (can be a stormwater resource see below), Main Streets,
Thoroughfares (urban arterials, interstate route usually lost the cyclist and pedestrian in the planning),
Festival Streets, Shared Spaces streets.

While Becoming An Urban Planner really focused on what is the work of an urban planner with some
really detailed account of the tools and knowledge involved in the works. From understanding the element
of natural landscape, temporal and spatial with the energy and water involved, it is a good read for a
beginner in planning like me.

Urban Code, provides a user-perception model of urban designs for understanding an area. It is a great
example of summary from observation in a localities. That could be a good model of a holistic research
on a medium size district, although this is not explained in a research framework. Many of the sentence
are new for me and hard to understand.

Jan Gehl has the most comprehensive human level scale on designing a place in a city, wether it is a
street or a square or a district. It is eye opening in a sense that what we see does not correllate well with
what planners see. And the book itself could be a toolbox for desiging streetscapes, talkscapes or just a
pleasantly high quality place in a cityscape.
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