Proceedings of the Institution of Civil Engineers Urban Design and Planning 162 March 2009 Issue DP1 Pages

717 doi: 10.1680/udap.2009.162.1.7 Paper 800007 Received 13/02/2008 Accepted 03/07/2008 Keywords: design methods & aids/ environment/urban regeneration

Jon Lang Professor, University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia

International urban design: theory and practice

J. Lang MRP, PhD, BArch
Urban design focuses on the development of unied goal-oriented development projects. They vary in scale from new towns to neighbourhoods to blocks of cities. Much of the signicant work is now executed by a limited number of multi-national professional organisations on behalf of development companies that invest internationally and municipal authorities seeking an important place on the world stage. The schemes, wherever they are located, have a degree of homogeneity about them and pay little heed to local climatic conditions, ways of life and aesthetic values. They are international. In reaction there have been a number of neo-traditional schemes that draw heavily on past urban forms or design principles for inspiration. They do not, however, capture the imagination as much as the bold designs of globalisation. In addition, there has been a continuing call to work closely with local communities. All these approaches achieve much but have many opportunity costs associated with them. A neo-functional, ecological approach to design promises more. Can designers, however, implement such an approach? 1. INTRODUCTION Urban design refers to the self-conscious creation of cities or, much more likely, their precincts as single goal-driven projects. Sometimes it involves cleared sites and sometimes inll (see Figure 1). At other times it involves the building of infrastructure items as catalysts for further development. These schemes may be carried out by a group of clients, developers and architects as a single unit, or they may be based on a conceptual design developed by one group carried out by a number of developers. An agency, public or private, supervises the implementation of the design according to guidelines that ensure that the original idea endures.1,2 Urban design synthesises the work of architects, landscape architects and civil engineers and the integrated transportation and land use policy aspects of city planning. Over the past 40 years much has changed in the nature of urban design projects and the processes that have brought them into existence. What is happening to urban designs and urban designing in this era of globalisation? What should happen? 2. AN ERA OF GLOBALISATION Globalisation refers to the political, economic and cultural changes occurring in regions of the world that are leading to Urban Design and Planning 162 Issue DP1 the emergence of a supra-national international society. It is the world of the wealthy. In it, the urban designs of two dozen or so architectural rms receive the most attention. Their projects serve as inspiration for many other rms and are emulated. This adulation is not surprising. The urban designs of globalisation are highly successful in fullling their function of serving the nancial and symbolic ends of international global markets, municipal authorities striving for international attention and architects desiring international recognition.35 Paralleling the impacts of globalising forces is the political democratisation of the world. It involves a consumer-oriented commodication of culture and place.6 Urban designs are regarded as products similar to cars. The fear is that well-functioning traditions will be swept away without accompanying benets in the search for what is internationally prestigious.7,8 Some consumers are, however, demanding less in the way of signature products and requesting enduring high-quality designs. The same opposing forces affect urban design. Not only are the services of signature architects in demand, but city administrations and wealthy individuals are also beginning to seek functional, well-crafted environments that express local values. This paper explores the possibilities. 2.1. Globalising forces in urban design Many observers have noted that urban and building designs across the world are homogeneous in character. Three reasons for this apparent similarity seem to be the most important. First, renowned architectural rms work internationally and carry their attitudes and thus styles with them. Second, international property developers have few ties to specic localities.5 In the past, municipal governments and local elites tended to hire local architects. These elites have now sold their interests to outsiders.9 The outsiders hire consulting rms who are comfortable with the aesthetic values of global capital markets. Third, there has been an internationalisation of the content of architectural journals and uniformity in the design ideas presented on the internet, both easily accessible to all. An even more important factor is that little in architects education deals with cultural variability. 2.2. The internationalisation of development companies Companies such as the Rose Property Development group in New York, do indeed remain local but the major players on the international scene have few cares about local conditions or character unless they are forced by regulations to do so.9 These major developers include families such as that of Li Ka-shing, Lang 7

International urban design: theory and practice

Figure 1. Two urban renewal projects: (a) Potsdamer Platz, Berlin, a cleared site; (b) Beijing Central Business District proposal (2004), an inll site major companies such as Sony and Daimler Benz and more conventional organisations such as Bangkok Land, Henderson Land and New World Development.5 Taiwans Central Development and Trading Groups building of South Saigon is typical.4 These international developers care about the character of places in which they chose to invest but it is neither local problems nor local character that guides them: it is a universal aesthetic. Major international organisations wish to locate in cities where the buildings of new business districts have the symbolic aesthetic of up-to-dateness. The demand for such urban designs also comes from government ofcials and the noveau riche members of the local citizenry. They want something prestigious, fashionable and modern in appearance, however inappropriate it may be to local climate, ways of life or aesthetic traditions. The Lujiazui district of Shanghai is a prime example (see Figure 2). Successful though it is as a billboard for Shanghai, Chinas Minister for Construction, Wang Guangto, wonders if the opportunity costs have been too high.10 Despite the observations made by Wang Guangto, Chinese rms are exporting to other countries the design patterns that they have implemented at home in places such as Lujiazui. A recent proposal for the Gujarat International Finance Tec-City (GIFT), Ahmedabad, India has been designed by the East China Architectural Design Institute (Shanghai) and others (see Figure 3). The scheme is being developed by a joint venture company consisting of the Gujarat Government and Infrastructure Leasing and Financial Services Limited.11 There is little evidence that the design responds to the Ahmedabadi climate or to cultural conditions. 2.3. The internationalisation of architects and architectural education From colonial times, architectural practice has been global. Today it is multi-national. The USA, Japan, the UK, Germany, Australia and Singapore are exporters of urban design services on a vast scale. Some rms have over a thousand professionals on their staff and annual fees of a quarter of a billion US dollars.12 These rms include those that have long worked continuously on the international scene such as Skidmore, Owings and Merrill but now also those associated with Frank Gehry, Rem Koolhaas and Renzo Piano. The modes of architectural education that evolved in Europe during the early twentieth century have been disseminated

Figure 2. Lujiazui, Pudong Shanghai: (a) from afar and (b) the pedestrian environment

Urban Design and Planning 162 Issue DP1

International urban design: theory and practice

Lang

Figure 3. The proposal for the Gujarat International Finance Tec-City (GIFT), Ahmedabad, India

throughout the world. The impact of the Bauhaus was to switch from the study of design as composition to the study of design as expression. With the coming of Nazism to Germany, many Bauhaus educators emigrated.13,14 Students no longer learnt about culturally based models of order, rhythm and proportion, but about expressing their views of the world. The individual creative act became important. Today architects seek advanced professional education in countries other than their own. They develop good skills and absorb design patterns that they take home with them. Sadly, little in their education provides them with a sound theoretical basis for understanding what they have learnt. They return home poorly equipped to deal with their own cultures. Some architects do indeed shed the cloak of their foreign educations. Others never do, as experience in India shows.15 3. GLOBALISATION AND CURRENT URBAN DESIGN PARADIGMS AND PRACTICE Early in the twentieth century, followers of economist Henry George believed that universalisation of the world economy was highly desirable. A number of architects agreed. Walter Burley Grifn noted The world solution is a primal element and should be tackled without delay since humanity is now a unit. . . there is no longer any difference between races, and Urban Design and Planning 162 Issue DP1

there should be no articial boundaries erected between them. . .16 The translation of such observations into an approach to urban design has varied. In his design for Canberra, Grifn hybridised a universal urban design paradigmthe city beautifuland a local topography. Probably the most cited universalist statement on architecture is that of Le Corbusier All men have the same organisms, the same functions. All men have the same needs. . .I propose a single building for all nations and all climates.17 The international style had a clear internal logic based on efciency in movement and construction. In the 1950s, it often developed into what has been called corporate modernismthe curtain wall buildings of glass and steel and in urban design ideally with buildings set as objects in space. Housing estates of slab blocks set in open space were built around the world and in countries such as China they still are. Many current urban designs are imbued with the spirit of international rationalism but with more amboyant buildings (see Figure 4 and, more particularly, Figure 9 (later). Generally, however, the limitations of universal modernist design ideologies gave way to post-modernism in architecture during the 1970s and 1980s.18 International urban design: theory and practice Lang 9

Figure 4. International rationalism today: (a) Zhengdong, Zhenghou proposal, Kisho Kurokawa, Architect and Associates (2004); (b) the Abu Dhabi master plan (2007)

In urban designs neo-traditional thinking co-exists with international rationalism. 3.1. Post-modernism in urban design In architecture there has been an increased acceptance (in academia, at least) of post-modern critical theory. Post-modern intellectual paradigms reject the notion of objective truth and inherent value. They imply an increasing fragmentation of lifea breaking apart of monolithic societies. Ethical systems, given this view, are not based on genuine values but are part of structures that allow one group to dominate another. Such views have narrowed intellectual freedom. They demand that those who view the world see it within the connes of the post-modern ideology rather than from their own cultural perspectives. Deconstructionist design ideology is very much a segment of post-modern thought. Architects strive for a sense of uneasiness, decentring, dislocation and absurdity.19 Deconstruction took off in the 1980s with the aesthetic notions of architects such as Peter Eisenman, Zaha Hadid, the Site group in New York, Frank Gehry, Daniel Libeskind, Coop Himmelblau in Austria, Rem Koolhaas, based mainly in London and Rotterdam, and Bernard Tschumi. The Parc de la Villette, Paris (198489, see Figure 5) designed by Tschumi is widely regarded as the rst work to explore the concepts of dissociation on an urban scale. It is, it must be remembered, primarily a park.1 Deconstruction today remains so academically bound that it really has had very little impact on city design. A amboyant post-modernism holds sway. Across the world from Abu Dhabi to Shanghai to Las Vegas many buildings are being built in a geometrically radical form displaying considerable structural dexterity and decorative caprice. They are set as objects in space to be admired (e.g. Figures 2, 3 and 4). The buildings are colourful and can often be truly dazzling. Their side-effects on city life are regarded as irrelevant until trafc slows to a halt, downdrafts make 10 Urban Design and Planning 162 Issue DP1

pedestrian life unpleasant and litigation ensues. Although such urban designs draw on international styles, many of them are, ironically, clearly part of their locality. The choice of specic innovative post-modernisms creates a new local character. 3.2. The garden city Although it no longer attracts much academic attention, the garden city model is probably the most widely used paradigm for suburban development around the world. Although proposed as a generic urban model for a cooltemperate climate, it is a paradigm that has also been used in arid and monsoon climates. Such designs can be seen in the suburbs of Indian cities such as Ahmedabad.20 The paradigm is still popular, but in application today the designs are usually more spacious than the original intent. The original assumed that people walked from place to placethe current model assumes that people drive (see Figure 6). The consumption of space is prestigious. 4. URBAN DESIGNING FOR LOCALITY: CURRENT PARADIGMS Paralleling the globalisation of urban design practice have been reactions to its universalising forces. The reactions have varied from the design explorations that have preoccupied academics to the work that evolved out of the day-to-day struggles of unsung local practitioners. These approaches draw on traditions that appear to function well on many dimensions. They accept Jane Jacobs injunction for architects to learn from empirical success rather than slavishly employing fashionable paradigms of limited utility.21 There has also been a growing concern for reviving an urban design interest that has not been considered by architects working globally in recent yearsdesigning for disadvantaged communities. 4.1. Neo-traditional urban design Three approaches to urban design that can be regarded as neo-traditional hold sway. The rst involves a love affair with specic urban forms and the desire to reproduce them. The Lang

International urban design: theory and practice

Figure 5. Parc de la Villette, Paris: (a) the stacking diagram and (b) an isometric view

second looks at the principles of traditional design and adapts them to modern conditions. The third involves applying the canons of historical sacred texts to architectural and urban design. A well-known twentieth century example of a neo-vernacular urban design is the New Gournia (194548) design by Hassan Fathy near Luxor, Egypt. It replicated the village of Gournia, to demonstrate the utility of indigenous materials and construction techniques in the modern world.22 The forms, however, represented ways of life that the villagers were trying to escape. As a result the village was never fully inhabited. Similar explorations with neo-vernacular urban design owe a debt to Rudofskys book Architecture Without Architects.23 Neo-traditional urban designs based on understanding the principles behind past designs have been much more successful in creating well-loved, multi-functional environments (see Figure 7). They draw on a variety of precedents. In Louvain-la-Neuve (1970+), a new university town in Belgium, the architecture is strictly neo-modernist but the main street is an adaptation of the forms of a medieval town (Figure 7(a)).1 The street pattern of Battery Park City (1971 2002+) in New York (Figure 7(b)) follows the citys grid pattern and the buildingsapart from the precincts focus, the World Finance Centre, which is international in natureare based on the 1920s and 1930s buildings of much-loved areas of Manhattan.1,24 To outsiders, these buildings may not say New York, because the citys architectural image in the worlds eyes Urban Design and Planning 162 Issue DP1

is one of corporate modernism. Visually, the buildings are part of the traditional New York scene. Much the same observation can be made about Londons Paternoster Square, completed in 2003 (Figure 7(c)).1 Few architectural critics admire this approach to urban design. A much emulated American example of a neo-traditional urban designnow known as the new urbanismcame from the practice of Andres Duany and Elizabeth Platter Zyberk. Seaside (1970+) started with the notion of reviving building traditions of north-west Florida which had produced wood-framed cottages so well adapted to the climate that they enhance the sensual pleasures of life by the sea.25 The design puts the car into a place at the back of buildings and public open spaces are given primacy over private (see Figure 8(a)). The houses, although designed by many architects haveby decree porches, clad walls, pitched roofs and picket fences that follow specic design guidelines.1,26 There are many, many other recent neo-traditional urban designs. Poundbury (Figure 8(b)) is a British example. In India, Raj Rewal designed a series of such projects dating from the Asiad Village (198082) in Delhi to the Income Tax Colony (1997) in Navi Mumbai (see Figure 8(c)). They illustrate the difculties faced in adapting traditional forms to modern life.15 The site designs are based on a pre-automobile system of streets and chowks of the hot-arid regions of India. Vehicular trafc has to be kept on the periphery of the new schemes. The householders tendency to now regard the fronts of their houses International urban design: theory and practice Lang 11

Figure 6. The garden city today: Shonsang Lake, Guangdong, China proposal (2004)

Figure 7. Urban neo-traditional urban designs: (a) Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium; (b) Battery Park City, New York; (c) Paternoster Square, London

to be facing the parking areas and not the chowks results in the loss of the territorial controls of the original types. Much neotraditional urban design and architecture is, nevertheless, highly regarded by locals because it is easy to perceive how it relates to local conditions. Where, however, the forms have been slavishly copied without understanding, they function less 12 Urban Design and Planning 162 Issue DP1

well. One of the potential problems is that the paradigm becomes a universal formula based on American prototypes.27,28 There has been a considerable revival of interest in the tenets of canonical religious texts in countries such as India, parts of Indonesia, China and Korea as mechanisms for addressing local Lang

International urban design: theory and practice

Figure 8. Suburban neo-Traditional urban designs: (a) Seaside, Florida USA; (b) Poundbury, Dorchester, England; (c) The Income Tax Colony, Navi Mumbai, India

and cosmic conditions and for retaining local identities. In India there are a number of such texts; in China it is Feng Shui; in Bali the Asti Bumi among others. It is easy to dismiss the canons as superstitions and there are many charlatans among those who offer design advice according to them. Yet much of what the canons dictate is supported in principle by contemporary scientic knowledge.29 4.2. Working with communities The goal of community urban design is to safeguard the interests of the disenfranchised. Community architects address the needs of specic groups and act as advocates for children, the elderly and the poor for example. In the USA, community urban designers have addressed the specic needs of different ethnic groups, particularly their poorer members30 and Native Americans on reservations. An important European example involved the remodelling of the modernist Perseigne housing development in Alenon, France during the 1980s. Architect Lucien Kroll proposed the insertion of two-storey units, useful outdoor furniture and better lighting for the area. In contrast to the almost universal perception that any open space is benecial to cities, lling it in at Perseigne to create semi-public and semi-private territories has enhanced the quality of life of the residents. The whole process was based on discussions with local people about their problems and Urban Design and Planning 162 Issue DP1

aspirations.18 For community design to work well, urban designers need to be educators and not simply passive give-em-what-they-say-they-want people. To be educators, urban designers need to be well-educated about how various patterns of built form function in different circumstances. 4.3. Current paradigmsa conclusion Each current paradigm addresses some issues well, but others not. In applying standard paradigms to urban designing, there is a danger that the possibilities, what are called the affordances, for the everyday activities that provide the spice of life get neglected.31 They fall outside the paradigm. A newer universal urban design approach promises more. It follows a procedural rather than an iconic model. Arguing for it revives the debate of whether it is better to design using an appropriate iconic paradigm or by developing a well-rounded programme.32 What is needed is an approach to design that focuses on the multi-functionality of the everyday ecological environment of peoples lives. In addition, it needs to consider the ecological functioning of the natural, biological world. Pulling these two streams of ecological thinking together to deal with local conditions and peoples aspirations requires a procedural model. It also requires a model of the functioning of built forms. International urban design: theory and practice Lang 13

5. AN EMERGING PARADIGM: A NEO-FUNCTIONAL ECOLOGICAL URBAN DESIGN A neo-functional urban design offers more than the modernists functional model. A functional city is more than one in which transportation links are efcient. It is one that satises well-enough the full range of needs and aspirations of its stakeholders and is robust enough to undergo change as conditions change. An ecological approach is one that deals with the everyday lives of people and the workings of the biological environment.31 How does one deal with these concerns? Rather than imposing a pre-conceived iconic paradigm on the urban design problem at hand, a series of questions have to be asked. The broadest is what kind of environment will serve people well? This question soon breaks into parts. (a) What does people mean? (b) Is a city to be seen as a homogenous mass or better divided into precincts with clear identities? (c) How is the movement of people and goods to be handled? (d) What is to be in the foreground and what is to be in the background? (e) How are the needs of the future perceived? These are challenging questions with no obvious answers. A problem-solving approach to design rst involves the denition of goals (always a political act), the translation of these goals into objectives for activities and aesthetic ends, the exploration of various techniques for meeting these ends, the prediction of how these techniques will function in different possible futures, and then selection of a way forward. Issues concerning land ownership patterns and nancing have to be resolved. It can be argued that these matters should be considered rst of all. The danger is that imposing them as a constraint at the outset prematurely leads to abandonment of the search for a good design. The design process can be regarded as one of both conjecturing and testing of ideas. Designers debate with themselves and with their clientsboth sponsors and potential future userson ends and means. Clarity in arguing requires good evidence. Good evidence comes from experience of how patterns of the environment function, from case studies and from deducing patterns from research-based theoretical knowledge. At the same time, a changing world is being dealt with. Designers will always have to stick their necks out. 5.1. Designing for activities Denitions of desirable and acceptable behaviours are culturally biasedsomething seldom explicitly recognised in the architecture of globalisation. The concern in urban designing should not only be with providing opportunities for known behaviours to take place but also for potentially desirable ones. Establishing the patterns of the built form affords activity systems. These patterns not only have to provide behaviour settings but they also have to meet other ends. The symbolic qualities of the environmentthe associations people have with particular patterns, familiar, new or inventedoften clash with a good world for activity patterns. There is also the goal, often difcult or even impossible to achieve through design, of reducing opportunities for anti-social behaviour. 14 Urban Design and Planning 162 Issue DP1

One of the major difculties is to decide on whose values and needs take precedence. Is it to be those of children or their elders, tourists or habitus, men or women, the middle classes or the poor? The list of actors in the city is endless. A good world for children and for the handicapped tends to be a good world for everyone. Many much loved citiesParis, Sydney, Venice, for exampleare indeed not user-friendly for the handicapped but they would be better if they were. Municipal authorities in those cities are striving to achieve that end. The concern in Venice has been strident.33,34 Places also have to be comfortable. The temperature, movement and moisture of the air, and the olfactory and tactile experiences in the physical public realm have to be within tolerable limits, at least. The achievement of comfort requires the built form of cities to (a) enhance the ushing effect of breezes without creating adverse windy conditions (b) provide levels of sun and shade that maintain levels of comfort (c) provide comfortable levels of humidity through the use of vegetation and water. The required qualities of all these variables depend on the nature of local conditions.35 5.2. The city symbolic The symbolic qualities of urban designs are vital in establishing a sense of belonging to a place and its inhabitants pride in it. The Burj Dubai area (Figure 9) and Lujiazui in Shanghai (Figure 2) exemplify this point. But there is more to it than that. Two basic issues arise about the aesthetic qualities (including the symbolism) of places within cities. The rst involves deciding what should be in the symbolic foreground and what in the background. The second has to do with the aesthetics of globalisation versus the aesthetics of regionalism. There has been much debate on these topics over the last 30 years.36,37 In many places it has historically been religious and civic buildings that have been the most important foreground buildings. Today, it is often the buildings of commerce. The World Commerce Centre in Battery Park City, Manhattan, is an example of commerce being put into the foreground as a symbol of modernism and the vitality of a city.1,26 In Lujiazui, Pudong, the buildings vie with each other to be in the foreground. Creating a sense of place has been equally contentious. 5.2.1. Creating a sense of place. There are at least two approaches that urban designers follow in setting policies and guidelines for the future aesthetic effect of new designs, for example they can (a) specify that places and buildings be climatically appropriate (b) use traditional local building materials, including recycled materials, and indigenous vegetation (c) use patterns of built form that are meaningful to local populations. Lang

International urban design: theory and practice

Figure 9. Burj Dubai, Dubai

The rst two are straightforward; the third is open to considerable debate. One way is to use traditional patterns not literally but guratively as advocated by Robert Venturi.37 The problem with this way is that few lay-people can identify the symbolic meanings. They have to be told about them. Recognising the meanings becomes an intellectual not a sub-conscious process. The second approach is politically conservative. It is not to worry about the theatrical character of the milieu. Instead, designers and their clients should be concerned about whether it is better to strive to achieve visual uniformity or diversity in the districts of cities and to allow individual buildings to create an evolving sense of place. Whatever approach is used, the goal is to provide citizens with a sense of pride in the urban character that evolves. 5.3. Designing the city salubrioussustainable urban design A healthy city is one that not only provides a salubrious environment for its inhabitants but also functions in a self-renewing manner.3840 A sustainable city is one that provides both a healthy environment for human life (and for other animate species, e.g. birds and animals) and itself possesses healthy natural processes. It is one that is free of pollution from air, water and soundso that neither people nor the physical fabric are damaged by other than normal ecological processes. A sustainable city is a robust city. It survives well, despite changing. Urban Design and Planning 162 Issue DP1

Designing for the bio-diversity of the natural, particularly fragile, local eco-systems of cities is essential for sustainability.39 The use of indigenous rather than exotic vegetation sets up an enduring pattern of life; local insects attract local birds that spread seeds that lead to new plant life. It is clear that designing an entirely self-sustaining healthy city is, at present, beyond our capacity. Populations expand. It is difcult to satiate demand for more of the good things in life once basic necessities have been met. More non-renewable resources are consumed. Yet much can be done through careful planning. Doing so will require a universal change in values. Perhaps that change is in the ofng. 5.4. Implementing a neo-functional ecological approach to urban design Can such an approach to urban design be implemented? There is a growing body of knowledge that makes such an approach feasible. Few politicians, public ofcials and urban designers wish to employ an intense procedural model in addressing development opportunities: there is not the time. It is easier to use commonly accepted paradigms such as new urbanism in the hope that they catch most of the concerns of importance. The much-used alternative is to copy existing designs assuming that they, like cars, are products that can function well anywhere. Often, multi-functional ecological approaches to urban development fall outside the short-term concerns of the market place. Cities such as Curitiba in Brazil have, nevertheless, approximately followed the model proposed here.1,41 There are also a number of smaller scale examples. International urban design: theory and practice Lang 15

Scientic knowledge biological and socialon which to base designs is substantial but, nevertheless, still limited. We need to use what we do know. It is also necessary to develop procedural models of working within the socio-economic and political worlds we inhabit. That knowledge also needs to be used.42 Much has been learnt about how to do it. 6. FINAL OBSERVATIONS The public ofcials of cities around the world, particularly those in countries such as China, the United Arab Emirates and, increasingly, India that are going through a rapid process of modernisation, take great pride in the scale and amboyant geometries of the urban designs and buildings of globalisation. The pride stems not only from the designs per se but also from the success of local political efforts to join the modern global culture. At the same time questions are being asked about future design directions. Wang Guangtos observations are no longer unique.42 A number of major international architectural and planning rms are also striving to reconcile designing to catch attention with being ecologically sensitive. The past 30 years have seen increasing pushes from various interest groups to broaden the scope of urban design to deal with the full range of people that use the built environment rather than relying on a universal model of the human being. There have been, and are, many contemporaneous efforts to design in and for local social and climatic contexts. Examples are Foster and Partners Masdar proposal and the scheme for Ras Al Khaimah by Rem Koolhaas Ofce for Metropolitan Architecture. Both schemes are located in the United Arab Emirates. Architectural critics are becoming much more sympathetic to urban designs that strive for a sense of regional place rather than mere novelty. It is, however, worth quoting Jawarharlal Nehru, Indias rst post-independence leader the future that beckons us now. What is the future? It is probably more like today than designers are wont to think. New design paradigms will, nevertheless, emerge. Maybe it will be an urban design of glocality.36 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Figure 2 (a) is published with the permission of Kisho Kurokawa and Associates and Figure 3 with the permission of Professor Bernard Tschumi. The other illustrations are part of the authors collection. They are either in the public realm or the author is their copyright holder. Figure 1 (a) was drawn by Thanong Poonteerakul and the photographer of Figure 8a was Ruth Durack. If copyright proprietorship can be established for any of the illustrations not specically or erroneously attributed please contact the author at jonl@unsw.edu.au. REFERENCES 1. LANG J. Urban Design: A Typology of Procedures and Products Illustrated with over 50 Case Studies. Architectural Press, Oxford, 2005. 2. LLEWELLYN-DAVIES. Urban Design Compendium. English Partnership and the Housing Corporation, London, 2000. 3. COLE R. and LORD R. (eds). Building, Culture and Environment: Informing Local and Global Practice. Blackwell, Oxford, 2003. 4. MARSHALL R. Emerging Urbanity: Global Projects in the Asia-Pacic Rim. Spon, London, 2003. 16 Urban Design and Planning 162 Issue DP1

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