BY ANNET THOMAS

S9
C.A DOXIADIS
Constantinos Apostolou Doxiadis (14 May 1913 – 28 June 1975),
often cited as C. A. Doxiadis, was a Greek Architect and town planner.
He became known as the lead architect of Islamabad,
and later as the father of ekistics.

He was the chief town planning officer of

Greater Athens Area (1937-1938) and later worked
as the Head of department of regional and
Town Planning, Ministry of Public works, Greece.
(1939-1945).
 EKISTICS
• Concerns the science of human
settlements, including regional, city,
community planning and dwelling
design.
• The study involves human settlement
with attention to geography, ecology,
human psychology, anthropology,
culture and occasionally aesthetics.
• Scientific mode of study, it relies on statistics and description.
• Its characteristics refers to the functions expressed in space by area of certain
dimensions.
 DIMENSIONS OF EKISTICS
There are two classificatory dimensions:

 First dimension: Relative to Scale:

• Lower end: The individual, the room and the dwelling;
increases in size all the way.
• Other extreme: The city, Urban continent,
the worldwide city, which he called ecumenopolis.
 Second dimension: The five environmental elements

• Anthropos Primary
• Society
• Nature Secondary
• Network
• Shells Tertiary
PRINCIPLES OF EKISTICS

• First principle: Maximization of man’s potential contact with elements

of nature, with other people and works.
• Second principle: Minimization of effort required, in terms of energy,
time and cost.
• Third principle: Optimization of man’s protective space. Which means
selection of such a distance from other people, animals or objects and
still keep contact with them without any kind of sensory or
psychological discomfort.
• Fourth principle: Optimization of man’s relationship with his
environment, which includes nature, society, shells and networks.
• Fifth principle: Optimisation of previous foour elements.
ANALYSIS
To achieve an ekistic city, we must clarify what we mean by cities.
If we consider city of London – densely built, traditional central part of urban area, or
city of new york with sky scrapers, we cannot go far.
In these cases we fail, not because future cities may not be like their prototypes,
But because we approach our subject with preconceived ideas about number of
people, physical size, building types and styles etc…
SOLUTIONS
According to Doxiadis, the greatest problem facing cities worldwide was problem of
managing growth.

He proposed several solutions, a few are listed below:

• To leave room for expansion of city core.
• Limiting all buildings to three levels or less with permission to build higher.
• Separating automobile and pedestrian traffic completely.
• Constructing cities as beehive of cells, each no bigger than 2x2 km, the maximum
confortable distance etc..
CITY DEVELOPMENTS: 4 STAGES
• Dynapolis: mono centric city developing in one direction.
• Metropolis: Large city formed by parallel development of several dynapolises in
different directions.
• Megalopolis: A giant city; group of metropolises.
• Ecumenopolis: It is nothing but the joining of two giant cities or megalopolises.
the ‘world wide city’.
ISLAMABAD: CITY PLANNING
• Islamabad was an idea to create ‘City of Future’ with concept of Dynapolis; that is,
an planned unidirectional linear city as the only solution to cope with the growth
of an explosive urbanization era, relying on strong environmental elements, and a
synthesis of town planning and architectural principles.
• The plan indicates growth of functions in the direction of city’s future expansion.
• A unity of scale has been incorporated.
• The making of the Plan if Islamabad is an investigation and prospection into the
landscape of the area chosen as project site for the new capital of Pakistan. The
idea, concept and protoform of Dynapolis is conceived by Doxiadis is bound to
find its manifestation in Islamabad.
• The translation of Dynapolis into a physical plan, guided by its protoform,
landscape and intuition of an architect are the basic elements that developed
into the pan of Islamabad.
• The plan of Islamabad shows connectivity on all levels; within the city, natural
landscape is integrated with other systems of open spaces and other types of
landscape, and also creates an urban system that is connected to the natural
areas surrounding the city
• The city is divided into 8 basic zones administrative, diplomatic enclave,
residential areas, educational sectors, industrial sectors, commercial areas, rural
and green areas. Each sector has its own shopping area and public park. Each
sector was kept separated through green belts which also act as ‘Oxygen
Generators’.
SUSTAINABLE TRANSPORTATION:
• Islamabad is a planned city with an extensive road network laid out in a grid
structure.
• The road networks The advantages of the clear hierarchy of residential
communities, of the related functions and of the transport system are apparent in
the segregation of the various categories of movements (i.e. high/low speed Road
Traffic, Public • Transport, Bicycles, Pedestrians, etc.)
ISLAMABAD TODAY
• Islamabad today is not what it was designed for. It is no more isolated from the
business and commercial activities. Population in Islamabad has risen from
0.340 million to 1.124 million within 25 years.
• The increasing economic activities have given birth to high rise building,
residential apartments, housing schemes, educational institutions, industrial
units and new markets.
• Islamabad is a “UNIQUE” example of a large new city “PLANNED FOR THE FUTURE
AND BUILT FOR THE PRESENT”, fully respecting the long-term planning.