history about utopians

1. THE NEW UTOPIANS

2. SEARCH FOR A GOOD CITY
Prolonged lifespan
contributed to
population pressure
Housing received
attention
Planning agencies were
formed and zoning,
building bye laws were
executed
Search for a space to
create identity
Persisting expansion
about periphery –
countryside moving far
THE NEW UTOPIAN - the
beginning
• Linear city concept by Soria Y
Mata
• Satellite communities by
Raymond Unwin
• Integrating both, the concept
of industrial city by Tony
Garnier

3. THE LINEAR CITY AND
SATELLITE TOWN
o Expansion of city along the central spine of communication - the
highway
o Housing and industry along the highway
o Highway acting as the continuous artery
o Highways linking existing cities
o Use of countryside to contain the urban growth along the highway
 satellite communities in the periphery of cities
 following the idea of garden city
 12-18k people, small enough to sustain without vehicular
movement inside the community

4. THE NEW UTOPIAN - NEW
IDEAS
o More practical solutions
o Double decked and triple decked streets
o Separation of vehicular and pedestrian ways
o Raised pedestrian flyway
o Doubling up families in a single lot – upper story or backyard
garages
Le Corbusier
Ville Contemporaine
Ville Radiuse
La Cite Industrielle

5. Le Corbusier
Ville Contemporaine
– City of magnificent skyscrapers surrounded by broad open space
– Designed as a huge park
– 60 story office building: 5% ground coverage containing 1200
people/ acre
– City hub: rail, airfield, transportation centres
– Apartment district surrounding the skyscrapers: 8 story buildings
in zigzag row with open spaces around, population density if 120
people/acre
– City designed for 3 million population
– Contrast with the old city
THE NEW UTOPIAN - NEW
IDEAS

6. Le Corbusier
Ville Radiuse
– Continuous staggered rows of houses
– Set on piers with broad open space around
– Hierarchy of roads: encircling freeways above ground level;
secondary uninterrupted traffic way; informal system of local
vehicular and pedestrian movement – circle beneath the buildings
open at the ground level
THE NEW UTOPIAN - NEW
IDEAS

7. Search for a favourable environment of human scale
Identification of four basic elements of urban system by
International Congress of Modern Architects:
- Sun
- Space
- Vegetation
- Steel and concrete
Le Corbusier organized Assembly of Constructors for an
Architectural renovation (ASCORAL) – Three Human Establishments
- The farming unit
- The radiocentric city
- The linear city
THE NEW UTOPIAN - NEW
IDEAS

8. Le Corbusier
La Cite Industrielle
– ASCORAL: shifted attention from existing urban centres to basic
organization of urban spaces in industrial age
– Fusion between garden city and ribbon like development of linear
city
– Principal forms of circulation: water, rail, air, highway – major
arteries
– Along the arteries self contained industrial cities were distributed
– Assumption: surrounding open spaces would be maintained
– Greenbelt used as buffer between various landuses
THE NEW UTOPIAN - NEW
IDEAS

9. NEW TRENDS IN
PLANNING

10. NEIGHBOURHOOD UNITS:
CLARENCE PERRY
Principles:
1. Major arterials and through traffic routes should not pass
through residential neighborhoods. Instead these streets should
provide boundaries of the neighborhood
2. Interior street patterns should be designed and constructed
through use of cul-de-sacs, curved layout and light duty
surfacing so as to encourage a quiet, safe and low volume traffic
movement and preservation of the residential atmosphere
3. The population of the neighborhood should be that which is
required to support its elementary school
4. The neighborhood focal point should be the elementary school
centrally located on a common or green, along with other
institutions that have service areas coincident with the
neighborhood boundaries

11. A diagram of Clarence Perry's neighbourhood unit, illustrating the spatiality
of the core principles of the concept, from the New York Regional Survey,
Vol 7. 1929
By Source, <a
href="//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:New_York_Regional_Survey,_Vol_
7.jpg" title="Fair use of copyrighted material in the context of
Neighbourhood unit">Fair use</a>, <a
href="https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=31536931">Lin
k</a>
5. The radius of the neighborhood
should be a maximum of one
quarter mile thus precluding a
walk of more than that distance
for any elementary school child
6. Shopping districts should be sited
at the edge of neighborhoods
preferably at major street
intersections.
7. 10% of area should be provided
for green spaces
Source of the text: Meenakshi (2011). Neighborhood Unit and its
Conceptualization in the Contemporary Urban Context. Institute of
Town Planners, India Journal, pp 81 – 87 retrieved from
http://www.itpi.org.in/files/jul10_11.pdf on February, 2020

12. NEW TRENDS
Modern trends:
1. Garden apartments – Metropolitan project, NYC by Andrew J.
Thomas:
- Two rooms dwelling units with stairway serving two dwelling per
floor
- Grouped in U shape with 50% ground coverage
- Open courts and gardens
- Narrow space between the buildings
- Improvement from small traditional single use buildings
- Tenement House Act 1901
- Narrow front long depth, small court replaced by larger planning
accommodating broad front, shallow depth, opened up interior

13. NEW TRENDS
Modern trends:
2. Henry Wright and Clarence Stein:
- Row housing concept
- Continuous row of two story houses
- Allies eliminated, garage courts at the back, common parking at
the centre accessible by all
- The superblocks: surrounding streets, units arranged around
cul-de-sac, traffic eliminated, reverse orientation of houses,
kitchen and garage facing road, living room and bed rooms
facing garden, uninterrupted pedestrian pathway to a continuous
park strip leading to larger open space i.e. the centre of
superblock
- Eg. Radburn – Town of the motor age

14. https://www.historicnewengland.org/explore/collections-
access/capobject/?refd=EP001.12.002.005.188

15. NEW TRENDS
Recent trends:
1. Age-friendly and child friendly cities
2. Sustainable urbanism
3. Urban agriculture
4. Green infrastructure
5. 15 minutes city
6. Car free city
7. Circular economy
8. Smart cities
9. Big data analytics for disaster management
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