Urban Design - temporal dimension

Zaqaziq University
Faculty of Engineering
Department of Architecture
The temporal dimension
This lecture concerns the
temporal or time dimension
of urban design.
Although some times
considered to be a matter of
working in three dimensions,
urban design is four
dimensional: the fourth
dimension being time.

As kevin lynch observes:
We experience the passage of time in the urban environment
in two ways:
1. through “rhythmic” reputation: the heart beat, breathing,
sleeping and waking, hunger, the cycles of the sun and moon,
the seasons, waves, tides, clocks.
2. And through progressive and irreversible change: growth and
decay not recurrence but alteration.
Time and space are intimately related
And the great frame work within
which we order our experience
We live in time places
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Time cycle
Activities are fluid in space and time
The main time cycles are based on natural cycles, the dominant one being the 24
hour circadian cycle that results from the earth’s rotation, and affects sleeping and
waking and other bodily cycles.
Working and leisure time,
mealtimes, and so on, are
overlain on this basic cycle.
The cycle of the year and the
changing seasons are also
rooted in the period of the
earth’s rotation around the
sun.
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Time cycle
Facilitating and encouraging the use of urban spaces requires an understanding of
the effects of the cycle of day and night, the seasons, and related cycles of
activity.
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At different
times of the
day and
night, the
urban
environment
is perceived
and used
differently.

Time cycle
Activities are fluid in
space and time
It can be a rewarding and
enlightening experience for
urban designers to observe a
”life in a day” of a public space,
or the same space over the
course of the seasons.
That is to study its social anthropology and notice, for example, its
changing rhythms and pulses – now busy, now quite – and different
people using the space- more women at same times, more men at others.
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Time cycle
Activities are fluid
in space and time
Cycles of activity are also grounded in the changing seasons:
During the winter in northern temperature climates, for example, even at noon, the
sun is low in the sky. Days are typically grey, wet, windy and cold. People may use
external spaces only when necessary.
In the spring, leaves start to appear on trees, and people begin to linger in urban
spaces, enjoying the warmth of the sun.
In summer, the trees are in full leaf, the sun is high in the sky, days are long and
light, and people opt to stay longer in urban spaces.
In the autumn, the leaves turn rich reds and browns and eventually fall from the
trees. People may linger in urban spaces to enjoy the last warmth of the sun before
the onset of winter.
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Time cycle
Activities are fluid in space
and time
Urban designers may deliberately
exploit the changing day and the
changing seasons to bring greater
variety and interest to urban spaces.
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Time cycle
and time
The grip of the old disciplined of
time and time constraints is
weakening. While this has been a
historical process – for example,
candles, gas lamps, and then electric
light, all extended the useful hours
of the day – the pace of change is
accelerating.
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Although an exaggeration, the term “ 24 hours society” is a useful
shorthand for the changes under way and serves as a metaphor for
“a different type of the world” .

Time cycle
and time
----- shows how the UK is becoming
a 24 hour society by noting how,
since the late 1980s, the national
grid has recorded an increase in
electricity usage between 1800 and
2200 hours, attributed to shops
staying open later and staying lit,
while telephone companies have
noted an increase in night time
telephone traffic.
As a sequence, the use of time and
the pattern of activities, is being
variously stretched and squeezed.
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Time cycle
By colonizing the night through the 24 hour society we cannot create time but we can
provide the means to use the available time more effectively so that we can
free ourselves from the coiled grip of the time squeeze.
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Time cycle
Activities are fluid in
space and time
In the same way that
electronic
communication has
freed us from the
constraints of space , there
is also greater freedom
from the constraints of
time.
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Time management of public space
Mixed uses have generally been advocated on the basis that they create more life
and activity in a location…… activity must also be considered in temporal terms .
Urban designers
need to understand
activity patterns,
how to encourage
activities through
different time
periods.
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The timing of activities needs to be managed.
Activities may be prohibited at
certain times to prevent conflicts;
be separated in time to alleviate
congestion; or be brought
together in time to allow
connections and a sufficient
density of use.
Urban places that are well peopled
enable complementary activities to
overlap in space and complexly
interrelate, resisting the narrow
time specialization that fragments
and compartmentalizes activities.
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Time management of public
space
While public space is often naturally
animated by the ebb and flow of
people going about their everyday
business, this can also be stimulated
through planned programmes ,
encouraging people to visit, use and
linger in urban spaces.
Programmes usually involve a
varied diet of events and activity.
Therefore, as people visit an area to
see what is going on, urban vitality is
further stimulated and the public
realm becomes animated by having
more people on the streets and in
cafes, etc.
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The march of time
As well as through the repetitive
rhythms of time, we also know that time
has passed through evidence of progressive
and irreversible change.
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In a very real sense, the past
is fixed and the future open.
While we may yearn to return
to the city we knew as a child,
or relive a wonderful moment,
we are unable to do so. This is
the relentless “march of time”.

Time management of
public space
The march of time
Urban environments are
continuously and inexorably
changing. From the first design
drawing to the final demolition,
environments and buildings are
shaped and reshaped by
technological, economic, social and
cultural change.
A building or other element of the built environment of a given period and
type tends to be a carrier of the spirit of its time.
Every city can be read as a multi layered text, a narrative of signs and
symbols and becomes a biography of urban change.
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Time management of
public space
conservation
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Time management of
public space
The continuity of place
Many current
approaches to
urban design
attempts to
respond to the
existing sense of
place , stressing
“continuity with”
rather than a
“break from”, the
past.

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Time management of
public space
The continuity of place
In world of rapid change,
visual and tangible evidence of
the past is valued for the sense
of place and continuity it
conveys.
Particular value is placed on the sense of
place and the relative permanence of its
character and identity.

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The management of change
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Urban Design - temporal dimension

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