Arch 504 Urban Design Seminar University of Idaho

ken williams, architect

Kasama Polakit, Phd

19 Feb 2015

Module One
Defining the Field

  What are the variables to be observed?

  And the answer is still another question:

`What do you care to measure?’ [1]

Change in the constant of Urban Design. How do we understand the stream of communal growth, change, the ebb and flow of urban setting and practise? In the course’s First Module, two components of Urban Design are identified: Understanding and Design. The former component may constitute the studies of sociological evolution, of maturing planning practice, of urbanism. These create the interpreted professional foundation which fosters the latter, Design - the formulation advice and creative thought & image. For my purposes, this class affords continued study, historical background, and currency. This led to reinforcing studies through application through diagrammatic exercises:

· Interpreting Whitefish, Montana  by identification of common traffic patterns, neighborhoods and districts. (Exhibit 1)

· Through Lynch inspired diagrams  (Exhibit 2 )

·  Creating a Personal diagram of patterns ( Exhibit 3 )

Exhibit 1 Diagramatic charette
Whitefish, Montana

Traditional planning tools were two dimensional, as these exhibits illustrate. However, these do not illustrate the important form givers which influence the community ( Images 1 & 2.) Having documented the Whitefish community, led to using diagrammatic charettes which broke her downtown area into uses ( Exhibit 4.) Further consideration was applied to vehicular traffic usage during different periods of her daily cycle (Exhibit 5.) These studies were quick extensions where information can graphically communicate core design considerations. In the last two exhibits, key cycles can be observed. The first is that there is a segregation of retail spaces and bars-restaurants, emphasized by day and night. The southern half of the downtown core enjoys increased traffic in the early morning hours, as well as patronage. The restaurants in this area provide early morning through mid-afternoon meals.  Mid-afternoon, the traffic model changes as the school day ends. Evening finds traffic diminished in all but the northern half, where dinner and entertainment occur. By midnight, traffic has dropped to a lull, sustained by commercial highway traffic and nominal commutes to the neighborhoods to the north of the railroad tracks.

Exhibit 2 Whitefish, Montana
a'la Lynch

These are illustrations conceived and developed by hand. Recent technologies have evolved. Design concepts and communication are now generated by technical platforms. These have matriculated  from two dimensional to three dimensional models. Sophomoric these comments seem, there are opportunities.  The unwritten, salient point, is the use of technology and its impact on our professional world. How can new technologies, information and data be employed? In 2000, architects Brad Schell and Joe Esch published SketchUp. Designed as an architectural modeling tool which fostered change, SketchUp has become the `VisiCalc’[2] of  Urban Design. A collaborator, Bill Dennis, B. Dennis Town & Building Design[3], bases much of his practise, on this technical platform’s ability to incorporate data from disparate sources, be they satellite imagery, engineering studies, ecological data or survey. Combined, in overlays, data and interpretation matriculates into design solutions.

Exhibit 3 Whitefish, Montana
Personal patterns

New tools, demands and interpretations have enabled what were once broadly considered planning to evolve a specialization of Urban Design. The use of technology is not the cause of Urban Design. I submit that technology has fostered Urban Design’s evolution as practise as it enabling practitioners to combine architecture, planning and landscape architecture as a means of communicating solutions on a personal level. These tools afford Urban Designers the ability to assess diverse data sets, overlaid, in new terms and design dialogs. Better still, use contemporary technologies in interpret prioneering works. An example: Alexander et.al.’s A Pattern Language, via graphical elements to urban design problems.

Exhibit 4 Whitefish, Montana
Schematic sketch of existing uses
February 2015

Much of our introductory studies have formented thought, consideration and questioning. Better still, my comfort level regarding Urban Design is low. This is a good thing. When one is uncomfortable, we must adapt, we must learn. In beginning this paper, I posed a series of questions from Gerald Allen & Charles Moore. They addressed, in the mid seventies proto Urban Design concepts, by studying urban settings, scale makers, perceptions. 

They asked 

“ What are the variable to be observed? 

And the answer is still another question: 

`What do you care to measure?’” 

In turn, 

“How do you care to create it?” and “By what means?”

Bibliography
Allen, Gerald, & Moore, Charles. Dimensions – Space, shape & scale in architecture. New York, NY. McGraw Hill. 1976

Knox, P.& McCarthy, L. Urbanization, An Introduction to Urban Geography. New Jersey, USA. Prentice Hall. 2005. Chapter 14 Urbanization, Urban Life and Urban Spaces

Exhibit 5 Whitefish, Montana
How we look at things - traffic throughout the day

Exhibit 6 Downtown Whitefi

---

[1] Allen & Moore. Dimensions Shape,scale and architecture. P.8

[2] Visicalc was produced by Dan Brinklin in response to his Harvard room mate’s frustration at continual Business School `What-if ?’ questions. An early Apple II owner & programmer, Brinklin’s Visicalc ( Visual Calculator) provided businesses with an application which justified the purchase and use of a little known personal computer. Visicalc was the break-through program for business, much as AutoCad is for architects and engineers. SketchUp enjoys a like role in the evolution of Urban Design.

[3] Charter member & co-ordinator of the Congress of New Urbanism

Exhibit 7 The `Mountain'
The Resort known as the Whitefish Mountain Resort,
a current driving factor in Whitefish's economy

Exhibit 8 Whitefish Train Depot
One of the older reasons for Whitefish's being