Scales of Planning

I was just thinking about scales in the city, just like in Architecture and in maps, you have scales.

Urban: Building scale. Deals with urban design and human scale.

District: Block scale. Larger areas, but still within human scale.

Municipal: District scale. Made up of blocks, this creates groups to form districts.

Regional Planning: Municipal scale. Made up of Municipalities.

End of the Year

Well, finally it's the end of the year back at studying. I'd have to say that some things required a lot of time and where worth very little. A friend keeps saying that if you spend more time on doing more than getting a five, your wasting your time.

I don't believe in that. If your passionate about planning, you want to do the best that you can do naturally. If your inclination is to only do as much as required, where would we be today? To me it sounds slack and lazy. Something that I maybe was like when I was 5.

So, work with no study, going out at night, movies are now a better place to be, until next year.

DEB200 - Introducing Sustainability -The End?

Just got an email saying that if you didn't pass this exam you fail the course. So 50 multiple choice questions, with 25% of the total course. Does that somehow sound loaded? Exams have never been my strong point, and, in real life exams do not exist. There is no time that I needed to work out something in several different areas and only to be said, yep, that'll pass. No. Things in real life require time, and thought. Time constraints are really things we put onto ourselves. Time is money, just not the time under a time frame that dictates success in 75% of your work.

DEB200 - Introducing Sustainability Group Assignment: Bendee Downs

If you hadn't already heard, there's a lot of work involved in studying. The time taken to lean and regurgitate the information seems to be insurmountable, but at the end it works out ok.

Our main assignment (report) was in conjunction with Engineers with out boarders, a group that apply university level students at real world problems. The site was at a place called Bendee Downs, located in Queensland South West. We had to create a "Eco Tourist" resort, which in my mind is still an oxymoron. The report it self was broken up into different areas, being a cultural centre, camp sites, walking trails and star gazing. Other activities included spear throwing, boomerang throwing and story telling. I felt uncomfortable about dictating the activities that to me seemed culturally insensitive, what is to say that one activity is appropriate over an other.

I also saw difficulties in sitting buildings, as I felt their had to be a spiritual map that showed areas that had significance in the landscape. Other difficulties where transportation, as flying or driving there was a negative aspect. We added to the idea of creating a adventure trail, or package that would end up at the site. The site also had two air strips, both that needed maintenance.

The overall strategy of the assignment, and the presentation where both executed by our team fairly successfully and was good to end on a high note. Just wished I had a bit more time to work on a few other features.

DEB200 - Introducing Sustainability

I'd have to say that this subject was equally complex as Stewardship of Land. I found it odd that the lecturer couldn't handle the fact that they where teaching 1,400 students, and that the university saw it fit not to customise the subject. Now, with two weeks before my big exam, I'm in the process of swallowing a horses pill.

INTRODUCING SUSTAINABILITY DEB200

It's interesting to note the amount of people travelling to see the beginning of the Riverfire festival yet after the fireworks, 500,000 people left which took about two hours for things to settle down.

I wonder how sustainable it is for people to travel in such inefficient terms as to get into a car, travel for half an our, watch an event for an hour or so and travel again another half hour. So you spend as much time, if not more in travelling to an even that you watch using no or little energy to start with.

I guess it's a theory of time management v having fun :)

INTRODUCING SUSTAINABILITY DEB200

Sustainability these days seems to be a key phrase that is bantered around as much as Nuclear was around in the 1980's. This current hot button is better thought of and used than the older term, environmentalism. Unfortunatly this term has conitations of the "Tree Hugging Hippy" and of extremist views and actions. Although I don't believe this to be true, in terms of marketing sustainability has made it's mark in defining environmentalism has ever been dreamed of.

In introducing sustainability, it is another subject that appears to be easy, but deep down is quite complicated and litigious. It's themes of observation in the first assignment (essay) where to say, quite open ended but the main focus was to establish the idea of being awake in your environment.

Perceptions of the environment are hard to observe, and these concept and points of view are even harder to understand fully without appreciating a historical use and habits. Just like a goat track is formed in a field because of the topography, peoples movements and uses through the environment have impacts that are unforeseen and unaccounted.

Can these be be analysed by using semiotics within the landscape? Does the impact of using the same road for 500 years imply sustainability or is it just a sociocultural belief in this is what has been done so we don't need to change. Is sustainability about change?

Block analysis of West End

I have chosen West End as my analysis topic. I have selected this as the area appeals to me in terms of use, vistas and connectivity (See Figure1). There are (+-)86 blocks located in West End with another 33 blocks located over the river bringing the total to 119. The block size runs from around 425sqm (Small lot) to larger parcels of land at around 4.25ha. The amount of intersections is a surprising 184 with only 54 across the river totalling 238. There is a main road that runs parallel to the river, and one that goes East geographically centred in the middle.




















Figure 1




















Figure 2

In Figure 2, the overall appearance of the street layout appears to either be running along the River or it forms a setback. Also, the lot sizes are larger along the river and the streets fall back roughly from the river instead of being relative to a more traditional North-South/East-West relationship.



















Figure 3

There is a predominantly smaller block size in Figure 3 compared to the areas in Figure 2. These follow the cardinal directions with main streets/roads following these as well but a main road that leads from the Northern part to the South Western corner runs parallel to the river. The Yellow section has roads that run in opposite to the other streets. This area is dominated by the river that curves to the right of the site. Florence Italy. When I overlay the map of West End I was surprised by the similarities in the street block sizes and the use of blocks further away from the river. The distances between major roads is also similar.


















Madrid Spain.

The regular pattern blocks are common to West End. Long wide roads that cross to open areas. Brisbane 1884 Historical.Showing this map of 1884 shows why the layout of West End has arrived to it's current destination. You can see that some land use has been allocated to being to a storage area, and the density increases along the other side of roads.In 1895, you can see a further development of the previously regulated area, with downsizing of lots which would indicate an increase of population density.















Brisbane 1895.

Conclusion.
There are many reasons to know about the layouts of cities and their footprints. It gives a feel for the urban fabric in terms variety of what might work if you have some of the pieces of the puzzle scattered all over the world, and, it's a matter of transferring these to create a matrix of styles and design layouts.One thing that I can't digest is the fact that this type of analysis only is a slice from the ground foot prints down. It doesn't show use, character, diversity or any other indicators. But, in understanding variety of civil street layout and what we can perceive as being a form of structure and it's historical uses.

References:
Jacob, A. 1993. Great streets. Cambridge: MIT Press.

Google Map of West End Area: http://maps.google.com.au/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&q=west+end&sll=-27.936181,153.017578&sspn=13.836006,28.54248&ie=UTF8&hq=&hnear=West+End+Queensland&ll=-27.480482,153.017793&spn=0.027184,0.072098&t=p&z=15 (Date accessed 16/04/10)

McKellar, A. R. McKellar's official map of Brisbane & suburbs [cartographic material] 1895. MAP RM 3036. http://www.nla.gov.au/apps/cdview?pi=nla.map-rm3036-c2-e (Date Accessed 18/04/10)

[Moreton 20 chains to an inch : sheet 1B [cartographic material]by Queensland. Surveyor General's Office Brisbane : Surveyor Generals Office, 1884. http://www.nla.gov.au/apps/cdview?pi=nla.map-rm3046-e (Date Accessed 18/04/10)

Interpretation of City Forms

Mini-City called Madess. As far as a vision of the city, it was one that "Had a liveable and sustainable centre, with a defused centre that had focus points that occurred outside of the city centre. It separated Industrial from the commercial/residential uses, for terms of cleaner living". I guess Madess would be fairly unsustainable city, because of it's layout. Describing it's outer extremities, a Southern commercial zone supported by residential area with no public transport; this area seems to be a satellite suburb. Vegetated areas to the East create a natural landscape. Moving towards the CBD, there are two tightly packed high density Industrial areas separated by a river but are linked by bridge. Another bridge crossing the river further East linking the medium density Northern city area to the dense South creates two nodes. With green zones between Industrial areas and residential, it creates balance between lifestyle and liveability but also adds to travelling times and a need for a transport corridor. In some respects it appears to mirror Brisbane's current urban layout, but Madess seems to have a higher density and concentration.

Future development would occur to the East, as development opportunities and population increases. A new industrial area would be need to be developed to sustain liability and affordability. problems arise with higher traffic densities. Public spaces as well as access to natural green areas would make living there more attractive. Things that seemed to be lacking are things like an education based centre/city, like Armidale NSW , or Munster in Germany , each have a weak industrial zone but have a strong educational one.

In terms of wholeness, this exercise I feel didn't go as deeply as would be explained in "A New theory of urban design" / Christopher Alexander ... [et al.]. In this book it is noted that they went into development of a urban theory that changes the outlook of how developing cities and urban areas are created as a "wholeness". In our mini city exercise, we explore the physical relationships through distance and volume as our building blocks where simplistic and crude, as well as the paper cut representations of our civic infrastructure. So scale was also an important issue to address. Seeing relationships between uses and their respective owners is something that had needed to be developed. Without consultation between interested parties we fail to address the users for the current time, but also for the future potential needs.

Why Town Planning?

My experiences with Town Planning from my enjoyment of the uses between developments / policy and their implementation over time. I wish to further study in the fields of urban spaces and Urban Semiotics. Being at QUT, I feel offers a great location to the city in which to experience such interactions. During this course, I wish to gain a better understanding of practises and theories are applied to Urban spaces. I believe that this unit is a core subject in terms of the visual and informative application of the planning theory, and, I feel that working through this unit I will achieve a more expressive outcome in how I interperate my surroundings.