FUNCTIONAL DIMENSION

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FUNCTIONAL DIMENSION

• Urban design’s functional dimension relates to how places work and how urban
designers can make ‘better’ places or increase the potential for them to develop.

• This dimension of urban design is explained in five parts:

• Movement
• Design of ‘people places’
• Environmental design
• Designing for healthier environments
• Aspects of infrastructure necessary to support contemporary life

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MOVEMENT:
• Movement is fundamental to understanding how places function.
• Pedestrian flows through public space where people choose to sit or linger in public space
and are related to the life and activity within the space.

VEHICULAR AND PEDESTRIAN MOVEMENT:

Car-based movement is pure circulation whereas pedestrian movement is circulation but also
permits economic, social and cultural exchange.

Nature of Pedestrian Movement Nature of Vehicular Movement

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DESIGNING BETTER ‘PEOPLE PLACES’:

People places are those intended to be used by people,

usually through spontaneous, everyday and informal
use.

SUCCESSFUL PEOPLE PLACES:

• Successful public spaces are characterized by the

presence of people, in an often self-reinforcing
process.
• They typically have animation and vitality that
bring people onto the street.
• Different places are, nonetheless, animated in different
ways.
• Some are louder, busier and more vibrant,
animated by people and traffic; others are quieter,
perhaps animated by nature – the wind in the trees,
changing cloud formations and so forth.

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MOVEMENT AND ACTIVITY:

If a space is poorly located within the local

movement pattern, it matters little how well it is
designed as it is unlikely to ever be well-used unless
there are changes in the wider area – either greater
density of uses or changes to the movement network
that increase connectivity and/or reduce severance
(i.e. through better quality connections or by new
connections, such as new bridges across rivers, or
the removal of obstacles to movement to a site).

If the space is well-located within the local movement Movement and activity in parks
system, then upgrading the space and environmental
improvements are likely to have a major impact on the
density of its use.

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CONNECTIVITY AND VISUAL PERMEABILITY:

• Public spaces prioritize sense-of-enclosure within the space over visual permeability
into the space. Urban spaces should not be too enclosed.

• The key quality in terms of the pedestrian use of public spaces is their
‘connectedness’ or, integration.

ACTIVITIES IN PUBLIC SPACE:

• As successful places support and facilitate the activities of people, their design
should be informed by an awareness of how people use them.

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PUBLIC SPACES SHOULD BE RESPONSIVE – THAT IS, DESIGNED AND MANAGED
TO SERVE THE NEEDS OF THEIR USERS. SIX NEEDS PEOPLE SEEK TO SATISFY
IN PUBLIC SPACE.

Relaxation: A sense of psychological comfort is a prerequisite of relaxation, but relaxation is a

more developed state of the ‘body and mind at ease’.

Comfort: The length of time people stay in a public space is a function and an indicator of its
comfort.

Passive engagement: The primary form of passive engagement is people-watching. What

attracts people is other people, and the life and activity they bring with them. Other forms of
passive engagement, as do fountains, public art, commanding views, and activities occurring in
public spaces.

Active engagement: Active engagement represents a more direct experience with a place and
the people in it i.e. supports social interaction.
Successful people places provide opportunities for varying degrees of engagement, and also the
potential to disengage or withdraw from contact. Design can create, or inhibit, such opportunities
for contact.

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Discovery:
Representing the desire for new experiences,
‘discovery’ depends on both variety and change
for managing and animating public space – by,
for example, cultural animation programmes
involving lunch-time concerts, art exhibitions, street
theatre, live music and festivals, parades, markets,
fairs, society events, trade promotions, etc. – across
a range of times and venues.

Display:
In any public space, we are on display: how we
appear, dress and behave in public space not only
represents a display but may also be important to our
sense of identity and belonging. We may
purposefully dress to remain unnoticed or to stand
out as different.

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THE DESIGN OF THE EDGE:

The micro-design and use of successful people

places can be considered in terms of the ‘centre’
and the ‘edge’. While something in the middle
provides a focus and a sense of visual
completeness, this is secondary and what really
matters for a successful people place is the design
of the edge.

ACTIVE FRONTAGES:
Active Frontage defining the edge
Frontage is how a building addresses the street.
Facades can be designed so that buildings
metaphorically ‘reach out’ to the street, offering
‘active’ frontage onto public space, adding interest,
life and vitality.

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SOCIABILITY AND PRIVACY:

In urban design terms, privacy is usually defined in terms of selective control of access (to
individual or group) and of interaction (especially that which is unwanted).

The need for privacy and interaction varies among individuals, with respect to personality,
life stage, etc., and across different cultures and societies.

Visual Privacy:

Issues of visual privacy typically relate to the interface between public and private realms and,
in particular, the physical and visual permeability between these realms. The requirements
of each privacy domain must be enabled while balancing these with opportunities for
interaction.

Aural Privacy:
Design strategies can combat noise nuisance. Measures can be taken to prevent or reduce the
‘break out’ of noise, and/or to separate it from noise-sensitive uses, by physical distance,
sound insulation and/or through screens and barriers.

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VITALITY, MIXED AND CONTINUOUS USE:

• A key aspect of creating a lively and well-used public realm is the spatial and temporal
concentration of different land uses and activities.
• Modernist planning, functional zoning approaches had, over time, led to cities
dominated by a coarsely gained collage of single-function areas rather than the more
fine-grained mixed-use areas of previous eras and have been much criticized.
• Jacobs for example, argued that the vitality of city neighborhoods depends on the
overlapping and interweaving of activities and that understanding cities require dealing
with mixtures of uses as the ‘essential phenomena’.

She also outlined four conditions indispensable to generating ‘exuberant diversity’ in a

city’s streets and districts:

 The district must serve more than one primary function, and preferably more than two.
 Most blocks must be short – streets and opportunities to turn corners must be frequent.
 The district must mingle buildings varying in age and condition.
 There must be a sufficiently dense concentration of people, for whatever purposes they
may be there.

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DENSITY:
A sufficient density of activity and people has animation and
vitality creating and sustaining viable mixed use.
Jacobs (1961) considered that density was essential to urban
life.
Llewelyn-Davies (2000) suggests a range of benefits from
higher development densities:
• Social – by encouraging positive interaction and diversity;
improving the viability of and access to community services,
and enabling more and better integrated social housing. A typical scenario from an Indian Bazaar
• Economic – by enhancing the economic viability of
development and providing economies of infrastructure (e.g.
basement car parking).
• Transport – by supporting public transport and reducing car
travel and parking demand.
• Environmental – by increasing energy efficiency;
decreasing resource consumption; creating less pollution;
preserving and helping to fund the maintenance of public
open space; and reducing overall demand for development
land.

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MICROCLIMATE:

• Design decisions have an important influence in modifying the microclimate to make

spaces more comfortable.

Relevant factors at this scale include:

• Building configuration and its effect on and relationship to buildings and other influences at
the site boundary.
• Positioning of access roads and pedestrian paths, trees and other vegetation, walls, fences,
and other obstructions.
• Orientation of internal and external spaces and facades with respect to the direction of
sunlight and shade.
• Massing and grouping of buildings, including the space between buildings.
• Wind environment.
• Positioning of main entrances and other openings acting as transitions between inside and
outside conditions.
• Landscape, planting and water pools/fountains to enhance natural cooling.
• Environmental noise and pollution

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DESIGNING FOR SUN AND SHADE:

Sunlight penetration into urban places and into buildings helps make them more
pleasant places.
It also encourages outdoor activities; reduces mould growth; improves health by
providing the body with vitamin E; encourages plant growth; and provides a cheap,
readily available source of energy for passive and active collection.

Two major issues are of concern: orientation & and overshadowing and shading in terms
of which the following should be considered:

• The sun’s position (altitude and azimuth) relative to public spaces and to the
principal facades of buildings.
• Site orientation and slope.
• Existing obstructions on the site.
• The potential for overshadowing from obstructions beyond the site boundary.
• The potential to overshadow nearby buildings and spaces

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AIR MOVEMENT – THE WIND
ENVIRONMENT:

Wind flow has a substantial effect on the

comfort of pedestrians, the environmental
conditions within public spaces and around
building entrances and the activities that
might occur there.

In very humid climates external spaces may

need to be designed to encourage a greater
through the flow of cooling air, whereas, in Designing for wind movement
arid climates positioning fountains and water
features in public spaces help to cool through
the evaporation of water vapour.

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LIGHTING:

Natural lighting makes an important contribution to the character and utility of public space.
The play of light in urban spaces also has aesthetic dimensions.

Frederick (2007) observes how the altitude, angle and colour of day lighting vary with
orientation and time of day. In the northern hemisphere, daylight:

• From north-facing windows is shadow less, diffuse and neutral or slightly greyish most
of the day and year.

• From the east is strongest in the morning, is at low altitude, with soft, long shadows, and
is grey-yellow in colour.

• From the south is dominant from late morning to mid-afternoon, renders colours
accurately, and casts strong, crisp shadows.

• From the west is strongest in the late afternoon and early evening, has a rich gold-orange
cast and can penetrate deeply into buildings, but occasionally is overbearing.

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DESIGNING HEALTHIER ENVIRONMENTS

Health as a Strategic Design Concern:

• A clean, safe physical environment of high quality (including
housing quality).
• An ecosystem that is stable now and sustainable in the long
term.
• A strong, mutually supportive, non-exploitative community.
• A high degree of participation and control by the public over
decisions affecting their lives.
• The meeting of basic needs for food, water, shelter, income,
safety and work.
• Access to a wide variety of experiences, resources, contact and
interaction.
• A diverse, vital and innovative city economy.
• The encouragement of connectedness with the past.
• An urban form that is compatible with and enhances the above.
• An optimum level of public health services available to all.
• High levels of positive health and low levels of disease

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EXTERNAL PUBLIC OPEN SPACE:

• External public open space offers recreational opportunities; wildlife habitats; venues
for special events; and the opportunity for the city to breathe.
• A number of towns and cities have developed sophisticated open space frameworks and
green space networks to link open spaces and create ‘green’ corridors through urban
areas for recreational purposes and for wildlife.
• Integration of natural and built environments is a key objective of sustainable
development.
ROAD AND FOOTPATH DESIGN:

• The segregation of pedestrian and vehicular

traffic to provide personal safety, often meant
pedestrians could only cross busy roads by
underground subways or over ground foot bridges.
• In general, the contemporary ethos is to design
pedestrian-dominant rather than car-dominant
environments: such approaches give priority to
pedestrians without banishing the car.

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• The aim must be to avoid car-dependent environments because this reduces their
potential to be sustainable and to increase the potential for walking.

Road and footpath design thus need to achieve a set of basic requirements:

 Maintaining safety and personal security through reducing vehicle speeds, discouraging
road and footpath separation and increasing passive surveillance.
 Increasing permeability and access by all modes of travel but particularly by foot.
 Encouraging directness by acknowledging and emphasizing ‘desire lines’ in development
(the most convenient route to where people wish to go).
 Designing in sympathy with the local context to ensure an attractive development in which
clearly defined spaces, landscaping and buildings dominate rather than roads or cars.
 Increasing legibility through the design of layouts in which the overall structure and local
visual references are clear.

Designing For Walking:

There is a difference between ‘necessary’ or utilitarian walking and ‘optional’ or recreational
and leisure walking. Many traffic-calming measures enhance walkability, including widening
the sidewalks/pavements, thereby reducing the street width

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Parking and Services:

• Parking requirements are a necessity of contemporary living within all

environments – whether urban, suburban or rural. Parking needs to be:

 Sufficient to cater for contemporary needs.

 Convenient (i.e. Located close to destinations) for all users, including those with
disabilities.
 Attractive (e.g. By limiting its visual intrusion – use of landscaping and quality
materials can successfully integrate on- and off-street parking).
 Safe and secure
 Where locations are well-served by public transport, required parking standards
can be reduced.
 Charging for parking is one approach to managing demand for parking space.

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Infrastructure:

• An area’s infrastructure – both that above and that underground – has often been
built up over several centuries.
• Above ground, the capital web incorporates the public space network and
landscaping framework; any public transport network and infrastructure; and public
facilities (e.g. shops) and services (e.g. schools).
• Below ground, it incorporates water supply networks; sewage disposal systems;
electric grids; gas supply network; telephone networks; cable networks; combined
heat and light systems; and underground transit systems.

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CONCLUSION:

• Discussing the functional dimension of urban design, this chapter reiterates the
importance of understanding urban design as a design process.
• In any design process, there is a danger of narrowly prioritizing a particular
dimension – aesthetic, functional, technical or economic – and of isolating it
from its context and from its contribution to the greater whole.
• The design must be considered as a totality and in-the-round.

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THANK YOU

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