WEEK 04

STREETS AND SQUARES THE ELEMENTS OF THE CITIES:

In this week 4 lecture various aspects that make up the city environment was discussed. These included streets, squares, canals, parks, urban facilities and mobility facilities.

STREETS:

Mirko talked about the street being more than a traffic corridor and looked at how important it is in the urban environment. The street can be seen as the boundary between the public and private spaces, its a division between areas (FIGURE 1).


FIGURE 1: BOUNDARY BETWEEN PUBLIC AND PRIVATE.

Every street has an economic and social significance (FIGURE 2). The street forms a display for the workings of the city.

FIGURE 2: http://www.touropia.com/famous-streets-in-the-world/

Wall Street is the historic heart of the financial district and the home of the New York stock exchange
 

The street is more than a traffic channel it is a complex civic institution, it is culture specific and is a host for various activities (FIGURE 4).


FIGURE 4

Mirko than talked about the street being a connecting place and the different street typologies he talked about were;

• Residential Street- Terrace house typology & Courtyard typology
• Commercial Steet- Courtyard typlogy & Tower typology
• Boulevard
• Avenue- Commerical & Residential
• Promenade
• Esplande
• Mall
• Monumental Mall

SQUARES:

"the square is where we exercise our franchise, out sense of belonging"

 

Paul Zucker's classification of urban space.

• The closed square- the space is static and self contained
• The dominated square- the space is dynamic, it is directed toward a object
• The nuclear square- space is formed around a central element
• Grouped squares- a series of spaces are connected
• The amorphous square- the space is formed by the intersection of other units

 

Joseph Stubben talks about the square having a harmony between the buildings and the square itself which can be achieved by applying symmetry or using a public building which gives character of the square. An example in the local CBD area that I find relevant to this would be the new Brisbane City Council building. The building is connected to the square where markets are usually on. It creates an atmosphere.

a public square.

 



Types of squares discussed;

• connection of different urban section
• access square
• intersection square
• monumental square
• town hall square
• grouped square- on axis, around a building & with layout
• amorphous square
• harbour square
• residential square

Other elements which form a city that were looked at were, parks, canals, urban facilities and mobility facilities.

ASSIGNMENT:

This was the first week of our assignment, we choose to go with the Mediterranean market cities and decided to go with Haifa which is located in Israel and is the second largest city. Our group consisted of 4 members, me, alana, dan and dutchey. We first sorted through the items required and divided them up inbetween the group.

Alana:

• context
• stats
• history

Me:

• forma urbis
• city pattern
• usdefull sites found (openstreetmap.org) (topomapper.com)

Dan:

• context
• historical expansion
• functions of the city

Dutchey:

• timeline
• history