Slums or shanty towns may be considered today in our society as the new urbanism, since the world’s rapidly growing population rate is calling these types of places their “home”. However, architects and city planners throughout the years have looked at ways to improve the quality of life in slums and to create an organized settlement pattern that will provide urban sustainability.In 1952, Le Corbusier was one of the architects that helped designed the city of Chandigarh’s settlement patterns. The city’s main objective was to be free of overcrowding and shanty towns that cluttered the surrounding cities. In addition, the city had to have an adequate supply of water, easy drainage and the ability to correspond to the climate. Therefore, Le Corbusier designed a tidy chequer-board pattern that allowed for his four basic functions of living, working, circulation and caring for the body and spirit to perform their job.
The living aspect consisted of subdivided villages that could accommodate around 150 families. The circulation idea was conveyed by the seven V’s, which means various sectors being defined by a regular grid of traffic routes (V3) that are living units connected by V4 traffic routes. Each sector consisting of an area of 1200m x 800m, including shopping and social areas located in the centre of each sector and a vertical green belt with pedestrian accessibility. Lastly, three major avenues were designed to cross the city and connect all important areas, such as the university to the hospital to the industrial district. These were all located at the centre of the city to create easy access by pedestrians and vehicles. In addition, one of the main attempts was to create more green space to provide better quality air and shade from the hot weather climate. Le Corbusier’s challenge to design a place of tranquility and safety of living spaces may have had a great concept through this city at first, but as the population growth increased problems began to arise. Problems, such as, water percolation and flooding resulting from the impermeable road surfaces and from the water table dropped over the years. Also, overcrowding has become an issue as mobility through the roads has decreased and microclimatic changes have occurred. Consequently, these problems caused the concept to be unable to meet its main objectives.
Since Le Corbusier’s plan, architects and city planners of the modern world have begun to expand his ideas into more functional concepts. In the past decade, the concept of a compact city was developed. Compact cities are high density urban settlements that consist of mixed-used cities that restrain from building outwards. These types of cities evolve from the centre outwards, just like Le Corbusier’s city, but instead of creating a repetitive pattern in various sectors, it happens once to create a higher density within the city. In addition, the compact cities include the same type of circulation as Le Corbusier’s project, since a few major intersections are created to unite all neighborhoods to decrease the footprint transport causes in the world.
A developing city where the concept of a compact city is being employed is the Old City of Beersheba, Israel. This city is creating a settlement pattern consisting of an orthogonal grid composed of 100 blocks that are divided into 16 plans, which are all slanted towards the north at a 45 degree angle. The reason for the blocks to be at an angle is to increase ventilation and to allow solar radiation during the winter months.
Furthermore, Beersheba is strategizing to combine both the modern world with its historic one by rebuilding the new city on top of the old one. This is one of the aspects of a compact city which is to reuse and renovate old structures to decrease the amount of land used and materials. Also, to elaborate on the water and agriculture aspects of the city, Beersheba’s architects are focusing on the conservation of run-off water by using a drainage pattern around the entire neighborhood to be directed towards the rural spaces. By doing so, it will reduce the amount of irrigation needed for vegetation and pollution. Furthermore, the plan includes the concept of incorporating internal patios, roof gardens and terraces to provide more outdoor space and locally based agriculture. Lastly, this concept supports the idea of locally based businesses which would help to improve the quality of life for its citizens providing employment, fresh food and clean water.
However, one wonders if this structurally rigid design will help improve the city of slums due to the fact that they have previously failed. Therefore, the western world must study the natural settlement patterns that slums have designed to so that concepts like compact cities could work.
Shanty towns do not have an official city plan, since they are developed by its citizens to create some form of adequate shelter. This cities may be concentrated in the city centers or they may be sprawling outwards. Each way they do not follow zoning laws or sub-division regulations. On the other hand, the informal settlement patterns create a proximity within all areas of the city, such as hospitals and "neighborhoods", which compares to a compact city because they are advertising ecological modes of transport. Also, this proximity allows the concept of self-employed businesses to function, providing citizens with a better social network. Architects should still consider some aspects of the compact city to reduce the ecological footprint, such as the water treatment and sustaining rural landscape to increase local agriculture. When we study slums it is clear that informal settlements demonstrate that a rigid pattern is not required to improve the functionality of cities.Works Cited:
University of Reading Top Ranking University for Research, "Compact City" http://www.reading.ac.uk/PeBBu/state_of_art/urban_approaches/compact_city/compact_city.htm (Accessed 01 Nov. 2009.)
Eco Compact City Network, "ECO COMPACT CITY NETWORK," http://www.ecocompactcity.org/home.html.
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m3575/is_1273_213/ai_99215199/pg_2/?tag=content;col1 (Accessed 03 Nov. 2009.)
Radovic, Darko. Eco-Urbanity towards well-mannered built environments. New york: Routledge, 2009. Print.
Paola Sassi, Strategies for sustainable architecture . New York, NY: Taylor & Francis, 2005. Print.
SpringerLink Home - Main, "SpringerLink - Journal Article," 2009,
http://www.gsd.harvard.edu/research/publications/hdm/back/27_Beardsley.html (Accessed November 4, 2009)
Posted By: Diana Lopez Cerquera
No comments:
Post a Comment