11th EAEA Envisioning Architecture: Design, Evaluation, Communication Conference in 2013

Track 1 | Visualizing Sustainability - Making the invisible visible

Visualizing urban design conditions for sustainable social practices in urban centres

ABSTRACT

With increasing attention in urban design theory paid to conditions that are conducive to sustainable forms of urban experience, there is emerging emphasis on the non-technological view of sustainable urban design. This perspective focuses on “design that factors in urban and social sustainability” (Christiaanse & Hoeger, 2006) and concerns itself with “not only the shape or contour of the game piece, but also a repertoire for how it plays” (Easterling, 2012). It emerges in the critique of “over-specification of form and function” (Sennett, 2006) and in the acknowledgement that “cities are turning into archipelagos; public infrastructures are splintering; and public spaces are being left to wither” (Christiaanse, 2009a). It shifts the discourse of sustainable urban design from forms to forces, spaces to strategies and constructs to conditions. However, despite increased exploration in this area, much of the theoretical design conditions put forward are text-based descriptions and lack graphic representation. This is due, in part, to contributions from disciplines traditionally not associated with graphic or design visualization, such as urban sociology and urban geography. Considering the suggestive potential of this discourse for designers, this paper seeks to ascertain if it can be represented visually. It looks at how concepts emerging in this area could be communicated to design practitioners, thus helping to bridge the gap between theory and practice. Through a level of abstraction, this research seeks to put image to text, to imagine what these conditions look like and where in the built environment they can be found.
This research examines two concepts from the non-technological view of sustainable urban design, that of “looseness” (Frank & Stevens, 2007) and that of “openness” (Sennett, 2009). An evaluation criterion drawn from these concepts is defined and applied to comparative case studies analysis. Retail-led regeneration schemes, often criticised as models of over-determined built form, were chosen from urban centres in Ireland and The Netherlands. The case studies in the Irish urban centre highlighted conditions of over-specification and over-simplification, revealing a lack of design conditions that factor in urban and social sustainability. The case studies in the Dutch urban centre highlighted a ‘better practice model’; therefore, revealing design conditions facilitating sustainable social practices. The results of the evaluation of each case study were graphically represented and the otherwise invisible socially sustainable urban design conditions made visible. This paper illustrates the beginnings of a wider exploration into how to make visual urban design conditions that are promoted as “design that factors in urban and social sustainability” (Christiaanse & Hoeger, 2006). It attempts to highlight how visualising concepts derived from urban theory and translating them into evaluation methods can bring rigour to the design process and design evaluation process. Visualizing and communicating urban design conditions for sustainable social practices in urban centres may go some way towards enabling a thriving public realm in such environments.

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AUTHOR

Deidre GREANEY

Research Institute Art and Design, Faculty of Art, Design and the Built Environment, University of Ulster, Belfast, Northern Ireland, UK

Deirdre Greaney is a qualified Irish Architect and Urban Designer currently undertaking a PhD in Urban Design at the University of Ulster, Northern Ireland. She is recipient of the University of Ulster Vice-Chancellor's Research Scholarship (VCRS) 2011-2014 and is an architecture and urban design tutor in the Faculty of Art, Design and the Built Environment. Deirdre has worked in practice independently and in small and large-scale multi-disciplinary design practices in Dublin and New York since 2002. Her research focuses on: the architecture and urban design of retail-led regeneration; urban extensions; public space and collective territories; urban design conditions, principles and design that factors in urban social sustainability.

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