Firstly, Today I started my research by looking at Bjarke Ingel’s work (BIG Group) as he is one of my favourite architects. BIG have done a lot of work on urban design and although these projects are a lot bigger than the Lewes NSQ development, I feel that I was able to take away some key design elements;
- Connection of the city, first the designer picks the main key parts of the city (such as monuments, civil buildings, tourist attractions) and then uses pathways and road to connect them
- The road/pathways are then changed to create hallways through the urban area that are more interesting and appealing to the people using them
- From that plazas are placed for green space and areas of interest
- Then the building masses are formed and adapted to suit their environment
Below are some interesting pieces of a case study I found on Pittsburgh, which involved creating a new space of commercial and residential area within the city.
After looking at Bjarke work I found a TEDx talk online for the 7 principles for urban design. This was an interesting watch and expresses the same kind of theme that I have found throughout my research – preservation of existing space, mixing age/culture/class of people, promoting walking/cycling and connectivity of the space.
From this, I thought of a transit to connect Lewes, but then continued to think on that transits will soon be outdated and instead, I should focus on promoting cycling/walking and electric scooters like I found around California. I then thought about electrical mobility scooters for the elderly? What could be used by them to get around the urban space?
Next, I came across an interesting video on YouTube for zoning, it explained well what zoning was and mentioned that there should be criteria for zoning in Lewes which should include information on, rules and regulations of each zone, building heights and setbacks.
Finally, I came across a key video that shows you step by step how to design your urban space with the following;
- Respond: Locate interesting features and landmarks in and around the site
- Connect: Identify potential access points and connections to the surrounding streets
- Join: join of the access points as the foundation of a new street pattern
- Movement: establish the route hierarchy
- Use: Identify the best locations for land use
- Streets: Add the street types to best support use
- Plots: add in land sub vision, plots and structures. Manipulate widths, heights, setbacks, mass, scale and density to support the selected land use
- Buildings: Make sure that all public spaces, especially streets, are overlooked and directly accessible on the ground floor
- Check: Modify the layout to increase access, legibility interest, the richness of experiences and ambience
(Cooper, 2015)
I think these key points will be great for setting out my master plan.
Key Thoughts of Today
- Matching theme of street furniture for this area of Lewes that represents Lewes and its history
- Implementing rain gardens
- How to get Lewes zoning criteria
- Bike hire/motor scooter hire system that runs on electricity
- Connecting route through new development to have solar panel canopy
- What will Lewes look like 20+ years on? (local plan of East Sussex)
References
Beautiful, C., 2017. An Introduction to Zoning. [Online]
Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9kVWDWMcLT4
[Accessed 22 01 2019].
Cooper, J., 2015. Urban Design Techniques. Part 1. Creating a basic urban design structure.. [Online]
Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c2FYFuML71Y&t=2s
[Accessed 22 01 2019].
Group, B., 2019. BIG Group Projects. [Online]
Available at: https://big.dk/#projects-pitt
[Accessed 22 01 2019].
TEDx, 2017. 7 Principles for Building Better Cities. [Online]
Available at: https://www.ted.com/talks/peter_calthorpe_7_principles_for_building_better_cities?language=en
[Accessed 22 01 2019].