THEORIES

Manifest
· Definition of Urban Design
Urban design aims to coordinate environment and experience towards an urban context.

· Urban Design within the Urban Context
Urban Design identifies the use of Urban space for artistic expression. Urban Design also recognizes urban space as art in itself.

· Urban Design and Art
Urban Design combines art with design. Whereas Art aims for an emotional response and Design aims for an intellectual response, both make use of media, composition and subject – and both incorporate each other as a strategy between emotions and intellect.

· Urban Design as the coordination of form and function
Urban Design acknowledges the urban context is a dynamic vehicle for the urban space. Static evidence of urban environments needs orchestrating between built form and end users.

· Urban Design and public participation
Public participation is fundamental to urban design. Understanding the nature, the meaning and the use of urban space between the private and the public is essential to bridge culture, art and society in an urban context.

· Urban Design and municipal administration
Municipal order and vision necessitate urban design to mitigate decision making through urban form.

· Urban design from description to prescription
Urban design is eminently significant when it describes urban context. Evidence and expression of the urban context defines the unique identity of each urban space. Prescription for urban design is at best controversial and at worst limiting. The purpose of urban design is to lead from analysis to implementation.

· Urban Design as the staging of experience
The ultimate end of Urban Design consists in articulating social experience amidst the built environment. Urban Design is predicated upon a deterministic continuum within which urbanism unfolds . The success of Urban Design is gauged as a staging ground for individual and cultural experiences within urban form.

· Urban Design as a professional practice
Urban Design, as a professional practice, intermingles architecture, engineering, urban planning, economics, history, sociology, psychology, geography, and information systems so each finds a common purpose in the implementation of urban form.

· Urban Design forum
Sketching is a sure approach to urban design. We have established a process between urban design methodologies, theorists and public participation. We enlist community representatives, artists and urban professionals in a standing forum with an internet blog specific to their urban community to describe their urban context.

Theorists

Urban design uses a variety of methods and theories.

Visual media as both three and two dimensional mapping uses architectural plans, elevations and perspectives. It is favoured by theorists such as Gordon Cullen and Kevin Lynch.

Gordon Cullen proposes a method based on serial vision, place (here and there), content (this and that) and functional tradition.

Kevin Lynch on the other hand aims for a “short hand” of design methods through mental maps, and the identification of focal points, nodes, paths, edges and districts.

Urban design also borrows mapping from Land use planning and eco-environmentalism and these are favoured by Ian McHarg and Pierre Dansereau.

Urban design also employs written descriptions and analyses, Jane Jacobs being such a theorist whose writings have become pivotal to urbanism and urban theories.

Modern approaches to urban design make use of technology to focus on such elements as soundscapes and motion.

Finally Urban Design is made complete with a compendium of examples from cities of the world, and an understanding of urban context throughout the ages – to identify the significance of place and culture to the built urban form.