Great case studies, the city relationships are deeply integrated with the local culture of each region. It is very interesting to talk about the way of thinking about urban vision from the perspective of scale relationship.
Wonderful Exploration in Neighborhood Relationship
What is the most suitable neighborhood in our living environment?
Yihan He (Jason)
Author’s introduction
About Professor Ali Madanipour’s lecture, I think we can get huge information about the neighborhood, which we have so many cases from different cities in different countries. Also, we can get some knowledge about some famous scholar’s opinions in urban design. Before introducing the neighborhood, we should ask ourselves: What is our own experience of life in a neighborhood?
What is neighborhood in real life?
I remembered that when I was young, I always lived in the village, people lived very closed in their self-built houses. We have a good relationship with each other. When it comes to Spring Festival (Chinese New Year), children are the happiest group in our village because we can play the fireworks, playing interesting games in outside, even we can stay up until 2:00 pm. So, I can feel that village is the best neighborhood unit I’ve seen. In the village, we have shops, restaurants. There is a grocery market nearby which is very convenient if we want to buy something. People who live in the village are comfortable, especially with the scale relationship. So, this is a neighborhood in my first impression, and it’s a good neighborhood as well.
Yihan He, Produced by himself in Photoshop, Located in Hometown, BianZhuang Village, Changzhou City, Jiangsu Province, China
Back to Ali’s lecture, what should we notice in the principles of neighborhood design? There is distinctiveness, centrality, size, density, composition of people, the composition of activities and process of making and managing. About the distinctive, it reminds me of the first lesson in TCP8052, we read articles about Graden Cities of Tomorrow which is written by Ebenezer Howards. He added a “Garden City” theory. It indicates a distinctive neighborhood and these are all interrelated in urban space. Garden city could build a new well-ordered city that has a new neighborhood relationship.
If we research land economy and spatial structures, there is a theory called Central Place. There is a big tower in the center of the city which could be a landmark in this city. People want to arrive there to do something like working, shopping. So, we can find that there is always a big market inside the building. It can attract people to get there. As a result, this is also a relationship of neighborhood in a city.
Next question: what kind of scale relationship is suitable when we live in the center of the city? There is a case from Australia which explains the walking time in the center of the city. The first size is 400 meters’ walking. We need to take only 5 minutes to get anywhere we want. And the second size is about 10 minutes’ walking which has an 800 meters’ distance. These two kinds of scale are the most suitable and comfortable feeling when take a walk in the city.
Copyright by Ali Madanipour’s PowerPoint: Neighbourhood design.pdf: Principles and Practice of Urban Design (MAUD) – TCP8090 (instructure.com)
Of course, different scale relationships decide sense of space experience, but there are still many kinds of elements affecting the urban space, such as density. According to the picture below, I prefer the third one: the medium rise, although the future trend is high buildings and large mansions. Because I believe the enriched community form can build a more valuable space form, including leading to the correct social value.
Copyright by Ali Madanipour’s PowerPoint: Neighbourhood design.pdf: Principles and Practice of Urban Design (MAUD) – TCP8090 (instructure.com)
Currency and Challenges
In recent years, with the development of the industrial revolution, plus science and technology, we sacrifice many public spaces and make use of these space for building car roads and metros. Indeed, it is more convenient than before because people can drive in replace of walking and bicycling. They won’t stop in every junction within per minute. However, it will lose many lively humanistic atmospheres, including street view. Losing it means losing the life gradually. So, we need to retrieve lively neighborhood.
Great case studies, the city relationships are deeply integrated with the local culture of each region. It is very interesting to talk about the way of thinking about urban vision from the perspective of scale relationship.
Hi Yihan, Thank you for posting this blog based on the concept of neighbourhood design.
First of all, I’d like to start my comment by saying that your post is well-written and informative. You have clearly demonstrated a clear understanding of the subject matter and managed to present this information in an easy-to-understand manner which is quite challenging to achieve. You’ve managed to structure your blog in a manner that flows quite smoothly, making it an enjoyable read for those interested in neighbourhood design and urban planning. You were able to achieve such a result through integrative questions, which is a great way to captivate the attention of potential readers.
Your blog begins in a very creative way, with you directly relating the subject of diction with your own experience of living in a village and how it has influenced your perception of what a good neighbourhood should be like. I like that you’ve related your blog with the lecture Professor Ali gave us this year and you’ve incorporated all the various principles of neighbourhood design that were discussed.
You’ve addressed the concept model of the “Garden City”, which was one of our readings from TCP8052. In that particular instance, I feel you had the opportunity to provide a little more information on what Garden City represented. This could have been done through the use of an image to showcase a simple diagram for those who are not familiar with the model. That would make it a little easier for people, unlike ourselves, to understand what you are trying to say. The same thing could be said concerning the Central Place theory. A little more information would really help clarify your argument here.
In your paragraph discussing “what kind of the scale relationship is suitable when we live in the centre of the city?”. You stated there was an example from Australia; it would be nice if you could provide what example you are alluding to. However, what you have stated in this paragraph is entirely correct. I believe it is closely related to the concept model of 15-minute cities, also known as 20-minute cities or local living. Suppose you are particularly interested in this topic. In that case, I recommend you check out my most recent blog post, “The 15-Minute City and Sustainable Transport: A Vision for the Future”, in which I aboard the topic of creating sustainable neighbourhoods with the usage of sustainable transport in the aim of to reduce carbon emission and eventually be carbon natural.
Overall, this written work is a well-thought-out and valuable contribution to the discussion on the exploration of neighbourhood design. Thanks, Yihan; I really enjoyed commenting on your post; keep up the excellent work!!