Urban Planning: CIAM Principles and City Design

Posted on Jan 28, 2025 in Other university degrees and diplomas

CIAM and the Improvement of Human Settlements

The Congrès Internationaux d’Architecture Moderne (CIAM) aimed to improve the quality of human settlements through the built environment. It proposed a better order based on the concept of function, following the ideas of its major exponent, Le Corbusier. He envisioned three city types: linear (industrial), concentric (commercial), and agricultural, each fulfilling the collective life functions of dwelling, working, circulation, and recreation.

CIAM’s Approach to Urban Problems

CIAM acknowledged real urban problems and attempted to address them through urban proposals that sought to improve the quality of life by focusing on daily life functions:

  • Dwelling: Residential housing units, increased density, and high-rise edification.
  • Recreation: Creation of green spaces for recreational activities.
  • Circulation: Development of a system of networks (roads) for efficient interaction, including various tracks and routes.

Collective Design and Urban Form

CIAM viewed the city as a collective structure with interconnected parts and components forming a system. This approach represented a different social scale compared to the conventional city. Archetypes, group form, and composition at different scales contribute to the configuration of this structure. Collectively, designers studied physical models of urban form, considering shape and space as key components. Their features include shape, dimension, and functionality in the materialization of the urban environment.

Operational Categories in Urban Design

Operational categories represent different types of urban structures defined through various design conjugates. These categories help to define and order the making of space, establishing relationships within it. They include:

  • Connect (Sequence): The element acts as a connector or line, creating directional tension, like in a mall.
  • Delimit (Edge): This refers to the edge or border of areas, such as the inclusion of medieval walls.
  • Focus (Node): A configuration element that acts as a “node” or concentration point, like an articulation.
  • Mediate: For example, a metro station.
  • Plot (Grid): The element forms a cross-linked or reticular pattern, understood as a two-way grid.
  • Repeat (Grain): The element involves a large aggregation based on similarities in uniformity and density.

The Image of the City

The image of the city relates to psychobiological processes of recognition and orientation, involving the perception of space and form. According to Lynch, any form can be defined by three properties: structure, identity, and meaning. Reading the city involves recognizing urban elements such as paths, grain, pattern, barriers, landmarks, areas, materials, and textures. The ease with which an environment can be recognized is crucial. The shape depends on the organization of fixed activities and the delineation of road networks and transport typologies. Lynch identified various urban configurations, including dispersed, linear, ring, compact, mixed, and polycentric systems.

Levels of Perception and Urban Design Theories

  • Psychobiological Level (Visual Perception Field): Subjective levels of perception and visual field.
  • Empirical Syntactic Level (Order): Syntactic approximation of objects and content based on concrete and real applications.
  • Significant Semantic Level (Language): Unveils the global idea as an overarching concept.

Key figures in urban design theory and their contributions include:

  • Kevin Lynch: Identity, structure, meaning, or emotional value.
  • Gordon Cullen: Optical, structure, content.
  • Juan Pablo Bonta: Architecture as a system of meaning, indicators (signals, signs).
  • Aldo Rossi: Syntactic architecture of the city, orders, and styles.

Models for Understanding Urban Configurations

Models help to understand and illustrate types of schemes and urban configurations, relating forms, meanings, and activities.

  • Morphological Model: How to observe, think, and build the city (urban).
  • Semiological Model: How to design, plan, and make the city (town planning).

Four key points in urban design theory include synergy, hierarchies of elements, the business model on which urban systems are built, and architecture.

Addressing Human Settlements

Five elements are considered when addressing human settlements:

  1. Person: The individual subject.
  2. Society: The group or organization.
  3. Nature: The geographical context.
  4. Shells: Constructions.
  5. Networks: Infrastructure.

Basic Questions and Paradigms in Urban Planning

Basic questions in urban planning include aggregation, unit size, integration-delimitation, environmental control technology, functional character, and symbol (identity and meaning). Paradigms include formalism, constructivism, metabolism, and expressionism.

A paradigm is an aspect or situation taken as a pattern. Models aim to understand how to solve problems and find ways to act together to achieve balance in the urban environment.