Designing Urban Places that Don't Suck (a sense of place)
TLDRThe script discusses how to design urban spaces with a strong 'sense of place' that makes them feel unique and memorable, unlike generic car-centric suburbs. It analyzes elements like enclosure, eye-level details, entrance frequency, and identity that distinguish vibrant places and create mental maps based on interconnected quality spaces, not just roads. It contrasts great urban squares in Europe with depressing parking lots in North America to show how catering excessively to cars erases sense of place, though some historic ethnic enclaves maintain uniqueness. It concludes that places designed for cars lose distinctiveness and character.
Takeaways
- 😊 A strong sense of place makes an area feel unique and memorable
- 👀 Visual interest, enclosure, and entrance frequency help create a sense of place
- 🌇 Wide, open spaces with no clear boundaries lose their sense of place
- 🌳 Trees, awnings, banners, and other elements can help enclose large areas
- 🏘 Suburban areas designed for cars often lack a sense of place
- 🚗 Surface parking lots and power centers ruin walkability and sense of place
- 🛒 Generic chain stores can make distinct areas start to feel the same
- 🏰 Preserving history and local identity helps strengthen sense of place
- 😞 Without a sense of place, everywhere feels the same - like no place at all
- 🗺 A strong sense of place shapes how people navigate and mentally map cities
Q & A
What is a 'sense of place' and why is it important for urban planning?
-A 'sense of place' refers to the unique identity and character of a location. It's important in urban planning because places with a strong sense of place feel vibrant, inviting, and memorable to people.
What are some key characteristics that help create a sense of place?
-Key characteristics include a sense of enclosure, eye-level interest like shop windows and public art, entrance frequency or access to a variety of nearby places, and elements that contribute to the area's unique identity.
How does a lack of 'sense of place' impact people psychologically?
-Places without a sense of place tend to feel generic, lifeless, depressing, and forgettable. People don't form emotional connections or care about places that could be 'anyplace'.
How does prioritizing cars negatively impact a location's sense of place?
-Excess space for cars and parking lots destroys a sense of enclosure and identity. Wide fast roads lack eye-level details. Strip malls have poor entrance frequency for pedestrians. Overall car-centric design leads to homogenous, placeless areas.
What are some examples of places with a strong sense of place?
-Examples include urban squares and markets in European cities like Bruges, Lisbon, and Zagreb; most neighborhoods in Amsterdam; ethnic enclaves like Chinatowns; and historic city centers like Old Quebec.
How can cities preserve the sense of place in tourist areas?
-By controlling the types of businesses that open, focusing on unique local shops rather than global chains. Also by keeping public spaces pedestrian-oriented despite high visitor volumes.
What causes some areas to start losing their distinct sense of place?
-Often it's an influx of generic chain stores and franchises that mirrors what exists everywhere else, leading to homogenization. Also wider roads that cater more to vehicles than pedestrians.
What is an example of using physical elements to create 'enclosure'?
-Lining both sides of a wide street with rows of trees to break up the space into human-scaled segments, creating a feeling of outdoor 'rooms'.
How does a strong sense of place impact people's mental maps?
-Rather than thinking about cardinal directions, people start thinking in terms of memorable places and the routes that connect them. Their mental map becomes centered on places rather than streets.
What enables ethnic enclaves to develop a sense of place in North America?
-They are designed to recreate old world villages and towns. This provides enclosure, small-scale storefronts, narrower roads, and culturally-specific architecture that feels transportive.
Outlines
🏙 What Makes a Place Great or Forgettable
The first paragraph discusses characteristics that make some urban places great while others lack a 'sense of place' and feel nondescript. It talks about enclosure, public spaces feeling like rooms, optimal width-to-height ratios for streets and squares, using trees/awnings to create enclosure, and contrasts lively urban areas in Europe with depressing parking lots and suburban strip malls in North America.
👀 Details and Visual Interest Create Place Identity
The second paragraph highlights the importance of eye-level details and visual interest in shaping place identity. It contrasts mosaic building facades and intricate concrete designs in European cities with dull, prison-like suburban architecture. Entrance frequency from streets to shops and plazas is also discussed as an element that makes places feel vibrant.
🛣 Car-Centric Design Erases Sense of Place
The third paragraph continues the theme of cars erasing sense of place, giving examples of parking lots surrounding plazas. It also discusses how city planning choices communicate values and shape identity. Ethnic enclaves are given as some of the only North American places with distinct character that immigrants recreated. But most North American development fails to consider sense of place in design.
Mindmap
Keywords
💡sense of place
💡enclosure
💡eye-level interest
💡entrance frequency
💡public room
💡car dependency
💡chain stores
💡street
💡place
💡identity
Highlights
When you get it right, you know it. And when you get it wrong?, You end up feeling like you’re in no place at all.
That makes it hard to generalize about great places but still, there are a few characteristics, that most of these places share, that can give us an idea of how to build better urban places.
If you’re on a particularly wide street or large square, there are, other ways to create a sense of enclosure. Planners might use trees on the sides or, in the median of a road. Or awnings and banners.
Ultimately, it’s hard to give an area a sense of, enclosure when there needs to be ample free parking., This makes everywhere feel like one sea of mediocrity.
As you travel through these areas, every place feels like every other place., What makes this crappy strip mall any different from, This one, thousands of kilometres away?
Compare that kind of visual interest to a typical suburban façade. This, looks like the walls of a prison. If you’re unlucky enough to have to, walk next to this, you’ll get to look at cigarette buts and cheap aluminum siding.
So why would we want to constantly be surrounded by places that look like this?
The entrances to these places, are so far apart that most people get back in their cars and drive to them.
All of a sudden, it’s harder to get there,, unless you drive your car, and your sense of place is erased.
Defining a sense of place means defining your own identity.
This place says nothing about identity, except that they value cars more than they value people.
To recreate the sense of place from the towns they’re based on, they have frequent entrances, to specialty shops and restaurants, street-level details that are specific to that area, and a sense of enclosure that separates them from the world outside.
But really, almost every place, I visit in Amsterdam has some sense of place. All of these places feel unique, and different.
This strong sense of place makes the city mean, something to me. I actually care about these places, and I like being in them.
Because when you design a place for cars,, everything starts to look the same. This could be anywhere.
Transcripts
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