A platform for research: civil engineering, architecture and urbanism
A platform for research: civil engineering, architecture and urbanism
Compact sprawl : Exploring public open space and contradictions in urban density
Twentieth century urbanization has left a tremendous footprint on the globe. It is generally speaking a spread out fragmented suburban and exurban landscape continuously growing according to what has been called sprawl-like development, increasing energy and automobile dependency, challenging urban sustainability. Recently urban growth has also turned inwards because of economic and political change. Thus one of the main challenges for future urban design will be to ‘compact sprawl’. This thesis, set in the field of urban morphology, explores the spatial conditions for suburban densification by looking at administrative and user-related measures of density, public open space, and pedestrian accessibility. If we consider useful open space, it would not decrease density, but rather increase spatial compactness. So would also a well-connected street network, if we consider accessibility as part of density. The thesis’ first four papers explore new measures that contradict ordinary notions of density and the last three papers examine densification scenarios on different urban scales in collaboration with urban planners in practice. The paper Place syntax explores a possibility to combine the space syntax description of cognitive accessibility, axial line distance, with place attraction into a combined attraction-accessibility analysis model. Empirical investigation shows that place syntax analysis captures pedestrian movement and can be used for new types of location density analyses. Sociotope mapping describes the theoretical body of a new urban planning tool called the “sociotope map” (sociotopkarta) developed in Stockholm planning practice. The map emphasizes that the same public open space can have different direct use values for different people and thereby assesses qualitative open space area. Exploring Ambiterritory investigates the notion of (sub)urban no-man’s-land. Densification most often means increased open space use, which naturally leads to an increase of potential conflicting territorial interests. ...
Compact sprawl : Exploring public open space and contradictions in urban density
Twentieth century urbanization has left a tremendous footprint on the globe. It is generally speaking a spread out fragmented suburban and exurban landscape continuously growing according to what has been called sprawl-like development, increasing energy and automobile dependency, challenging urban sustainability. Recently urban growth has also turned inwards because of economic and political change. Thus one of the main challenges for future urban design will be to ‘compact sprawl’. This thesis, set in the field of urban morphology, explores the spatial conditions for suburban densification by looking at administrative and user-related measures of density, public open space, and pedestrian accessibility. If we consider useful open space, it would not decrease density, but rather increase spatial compactness. So would also a well-connected street network, if we consider accessibility as part of density. The thesis’ first four papers explore new measures that contradict ordinary notions of density and the last three papers examine densification scenarios on different urban scales in collaboration with urban planners in practice. The paper Place syntax explores a possibility to combine the space syntax description of cognitive accessibility, axial line distance, with place attraction into a combined attraction-accessibility analysis model. Empirical investigation shows that place syntax analysis captures pedestrian movement and can be used for new types of location density analyses. Sociotope mapping describes the theoretical body of a new urban planning tool called the “sociotope map” (sociotopkarta) developed in Stockholm planning practice. The map emphasizes that the same public open space can have different direct use values for different people and thereby assesses qualitative open space area. Exploring Ambiterritory investigates the notion of (sub)urban no-man’s-land. Densification most often means increased open space use, which naturally leads to an increase of potential conflicting territorial interests. ...
Compact sprawl : Exploring public open space and contradictions in urban density
Ståhle, Alexander (author)
2008-01-01
2008:6
Theses
Electronic Resource
English
DDC:
710
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