New York City and Its Elements

Kevin Lynch, great architect of America and professor of urban design and planning, sought to understand how people perceive their environments and how design professionals can respond to the deepest human needs. His argue about psychologically  satisfying and aesthetically appealing cities which are referable to physical forms, can conveniently be classified into five types of elements – Paths, Edges, Nodes, Districts & Landmarks – are simply raw material of enironmental image at the city scale which must be patterned together to provide the satisfying form (nets of path/clusters of landmarks.mosaics of regions). As per the result, such pairs may reinforce each other or resonate to enhance each other’s power (central park v/s columbus circle) or they may conflict & destroy themselves.

A. Paths
Paths, in form of street/walkway/ transit line, has been descibed as channels along which observer moves along. Paths are predominant element that I refer as “spinal code system of the city” offers strong identity with wellknown origins and destination. Lets take an example of different avenues and streets in the city. If we walk on 42nd street from one water edge to another, one gets variety of environments, culture, people, neighbourhood, etc. The environment towards 1st avenue, you feel business/commercial class along with thousands of food stalls & resturants, then gradually walking through park avenue, fifth ‘fashion’ avenue, time square ‘crowdy’, eighth avenue ‘local/retail markets’ and ending up in totally residential zone. Similarly if you walk down from columbus cirlcle to penn station on 8th avenue, you experience commercial zone in the beginning, then kinda mix use buildings, all retail shopes along, people bargaining for products, thousands of street vendors, pretzel/hot dog/nuts/fruit carts, bus terminal, touch of time square near 42nd, interesting look of Empire state building near Penn station. One of the interesting fact about all paths/streets/avenues of the city is no matter what time or what day you are passing by, it is always vital, live, crowded, active. May be it supports the fact that city has been laid down on grid pattern. It makes easy to move around for local as well as strangers, dificult to get lost. Plus another advantage of grid pattern is that you can visibly attend or feel any building/structure that may be 20-30 blocks away which may be difficult if you want to analyse standing right at the base of perticular structure. For example, Heart Tower, Empire state building, you can enjoy their beuty only when you are certain distance away.

B. Edges
Linear elements in form of boundries between two area which acts as a lateral references. They are often paths reinforced by boundry characteristics ( Bettery Park, Central Park). In some cases, the Edge is visible, continuous in form and penetrable to cross movement when others are impenetrable, invisible. If we consider Wall street as an edge, may be its continuous, penetrable but it is not defined by solid physical line that makes a strong entry point. However one gets totally different environment if walking through wall street than other near by street.

C. Districts
The physical characteristics that determine districts are thematic continuities which may contain endless variety of components – texture, space, form, detail, building type, use, activity, inhabitants, degree of maintainance, topography, homogenetics of facade such as material, modelling, ornamentation, color, skyline etc. It has different types of boundries that could be hard/precise/definate or soft/invisible/uncertain. For example again Central Park v/s Bettrey Park. Both can be identified as disctricts since they conflict with their respective neighbourhood environments, having very strong image and tourist attraction. Bettery Park with soft/uncertain boundry acts as an Entrance to city in several ways, while Central Park with solid physical boundry is public entertainment/recreational open space.

D. Nodes
Nodes might be a point or junction of paths or concentration of some characteristics forming any shape, any where in the city of our skirts of city, sometimes city itself when it conceives the environment on national or international level. Nodes may be introvert or extrovert depends on principal environment. For example, Time square, open space at 59th street & 5th avenue which is like piazza in front of central park might count as an extrovert node, while Columbus circle as an introvert node since you have to get in to the circle surrounded by beautiful water fountains to feel the environment.

E. Landmarks
Landmark is one physical element/point of reference whch is unique, memorable, easily identifiable, significant aspect that has clear form, contrast with its background. It might be in the city perimeter or outside, might be building/sign/mountain/open space/ a tree/ any urban detail. For example, the twin tower before 9/11, Statue of Liberty, Empire state building, Central park, Grand central, Bridges that connect manhattan to other islands.

In general application, each of these elements has certain identity in several manner, but it creates interesting collage when it all comes together. One of my example for interesting combination is “Bettery Park” and “Central Park”, they are districts structured with nodes, defined by edges, penetrated by paths and sprinkled with landmarks. All elements might/regularly overlap & pierce one other. The only difference I would argue with Kevin Lynch is that all these elements are not always “simply raw material of environment” but these are such example of manmade structure. Even though it looks natural (central park) it is meticulously designed to look such. 2 special characteristics of such collage are -
1. visible from many locations
2. it sets up a local contrast with near by elements

THE NEIGHBOURHOOD, THE DISTRICT AND THE CORRIDOR
By Andres Duany and Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk

In ths topic, Author team of husband-wife are lenders in a current intellectual movement in architecture and urban planning called the NEW URBANISM, interested in reshaping urban and suburbun patterns to create family friendly and mix-use neighbourhood. They discuss 5  principles of an ideal neighbourhood design-

1. The neighbourhood has a center and an edge
According to Author team, the center is the focus of the neighbourhood that could be any structure and edges can be formed by the systematic accretion between the neighbourhoods of recreational open spaces. In my openion, Any neighbourhood can be designed without the center or an edge. If we take an example of wall street as itself sort of neighbourhood, it does not offer any center or an edge. As another example take any residential block in queens/brooklyn, may be we can identify some area as one neighbourhood but its difficult to identify the center/edge.

2. The optimal size of a neighbourhood is a quarter mile from center to edge
This distance of quarter mile is equivalent to a five minute walk at an easy pace. I would agree on this point as a successfull pedestrian oriented neighbourhood which is quite appropriate for high density. But if we think about suburbs or for a change take an example of any city in new jersey, where most of people have their own car- conflicts to author’s idea. Pedestrian friendly and transit oriented neighbourhood definately permit any city/town to be accesible but can be supported only by larger population of an aggregation of neighbourhoods.

3. The neighbourhood has a balanced mix of activities – dwelling, shopping, working, schooling, worshipping and recreating

4. The neighbourhood structures building sites and traffic on a fine network of interconnecting streets

5. The neighbourhood gives priority to public space and to the appropriate location of civic buildings.

All these points can make good neighbourhood and overall, it is always good to have this sort of neighbourhood but what if it does not? There are many cities/towns which are very well-known, successful but it does not offer these characteristics. Does it mean that its is not well designed or it failed? No. Each space/neghbourhood has their own character and culture to be designed accordingly. I agree that by following some of these principles in the design of new neighbourhood promptly enhances the value, but not all of them and not always !!

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