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Urban Design Issues
Milton Keynes, Thomas Smith-Keary, 14045700
"How can retrofitted transport infrastructre create innovative & vibrant social spaces for people that impacts positevley on local identity?"
Issues I to Issues II
At the end of Issues I the initial topic I selected was on the provision of open space and privacy, and how to manage balance these two within a high density environment as they appeared to be two of the main issues that came forward during the design of the conceptual model
Following the initial site visit to Midsummer Boulevard East however this topic changed towards the idea of social places for pedestrians given how Milton Keynes falls far short of what would constitute a typical good place, this is the central space of Milton Keynes and yet it is insipid, and devoid of life. At first the projects scope was limited to the market area around Secklow gate, but this then expanded in scope to the rest of the Midsummer Boulevard site as the project developed.
"How can retrofitted transport infrastructre create innovative & vibrant social spaces for people that impacts positevley on local identity?"
Defining the Issue
This chosen issue ties together all three of the preexisting goals of sustainable lifestyles, environmental quality and increasing intensification of land use as all three of these are necessary in order to create a social space;
Intensification allows urban form to be geared towards pedestrian priority as facilities and amenities are much closer together, meaning that walking becomes a much more viable option for the user. In Issues I, an entire district could be walked through theoretically in less than 10 minutes as it was only 400x400 metres across
However, simply enabling the user to walk to a destination isn't enough, the space they walk through has to be pleasant and inviting otherwise they would just drive, which brings in high environmental quality, the street needs to be physically walkable in how its designed, the user needs to feel safe and secure while doing so and above all they should want to walk down a street due to sensory richness through smells, sights, and sound from built form and the natural world.
Sustainable lifestyles being the guiding principles steering the other two, greenspace and other ecological elements shouldn't just be decorative, it should allow the user to interact with it, to smell it, to touch it, to sit on it, to play with it. A tree on a pavement or in a public park shouldn't just soley there to be green, it could be part of a greater network of sustainable living through urban food production for example with edible planting and trees scattered around the site allowing someone to pick an apple or pear from an overhanging tree on the way to a street market selling local produce that was grown a 5 minute walk away.
Retrofitted transport infrastructure, by this I mean trying to preserve what already exists on site in terms of an existing road and street layout wherever possible, there is little point of exploring an issue for a specific site if the design proposal results in the entire area being demolished and redrawn.
Innovative, this refers to solutions that should aim to provide creative, radical and above all inventive solutions to fix an existing issue, to create something new that screams or subtly encourages people to explore and use it
Vibrant, this means a place that is rich with atmosphere, character and activity in some form or another. This doesn't mean a place has to be "exciting" (as not everywhere should be designed as such) but rather it should be engaging and interesting to the user that is in it.
Local identity, in this case identity refers to improving and preserving certain positive elements of what makes a place what it is while trying to resolve the negative aspects of a places identity. It doesn't seek to forcibly change or alter something based on a whim.
The background information of why this issue is worthy of research is explored on the subsequent page "Social Spaces" in more detail but the premise behind it that many spaces within urban form are dominated by the car, the question is is it possible to retrofit these previous urban design follys into spaces designed for people?
Why retrofitting though you may ask? In additon to the definition above i feel that there may be greater satisfaction in preserving and adapting the existing car and road orientated infrastructure for predominently pedestrian use, consider it a phycological conquering of the previous evironment.
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