Urban Streets as an Armature of the Public Open Space

Dekkiche, Hamoud (1986) Urban Streets as an Armature of the Public Open Space. Master of Architecture thesis, University of Glasgow.

Abstract

There has already been much written about the streets in many different ways, such as in planning, sociology, traffic engineering and in architecture, which refers at some point to an aspect of the street. The range of material is therefore very wide, but much of this deals with a particular field of comment, such as streetscape, social experience and social behaviour. I want to discuss the streets from an urban design point of view and then see how this might relate to social experience, for a better understanding of our urban environment. Broadly speaking the thesis is divided into 5 chapters. The first chapter deals with the concept of the street; I will be defining the street, explaining its complexity, referring to the "bits" which have to function such as doors providing entry and windows, daylight, but which also combined with other "bits" such as decorations to form the facade and therefore the character of the streetscape. Modern technology has surely added other function to the street, I will be describing the impact of it on the appearance of the street of the built environment. The second chapter is an analysis of the physical relationship between building and space which could be reduced to a basic state of solids and voids. I will discuss the streets as a system of differentiated open spaces which corresponds to the image of the traditional city, and the streets as a system of undifferentiated open spaces which corresponds to any of Le Corbusier's urban proposals. I will then look at those elements which act as the enclosing element of the street. The third chapter is an analysis of the form and spatial composition of two different urban environments, with emphasis on the aspect of the streets and how they determine the town-scape. The two examples are, Edinburgh New Town and Glasgow Merchant City. The first example which has a formal composition has been chosen for a better understanding of the second one which had an incremental development over different periods. This chapter will end by a summary of General Characteristics between the two urban settlements. The fourth chapter deals with the conflict and failure in terms of design and legibility of Glasgow Merchant City and shows why the components of the townscape do not subscribe to a clear and legible structure. By using a request survey on this area, I will analyse how people understand and use this area. The fifth chapter is an attempt to bring a New Order to Glasgow Merchant City, because its townscape and layout seem to be confused in terms of legibility. The New Order is to provide an "ARMATURE" upon which all the main component of the townscape will be connected so as to form a coherent and harmonic townscape where legibility will be understood. A proposed armature for Glasgow Merchant City will be discussed. In the final chapter, conclusions are drawn and the two underlying ideas of the general concept of the armature are explained.

• Item Type: Thesis (Master of Architecture)
• Qualification Level: Masters
• Keywords: Architecture, Urban planning
• Date of Award: 1986
• Depositing User: Enlighten Team
• Unique ID: glathesis:1986-77402
• Copyright: Copyright of this thesis is held by the author.
• Date Deposited: 14 Jan 2020 09:09
• Last Modified: 14 Jan 2020 09:09
• URI: https://theses.gla.ac.uk/id/eprint/77402