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Contribution of Urban Desiners - Bill Hiller, Rob Krier, Gordon Cullen
Contribution of Urban Desiners - Bill Hiller, Rob Krier, Gordon Cullen
Current research interests are in space syntax as a theory of the city, the relation between cities
and urban societies, the syntax of generative buildings, the links between objective spatial laws
and spatial cognition, and the space syntax paradigm as a philosophical position.
constructively to create dense, but variable, encounter zones to become what made them
useful: mechanisms for contact.
One means that Hillier uses to demonstrate the relationship between spatial configuration and
pedestrian movement is a careful examination of the street and open-space fabric of many
different settlements throughout the world (Hillier and Hanson 1984; Hillier et al. 1982). Many
of these placesfor example, the French village of Gassin illustrated in figure 4regularly
incorporate the following topological characteristics that together create what Hillier calls the
beady-ring structure:
All building entrances face directly onto the village open spaces, thus there are no
intervening boundaries between building access and public space;
The village open spaces are continuous but irregular in their shapes; they narrow
and widen, like beads on a string;
The outdoor spaces join back on themselves to form a set of irregularly shaped
rings;
This ring structure, coupled with direct building entry, gives each village a high
degree of permeability and access in that there are at least two paths (and,
typically, many more) from one building to any other building.
The next question Hillier asks is whether this beady-ring structure can be described and
measured more precisely. At the start, one faces a difficult recording problem: in terms of
everyday function, a settle-ment's open space is one contin-uous fabric but, formalistically and
spatially, this fabric is composed of many different partsstreets, alleys, squares, plazas, walls,
buildings, and the like. How can this unwieldy network of spaces and things be defined and
measured without destroying the seamless nature of the settlement's open spaces?
To address this conceptual difficulty, Hillier suggests that any open space can be considered in
terms of its convex or axial qualities. A convex space refers to the two-dimen-sional nature of
open space and is best exemplified by plazas, squares, and parks. In that they can have
con-siderable breadth in relation to width, convex spaces relate to the beadi-ness of the beadyring structure. In terms of environmental experience, convex spaces typically become local
placese.g., the site of a weekly market, an open
space where children regularly play kickball, or a
place where older people gather on sunny
afternoons. By identifying the least number of
convex spaces ac-counting for all streets, plazas
and other outdoor space, one can con-struct a
convex map as shown for Gassin in figure 2.
Whereas convex spaces speak mostly to the local qualities of a space, axial spaces are
significant for understanding a settlements global patternthat is, the way the particular
spatial configuration of the pathway fabric lays out a potential movement field that draws
people together or keeps them apart. Natural movement is the term Hillier uses to describe the
potential power of the pathway layout to automatically stymie or facilitate movement and such
related environmental events as co-presence, co-awareness, informal interpersonal
encounters, and lively local places and street activity (Hillier 1996, p. 161).
Between 1944 and 1946 he worked in the planning office of the Development and Welfare
Department in Barbados,
Then joined the Architectural Review journal, first as a draughtsman and then as a writer on
planning policies. There he produced a large number of influential editorials and case studies on
the theory of planning and the design of towns. Many improvements in the urban and rural
environment in Britain during the 1950s and 1960s. He was also involved in the Festival of
Britain in 1951.
His techniques consisted largely of sketchy drawings that conveyed a particularly clear
understanding of his ideas, and these had a considerable influence on subsequent architectural
illustration styles. He also illustrated several books by other various authors, before writing his
own book - based on the idea of Townscape - in 1961. The Concise Townscape has
subsequently been republished around 15 times, proving to be one of the most popular books
on Urban Design in the 20th Century.
In 1956 Cullen became a freelance writer and consultant and, in the years immediately
following he advised the cities of Liverpool and Peterborough on their reconstruction and
redevelopment plans. In 1960 he was invited to India to advise on the planning aspects of the
Ford Foundation's work in New Delhi and Calcutta and so in 1962 he and his family lived in India
for 6 months while he worked on the projects. Later, his work included planning advice to the
city of Glasgow and during the 1980s the London Docklands Development Corporation.
For a while Cullen teamed up with a student, David Price, and they formed an architectural firm
together - Price & Cullen. They won a competition in London in the 1980s and together
designed and oversaw the building of the Swedish Quays housing development in Docklands.
They worked together until 1990 as Price's first child was born and because Cullen's health was
deteriorating. Price died in 2009 at the age of 53.
Literature
Townscape
Concise townscape
Street lighting
Gordon Cullen is one of the authors who had incorporated the idea of an observer in
movement as basic element for the perception of the, constructed space and in the
workmanship Urban Landscape considers the notion of serial vision for the first time as a
conceptual instrument for an urban reading.
Gordon Cullens Ideas
HAZARDS
THE FLOOR
CLOSURE
PRAIRIE PLANNING
STREET LIGHTING
TREES INCORPORATED
THE WALL
In 1972 he was elected Honorary Fellow of the RIBA. In 1975 he was awarded with an RDI for
illustration and Townscape. The following year he was awarded a medal from The American
Institute of Architects. In 1978 he was awarded a CBE for his contribution to architecture from
Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom.
ROB KRIER
Rob Krier (born 1938) is a Luxembourgian sculptor, architect, urban
designer and theorist. He is former professor of architecture at Vienna
University of Technology, Austria.
MAJOR WORKS
Urban Space (1979),
Urban Projects 1968-1982 (1982),
On Architecture (1982),
Architectural Composition (1988),
The Making of a Town. Potsdam - Kirchsteigfeld (1997), with Christoph Kohl,
Town Spaces. Contemporary Interpretations in Traditional Urbanism (2003), Krier Kohl
Architects
Figures. A Pictorial Journal (2005)
Bibliography
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