DES 230 Final exam

Question 1

The Five Rules

Answer 1

1. Systems View
2. Recognize Patterns
3. Lighter, Cheaper, Greener Infrastructure
4. Adaptability to market shifts
5. Resilience through affordable housing

Question 2

The Seven Principles

Answer 2

1. Streetcar City
2. Interconnected Street system
3. Good jobs close to affordable homes
4. Interconnected Green System
5. Lighter, Greener, Cheaper Infrastructure
6. 5 Minute Walk
7. Diversity of Housing types

Question 3

Alexanders 15 Principles

Answer 3

Order not important
1. The Void
2. Contrast
3. Positive Space
4. Levels of Scale
5. Boundaries
6. Inner Peace
7. Alternating Repetition
8. Graded Variation
9. Good Shape
10. Deep Interlock
11. Roughness
12. Strong Centres
13. Echoes
14. Local Symmetries
15. Not - Separateness

Question 4

How are cities related to the Climate Crisis?

Answer 4

• 80% of people in Canada live in cities
• The Urban pattern can have a great effect on its production of GHG -> North America around double other nations such as Japan

Question 5

Views for future sustainable cities?

Answer 5

Two Contrasting visions:
Flintstones (return to nature – going back to land// very light footprint// growing your own vegetables)
Jetsons (high-tech solutions – Automatic driverless cars // Proposed Visuals from Eco-city in China// very less pedestrians).
-> In reality neither of these are feasible

Question 6

What kind of city is Vancouver?

Answer 6

Vancouver // Distributed / flat city instead of vertical one // A streetcar city.

Question 7

What is a “Flat” City?

Answer 7

cities with even density and tightly packed mixed land uses
perform best on both transportation and building energy use.

Question 8

What was walking distance in minutes before the Streetcar Era and by how much did it increase?

Answer 8

20-minute walk circle

Increase of 20-minute distance influencing city and building forms.

Question 9

Characteristics of the Streetcar City?

Answer 9

Linear commercial activities
Works as a grid not as a node
Walkability: 5-minute walking distance (400m or ¼ of a mile)
For the interurban line it is10- 20-minute walk. Example – Ohio and midwest.

Question 10

What happened to Streetcars?

Answer 10

Shift from streetcar to automobile-dominated urban landscapes(1960-1970s).
Eliminate the streetcar service // New buses // Arterials // Strip commercials, big parking lots, a lot of traffic.
Tragic history of streetcars systems // contractual obligation for new buses - streetcars were burned // Reason – to limit competition // Big Oil // Auto industry.
They didn’t foresee the congestion, global warming, and pollution.
The City of Toronto has a legacy of an almost intact streetcar system.

Question 11

Why is an Interconnected Street(Semi-lattice) system better than dendritic?

Answer 11

Cheaper houses streets on through streets = Subtle class distinction is visible with cul de sacs (designed to do this)
Designed to frustrate trips
Intersections impossible to cross by foot
Big box magnets
400% more trips! which means 60% more pedestrian fatalatities (designed to accommodate more cars = more velocity = more deaths)

Question 12

Different forms of interconnected

Answer 12

Rectilinear - Ex. Vancouver 640ft x 320ft, Most common form,
Radial - Ex. Washington -Intersecting radials overlaid on a traditional grid (N/S orientation)
Traffic movement potentially more direct but intersections very complex
The Informal Web - Ex. Cambridge, Massachusetts
Main arterials from direct lines from one square to another.
In between these arterial 100x200m parcels TYP.
squares oriented usually parallel to arterials
Spaces in between and informal grid of more or less traditional blocks
Romantic pattern (Warped Grid) - Ex. Riverside, Illinois
Operates as a grid like network but naturalized / warped
Can work with topography and natural drainage = best for complex landscape with complex topography
First designed by F. L. Olmsted in 1870.
“Every view is a new view”
Other Case Study: Shaughnessy District

Question 13

North and south Orientation VS East and West

Answer 13

Seattle is NS, Vancouver is EW
EW ->Traffic movement easier but slighter disadvantage for vehicles (which is a good thing) = they have to stop more and are forced to move a lot slower because there are more intersections.
Direct views towards a certain scenery (ex. Vancouver: view to mountains)

Question 14

what do neckdowns do?

Answer 14

Shorten crossing distance

Question 15

What is Side Friction

Answer 15

A lot of the things appear to be visual obstacles NOT like speedbumps = forces cars to slow down in a queuing street
Such as shrubs, or even cars.

Question 16

Road Size

Answer 16

Typical cul de sac = 20’ wide street = designed to accommodate fire trucks / ladder on both sides with a turning radius of 41’
Vancouver —————
1.8 metre = sidwalk on each side
2.3 metre = boulevard / grass areas or trees for canopies on each side
8.2 metre = road
per building code typically 5.0 metre building front setback

Question 17

Ideal Density found by Condon

Answer 17

10DU per acre

Question 18

More efficient Building?

Answer 18

Highrise :( nope - Continuous glass facade - terrible insulator
Not efficient
The velocity of the wind increases as you go up
Medium density lowrise? Yes! - Trees can shade it
Less heat is lost through sharing walls

Question 19

What is the BIG housing issue?

Answer 19

Cities rapidly expanding
Lots of old people because of lowered fertility rate and the baby boom
lots of immigration
new demographics require different forms of housing than are available

Question 20

What is the Emerald Necklace?

Answer 20

Designed by Olmsted
Runs from the centre of Boston, out into the suburbs
Best example of a linked system of parks and linear routes
Still functional 150 years after its advent
Combination of infrastructural elements of rail, road, drainage, potable water, ecological systems
Emerald Necklace is a more important model than Central Park because its more than a aprtk. Its an urban armature. Its a system.

Question 21

Damascus Area Design Workshop Plan - Urbanism in a Green Frame
FIVE RULES:

Answer 21

Nature out front, not out back
Use natural systems to bound and protect neighbourhoods
Design the ecological parkway
Expand the system indefinitely
Provide an alternative movement system

Question 22

What is causing the most damage to the watershed?

Answer 22

Urban stormwater discharge is identified as a major threat to aquatic life, notably fish, through changes in stream water – speed, amount, and temperature rather than just dirt/ pollutants.

-Systems of the city - rooftops and pavements - designed to get rid of the water as fast as possible - no puddles - removed within an hour
VS a forest - which holds the water and allows it to remain available for a long time
Rate of discharge is much slower

Question 23

Minimum Infiltration rate

Answer 23

Green infrastructure – 1” a day or 1mm per hour infiltration across site

Question 24

TIA VS EIA

Answer 24

Total Impervious Area (TIA): Measures the overall coverage of impervious surfaces (e.g., roads, rooftops) in an area, indicating how much land prevents water infiltration.

Effective Impervious Area (EIA): Considers the hydrological impact of impervious surfaces, factoring in how water is managed or directed (e.g., to pervious areas for absorption).

Question 25

What are the 3 Waves?

Answer 25

Rural to Urban Migration
Declining Fertility Rate
Declining Middle Class

Question 26

Prediction for future city populations

Answer 26

2060 when 80% of all the world’s people will live in cities - 8 billion people
And then big cities will stop growing - maybe forever

Question 27

Fertility Rate in Canada

Answer 27

1.6 per woman - without immigration would have declining population

Question 28

Thomas Piketty

Answer 28

Rate of return is greater than the GDP growth
Rate of return = what you get for loaning people money (e.g. mortgage)
R - 4-5%, g = 0.1%
Looked at data going back to the 1700s
Data allowed for the claim - additional wealth is not created in the society - cannot be distributed to wage earners

Question 29

Thomas Malthus

Answer 29

Resources are linear, population growth in exponential - proved false
People starving to death in the 1800s

Question 30

The Population Bomb

Answer 30

The Population Bomb - Paul R. Ehrlich - 1970
Same prediction as Malthus re population growth exceeding resource availability
But something unexpected happened on the way to Armageddon

Question 31

Global Fertility Rate

Answer 31

2.1 Per woman (Replacement Level)
Subsaharan Africa lags behind in fertility drop

Question 32

Systems thinking for wicked problems. Urban design is a wicked problem.

Answer 32

They do not have a definitive formulation
Social sciences - complexity in systems
No “stopping rule” - these problems lack an inherent logic that signals when they are solved
No linear methodology to give you one answer
Solutions aren’t true or false, it’s only good or bad
Good solutions must be evaluated by people (normative) - conclusion from a bunch of people
No way to test the solution to the wicked problem
Not a scientific experiment with variables
There is no end to the number of solutions or approaches to a wicked problem
Choosing a solution path based on internal assessment that would never give you certainty
There could be multiple good solutions
All wicked problems are essentially unique
Different variables and context
Can’t copy and paste design from one location to another
“International style” based on the hypothesis of having one solution (universal applicable solution)
Wicked problems can always be described as the symptom of other problems
How do you define a problem?
The wicked problems prompt possible solutions
“Planners are liable for the consequences of the solution they generate; the effect can matter a great deal to the people who are touched by these actions.
Proceeding with confidence that your solution is a good one
Collaborative work among different occupations

Question 33

What are the two kinds of aesthetics discussed by Edmund Burke

Answer 33

Beautiful: formal and clear in expression it is presumed to be absolutely perfect and true
Sublime: feeling of mystery, edging feeling, magificient

Question 34

Spiral Jetty

Answer 34

Robert Smithson (Spiral Jetty)
Abstract expression during that period - beautiful and completely figured out
Pieces of art that is dead (museum)
Moving out to the landscape of more robust canvas (in the midst of entropy)
Systems - the beautiful is dead, sublime is more of a compelling strategy

Question 35

Picturesque

Answer 35

Robert Smithson (Picturesque)
The balance between the beautiful and the sublime
The structure is beautiful + the bind is sublime = picturesque
Smithson claims that Olmsted is first earth artist
Beautiful (rational order of the thing you’re doing, but it is not the whole deal) the sublime (the weirdness, overwhelming)

Question 36

Jane Jacobs three types of problem

Answer 36

1. Ability to deal with problems of simplicity.
   Problem usu is solved with rational mathematical analysis
2. Ability to deal with problems of disorganized complexity.
   Think Hellium Balloons. Too many atoms acting too randomly that makes it hard to compute internally or extrinsically (balloon form).
3. Ability to deal with problems of organized complexity (difficult)
   Number three is the kind of problem a city is.

Question 37

How to solve problems of organized complexity

Answer 37

think about processes.
to work inductively, reasoning from particulars to the general, rather than the reverse.
to seek for unaverage clues involving very small quantifies, which reveal the way larger and more average quantities are operating.

Question 38

Le Corbusier?

Answer 38

Le Corbusier / City of Simplicity = too simple from Jane Jacobs
Corbusier inspired a lot of mid century urban designers and architects:
Empire Plaza (New York)
City of Brasilia by Oscar Niemeyer (Brazil): too idealistic, too “big”
Boston Redevelopment Authority: Very functional but loss of human scale

Question 39

A Pattern Language?

Answer 39

Alexander – essence of what we are trying to do – city design – complicated – no linear methodology – complexity – his contribution to answer this complexity – software design// Spaces are layered together with not just one principle but more.

Question 40

Brazilias problem

Answer 40

change in masterplan communities // strong urban form // Not resilient // Move away from the center // emergence of more resilient pattern on the periphery //

Question 41

Resilience Strategies

Answer 41

3 Legged - // likely destined to have disruptions // anticipate the disruption but thrive on them // speculate the city design //

Critique of the 3-legged system // long term resilience // thinking about systems //

–Resilience self organisation // how do designers understand an organic/ natural way to make that place grow organically?

Question 42

Urban Acupuncture

Answer 42

Aerial Tram & Public Escalator
Light, needle-like change to the body of the city for substantial health benefits, social benefits
EX) Comunas 13 escalator - think up, down sideways
A system, a network, a pattern
Infrastructure that catalyzes social change in urban space
Pattern and system (social pattern plus physical pattern) make place out of space
Small public realm spaces are better than large - part of an idea of infrastructure
Lots of human interaction in a small space
Associated with the infrastructure

Question 43

What was Mendoza discussed for

Answer 43

a world’s best urban forest
Urban forest as infrastructure
Based on pre-colonial agricultural irrigation pattern
Urban forest infrastructure as the sublime, pastoral, picturesque, d
Lower temps up to 15 degrees celsius
Urban forest as a street system
Trees are planted exactly where the water flows
Revealed system - pedestrians can observe it
Urban forest as public space infrastructure
Included in these central spaces, the downtown - the plazas
Irrigation and storm delivery system → moves the water away

Question 44

What are the 4 dots discussed by Kelbaugh

Answer 44

Dot 1 is CC itself, with special focus on the deleterious role that the
sprawling built environment plays in this global phenomenon.
Dot 2 is the UHI, a lesser known and misunderstood local phenom-
enon, which is heating up most cities twice as fast as their surrounding
countryside or as the planet as a whole. Coupled with CC, many cit-
ies suffer extreme heat. The UHI has been surprisingly underplayed in
the climate literature and public discourse about CC, and to date it has
remained unclaimed by any environmental group as their clarion call.
Dot 3 is excessive, unsustainable population growth in developing
countries, combined with excessive consumption and carbon footprints
in developed countries.
The first three dots are challenges. Dot 4 is the city itself,