Week 5 - Territoriality and Defensible Space

Question 1

What are Andres Duany’s 5 principles for designing a neighborhood?

Answer 1

1. Neighborhood must have a center and an edge
2. Optimal Size; a walkable neighborhood, everything in the neighborhood is located within a 10-15 minute walk
   - with walking paths, pedestrians have taken preference over the automobile and bikes
   - a more sustainable community
3. Ideally the neighborhood should include a mix of activities and land uses
   - instead of zoning based on activity, there is zoning based on building size and height
4. Grid based street system, ex. NYC
   - permits planners to add landmarks along street vistas (something pleasing to the eye at the end of a long stretch)
5. Priority is given to public spaces
   - vs. suburbia which gives priority to private places
   - limited parking spaces

Question 2

What are some of the characteristics of Seaside, Florida? The resort town designed by Duany in the 1980s for new urbanism.

Answer 2

• intent was to recreate the familiar notion of a “hometown” based on principles of new urbanism
• built using very strict guidelines, very contained and controlled
• “the code” aims to generate diversity within a framework, ex. roofs must be galvanized steel etc
• keeps exclusivity and prices high, therefore less diversity of socio-economic status of residents

Question 3

Define/explain: Defensible Space

Answer 3

• space over which residents can exert their innate sense of territoriality
• theory which related the design of the urban environment to the crime rate
• how architecture affects how we behave
• has had tremendous impact in architecture, community design and law enforcement
• identified by Oscar Newman
• there is a correlation between built form, crime rate and family structure

Question 4

Requirements for Defensible Space:

Answer 4

1. It must have physical definition
   - through actual physical barriers or symbolic barriers, ex. gated community
2. It requires surveillance or potential for surveillance from the street or from within the building
   - especially important at the entry, ex. Newman found lower crime rates in buildings where the entry served a smaller number of people
   - capacity to recognize others who live there
   - users are more likely to feel a sense of ownership over any facility if it is shared by fewer people
3. The development must meld with the surrounding area

Question 5

Which groups are best served by high-rises living?

Answer 5

• the elderly and the disabled; create their own community, look out for each other more
• those with money and no children