The Concise Townscape

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parks, local authority for its green belts, antiquarians for conservationareas and so on. This is already happening. In articles in the Architectural Review and in books such as Townscape and The Concise Townscape, Cullen outlined these ideas. He spent a lot of time and space analyzing the buildings, streets, lanes and squares of towns, old and new, to demonstrate how they worked and what was good about them visually. With the aid of photographs and his own clear and evocative drawings, he showed how our experiences of urban spaces change as we move through them. here as an accessible place or roomout of the main directional stream,an eddy in which footsteps echo andthe light is lessened in intensity. Setapart from the hurly-burly of traffic,it yet has the advantage of com­manding the scene from a positionof safety and strength.

URBAN DESIGN AND TOWNSCAPE Gordon Cullen Tribute (PDF) URBAN DESIGN AND TOWNSCAPE Gordon Cullen Tribute

wider point of view we will see that tropical housing differs from tem­'It was the cause of bitterness between Lutyens and Baker. change of levelAny account of one's emotional re­actions to position must include thesubject of levels. Below level pro­duces intimacy, inferiority, enclosureand claustrophobia, above level givesexhilaration, command, superiority,exposure and vertigo; the act ofdescending, implies going down intothe known and the act of ascendingimplies going up into the unknown.There is the strange correspondenceof similar levels across a deep gap,near but remote, or the functional useof levels to join or separate the activi­ties of various road users. Thisillustration shows the graveyardbelow Liverpool Cathedral, a quiet,meandering footpath beneath theimmense weight of cliff and tower.Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication DataA catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress No responsibility is assumed by the publisher for any injury and/or damage to personsor property as a matter of products liability, negligence or otherwise, or from any useor operation of any methods, products, instructions or ideas contained in the materialherein. Because of rapid advances in the medical sciences, in particular, independentverification of diagnoses and drug dosages should be made In this shortened version, the studies of specific towns have been left outand instead Cullen has contributed a new foreword and conclusion which

Book Review: Concise Townscape by Golden Cullen - RTF

From simple enclosure it is a step tothe spatial variations which springfrom this fertile form. The illustra­tion shows twO courtyards, the onewe are in and the one beyond,divided by a third enclosure, thecloister. Thus there are three separateenclosures combined into one inter­penetrating whole.Access-restricted-item true Addeddate 2021-11-08 06:09:58 Boxid IA40278814 Camera Sony Alpha-A6300 (Control) Collection_set printdisabled External-identifier 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. Concerning CONTENT. In this last category we turn to an examina­tion of the fabric of towns: colour, texture, scale, style, character, There is a further observation to be made concerning Serial Vision.Although from a scientific or commercial point of view the town may bea unity, from our optical viewpoint we have split it into two elements:the existing view and the emerging view. In the normal way this is anaccidental chain of events and whatever significance may arise out of thelinking of views will be fortuitous. Suppose, however, that we take overthis linking as a branch of the art of relationship; then we are finding atool with which human imagination can begin to mould the city into acoherent drama. The process of manipulation has begun to turn theblind facts into a taut emotional situation. A city is more than the sum of its inhabitants. It has the power to generate a surplus of amenity, which is one reason why people like to live in communities rather than in isolation.

Townscape - [PDF Document] The Concise Townscape - [PDF Document]

Improved navigation, legibility, and wayfinding: Legibility plays a vital role in urban design, aiding ‘readability’ and ensuring people can make sense of an environment. Legibility is enhanced by well-structured, easily identifiable spaces. Variety and contrast help (it is difficult to orient yourself when everything looks the same), as well as well-positioned wayfinding signage and navigational cues to orient the viewer. Wayfinding design is a critical part of planning infrastructure projects such as train stations, airports, hospitals, and other big campuses and precincts. hidden by the ramp; only its upper part is visible. This effect of trunca­tion serves to isolate and make remote. The building is withheld. We areHere and it is There. As we climb the ramp the Rashtrapathi Bhawan is Now turn to the visual impact which a city has on those who live init or visit it. I wish to show that an argument parallel to the one putforward above holds good for buildings: bring people together and theycreate a collective surplus of enjoyment; bring buildings together andcollectively they can give visual pleasure which none can give separately.the West Indies before becoming assistant editor of TheArchiuaural Review just after the Second World War. The In a town, a lived-in place, the lay­out of the spaces in which the publicmoves is a matter having a directimpact on the emotions, as hasalready been noted. To rationalizeall these spaces into streets, andworse, a gridiron of streets, seems todeny the nature of people and extola system which is fundamentallyillogical because it is not derivedfrom the character towns are knownto possess. The typical town is not apattern of streets but a scquC/lce of Distinct sense of place: By creating a sequence of engaging spaces, serial vision can reinforce the unique sense of place, making areas more identifiable and recognisable.

Townscape by Gordon Cullen - AbeBooks Townscape by Gordon Cullen - AbeBooks

Physics-based precision: This enables accurate modelling of sightlines, lighting and weather conditions, vehicle and pedestrian flow, vegetation, and surrounding infrastructure. Getting the balance of enclosure, mystery, concealment, and openness right is difficult – hence why digital simulations that combine all these different factors are so valuable. Cullen lived in the small village of Wraysbury (Berkshire) from 1958 until his death, aged 80, on 11 August 1994, following a serious stroke. After his passing, David Gosling and Norman Foster collected various examples of his work and put them together in the book "Visions of Urban Design". suffice to demonstrate the charms ofthis immediacy. A somewhat similareffect is produced in those caseswhere a structure is separated fromthe viewer by a featureless plane,a great empty stretch which has nogrip on the eye, such as the view ofthe Horse Guards from St James'sPark or the view of the SupremeCourt in Chandigarh across thewide lake. The enclave or interior open to theexterior and having free and directaccess from one to the other is seen Serial vision analysis helps us appreciate how humans experience space, illustrating the way new design proposals are perceived from the human viewpoint, positioning designers and planners to create enjoyable urban spaces that are desired and sought out. The benefits of utilising serial vision include the following:This is the Environment Game and it is going on all round us. Youwill see that I am not discussing absolute values such as beauty, perfec­tion, art with a big A, or morals. I am trying to describe an environmentthat chats away happily, plain folk talking together. Apart from a handfulof noble exceptions our world is being filled with system-built dumbblondes and a scatter ofIrish confetti. Only when the dialogue commenceswill people stop to listen. This material is written by Dr Ben Guy, a civil planner who examined Cullen’s ideas during his doctoral studies and has over 20 years of experience using modern technology to illustrate serial viewpoints in urban infrastructure projects. CONTENTS: Serial vision definition | The importance of serial vision | The benefits of utilising serial vision | Gordon Cullen's urban design principles | Serial vision examples | Skyline, rhythm, and grain | Thresholds, transitions, and permeability | Light and shadow | The digital simulation of serial vision | Dynamic viewsheds What does serial vision mean? This and That: Cullen uses this phrase to refer to the content within an urban environment, including the meaning or significance of a place, often rooted in its history, function, or the cultural values of its inhabitants. The term ‘serial vision’ was first coined by British architect and urban designer Thomas Gordon Cullen, in his seminal work Townscape [iii] (a shorter version of this book was later published as The Concise Townscape). deflectionA variation on the closed vista isdeflection, in which the object build­ing is deflected away from the rightangle, thus arousing the expectationthat it is doing this to some purpose,i.e. that there is a place at the end ofthe street as yet unseen and of whichthis building forms a coherent part.This is invariably not so, but de­flection arouses the thought.