THE NEW URBANISM

An approach to city planning and design

By Jose Luis Colmenares

Le Corbusier dreams of Voisin-like schemes and plans for cities of three million
people, with sixty stories skyscrapers and housing grouped in blocks, nested into a fast
speed highway system, have been anything but a great failure; both in Europe and in
America. Modern cities, due to their intended metropolitan nature, became nothing
more than a congested -as sharply stated by Lewis Mumford, who, in a way,
established the very philosophical basis for the eventual springing of the New
Urbanism movement- concentration of political, financial, and technological power,
at the ultimate expense of their inhabitants. Citizens have been progressively alienated
and deprived of a desirable quality of live; while, in the process, modern cities have
suppressed or completely destroyed the very organic tissue of neighborhoods and
smaller communities.
Extreme density and the many problems that most modern metropolis have
harvested and continue to do so-, have expelled large segments of their population,
forcing them to, literally, desperately look for safe heavens; ironically without
resigning from the opportunities that the city offers (jobs and, to some extent,
amenities)urban sprawling was born..
Urban sprawling a somehow pejorative way of naming a conventional suburban
development- is a uniquely American drama that started in the years following World
War II. Urban sprawling is an obvious result of the failure of the modern urban
principles or dogmas, as much it is as a consequence of plans and policies, both public
and private that promoted urban dispersal processes. The federal Housing
Administration and the Veteran Administration agency, facilitated millions of home
mortgages; discouraging, in the meantime, the renovation of existing housing, mixed-
use or any other kind of more urban housing types. Concurrently, billions of dollars
were allocated for road improvement and, more importantly, a 41,000 mile interstate
federal highway, making commuting affordable; while totally neglecting mass transit
systems. An inevitable housing exodus began as historic city neighborhoods were
gradually abandoned. Eventually, what was meant to be a desirable alternative to the
decline of the modern city, ended up being a terrible nightmare?
At first, jobs and shops remained in downtown, but a desire for shorter commutes and
the ever growing fear for the increasingly dilapidated city environment having lost
its social appealing-, plus a number of tax incentives, consolidated the already
established migration to suburbia. Soon, housing subdivisions (ironically, seldom
labeled as villages), business parks (?), shopping malls (sometimes known as
regional), plus key civic building -all environmentally aggressive- and complex road
networks, completed the picture.
Univocally, urban sprawling a sub-product of the, so called, modern city-, has proven
to be absolutely unsustainable. It eats-up vast areas of land, generates immense
traffic problems and wastes irrational amounts of energy. On top of that as foreseen
by Mumford- it ends up deepening social inequalities and human isolation.
However enlightening and premonitory Lewis Mumfords remarks -that can be traced
back to 1961-, reacting against the threads of modern town planning could be the
very essence of what will eventually be known as New Urbanism can be found in Leon
Kriers writings and ideas.
Krier, born in 1946 in Luxemburg (partially trained as an Architect, in Stuttgart-
Germany, in the 1960s) later moved to England; working for James Stirling, from 1969
to 1972. Staying in London, he taught at the Architectural Association and the Royal
College of Art. Subsequently, he was appointed as the first director of the Skidmore
Owings & Merrill Architectural Institute, in Chicago-IL. An influential neo-traditional
Architect (having built very few buildings) and city planner, Krier is particularly
important -and well known, for that matter- for his design of Poundbury; an urban
extension of Dochester-UK, for the Duchy of Comwall and-curiously enough- under
the guidance and scrutiny of the Prince of Walles. Poundbury, a vivid example of a
traditional model, will have a major influence in New Urbanism, in both sides of the
Atlantic.
Krier has been openly and unashamedly against modern town planning and its idea of
fragmenting the city into systems of zones (housing, working, shopping, industry,
entertainment, leisure, etc.), as much as he is against the subsequent generation of
suburbia and commuting. Throughout his writings he has tried to explain the rational
foundations of Architecture and the city; arguing -in the process- that in the language
of symbols there can be no misunderstandings. Indeed, buildings appear to have a
rational order and typology no matter how much we try to twist them-: a house is
house, a church is church and there are also roofs, columns, windows, etc. Essentially,
nameable objects.

Captivated by Kriers ideas and credo, New Urbanism emerged in the 1970s -but,
particularly, in the 1980s in the United States-, becoming an urban design
movement which promotes walkable communities containing a range of recognizable
building typologies, job types and activities. It states that the physical attributes of the
city must both reflect and promote essential ideas of a social, philosophical and urban
order. While heavily influenced by urban design standards -predominant in the pre-
automobile era, up until the mid twentieth century- it ought to be interpreted, first and
foremost, as a reaction towards the inability of the dogmas of Modern Urbanism to
solve the most basic needs of the citizen.

Architects, urban planners and designers, in tune with the movement in progress,
began working accordingly. First in isolation, but later as a cohesive group; organizing
what was to be known as the Congress for the New Urbanism, in 1993. Back in
1991, as an important precedent, most of the key promoters of the eventual
organization, gathered in Sacramento-CA, invited by al local non-profit organization, to
formulate a set of principles for community land use planning; labeled as the Ahwahnee
Principles (after a Yosemite National Parks hotel, where they were presented). Peter
Calthorpe, Michael Corbett, Elizabeth Moule, Stefanos Ployzoides, Daniel Solomon,
Andres Duany and Elizabeth Platter-Zyberk were the Architects invited. Duany and
Plater-Zyberk had already designed and built the very well known, and appreciated,
town of Seaside, in the Florida panhandle; and were eagerly and actively promoting the
ideas and principles of New Urbanism, both through their numerous projects and in
the School of Architecture at the University of Miami; where Plater-Zyberk was and
still is- the Dean and has made it a real hub for the movement.
Based on Chicago, the Congress for the New Urbanism, the leading international
organization promoting New Urbanism principles, has grown to several thousand
members, and keeps holding annual events throughout cities in the United States.

As fundamentally outlined by Elizabeth Moule and Stefanos Polyzoides, and as debated

in the Congress for the New Urbanism, these are its Design Principles and
Guidelines:

INTRODUCTION:

The form of the city, as proposed by the New Urbanism, is realized by the
assembly of streets, blocks and buildings. In the act of making a city, a place is
defined and space is allocated for both public and private use (for buildings and for
open spaces).
A plan is to be laid down by a governing body, regulating private and public initiative in
the construction of its parts. Public bodies, citizens and entrepreneurs generate
streets, squares and parks. Single buildings incrementally introduced into blocks-
determine the character of the open spaces and it is at this scale that Architecture
and Urbanism define each other.
It should be noted, however, that that very simple city making model and quite
American, for that matter- has been virtually abandoned in recent years. For the last
half a century, the building of the public realm has been handled with little or no
regard for those it serves and for the quality of life that it generates.
Increasingly, architecture has become the instrument of excessive self-expression.
Individual buildings are often conceived as solely self-referential objects, incapable of
generating the public realm. Conversely, our public regulation system of zoning, that
controls the growth of the city, has become overly verbal, complicated and incapable
of accurately guiding physical form. Zoning conflates issues of use, density and form to
such an extent that it has spawned the unpredictability and visual chaos, so typical of
the American city today. What many confuse as an unregulated and unfriendly urban
landscape is actually the result of wrongly coded and uncritical design.
The New Urbanism seeks a fresh paradigm to ensure and to order the public realm,
through streets, blocks and buildings. Streets, blocks and buildings are
interdependent; and each one contains to some degree- the ingredients of all the
others. Any decision to design streets, in a particular fashion, seals the formal fate of
blocks and buildings. Blocks of a specific character determine correspondent streets
and buildings. Buildings of particular qualities dominate the blocks that contain them
and the streets that surround them.
The matrix for addressing the totality of street, block and building principles of the
New Urbanism is design not policy planning- and amount to an aesthetic position.
But this position is not about the definition of style, particularly a revivalist one. Nor is
it about diminishing design freedom. Instead, it is a method of design that is rooted in
first causes and historical precedents. It is an attitude of expression that values the
cultural variety inherent in climatic, social, economic and technical differences. It is
also a professional ethic that stresses the integration of all architecture, landscape
architecture, engineering and design disciplines; the active collaboration among their
practitioners and the active participation of the public in the design process. Above all,
it is about to ensuring that there is a public realm. A city is a human artifact, which is
a collection of places and things. It is what we are born into and what we leave behind.
What we have in common is not only that which we share with the living, but that
which we share with those before us and those after us. The city is, therefore, based
on permanency.
An accessible (socially and physically) and truly shared place can be guaranteed at the
most elemental scale through the following principles and guidelines, which employ
simple and physically determined methods, over those that are complicated and solely
legal-minded.

PRINCIPLES AND GUIDELINES:

THE STREET

1. Definition: Streets are communal rooms and passages; not dividing lines within
the city.
2. Pattern: A single given street should always be part of a network. Connectedness
and continuity of movement, within such network, must be encouraged by the
mixing of uses in the city. The traffic load, on any one street, shall be minimized
by a variety of alternative paths connecting various destinations.
3. Hierarchy: There is to exist a variety of streets, based on their pedestrian and
vehicular loads. Under no circumstance will a street be abandoned solely to
vehicular traffic. Conversely, streets should not be assigned solely to pedestrians
use; which would sap their vitality. Distances between intersections must favor
the walkability of streets and a proper rhythm of building forms on given blocks.
4. Figure: The architectural character of streets is to be based on their
configuration in plan and section. Building heights are to be proportionally related
to right-of-way widths. The number of traffic lanes should balance vehicle flow
and pedestrian crossing considerations. Shifts in scale within street sections are to
be accomplished by the design of the landscape, building edges and other vertical
streetscape elements.
5. Detail: The design of the streets shall favor their proper use by pedestrians. The
governing principles are:
Minimized block radii to slow cars at intersections, allowing easy crossing
by pedestrians.
Landscaped medians to reduce apparent street widths.
Two ways streets that improve pedestrians crossing safety.
Properly designed curbs and sidewalks at intersections that accommodate
the impaired.
Street parking; protecting pedestrians from the actual and perceived
danger or moving traffic.

THE BLOCK

1. Definition: Blocks are the field in which unfolds both the building fabric and the
public realm of the city. It is a versatile, traditional and ancient instrument that
 allows a mutually beneficial relationship between people and vehicles in an urban
space.
2. Size: Blocks are to be square, rectangular or irregular in their shape. In their best
historical dimensions, they vary between a minimum of 250 and a maximum of
600 feet. The dimensional range should allow single buildings to easily reach the
edges of the block at all densities. It also forces parking to be located away from
the sidewalk, either underground, in the middle of the block or in the street.
3. Configuration: Independent of shape, city blocks are to be lotted so that all their
sides can define public spaces. A variety of widths and depths of individual lots
determine the range of building types and densities that will eventually establish
the intended city fabric. Initial lotting shall plan for this. Alleys shall absorb
parking and servicing loads and allow blocks to become more intensely
pedestrian.
4. Streetground: At its perimeter, each block is to be divided into parkway, sidewalk
and set-back. Within each block, lobbies, major ground floor interior spaces and
public gardens of all kinds and sizes are to be understood as an extension of the
public space of the city.
5. Streetwalls: The predominant visual character of all built fabric should depend on
several attributes of building envelopes:
Their height (defining the enclosure of the street).
Mandated setbacks and projections (defining the enclosure of the street
and establishing the fundamental rhythm between open space and built
form in each block).
Their maximum width (defining the buildings mass, along with their
height).
Thresholds elements at the setback line; such as arcades, porches, stoops,
stairs, balconies, eaves and cornices, loggias, chimneys, doors and
windows, etc. (elements by which building interface with and determine the
life of the street).
6. Parking: The omnipresence of cars, within the public realm, threatens the vitality
of cities. Accommodating the pedestrian is the first order of priority for parking.
When determining parking:
Cars are best accommodated in the middle of blocks or underground.
Parking garages are acceptable as long as their ground floors at the
sidewalks are occupied by pedestrian related uses.
Parking garages are to be regular buildings and, as such, need significant
public faces and the built-in spatial redundancy necessary for a future other
than parking.
Where parking lots are inevitable, they should double up as significant
public gardens.
7. Landscape: Regularly planted trees along blocks shall establish the overall space
and scale of the street as well as that of the sidewalk. These artifacts from mans
historical contact with nature remain a psychically critical element of urbanism:
The choice of particular species of trees and the patterns of their placement
affect light and shadow, color, views all significant aspects of the
experience of place-.
Public open-space types (civic parks, neighborhood parks, etc.) shall be
designed to be inhabited, not solely viewed.
 Semi-public spaces (quads, courtyards, patios) are to give life and internal
character to urban blocks.

THE BUILDING

1. Definition: Buildings are the smallest increment of growth in the city. Their proper
configuration and placement, relative to each other, determines the character of
each settlement. Buildings are instruments for constructing time and place, not
items to be consumed and discarded. For all practical and symbolic purposes, they
are permanent fixtures in the landscape and the city.
2. Use: Neither of the two opposing extreme views if architectural use put forward
by the Modern Movement functionalism and universal flexibility (isotropism)-,
adequately addresses the making of a city or town. They have resulted in
exclusive zoning and the fragmentation and disconnection of parts of the city from
each other.
3. Design: Buildings are to be designed by reference to their type, not solely their
function. This allows for some changes in use and for multiple adaptations over
time, without compromising a buildings form or rendering it obsolete. This is also
critical from an environmental point of view. Architectural design is deeply bound
within the culture of each region of the country. Building types, not building
styles, are to be the source of historical continuity in our towns and cities. Further
design should be based on research that establishes the viability of historic,
regional types that may have possible local applications. It is from the mix of
time-tested and new architectural models that authentic regional buildings
differences can emerge. Buildings should be designed with enough material and
technical quality to allow their continuing renovation and reuse.
4. Form: There exist two kinds of buildings:
Fabric; which are buildings that are to conform to all street and block-
related rules and are consistent in their form with all others.
Monumental; which are buildings that are to be free of all formal
constraints. They can be unique and idiosyncratic; the points of
concentrated social meaning in the city.
5. Architectural Expression: Frontally, the building shall allow three scales of
architectural expression. One that emphasizes the public character of streets;
another that reflects the semi-public nature of open spaces interior to the block;
and a third one that responds to the service nature of alleys and backyards.
6. Type: Buildings types are to be organized by reference to dwelling, employment
or institutional first uses. Their definition is based on their common architectural
ingredients.
5. Density: Floor Area Ratio (FAR) zoning regulations are totally abstract and favor
the design of buildings as singular objects.
They are to be replaced by building envelope guidelines that link
entitlements with predictable physical and architectural definitions of the
public realm.
Density regulations shall be stated independently of building use and
parking.
 Parking requirements shall be established on a neighborhood and district
basis as opposed to building by building. They are to be phrased by their
intended architectural and urban consequences, not just numerically.

CODING

1. Definition: Specific street, block and building design rules for public or private
development, typically presented in the form of a code.
2. Character: Code should be simply written and illustrated. It must be brief and
intensely physical in their prescriptions.
3. Content: Their content amounts to a covenant among the owners, designers and
users of particular projects. Eventually their individual interest and actions will
incrementally, but inevitably, generate the public realm.
4. Application: The judicious application of codes is to result in a diverse, beautiful
and predictable fabric of buildings, open space and landscape that can structure
villages, towns, cities and, indeed, the metropolitan region. Architecture and
urbanism shall not be separated; nor shall formal social, economic and
technical/functional issues be considered in isolation.
Coding process: The process of coding should fully operate within the American urban
tradition of safeguarding the public realm; while allowing significant freedom for
the designers of individual buildings. It is in the balancing of such public and
private interests and concerns that future of quality of in the American city lies.

EXAMPLES OF NEW URBANISM:

Seaside: Nested into the Florida panhandle, the city of Seaside is widely considered as
a prime example of New Urbanism.
Completed in 1982, by Duany Plater Zyberk, with a decisive input from Leon Krier, it
has provided a basic understanding of how to codify architectural elements and, in the
process, defining pertinent prototypes. In the meantime, univocally, the town has
understood and valued, for that matter- the sense of place; while emphasizing a
pedestrian scale.
Seaside includes buildings by Architects, such Leon Krier himself, Walter Chatam,
Deborah Berke, Alex Gorlin, Steven Holl, Robert Davis, Robert Stern, Aldo Rossi and
Machado and Silvetti (among many others); some of whom have been critical, and
actually challenged, the cuteness or excessive historicism often promoted for well
known reasons- by the New Urbanism.

Seaside images: 1 to 6
1. View from the Square to Seaside Avenue.
2. At the Square. Modica Market (Deborah Berke) and the Hybrid
Building (Steven Holl).
3. The Hybrid Building (Steven Holl).
4. The Post Office (Robert Davis).
5. Typical pedestrian alley.
6. Down from a beach folley (Steven Mouzon).
Celebration: Occupying an area of 5,000 acre (20 km), its Master Plan was developed
by Robert Stern (with Cooper, Robertson and Partners). Intended to resemble a
community of the early 20th. century, it is located in the Orlando-FL area and it is a
project that the Walt Disney Corporation has undertaken, hoping to develop a town
worthy of the brand and legacy that extended to Walt Disneys of an Experimental
Prototype Community of Tomorrow (EPCOT). In this case curiously enough- by
looking at the past it was completed in 1996.
Consistent with well established New Urbanism principles, a range of housing choices
to serve people of diverse ages and income level is displayed in Celebration. Schools
and other nearby destinations are reachable by walking, bicycling or transit service and
an affirming, human-scaled public realm -with appropriately designed buildings- define
and enhance streets and other spaces.

Celebration images: 7 to 10
7. Front Street view. Downtown.
8. Bloom Street view. Downtown.
9. Bloom Street pavilion.
10.City Hall on Water Street (Philip Johnson)

Abacoa: A 2,050 acre (8.2 km) community in Palm Beach County-FL, a community
planned by Duany Plater Zyberk, shaped in a way that the environmental integrity of
the sustainability of the site is ensured; while an ample range of affordable housing
types is offered in a pedestrian-scaled urban form.
A mixed-use main street in the center organizes and concentrates the economic
activities in the city; where some dedicated uses, that are critical to the towns life, are
established.

Abacoa images: 11 to 13.

11. The Town Center.
12. City view.
13. City view.

The Waters: Located in Pike Road, adjacent to Montgomery, Alabamas capital city, is a
thoughtfully designed Traditional Neighborhood Development (TND); according to a
New Urbanism planning system that includes a variety of housing types and land uses
in a defined area, including educational facilities, civic building and commercial
establishments to be located within walking distances. As a TND, The Waters is served
by a network of paths. Present and future modes of transit have been also considered
during the planning stages.
Public and private spaces have equal importance, creating a wide range of homes and
business owners. The inclusion of civic spaces in the form of parks and squares
underline the community identity and values; while the prevailing architectural styles
derives from historical models, mostly found in places like Charleston-South Carolina.
The Waters, originally sketched by DPZ, is, basically, a project of Steven Mouzon and
is still under construction.

The Waters images: 14 to 17.

14. Avenue of The Waters view.
15. Prototypical house along the Avenue of The Waters.
16. View towards the Church.
17. Boat House (Steven Mouzon).

Hampstead: A DPZ project located on 400 acres (1.6 km) of farmland adjacent to
Alabamas Interstate 85, on the East side of Montgomerys fastest growing area. The
plan features three neighborhoods, each with its own civic buildings and public
gathering spaces. Each neighborhood center has been designed taking into
consideration the natural features of the land, along with an optimal pedestrian shed of
five-minute walk from the center to the edge. A man-made lake, dammed from an
existing creek running through the site, forms the center of the development.
A town center faces a main thoroughfare and contains commercial establishments, as
well as apartments and live/work units. Neighborhood civic buildings act as a resource
for the town residents.

Hampstead images: 18 and 19.

18. View of the Town Center, facing a main thoroughfare.
19. Prototypical house.

Mt. Laurel: Placed on a site of varied topography, in the outskirts of Birmingham-

Alabama the largest city in the state- it might be considered as one of the most
complex and successful projects ever undertaken by Duany Plater Zyberk. The steep
terrain prompted the design of individual home sites on difficult slopes. New house
street garage relationships were conceived to fit the slope conditions. Local building
styles, in an effort to develop a new traditional one and many neglected traditional
types, were reassumed.
The town was chartered in 1998.

Mt. Laurel images: 20 and 21.

20. View of Main Street.
21. Fire Station on Main Street.

Aqua: This highly interesting project, by Duany Plater Ziberk, sits on Allyson Island,
Miami Beach-FL, squeezed onto a very narrow strip, between ordinary (almost ugly)
high-rise residential towers, along a water canal, and homes across the intercoastal. It
is also an attempt to fuse two philosophies that have been, literally, at war, since the
planning of Seaside and its near obsession for neo-traditional styles: the old vs. the
new as it relates to the very principles of New Urbanism.
Aside from clustered rows of densely pastel-colored packed townhouses, the
development includes three residential high-risers -one of which is a old hospital that
has been recycled for dwelling-, that serve as a visual barrier between the sordid
blocks of neighboring Miami Beach and the houses.
Not less interesting is the fact that buildings have been designed by a number of very
talented Architects, that have skillfully managed to display creativity, while adhering to
a very tight set of norms and guidelines. The experience can be compared with the
unforgettable Stuttgarts Weissenhof Exhibition of the Deutscher Werkbund, in 1927,
led by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe.

Aqua images: 22 to 25.

The Village of Tannin: Planned and designed by Duany Plater Zyberk around 2002-, it
is located on the north shore of the Gulf of Mexico, near the city of Orange Beach-
Alabama; being an irregular property impacted by a linear dune and a diagonal
wetland formation. A town square close to a nearby highway did allow for the
incorporation of public and civic buildings; such a village hall, an interactive fountain, a
regional fire station and a post office.
The Village of Tannin regulations rigidly prescribe the architectural vocabulary of
traditional southern building types; including those that specify construction materials
and techniques that are affordable and readily available.
At a lesser scale, The Village of Tannin still in the making- has fostered the most
essential ideas of New Urbanism as, in many instances, resembles Seaside; done
twenty years earlier.

The Village of Tannin images: 26 to 28.

26. View of Meeting Street.
27. Pool pavilion.
28. Pedestrian alley.

Alys Beach: One of the latest endeavors of Duany Plater Zyberk, between Seaside and
Rosemary Beach, in the Florida Panhandle, Alys Beach seeks to achieve an overall
atmosphere of calm and simplicity in harmony with nature. Basically inspired in the
architecture of the Bermuda Islands, of simple volumes of whitewash masonry and
stucco cladding, buildings in town are organically shaped. Structures are grouped into
small compounds unified by perimeter walls of various heights and forms;
incorporating patios, also typical of the Caribbean islands. All streets lead to the beach,
and the Main one to a waterfront plaza that serves as the primary gathering place in
the community.
The town takes advantage of a number of urban design and architecture techniques to
convey a harmonious relationship between people and the environment; mostly
through a pedestrian-friendly and a mixed use plan.
Alys Beach images: 29 to 32.
29. Symbolic entrance to the city, along a major highway.
30. Main Street view.
31. Interaction between man-made features and existing landscape.
32. Clubhouse. Example of adopted architectural style.

IMAGES (*):
(*) From Jose Luis Colmenares collection.

Image 1 Image 2 Image 3

Image 4 Image 5 Image 6

Image 7 Image 8 Image 9

Image 10 Image 11 Image 12

Image 13 Image 14 Image 15

Image 16 Image 17 Image 18

Image 19 Image 20 Image 21

Image 22 Image 23 Image 24

Image 25 Image 26 Image 27

Image 28 Image 29 Image 30

Image 31 Image 32