Principles of town centre design : an examination of their applicability towards the creation of habitable urban environments

Abstract

Cities and Towns are complex human settlements, in which the natural surroundings are dominated by man made features. Since the evolution of earliest urban civilisation, cities have undergone drastic changes resulting in present urban forms. As the most developed animal on earth, the man needs to organise his physical environment in a functional and meaningful way. Therefore city forms are of the utmost importance as the manifestation of human development. Town centres play a vital role in these human functions. They are special places of physical character, meaning and a unique form in the urban fabric. Cities and towns are created by people and changed by people. Although built forms and open spaces are important constituents in a city form its inhabitants are the most important when considering the vitality of a city. In other words, people bring life to a city and one without human habitation is a dead city. "Man's personal worlds has its centre within these entrances of world and home, centre is a continuum of hierarchy of overlapping centres serving different communities of groups. It is the design, physical definition or reinforcement of these centres which at the core of the disciplines of architecture, urban design and planning.'''' (Cliff, 1992:19) City or town centres are the strategic points around which the human habitation revolves. They are activitywise, meaningwise and spatialwise special from other parts in the structure of a city or town. These qualities further differ from centre to centre resulting in the existence of different types of centres in the urban context. These differences in character, function, meaning and hierarchy can be spatially expressed in two interrelated ways.