A Study on the effectiveness of urban design approach to curb haphazard development and generate humane built fabric in cities

Abstract

Modern cities, all over the world, are in a serious plight, speeding on towards their decline, losing their identity and character On account of this, chaos has set in and haphazard development has become a marked characteristic in urban environments making most of the cities inhumane. This is mainly due to the inability of the later designs to capture the character and the essence prevailing in the building fabric and incorporate them in new designs. By analyzing various approaches or techniques oriented to curb haphazardness, this study reveals Urban Design approach as the only holistic approach to find out meaningful solutions for problems of the urban built environment. Further investigations on this approach reveal that the three main components of urban design, I.e., the Square or the Plaza, the Street, and the buildings that make up the puhlic face of towns and cities, need to be cohesively arranged in order to avoid haphazardness. Moreover, they reveal that organizing the built environment of the above three urban design components so as to bring out visual, functional, environmental and experiential qualities of towns and cities will not only contribute to avoid haphazardness, but also help in generation of humane built fabric. This study is an attempt to make it clear that the avoidance of haphazard development by the urban design approach would be an achievement which would help to create meaningful urban situations, avoiding chaos or monotony, because it is evident that avoiding haphazard or chaotic development and making cities more humane, would make them more liveable and pleasing to the society as a whole.