Urban design concept

What is an urban design concept?

Very often I hear my concept is a sustainable city, green city, water city, city without cars, city of micro communities. These ideas are certainly not wrong, however they are quite general and not strong enough to underpin the architectural-urban design concept, show our authentic standpoint and understanding of an area.

The urban design concept requires going deeper into the context and content, asking questions, paying attention to the big picture as well as the details. Since we work in different scales and in a multidisciplinary field, we need a wider perspective and an investigative mind.

In urban design we aim not just to solve the existing problems, rather to be visionaries, to be able intuitively, with awareness and argumentative to anticipate spatial parameters, development and future of a certain context. Our new proposal can have influence on the larger scale of the city and the region.

Some of the questions that are worth asking to begin with anticipation are the following:

☆ Which stories, values, practices, atmospheres and poetic pictures are constituting the identity of the area? What do we notice when we are mapping? How does Everyday life flow?

☆ Which are the economic, political and social processes and problems that are a part of the place? We shouldn't just approach with pink glasses, and try to beautify a place, rather think critically and be very attentive.

☆ Which are the possible scenarios of that place? I would recommend answering this question through sketches, collages, photographs, mappings and sections, let your mind go free before you put some frames around your thinking…

☆ Which are some of your personal standpoints of living/designing the city? What do you support? Why? Inclusive places, gender friendly, places for all? Which actors do you include in the planning of your project?

☆ Which processes of formal and informal planning do you notice and you would like to include in your project?