Urban Design Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Urban Design - Essay Example These places also include bikeways, plazas, waterfronts, view corridors, transportation hubs, and natural features, building interfaces, landmarks, squares, nodes, pedestrian ways and bridges. To maintain high quality public realm, arc must be the overall driving force. In some cities, the public realm is not an original person’s idea; some ideas are gotten from cities that the public realm has worked. Public realm has four categories: public spaces, streetscapes, parks and coastal areas. Coastal areas – these areas include all areas of land that are along or adjacent to large water bodies. Parks – these are open spaces to the community that are used as recreational facilities; parks include wadi systems, mountain ridges comprised of natural areas. Public places – include open areas that surround the community that is used for public assembly or gathering and is visible to the entire public. Streetscapes – these are elements of the streets which comprise visual objects, and they include trees, roads, sidewalks, open spaces, street furniture, benches and trees – all these combined to form the street’s character. Reasons why urban designers should pay attention to the public realm are to satisfy their clients’ needs, who include the entire public. ... Caring for the public and paying attention to the public realm example in the open squares and park is important because this is a convergence place for the interaction of the public. The ways in which the public has access to the towns or areas of interest is dictated by the mode in which the â€Å"public realm† was set. Buildings and all that encompasses the public realm should be designed in a way that maximum safety is offered and the public is at its optimum security while accessing such public places. If these places are safe, then running of business will be smooth, and everything will be flowing according to what they are planning in the short and in the long run. Attention should also be given to the ways in which the roads are designed, i.e. there should be pedestrian crosses in the roads where there is much public usage. There should be road signs along the highways, and the roads should be properly calibrated if it is a two way road. Strategies and techniques used by designers to enhance the public realm are to ensure places retain their uniqueness by not changing the place’s physicality, making sure that development does not greatly interfere with the way the layout of the street is. Designers enhance this by holding open forums with the public where they discuss emerging issues in their cities, towns, villages or places of their dwellings. In their discussions, they come up with ways to solve the emerging issues or find solutions to their problems. Other strategies that designers use are acquiring ideas from places with well descent established public realm and incorporating the ideas into places where it has not been tried. Though this