1.alternate Visions For Cities: - Arcosanti (Paolo Soleri)

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ASSIGNMENT 3 - URBAN PLANNING

1.Alternate visions for cities: – Arcosanti (Paolo Soleri)


PAOLO SOLERI
● Paolo Soleri (21 June 1919 – 9 April 2013) was an Italian architect. He established the educational Cosanti
Foundation and Arcosanti.
● Through his work as an architect, urban designer, artist, craftsman, and philosopher
● Paolo Soleri explored the countless possibilities of human aspiration. One outstanding endeavor is Arcosanti, an
urban laboratory, constructed in the Arizona high desert. It attempts to test and demonstrate an alternative human
habitat that is greatly needed in this increasingly perplexing world.
ARCOSANTI
Arcosanti began its construction in the 1970s during a time of heady environmentalism in the United States. During that
time, several articles published by the New York Times reflect popular opinions ranging from enthusiasm for the vision to
architectural critique. Arcosanti has been in construction for about 45 years, yet is only about five percent complete. This
place has been built primarily by the over 7,000 volunteers who participated over the years in its construction workshops
and had an experiential learning experience. Progress is slow in part due to construction being financed primarily from
workshop fees and the sale of Soleri wind bells over the years. The approximately 35,000 visitors that come each year
have not only experienced Arcosanti but have also been helping to finance its construction.

Arcosanti is officially listed as a town in Arizona and even has its exit from
the interstate highway through a journey down a dirt road that is still
required to get to the site. It has residential housing and guest units as well
as a campground and a swimming pool. There are offices for planning,
information, and administration, educational classrooms and conference
spaces, and a greenhouse, gardens, and olive orchards. Arcosanti has a
restaurant and community café in the same Crafts III building as the visitor
center and the gallery that sells Soleri wind bells which are produced in a
bronze foundry and ceramics studio on site. There are also many cultural
and artistic events in various public performance spaces, including a public
area under the Vaults, and the Colly Soleri Music Center, which contains an
amphitheater, stage, and smaller music center lounge. Access to nature is
immediately available with hiking trails and riverbeds just off the mesa that
Arcosanti is located on since the site is surrounded by approximately four
thousand acres of undeveloped land.
Arcosanti is designed to contain homes, offices, parks, and a cultural center
and has a mixture of uses so that people work, live, play, and learn in
spaces adjacent to each other. Yet despite these various facilities Arcosanti
could not yet be considered the urban area it aspires to be but is rather
more like a village. There is not yet the complexity or range of services or
the economic and social opportunities found in an existing city, nor is there
extensive ethnic or class diversity. Arcosanti houses a community that is
usually between 50 to 100 people composed of residents, workshop
participants, and visitors. Residents are primarily people who took a
workshop and then decided to stay on for a while to continue to live at
Arcosanti and work on building a sustainable Arcology.

Arcosanti Crafts III Restaurant and Arcosanti Pedestrian Way


Community Café
2.New Urbanism

New Urbanism is an urban planning and design movement that began in the United States in the early 1980s. Its goals
are to reduce dependence on the car, and to create livable and walkable, neighborhoods with a densely packed array of
housing, jobs and commercial sites. New Urbanism also promotes a return to the traditional town planning seen in places
such as downtown Charleston, South Carolina and Georgetown in Washington, D.C. These locations are ideal for New
Urbanists because in each one there is an easily walkable "Main Street," a downtown park, shopping districts and a
gridded street system. New Urbanism is an urban design movement which promotes walkable neighborhoods containing
a range of housing and job types. It arose in the United States in the early 1980s, and has gradually reformed many
aspects of real estate development, urban planning, and municipal land-use strategies. New Urbanism is strongly
influenced by urban design standards that were prominent until the rise of the automobile in the mid-20th century; it
encompasses principles such as traditional neighborhood design (TND) and transit-oriented development (TOD).[1]It is
also closely related to regionalism, environmentalism and the broader concept of smart growth. The movement also
includes a more pedestrian-oriented variant known as New Pedestrianism, which has its origins in a 1929 planned
community in Radburn, New Jersey

History of New Urbanism


In the beginning of the 19th century, development of American cities often took a compact, mixed-use form, reminiscent
of that found in places like old town Alexandria, Virginia. With the development of the streetcar and affordable rapid
transit however, cities began to spread out and create streetcar suburbs. The later invention of the automobile further
increased this decentralization from the central city which later led to separated land uses and urban sprawl. New
Urbanism is a reaction to the spreading out of cities. The ideas then began to spread in the late 1970s and early 1980s,
as urban planners and architects started to come up with plans to model cities in the U.S. after those in Europe. In 1991,
New Urbanism developed more strongly when the Local Government Commission, a nonprofit group in Sacramento,
California, invited several architects, including Peter Calthorpe, Michael Corbett, Andres Duany and Elizabeth
Plater-Zyberk among others, to Yosemite National Park to develop a set of principles for land use planning that focused
on the community and its livability. The principles, named after Yosemite's Ahwahnee Hotel where the conference was
held, are called the Ahwahnee Principles. Within these, there are 15 community principles, four regional principles and
four principles for implementation. Each one however, deals both past and present ideas to make cities as clean,
walkable and livable as possible. These principles were then presented to government officials in late 1991 at the
Yosemite Conference for Local Elected Officials. Shortly thereafter, some of the architects involved in creating the
Ahwahnee Principles formed the Congress for the New Urbanism (CNU) in 1993. Today, CNU is the leading promoter of
New Urbanists ideas and has grown to over 3,000 members. It also holds conferences yearly in cities across the U.S. to
further promote New Urbanism design principles
Core New Urbanists Ideas
Within the concept of New Urbanism today, there are 3 key ideas.
● The first of these is to ensure that a city is walkable. This means that no resident should need a car to get
anywhere in the community and they should be no more than a five minute walk from any basic good or
service. To achieve this, communities should invest in sidewalks and narrow streets. In addition to actively
promoting walking, cities should also de-emphasize the car by placing garages behind homes or in alleys.
There should also only be on-street parking, instead of large parking lots.
● Another core idea of New Urbanism is that buildings should be mixed both in their style, size, price and
function. For example, a small townhouse can be placed next to a larger, single family home. Mixed-use
buildings such as those containing commercial spaces with apartments over them are also ideal in this setting.
● Finally, a New Urbanists city should have a strong emphasis on the community. This means maintaining
connections between people with high density, parks, open spaces and community gathering centers like a
plaza or neighborhood square.

Examples of New Urbanists Cities


Although New Urbanists design strategies have been tried in various places across the U.S., the first fully developed
New Urbanists town was Seaside, Florida, designed by architects Andres Duany and Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk.
Construction began there in 1981 and almost immediately, it became famous for its architecture, public spaces and
quality of streets.

Criticisms of New Urbanism


Despite the popularity of New Urbanism in the recent decades, there have been some criticisms of its design
practices and principles. The first of these is that the density of its cities leads to a lack of privacy for residents. Some
critics claim that people want detached homes with yards so they are further away from their neighbors. By having
mixed density neighborhoods and possibly sharing driveways and garages, this privacy is lost. Critics also say that
New Urbanists towns feel inauthentic and isolated because they do not represent the "norm" of settlement patterns
in the U.S.
Finally, critics of New Urbanism argue that instead of promoting diversity and community, New Urbanists
neighborhoods only attract affluent white residents as they often become very expensive places to live. Regardless
of these criticisms though, New Urbanists ideas are becoming a popular form of planning communities and with a
growing emphasis on mixed-use buildings, high density settlements and walkable cities, its principles will continue
into the future.
3.Traffic and Road Network:
a.Define Traffic, Transport, Trip, destination., Demand

TRAFFIC
Traffic is the number of vehicles moving along roads, or the amount of aircraft, trains, or ships moving along a route.
Traffic characteristics:
● Road user characteristics - Broadly Classified into four
▫ Physical Characteristics - Vision, hearing, strength and reaction to traffic situation
▫ Mental Characteristics - Knowledge, skill, intelligence, experience, literacy
▫ Psychological Characteristics - Emotional factors such asfear, anger, anxiety
▫ Environmental Factors - traffic stream conditions, atmospheric conditions, facilities to the traffic
locality etc.
● Vehicular characteristics-
▫ Dynamic Characteristics
▫ Static Characteristics
▫ Breaking Characteristics
TRANSPORT
The process of moving an item from point A to point B.
Safe, efficient, reliable, and sustainable movement of persons and goods over time and space.
TRIP
A single movement from Origin to Destination for a particular purpose is called a Trip. People travel to reach their
activities at different destinations.
DESTINATION
The place where someone is going or where something is being sent or taken.
Destination of a trip is defined as the place visited that is central to the decision to take the trip.
DEMAND
Demand refers to the willingness and ability of consumers to purchase a given quantity of a good or service at a given
point in time or over a period in time.In economics, demand is formally defined as ‘effective’ demand meaning that it is
a consumer want or a need supported by an ability to pay – namely a budget derived from disposable income. Income
provides individuals with a purchasing power which they exercise in a market through effective demand.

b.Types of transport systems


Importance of Transportation:
● Without well-developed transportation systems, logistics could not bring its advantages into full play.
● A good transport system in logistics activities could provide better logistics efficiency, reduce operation cost,
and promote service quality.
● A well-operated logistics system could increase both the competitiveness of the government and enterprises.
Transport system is the most important economic activity among the components of business logistics
systems.
Types of Transport Systems
Rail Transport:
Advantages of Rail transport:
● It is a convenient mode of transport for travelling long distances.
● It is relatively faster than road transport. It is suitable for carrying heavy goods in large quantities over long
distances.
● Its operation is less affected by adverse weathers conditions like rain, floods, fog, etc.
Limitations of Railway transport:
● It is relatively expensive for carrying goods and passengers over short distances.
● It is not available in remote parts of the country.
● It provides service according to fixed time schedule and is not flexible for loading or unloading of goods at
any place.
● It involves heavy losses of life as well as goods in case of accident.

Road Transport :
Advantages of Road transport
● It is a relatively cheaper mode of transport as compared to other modes.
● Perishable goods can be transported at a faster speed by road carriers over a short distance.
● It is a flexible mode of transport as loading and unloading is possible at any destination.
● It provides door-to-door service.
● It helps people to travel and carry goods from one place to another, in places which are not connected by
other means of transport like hilly areas.
Limitations of Road transport
● Due to limited carrying capacity road transport is not economical for long distance transportation of goods.
● Transportation of heavy goods or goods in bulk by road involves high cost.

Water Transport
Advantages of Water Transport
● It is a relatively economical mode of transport for bulky and heavy goods.
● It is a safe mode of transport with respect to occurrence of accidents.
● The cost of maintaining and constructing routes is very low most of them are naturally made.
● It promotes international trade.
Disadvantages of Water Transport
● The depth and navigability of rivers and canals vary and thus, affect operations of different transport vessels.
● It is a slow moving mode of transport and therefore not suitable for transport of perishable goods.
● It is adversely affected by weather conditions.
● Sea transport requires large investment on ships and their maintenance.

Air Transport:
Advantages of Air Transport:
● It is the fastest mode of transport.
● It is very useful in transporting goods and passengers to the area, which are not accessible by any other
means.
● It is the most convenient mode of transport during natural calamities.
● It provides vital support to the national security and defence
Disadvantages of Air Transport:
● It is relatively more expensive mode of transport.
● It is not suitable for transporting heavy and bulky goods.
● It is affected by adverse weather conditions.
● It is not suitable for short distance travel.
● In case of accidents, it results in heavy losses of goods, property and life.

c.Classification of Roads
The classification of roads is mostly based on following conditions :
● According to traffic.
● According to transported tonnage.
● According to Importance.
● According to location and function.
The classification of roads based on traffic volume or tonnage have been arbitrarily fixed by different agencies and
there may not be a common agreement regarding the limits for each of classification group.

1. Classification of Roads According to Traffic :


Based on traffic volume the roads are classified as follows :

Types of Roads Vehicles Per Day


Very heavy traffic roads Above 600
Heavy traffic roads 251 to 600
Medium traffic roads 70 to 250
Light traffic roads Below 70

2. Classification of Roads According to Tonnage :


Based on total tonnage per day, the roads are classified as follows :

Types of Roads Vehicles Per Day


Very heavy traffic roads Above 1524
Heavy traffic roads 1017 to 1524
Medium traffic roads 508 to 1017
Light traffic roads Below 508
3. Classification of Roads According to Importance :
According to importance of connecting holy places, stations or major cities etc, roads are classified as follows :
● Class 1 Roads.
● Class 2 Roads.
● Class 3 Roads.
4. Classification of Roads According to Location and Function :
Classification based on location and function is defined clearly therefore it is more acceptable for a country. The
Nagpur road plan classifies the road in India based on location and function into following 5 categories :
1. National Highways (NH)
2. State Highways (SH)
3. Major District Highways (MDR)
4. Other District Roads (ODR)
5. Village Roads (VR)

Classification of Roads by Nagpur Road Plan


Different Road categories according to this classification are discussed below :
National Highways (NH) :
The main highways running through the length and breadth of India, joining major parts, capital of states, large
industrial and tourist centers, foreign highways including roads required for strategic movements for the defence of
India etc. are known as National Highways (NHs).
All the national highways are assigned with the respective numbers.
For example:
● Amritsar- Ambala- Delhi Road- NH1
● Delhi- Agra- Kanpur- Calcutta Road – NH2
● Agra- Mumbai Road- NH3
● Madurai and Rameswaram- NH 49
The responsibility of construction and maintenance of these roads lies with the central government. Central
Government holds the responsibility of construction and maintenance of these roads.
State Highways (SH) :
The highways linking up with the national highways of adjacent states, district headquarters and important cities with
the states are known as State Highways (SHs).
The geometric design specifications and design speed for NH and SH are same. These highways serve as arterial
routes of traffic from district road within the state.
The responsibility of construction and maintenance of these roads lies with state government. However, the central
government gives grant for development.
Major District Roads (MDR) :
The important roads within a district serving areas of production and markets and connecting these places with each
other or with the main highways are known as Major District Roads (MDRs).
The responsibility of construction and maintenance of these roads lies with District Authorities. However, the state
government gives grant for development of these roads.
Other District Roads (ODR) :
The roads serving rural areas of production and providing them with outlet to market centers, tehsil headquarters,
block development headquarters, railway stations etc. are known as Other District Roads (ODRs). This have lower
design specification than MDR.
Village Roads (VR) :
The roads connecting villages or group of villages with each other or with the nearest road of higher category are
known as village roads.
These roads are very important from the rural area development point of view. They are generally un-metalled with
single lane width of stabilized soil or gravel. The responsibility of construction and maintenance of these roads lies
with the local district authorities.

Classification of Road System by Third Road Development Plan (1981-2001)


According to the third road development plan, the roads in the country are classified into three classes, for the
purpose of transport planning, functional identification and assigning priorities on a road network :
● Primary System.
● Secondary System.
● Tertiary System.
1. Primary System :
● Expressways
● National Highways (NH)
(a) Expressways :
Expressways are a separate class of highways with superior facilities and design standard and are meant as through
routes having very high volume of traffic. These highways should permit only fast moving vehicles.
Expressway may be owned by central government or a state government depending on whether the route is a
national highway or state highway.
2. Secondary System :
The secondary system consists of two categories of roads
● State Highways (SH)
● Major District Roads (MDR)
3. Tertiary System :
The tertiary system are rural roads and these consists of two categories of roads :
● Other District Roads (ODR)
● Village Roads (VR)

Classification of Urban Roads :


The road system within urban areas are classified as urban roads. The urban authorities are responsible to take care
of these roads.
Generally the urban roads other than the expressways are classified as :
● Arterial Roads.
● Sub- Arterial Roads.
● Collector Streets.
● Local Streets.
Arterial Roads :
The streets primarily for through traffic on a continuous route, but with high level of traffic mobility are known as
arterial roads.
Sub- Arterial Roads :
The streets primarily for through traffic on a continuous route but have a lower level of traffic mobility than the arterials
are known as sub-arterial roads.
Collector Street :
The streets which provides access to arterial streets and they collect and distribute traffic from and to local streets is
known as collector streets.
Local Street :
The streets which provides access to abutting streets are known as local streets.

d.Types of traffic Survey


Road Inventory
● Inventory of road network system
“Inventory” - a complete list of items
● Review of existing transport infrastructure and facilities, including:
Flyovers/ underpasses,
Major intersections,
Parking/ Pedestrian / NMV facilities,
Level Railway Crossings Road Inventory
● Objectives
▫ To appreciate the physical characteristics of the identified road network in terms of right of‐ way, carriage way,
number of access points, surface type, etc.
▫ To identify physical constraints and bottleneck points along the identified road network.
▫ To assess the capacity potential of the identified road network
▫ To understand the existing transport situation in order to develop a rational land use and transport plan and
mobility improvement measures.
● Survey Methods: Manual
● Sampling Size
▫ Two sections for a roadwith similar land uses
▫ Samples to be collected wherever section has variation
● Expected Output
Physical characteristics and physical constraints of road network and transport infrastructure
Classifies volume counts
● This survey is carried out to understand the variety of vehicles that passes through a road over 24 hours a
day/ to get Average Daily Traffic (ADT).
● Objectives
▫ To appreciate traffic characteristics in terms of size, composition and variation – directional and temporal (wrt
time).
▫ To appreciate the spatial distribution of traffic
▫ To establish the level of service on the road network system Classified Volume Counts (CVC)
● Survey Methods
Manual Method
Video Photography
Using automatic devices like Sensors y
● Sampling Size
The traffic volume count surveys should be carried out continuously for 24 hours of the day, for three to seven
days to get Average Daily Traffic (ADT)
● Expected Output
▫ Traffic Characteristic of the study area
▫ Traffic volume
▫ Spatial distribution of traffic
▫ Circulation of traffic
Road Side Origin and Destination Surveys
● Road Side Origin and destination surveys at Cordon and Screen lines
● An imaginary line circumscribing the boundary of the study area is termed as the cordon line.
Imaginary lines along the physical and natural barriers, having road crossing points within the study area, are
termed as screen lines.
● Objectives
▫ To appreciate the traffic characteristics
▫ To appreciate the desired patterns of passenger and goods traffic
▫ To assess the intensity of through and destined traffic
▫ To use in model validation
● Survey Methods
▫ Roadside Interview Method (RSI)
▫ Registration Number Plate survey
● Sampling Size:
The survey should normally be conducted for three consecutive days, on sample basis, if possible during a
representative week in the year and must encompass the weekly market day and one working day
● Expected Output
▫ Travel pattern
▫ O‐D matrix to calibrate a transport demand model

References:
1.https://www.slideshare.net/akshathanandh/paolo-soleri-and-the-cities-of-the-future
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/316557549_Arcology_Arcosanti_and_the_Green_Urbanism_Vision
2. https://www.slideshare.net/amitpokhrel2/presentation-of-urban-design-1
3. https://civilengineeringnotes.com/classification-of-roads/
https://www.slideshare.net/Dhwani7887/traffic-transportation-surveys

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