URBAN DESIGN

Urban design is the process of shaping the physical setting for life in cities, towns and villages. It is the art of making places. It involves the design of buildings, groups of buildings, spaces and landscapes, and establishing the processes that make successful development possible.

Architects would accuse planners of interfering with aesthetic matters about which they were not qualified to judge. Planners would accuse architects of designing buildings solely as objects, with little attempt to take account of their context or of their likely impact on the surroundings. In 1978 some architects and planners called a truce. This professional sniping is pointless, they said. We have something in common: we are all in the business of making places. That should be the basis of our working together.