it seems to me to be a very complex term. there are many different possible concept to it. it could be understood in terms of physical enclosing or exclusion but also separating different elements or it is just understood theoretical and could be a concept to describe relations of elements (city) or relations in terms of social networks. this to just name a few possibilities, I guess it could be very interesting to explore many more possible meanings of boundary as an urban design term.
but here to my example of basel.
I tried to look at the city under different aspects of the term boundary and would like to discuss different maps.
the google image without any drawings. the one we can see even here are the natural boundaries such as the rhine. there are at least two smaller creeks cutting trough the city but their impact disappeared after they have been covered all the way trough the city around 18th century. the river is a very strong separation still. the two sides have a different identity and the so called "grossbasel (bigger basel)" on the south-west side of the rhine, sees it self as much better than the poorer "kleinbasel (little basel)" on the north-east side.
the official political boundaries are something that does exist and of course has a strong impact on the environment. here in switzerland one can kind of sense the borderline only if your right there. especially here in the city the fabric doesn't really adapt to it. it stays hidden until one finally tries to cross it.
there are two main traveling modes on the city level. one is the car and the other one is the train. here in basel, as the city is small compared to the rest of the world, there is the national rail and the national highway that represent the two modes on this level. not only in their natural manifestation as linear elements but also in terms of covered land they act as boundaries within the city fabric.
cars
rail
basel has got the big pharmaceutical industry. there are five major sites within the city of basel where such companies produce. they are all closed to the public and therefor set up large blind spots within the city fabric. this makes it, in certain areas very difficult, if not impossible, to orientate.
these are a few examples from the city of basel. I do think it could be interesting to go deeper into this topic and look at the effects these kind of physical boundaries have and how the fabric and the inhabitants cope with this. for example can be seen, that certain areas boroughs developed very specific characters because of their relations and location to these boundaries.
what do you think would it be worth looking closer, and how could this be done, maps pictures or interviews with people?
2 comments:
Nice maps!! as always! I liked what you say about the boundaries or blind spots that are created in the cities because of infrastructure or large private areas that "dont belong to the public" it would be very interesting to see what happens around this areas, and if it is the right approach to deny the citizen of this pieces of land, but I am guessing this could be a good example of a "generator". I think the right approach would be by mapping and then selecting the most affected sites and visiting them, to analize the urban fabric and offcourse the people living in it. I remember talking with Jeff about the "urban bubbles" that are created in cities like london because of the great diversity of cultures, but as we have noticed this "bubbles" are created in any city and they are not only reflected by cultural aspects, but also by, social status, proffession or even sexual tendencies like chelsea in New York. So when we talk about baoundaries we must also talk about of what it is contained in this boundaries and the result of a mixture of boundaries or containments.
Basel is a very good start for discussing Basel. I agree with what L suggested – overlapping the maps and see if there is any correlation in between could be a helpful start, but I guess we need more information to investigate the relationship in city.
I realized the relationship between the medicine industries and railway stations. 4 of 5 are located on the railway alignment, but not sure if they are close to the station. Fan, when we talk about underground or railway, it would be helpful if we can spot the stations. The impacts of station and alignment could be different on the urban fabric and so as the pedestrian movement.
Moreover, the medicine industries are very close to the political boundaries. I suspect there is some political or administrative reason behind.
There are 2 points I would like to raise. The first thing – the relationship between generator and boundary. I wish you guys still remember our Blob project – we mentioned about generator and we thought that is the initiator of some activities. That could be true in the real case, but the mechanism may be more complicated as there are more than one generator and more than one type of generator in the city. Some generators physically exist, while some not; some are lifestyle of local, some are globally applicable. If we can categorize the generator, understand their scale of influence, how they change with time and dominating power, we can analyze past and current cities and hence better plan our cities. To me, the concepts of generator and boundary are one thing – try to explain the difference in the city, why and how. Generator is more like a centre of a boundary.
Second thing – the overlapping of influence of different generators. It raises a situation of transition area. This point follows the idea above. Boundary is the result of overlapping the influences of generators and hence there are always similarities and differences between areas. Some boundaries are very clear – political boundary / individual boundary, but some are non-linear or not bounded by physical, like economic boundaries and social boundaries, etc.
What I suggest is we may pick 2-3 significant generators and so as their boundaries to start our research. Political boundary will be easy to pick, but I think social should be one of the most important boundaries. Moreover, some tools like Space Syntax may be needed as they could be very helpful to compare different cities.
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