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particular of circumstances. Most cities can only take
one Bilbao Guggenheim or Glaswegian armadillo
CHAPTER FIVE
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GROWTH MANAGEMENT, DEVELOPMENT CONTROL AND URBAN DESIGN
117
Figure 5.9
Gateway Village, Charlotte, NC, Duda
Paine and David Furman, Architects, 2001. Urban
design guidelines by RTKL, 1997. These mixed-use
buildings in Charlotte’s city center all conform to
detailed urban design guidelines that establish
height, setbacks of top storeys, vertical rhythms and
the requirement for pedestrian level ‘permeability’,
that is, views into the ground floor uses by passing
pedestrians. This communicates a sense of safety
and urban activity.
Figure 5.10
Casa Mila, Barcelona, Antonio Gaudi,
1906–10. Gaudi’s building obeys the dictates of
Ildefonso Cerdá’s urban regulations with a simple
plan that follows the required height and massing
with its 45-degree corner splay. But within the
apartments, Gaudi explores very sophisticated
spatial rhythms, and his urban façade pulsates with
idiosyncratic detail. Even greater freedom is
evident on the roof, which is a riot of sculptural
ornamentation. All this architectural invention occurs
within a tightly controlled urban frame, and is all the
more resonant because of this contrast.
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profound metaphysical ideas about Catalonian
nationalism, yet the ground plans are modest and sub-
servient to the city context. This mixture of reticence
and flamboyance is a model for all contemporary
architects working in urban settings (see Figure 5.10).
The oft-quoted exhortation to ‘employ designers
of quality and trust them’ reveals the very worst of
outdated Fountainhead thinking, where the genius
architect, preferably with a tortured and misunder-
stood personality, stands alone as a beacon of honor
and artistic integrity against the venal idiocy of the
architecture profession, clients and public at large.
This is the antithesis of community design based
around charrettes to gather public input. To our
manner of thinking, the best designers are not those
who stand apart, and feel they know better. The
really best designers are talented, modest people who
welcome public participation and understand that
building cities is a collaborative act.
DESIGN FIRST: DESIGN-BASED PLANNING FOR COMMUNITIES
118
conference center however wonderful each building
may be as a unique object.
We like to quote the example of the Catalan archi-
tect Antonio Gaudi as an illustration of how architects
can create individually compelling and idiosyncratic
buildings without breaking the rules of established
urban typologies and urban design guidelines. Two of
Gaudi’s buildings in central Barcelona, the Casa Mila
apartment building (1906–10) and the nearby Casa
Battlo (1904–06) demonstrate conformity with the
urban design parameters established in 1859 by
Ildefonso Cerdá in the Eixample, the city’s massive
nineteenth-century expansion. Instead of breaking
the urban rules to express his own vision or to make
some kind of contrasting statement to the urban pat-
tern, Gaudi celebrated his personal architecture in the
design, materials and detailing of the building façades.
The vertical planes of both buildings are massively
rich in forms and details, expressing in some cases
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DESIGN FIRST: DESIGN-BASED PLANNING FOR COMMUNITIES