The urban landscape: designing with ensembles

Urban design is the design of towns and cities, streets and other urban spaces. Urban design is thus by definition concerned with creating -spatial or functional- ensembles. If the urban environment is merely a collection of accidental human interventions there is no design as such, as design implicates a conscious decision on the look and functioning and thus spatial arrangement of the component parts.  Even if urban design is only approached as the part of planning concerned with the physical form of the city, it is still all about creating ensembles. Urban design is about the complex relationship between all the elements of built and unbuilt space.

Designing with ensembles has a long history, it is actually what creates a sense of place and space within the city. Human intervention is most often at the basis of an urban environment; more often than not such an intervention is or develops into a spatial ensemble. The ensemble can also be functional to begin with, for instance the Paltz in Frankfurt, but grow into a spatial ensemble of buildings and places. This is visible in The Hague where a hunting lodge developed into the residence of the Counts of Holland, which in turn became the central meeting place of the States General of the Dutch Republic and is now the parliament building of the Netherlands. An ensemble of old and new residence and cathedral is at the heart of Bamberg, which started again as a Paltz. At the heart of the medieval city of Cologne the Roman Capitol Temple Complex was firstly reinvented as the seat of the Mayor of the Palace and later transformed into the Church and Convent of Mary (in the Capitol); each ensemble functionally and thus spatially different.

The Grote Markt (Great Market) in Herentals with the medieval Lakenhal (Cloth hall) witch doubled up as a town hall. The market square is rather oblong in shape and should be understood as a widened street. The Cloth hall with carillon tower was built in the middle of this public space, at the point where two older routes cross. The situation was changed to create this functional and spatial ensemble.

Designing architectural ensembles was a preoccupation in Roman cities, where it was the norm that rulers would erect monuments, temples, arches, halls, peristyles around public squares and even public gardens to commemorate special events or notable people. This tradition also existed in other ancient cultures, for instance in, South America, Egypt and China. The city thus became a showcase of human history and aspiration made visible and translated into place. In contrast the urban ensembles in medieval cities were mostly functional, but did develop into places. One only has to think of the newly laid large market bordered by guild houses and a town hall with trading floor in Antwerp or the many beguinages (for instance the city within a city in Lierre) which contrast with the church freedoms that developed as separate island within cities like Munich, Ghent or Aix-le-Chapelle (Aachen). In the latter the buildings within the church freedom -which corresponds again with a roman site (a thermal bath complex) and grew out of the Paltz of Charlemagne. Medieval urban ensembles can be formal but often are informal and non-symmetrical.

This formal ensemble, inspired by classical architecture sits in the middle of the garden village Gelaardse Kat (Puss in Boots) in Uccle (Brussels). It is a mix of an urban square with cover walkways and a baroque palace courtyard. The rest of the garden village is distinctly informal with curved streets.

Following on from classical antiquity, the renaissance saw the conscious creation of urban ensembles in an effort to create a place. Architectural and philosophical theory even lead to the emergence of so-called ideal cities -always on a regular layout with a strict order and distribution of functions. Only a few such urban layouts were realised, mainly as a new settlement or in rebuilding one. Urban ensembles were conceived as spatial interventions shaped by the architecture. During the baroque and classicist eras urban ensembles relied heavily on architecture, symmetry and axial compositions. The spaces created are often so vast that they are no longer relatable for humans. This is especially the case in large residential cities, most notably newly-built ones like Ludwigsburg, Karlsruhe, Mannheim, Ludwigslust and Versailles. Baroque interventions in existing cities are insular and often strictly axial in character; only think of the papal improvements to Rome (new straight roads and new squares) or Bernini’s masterstroke St Peter Square.

The Neustadt of Darmstadt was created in the 18^th century after the fortifications of this residential capital had been decommissioned. It comprises of a grid of streets with several axial compositions. The first axis leads to the Luisenplatz (left). In the 19^th century the grid was expanded, the axis that starts at the Luisenplatz and culminates in the Ludwigskirche is from this period.

Axial ensembles would prove a lasting legacy as the various classicist new towns -often on a grid, but always with a central compositions of an axis between two specific points- show. Only think of the new town of Potsdam, de new town of Darmstadt or those in Berlin. An axial ensemble isn’t merely a clear line of sight across a site or an urban landscape, it needs a distinct beginning and end or it must be defined by the delineating of the edges along the line.  In the city axial compositions generally rely on a clear beginning and end with a road in between. Variations after about 1770 often lack a clear beginning and start at an open space like a (garden) square or park, but with a building or monument at the end. The space is also often laid out with green with rows of trees along the axis bordering a street, esplanade or canal. These axial compositions are everywhere, ranging from famous examples like the Eifel Tower at the end of the Champs de Mars and the Mall in Washington DC culminating in Capitol Hill. Axial ensembles are also used in more recent prestige projects, only think of La Defence a business district beyond the city limits of Paris proper. Sometimes architects chose to ignore an axis, as was done in Brussels in the European quarter, where each of the large office blocks creates its own spatial context thus denying the axis of the Rue de la Loi – Avenue Tervueren. The result is an informal grouping with badly defined public spaces (not a true ensemble, as the buildings were conceived and inserted in the context as singular entities with little regard for the surrounding buildings).

The cite-jardin Floreal in Brussels is a housing project with many informal ensembles according to Unwinesque planning principles. The buildings are often asymmetrical and sometimes symmetrical, but than always arranged in an informal asymmetrical way. The contrast of the unified design with neighbouring buildings is often quite distinct, making this garden village an urban landscape ensemble.

Besides formal and axial ensembles, urban ensembles can also be informal or irregular. Such ensembles always feature an associated open space to appreciate the ensemble. These informal ensembles can be planned, but can also be the result of gradual development. Many of the famous city squares fall into this category, but also many beguinages. Informal and irregular ensembles were first planned in gardens and parks (the ferme ornée, or ornamental farm, often expanded into a picturesque village); only later with Historicism in architecture and Romanticism in the Arts did it become more prevalent in an urban context. Asymmetry is a feature of these buildings and urban ensembles. The building style can be Eclectic or Gothic revival, but also Art Deco, this is dependent on the place and the time of conception. Asymmetry and a picturesque appearance is also the main goal in vernacular architecture. Many of the housing projects that sprouted from the Garden City Movement centre on informal (sub)urban ensembles. These informal or irregular ensembles often revolve around a controlled progression of spaces to make a place.

The informal arrangement of small houses in the Tuinwijk Nijlen (a garden village) is highly controlled to make the most of the site and at the same time creating a unified design and a spatial configuration which differs from the surrounding urban sprawl.

Urban ensembles also work on a larger scale. I mentioned La Defence, which is part of the Axe Historique which starts at the Louvre, runs through the Tuileries Gardens, across the Place de la Concorde, through the Champs Elysees to the Grand Etoile with the Arc de Triomphe and then on via the Avenue Charles de Gaulle to the Grand Arche, a distance of around eight kilometres. Ensembles also play a role in the definition of the urban landscape; the component parts of this urban landscape each with distinct spatial or design characteristics could be viewed as ensembles. Such urban landscape ensembles are prerequisite for an urban environment that is legible and thus a collection of places. Without, the urban landscape becomes an amorphic mass, a jumble of elements with no reciprocal relation. Commercial and individual urban sprawl are examples.

The Tuinwijk De Bosuil is not a garden village, as the name ‘tuinwijk’ would suggest, but a modernist social housing estate comprised of large apartment buildings surrounded by low-rise apartment buildings and rows of family housing. It thus is very distinct from the surrounding urban landscape in this section of Deurne (Antwerp).

Urban landscape ensembles can be discernible on pattern, spatial configuration, building mass and architecture. Changes in pattern with the urban landscape are often best visible at the edges or on a map. Especially in combination with the other key characteristics pattern is legible as a discerning attribute. Spatial configuration is much more legible. An historic city core has a totally different spatial configuration to a modernist high-rise estate or to a garden village. Spatial configuration is especially important where the design is based on repetition of component parts, which provides a unifying expectation of the ensemble. Repetition can also include a set variation in building mass which is repeated in units.  Building mass can also be characteristic when there is a discernible difference in building mass between one area and the other. This works much better if the difference in building mass is also visible in the architecture. Differences in architecture revolve around style, details, materials and so on. Consciously designed urban landscape ensembles often have a single expression in the architecture, or the architecture of the component parts is a variation on a theme. Even urban landscape ensembles with contrasting architecture are possible, but there the building mass or spatial configuration has to be such that the buildings relate to one another and/or diverge from surrounding urban areas. Most contemporary interventions don’t strive to produce an ensemble, nor on a small scale or on the scale of the urban landscape.

The Moorlands Estate in Brixton (London) has a brutalist wall of apartments with low-rise housing behind it. Both in design, materials used and spatial configuration of building masses this estate differs from other modernist estates nearby (Loughborough Estate), older municipal housing estates and Victorian suburban housing. It is thus an urban landscape ensemble.