Director's Column

I had always though that life was too short to waste time trying to define urban design precisely. The definition in the DETR's 'By Design' as 'the art of making places for people' seemed perfectly adequate: suitably vague and mildly inspirational. But I have changed my mind. The current position of urban design makes it vital that we make ourselves very clear about what species of animal urban design is. More than ever, the built environment professions are finding immense difficulty in dividing up the world between them. Where do the respective roles of planner, architect, urban designer, engineer, landscape architect and surveyor begin and end? An individual these days is likely to have a range of skills (based on education, interests and experience) that conforms hardly at all to the remit of a single profession.

In this context UDAL (the Urban Design Alliance) presents an amazing opportunity. For the first time the UDG, the Civic Trust and five professional bodies have come together to express a common interest. UDAL has survived this far on the general conviction that urban design is a good thing. Now, though, it has to confront the serious question of what urban design actually is. Why, of all the many aspects of the built environment, was urban design chosen as the subject of this unique collaboration?

Let's try a new definition. Urban design is the collaborative and multi-disciplinary process of shaping the physical setting for urban life. Urban design is not the vague yearning for quality that it is sometimes supposed to be. It is a coherent process of change, with a clear focus on shaping the physical setting for urban life. Physical, because we are concerned with what gets built (and with the less tangible factors that provide the context); the setting for urban life, because our concern is with the very real questions of how people use and experience places.

It gets even more real than that. We can point to a set of generally accepted principles of urban design (see 'By Design' and the 'Urban Design Compendium'). We can point to a set of mechanisms for getting things done, including urban design frameworks (for areas) and development briefs (for sites), and a body of good practice on how they can be the basis of multi-disciplinary working and public collaboration within a democratic structure. In a world of professional confusion, urban designers can present a clear picture of their mission.

The Urban White Paper's welcome advocacy of urban design was all but buried in a flood of half-explained concepts and the desperate effort to demonstrate how busy the government was. That leaves the UDG with the job of explaining precisely what needs to be done if urban renaissance is to mean anything. That's why we are focusing on what the new PPG1 should say; working with UDAL and CABE to develop urban design education from cradle to grave (or at least schoolchild to councillor); and helping to work out just what UDAL must do if it is to fulfill its enormous potential. #

Robert Cowan

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