Spatial Strategies

As the Urban areas around the world expand, there is of course a need to derive some sort of ideal urban spatial strategies. This is becoming even more important with rapidly growing global populations. Hugh Barton writes extensively on the subject in Urban Form and Locality. This provides a more grounded approach to the concept of architectural fiction, identifying different ways in which the modern society can grow the built environment. 

Barton begins talking about the issues of future planing needs causing the integration of Academic and Planning Policy Interests, something that has not been done for some time. Surely if all parties had the same interests, then together change for the better could be implemented much faster, not to mention cheaper?

Urban Form and Locality identifies "four interlocking dimensions of form" that are central to the urban form debate. Those are; the degree of dispersal or concentration, the degree of segregation or intermixture of urban activities, the degree of settlement density, and the shape of urban areas. The overall trend of the article is a focus on the 'urban intensification' and the continued development of metropolitan areas. While there are many positives to this approach, including reduced energy costs for transport, it does present an entirely new set of problems regarding the way in which society will function in such a built up area. Public space, for example, will not be able to exist in the capacity it currently does. Something will need to change in the way cities are developed. One idea is to take public space and turn it from a horizontal space to a vertical space, as seen below. However how this would work is not entirely certain.

Article Reference: Barton, H., 2000. Urban form and locality. In H. Barton, ed. Sustainable communities: the potential for eco-neighbourhoods. London: Earthscan, pp. 105-122.