3.1 IMPACT OF CITY STRUCTURE AND IMAGE
3.1.3 Image of the City: Identification and Orientation
Schulz (1980) in his book “Towards a Phenomenology of Architecture”, makes the reader aware of being able to orientate oneself around a place and through space as well as being able to identify with it. Space and place cannot be experienced as meaningful if one cannot orientate and identify it. Lynch's theory will discuss the importance of the environmental image to identify and orientate oneself within a particular environment. It further introduces 5 key elements that create guidelines for architects and urban planners in creating environments that are easily identifiable and easy to orientate one within.
Nasar (1998) affirms that the environment arises from a constant interaction between the environment and man. Cities and their parts have an ambience, a sensory essence that people can feel. People become responsive to what they can see. They seek meanings in places that they attempt to visualize. The visual quality is effective as it induces an experience and appreciation in the surroundings (Nasar 1998, p. 1).
Lynch (1960) states that the image of the environment is always experienced in relation to its surrounding context and the sequences of events that lead up to this perceptual image, as well as the images of past experiences within a particular environment. Lynch uses the word legibility when talking about the visual quality of an environmental image (Lynch 1960, p. 1- 2).
Legibility plays an important part in the viewer’s image of the environment. This basically means how easily the viewer is able to observe and recognize the different parts which make up a city and organize them into a clear pattern. Legibility is discussed as being crucial in the city setting. A good environmental image gives the viewer an important sense of emotional security and also heightens the potential depth of human experience. A lack of legibility in an environment such as in the city gives rise to disorientation and can bring about fear, stress and potential disaster to the viewer (Lynch 1960, p. 2-6).
According to Lynch (1960) an environmental image is constructed out of three components:
identity (the recognition of urban elements as separate entities), structure (the relation of urban elements to other objects and to the observer), and meaning (its practical and emotional value to the observer) (Lynch 1960, p. 8-9).
Evans (1982 94) shares a similar view point to Lynch (1960) and says that the legibility of architectural environments is a fundamental design issue that has a direct influence on how easily people are able to orientate themselves. Evans (1982) further explains that the illegibility of an environment may induce stress by producing confusion, fear and a feeling of incompetence.
Lynch (1960) tested this theory on three different United States cities. He emphasized the importance of understanding the public's input, and conducted a series of interviews and asked questions of numerous people within the United States cities. From the experiments conducted Lynch (1960) was able to understand how people subconsciously understand the environment as well as finding out what is useful when navigating through the environment.
Lynch was able to identify with five elements that acted as visual and physical markers in the environment as a result of the experiments conducted. These five elements allow for structure by relating them to the overall environment and result in an increase in legibility of the overall environmental image, allowing the users to navigate and orientate themselves around the city environment. The five elements; paths, edges, districts, nodes and landmarks are explored in detail below:
• Paths are the routes along which an observer occasionally or potentially moves.
These paths can be streets, walkways, transit lines, canals or railroads. They are identifiable and continuous and have a directional quality. Paths that had well know destinations had stronger identities and made the observer feel more safe and orientated along them. (Lynch 1960, p. 49-62).
Figure 8: Paths in the form of streets and walkways converge at a node where the Arc De
• Edges are boundaries or breaks in continuity, they are linear elements that are not used or considered as paths. They are the boundaries between two phases; such edges may be barriers which close one region off from another. They have directional quality and seem strongest when they are visually prominent and continuous in form (Lynch 1960, p. 62-66).
• Districts are relatively large sections of the city distinguished by some identity or character that make them different to the other districts in the city. Such examples of character or identity are: texture, space, form, detail, building type, use, activity, topography ect (Lynch 1960, p. 66-72).
Figure 9: The Thames River in London is a prominent example of Lynch’s term edge. One can clearly see the edge which separates the built environment from the water giving this edge continuity and directional quality (http://www.bbc.co.uk).
Figure 10: The image clearly shows the different districts within Durban. The CBD district is characterised by tall compact buildings. The harbour district is characterised by more industrial, human scaled buildings with harbour related facilities. The beach front is
• Nodes are the strategic spots in a city which an observer can enter. They are the focal points to and from where he or she is moving. A node is a centre of activity. Such examples are at intersections, places of break in transport, a crossing or convergence of paths or may be simply concentrations, which gain their importance from being the condensation of some use or physical character as a square (Lynch 1960, p. 72-78).
• Landmarks are reference points, the singling out of one element from a variety of possibilities. Landmarks can only ever be visible from the exterior; they are never identified as being internal elements in relation to the image of the environment.
People do not enter inside them, they are external features. They are usually a simply defined physical object such as a sign, tower or mountain. They can be seen from a distance and at many angles. Trees, doorknobs and signs can also be seen as landmarks. They are always used for clues of identity and increasingly relied upon by the observer so that the journey becomes familiar. Landmarks are more successful when they have clear form and contrast their background. They can be very successful when placed at junctions involving path decisions. Landmarks are an important element of urban form and the environmental image because they help orient people in the city and help to identify an area (Lynch 1960, p. 78-83).
Figure 11: A great example of a node is the square in front of St Peters Basilica in Rome. The node acts as an important gathering point before the cathedral. With all paths leading to it (http://www.digitalapoptosis.com/category/top10/page/3/).
The 5 design elements mentioned above are fundamental in creating an environmental image that is legible. By combining these elements together they can reinforce one another and enhance a journey through the city. Most importantly these elements allow the user to be able to identify with the environment and be able to easily orientate oneself within the environment. The most important part of this theory is that it provides architects and urban designers with design guidelines in creating environments that humans can recognize and orientate themselves with in any given urban environment. In relation to the research topic this theory provides fundamental guidelines in creating environments that promote well-being and social interaction. When people are familiar with their surroundings and are able to orientate themselves, they are happy and are able to enjoy the experience within the environment with no added stress.
Figure 12: The Eifel Tower in Paris is an excellent example of a landmark. It is visual references that people are able to identify with and orientate themselves through the city of Paris (http://www.reuters.com).
3.2 COMBATTING URBAN SPRAWL