Urban Design in Housing Policies:

A Guideline to create better and more sustainable neighborhoods applied to Caracas, Venezuela.

INDEX

•Objectives of the investigation

•Importance of Urban Design and Housing Policies into Urban Planning

•New Urbanism and Smart Growth: Urban Design with sustainable

guidelines

•Housing Policies and its relation to urban design

•Conclusions: Which guidelines can we apply into the Caracas Study Case?

•Sources

OBJECTIVES OF THE INVESTIGATION:

•State the relevance of Urban Design into a well-planned housing policy

•Relate and organize the guidelines of urban design and sustainability for

a better use into housing policies, applied into the Caracas Study case.

Housing is one of the principal problems within

the city; and the housing policies are always at the

top of the urban agenda. On the other hand, Urban

Design is a tool which tries to direct the growth of

the city with an organized spatial pattern.

Importance of Urban Design and Housing

Policies into Urban Planning

Which are the consequences of non-planned or

non-designed housing policies? We see it every

day in our city: Caracas. Transportation

problems, social problems (violence and

intolerance), recreation problems and high life

costs are all related with badly designed

neighborhoods, taking us back to our principal

problem: housing polices and urban

design.

For the two main groups that

have been establishing the

guidelines for a sustainable

city, neighborhood

intervention (housing

policies) is the principal

key.

These guidelines are closely

related to Urban Design,

understanding that spatial

intervention has a direct

consequence in the way people

feel about its own

neighborhood.

Principle 2: Connectivity (Facilitate the

communication through the main centers of the

city reduces the travelling time, having a direct

consequence in the environment)

New Urbanism and Smart Growth: Urban

Design with sustainable guidelines

Principle 3: Walkability (Recover the city and its

neighborhoods from the hands of the car strength

the community sense and help with the health of

people)

Principle 4: Mixed Uses

(Neighborhoods with different land

uses are always active and varied,

reduce the walking distances and

creates differentiated zones)

Principle 7: Community-Oriented Design (Urban

design must take into account that the city is for

the people and the communities that develops

inside it)

New Urbanism and Smart Growth: Urban

Design with sustainable guidelines

How urban design and housing policies

are related?

The first seeks the integration and

development of a delimited zone with high

quality of life standards and the latter seeks

the creation of new urban houses, but this

one should not be made isolated from the

context were it will be applied needing ,

therefore, a good urban design.

Why Urban Design is important in Housing Policies?

Following, some pictures and an explanation of what NOT TO DO when housing plans are designed:

Housing Policies and its

relation to urban design

1. Forget the urban connections: A new

neighborhood must be connected with the rest of the

city.

2. Modify and not to take advantage of the

landscape or environmental value: a good designed

neighborhood take cares of the environment and can

use it as a touristic attractor.

3. Create a uniform and boring spatial pattern:

social diversity reflects in neighborhoods with spatial

diversity, architectural style and differentiated zones.

4. Produce isolated ghettos with no economical

base, recreational places or basic urban

equipments: A new neighborhood must have its own

life, with schools, church, shops, parks…

Housing Policies and its

relation to urban design

In first instance we need to understand that a housing

policy that does not take into account a good urban

design would not be efficient or successful, in political

and economical matters.

Second, we have to envisage the city as a dynamic

being which needs continuous interventions and plans

that must evolve separate from the governors’

periods; this can be achieved if the policy is

community-oriented and is sensed by the citizens as

their own. With these two principles we can create a

housing policy with urban design guidelines. In the

Caracas study case, the guidelines can be organized

as follows:

1.Community oriented design

2.Connectivity

3.Mixed land-use

4.Walkability

Conclusions: Which guidelines can we

apply into the Caracas Study Case?

City of Ottawa (2005). “Urban Design Guidelines for Low-Medium Density, Infill Housing”

[file in PDF format]. Ottawa, USA

Ministry of Environment (2007) “Urban Design Case study: Addison Housing

Development” [file in PDF format]. New Zealand

Pegasus Urban Design (2007) “Planning Policy Statement 3: Housing implications in

urban design” [file in PDF format]. Private Partnership, UK

Abu Hoke (2001). “Urban Design intervention for intensive housing” [file in PDF format].

New Zealand

Huntighdonshire District Council (2008). “Urban Design Framework: Land around

Buttsgrove Way, the Whaddons and Suffolk House, Huntingdon”. [File in PDF format].

Private Partnership, UK.

Smart Growth Toolkit (2008). “Traditional Neighborhood Development (TND)” [File in .ppt

format]. Smart Growth, USA.

Source

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