Site Planning By Kevin Lynch

[Gaby Zenz]

Thisnew edition of Kevin Lynch's widely used introductory textbook has been completely revised; and is also enriched by the experience of Lynch's coauthor, Gary Hack. For over two decades, Site Planning has remained the only comprehensive source of information on all the principal activities and concerns of arranging the outdoor physical environment. Now, new illustrations double the visual material and one hundred pages of new appendixes cover special techniques, provide references to more detailed technical sources, and put numerical standards in a concise form.

Kevin Lynch (1918-1984) studied with Frank Lloyd Wright at Taliesin and later obtained a Bachelor of City Planning degree from MIT. After a long and distinguished career on the faculty of the MIT School of Architecture and Urban Planning, he was named Professor Emeritus of City Planning.

Gary Hack has studied, taught, and practiced site planning for more than forty years in the United States, Canada, and other countries. He is Professor Emeritus of Urban Design at MIT, where he headed the Department of Urban Studies and Planning, Professor Emeritus and former Dean of the School of Design at the University of Pennsylvania, and Visiting Professor at Tsinghua and Chongqing Universities.

The document discusses site planning and analysis of natural factors for site selection. It describes analyzing a site's geology, geomorphology, hydrology, vegetation, wildlife and climate. Key aspects of the natural analysis include examining a site's topography and slopes through tools like contour maps and slope maps. These maps are used to understand drainage, soil composition and erosion potential to determine suitable land uses and site design.Read less

A student of architect Frank Lloyd Wright before training in city planning, Lynch spent his academic career at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, teaching there from 1948 to 1978. He practiced site planning and urban design professionally with Carr/Lynch Associates, later known as Carr, Lynch, and Sandell.

Lynch was born as the youngest child of an Irish-American family on January 7, 1918.[1] He was raised on Chicago's North Side.[2] After graduating from the Francis Parker School in 1935, Lynch matriculated at Yale University intending to study architecture.[3] Finding its pedagogy too conservative, he left to study under Frank Lloyd Wright at Taliesin in Spring Green, Wisconsin and Scottsdale Arizona.[4] Lynch later stated that Wright was a great influence, but disagreed with his individualistic social philosophy.[5] Leaving Wright after a year and a half, he enrolled at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, New York to study engineering in 1939, but did not complete the program and went to work for Chicago architect Paul Schweikher. In 1941, Lynch married Anne Borders, a fellow graduate of the Parker School.[6]

Three weeks after his wedding, Lynch was drafted into the Army Corps of Engineers, serving in the siege of Peleliu, the Philippines and Japan through January 1946.[7] After the war, he completed his undergraduate education at MIT and received a Bachelor's degree in city planning in 1947.[8]

After graduation, Lynch began work in Greensboro, North Carolina as an urban planner but was soon recruited to teach at MIT by Lloyd Rodwin. He began lecturing at MIT the following year, becoming an assistant professor in 1949, a tenured associate professor in 1955, and a full professor in 1963.[8]

Lynch provided seminal contributions to the field of City Planning through empirical research on how individuals perceive and navigate the urban landscape.[12] His books explore the presence of time and history in the urban environment, how urban environments affect children, and how to harness human perception of the physical form of cities and regions as the conceptual basis for good urban design.

Lynch's most famous work, The Image of the City (1960), is the result of a five-year study on how observers take in information of the city. Using three American cities as examples (Boston, Jersey City and Los Angeles), Lynch reported that users understood their surroundings in consistent and predictable ways, forming mental maps with five elements:

In the same book, Lynch also coined the words "imageability" and "wayfinding". Image of the City has had important and durable influence in the fields of urban planning and environmental psychology.

Anne Borders Lynch and Kevin Lynch were married in 1941 and had four children.[6] The Lynches were long-term residents of Martha's Vineyard, where Anne continued spending her summers until her death in 2011.[6]

The idea of site plan is to locate objects and activities in space and time. These plans may concern a small cluster of houses, a single building and its surrounding ground, or something as extensive as a small community built in a single operation (Luna, 2021).

The form of a particular site is of importance to the site planner as it helps in laying out the ground work. Ground slope is considered as one of the important aspects of topography of a site since use and maintenance of the further site is dependent on it. The form of a site is critical to how it may be used. Ground slope is one of the more important aspects of the topography, since use and maintenance are dependent on it. This relationship will vary according to the pattern of activity, but there is a general classification worth remembering. Slopes under 4% (rising 4 feet in 100 feet of horizontal distance) seem flat and are usable for all kinds of intense activity. Slopes between 4 and 10% appear as easy grades, suitable for informal movement and activity. Slopes over 10% seem steep and can be actively used only for hill sports or free play. Gradients over 10% require noticeable effort to climb or to descend (Lynch, Site Form and Site Ecology, 1972).

The existing flora of the site should be protected. This is an effective way of integrating the new development into its existing environment. New buildings should be avoided on important habitat areas. The existing ecology and habitat of the site should be included in the overall development. This includes the following:

Considering major implications of site planning in the context of making projects sustainable, cost-effective, rational, supportive and making value addition to prevailing quality of environment, ecology and local biodiversity, it is generally essential that broad principles governing the process of site planning must be defined and detailed to serve as a guide to all architects, urban planners, landscape designers who are associated with it while planning the sites of their projects. These principles should revolve around:

Site design in case of shopping centres majorly includes orientation and layout of buildings, circulation and parking layout, landscaping, water supply, drainage retention, and various other elements. The quality of the pedestrian environment should be considered as a central defining aspect of the site layout and design theme for all types of commercial centres (Shah). The main objective in site planning for commercial areas is to increase their sales by attracting consumers. For this frontage areas of the complexes are kept open without any obstruction for clear visual appeal. Another strong point while designing is considering the visual experience of approach and departure from the complex. Open spaces need to be provided in between those areas for relaxing and gathering with adequate amenities like food kiosks, etc. The main points to consider while designing are the circulation and parking. The plan should allow for future growth, but not by leaving gaps at the centre. Primary stores, fixed in location, will probably grow vertically. Other stores will be added at the periphery. Locations maybe left for adding new cross malls, with new primary stores at their ends. Structures and utilities must be sized for this expansion (Lynch, Special Types of Site Planning, 1972).

Industrial districts are today considered as an integral part of development strategies for development in many countries worldwide. The environmental impacts from a concentration of large number of industries in a small area or unplanned Industrial Estates, can pose a serious threat to both local and global sustainable development initiatives (Singal & Kapur, 2002). Industrial districts require substantial areas of moderately flat and inexpensive land that can support heavy loads. Housing for employees should be within commuting range, but the district itself should lie to the leeward of nearby housing areas and in such a position that the traffic it will generate will not disturb those areas (Lynch, Special Types of Site Planning, 1972).

Institutions are extremely diverse communities which includes site planning for the larger ones: colleges, universities, hospitals, governmental units, and cultural centres (Lynch, Special Types of Site Planning, 1972). Campus planning covers:

Designing public open spaces has become an important branch of site planning, as a result of the intense demand for outdoor recreation and the growing realization of the need for conservation (Lynch, Special Types of Site Planning, 1972). Open spaces generally include parks, recreational sites, trails, wetlands and stream corridors, forests and woodlands consisting of rare or important habitats, farms, and historic properties (Open Space Planning).

Urban Renewal is a strategic process of remodelling older parts of urban areas. It aims at restoring or replacing specific sub-standard urban areas by means of rehabilitation and conservation and generally undertaken up by public authorities or local governments (Five important parts of Urban Renewal and Conservation). These sites while working generally merge into their surroundings. The plans focus inward, turn their parking lots outward and emphasize their distinctiveness (Lynch, Special Types of Site Planning, 1972).

Since 2000, under the direction of Eran Ben-Joseph, and later on Mary Anne Ocampo the class has incorporated hands-on, client-based projects dealing with an array of prevailing environmental and site systems planning issues. These include: hurricane devastated areas in Biloxi, MS the retrofitting of housing developments in Tama, Japan and the transformation of contaminated waterfront sites in Bronx, NY.

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