The vertical urban environment

[摘要] Man, a gregarious being, is today assuming apassive attitude and his participation in city life is continuallydiminishing. This passive attitude is increasing due to:the enormous increase and technological advancement of mass communications media in modern dwellings making the house an attractive trapthat induces people to stay at home. The failure of the city to recover its past ability tocreate an appropriate atmosphere for better relationships among human beings, decreasing its power as a magnet.In order to make a city alive, it is necessary to combine and concentrate different kinds of activities, incorporating all the strong forces into an organic and interrelated urban pattern. The magnets of house, nature, work, city center, human being, and country -- strongly related to the citizen -- need to be -melted into a coherent plan.A great variety of activities close to each inhabitant within the city (and this contained by an effective boundary)will assure to everyone his participation in the fields he likes best; and feeling in this way a part of the city -- as for instance, a person who is a member of a club -- he will develop a sense of collective responsibility, a civic spirit of community.Urban compactness attained through height will permit: -- the greatest variety (in number and in quality) of activities and facilities possible in the smallest land area -- a greater intensity of life and activity -- greater benefit of common services -- minimizing of circulation functions -- incorporation of country or wild nature into the urban lifeThus, the challenge is to create a vertical urban expression based upon a compact, dynamic, and organic space where the attraction of country, nature, work, human life, home, and common activities will be integrated and interrelated. This interrelation will bring about a balance between the pleasuresof private life and the values which only the public phases of lifecan offer.

[发布机构] Rice University