Defining Urban Sites

Based on the essay “Defining Urban Sites” by Andrea Kahn

This essay speaks of urban sites and how they should be considered within the context of a city. The author makes the case that in order to understand the impact of a project (she is referring to an urban scale project throughout the essay) the boundaries of the site must be re-understood as something far outside the property lines. She discusses two examples to clarify her point, the Palmanuova plan and a sketch by da Vinci of Milan. In the Palmanuova plan, the city is drawn as “a fixed object in an open field.” The boundaries are clearly defined and nothing is left to interpretation. In the drawing by Leonardo da Vinci, nothing is defined. The city is defined by its interrelations, not by the edge. This is how sites need to be read.

“[The site] realities are constituted through the experience of radically shifting programs in constant interaction.” In other words a site is defined by its context. This is, of course, is referring to context outside of the buildings next to a site or in the same neighborhood. This is where mapping comes into play as a useful tool. Mapping allows you to reveal different layers of information individually and then use the analysis to define the site boundaries. The importance of mapping comes in discovering those things that are not found on a map.

Once this information is discovered, the site can be defined. Once a designer understands “the city in the site” the project will inherently be site specific. The project is founded on the understanding of the site and context; therefore the project would be different if it were done in a different site.

The criticism for the essay comes when she separates the architectural site from the urban site. She speaks in this essay almost exclusively about urban design sites but the two scales are intrinsically linked. All of what is discussed in terms of bringing elements of the city into the site and extending the site outside its boundaries are applicable to architectural sites as well. Many architectural projects are lacking because they don’t understand the context and to separate the urban from architectural is to progress these types of projects.