OPEN SPACE

Open space holds different meanings for differents professionals. Here it is defined as all landscape, hardscape (roads, sidewalks, and the like), parks, and recreational space in urban areas. Empty parcels of land in urban areas such as super holes from the urban renewal era are not considened as open space. There is no claim that this is the best way of grouping open space, but this is as useful way of referring to them. Open space elements include parks and squares, urban green spaces, as well as the trees, benches, planters, water, lighting, paving, kiosks, trash receptacles, drinking fountains, sculptures, clocks, and so on that are found within them. Pedestrian ways, signs, and amenities that also may be considered as open space elements are discussed separately in what follows.

Open space has always been an essential element of urban design and is, indeed, a crucial are of consideration. However, in the past, open space usually has been considered secondary to building form and massing in architecture. In other words, open spaces have been designed mostly after architectural decisions have been made. The design of open spaces has been, therefore, an addendum to the design process rather than an integral part of it. The key issue, then, is that open spaces should be considered an integral part of urban design.

Open space has been little valued in American cities. In particular, its downtown role has not been well realized. One reason may be overreliance on European open space models that have not fit well in to the fabric of American cities, which seem to demand both functional and symbolic dimensions in its open spaces. As Heckscher (1977: 6) states: people overlook the fact that many American downtowns are looselyknit, with as much as half their total area awaiting development or used for parking. In such circumstances, it is enclosure that is principally required, not openness.

The spatial organizations of American citiesis one of the key issues that must be dealt with in open space planning or replanning of urban environments. As Heckscher (1977) has pointed out, model for successful open space planning drawn from Europe and elsewhere are not always adaptable in an American context of loosely knit downtowns and where the traditional park, often oversized or (now) disadvantageously located, must be supplanted by newer forms of open space that support a variety of activities. Such forms include pedestrian and bicycle routes, historic area walks, waterfront areas, and structured linkages of open spaces that coordinate cultural, commercial, and governmental complexes.

However, quite beyond such redevelopment opportunities, it is essential to recognize that open space, like building massing and form, is a unique structuring element in urban design, that the framework and sequence of open spaces differ from city to city and must be grasped in each particular instance before an urban design program or plan can be created.

Dallas is a case in point. Its Natural Open Space Plant (1978) incoporates open space into urban design and land use planning programs by considering ecological and development issues simultaneously. The plan focuses on such key natural areas in the region as escarpments, prairies, and bluffs and includes acquisition, regulation and management clearly motivated by prosectionist and conservation themes:

This plan concentrateson lands which should generally remain open and not be altered or developed for active uses, because of their special natural resource and/or hazards characteristics include areas of ecological, aesthetic, or cultural significance. Lands which provide potential hazards to development include those subject to flooding and prone to erosion and slope instability. To a large extent, the resource and hazard characteristics are found on the same lands, which strengthens the justification for their preservation (Dallas, 1978:1)

Some particularly interesting aspects of the approach taken in Dallas are identification of potential incentives for financing and administering the open space plan and the recommendations for linking ecological and development issues. Although the City does not as yet have an overall plan to strike the appropriate balance between competing goals, such as economic development and environmental protection, the Open Space Plan recognizes the inevitable conflicts (Dallas, 1978:3). The starting point for the Dallas plan is a critique of the inadequacies of the citys existing framework for regulation of development in fragile areas (1978: 33). This involved a review of existing zoning practices pertaining to floodplain , escarpment, altered drainage system, and creek areas as well as several recommendations for environmental review, zoning ordinance revisions, overlay designations, and grading management controls. In particular, the Dallas study recommended an arnendment to the zoning ordinance that would provide variable credit for open space set aside to reduce lot or site sizes by a formula which considers the relative usability and accesbility of open space (1978: 43) (fig. 2 15).

The classic study undertaken by Lynch and Appleyard (1974) for the citi of San Diego also emphasized development, environmental quality, and public accessbility issues in this recommendations for open space planning. Like the Dallas study (which also included a study of the predevelopment, natural base resources of the city), the proposals for San Diegoemphasized the need to address growth, especially suburban development issues. Specific recommendations were that inland suburban growth be slowed, smaller less homogeneous develpoment be encouraged, and climatically more appropriate senttlement forms (that is, set planning with appropriate densities, and so on) be adopted (Lynch and Appleyard, 1974: 28, 29).

The special character of San Diegos physical setting, its coastal areas, arroyos, canyos, and the like, which have been threatened by urban growth, provide the critical fokus for San Diegos open space policies.

San Diego will grow and change, but the city is already here and what is here will continue to be a major determinant of quality. A careful look at what should be saved and repaired in the existing city is our first task. Conservation of the natural setting is surely an urgent priority, and the finer parts of the city can also be preserved. But much of San Diego needs repair and restoration. As in any city that has grown fast, mistakes have been made. Public use and public acces have been preempled. The public environment is all too often simplythe left-over space in between. (Lynch and Aplleyard, 1974: 9)

Key open space planning tasks identified in the San Diego study were:

1) A survey of urban and rural districts throughout the San Diego region to judge their ability to absorb further growth

2) Lorg term plans for the recapture of San Diego Bay for public use

3) An conservation and public use plan for San Diegos special landscape, its valley and canyon network which incorporates various implementation strategies such as transfer of development rights, water and landscaping management as well as provisions for biking and bike trails, and

4) An open space circulation study of commercial arterials leading to proposals for the public action needed to convert these strips into humane landscapes (Aplleyard and Lynch) 1974: 47).

The efforts in these cities illustrate one of the principles of open space planning for urban design that Tankel (1963: 69) succinetly state: the significance of open space is not its quantity but how it is arranged in relation to development.