Relativity of a concept: urban density
A version of this text was presented at the conference "Socialist and Post-socialist Urbanizations: Architecture, Land and Property Rights", Eesti Kunstiakadeemia, Tallinn, May 2014.
Few concepts have been criticized for so long and yet continue to retain their centrality within a field such as urban density.
Criticisms revolve around the idea that density is a weak tool for urban design, given the various ways of defining it. In fact, different terms are put together to define density: number of inhabitants or number of dwellings, habitable area, built-up area or built volume, all related to a unit of area which in turn depends on the scale at which the discussion is held (city or neighborhood or even lot level)1.
Over and above the confusion that can arise from the appreciation of these terms and their possible combinations, the variety of definitions that operate in different cultural spaces emerges.
However, the particular interest in this concept is easy to prove, if we take a look at some recent large-scale research on density. I will mention only two of these for reasons of space, but they are representative of current thinking.
On the one hand we have the research of the a+t group, consisting of journalist Aurora Fernández Per and architect Javier Mozas, in Spain, which has resulted in a series of publications on density: Why Density? Debunking the myth of the cubic watermelon, Density. New Collective Housing, Density Projects, 36 New Concepts on Collective Housing, culminating in the extensive DBook - Data, Density, Diagrams, Dwellings. The aim of all these publications is to change the way we look at housing projects, from the architectural object to its position as an element of a particular kind of city - which is why the projects they present are always grouped by density ranges (of inhabitants and dwellings), according to the kind of grouping they might give rise to. The theoretical approach that accompanies the project presentations problematizes the definition and function of density, and the solution for integrating the various directions of definition is a visual one. In addition to the various "measures" of density, expressed in figures, they adjoin schematic representations of clusters. In addition, a+t considers that the dynamics of the functions within a cluster need to be taken into account, and then it is no longer a matter of discussing the density of dwellings per hectare, but of the land use factor (in fact, a LUT measured at the cluster level and not necessarily at the plot level), understood as an abstract density that does not take into account the use of buildings2.
The second example of a recent approach to urban density is the Density Atlas developed by a multidisciplinary team of researchers, urban planners, architects, designers and students at MIT3. Here again we find the concern to define density in several ways, simultaneously: dwellings per acre, inhabitants per acre and CUT, in order to obtain a relevant picture of the analyzed assemblages. The research also refers to the neighborhood or urban island scale, and the coherence of the comparisons is rigorously maintained.
Even if the examples discussed still put density to work to describe inhabitation, we see, from the overlap of definitions and measurements, the "dissatisfaction" with the operationality of the concept.
Then the normative aspect of density is also problematic, since from Unwin to Jane Jacobs, limiting density has at various times seemed to be a solution to urban problems, but without success. In the case of imposed urbanization, specific to the former socialist bloc countries, the attainment of minimum densities, considered as specifically urban, was mandatory. I will refer to the latter in what follows, discussing mainly the case of Bucharest.
Basically, the aim of this text is to emphasize the need to know the historical trajectory of urban density as a systematization tool, especially in the case of the assemblages designed during the socialist period, namely, which definitions of density and which norms functioned at a given time. It is therefore a question of adding its historicity to the list of "precautions" on urban density.
During the socialist period in Romania, population density (the number of inhabitants per unit area) and density as the ratio of habitable area to unit area were used. Unfortunately, only one of the two ways of definition has worked at some point as an official assessment tool. In fact, we will see how the method of calculation was changed by political decision and what effects this had on the built reality. It should be noted that, in each of these situations, the systematization guidelines required a certain density value to be achieved. This value is practically unique - it had to be reached as a minimum value, but economic and area restrictions do not allow it to be exceeded in practice.
The particular interest that the political power has shown in this index can be motivated by more than the search for economic efficiency, especially in the case of Bucharest. It is the continuity of a reaction to the low density of Bucharest, which was countered even before the war by regulations that limited the territorial extension and promoted densification.
After the installation of the new regime, as a reaction to the last master plan of 1935-1939, whose "cosmopolitan" features had to be denounced, studies were carried out and decisions taken to build a truly "socialist" city. [...]
Read the full text in issue 3 / 2014 of Arhitectura magazine
NOTES:
1 See Elek Pafka, Nothing Gained by only Counting Dwellings per Hectare: A hundred years of confusing urban densities, State of Australian Cities Conference, Sydney, 2013, p. 1. Retrieved 5.08.2014 from
http://www.soacconference.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/Pafka-Structure.pdf.
2 Definition in Why Density? Debunking the myth of the cubic watermelon, a+t research group, a+t publishers, 2014, p. 55.
3 The product of this team is the website http://densityatlas.org/, which brings together case studies of housing estates in Brazil, China, France, UK, India, Japan, Mexico, Netherlands, Pakistan, Singapore, China, France, UK, India, Mexico, Netherlands, Pakistan, Singapore and USA, together with the necessary theoretical approach.