What is circulation? In simple words, it is movement; a movement through space.
“Circulation: movement through space” – Francis DK Ching in Architecture: Form, Space and Order[1]
In the previous article, we have discussed about access – the methods of movement (car, public transportation, bike or walking) while circulation are pathways people take through and around buildings and public spaces.[2]
Circulation in an urban environment has an interesting interrelationship with its city residents as they intertwined their movement around the surrounding buildings. Urban circulation can be imagined as ‘spaces between the spaces’, where the pathways itself can be seen as a ‘space’. Although urban circulation focuses mainly on functional flow of people, yet there is something beautiful that we may ignore is the people’s experience while traveling through those spaces of buildings. In my opinion, designing those pathway experiences may be as important as designing a building. For example, walking around Melbourne CBD laneways with its graffiti culture creates an urban circulation experiences that is enjoyable experience.
Access and circulation are important features with the aim of creating liveable cities. In the aspect of designing urban circulation, the study of flows between various categories of activities, attractions, people, buildings and function are crucial.[3] The research on how people move from one activity to another – the synergies between spaces, from home to work, to play and the interaction between production, exchange and consumption – may assist in urban planning of a liveable city.[4]
“The city never is but is always becoming through the circulation of images, things, languages, ideas, and perhaps, about all, people” – Circulation and the City [5]
Designing city circulation can be very challenging and not for the fainted-hearted. In an incredibly dense urban environment, there is always a constant fluid movement of people.[6] The key of designing circulation is to create unobstructed pathways with the shortest distance between two points. However, sometimes circulation is a mix of both following the integration within tightly controlled circuits (assigned roads and lanes) and their loosening of these restrictive pathways, such as walking through a building to get to the next parallel street instead of walking around the building. In the book ‘Circulation and the City’ explains it a collective effort to find the balance in urban space that embodies both these rigidifying and anarchic tendencies.[7]
In our aspiration in making Australian cities the top liveable cities in the world, it would be fascinating to look into the data and analysis of these movements and transforming them as methodology on how we design our future urban fabric and making circulation accessible, functional with a long-term sustainability in mind. Other considerations are horizontal and vertical movement as well as public and private space movement. These factors play a great significance in urban planning, as it is a goal to build an environment that co-exists with the day-to-day requirements of the community.
References
[1] Francis D.K Ching, 2007. Architecture: Form, Space and Order. Hokoben, N.J. : John Wiley & Sons
[2] “Architectural Concepts: Circulation”. Portico.space. Accessed 23 March 2017. http://portico.space/journal//architectural-concepts-circulation
[3] “What makes a city tick? Designing the ‘urban DMA’’.” Theconversation.com. Accessed by 12 March 2017. https://theconversation.com/what-makes-a-city-tick-designing-the-urban-dma-67227
[4] ibid
[5] Alxandra Boutros and Will Straw. 2010. Circulation and the City: Essays on Urban Culture. McGill-Queen’s University Press. Pg 20
[6] “The Urban Workshop”. ArchitectureAU.com. Accessed 23 March 2017. http://architectureau.com/articles/the-urban-workshop/
[7] ibid