THE IDEAL CITY.

Press, Volume LXI, Issue 18308, 16 February 1925, Page 11

THE IDEAL CITY.

TOWN-PLANNING

PRINCIPLES.

NEED FOR PUBLIC REALISATION.

. The ideals-of •" t^.Ti-planning were discussed by Mr R. A. Lippincott in an address to - fellow-members of the New Zealand Institute of' Architects at Wellington last week. The lecturer-re-marked that Wellington, in its present stage of development, presented;a"most difficult problem from • the-town-plan-ning point of view, and that was all the more Tcason why it - should be";taekle*d immediate.lv.

Mr Lippincott pointed out,-in-open-ing, that though thcreliad been at least two Bills drafted for presentation to Parliament, we were still without townplanning legislation. The reason : was that the public was not aware of the necessity for such, an Act, and .that no organised campaign had been conducted iu its interest. It therefore devolved upon those who knew most about it to give a definite lead. They should sco that the practice of. towu-planning principles in the further development of our cities and towns, was made both easy and compulsory,-and at the earliest possible date. He alluded to the lack of foresight in the laying-out .of the main towns k New. Zealand, and showed how.this .disregard for the future was now: resulting in . congestion. The main objects of all townplanning endeavour were to provide means whereby .all towns and cities might be arranged- or. re-arranged, so that they would develop according to an. orderly plan. There were three main, types of arrangement of-the city plan—the chequer-board, the radial, and the combination plan, which was somewhat of both. The chcquer-bo.ard, plan was bad economically, for it took into account none of the natural- advantages or disadvantages of site. • Streets and.roads were driven up-hill and- down dale regardless of grade. It was true that it gavo nice square sites, and in business districts .Hhe buildings 'could bo built four-square over the entire site. But that was the sum-total of its virtues. .The-, plan was uneconomic, inartistic, and unbeautiful. Wren's Plan. London was• one of those : cities which had developed without an organised plan. . The ; Great Fire gave ■ . Sir Christopher Wren tbe opportunity for grappling with the traffic problems, (but the legal- power was lacking, and' the scheme he formulated was ' brushed aside by the haste of commercial enterprises to. begin rebuilding, and .by the unwillingness.. of .the citizens to, .cooperate for the common good. 'Wren's plan would have- served .the -.needs of the present time, and would:, be wellnigh perfect from' present-day and economic .standpoints. . . -■■ '.

The -Radial' Type. - ■Paris typified the radial type.; This, of course, had its difficulties;- The odd shape of the sites was one of ilhem/to the. conservative idea, but in reality these sites offered to the architect the best opportunities of-his life. . The only really serious disability of-long,' wedgeshaped sites'\vas economic, but even these might be overcome. The most modern example; of .'a -pre-planned, city was at . Canberra, the new Australian capital, "which,, was designed" on a variation, of .the. combined radial; and rectangular systems. The- main." skeleton of the plan. was-purely-radial, but it had been, so,:handled that;,'pnly;-'cer-tain of the main streets could vpqssibly become tijoroughfar.es, and it contained none of .the' ; longj thin, . wedgeshaped sites inevitable where the. diagonals had been superimposed on "the rectangular plan. There.-were, no very long streets without' focal points', statues, buildings' or ■ monuments • to close the vistas. The-number;of reck: angular "sites','.'-in'"spite of this, was.considerable, and direct access- from one centre to another was provided'in every direction. Such a plan' was, much'more flexible, than the ' gridiron plan could possibly be. The constant, changes in the direction of most Of, the streets enabled the various hills" to -be- nego : tiated at 'even, 'easy grades.:

Three Principal Pactors., ■ The Ohree principal.factors in the making. of economic value of a. ; design for a residential' area were .intensity of, land .development, ■„• distribution..'. of community, objectives, arid the, street system. By. intensity of. land.development was meant the. number of lots lor house sites economically provided fof in • the plan; with' ; the greatest possible community .and indi.r vidual advantages. -Proper'location of commercial, educational, recreation, and social'facilities, materially increased the value ■of the neighbouring..; properties, but concentration of these facilities in a limited space failed to produce the maximum land value for the entire community, therefore the problem was to determine what distribution would produce the' greatest economic benefit for the community as.a.whole, internally, the; most economic street system was that which, located, the iri : ternal objectives—churahes, -schoolsi halls, ■ etc.—within ' the minimum time radius of. the largest 'number of house sites, but' a street. system" designed to restrict traffic solely■'.to the needs.of the individual homes • and the community itself would prove, indisputably,' of greater economic value.

The art of city planning was . f niost directly concerned with an.ability to so analyse the problem as to determine, and then make'the' most of, those peculiar arid distinctive qualities," either of geography, occupation, or commerce,, which, when developed, would tend to make each separate and individual -city 'the ' most distincWLve example of its kind, and at the same time as different- as possiblo from others of its general-size,- topography, and type. The lecturer expressed the earnest hope that in', the immediate future every community in New Zealand would be required .by law to prepare a town-planning scheme.