The center of the city is what gives it life and character. It is essential that this zone of the city generate exuberance and a variety of activities. It must be dense, safe, clean and easy to move in.

The Thimphu Urban Core can be defined as the zone from Doebum Lam down to the river, and from the Memorial Chorten up to the Chhubar Chhu. Within this zone, or city district, there are a number of public domains, which must be upgraded and linked together. These are:
• The Clock Tower Square
•The Memorial Chorten Precinct
• The Lugar Cinema Open Area
•The Sunday Market
• The Kundeyling (just above Sunday Market)
• Dungkhor Lhakhang
• The Road Crossing up to the Swiss Bakery
• The Wang Chhu River Front
•The Archery Grounds

Linking these open spaces are a variety of streets, lanes, footpaths and gullies. There are stairs, steps and ramps. All of these connectors and large open spaces have a wealth of activities taking place within them. All of them are predominantly pedestrian in nature. A few offer the chance to pause and observe life going on around them.

Adelphi Terrace Addresses London’s Riverfront while Creating a Public Domain

The Adelphi Terrace in London is an early Urban Design effort to address an urban, riverfront context, by using pedestrian buffers, on various levels to link natural and built forms. While it is advisable to maintain a setback from the river wherever possible, we have a number of cases where construction will abut the river. As such the built-form must be a response to the Wang Chhu and not just a standard pattern plunked down on the riverfront.

In a similar spirit, one must observe that housing schemes in the city of Thimphu use standard “modules” of urban fabric and then place them in boring rows and ‘line-ups’ as if these sites were flat areas down on the plains of India. We need to evolve new building patterns, and fabrics, which respond to the slopes, valleys and rivers.

We must also consider that buildings can share walls to create Urban Spaces, as in the Royal Crescent at Bath. We need to use this device in the city core.

Norzin Lam and The Clock Tower Square.

The Structure Plan focuses on the city core as a major target of planning. The core will use bird feeders, planters, benches and play sculptures. Several strategies will be employed:

? Pedestrianize a central spine along Norzin Lam with bifurcations of smaller human scale footpaths reaching into the town like the veins of a leaf. This tree-lined promenade, leading down Norzin Lam and connecting the arterial walkways, will be designed so that it can also serve as a ceremonial procession for celebrations, festivals and royal occasions. There will be markings in the paving for an emergency-service lane, in which slow, ‘jump-on’ open electric shuttles may also move.

The Conceptual vision for the Core as an extensive network of public spaces and pedestrian linkages

• Enrich the main open spaces by providing them with adequate drains and paving, with the minimum gaps and crevices. Steps and stairs should be used judiciously and often where people can sit on them to relax and chat. Ramps should be used wherever possible to make places more accessible. A careful blend of local, flowering trees and shrubs should be used in garden areas. Cobble stone paving will add texture and feel. Benches and other street furniture will be provided so that people can stop, pause, rest, chat with friends, meet new people, and watch the world go by. There should be children’s’ areas with places for their parents to sit and watch them. All of these areas should be accented with fountains and water pools. Street and footpath lighting will be introduced and planned for these pedestrian areas. Signage in the Urban Core will be controlled. Shops will be allowed “designer signs” that fall within regulations. No placards or hoardings will be allowed. Simple directional maps and signs will guide the public.

Urban Amenities Facilitate the Public

• Trash bins, sanitary facilities and drinking fountains will be provided at convenient locations.

• Small kiosks with notice boards, telephones, newspapers, journals and convenience items will be strategically located.

• In the main open spaces there will be zones for outdoor, open-air cafes, art exhibits and displays which can be leased out to promoters and entrepreneurs. These will be doted with colorful umbrellas and sit around tables, for people to casually meet and talk.

Streets, Footpaths and Parks Create a Convivial Atmosphere

• For inclement weather there will also be a system of pavilions, and covered walkways moving through the pedestrian street system.

• At all the entrances to the town center modest monuments, or gates, or other symbolic sentinels would welcome one to the City Core. The entrances will mark the boundary into the Urban Core. The boundary will be surrounded by vehicular roads, which will be planned as tree lined boulevards with central dividers planted with flowers. These peripheral boulevards will be well lit and will link into the ring road and expressway system. The flowering shade trees along the edges will provide an attractive appearance and buffer polluting sound and dust.

• A system of emergency and service lanes will penetrate into the Core, and vehicles will be allowed to deliver goods, and carry out waste only during limited periods. There will be parking zones around the periphery for shoppers, for residents and for shopkeepers.

• In the Core there will be a rich mixture of land uses to assure the infrastructure is used during different times of day and night. Shops, offices, boutiques, hotels, galleries, pubs, cafes, restaurants, cinemas, health clubs, beauty parlors, lodges, travel agents, indoor games and professional suites will all be located in the core. There will also be small studio and one-bed room apartments for older couples, shopkeepers, youngsters just entering the work force, and singles who relish urbanity. Thus, the core will provide a large number of residential units, primarily for young people who do not own automobiles.
• Architectural controls are essential for the Center and the existing vocabulary will be enhanced to address shop fronts and large display window designs. All new buildings in the Core would provide covered arcades for pedestrians, for which owners will be compensated with additional Floor Space Index (FSI).

•The city buses and an electric tram would service the core area, connecting it to other nodes and hubs in the city.