An abiding axiom of urban planning, urban design and city planning has been the promotion of people friendly places, pedestrian walkways and public domains where people can meet. These can be gallerias covered with glass, arcades, cozy courtyards, street side walkways and a variety of gardens and semi-covered spaces. In salubrious climates out-of-doors spaces can be exploited. The present structure of Gelephu is ad hoc and unplanned. The general malaise in urban development in the southern zone of Bhutan has kept structures at a low scale. But this is not a commitment of human scale, but rather a circumstance of benign neglect.

 

The last three decades have seen the loss of such spaces in larger cities where the public domain has shrunk into privately managed shopping malls, entertainment complexes and gated suburban communities. Development has spread these public amenities out along automobile roads and highways. This has divided society into ability to pay groups and made the automobile essential, not just for every household, but for every person. In some cities, “grid networks” of streets have been atomized into dead end cul-de-sacs by closing off roads. These security measures have dramatically reduced access with road systems.

In most parts of the world, where economies are in a transformational stage, this pattern leads to divisions in the society. There are common interests between up-market developers, the energy industry, politicians and investment managers. The interests of the individual are lost in what is often called the “new economy” and a massive infrastructure system is built around this divisive system. Walkable communities remain an image and not a reality. The Gelephu plan identifies future development nodes and proposes the establishment of rudimentary services and facilities in these locations, in order to promote development.

Movements like Smart Growth have recognized the inefficiency of the system of “urban sprawl,” but have as their goals the reduction of pollution, energy savings and more efficient infrastructure. They are not focused on the plight of the individual and the divisions in society. Their goal is not conviviality. The New Urbanism, while proposing a laudable charter of principles, in fact focuses on isolated enclaves, such as the oft-cited weekend getaway of the rich at Seaside, the super luxury community of Winslow near West Palm Beach, or the Disney resort community, Celebration, all in Florida. These New Urbanism communities are in fact hideaways for the alienated elite. One must bring human scale and efficiency back to the city where the majority of people actually live and will congregate over the coming century. Intelligent Urbanism promotes the human dimension in a hierarchy of public and semi-public social places, as opposed to atomized and isolated private spaces. Elite enclaves are not the case studies for Intelligent Urbanism, or the models for towns like Gelephu!

Architecture, campus planning and city planning, over the past half century, have all focused on isolated monuments on their own isolated plots, often enclosed in their own compound walls and behind lockable gates. The emphasis has been on artistic ‘grand-standing’ and institutional self-aggrandizement. Stunts like Potsdam Platz in Berlin and the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, which are over-scaled and grandiose, detract from the human scale. Largeness, grandness and technological feats have been the new trend, where the goal is often to amaze the public, rather than to create humble, walkable human experiences! This anti-people approach to design is anathema to Intelligent Urbanism. Intelligent Urbanism promotes the scale of the pedestrian moving on the pathway, as opposed to the scale of the automobile on the expressway. Intelligent Urbanism promotes the ground plan of imageable precincts, as opposed to the imagery of façades and the monumentality of the section.

While city planers talk about mixed land uses, they are still merely placing chunks of mono-functional blocks of activity adjacent to one another, on a chessboard-like plan. Each institution, corporation and housing block has their own lockable and secure enclave, surrounded by roads! This pattern can already be seen in Gelephu.

Intelligent Urbanism conceives of mixing a variety of uses within a rich, integrated urban fabric. This brings into play mechanisms like “the eyes of the street,” round the clock activities and a more compact networking of services and infrastructure. It greatly enhances accessibility. It brings people together. In the contemporary city, the automobile is the only link between activities; between work, school and house; between individuals and group interaction. Intelligent Urbanism removes this artificial barrier and promotes face-to-face contact. The automobile, single use zoning and the construction of public structures in isolated compounds, all deteriorate the human condition and the human scale of the city. The relegation of “good practices” to isolated enclaves of the rich, underminds the very concept of the community!

This trend can be overcome by developing pedestrian circulation networks along streets and open spaces that link local destinations. In Gelephu shops, amenities, daycare, vegetable markets and basic social services will be clustered around public transport stops and at a walkable distance from work places, public institutions, high- and medium-density residential areas. Public spaces will be integrated into residential, work, entertainment and commercial areas. Social activities and public buildings will orient onto public open spaces. These will be the interchange sites for people on the move, where one can also revert into the realm of “slowness,” of community life and of human interaction. These will be the interchange nodes at modal split points…where pedestrians, cyclists, taxi passengers, bus passengers and light rail passengers alight, run errands, stop to rejuvenate and sip coffee.

Human scale can be achieved through building masses that “step down” to human scale open spaces; by using arcades and pavilions as buffers to large masses; by intermixing open spaces and built masses sensitively; by using anthropometric proportions and natural materials. Traditional building precedents often carry within them a human scale language, from which a contemporary urban fabric may evolve. The desecration of Norzim Lam in Thimphu, where a once pleasant pedestrian scale street has been turned into a row of monstrosities, is an excellent example of what not to do in Gelephu.

The focus of Intelligent Urbanism is the ground plan, the landscape plan, human movement and interaction along lines, stems, at crossing nodes, at interactive hubs and within vibrant urban cores. We have a lot to learn from Transit Oriented Development, but our goal is not merely to replace the automobile, nor to balance it. These are mundane “aims” of planning, which we all are assumed to seek out in every design and urban configuration. Our goal in planning Gelephu is to enrich the human condition and enhance the realm of human possibilities.

The town must link together a matrix of human scales and human possibilities. It must create activity nodes, which promote interaction, communication, discussion, and the exchange of ideas, play, fun and romance! This is the essence of Intelligent Urbanism.