Transport sculpting city form

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There was a time when the only way you could go from point A to point B was by hopping across walls and roofs, cause there were no streets, just a densely packed habitat of humans. Then with increased security, we made streets, with buildings close enough to shade each other and the pedestrian. One would walk through what was more of a market than a thoroughfare.

Then came the horse-cart, followed closely by rails for the carriages and the city changed. The streets  became wider  the extents increased too. What followed were the railway lines, which fragmented the city, adding to convenience as

 well as pollution. But a revolution came about after 1873, with the invention of the Motor car.

Now for more than a 100 years, the form of the city and  its architecture, has been determined, among many other factors, by the whims of the car and the person inside it. What is extremely  amusing is that the very basis of our basic city planning and street design is governed by the ergonomics of a machine. In fact, the ultimate goal of the modern grid iron, consisting of hierarchal and fractal based road networks ,is the ease of mobility.

The car has resulted in the formation of various forms of transit development including highways, flyovers, underpasses and bridges which has led to a very marked change in the urban cityscape.  In fact, its no longer just the car, but imost  newer modes of transport such as buses, metros, and speed trains, which have had an impact. Their effect is not restricted to the planning level, They have affected the design of individual buildings as well.

This leads us to the question of perception. A lot of the architectural changes due to these faster modes of transport are actually not in response  to the car itself, but to the person sitting in inside the car. For instance, the facades of buildings, are getting simpler by the day so that they are easier to comprehend when being observed at a faster speed. Similarly, the position and size of billboards has changed drastically, so as to make them more perceptible and readable. However, it is also true that a lot of these changes can be seen mostly, only be seen, in the commercial parts of the city.

Now, the car has  both, pros and cons. Its effect on the city has also been detrimental to an extent but one cannot disregard the shear convenience of having a car. In my opinion the pros outweigh the cons . However, the  question is not whether the car is good or bad, the question is how best can we respond to our  need for mobility through sensible design. The future will only see an exponential increase in technological advancements, and the challenge is to be able to design buildings and cities which accommodate them, not as a superimposition but as an intrinsic part of the city.