Visual order and the image of the city (part 5)

Jane Jacobs explains two types of tactic to help clarify visual order for the city:

1. Emphasis
2. Suggestion

The tactics detailed in yesterday’s post were those falling in the former category, such as terminating vistas with landmark or interrupting a straight stretch of roadway with a plaza.

Jacobs’ chapter on visual order spends less time on the tactics of suggestion. That is, those that help unify a district’s character. Jacobs focuses on the street, again, listing different design elements that can help us perceive a street as a unified whole, even where there is diversity and vitality among the uses and structures:

• street trees
• strong and simple patterns in sidewalk pavement
• awnings

(cc) RachelH_ on flickr

(cc) Andrew A. Shenouda

Imagine a street where residences mix with commercial uses, where there is a mix of building ages and consequently their styles, materials, and craftsmanship. Adding such elements can suggest a unified whole.

These same strategies can be applied to larger districts. However, if every street and every district applies the same elements, the unified whole suggestion becomes untenable. The open sky can be a unifying element, but it’s presence nearly everywhere lacks the tactical weight of other unifying elements.