Ensemble and master plan
Pedestrian spine
campus housing complex hospital city center park
It is the main walking route that links the parts of a development, a campus or a neighborhood. Buildings, entrances and meeting places are arranged around it.
What it solves
It makes clear how to reach each building and brings people together on the same route. In the tropics it calls for continuous shade, cover against rain and good drainage.
Today
Design the axis as the shortest and most pleasant path between the main destinations, with trees, benches, good night lighting and facades open to it. It must be continuous and step-free from the street to each entrance.
Common mistake
Leaving the walking route as whatever is left between parking lots, without shade and cut by driveways.
Tomorrow
A well-shaded axis can be the cool living room of a campus or neighborhood on the hottest days. If it brings together trees, drainage that soaks in and benches, it serves people and wildlife at the same time.
Fact Strøget is 1.15 kilometers long, and shops saw their sales rise after it was closed to cars in 1962.
Where it comes from
- 1Teotihuacan Valley of Mexico, around 450 AD
The Avenue of the Dead links the Pyramid of the Moon with the Ciudadela, and the city’s main temples line it. - 2Guayabo Turrialba, Costa Rica, between 1000 BC and 1400 AD
A stone causeway 6 meters wide reaches the central mound and continues several kilometers to the southeast. - 3European pedestrian street Copenhagen, Denmark, 1962
Strøget was closed to cars as an experiment and became the axis of public life in the center.
Masters
- Carlos Raúl Villanueva Covered walkways of the University City of Caracas, Caracas, Venezuela, 1953
He links the faculties with covered walkways of undulating slabs that shade pedestrians and open onto the open spaces. It is a pedestrian axis designed for the sun and rain of the tropics. - Thomas Jefferson Academical Village of the University of Virginia, Charlottesville, United States, 1817
He arranges the university around a terraced lawn with pavilions linked by colonnades and the Rotunda at the end. The central route is at once path, plaza and symbol.
Appears in the routes
See also
Also in Ensemble and master plan
Diagrams and texts by LDB Arquitectura. They are shared under the CC BY 4.0 license, which allows them to be used and adapted with credit to the source.