EKISTICS (An Understanding as Urban Planner)

•The term Ekistics was coined by Greek architect and urban planner Konstantinos Apostolos Doxiadis in 1942.

•Applies to the science of human settlements .

•Includes regional, city, community planning and dwelling design. This science, termed Ekistics, will take into consideration

•the principles man takes into account when building his settlements, as well

•as the evolution of human settlements through history in terms of size and quality.

• The target is to build the city of optimum size, that is, a city which respects human dimensions.

• Since there is no point in resisting development, we should try to accommodate technological evolution and the needs of man within the same settlement.

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ACCORDING TO DOXIADIS

In order to create the cities of the future, we need to systematically

develop a science of human settlements.

•Ekistics aims to encompass all scales of human habitation and seeks to learn from the archeological and historical record by looking not only at great cities, but, as much as possible, at the total settlement pattern.

  

•BASIC PARTS OF COMPOSITE HUMAN SETTLEMENTS

•Homogeneous parts-fields;

•Central parts-built-up villages;

•Circulatory parts-roads & paths within the fields;  and

•Special parts-i.e., a monastery contained within the homogeneous part.

Classification of human settlements

•Based on Sizes

•Small and sparsely spaced (rural settlements or villages specializing in agriculture)

•Large and closely spaces (urban settlements specializing in secondary and tertiary activities)

•Based on Location of Settlements- plains, mountains, coastal, etc.

•Based on Physical Forms-form as the expression of content, function, and structure

•Based on Five Elements of Human Settlements

•Based on Functions- which are important to an understanding of the meaning and role of settlements:

•Reveal nature, specialization, & raison d’etre of settlements

•Based on activity (economic, social), their performance,or special role (as dormitories, retirement villages, etc.)

•Based on Time Dimension- age of settlements, their place in continuum (past, present, future), their relative static of dynamic character, the whole process of their growth

•Based on degree of society’s conscious involvement in settlements creation natural and planned settlements

•Based on institutions, legislations and administrations which society has created for settlements

BY EKISTICS UNITS: FOUR BASIC GROUPS

•Minor shells or elementary units- Man(Anthropos), room, house;

•Micro-settlements- units smaller than, or as small as, the traditional town where people used, do & still do achieve interconnection by walking (housegroup, small neighbourhood);

•Meso-settlements- between traditional town & conurbation within which one can commute daily (small polis, polis, small metropolis, small eperopolis, eperopolis); and

•Macro-settlements- whose largest possible expression is the Ecumenopolis

BY EKISTICS UNITS

•Physical and Social Units

•Man (as individual)- smallest unit

•Space- second unit either personally owned or shared with others

•Family Home- third unit

•Social Unit

•Group of Homes

The figure below are for Doxiadis' ideal future ekistic units for the year 2100 at which time he estimated (in 1968) that Earth would achieve zero population growth at a population of 50,000,000,000 with human civilization being powered by fusion energy.

•Large City- a city with large population & many services having less than 1 million but over 3 lakhs people.

•City- a city with abundant but not with as many services as in a large city ,having over 1 lakh upto 3 lakhs people

•Large Town- Population of 20,000 to 1 lakh.

•Town- population of 1,000 to 20,000.

•Village- population of 100 to 1000

•Hamlet- tiny population (<100) and very few (if any) services, & few buildings

•Isolated dwellings – 1 or 2 buildings of families with negligible services, if any.