MODEL OF THE CITY

Abstract

The design and development of cities is the most complicated phenomenon in the domain of shaping space. It is the result of planned human activities related to land parcellation, building infrastructure, establishing safety rules, creating a friendly scale and aesthetics of public spaces. It is also the result of spontaneous processes that take place without strict control. It is influenced by economy, demography, environmental factors, as well as wars, conflicts, and competition between entities. In architecture, it is possible to build knowledge and competences by performing tests on a 1:1 scale. Although expensive and difficult, it sometimes brings the desired results and opens the perspective to new design techniques. In urban planning, the subject of creative activities is too complex to test final solutions. The time from design to implementation is too long to use your own experience even indirectly. The only way to test urban ideas in the conceptual phase is to create models. Both geometric and social features could be represented. The most perfect contemporary models attempt to comprise many processes of city functioning, including spontaneous activities conditioned by external and internal factors.