MArch Master of Architecture Master of Architecture: Urban Planning & Design 3 — Questions and Answers
Question 1: Kevin Lynch's 'The Image of the City' identified five elements people use to mentally map urban environments. Which of the following is NOT one of Lynch's five elements?
- Nodes
- Landmarks
- Plazas (Correct answer)
- Edges
Correct answer: Plazas
Lynch's five elements are paths, edges, districts, nodes, and landmarks; plazas are physical spaces that may contain nodes or landmarks but are not themselves a distinct category.
Question 2: In urban planning, what does the term 'gentrification' primarily refer to?
- Conversion of industrial land to residential use
- The displacement of lower-income residents as wealthier newcomers move into a neighborhood (Correct answer)
- Government-led slum clearance and public housing construction
- Historic preservation of Victorian-era building stock
Correct answer: The displacement of lower-income residents as wealthier newcomers move into a neighborhood
Gentrification describes the socioeconomic transformation of a neighborhood where rising property values and rents displace existing lower-income residents.
Question 3: Which urban design approach, associated with Andres Duany and Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk, emphasizes traditional neighborhood structures, walkability, and mixed uses?
- Metabolism
- New Urbanism (Correct answer)
- Deconstructivism
- Brutalism
Correct answer: New Urbanism
New Urbanism promotes compact, walkable, mixed-use neighborhoods modeled on pre-WWII American town planning traditions.
Question 4: What does Floor Area Ratio (FAR) measure in zoning and urban planning?
- The percentage of a lot covered by a building's footprint
- The ratio of total building floor area to the area of the lot (Correct answer)
- The maximum permitted building height in stories
- The ratio of parking spaces to residential units
Correct answer: The ratio of total building floor area to the area of the lot
FAR expresses the total gross floor area of a building as a multiple of the lot area, controlling overall building bulk.
Question 5: In the context of urban resilience planning, what does 'redundancy' mean?
- Eliminating duplicate infrastructure to reduce costs
- Having backup systems and multiple pathways so failure of one component does not collapse the whole system (Correct answer)
- Repeating the same land use across all neighborhoods for consistency
- Building excess commercial space to attract future businesses
Correct answer: Having backup systems and multiple pathways so failure of one component does not collapse the whole system
Redundancy in resilience planning ensures that critical systems have backup capacity so that localized failures do not cascade into citywide crises.
Question 6: Which federal legislation, enacted in 1949 and later amended, provided funding for urban renewal and clearance of 'slum' areas in U.S. cities?
- National Housing Act of 1934
- Housing Act of 1949 (Correct answer)
- Community Reinvestment Act of 1977
- Fair Housing Act of 1968
Correct answer: Housing Act of 1949
The Housing Act of 1949 authorized large-scale urban renewal programs that demolished low-income neighborhoods to make way for redevelopment projects.
Question 7: What planning concept does the 'transect' model, used in New Urbanist and SmartCode frameworks, describe?
- A cross-section of building structural systems from foundation to roof
- A gradient of urban intensity from rural to dense urban core organizing land use and form (Correct answer)
- A method for measuring pedestrian traffic volumes across intersections
- A diagram showing stormwater flow through an urban watershed
Correct answer: A gradient of urban intensity from rural to dense urban core organizing land use and form
The transect organizes human habitats along a spectrum from natural rural zones to dense urban cores, calibrating appropriate building types and uses at each zone.
MArch Master of Architecture Master of Architecture: Urban Planning & Design 3
Kevin Lynch's 'The Image of the City' identified five elements people use to mentally map urban environments.
Which of the following is NOT one of Lynch's five elements?