Planning Concepts by C.A. Doxiadis, Islamabad City Planning

1. C.A. Doxiadis
Planning of Islamabad City
GROUP MEMBERS:Shilpa S. Singh
- 111214045
Sharayu Kokate
- 111214018
Rashmi Kulkarni - 111214020

2. CA DOXIADIS is a Greek architect and Town planner. He
became known as the lead architect of Islamabad.
BORN 1913 Constantinos A. Doxiadis, son of Apostolos and Evanthia (Mezeviri)
Doxiadis, comes from a family that played an important role in the
settlement of Greek war refugees in between the two World Wars.
His father, a paediatrician, was Minister for the Resettlement of
Refugees, Social Welfare and Public Health and organized many
welfare
services especially for children.
GRADUATED Architect-Engineer from the Technical University of Athens in 1935,
did graduate work at Berlin-Charlottenburg University and received
the degree of Dr. Ing. Mit Auszeichnung 1936.

3. Organized many welfare services, especially for children.
He graduated as Architect-Engineer from the Athens Technical
University in 1935 and obtained his doctorate at Charlottenburg
University, Berlin, one year later.
In 1937 he was appointed Chief Town Planning Officer for the
Greater Athens Area and during the war (1940-1945) held the post
of Head of the Department of Regional and Town Planning in the
Ministry of Public Works while also serving as a corporal in the
Greek Army.
During the Occupation he was Chief of the National Resistance
Group, Hephaestus, and published a magazine called "Regional
Planning, Town Planning and Ekistics," the only underground
technical publication anywhere in occupied territories.

4. From 1945 to 1951 Doxiadis was one of the prime leaders in Greece
Director-General of the Ministry of Housing and Reconstruction (194548), and subsequently as Minister-Coordinator of the Greek Recovery
Program and Undersecretary of the Ministry of Coordination (1948-51).
During these years he was also head of the Greek Delegation at the UN
International Conference on Housing, Planning and Reconstruction
(1947) and head of the Greek Delegation at the Greco-Italian War
Reparations Conference
(1949-50).
In 1951 he founded Doxiadis Associates, a private firm of consulting
engineers, with a small group of architects and planners, many of whom
had worked with him on the Greek Recovery Program.
In 1959 Doxiadis founded the Athens Technological Organization and
in 1963 the Athens Center of Ekistics. From 1958 to 1971 he taught
ekistics at the Athens Technological Organization and lectured at
universities all over the United States as well as at Oxford and Dublin.

5. Doxiadis graduated in Architectural engineering from
the Technecial University of Athens in 1935, obtaining a
doctorate from Charlottenburg University
(today Technical University of Berlin) a year later.
In 1937 he was appointed Chief Town Planning Officer
for the Greater Athens Area.
During World War II he held the post of Head of the
Department of Regional and Town Planning in the
Ministry of Public Works.
He took part in the Greek resistance and was decorated
by the Greek and British governments.

6. He distinguished himself as Minister of Reconstruction at the end of the
war and it was this experience that allowed him in the 1950s to gain
large housing contracts in dozens of countries.
In 1951 he founded Doxiadis Associates, a private firm of consulting
engineers, which grew rapidly until it had offices on five continents and
projects in 40 countries.
In 1963 the company changed its name to DA International Co. Ltd.
Consultants on Development and Ekistics.
Other proposals in already existing cities, where shifting political and
economic forces did not allow full implementation of his plans.
The plan for Islamabad, separates cars and people, allows easy and
affordable access to public transport and utilities and permits low cost
gradual expansion and growth without losing the human scale of his
"communities".
Doxiadis was honored in 1965 by Industrial Designers Society of
America (IDSA) with a Special Award for notable results, creative and
innovative concepts and long-term benefits to the industrial design
profession, its educational functions and society at large.

8. In order to create the cities of the future, we need to
systematically develop a science of human settlements.
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.

9. The whole range of human settlements, is a very
complex system of five elements - nature, man , society,
shells (that is, buildings), and networks.
It is a system of natural, social, and man-made elements
which can be seen in many ways - economic, social,
political,technological, and cultural.

10. FIRST PRINCIPLE:
Maximization of human's potential :Contacts with the elements of nature (such as water and trees),
with other people, and with the works of man (such as buildings
and roads).
This, after all, amounts to an operational definition of personal
human freedom.
It is in accordance with this principle that man abandoned the
Garden of Eden and is today attempting to conquer the cosmos.
It is because of this principle that man considers himself
imprisoned, even if given the best type of environment, if he is
surrounded by a wall without doors.
In this, man differs from animals; we do not know of any species
of animals that try to increase their potential contacts with the
environment once they have reached the optimum number of

11. SECOND PRINCIPLE :
Minimization of the effort required for the achievement of
man's actual and potential contacts.
He always gives his structures the shape, or selects the route,
that requires the minimum effort, no matter whether he is
dealing with the floor of a room, which he tends to make
horizontal, or with the creation of a highway.

12. THIRD PRINCIPLE :
Optimization of man's protective space, which means the
selection of such a distance from other persons, animals, objects
that he can keep his contacts with them (first principle) without
any kind of sensory or psychological discomfort.
This has to be true at every moment and in every locality, whether
it is temporary or permanent and whether man is alone or part of
a group.
This has been demonstrated very well, lately, for the single
individual, by anthropologists such as E. T.Hall and psychiatrists
such as Augustus F. Kinzel, and by the clothes man designs for
himself, and it may be explained not only as a psychological but
also as a physiological problem if we think of the layers of air that
surround us or the energy that we represent . The walls of houses
or fortification walls around cities are other expressions of this
third principle.

13. FOURTH PRINCIPLE :
Optimization of the quality of man's relationship with his
environment, which consists of nature, society, shells
(buildings and houses of all sorts), and networks (ranging
from roads to telecommunications).
This is the principle that leads to order, physiological and
aesthetic, and that influences architecture and, in many
respects, art’s.

14. FIFTH PRINCIPAL:
Man organizes his settlements in an attempt to achieve an
optimum synthesis of the other four principles, and this
optimization is dependent on time and Space, on actual
conditions, and on man's ability to create a synthesis.
When he has achieved this by creating a system of floors, walls,
roofs, doors, and windows which allows him to maximize his
potential contacts (first principle) while minimizing the
energy expended (second principle) and at the same time
makes possible his separation from others (third principle)
and the desirable relationship with his environment (fourth
principle), we speak of "successful human settlements".
What we mean is settlements that have achieved a
balance between man and his man-made environment, by
complying with all five principles.

15. The idea that the small, romantic city of earlier times is
appropriate to the era of contemporary man who
developed science and technology is therefore a mistaken
one.
New, dynamic types of settlements interconnecting more
and more smaller settlements are the types appropriate
to this era.
To stop this change from city (polis) to dynapolis, we
would have to reverse the road created by science and
technology for man's movement in terrestrial space.

16. MAJOR WORKS
The major projects of C.A.
Doxiadis were follows:
Islamabad
Akara
Khartum
Brazil
Cyprus
Ethiopia
France
Greece
Jordan
Iraq
Libya
Mexico
Pakistan
Saudi Arabia
Sudan
USA
Washington DC

18. 1. SUSTAINABLE CITY
• Islamabad represents Pakistan’s first New town project as the capital of
the newly independent state, and one of the major new town
developments in the sub-continent comparable to Chandigarh in India
or Brasilia in Brazil.
• Doxiadis´s provision of generous public spaces in graduated amounts
for each class of community was paralleled by a careful ecological
analysis of the four main categories of natural landscape: the
mountains, the hillocks, the plain and the ravines.
• The notion of design to integrate nature and the city is achieved by a
scalar arrangement of “Landscape” in the form of Productive
Landscape (agro-grid, urban agro-farm), ecological Landscape (ecogrid, natural plant, green, ravine and wildlife), and Urban Structuring
Landscape (public, private and hybrid)types.
• The plan of Islamabad shows connectivity on all levels; within the city,
natural landscape is integrated with other systems of open spaces and
other types of landscape, and also creates an urban system that is
connected to the natural areas surrounding the city.

19. •
2. SUSTAINABLE
TRANSPORTATION in the
• The road networks
The advantages of the clear
hierarchy of residential
communities, of the related
functions and of the transport
system are apparent in the
segregation of the various
categories of movements (i.e.
high/low speed Road Traffic, Public •
Transport, Bicycles, Pedestrians,
etc.) and in the reduction of trip
lengths.
• With proper management of traffic
and demand, the road network will
not be subject to the capacity and
related serious environmental
problems observed in almost all
large cities of the world present
road network and traffic situation
two cities differ
substantially. Islamabad is
a planned city with an
extensive road network laid
out in a grid structure.
In Rawalpindi, the road
network is the result of an
organic development and
represents a spider net
structure. Both the road
standard and the general
traffic environment is
inferior to Islamabad, and
here, congestion is common
and increasing.

20. SALIENT FEATURES
Islamabad is the capital of Pakistan and the tenth largest city in the country.
The greater Islamabad-Rawalpindi Metropolitan Area is the third largest conurbation
in Pakistan with a population of over 4.5 million inhabitants.
It is located in the Pothohar Plateau in the north of the country, within the Islamabad
Capital Territory.
The city was built during the 1960’s to replace Karachi as Pakistan's capital.
Islamabad is a well-organized and most developed city divided into different sectors and
zones.
It was ranked as Gamma World City in 2008.
The city is home to Faisal Mosque, the largest mosque in South Asia and the sixth
largest mosque in the world.
Islamabad has the highest literacy rate in Pakistan and is home to some of the topranked universities in Pakistan. Allama Iqbal Open University in Islamabad is one of
the world's largest universities.
Islamabad's architecture is a combination of modernity and old Islamic and regional
traditions.
The Saudi-Pak Tower is an example of the integration of modern architecture with
traditional styles. The beige-coloured edifice is trimmed with blue tile works in Islamic
tradition, and is one of Islamabad's tallest buildings.

21. HISTORICAL BACKGROUND
Islamabad is 14kms northeast from of Rawalpindi on the north eastern Potohar
plateau of the province of Punjab.
The city of Islamabad is preceded by thousands of years of history.
It is regarded as the site of one of the earliest human settlements in Asia, and is at
one end of the ancient Indus Valley Civilization.
This area was the first settlements of the Aryans from Central Asia and is on the
route through which passed all those who invaded India from the North and Northwest.
This region has witnessed the passage of ancient Caravans from Central Asia as
well as of the ferocious armies of Alexander and Tamurlane.
The banks of the river Soan in Islamabad were host to stone-age man over 7000
years ago and human skulls dating back to 5000 B.C. have been fund in and around
Islamabad.

22. THE BIRTH AND LOCATION OF THE CAPITAL
A new capital for Pakistan was necessary following the independence of India
in 1947 and the inevitable partition into India and Pakistan.
Various solutions were proposed for the location of the new capital from 1947
to 1959 when the final decision was reached.
The two most important were related to the creation of the new capital, either
in Karachi or at a distance of about 15-20 miles from this city.
In February 1959, a commission and nine sub-committees were formed .
C.A. Doxiadis started advising on the location and planning of the new capital
in 1955 when he submitted his first report.
In March 1959, the problem of the location of the new capital was solved and a
site was approved which was located at the foot of the Margala Hills in
northern Pakistan between the historical cities of Lahore and Peshawar, west of
the Idaspis (now Jhelum) river where Alexander the Great defeated King
Poros.

23. THE HIERARCHICAL CONCEPT IN COMMUNITIES, LAND USES AND
TRANSPORTATION SYSTEM
Islamabad is planned according to a hierarchical system of communities of various classes, each
class comprising the functions corresponding to its size.
These communities are properly served by a major transportation system developed within wide
corridors of a grid-iron configuration, surrounding and defining the higher class communities.
Local and collector low speed roads, wide sidewalks, pedestrian roads and bicycles lanes within the
lower class ‘Human Communities’ provide access to the major transportation system.
The above hierarchical system of communities and transportation facilities, contributes to the
reduction of travel distances and time, accidents, and to the promotion of ‘Green Transport’
(walking, cycling, public transport).
The figure gives a schematic representation of four Class V Communities.
Each Class V Community has a population of 20.000 to 40.000 inhabitants and is divided into four
Class IV communities, each composed in turn of four Class III communities.
Class V communities are spatially defined and accessed by major arteries at 2km intervals. These
arteries may be gradually upgraded to freeways, depending on increasing traffic flows.
They are developed within 180m wide transportation corridors where high speed public transport
may also be accommodated.
Short length minor arteries (90m R.O.W.) are spaced at about 1km distances, defining Class IV
communities within which pedestrians can safely walk along a system of local roads, wide
sidewalks and pedestrian roads, leading to the local centres and functions.
By the extensive use of cul-de-sacs and loops, cars can move inside these ‘Human Communities’
without interfering with pedestrians.

24. Schematic
representation of the
hierarchical
pattern of
communities and
transportation
Local roads are connected to
collect-or roads only and
designed mainly as cul-de-sacs
or loops.

25. THE MASTER PLAN AND THE DYNAMETROPLIS
CONCEPT
The Islamabad Metropolitan Area is composed of Islamabad, the old city of
Rawalpindi and the National Park.
The latter is a hilly area, containing two large lakes, the National Sports
Centre, the National University and the National Research Centre.
Four major inter-urban roads delineate the above three major components of
the Metropolitan Area.
The overall plan is based on the “Dynametropolis” concept, giving the
possibility of continuous expansion with the least possible adverse effects in
traffic and generally, in the functioning of the Metropolis. Both Islamabad and
Rawalpindi, central cores and residential areas, may expand dynamically.

26. Islamabad Metropolitan Area. The
concept of the Dynametropolis.

27. The Master Plan of the
Islamabad Metropolitan Area.

28. THE CONCEPTION OF THE MASTER PLAN
1. THE LANDSCAPE PATTERN AND THE 2. FORMATION OF THE
HIGHWAYS
METROPOLITAN AREA
The backbone of the Islamabad Metropolitan Area
Master Plan is formed by two highways, Islamabad
Highway and Murree Highway.
The chief characteristic of the landscape is that it runs
from NE-SW along valleys formed by a series of hills
running in the same direction.
2 more highways, by-passing the existing town of
Rawalpindi, have been proposed.
On the basis of the above ideas, a system of 4 highways
becomes the basic step for the metropolitan area.
These axes form a big square, which will define all future
transportation systems and all major functions within the
metropolitan area.
The principal system of axes in the metropolitan
area of Islamabad defines three distinctive areas:
a. the area of Islamabad
b. the area of Rawalpindi
c. the National Park area
The areas of Islamabad proper and Rawalpindi
are both open for expansion towards the southwest, while the National Park area is rather
districted from the surrounding hills and Soan
river to the south-east.

29. 4. ISLAMABAD-The sketch indicates
growth of functions
in the direction of the city's future
expansion
3. DYNAMETROPOLIS- The
central functions of Islamabad
and Rawalpindi
5. RAWALPINDI
6. THE NATIONAL PARK
7. MASTER PLAN OF THE
METROPOLITIAN AREA

30. THE MAKING OF THE PLAN
The area chosen for the new capital is 1200 km (approx.) north of Karachi, at
the beginning the Murree Hills (2000 – 2500 m altitude) near the Pothwar
plateau (avg. 500-600m altitude).
It forms a gutted landscape by ravines carrying the rain and run off of the
surrounding hills of lower Himalayan series and erosion of top soil adds to the
fragility of the overall landscape.
The series of ravines culminates to form the river ‘Soan’ which falls into River
Indus after travelling a 100kms approximate distance in South –westerly
direction.
The site itself has an average altitude of 500 – 600 m with the immediate
Margalla Hills having a 1500 – 1800 m altitude.
The city acts as a centre for trade, commerce and culture for the dispersed
villages and small towns, generally dependent on rain-fed agricultural activity,
all over the Pothwar Plateau.
The new city of Islamabad had to carve out an identity of its own, lying in
between - the hills and the plains, the historic city and the colonial cantonment,
amidst the political currents ranging from ‘Theocracy’, ‘Democracy’,
‘Authoritarianism’ and ‘Totalitarianism’, along with ‘Tradition’ and
‘Modernity’.

31. THE ADMINISTRATIVE SECTOR OF ISLAMABAD
1. THE ADMINISTRATIVE SECTOR
WITHIN ISLAMABAD
The drawing shows the location of the
administrative centre within the overall plan
of Islamabad.
The main axis runs through the core of
Islamabad. This will be called Capital Avenue
and looks towards the presidential palace
located in a commanding position on the top
of a hill.
Due to the fixed road, and the location of the
administrative centre on a higher level, this
section of the capital which is its brain centre
and pulsating heart - will dominate the city
even after it has expanded and fully grown
along the patterns provided for.
The administrative sector within
Islamabad

32. 2. INTERRELATION OF
FUNCTIONS IN THE
ADMINISTRATIVE CENTRE
The main reason for the creation of new
capital of Pakistan was that a proper
environment should be provided for the
country's administrative functions.
The hills lying NW of Rawal Lake formed
an ideal setting for the administrative sector.
Thus, on the basis of the theory and
principles of the ‘City of the Future’ the
administrative as well as the central sector of
the city both began at the core of Islamabad.
The Capitol Complex lied at the heart of
the synthesis.
It was from here that the administrative
sector had to be developed towards and
following the direction of the Margala Hills,
in order to spread along them in the future.
The sketch shows a zoning map of the
administrative centre of Islamabad.
Interrelation of functions in the
administrative centre

33. ISLAMABAD MASTER PLAN- ENVIRONMENT
FRIENDLY DESIGN
The planners envisaged Islamabad eventfully absorbing Rawalpindi entirely
and stretching well to the west of Grand Trunk Road.
Islamabad was designed to provide a healthy climate, pollution-free
atmosphere, plenty of water and lush green area.
It is a modern and carefully designed city with wide tree lined streets, large
houses, elegant public buildings and well organised bazaars/ markets/ shopping
centres.
The city is divided into 8 basic zones administrative, diplomatic enclave,
residential areas, educational sectors, industrial sectors, commercial areas,
rural and green areas.
Each sector has its own shopping area and public park.
Each sector was kept separated through green belts which also act as ‘Oxygen
Generators’.

34. ISLAMABAD TODAY
Islamabad today is not what it was
designed for.
It is no more isolated from the business and
commercial activities.
Population in Islamabad has risen from
0.340 million to 1.124 million within 25
years showing an overall increase of 230%
with an average annual growth of 6%.
The increasing economic activities have
given birth to high rise building, residential
apartments, housing schemes, educational
institutions, industrial units and new
markets.
These pressures forced Capital
Development Authority (CDA) to alter the
Master Plan of Islamabad and upgrade the
physical infrastructure.
Islamabad is a “UNIQUE” example of a
large new city “PLANNED FOR THE
FUTURE AND BUILT FOR THE
PRESENT”, fully respecting the long-term
planning.

37. AWARDS
• Sir Patrick Abercrombie Prize of the International Union of Architects
(1963).
• Cali de 0ro (The Mexican Gold Medal) Award of the Society of Mexican
Architects (1963).
• Award of Excellence, Industrial Designers Society of America (1965).
• Aspen Award for the Humanities (1966).