You are on page 1of 7

FAR EASTERN UNIVERSITY

INSTITUTE OF ARCHITECTURE AND FINE ARTS

PLANNING 341:
EKISTICS: THE SCIENCE OF
HUMAN SETTLEMENTS

VELARDE, JESSA DYNN A.


AR406
EKISTICS, THE SCIENCE OF HUMAN SETTLEMENTS
Human settlements are no longer satisfactory for their inhabitants. This is
true everywhere in the world, in underdeveloped as well as in developed
countries. It holds true both for the way of living of their inhabitants and for
the forms we give to the shells of the settlements trying to satisfy their
needs. And it is true whatever our aspect of the problem.

Ekistics is the science of human settlements. The term derives from the
Greek verb oik, meaning settling down, and denotes the existence of an
overall science of human settlements conditioned by man and influenced by
economic, social, political administrative, and technical sciences as well as
the disciplines related to the arts.

The term ekistics was coined by greek architect & urban planner
constantinos apostolos doxiadis in 1942.
In order to create the cities of the future, we need to systematically
develop a science of human settlements.
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.

CITIES AND SETTLEMENTS ARE CONFRONTED WITH A GREAT


NUMBER OF PROBLEMS, SOME INHERITED FROM THE PAST, SOME
ARISING OUT OF PRESENT CONDITIONS.

According to Doxiadis there are critical conditions, which are


common to all cities:
1. There is an unprecedented increase in population due to improved
living conditions, accompanied by a migration to urban settlements.
The result is growth of urban settlements at a tremendous scale.
2. We experience multiple impacts of machines in our lives. These
impacts lead to higher productivity and new possibilities, but also bring
unprecedented problems to the structure of cities and society, of
resource use and environmental degradation.
3. There is a gradual socialization in the patterns of living, which allows
the whole population to participate more and more in the city, its
facilities and resources.
4. In the modern city, growth and change over time is a dominant
feature, which must take precedence in all planning considerations.

DOXIADIS FORMULATED A SET OF CONCEPTUAL MODELS, WHICH


FORMED THE FOUNDATION OF EKISTICS. FIVE OF THE MOST
IMPORTANT ONES ARE LISTED HERE:
The five elements of human settlements or ekistic elements: man, society,
nature, shells and networks, and their relationships.
The ekistic logarithmic scale (els) and the ekistic units.
The ekistic grid, consisting of units of space and the five elements of
human settlements.
The model of satisfaction.
The anthropocosmos model.

FIVE ELEMENTS OF EKISTICS


Man in the center stands man,
the individual human being. The
generic term includes male and
female. Later doxiadis replaced
man with the greek term
anthropos to be more inclusive.
Society deals with people and
their interaction with population
trends, group behavior, social
customs, occupation, income,
and government. Of increasing
importance is the preservation of
values inherent in small
communities after they have
been absorbed by larger
settlements.
Nature represents the ecosystem within which man and society
operate and cities and settlements are placed. The interrelation between
man, machine, settlement and nature is of high importance, as is the
carrying capacity of regions, continents and ultimately the entire planet.
Shells are used as the generic term for all buildings and structures.
Networks for transportation, communication and utilities support the
settlements and tie them together with their organization and structure.
Their changes profoundly affect urban patterns and often developments
in networks have been portending new developments in cities and
societies.
EKISTICS LOGARITHMIC SCALE(ELS).
Any study of human settlements must be
related to the scale. To this end, doxiadis
proposed 15 levels of settlement size or 15
ekistic units, ranging from the individual man
or anthropos to the entire global settlement
called ecumenopolis, with its ultimate size of
30 50 billion people.
The 15 units are: man (anthropos), room,
house, house group, small neighborhood,
small city, city (polis), small metropolis,
metropolis, small megalopolis, megalopolis,
small eperopolis, eperopolis, ecumenopolis
(for definition of the terms see glossary).
The population figures for the first three units have been given with 1 for
man/anthropos, 2 for room and 5 for house/dwelling. For the remaining 12
units, which are numbered as community classes (roman) I to XII, the
population figures increase by a factor of roughly 7, which constitutes the
ekistics logarithmic scale. The population figures range from 40 persons in
the house group to 10,000 for the small city/polis (community class IV) to 4
million in the average metropolis to 3050 billion for ecumenopolis, the city
spanning the entire globe

EKISTICS GRID
By combining the ekistics elements with the ekistics logarithmic scale,
Doxiadis created the ekistics grid, an organizational matrix on which each
study can be localized and categorized. This ekistics grid was henceforth to
be included at the beginning of each publication, thus it became a unique
and most valuable element in the journal ekistics.

GOALS AND MODEL OF SATISFACTION


Doxiadis derived the goals for human settlements from Aristotles age old
saying that the goals for our cities are to make man happy and safe. Safety
is not only limited to safety from wars, but safety from crime, pollution, and
natural disasters (through location, codes).

The goal of
ekistics is to
achieve a balance
between the
elements of
human
settlements in
order to
guarantee
happiness and
safety of man.

Doxiadis followed the ancient Greek philosophers in asking what is


the good life and, by referring to Aristotle, he gave his own position
on what constitutes happiness. Doxiadis believed that to survive, to
live and to achieve happiness, human beings built settlements,
which always followed fundamental principles, and he defined five
principles in mans quest for happiness:

1. Maximum contacts. Men is continuously reaching out for a greater


number of contacts (material, aesthetic, intellectual) with nature and
other people and elements. This maximizing of contacts leads to the
expansion of cities.
2. Minimum effort. Men tries to expend minimum effort to achieve
maximum contacts and to reduce energy, time and cost to a minimum.
This leads to higher densities.
3. Optimum space. Men needs optimum (but not necessarily maximum)
space, whether temporary or permanent, for man as an individual or as
the member of a group, for the satisfaction of his needs.
4. Quality of the environment. The quality of the environment is
determined by mans relation with nature, society, shells and networks,
creating a balance of the ekistics elements. The relationships within
the total environment need to be optimized.
5. Optimum in the synthesis of all principles. A balanced and
beneficial synthesis of the preceding principles has to be created.
These principles were combined with desirability and feasibility of the
economic, social, political, technological and cultural aspects to form
the model of satisfaction. Doxiadis developed studies on maximizing
the amount of time one spends in good and rewarding activities and
minimizing idle waste of time. These efforts lead to time allocation
studies and time management in urban activities as for instance the
optimization of travel time.

BASIC PARTS OF COMPOSITE HUMAN SETTLEMENTS

HOMOGENEOUS PARTS (ex. Fields) CENTRAL PARTS

(ex. Built-up Villages)

CIRCULATORY PARTS SPECIAL PARTS

(ex. Roads and Paths) (ex. Monastery in a


CLASSIFICATION OF HUMAN SETTLEMENTS
homogeneous part)
Based on sizes:
Small and sparsely spaced- ex.
Rural settlements
Large and closely spaces- urban
settlements

Based on location of settlements:


Ex. Settlements located in plains, mountains
and coastals
Based on physical forms:
Form as the expression of content, function
and structure

Based on functions:
Which are important to an understanding
of the meaning and role of settlements:
reveal nature, specialization, & raison
detre 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

You might also like