A comparative study of contextual urban design approaches in the UK and DK

During the last century urban planning has changed dramatically due in part to vehicular development, a modernist design culture, rapid urbanisation and new computer technologies. This planning strategy has influenced that new-implemented areas looks incredible from a helicopter, but the human scale has, as a consequence, been completely shattered. The context of buildings has predominantly not been preserved, or adequately considered; the shape of buildings has been the most significant focus in the planning process. Two approaches, comprehensive development and cellular renewal, will be introduced as different ways of accommodating, more contextual urban renewal.
In this paper, four different case studies in two different cities, Winchester in UK and Copenhagen in DK, are examined in regards to their urban planning and their use of the two above-mentioned approaches. A number of different key performance indicators have been selected, analysed and evaluated in a spiderweb, to clarify where in the process the planning could have been better or improved with regard to future similar planning processes.
The two cities, Winchester and Copenhagen, and the four case studies, selected in the beginning of this paper, turned out to be more dissimilar than anticipated. This was due to cultural traditions and different construction methods in the two countries. In spite of this, clear pros and cons, of using comprehensive development and cellular renewal have been identified.
Both case studies approached by cellular renewal turned out to be the most contextual urban design, where the focus on social- and physical contextualism was introduced early in the process. With that said comprehensive can still be considered and approached by contextualism.