Penelitian pada dasarnya merupakan cara berpikir, cara menyimpulkan data sehingga dapat diartikulasikan oleh peneliti. Penelitian mempunyai 7 (tujuh) karakteristik yang dijabarkan secara berkesinambungan. Penelitian perkotaan merupakan kajian sistematik dari sifat kegiatan, proses, keluaran politik, sosial dan ekonomi pada tingkat spatial yang berbeda. Teori rancangan perkotaan terdiri dari pendekatan fungsional, humanis, sistemik dan formalis. Metode perkotaan selanjutnya menjabarkan tentang definisi skala, implementasi dan integrasi penelitian perkotaan.

Research is essentially a way of thinking; it is a manner of regarding accumulated fact so that a collection of data becomes articulate to the mind of the researchers in terms of what those data mean and what fact say.

Research is simply the manner in which men solve the knotty problems in their attempt to push back the frontiers of human ignorance.

Research has seven discrete charac-teristics which appear sequentially (Leedy, 1985).

Research begins with a question in the mind of the researcher. By asking relevant questions man creates a fa-vorable attitudinal climate, an inquisi-tive receptiveness to pertinent fact which is a basic prerequisite for re-search itself, for research arise from a question intelligently asked in the presence of a phenomenon that the researcher has observed and which puzzles him. By asking the right que-stions the researcher find both rele-vance and direction in his quest for truth

Research requires a plan. Research ra-ther, entails a definite plan, direction and design. The whole research pro-cess should proceed purposively from the awareness of the need to know to the point where the relevant facts speak to the researcher, giving them the answer. There must be a clear statement of the research problems, a development of hypotheses, a design for gathering and interpreting the data, and finally a test of the hypo-theses and an arrival at factually based conclusions. Research is an orderly procedure, planned and logi-cal in design.

Research demands a clear statement of the problem. Research begins with a clear, simple statement of the pro-blem. Before begining, we must under-stand the problem and look at it objectively, see clearly what it is we are attempting to study.

Research deals with the main problem through subproblems. From a prac-tical standpoint, it is more expedient to divide the main problem into appropriate subproblems, all of which when resolved will result in the solu-tion of the main research problem.

Research seeks direction through ap-propriate hypotheses. Having stated the problem and attendant subpro-blems, the subproblems are then each viewed through logical construct call-ed hypotheses. A hypotheses is a logi-cal supposition, a reasonable guess, an educated conjecture which may give direction to thinking with res-pect to the problem and, thus, aid in solving it.

Hypotheses are a part of everyday experience; employed in the approach to everyday problems. They represent the natural working of the human mind.

Research deals with facts and their meaning. Having now isolated the problem, subdivided it into appro-priate subproblems, and posited hypotheses which will suggest the direction in which the fact may lie, the next step is to collect whatever facts seem to be pertinent to the pro-blem and to organize them into meaningful aggregates, capable of be-ing interpreted.

Research is circular. The researcher seeks from within the universe for those particular facts which seem to be pertinent to the solution of the problem and its attendant subpro-blems. His search is facilitated by the construction of tentative hypotheses. They point in the direction of relevant facts. The collected facts are then organized, analyzed, and interpreted for the purpose of discovering what the facts mean. Such discovery aids, in turn, in solving the problem; and this, then, satisfies the question which gave rise to the research originally.

Urban Research is the systematic exa-mination of the nature of political, social and economic activities, pro-cesses, and outcomes at different spatial level (Andranovich,1993).

Sharp differences of opinion continue to exist on definition approach, and emphasis. There has been a basic con-vergence on the central concerns of urban research. Convergence su-ggests that urban research should include the characteristics of urban space; the organization of institutions and processes underlying urban political, social and economic rela-tions; and the linkage of urban centers with one to another and with the larger political system, society and the economy (Sussen, 1991; Smith, 1988).

These concerns serve to lend order to the rich diversity of urban field, while the concept of space serves as the thread that links the above areas of inquiry. Hence the occupancy of space-acquiring and controlling spa-ce-provides a means of access to social and economic values (Neiman, 1975; Williams, 1971). Space then takes on a broader social meaning; urban spatial structures and processes are created to control and allocate values (Davis, 1990; Gottdiener, 1985).

Questions that begin to draw the attention to the linkage between the use of space and other urban proces-ses are (Lake, 1983) ;

What is the current spatial form and structure of urban environment ?

What are the factors and forces that account for the particular structure of urban space, its social and political processes, population distribution and land use ?

Why and under what conditions do these pattern change ?

What are the consequences and impli-cations for constituent processes

Urban research is conducted from two general positions, one is academi-cally oriented (basic research) and focuses on theory building. The other is policy-oriented (applied research) and focuses on problem solving.

The two positions are not mutually exclusive; the interests of both basic and applied researchers converge in wanting to better understand and improve the quality of life in urban areas.

Researchers and research projects can and do easily move from one orien-tation to the other. There is a benefit to using the methods of basic research in an applied research project and to thinking about the practical impli-cations of conducting basic research.

The applied research orientation is more fully elaborated. This is follow-ed by a brief overview of the scientific method, which is the foundation of basic research.

Applied urban research focuses on the processes and outcomes of urbanization with the goal of acqui-ring a sharper understanding for policymaking purposes and provi-ding a better quality of life for those of us living in urban centers. Thus applied urban r-search means the identification and solution of the problems occurring in urban space (Andranovich, 1993).

The researchers must undertake a broader reading of issues or topic, including not only its theoretical in-fluences but also the experiential in-fluences of the city’s inhabitants and policy makers.

Linking knowledge to practice enhan-ces the usefulness of research, doing urban research and doing applied ur-ban research are not separate endea-vors; question raised out of intellec-tual or pragmatic curiosity and followed by systematic examination are useful for problem solving where the research result can be transferred by policy makers.

One primary characteristic of urban research is that, in recent times, much of it has taken a policy focus. By policy focus, it means that the re-search is collaborative, problem-oriented, and conducted to provide potential solutions to geographically bounded urban problems.

The three important research issues ;

- time and space,
- comparative studies,
- focus on the relationship between processes and outcomes.

To accomplish it however, the resear-chers must include time, comparison and process-outcome relations in the research strategy.

Four stances in European theories of Urban Design (Attoe, 1989)

A theory of urban design needs to describe the nature of urban setting, the goals of urban forms and use, and the methods for realizing the goals that is consistent with the nature of the setting. Functionalism envisioning the city as a collection of uses to be accommodated: residence, work, lei-sure, and the traffic system that serve them. Functionalist theory treats resi-dence, work and leisure as discrete elements. Activities should not mix. Hence zoning is a key element of the functionalist city, for in a zoned envi-ronment, activities can proceed with little or no interference from other activities.

Functionalist theory calls for research, a thorough analysis of needs and circumtances, and deliberative deci-sion making process by trained professionals. They must coordinate natu-ral, sociological, economic and other factor specific to the cultural context and stage of development.

Humanist planning seeks to realise and enhance pre-existing and under-lying social structures. The first con-cern is the human experience of the city and its social life, the good city is best understood as a collection of en-claves not unlike villages.

Decisions are based on users needs and circumstances rather than on con-cepts. The humanist urban designer pays attention to smallscale elements and informal ordering systems, avoi-ding largescale, superimposed geo-metries. Humanist designer more-over, advocate a mixed use of the urban environment, whereas functi-onalist streets are principally for automobiles, humanist streets are do-mesticated and become ‘livable’ pla-ces ‘for people’.

The systemic approach emphasizes large-scale elements of urban design and seeks an overall order for the ur-ban place. The key to succesful urban design in a complex world is organizing the underlying systems, not individual building. Some sys-temic urban design solution integrate the two system, transportation and shelter. The city, for them, is an inter-locked system of movement corridors and structural armatures supporting housing and other uses.

The formalist stance as backward-looking idealism, most formalist dis-course does not in fact characterize the past as a better time to which we should return but maintains only that traditional solutions contain ideas that work and that these ideas carry with them the ingredient of memory that new architecture forms and new urban spaces inevitably lack.

Urban Design is (Madanipour, 1996) ;

The interface between architecture, town planning and related profes-sions.

The three dimensional design of places for people and their subse-quent care and management.

A vital bridge, giving structure and reality to two dimensional master plans and abstract planning briefs, be-fore detailed architectural or engine-ering design can take place.

The design of the built-up area at the local scale, including the grouping of building for different use, the move-ment systems and services associated with them, and the spaces and urban landscape between them.

It is creative activity by which the form and character of urban environ-ment is done at the local scale.

And other attempts to define urban design (Shirvani,1985), we see a variety of foci: some are dealing with the domain of urban design, especially with it’s involvement with the physical fabric of the city. Others have focused on it’s scale, it’s point of departure from, or congruence with, planning and architecture, it’s political and management aspects, or it’s place in the planning process.

Rowley, (1994) has argued that urban design is a complex phenomenon which defies simple definition or explanation, but which encompasses "the design creation, and mana-gement of ‘good’ urban spaces and places" as both an approach and a response to the process of urban change and development. In other words, it is an ongoing evolutionary process of change concerned with satisfying social and emotional needs, as well as with the more prosaic requirements of convenient, safe, healthy, and efficient public realm.

To arrive at a definition for urban design, we will need to take into ac-count these various attempts, and identity the elements which create confusion and ambiguity. By doing so, we could have a clearer concep-tion of what urban design is about. Seven arena in which different defi-nitions fall :

1. The scale of urban fabric which urban design addresses;
2. The visual or spatial emphasis of urban design;
3. The spatial or social emphasis of urban design;
4. The relationship between process and product in the city design;
5. The relationship between differ-ent professionals and their activi-ties;
6. The public or private sector affiliation of urban design;
7. The design as an objective-ratio-nal or expressive-subjective pro-cess.

The first three arenas address the ambiguities about the outcome of ur-ban design: urban space. The last three arenas concentrate on urban de-sign as a process and the ambiguities this has created. The centre of ambi-guity is the issue of process and pro-duct.

Definition of urban design refer both to the design of cities and settlements as a whole and to the design of some parts of urban areas. The issues and consideration addressed in this two macro-and microscales of urban de-sign, however, are very different from each other. The design of cities and settlements has focused on the broad issues of organisation of space and functions, micro urban design has concentrated on the public face of architecture, on public space in parts of the cities, and more detailed considerations of design at that scale.

As urban design deals with all scales of urban space, it has caused ambi-guity about its role and areas of invol-vement ;

Urban design as visual or spatial ma-nagement (urban design as nice ima-ges and urban design as the aesthetics of urban environment ).

Urban design as social or spatial ma-nagement.

Urban design as process or product.

Urban design as professional divide.

Urban design as a public or private sector activity.

Urban design as objective rational or subjective irrational (urban design as a technical process, as a social process and as a creative process).

The socio-spatial relationship by con-centrating on the physical and social contexts of urban design, analyse that urban design is concerned with the creation, regeneration, enhancement and management of the built envi-ronment which are sensitive to their contexts and sympathetic to people’s needs. Urban design as having an im-portant role to play in influencing the development of local urban areas, and with their training aim to produce urban designer to manage the increa-singly complex problems of deve-loping urban space, and urban form (Billingham, 1994).

It is the arrangement of these ele-ments in three dimensional space over time that is the essence of urban design. Urban design is concerned with the aesthetic values and the be-haviour settings that constitute the lifes of city inhabitants, the rela-tionship of these settings to each other and the way the physical milieu af-fords the potential behaviour that might take place within it. Urban de-sign deals with the public realm, so-cial and physical (Lang, 1996).

There are two ways considered as types of urban design projects: first, in terms of the products (for example, new town, urban renewal schemes, suburban downtowns, campuses, world fairs, etc.), and second, in terms of methods by which they are deve-loped. The first is traditional but the second is fundamental to under-standing the activity of building and/or redeveloping cities and/or their components and the respon-sibilities of urban designers.

To understand the types of controls, it is important to recognize the design objectives, design principles and de-sign guidelines.

Design Objectives, Design Principles and Design Guidelines.

Objectives are statements of what a design is to achieve. The objectives of an urban design scheme are ine-vitably a mixture of economic, beha-vioural and aesthetic ends.

Principles are statement describing and, ideally, explaining the link bet-ween a desired design objective and a pattern or layout of the environment. The set of design principles used re-petitively by a designer is loosely called that person’s style or theory.

A Guideline is a statement which specifies (for uninformed people) how to meet a design objective. They are also known as design directives. A Guideline is an operational definition of an objective. There are two types of guidelines: prescriptive and performance. Performance guide-lines are essentially the same as design objectives, prescriptive guide-lines are based on design principles and are as good or as bad as those principles.

With prescriptive guidelines the de-signer of the guidelines works out what kind of pattern is required of the built environment; in performance guidelines it is left up to the designer of the individual components of the urban design scheme to do.

Design based on prescriptive guide-lines are easier to evaluate; per-formance guidelines, while encoura-ging divergent thinking, require con-siderably more effort to ensure that the objectives are actually met. Guide-lines are frequently used not simply to inform designers but as design con-trols.

Cities are always shaped by the invi-sible web of law specifying individual and communal rights, the nature of the market place and the allowable mechanisms for interfering in the market place on behalf of perceptions of the public interest (Lai, 1988). As such it complements the capital web of investment policies used by governments to shape the environ-ment (Crane, 1960). Urban Design controls reform aspects of both webs.

The principles for achieving an eco-logically sound environment have been included in a number of recent conceptual urban design proposals (Southworth, 1989). One of the difficulties has been that the principles on which such proposals are based contradict many of the attributes of culturally appropriate design given desired ways of life. The effort to change people’s behaviour through physical design has had little success nor has it been politically acceptable.

The controls for defining the public realm have covered design variable such as the nature of materials and patterns of the surfaces of the environment and the objects (natural and/or manmade) that the environ-ment contains. They have sometimes specified the rules whereby acces-sibility requirements are met and such matters as the territorial hierarchies the environment is to contain. Increas-ingly they are addressing concern about the ambient quality of public spaces and, more generally, the street-scape. building form.

Streetscapes and squares.

Specifying or Restricting Certain U-ses.

A variety of methods exist for attain-ing or restricting specific uses because of their nature or in terms of their side-effects, such as traffic generation, which positively or negatively affect the public realm. All take market conditions into account. They include moratoria on types of development, zoning ordinances, the transfer of development rights and the use of development impact fees.

Mechanisms to Stimulate Particular Types of Development.

Two ways of encouraging developers to erect particular building are :

Through financial incentives.

Through trade off.

A combination of zoning regulations and incentives plus public subsidies is necessary to achieve the physical preservation of urban areas. Private investment follows. These actions often make the traditional uses uneco-nomic and/or obsolete. As a result of the neighbourhoods change and the preservation serves only as a sym-bolic reminder of the past.

One of the more controversial aspects of preservation has been creation of scenic of façade easement prohibiting the owner or future owner of a buil-ding considered to be a historic or artistic merit from altering a designa-ted façade. The goal is to provide links with the past as a means of maintaining a continued sense of place in the face of globalization of much recent architecture.

Paralleling the growth empirical re-search on the nature of cities and ur-ban places has been growth in subs-tantive urban and urban design theory based on an enhanced under-standing of the person environment relationship (Lang, 1994). There has also been a concomitant growth in understanding of the designing processes-procedural theory.

During the past 30 years there has been an extraordinary development of empirically validated theoretical knowledge of the relationship bet-ween people and environment.

Much of this growing body of know-ledge and ideas is shared with other fields-urban studies and environ-mental psychology on the positive theory side, and urban planning, landscape architecture, and to a lesser extent architecture on the normative side.

Traditionally urban design has been most closely allied with architecture and city planning by filling the in-tellectual and professional gap bet-ween them. As architecture reduces the domain of its concerns and me-thods of working, and as city plan-ning continues to be concerned main-ly with transportation and land-use planning, to the extent that deals with other than social and economic issues, so urban design has become incre-asingly an entity on its own.

There is a need for urban design as a discipline to integrate the two lines of thought-research on who and what we are and what we might be.

Urban design is an integrative act. It depends on a broad understanding of environmental issues, possibilities, and consequences of developing dif-ferent possible futures. Social pres-sures in the long run will almost ine-vitably lead to a greater common concern among the existing design professions for quality of life issues and thus with human habitats.

The focus of concern of the discipline of architecture has remained firmly on the design aspect, architecture'’ unique contribution, and thus mainly on intellectual aesthetic issues. Archi-tecture has not developed a broad environmental concern, although individual architects are becoming increasingly concerned with environ-mental issues in site design and the selection of materials. It has been re-luctant to embrace new empirical knowledge about the physiological or psychological consequences of its work except where forced to do so by critics, clients, law, regulations, and design guidelines.

Urban design is at its best a colla-borative art. It is concerned with envi-ronmental change and the idea that environmental change will yield as much public benefit as they can. All the design discipline and profes-sionals are involved in urban design from the viewpoint of their own self-interests. If progress is to be made, there needs to be recognition of com-bined interests. Ultimately, urban de-sign is the ongoing process of shaping cities, their precincts, and their public realms.

The quality of any urban design depends on the quality of the design objectives set and on the quality of the design principles and design guide-lines used to achieve them. An under-standing of how cities and other hu-man habitats function helps clarify the setting of objectives but the deci-sion on what they should be is always political. Specifying how design objec-tives are to be met is, however, a technical-if difficult-task.

The urban designer will always be dealing with the future. The future is unknown so we shall always be work-ing with uncertainty.

The research of the past 30 years has developed a body of knowledge, a-bout how cities function and how the built environment function for the people of different culture and sub-culture at different stages in their life cycles. If architects wherever wish to continue to play a significanct role in urban design, they will have to learn to keep learning from ongoing re-search.

The subject matter of urban design was located on the interface between architecture, landscape architecture and town planning, drawing the tra-dition of architecture and landscape architecture and the environmental management and social science tradi-tion of contemporary planning.

The approach of urban design is through its relationship with other, long established fields. In considering research opportunities in urban de-sign will have to concentrate on substantive areas of enquiry rather than on the development of urban design as a discrete professional and subject area.

This implies a focus on research is-sues and needs, especially those gene-rated by current practice. In drawing up any account we will have to consi-der those cognate areas upon which urban design teaching and practice have traditionally been drawn. The following is a preliminary list of suggested good relations (Joint Centre of Urban Design, 1983, p.15-23) :

1. Architecture: (space generation models; semiotics; vernacular stu-dies; building conversion; histo-rical studies).
2. Design : (design process; social basis of design).
3. Environmental Psychology : (perceptual and behavioural stu-dies). Estate Management : (development finance; property markets; land acquisition).
4. Geography: (sense of place; urban morphology; social and spatial pattern; historical geography).
5. History: (especially economic, so-cial and planning history).
6. Landscape Architecture : (land-scape evolution; landscape eva-luation).
7. Planning : (development control; civic design tradition; local plan-ning; conservation).
8. Transport Studies : (traffic and ro-ad design).

In considering research in Urban De-sign we can view three related mat-ters, all deserving of future attention and none taking an inherent prece-dence over the other:

Practice and Consultancy: learning by doing, and reporting on some in the literature.

Funded Project Studies: specific, fun-ded, studies undertaken largely by those in academic or research context over a limited time period with a specific product.

Urban Design Discourse : considered texts, or contributions by practitioners or academics; the theoretical and case-study underpinning of both of the above.

Research should reflect this charac-teristic by concentrating on two main areas :

The generator of design: the deve-lopment of design criteria, or the study of effective inter disciplinary, or team, approaches.

The constraints of design : studies of development process, the locus of power, and the sticking points in ad-vancing a design proposal.

In this context, historical studies and case law were seen as fulfilling two main functions:

In providing generalizing principles for design.

In describing the context of practice.

History and case-law (more properly ‘case-studies’) in Urban Design should concentrate on the very recent past, in fact the topic was related closely to another theme of the day ‘Design research in the context of the development process’.

It was also pointed out that case stu-dies can perform a variety of func-tions :

To inform a particular community about local development.

To demystify the development pro-cess.

To inform designers concerning the design process.

To produce information of academic significance.

A more fundamental examination of the development process – well inte-grated with other social science en-quiries – was essential basis for any research in Urban Design.

Evaluation in Urban Design was gi-ven considerable attention and, in part, it was recognised that Urban De-sign shared with Architecture a strong reticence in investment for such work.

There was a very fragmentary litera-ture on the subject and social science evaluation strategies had been gene-rated with little understanding of the design intentions or process of deve-lopment.

It was generally recognised that it was only by improving the quality and depth of thought within Urban De-sign that it would achieve recognition in both practice and in terms of research funding.

Some research questions could not wait on developments in this fun-damental area but the intellectual pedigree of case-studies and specific proposals should always be evident. Predictive models were, if appro-priate, some distance in the future but predictive devices specific to elements in Urban Design were urgently need-ed and could be developed for some aspects of both the design process and man-environment relations.

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2. Andranovich, Gregory,D., Gerry Riposa, 1993, Doing Urban Re-search, Applied Social Research Methods Series, Volume 33, Sage Publications, International Educa-tional and Professional Publisher, London.
3. Carmona, Matthew, 1996, Con-trolling Urban Design-Part 1: A Possible Renaissance ?, Journal of Urban Design, Carfax Publishing Company, Oxford-shire, United Kingdom.
4. Goodey, Brian, 1983, Research for Urban Design, Joint Centre for Urban Design, Oxford Poly-technic,
5. Lang, Jon, 1996, Implementing Urban Design in America: Pro-ject Types and Methodological Implications, Journal of Urban Design, Carfax Publishing Com-pany, Oxfordshire, United Kingdom.
6. Lang, Jon, 1994, Urban Design, The American Experience, Van Nostrand Reinhold, New York.
7. Lang, Jon, 1987, Creating Archi-tectural Theory, The Role of the Behavioral Sciences in Environ-mental Design, Van Norstrand Reinhold Company, New York.
8. Leedy, Paul,D., 1985, Practical Re-search: Planning and Design, Macmillan Publishing Co., Inc., New York.
9. Madanipour, Ali, 1996, Design of Urban Space, An Inquiry into Socio-Spatial Process, John Wiley&Sons Ltd., New York.
10. Whitman, P and Gordon Holden, August 1994, Colloquium Pro-ceedings, Architectural and Ur-ban Design Theory for the 90s :

Our Best Explanation of Reality is Called Theory, Queensland University of Technology, School of Architecture, Interior and In-dustrial Design.