Abstract
Makkah is at an inflection point, looking for a way forward, building on the history of the past 15 centuries. The last decades have not been kind to Makkah. It has succumbed to the challenges of contemporary cities and tried to solve them with inadequate efforts. Makkah, which should be the best example of a city in the world, sits now as a struggling city. Much of the fault lies in the contemporary and conventional city planning methods that have driven development in the city, which are at odds with the rich history of Islamic culture and city building. It is possible, however, to realign the fundamental quality of the teachings of Islam with the successful transformation of the city, through a strategy which drives decisions, policy, planning and other elements of the general growth of the city. The overall strategy for transforming the spatial structure of Makkah is two-fold. The first is to move away from mega-projects to a city that is comprised of a much more diverse, compact urban fabric. The second is to disengage the idea of land-use from the planning process. Land-use is a flawed planning structure because it relies on projecting uses, the most ephemeral of elements of the city, to propose future city form. In the plan, land-use, or more appropriate, project use, is used as a management tool to balance supporting systems. An Islamic city is cellular, growing from the individual and their family unit to the scale of communities. The subdivision structure for the city, both in terms of organizing the existing city, and in developing the new areas of the city, is structured around the individual (person, parcel) as the fundamental element of creating the city. The individual parcel is aggregated into clusters or blocks, that are small areas of community, whether families or just neighbors. Clusters and blocks are aggregated into neighborhoods, which are collectively identified areas with a particular identity emerging from the demographic situation as well as the businesses and other elements of the area. Building from the logic outlined above, a clear organizational structure is proposed that directly aligns the ideas of cultural Islam, the form of the religious and family-oriented organization, with the panning organization. In this structure is a mutually supportive relationship that incentivizes development that aligns with the goals and daily practices seen in the citizenry of Makkah, as well as providing an urban context that can be both familiar to visitors, as well as interesting, depending on the nature of the area of the city. The underlying structure of each district, built from the aggregation of its neighborhoods, which are in turn comprised of smaller clusters and blocks, provide a framework for variation while ensuring the overall vision for the city, of compactness, connectedness, and variation, are not sacrificed during the planning process. With this simple system it is possible to facilitate development that aligns directly with the vision for the future city. This is a fundamental shift from current, conventional land-use planning. It sets the parcel as the most important element of city building. This is critical because it starts with the smallest unit of developable land as the default, and creates an environment where the consolidation of parcels, which ultimately lead to city-killing mega projects, are the exception, and can only be executed through a rigorous process of variation or exception.
