Abstract: At present, urban design has become a hot research field in the field of planning and architecture. Theoretically, a hundred schools of thought contend, showing unprecedented prosperity; In practice, from south to north, all kinds of "urban design" projects have sprung up all over the country, especially some major international competitions and bidding projects, which have pushed "urban design" to a new climax, making "urban design" quietly become a fashion and its status is improving day by day.

Keywords: urban design, urban planning

At present, urban design has become a research hotspot in the field of planning and architecture. Theoretically, a hundred schools of thought contend, showing unprecedented prosperity; In practice, from south to north, all kinds of "urban design" projects have sprung up all over the country, especially some major international competitions and bidding projects, which have pushed "urban design" to a new climax, making "urban design" quietly become a fashion and its status is improving day by day. Because urban design itself has both theoretical and practical attributes, and certain theories and methods have been formed in long-term exploration, the voice of "independence" of urban design is growing.

People can often see the saying that "urban design is an independent discipline", which equates urban design with urban planning in the discipline system; At the same time, a large number of engineering projects and design achievements named after "XX Urban Design" are constantly emerging. The appearance of this phenomenon, on the one hand, shows that the idea of attaching importance to urban design is deeply rooted in people's hearts, which is undoubtedly very beneficial to improve the quality of urban planning and design in China and improve the urban space environment; On the other hand, if we lack in-depth thinking and research, and unilaterally emphasize that urban design is independent of urban planning, it will not only be conducive to the perfection of the discipline system and theoretical system of urban planning, but also lead to the superficiality and formalization of urban design, which is not conducive to the positive role of urban design. Therefore, it is necessary to clarify the position and role of urban design in the discipline system of urban planning, and straighten out its relationship with urban planning, so as to effectively achieve the purpose of guiding urban construction.

It should be said that urban design and urban planning have always been inseparable. From the perspective of historical development, many urban planning theories and practices before and in the early days of the industrial revolution are all urban design activities today. It can be seen that for that period, urban planning and urban design were just different expressions of the same behavior; Even the appearance of modern urban design is inseparable from urban planning. Sha Lining, an advocate of modern urban design theory, initially put forward: ". ,。 In order to avoid misunderstanding in the analysis, we should avoid using the word "planning" and use the word "design" when talking about the concept of three-dimensional space of the city ... First of all, when "planning" does not involve the problem under discussion, we agree to accept this general term. "

It can be seen that urban design originally inherited a certain field (three-dimensional space) or a certain part of urban planning, and wording was made to emphasize this part of the work, so as to raise people's attention to this part of the work. This is mainly because with the development of society, the division of labor between modern urban planning and architectural design has weakened urban space design, leading to the gradual decline of the overall environmental quality of urban space. In order to overcome this shortcoming, people put forward the concept of urban design, and restored and developed urban design work. The book Urban Design-Urban Architecture published by American Institute of Architects 1965 also mentioned that today we have to use the term urban design (which is different from the traditional urban design Civ-ic Design), but "the establishment of urban design concept is not to create a new separated field, but to prevent this basic environmental problem from being ignored or discarded." It can be seen that the concept of urban design is not put forward to create a brand-new discipline, but to inspire people to be familiar with the environment, restore the long-neglected function of urban planning to shape and improve the quality of urban space environment, and make urban planning serve urban construction better and more comprehensively.

From the practical level, urban design and urban planning are also closely integrated and inseparable. The shaping of urban three-dimensional space landscape and urban plane layout are mutual conditions and constraints. Urban planning involves urban land layout, road network structure, municipal facilities and so on. At the same time, it inevitably includes thinking about the shaping of urban spatial characteristics. There is no "pure two-dimensional" planning, and the ideas and intentions of planning can only be realized if they are finally embodied in land and space. The research object of urban design and urban planning is the city where people live, but the emphasis is different. They all aim at creating a good and orderly production and living environment. They all need to comprehensively coordinate various urban functions, arrange various urban land, organize transportation and arrange various engineering facilities. They all need to study the social development of the city and consider its historical context.

It can be seen that their overlapping and overlapping fields cover all aspects of urban construction system, and they are unified in a complete planning process. Planning plane layout is also the basis and premise for urban design to shape urban three-dimensional space environment; On the other hand, the shaping and arrangement of urban space can be fed back to the improvement, supplement and adjustment of plane layout, making them more rational. On the other hand, urban design and urban planning are out of touch, and the overlapping parts cannot be unified, which leads to great changes between design and planning, resulting in waste of time, manpower, material resources and financial resources in many aspects; If no changes are made, two different schemes cannot be implemented in the same city or the same plot in practice, and the planning and design scheme can only be the result of "painting on the map and hanging on the wall". Nowadays, many places entrust "urban design" before planning. This kind of "urban design" without the guidance of planning principles can only stay on beautiful models and drawings, and it is hard to say how practical it is.

In addition, from the practice of urban planning in China, urban planning and urban design have always been integrated, infiltrated and inseparable. The development of China's urban planning can be summarized as follows: learning from Europe and America at the beginning of this century, the former Soviet Union in 1950s, and learning from Europe and America and constructing China's urban planning theory since 1980s (1960s-1970s, without planning). No matter which period, the overall planning and design (including zoning planning) and detailed planning and design are always phased in the planning process. If the concept of "design" is not reflected in the whole process, the overall effect will not be perfect. Moreover, in China's past planning practice, there are widespread problems of attaching importance to material form planning and relatively weak research on feasibility analysis and economic and social development. The evaluation of the results is often that the more beautiful the drawings, the higher the design level; China's current planning education system still fails to break through the tradition of morphological planning, which makes students have a preference for the design of "shape" and "modeling" and lack of attention and enthusiasm for theoretical research.

Therefore, China's urban planning, whether from the actual development, or from the understanding of planning, planning process, education system, has not paid enough attention to the form, but paid too much attention to it, which is different from the situation in western countries. People of insight have long called for "beyond formal planning" and "less performance and more research". In this case, if the independence of urban design is unilaterally emphasized, it is likely to be.

The term "urban planning and design" reflects the development of urban planning in China, and the combination of planning and design reflects the characteristics and reality of urban planning in China. In a complete urban planning process, the rational arrangement and layout of urban functional structure and the shaping of urban spatial environment are two inseparable aspects to guide urban construction. If they are separated artificially, there will inevitably be many and intractable contradictions. Only by combining urban design with urban planning and taking the road of integration can we give full play to its function of shaping spatial landscape environment and truly realize the transformation of design values from planners to users. Urban planning should take urban design as an integral part of its own discipline. Bringing urban design into the process of people's unified urban planning is not only because the contents and objects they deal with are closely related, but also because it improves the grasp of urban society as a whole in urban planning and conforms to the reality of urban planning development in China.

Even in the west, the development of urban design after 1960s did not abandon urban planning, but further developed it. The focus of urban planning has shifted to two directions: one is the formulation and implementation of the legal text system represented by zoning, and the other is the urban design that is people-centered and improves the environmental quality and quality of life of people's living space through the shaping of urban space environment. Only in this context can urban design achieve all-round development. Therefore, it can be said that urban design and urban planning are closely combined in a complete urban planning process, which are mutually conditional, interdependent and complementary, and jointly serve urban construction. Only by taking the road of integration of urban design and urban planning can we give consideration to the interests of all parties and optimize the urban construction system.