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Monday, January 15, 2018

City Planning with Architectural Intensity


NOTE: The three tables mentioned are located at the end of this text.

The industrial revolution sheltered urban activity with excessive intensity and lack of concern for the public health, safety, and welfare. Tenements symbolized the abuse and intensity remained an obvious presence with an inadequate definition. Centuries of abuse culminated in the 20th century with a battle over human rights at a time when individual freedom to dominate was unrestrained by the collective freedom to demand a better quality of life. The battle eventually produced zoning plans to separate incompatible land use activity, annexation plans for expansion into agricultural areas, density plans to limit population compression, setback plans to separate building mass within neighborhoods, and building codes to improve the safety and hygiene of shelter design and construction. Unfortunately, this did not solve the fundamental problem of excessive intensity. It could only be defined with emotion that inevitably gave the term negative connotations. The automobile stimulated flight from excessive intensity, experiments with minimum lot sizes began, and suburbs started to form a pattern now referred to as sprawl. It was first mapped as a symbol of growth and success. Aerial photography over time has caused instinct to anticipate a visible symptom of disease as the pattern of sprawl, with pockets of excess intensity, began to form sectors and rings around a core of deterioration that continues to metastasize across the face of our planet. Sprawl begins with an inadequate understanding of shelter intensity. Intensity can actually be a beneficial prescription for the shelter of growing activities within limited geographic areas when it is understood and carefully correlated with relational databases.

Architectural intensity is like blood pressure. It can be measured and predicted with the following equation

EQUATION (1): Intensity = Shelter Capacity * Impervious Cover / 10,000, or

                                                                        INT = SFAC * IMP% / 10,000

Shelter Intensity (INT) is an emotional-psychological response to the relationship of building mass, building height, parking, pavement, and unpaved open space on one or more project areas.

Shelter Capacity (SFAC) is the gross building area present or planned in sq. ft. per buildable acre.

Impervious Cover (IMP%) is the percentage of a buildable land area that increases storm water runoff from that produced by land in its natural state. (E.g. building cover and pavement)

Buildable Land Area (BLA) is the project area that remains in sq. ft. after existing or contemplated rights-of-way, paved easements, and unbuildable areas are subtracted. (This term should not be confused it the more common zoning expression that often means the land area located within the building setback lines on a given lot.)



It has not been possible to accurately predict the vast number of feasible shelter capacity options for a given buildable land area in a brief period of time. The alternative has involved time consuming site plan evaluation of very few options at the drawing board, and intensity has been determined by what will fit on the land available. It is possible, however, to define shelter capacity with a deceptively simple equation.

EQUATION (2): Shelter Capacity = Gross Building Area / Total Buildable Acres Occupied, or

                                                                                  SFAC = GBA / BAC

Gross building area predictions forecast total potential floor area within a simple abstract volume that will contain all ensuing architectural features.

Gross building area measurements include all existing floor area beginning at the exterior perimeter of a building.

Buildable acres (BAC) is equal to buildable land area in sq. ft. divided by 43,560 sq. ft.

EQUATION (3): When the equation for SFAC in Equation (2) is substituted for SFAC in Equation (1), Equation (3) becomes a consolidated expression for architectural intensity.

                                                                 INT = (GBA * IMP%) / (BAC * 10,000)

The fly in the ointment has been an inability to accurately forecast all gross building area options (GBA) for a given land area in less time than it would take to prepare a single site plan; a consistent definition of buildable land area; and a lack of research to define “excessive” architectural intensity. This lack of knowledge and forecasting ability has prevented the careful correlation of shelter activity, capacity, and intensity within limited geographic areas that protect our physical, social, psychological, environmental, and economic quality of life.

CONTEXT

To start at the beginning, there are now two worlds on a single planet. The Built Domain is currently sprawling to shelter the activities of growing populations, and this threatens our source of life with its land consumption. The Built Domain contains Urban and Rural Phyla, and both phyla contain a Shelter Division that is served by its Movement, Open Space, and Life Support Divisions.

We need credible intensity measurement, evaluation, prediction, and correlation with related social and economic databases to connect shelter capacity, intensity, and activity options with their many quality of life implications.

There are six building design categories that provide the overwhelming majority of shelter capacity throughout the world. Gross building area options related to each category are a function of the values assigned to the topics in their design specification templates. A category algorithm and master equation correlate these values with floor quantity options to predict gross building area alternatives, and accurate gross building area predictions make it possible to forecast intensity options using Equation (3). A definition of “excessive” can then be written with the help of research measurement and evaluation.

Table 1 is an example of a specification template and forecast panel for the G1 Building Design Category. Forecasts are based on the specification values entered in its Land Module, Pavement Module, and Building Module. The gross building area predictions in cells B42-B51 and the intensity predictions in cells G42-G51 are based on the specification values entered, and one or more of these values may be modified to test additional options.

Table 2 presents an abbreviated matrix of the intensity options that can be produced by a building design category and its template of design specification variables. At this point it is not possible to draw conclusions regarding “excess” within the table, but measurement of existing conditions can produce the knowledge required.

Shelter intensity at the project level is simply an objective within a city design strategy, however, because projects combine to form neighborhoods, districts, cities, and regions. City design is the correlation of project activity, shelter capacity, and intensity within limited geographic areas to protect a population’s health, safety, quality, and source of life.

POSTSCRIPT

I’ve attempted to keep this as brief as possible in an attempt to convey a concept without complication that runs the risk of confusion, but I’ve mentioned shelter alternatives called building design categories without explanation. I’m including a list for reference in Table 3. Each category is represented by two forecast models. Two are required because: (1) Land area may be given and gross building area options must be found, or (2) A gross building area objective may be given and land acquisition options must be found.

I wrote my third book in 2016 entitled, The Science of City Design, for those who wish to know more. It can be found in paperback and e-book versions on Amazon.com and is intended to introduce a quantitative language that can address the very practical and very emotional dimensions of shelter intensity within limited geographic areas that must be defined before we can hope to reach a state of symbiotic survival.

Copyright: Walter M. Hosack, 2018. All Rights Reserved



Wednesday, January 10, 2018

A City Planning Opportunity


Original zoning laws attempted to separate incompatible land use activity and ensure that adequate light, air, and ventilation reached the internal and external places we inhabit. It was a declaration of human rights at a time when excessive intensity was a function of unbridled speculative interest, limited mobility, and lack of concern for the public health, safety, and welfare. Individual freedom to dominate was challenged by the collective freedom to demand a better quality of life.

Land use is a deceptively simple term. It means the activity that takes place on any given land area. Incompatible land use activity is separated by zoning district plans. Annexation law permits activity districts to expand over natural and agricultural land. The fact that most activity requires shelter, movement, open space, and life support is taken for granted. The result has been a sprawling Built Domain that consumes land as needed. The problem has become increasingly apparent, but awareness does not solve problems. It simply raises questions among populations taught to believe that this is a world without end, to be fruitful, and to multiply.

Sprawl was first seen with aerial photography. Time has shown that sprawl is growing. This awareness has alerted human instinct to anticipate implications; but anticipation requires a language that can measure, evaluate, and treat the problem. Sprawl is land use activity sheltered by building capacity and intensity. It is extended and served by movement, open space, and life support systems. Shelter capacity is simply gross building area per buildable acre. Shelter capacity options are a function of the values assigned to a building category template. Intensity is a function of the shelter capacity chosen from the options available. Intensity measurement and prediction is the key to sheltering growing populations within a geographically limited Built Domain that protects their quality of life from excessive intensity and their source of life from excessive encroachment.

Keep in mind that a building can shelter any activity, assuming zoning and building code compliance. Activity can be moved to another building to achieve land use compatibility, but the physical context of shelter remains to affect our social, psychological, environmental, and economic quality of life. Credible context measurement, evaluation, prediction, and correlation with related databases are needed to connect shelter capacity, intensity, and activity with its many quality of life implications.

Friday, January 5, 2018

An Expanded Role for Architecture


Architectural design is creative leadership with a limited vision that is not applied at the proper level of authority. Its position has been eroded by project thinking and a pattern language vocabulary that prevents accurate communication with the public it wishes to influence. This has severely restricted its ability to reach the people, places, states, and nations that require shelter for increasing activity within geographic limits that do not expand to threaten their source of life. Sprawl contradicts the concept of geographic limits and is a threat currently being met with an inadequate language of isolated, uncorrelated, and contradictory zoning regulations. Architectural relevance will improve when its leadership language can offer a better alternative. Capturing this potential involves a new design language based on the accurate measurement, evaluation, and prediction of shelter capacity and intensity options. Understanding the impact of these options can lead us to reduce and eventually eliminate our random consumption of land for shelter. The first is our source of life. The second is our source of survival. The challenge is symbiotic correlation.



The components of a site plan aggregate to form projects, neighborhoods, districts, cities, and regions. The threat of sprawl cannot be addressed without a comprehensive understanding of these cellular components and their mathematical relationships. These relationships form shelter capacity and intensity options, but the options must be limited before shelter capacity can be provided for growing populations without excessive intensity.



Shelter capacity is the gross building area produced per buildable acre by a building design category. It is influenced by the building design category chosen and the values entered in its design specification template. These values can also be measured at existing locations for comparison, evaluation, and accumulation of knowledge. Shelter capacity options produced by design specification values and floor quantity alternatives are predicted by an architectural algorithm and master equation that are related to a building design category. The values entered in the category’s design specification template represent decisions that may be modified to test alternatives. The gross building area options predicted for a given buildable land area represent shelter capacity options per acre. These options can be occupied by any activity, assuming zoning and building code compliance. These shelter capacity options are translated into levels of intensity by a universal measurement equation. It is a critical measurement, since intensity affects our physical, social, psychological, environmental, ecologic, and economic quality of life within the Urban and Rural Phyla of the Built Domain. We have attempted to escape excessive intensity with sprawl, but are now realizing that sprawl is a disease and a threat to our source of life.



Our primary policy must become symbiotic survival. Shelter is an indispensable consideration. It is served by movement, open space, and life support within the Urban and Rural Phyla of The Built Domain. The goal is to provide shelter for growing human activity without excessive intensity on geographically limited land areas that protect our source of life – The Natural Domain. To achieve this goal, we must be able to address the problem at its cellular unit of growth.



Urban form shelters cellular aggregations of activity. These aggregations must be correlated with economic data to protect the physical, social, psychological, environmental, and economic quality of life created. The effort requires city design that correlates many related technical specialties. Architects are uniquely qualified to address the massing correlation required if they choose to accept the challenge with a new vocabulary and language that is equal to the level of authority and credibility required.



The language begins with a set of forecast models. Each model is related to a building design category within a universal list. Each category is represented by a design specification template, architectural algorithm, master equation, floor quantity template, and forecast panel. The panel predicts the gross building area, shelter capacity per acre, and intensity options implied by the values entered in its design specification and floor quantity templates. The values are correlated by an architectural algorithm and master equation to accurately forecast shelter capacity options for land. Unfortunately, we presently convert this land from its ecological and agricultural role at random to form metastasizing sprawl.



Forecast models can be placed in the cloud for global access, but the values entered in their specification templates will be based on empirical knowledge until a research institute focuses on the distinction between desirable and excessive values. Built Domain classification, building design categories, specification templates, and shelter design values represent an initial vocabulary for the language of city design. Together, they represent the initiation of a science that can address the anatomy of sprawl at its cellular level of formation.



I’ve previously published “Comparing Shelter Design Decisions” to briefly outline the classification system, building design categories, design specification templates, and master equations that form the vocabulary, language, and science of city design. If I’ve maintained your interest, you may wish to review the document.




Photograph by Steve Swayne - File:O Partenon de Atenas.jpg, originally posted to Flickr as The Parthenon Athens, CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=17065839