NOTE 1: This essay was originally published in September, 2010 as “Replacing Density” but has undergone such significant change that it deserves a separate title. This essay is based on the information provided in the book entitled, The Equations of Urban Design, by Walter M. Hosack, 2020 and available from Amazon.com.
NOTE 2: All tables in this essay are located at the end of this text.
Density is an oversimplified indication of building intensity that only applies to the shelter provided for residential land use activity. It is produced by a number of decisions it does not correlate. It is a product of their often contradictory collision. This will continue until we recognize the design specification topics and values that must be correlated to reach any shelter objective with certainty and consistency. It is a critical issue because shelter is survival and sprawl is a disease driven by population growth and uncertainty that threatens to consume our source of life with a parasite’s lack of anticipation.
Intensity can be an emotional response to pressure that is prompted by the degree of our confinement within space. In the case of shelter, intensity is produced by the relationship of building mass, pavement, and unpaved open space quantities that surround us in a project area, not to mention adjacent influences. In these projects, and the districts, cities, and regions they combine to produce, it is possible to both predict and measure the shelter capacity, intensity, intrusion, and dominance that will be, or has been, produced. Our previous inability to define and correlate these relationships has led to a flight from intensity and decline to our current experimentation with suburban sprawl. Unfortunately, the results have not consistently balanced land use activity with shelter capacity to produce economic stability within geographic limits. Physical, social, psychological, environmental, and economic experiments continue to randomly consume our source of life without evidence that the land consumed has produced measurable shelter capacity, intensity, intrusion, and dominance results that symbolize success.
This is a brief essay about the design specification topics and values that define shelter intensity at the project level of city formation. Each topic is contained in a design specification template that is related to one of the six building design categories listed below. They shelter most, if not all, human activity on the planet. Each topic value has been intuitively correlated by a designer to determine the physical presence of buildings and spaces that surround and serve our daily activities throughout history. The physical results have been called “massing” when building appearance has been ignored. It combines to form the texture of cities and is served by arteries of movement, life support, and pockets of public open space. It is produced by one or more of the following six building design categories that emerge from site plans to form the places we inhabit:
1) G1: Buildings
with surface parking around, but not under the building
2) G2: Buildings
with surface parking around and/or under the building
3) S1: Buildings
with structure parking adjacent to the building on the same parcel
4) S2: Buildings
with underground parking
5) S3: Buildings
with structure parking at grade under the building
6) NP: Buildings with no parking required
Design specification values define quantities that combine to produce shelter capacity, intensity, intrusion, and dominance results for each building design category listed.
Design specification topics and values define the gross building area quantities that can be introduced per acre at the project level of city formation. The quantity introduced combines with the impervious cover percentage defined to determine the intensity level present. The combination of intensity and activity determines the project’s revenue potential per acre -- and its ability to meet a city’s total annual cost per acre. The physical, social, psychological, environmental and economic impact of this “improvement”, therefore, begins with the gross building area introduced per buildable acre to shelter occupant activity.
OCCUPANCY
Gross building area has nothing to do with occupancy. It may be occupied by any activity that conforms to local zoning and building code regulations; and occupancy often changes over time. Relating gross building area to occupancy requires a secondary template of topics that are tailored to the specific activity. A gross building area prediction remains constant, given the same set of design specification values; but its capacity to shelter a given activity is modified by the values entered in a companion activity template. Table 1 illustrates the prediction of gross building area alternatives for a given land area using the G1 Building Design Category without the influence of a companion activity template.
TABLE 1
The values entered in the gray boxes of Table 1 represent one set of potential building design decisions within a broad universe of options. They could just as easily represent the measurements of an existing building. There are 26 gray boxes and each value entered represents a design decision that can be modified to test options. The percentages and values entered have been converted to their square foot area implications in Col. G. The objective of the algorithm is to identify the shelter area available in cell F17 and the core buildable land area remaining for building footprint and adjacent parking lot in cell F33.
A master equation correlates the specification data in the Land and Core Modules of Table 1 with the floor quantity options entered in cells A44-A53. Gross building area alternatives are predicted in cells B44-B53 of the Planning Forecast Panel based on these floor quantity options. The remainder of the panel predicts the implications of the gross building area forecasts in Col. B using the secondary equations on line 43. The panel illustrates a few of the many implications that can be forecast after the gross building area capacity of buildable land area can be accurately predicted.
Table 1 illustrates that 16 gray box design specification decisions are correlated with one floor quantity options in cells A44-A53 to forecast the gross building area options in Column B. A change to one or more of the gray box specification values in Table 1 will produce a new forecast of options in Col. B of its Planning Forecast Panel, and hundreds of options can be predicted in a very short time. The point is that gross building area predictions can be occupied by any permitted activity, and the combination of intensity and activity per buildable acre determines our physical, social, psychological, environmental, and economic quality of life.
The gross building area options forecast in Col. B of the Planning Forecast Panel have been used to produce the shelter capacity forecasts in Col. F. These capacity options have then been used to calculate their intensity, intrusion, and dominance implications in Columns G- J. These four implication measurements are like our first blood pressure readings. They indicate the impact level present or proposed. I can only hope that continued measurement, evaluation, and prediction will lead to parameters that can improve our symbiotic chances of survival.
TABLE 2
I have mentioned that design specification topic and value decisions have nothing to do with occupancy and everything to do with gross building area potential. Occupancy involves a secondary template of topics and adjustable values that are tailored to a specific activity. The template is used to calculate the capacity of gross building area options to accommodate the activity. This means that land has a given shelter capacity that is related to the building design category chosen and the design specification values assigned. These choices determine the physical form of the cities we inhabit. Its capacity to shelter activity is a function of this capacity.
The Table 2 forecast model is based on the same G1 Building Design Category as Table 1. The difference is that an R3 Apartment Module has been inserted beginning on line 34. The 28 gray cell design specification values entered in this module define how the gross building area predictions in cells B56-B65 will be subdivided to create the apartment mix specified in the R3 Apartment Module. The remainder of the Planning Forecast Panel provides additional design predictions regarding building footprint area, dwelling unit quantity, parking quantity, and so on that are related to the gross building area predictions in cells B56-B65.
The Implications Module calculates the shelter capacity, intensity, intrusion, and dominance implications of the gray cell specification values. When intensity and density are based on the same design specification values, they have equal implications. The difference is that density only applies to residential activity. Intensity calculation applies to the six basic forms of shelter on the planet and is a universal measure of its presence. The way we use land to shelter the activity of growing populations will reflect our progress toward a sustainable future.
CONCLUSION
Architecture has always sheltered the activities of its period and
correlated the knowledge available. It is no accident that the current sprawl
of shelter reflects our current confusion. Opinion has produced indiscriminate
regulation and the land is compromised by the process. We are distracted by the
details of compatibility, construction and appearance — not to mention
ownership and sovereignty; but intuition is looking beyond the environment we
build to include the environment we consume. Balancing these two worlds will
depend on our ability to understand implications and offer options within
limits that meet strategic goals that can only be defined with anticipation.
