City planners, architects, urban designers, landscape architects, zoning specialists, and many others concerned with the use of land have been preoccupied with the compatibility of adjacent activity and the oppression, disease, and crime stimulated by the overcrowding of buildings and populations within municipal land areas for quite some time. This has produced a series of independent stipulations within zoning ordinances that lack the mathematical correlation needed to form a successful leadership language. The extensive number of variances granted to often conflicting stipulations serves to prove the point. Sprawl symbolizes the leadership confusion. Fortunately, sprawl is slowly being recognized as a symptom of disease. The microscopic cause is a growing population’s need for shelter on a planet with limited resources. The cure will depend on our agreement with this observation and our ability to identify the shelter options available. This will require a new leadership language with vastly improved diagnostic potential.
It may be a surprise to learn that there are only six
shelter options available when classification is based on the parking solution
employed rather than the style applied, and this makes shelter capacity
prediction for limited land areas feasible. It also helps to recognize that: (1) shelter is simply gross building area that may be occupied by any activity when it conforms to local building code requirements; (2)
shelter quantity for any and all activity is a function of the gross building
area that is placed on a given land area; (3) gross building area per acre is shelter capacity; (4)
shelter capacity can be increased with floor quantity options that are one of a number of initial decisions that must be correlated; (5) shelter
capacity options represent levels of measurable intensity; (6) current intensity
levels are accidentally created with design stipulations that remain incomplete
and uncorrelated; (7) intensity management with comprehensive, correlated
design value decisions is needed to shelter growing populations within
geographic limits prescribed to protect their quality and source of life; (8)
intensity management topics apply to all buildings; and (9) the social activity within
a building does not determine the physical intensity introduced but it may
magnify the impact.
Building classification by style has distracted us from
these fundamental observations for centuries. I’ve written about these six
building design categories many times, and repeat them here simply as a
reminder. They are: (1) G1 buildings with grade parking around, but not under,
the building;(2) G2 buildings with grade parking around and under the building;
(3) S1 buildings with adjacent parking structure on the same premise; (4) S2 buildings
served by underground parking structures; (5) S3 buildings with parking
structures above grade under the building; (6) NP buildings with no parking
required. I have also included a set of shelter capacity and property demand
forecast models for independent parking garages (PG) in a book I will mention
at the end of this essay even though I don’t consider them buildings for human
habitation unless dictated by an emergency.
My emphasis on parking rather than building style and
appearance stems from my effort to accurately forecast the gross building area capacity
of an acre of land when floor quantity options are correlated with the other pivotal decisions involved. These are the options
for growing populations that we are expected to balance within limited
geographic areas to share the planet with all that depend on it for survival. It
is a deceptively simple proposition. It is complicated by the number of opinions,
variables and decisions that must be correlated. Our mistake has been to overlook
some of these decision topics and consider the remainder independently.
Shelter capacity forecasting depends on the simple
subtraction of design specification values. They are entered in the shaded
cells of a forecast model related to a chosen building design category and
given land area. This subtraction proceeds from the given land area to the core
area remaining for building and parking area. Subtraction is performed by an
embedded algorithm that correlates all values entered to arrive at the core
area remaining. A master equation related to the building design category calculates
a range of gross building area options for the land area given, topic values
entered, and range of floor quantity options introduced. A change to one or
more of these values changes the gross building area predictions calculated by
the forecast model. These are the shelter capacity options available for the
land area given based on the design specification values entered. The intensity
represented by each prediction is calculated with a separate equation noted in
the model.
The forecast model format and its mathematical foundation introduce
a comprehensive, correlated leadership language that can also be used to accurately
measure existing physical conditions. The evaluation measured and recorded can
then be used to lead future design specification decisions toward intensity
levels and relationships that improve our ability to shelter growing populations
within geographic limits. We cannot do this without a language that has the
potential to lead with fundamental, comprehensive shelter design
specifications. These decisions can no longer be left to the discretion of a
marketplace that will consume land without limits because they cannot predict
the consequences. It is now possible to predict the options available and evaluate
the consequences implied with the organized measurement, evaluation, and
documentation needed to build knowledge long before appearance becomes an issue.
TABLE 1
I have included Table 1 in many essays and am repeating it here
as an example of a complete, correlated set of design specification topics and values
for the G1 Building Design Category. I am also repeating text from an earlier
essay to amplify its message.
There are 26 shaded cells in Table 1 for the G1.L1 forecast
model. Each shaded value entered in a cell is correlated by an algorithm, and
master equation in cell J47, to produce the gross building area options in
cells B44-B53. I mention this to make the point that regulating each shaded
value independently is a hopeless exercise without the leadership potential needed
to produce total average revenue per acre equal to or exceeding a city’s
average expense per acre without annexation or budget reductions over time.
The shaded cells in Table 1 are not intended to replace an
entire zoning ordinance. They are intended to replace independent design
specification topics with the correlation needed to lead shelter capacity
toward its intended intensity and occupancy goals. (See “The Disorganized
Zoning Ordinance”)
Gross building area prediction is the first objective in
Table 1. The other predictions in the Forecast Panel add initial detail needed
by a designer. The Implications Panel measures the consequences of the values
entered in the Design Specification Template. The final intensity and dominance
columns of the Implications Panel measure the results produced by the
correlated shaded cell values, and resulting gross building area predictions, to
make evaluation and knowledge accumulation feasible.
It should be obvious that language and knowledge is limited
by the vocabulary available. Shelter intensity has been a term without adequate
definition ever since its presence was recognized with instinct, intuition,
awareness, and observation. Density and the Floor Area Ratio have been easy to
measure but they have missed many of the controlling topics that must be
correlated to provide the shelter massing and intensity leadership that forms a
pattern for our quality of life. Current zoning stipulations have simply led to
variance appeals and sprawling annexation patterns in search of a mirage called
“physical, social, and economic balance”.
EXCERPTS FROM “LAND USE and DEVELOPMENT CAPACITY CORRELATION”
(with modifications)
“I’ll close by
including Table 1 as an example of an urban design forecast model that applies
to all buildings served by an adjacent parking lot on the same premise. It is
called the G1 Building Design Category and is the most common category used to
shelter activity in many parts of the world -- when parking is required.
The gray cells in
Table 1 indicate design specification topic locations. The values entered are
mathematically correlated for use by the master equation in cell J47. A change to
one or more of the design specification values entered will modify the results
produced. The point is that these specification values are not independent and
isolated. They represent combinations that must be correlated -- and illustrate
the interactive relationship of building design decisions.
The ten floor quantity
options entered in gray cells A44-A53 complete a set of design specification
options. The master equation in cell J47 predicts their gross building area
implications in cells B44-B53. The Planning Forecast Panel predicts further
design implications using the equations on line 43. The shelter capacity,
intensity, intrusion, and dominance impact of these options is calculated with
the equations on line 43 of the Implications Module. I am not providing an
evaluation of these impact measurements since this is a hypothetical example;
but measurement, evaluation, and accumulated knowledge is the leadership
promise offered by this system of building classification, design
specification, planning prediction, implication measurement, and evaluation.
ADDITIONAL
OBSERVATIONS
The public revenue
implications of the gross building area forecast in Table 1 is easiest to
explain by looking at the options predicted in cells B44-B53. If $10 of revenue
were expected per sq. ft. of gross building area, the total annual revenue
would range from $48,843 to $73,511 depending on the floor quantity chosen.
Since the buildable land area noted in cell F10 is 100% of the gross land area
given in cell F3, the total revenue projections would be divided by 5.230 acres
to find the revenue potential per acre provided by the city’s inventory. This
would range from $9,339 to $14,055 per acre. A simple comparison with the
city’s annual expense per acre would indicate the contribution or subsidy
implications of the land and building options contemplated.
The results that
evolve from fundamental design specification decisions have been overlooked for
centuries; and overdevelopment and oppression are not easily overcome when economic
hardship is claimed -- until the examples become too extreme to ignore during
the debate that ensues. The Implications Module in Table 1 illustrates one
method of measuring the impact of gross building mass and composition on our
quality of life within the urban fabric we create. When these measurements are
combined with the financial evaluation mentioned in the paragraph above, it
will become easier for a city to evaluate the combined impact of its shelter
design decisions. A city that understands these implications for every parcel
within its jurisdiction is a city that is prepared to evaluate the land use and
urban design decisions that will affect its future.
The acres in a city’s
inventory are a primary source of its revenue, but all do not produce the
income needed to equal a city’s average expense per acre. If a city does not
understand the economic implications of land use and shelter capacity
allocation, it will continue pursuing random economic development projects
without the comprehensive strategy needed to lead its physical decisions to
foreseeable financial improvement in a revenue and expense equation that
determines its quality of life and the demands it places on its limited source
of life.”
CONCLUSION
“I hope I have shown
that it is entirely possible to mathematically correlate land consumption with
gross building area capacity, activity, economic potential, and quality of life
within limited geographic areas when the leadership topics for each building
design category classification are comprehensively defined and correlated with
the algorithms, value decisions, and master equations required. The goal is to
define a limited Built Domain without wandering consumption. I think we all
understand at some level of comprehension that limits are required. It remains
to define them and the path required with a language that can lead us to
consistent results.
I have contributed the
conceptual framework and technical information needed to continue this
discussion in my book, “The Equations of Urban Design”. It is available on
Amazon.com but the title may have been an unfortunate choice since the book is
not consumed with equations. They are simply the foundation on which the
conceptual, predictive, measurement, and evaluation format is based. I have
also published over 190 essays regarding this topic at my blog www.wmhosack.blogspot.com. It has been visited by over 32,000
readers.
There is a lot of work
to be done to reach the only goal that matters. Symbiotic survival is not an
option. It is a mandate that will not be met until our habitat ceases to be a
threat to ourselves and its source of life – the Natural Domain.”
Escape to Mars will simply prolong our mistaken assumptions
regarding land ownership prerogatives, shelter capacity, and population growth.
Walter M. Hosack: December, 2022
