The Implications of Shelter Capacity Design Decisions

These decisions need greater attention from all who depend on shelter for survival. There is no alternative. We must learn to accurately predict the capacity of land to provide shelter for the activities of growing populations. Our past and present use of this limited resource has often produced excessive intensity and sprawling consumption of agriculture and the natural domain without producing economic stability within a jurisdiction. This has occurred because jurisdictions have had to rely on limited estimates, preferences, and special interests for decisions that have not had the scope needed to correlate shelter capacity, intensity, and activity with its economic implications. An adequate mathematical foundation of established, correlated procedure has been missing. It should make sense, however, that unlimited consumption of a limited resource is unrealistic. However, we continue to consume land without the ability to accurately measure, predict, evaluate, and lead the capacity and intensity options we must correlate to shelter and sustain the activities and growing populations within symbiotic geographic limits.

It is possible to measure, evaluate, and mathematically predict shelter capacity options and the intensity alternatives they represent for specified land areas. This brief essay is intended to outline an approach that can permit us to pursue the knowledge we must acquire to survive on a planet with limits we are expected to decipher.

Shelter capacity is a function of the building design category chosen and design specification values assigned to its forecast template. The building height, mass, pavement, open space, and gross building area resulting from these decisions produce a measurable
level of intensity, intrusion, and dominance. This is the pattern and texture urban designers refer to as urban composition. The result can be occupied by any building code conforming activity.

We are all aware that some of these historic physical patterns have been threats to our health, safety, and welfare; and that some continue to this day. Improvements have been made, but we remain unable to consistently lead shelter patterns toward correlated capacity, intensity, and activity objectives that will achieve pre-defined physical, social, psychological, environmental, and economic objectives. There has simply been no ability to accurately define shelter capacity and intensity objectives for activities that can be correlated to produce an urban design plan with economic development objectives.

Activity groups, currently called land use classifications, occupy building design categories. Gross building area in square feet defines the scope of an activity project. Gross building area divided by the buildable acres occupied produces a measurement of the shelter capacity planned or present. Shelter capacity divided by 43,560 and multiplied by the impervious cover percentage present is a measure of the physical intensity implied. Physical intensity is often magnified by the level of occupant activity present; and the combination of capacity and activity has many undefined implications.

Profit and public revenue per buildable acre are measures of the yield from the combination of capacity, activity, and intensity present in a project or jurisdiction. In other words, the relationship of average yield to average expense per acre defines the success of both public and private investment in any defined area. The future will depend on improving our ability to predict the shelter capacity of land, the intensity limits that must be respected, and the occupant activity assortment needed to shelter and sustain growing populations within geographic limits that can protect their quality and source of life.  

This capability will begin with a building classification system based on the fundamentals of shelter planning. The building design categories involved are listed in Table 1 as the titles of chapters 2-7. The master equations noted in this table below each chapter title depend on the values given and derived in the template noted to the left of each equation. The objective of each template is based on the proposition noted to the right of the master equation. In all cases, the goal of each equation is to begin the journey toward a determination of the gross building area, shelter capacity, intensity, intrusion, and dominance options implied by the values or measurements entered against the topics in a forecast model related to the building design category under consideration.

A forecast model produces shelter capacity options based on the range of floor quantity options entered. The results are translated by the equations in a model’s Implications Module to find the intensity, intrusion, and dominance implied by each option. At this point evaluation can begin. A leadership language can evolve and knowledge can be acquired that is equal to the design direction and correlation required. Until then, we will continue to observe symptoms that threaten our health, safety, and quality of life; the quality of life for all other species; and the source of life that we have taken for granted without adequate foresight for too long.

CONCLUSION

I will not go into further detail that has been covered in my essays and books. I’ll simply close with something I’ve previously written to address the fundamental question behind this essay.

“…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 constructively define a limited Built Domain without excessive and continuing reliance on annexation. I think we all understand at some level of comprehension that limits are required. It remains to define them with a language that can lead us to consistently positive 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 for analytical diagnosis and knowledge formation is based. I have also published over 190 essays regarding this topic on my blog www.wmhosack.blogspot.com and posted the more recent on Linked-In. The blog 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 the habitat we build ceases to be a threat to ourselves, our companions on the planet, and our source of life – the Natural Domain.”

Walter M. Hosack: February, 2023

PS: The following is a list of abbreviations used in the “Propositions” column of Table 1. A complete list of abbreviations used in all equations can be found in the chapters of my book.

APTMOD=           apartment module

AVGBLOT=          average buildable lot area

AVGHOME=        average home area

AVGLOT=             average lot area

BCA=                    building cover area (footprint)

BLA=                     buildable land area

BLOT=                  buildable lot area

CORE=                  core area for building and parking area

DU=                      dwelling unit

EHOME=              existing home area

(f)=                        floor quantity

GBA=                    gross building area

GLA=                     gross land area

GPGA=                  gross parking garage area

HOME=                home area

(l)=                        parking garage level quantity

LOT=                     lot area

NDU=                   number of dwelling units

TH=                       townhouse

The Public Policy - City Design Disconnect

 “Long Island Republican warns of 'suburban uprising' over New York Gov. Kathy Hochul's plan to rezone land to allow greater density for affordable housing” – Headline quote from: Business Insider

Greater density generally involves taller buildings and increased floor quantity to shelter larger populations on the same land area. This is the assumption I’ve made from the headline I quoted above. I’ve also assumed that the proposal threatens the visual, social, psychological, environmental, and economic compatibility of the neighborhood, and that the threat is symbolized by the massing contrast involved. Aesthetics and composition are weak arguments. Social and psychological arguments are fraught with claims of prejudice. Environmental and economic arguments suffer from their dependence on opinion, so the debate often surrounds the shadows that will be cast and the scope of population and traffic volume that will be introduced. The increased demand on storm sewer capacity is often overlooked because the impervious cover capacity percentage of the system has not been recorded. The debate becomes a battle over isolated technical detail because the proposal has no strategic design objective based on knowledge that is larger than the proposal itself; and no adequate leadership language based on knowledge that can repeat success and avoid failure. The results have been symbolized by decline and sprawl.

I have no doubt that the proposal mentioned will produce unanticipated change in the surrounding area over time. I also doubt that there will be a language and plan that can lead others to an objective that is greater than the immediate, isolated proposal. The motivation has always been expediency that attempts to resolve an immediate problem without the tools, data, knowledge, and language needed for the leadership required over time.

Floor quantity is one of a number of design specification topics that must be correlated on individual properties to form a shelter pattern referred to as massing composition. The problem is that there has been no language capable of producing the correlation required over large areas subject to independent motivation and discretion. Successful results remain undocumented, so we extol site plan and building appearance without understanding the mathematical decisions beneath the success and failure we observe as symptoms of health and disease. These are the decisions that can be used to prescribe and lead without plagiarism of appearance. A host of technical decisions follow.

I won’t belabor the point because I have written extensively about the topic of urban design documentation, evaluation, knowledge accumulation, and leadership definition with an improved classification, measurement, prediction, and leadership language. I’ll simply close at this point in an attempt to be brief.

Walter M. Hosack: February, 2023

THE ANNEXATION THREAT

My concern is that annexation will continue, even if populations remain stable or decline, because it is a legal expedient that empowers new shelter construction and profit potential without the many complications associated with redevelopment. The problem is compounded because shelter is one product of a multi-faceted development industry that prefers consumption of agricultural land in the Built Domain and virgin land in the Natural Domain as its platform for construction. It is simply easier than redevelopment and often more profitable. 

Profit has been the motive and consumption has been the behavior required to reach the objective since we first began trading for more than survival. The problem that we all wish would disappear is that unlimited consumption of limited resources makes no sense, but may not affect those who happen to be first in line. 

So what is the shelter capacity of a Built Domain limited in geographic area that has the goal of protecting our quality AND source of life? It is a question that confronts everything we have learned regarding the economic principle of supply and demand. It implies limits that apply to all other species, but we continue to ignore the lesson that has surrounded us since the beginning of time. We all know there is a natural law of limits. We just hope it will be a problem that future generations will solve. Our financial advisors have already informed us, however, that hope is not a strategy. 

We have been struggling with the air and water pollution produced by human activity for quite some time. Climate change is a somewhat more recent concern that currently generates fierce debate over its cause and the role of human activity. I have been concerned with another threat that is produced by the unlimited conversion of agriculture and the Natural Domain for human activity. It concerns the pavement, open space, and life support systems we construct to serve the shelter we build to protect the activities we depend on for survival. We have called the progression of this physical pattern sprawl; and have recognized its unhealthy characteristics, but have had no ability to define and defend an alternative in mathematical terms equal to the economic arguments that perpetuate an annexation pattern of shelter for activity that has the potential to become a plastic bag over the face of the planet. 

In other words, human  activities require shelter to survive. Adjusting activity to eliminate pollution and stabilize the climate will continue to ignore the advance of sprawl. Unfortunately, it is produced by unrestrained social and economic interests that pursue profit based on consumption in the only way they understand. 

I have written this in response to a specific question I received and will not attempt to go into further detail that has been covered in my essays and books. I’ll simply close with something I’ve previously written to address the question I posed at the beginning of this essay. 

“…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 constructively define a limited Built Domain without excessive and continuing reliance on annexation. I think we all understand at some level of comprehension that limits are required. It remains to define them with a language that can lead us to consistently positive 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 on my blog www.wmhosack.blogspot.com and posted the more recent on Linked-In. The blog 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 the habitat we build ceases to be a threat to ourselves and our source of life – the Natural Domain.” 

Walter M. Hosack: February, 2023