Unlimited Land Consumption for Shelter on a Limited Planet

This is not a world without end nor a land without end. It is a world with an unwritten Law of Limits that requires anticipation to avoid natural intervention. My concern has been the growth of shelter for activity across the face of our planet without a leadership language capable of meeting anticipated demand within geographic limits that protect and preserve our source of life, the Natural Domain. This challenge cannot be met without a correlated mathematical ability to measure and predict the shelter capacity of land. It is the only way to maximize its potential in limited areas without compromising our quality of life with excessive intensity, in my opinion.

Shelter capacity in the Built Domain is gross building area in square feet per buildable acre of land assigned to the project. It can be produced by any one of six building design categories and their related template specification decisions. The gross building area options resulting from these specification decisions produce measurable shelter capacity, intensity, intrusion, and context implications within a spectrum that ranges from excessive land consumption and low shelter intensity to minimal land consumption and excessively high shelter intensity. Consistently desirable quality of life parameters within this intensity spectrum have yet to be mathematically defined for each building design category and occupant activity group.

If you have read my book, “The Equations of Urban Design”, available from Amazon.com; or any of my 260+ essays on my blog at www.wmhosack.blogspot.com; or some of the more recent essays posted on LinkedIn, you know that the mathematical language of Shelter Capacity Evaluation is represented by forecast model templates related to six building design categories that encompass the shelter options in use today. The values assigned to their template specification topics represent the language used to predict gross building area options with a master equation related to the category. The predicted options have shelter capacity, intensity, intrusion, and context implications that are produced by their conversion equations. Comparison and evaluation of these measurements can produce transferable knowledge and precise, consistent guidance. This is the leadership language of Tegimenics and the science of Tegimenology needed to defend urban design proposals within sustainable geographic limits.

Unlimited growth is not an option on a limited planet.

DEFINITIONS

I’m including the following definition of terms I have used that may be unfamiliar to those who haven’t read my previous essays.

Buildable Land Area (BLA)

Buildable land area is gross land area minus unbuildable areas, existing areas to remain, future expansion areas, public roads, easements, and other unnamed set-asides.

Shelter Capacity (SFAC)

Shelter capacity is gross building area in square feet per buildable acre, except for buildable land area reserved for future expansion.

Tegimenics

Tegimenics is based on the classification of all buildings into six shelter design categories. The language is represented by design category forecast models, design specification topics related to each model, algorithmic correlation of the values entered, and master equations using correlated specification values to predict:

1)      Gross building area options for a given land area. This includes the mathematical shelter capacity, intensity, intrusion, and context implications of the options for evaluation and comparison.

2)      Buildable land area options for a given gross building area. This includes the mathematical shelter capacity, intensity, intrusion, and context implications of the options for evaluation and comparison.

Tegimenology

The study of shelter capacity, intensity, intrusion, and context measurements within the urban and rural phyla of the Built Domain. The intent is to determine template specification options for building design categories and occupant activity groups that can produce desirable shelter capacity, intensity, and context for growing populations within limited geographic areas. Think of these as optional quantity recipes for the urban design composition of shelter space, place, and form within sustainable limits.

Appearance will follow to symbolize the level of knowledge being acquired.

Walter M. Hosack, October 2025

Photo by chensiyuan - chensiyuan, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=14872516