If you think of architecture as urban and agriculture as
rural, you will have classified the two phyla of a Built Domain containing
shelter, movement open space, and life support divisions. The Built Domain is habitat
for a species that is capable of consuming its source of life with sprawl.
Planning for a geographically limited Built Domain capable of protecting a
growing population’s welfare, or quality of life, is the obvious solution; but
it will require a new language and science of city design before architects and
planners will be able to correlate the diversity of effort needed to lead us to
symbiotic survival.
Agriculture is a victim of annexation for urban development within
an expanding Built Domain. Agriculture will continue to be at risk until credible
knowledge can defend rural land use allocation with revised legislation.
Adequate agricultural allocation is imperative if you agree that growing
populations must learn to live within a limited Built Domain that contains both
urban and rural areas. In other words, urban areas for shelter will be
constrained by rural areas for agriculture if they are contained within a geographically
limited Built Domain.
I have focused on urban areas in the past and have failed to
include line 3 in Table 1 as a consequence. It is a classification level of The
Built Domain that precedes its four divisions, since these divisions are found
in both rural and urban areas.
In this context, The Built Domain is not a project,
district, city, region, or conurbation. It is the sum of all man-made
creations, and a project, farm, or ranch is its cellular unit of growth. The allocation
of land for its phyla, divisions, categories, and groups will determine our
ability to shelter growing populations within a geographically limited Built
Domain that protects our quality and source of life. “Quality” in this context
includes an adequate food supply that has not been provided by The Natural
Domain for quite some time. It can only be provided by adequate agricultural
land use allocation within the Life Support Division of the Rural Phyla in The Built
Domain.
In the case of the Rural Phyla, gross building area on a
farm divided by total farm acres produces a shelter capacity measurement that
is extremely low.
In the case of the Urban Phyla, gross building area divided
by buildable project acres can be extremely high. In fact, it can be pushed to
produce excessive intensity, intrusion, and dominance measurements that
threaten the public welfare and quality of life. These measurements are one
indication of the difference between rural and urban activity.
Gross building area divided by buildable project acres is
shelter capacity. It is a function of design category choices, a category
forecast model, design specification decisions within the model, and related master
equation calculations. The design category master equation produces gross
building area options that vary with the number of building floors under
consideration.
Shelter capacity is occupied by activity and the gross
building area introduced per acre determines the scope of activity that can be
accommodated. The decisions that produce shelter capacity determine building
mass and its impact on the surrounding population. Traditional architecture
converts a building mass specification to the form, function, and appearance of
its shelter capacity. Obviously, this impact is marginal in the Rural Phyla. It
can be excessive in the Urban Phyla when measured in terms of capacity,
intensity, intrusion, and dominance.
At the present time, we know more about the bushels of corn
that can be produced per acre than the shelter capacity of an acre. We know
even less about the intensity, intrusion, and dominance produced by shelter
capacity options; and have not considered that the Built Domain is a second
world on a single planet with rural and urban phyla that require shelter, movement,
open space, and life support. I doubt that we have even considered the acres of
The Natural Domain that must be preserved to protect our source of life.
Instinct, intuition, and anticipation are telling us that
balance must be found between The Built and Natural Domains. The relationship
between urban and rural land use allocation within a limited Built Domain is another
puzzle we must solve.
I doubt that the shelter capacity of land in rural areas is
considered when food production is the goal, and I doubt that food production
is seriously considered in urban areas when shelter for activity is the goal. They
are part of the same question, however. What is the geographic balance between the
Built and Natural Domains that is required to protect a growing population’s
source of life; and what is the relationship of land use allocation and urban
form within The Built Domain that will protect a growing population’s quality
of life? (Urban form is produced by a collection of individual land use
allocation and shelter capacity decisions. They combine to produce spatial
context, shelter composition, and shelter capacity, intensity, intrusion, and
dominance within The Built Domain.)
Architectural design categories, forecast models, specification
formats, and master equations are needed to predict shelter capacity options
for land at the cellular level of allocation, conversion, and project formation
within a limited Built Domain. When architects learn to use these tools they
will be prepared to advance from the tactical to strategic level of shelter
capacity evaluation.
Land use allocation and the composition of urban form within
a limited Built Domain will reflect the progress we make toward a policy of
symbiotic survival. This policy represents a design problem currently faced
with an inadequate pattern language. The classification in Table 1 is a
departure from this language to The Science of City Design.[1]
It is a strategic language that can be used to lead an army, but this is simply a claim based on a vision at the present
time. In the end, we will either adapt and survive or consume our source of
life. Inability to adopt a climate change policy may hasten the process, but climate
solutions will not contain a sprawling Built Domain served by movement, open
space, and life support systems that threaten to consume our source of life.
[1] Hosack, Walter M., The Science of City Design:
Architectural Algorithms for City Planning and Design Leadership,
CreateSpace, 2016. (Available in paperback and e-book versions from Amazon.com)
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