Shelter means survival for Homo sapiens until sprawl becomes
a threat to its source of life. Shelter site plan composition is defined by topics
that may be unfamiliar. The values assigned to the topics and items listed in a
building category template represent quantities . These quantities define a shelter capacity, intensity, intrusion, and
dominance option illustrated by the site plan. (Shelter capacity is gross building
area in sq. ft. divided by the buildable land area in acres.) The
choice of values entered in a category template has quality of life implications
within the property cell, or lot, and in the surrounding area. The accumulation
of quantity decisions produced by property cell aggregation creates the
Shelter Division of the Built Domain. This domain is organically alive and
growing because we live in the nucleus of each cell.
I’ve covered this in two editions of my book, Land
Development Calculations, 2001 and 2010, but the forecasting math in the
attached CD’s was based on my first attempts to organize the empirical thought
process and topic arithmetic related to the very beginning of the architectural
design process. This site plan arithmetic sets the stage for all that follows,
but site plan topics have not been consistently listed and values correlated to mathematically predict the shelter capacity, intensity, intrusion,
and dominance implied. Site planning has also
been upstaged by a focus on final building style and appearance. This may
produce a signature building on an isolated lot, but isolated sculpture does
not ensure desirable quality of life on the site and among buildings in surrouding neighborhoods,
districts, cities and regions.
A focus on isolated shelter projects will continue to
produce random sprawl until a new language is created with the power to
correlate shelter capacity, intensity, intrusion, and dominance on every lot present
and planned. The aggregation of these cellular decisions sets the stage for the physical,
social, psychological, environmental, and economic quality of life in projects, neighborhoods, districts, cities, and regions.
The goal is shelter for the activities of growing
populations within geographic limits that protect their quality and source of
life. A new language of shelter planning is needed to achieve the goal. The
goal will only be successful, however, when associated with a global policy of
symbiotic survival.
A correlated mathematical language for shelter capacity
measurement, forecasting, evaluation, and planning has been my objective, and I
am writing this because the effort is complete. It has been based on the
realization that there are now two worlds on a single planet – The Built Domain
and The Natural Domain. The Built Domain contains Urban and Rural Phyla. Each phylum
contains four divisions: Shelter, Movement, Open Space, and Life Support. The
Shelter Division in each phylum is served by arteries of movement and life
support. Open space arteries in the Urban Phylum are rarely present but badly
needed. Their inclusion has been discredited by the concept of “highest and
best use”. The benefit from this slogan has been limited to a few when the
scope of shelter capacity, intensity, intrusion, and dominance imposed on our
presence is considered in addition to the sprawl it produces when the concept
is a world without end.
The Shelter Division contains six primary building design
categories. Each category may be occupied by any activity, assuming zoning and
building code compliance. A category is defined by at least two design
specification templates that list topics in response to the information given. The
values assigned to each topic and item in a template represent a design option
that is produced by an architectural algorithm serving a master equation. The equation
in one template produces gross building area options and implications based on
floor quantity alternatives, and many options can be evaluated in the time it
takes to produce one sketch. The equation in the other produces buildable land
area options for a given gross building area objective. The palette of template
values chosen represents a mathematical foundation for the vast list of
architectural design decisions that are built upon this base.
Shelter cells, or lots, are presently growing
with negligible, random restraint across the face of our planet in a parasitic pattern
we refer to as “sprawl”. This is happening because there is no reliable
leadership language for city design. A cure for sprawl will depend on its
formation and the decisions we define as urban DNA with its vocabulary. The challenge I've mentioned is a symbiotic urban anatomy containing shelter for growing populations within limited
geographic areas that are defined to protect their source and quality of life.
The birth of this anatomy will replace the parasitic, carcinogenic pattern of land
consumption that we currently refer to as “sprawl” when not admiring it as
“growth”. 
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