A Symbiotic Pre-requisite

A primary building is the nucleus of a cell we call a lot. We inhabit the shelter provided and bring the cell to life as part of the Shelter Division of the urban anatomy. Each cell contains contents that combine in various quantities to serve a given activity. These quantity decisions form building, pavement, and unpaved open space elements that equal 100% of a cell’s site plan area. The plan defines two-dimensional quantity relationships. Floor quantity decisions convert building footprint areas to gross building area quantities often referred to as building mass. Gross building area divided by the buildable acres consumed is shelter capacity.


Massing composition within a cell is served by pavement for service and social activity. The combination of building mass and pavement produces shelter capacity that is offset by unpaved open space to produce measurable levels of intensity, intrusion, and dominance. The combination of composition and context design molds intensity, intrusion, and dominance into the places we traverse to reach shelter. The final form and appearance of shelter within composition and context reflects the preferences of the time. The style chosen symbolizes the complex effort to provide shelter for human activity at the cellular level of the Shelter Division in the Urban and Rural Phyla of the Built Domain. 


Shelter capacity options produce levels of intensity that are equal to shelter capacity per acre multiplied by the impervious cover percentage planned or present. Intrusion is floor quantity divided by five. When more than one primary building is located in a cell, intrusion is a floor quantity average adjusted by the percentage of total gross building area related to each. Dominance is equal to the sum of intensity and intrusion. These three measurements of dominance summarize the impact of design specification decisions on our quality of life within a single cell. These cells aggregate to form the Shelter Division of the Built Domain.

Design specification topics are related to a building design category. Seven categories exist when buildings are classified by the parking system planned or present. The seven building categories of the Shelter Division combine with Movement, Open Space, and Life Support Divisions to form the Urban and Rural Phyla of the Built Domain. Each building design category is defined by a list of design specification topics that vary by category. The values assigned to these topics are correlated by an architectural algorithm that serves a category master equation. The equation predicts shelter capacity, intensity, intrusion, and dominance results based on the floor quantity options and specification values entered. A number of secondary equations predict the design detail implied by these floor quantity options and specification value decisions. This detail includes, but is not limited to: gross building area, building footprint, parking quantity, and parking area related to the floor quantity under consideration. A change to one or more design specification values produces a new forecast.


The objective is to create a classification system and precise mathematical language to correlate and lead decisions that combine to create the shelter capacity, intensity, intrusion, and dominance of activity within cells that aggregate to form the Shelter Division of The Built Domain. An inability to lead produces sprawling shelter that is a metastasizing, parasitic physical disease. It can only be treated with a language capable of leading the formation of shelter for growing populations within a geographically limited Built Domain that protects both our quality and source of life – the Natural Domain.


The combination of shelter capacity, activity, location, and condition determines a cell’s financial yield per acre to both private and public enterprise. All cellular revenue per acre is not equal to a city’s average expense per acre, however, and excess revenue per acre from the shelter capacity and activity in some must be used to subsidize others to maintain a balanced municipal budget. When the number of subsidized cells becomes too great, budget cuts ensue and a city’s ability to operate, maintain, improve, and serve its debt becomes increasingly difficult. At this point a city will sprawl seeking new revenue to repeat past mistakes because it cannot adequately diagnose the cellular performance of its anatomy. The problem becomes acute when an encircled city has no more room to sprawl, limited ability to diagnose, and less ability to treat.

A sprawling city will continue to consume its source of life in a vain search for economic stability until it learns to diagnose and correlate shelter capacity, social activity, and economic performance at the cellular level of its growth. The goal is sustainable urban form and social activity that produces adequate average municipal revenue per acre within limited geographic areas. It is an obvious prerequisite for symbiotic survival.