The Housing Shortage

Our housing efforts have been tactical efforts by independent builders without strategic direction from an adequate research effort and leadership language. Our response has in

volved annexation, urban sprawl, excessive intensity, and promiscuous consumption of agriculture and the natural domain. These tactical efforts have been piecemeal solutions. They will not solve the housing shortage without strategic direction from a leadership language based on targeted data accumulation; a consistent method of measurement, prediction and evaluation; a correlated mathematical foundation; and a library of accumulating knowledge. This missing foundation is fertile ground for divergent, often irreconcilable, opinions expressed during discordant, undisciplined public hearings. It is encouraged when evidence-based credibility is lacking and opposing opinion is based on unstable assumptions and/or conflicting motivation. The result has been continuing growth and consumption on a planet with limited land and resources.

 The forecast models of Shelter Capacity Evaluation have been my attempt to introduce a mathematical, measureable, and consistent vocabulary of design specification topics for a series of building design categories. The values assigned to these topics in the design specification template of a forecast model are correlated by equations in the model to produce shelter capacity, intensity, intrusion, and dominance implications for comparative assessment. This is data that can be used for the evaluation of shelter capacity decisions that involve site planning, building mass, pavement, and unpaved open space quantities in project areas of any scale. Shelter capacity evaluation is directly related to housing shortage solutions since shelter capacity predictions are based on gross building area forecasts that represent housing capacity when used for residential activity.

 Shelter capacity or gross building area per buildable acre is produced by the design topic values entered in a building design category template. These topic values are mathematically correlated to produce gross building area, shelter capacity, and intensity predictions. These capacity results can be evaluated long before building form and appearance become issues. This gives us the opportunity to plan shelter for growing populations within a limited Built Domain designed to protect their physical, social, and economic quality of life while also preserving their source of life – the Natural Domain – beyond these limits.

 The components of a design "recipe" have been called design specifications topics. They are related to specific building design categories. The quantities assigned to each topic are mathematically correlated to determine the shelter capacity, intensity, intrusion, and dominance implied. The recipe quantities determine the quality of the cake long before its form is determined and its icing is applied.

 It takes knowledge to bake a cake. It takes talent to produce appearance. Talent is a gift more than an education. It builds on a recipe. Shelter capacity recipes produce shelter intensity, intrusion, and dominance that can be recorded and improved with forecast model measurement, evaluation, and prediction. The effort can build knowledge and lead the ensuing design and construction steps required to shelter growing populations on limited land areas over generations. Shelter capacity in a limited Built Domain is the issue that faces us - and it has a mathematical foundation.

 The point of my effort has been to define the components of building design category recipes so that their quantities can be measured, correlated, and evaluated to assess the capacity and intensity results planned or present. This can build knowledge that will permit us to lead shelter design within the geographic limits of a Built Domain that can protect both the quality of life for growing populations and their source of life - the Natural Domain. It will not happen with our current dependence on annexation to correct land use allocation and economic productivity errors that multiply like Ponzi in the absence of more informed leadership and decision-making. Plenty of time will be left to debate the appearance applied to the fundamental shelter capacity and intensity decisions that determine our physical, social, and economic quality of life on land that must be shared with the Natural Domain and is not without end.

 During my lifetime the focus has been on tactical shelter projects for the many activities of growing populations. The focus has been on education, talent, and experience without the kind of measurement, research, evaluation, and knowledge accumulation that can support shelter capacity and design decisions with more than opinion. The legal format for our current self-defeating, argumentative process of land consumption without limit will not change until land use allocation and shelter capacity decisions can be based on more than opinion.

 
Walter M. Hosack: February, 2024