Minimum Design Standards in Zoning Regulation

 

The picture associated with this essay is intended to illustrate a possible motivation for design standards but is not even close to the worst tenement examples that can be found throughout history.

Minimum mathematical design standards in a zoning ordinance are independent regulations that have often attracted excessive conflict and variance requests to reconcile the expectations created by their conflicting stipulations. Design regulations do not stand alone like separate offenses in a penal code. Their mathematical standards must be correlated within the text to consistently achieve given physical, social and/or economic objectives.

The intent of minimum design standards is to protect the public health, safety, and welfare with the least regulation of free enterprise possible. It is a simple goal statement, but goals are often too general to solve complex problems. They require additional definition with more precise language capable of correlating the strategies and tactics required to reach them. It took science centuries to make headway in its conflict with opinion and needed a precise language of definition, classification, measurement, evaluation, and success to support its arguments.

LANGUAGE

Classifying building design categories and deriving a precise, correlated language of shelter capacity evaluation represents my attempt to introduce a leadership language of measurement, evaluation, definition, and decision to the relatively infinite spectrum of desirable and undesirable design topic choices that determine the pattern, form, and intensity of the places we inhabit outside the shelter we occupy. The language represents a strategic method of precise communication that is needed to lead the design decisions of many away from the undesirable options currently encouraged by the concept of “minimum design standards” in a zoning ordinance. The entire concept of independent, uncorrelated mathematical regulations has too often contributed to sprawl, excessive intensity, and economic instability. 

PROBLEM

Allocation of site plan areas and building height decisions on every parcel of occupied land are the invisible foundation for results in architecture, urban design, landscape architecture, civil engineering, and so on. This allocation is often the product of minimum design standards and private enterprise motivation that has frequently led us to produce random sprawl and excessive intensity. These “density decisions” often represent expectations from investors reading the mathematically uncorrelated regulations in a zoning ordinance. They symbolize our confused attempt to lead the physical design decisions that consume land to shelter activity.

Building design category classification has been nonexistent. Some prominent design topic specifications remain unlisted and unspecified. Those that do exist remain mathematically uncorrelated. This makes the term “minimum design standards” a hollow phrase lacking the substance and correlation needed to avoid random results and inconsistent success. It was the best we could do at the time.

The mathematical specifications of zoning regulation are a perfect example of an incomplete, uncorrelated, and contradictory language with an admirable goal. For example, when a designer is faced with the associated density, building height, parking, and setback requirements of a zoning code, it can often be difficult, if not impossible, to reach a client’s permitted density expectations given his/her desired dwelling unit mix and average dwelling area - even with excessive pavement. The inability to reconcile these criteria prompts a desire to request variances. In these cases, the requests reflect an inability to correlate client density and design expectations with zoning regulations that are not mathematically interactive and not available for option evaluation during joint discussions.

The bottom line is that mathematical zoning regulations are a collection of independent, uncorrelated requirements that often conflict in practice when married to more detailed client intent. This inevitably leads to variance requests that are, in essence, negotiations needed to reconcile these conflicts and contradictions with inconsistent decisions.

Most, if not all, governments lack the data science and mathematical language needed to measure, predict, evaluate, and correlate the shelter capacity, intensity, and activity that grows on their incorporated land. This cannot continue. It must be consciously allocated and monitored to produce the revenue needed to adequately protect the health, safety, and quality of life of its population over time. From this perspective I have called the city a farm with zones of shelter and activity that must produce a minimum average economic yield per acre that equals or exceeds its cost per acre to operate, maintain, improve, and serve its debt. It must do this without consuming its source of life using annexation as an expedient but life-threatening solution. The concept of minimum design standards leading the decisions of private enterprise will not get this done. It’s time for data science and shelter capacity evaluation, and implication measurement.

CORRELATION

Few, even in the design professions, recognize the full scope of mathematical correlation required to consistently lead shelter options and decisions in a desired direction. I pointed out the scope of initial urban design specification decisions for one building design category in my previous essay. For those interested, the scope of possible specification combinations for the G1 Building Design Category was shown to be 5.31404665706133 x 10¹⁴⁷⁰⁶ or 5.31404665706133 times 10 to the power of 14,706. In fact, the scope produces the problem. Both ends of the spectrum are undesirable but permitted under the concept of minimum design standards. We call one end of the spectrum “sprawl” and the other “excessive intensity” but have been unable to mathematically define the implications of either through an organized and consistent definition, measurement, evaluation, prediction and decision process. We have had to rely on conflicting opinions and opposing motivation that produces what we seek to avoid.

SHELTER CAPACITY EVALUATION

The objective of city planning and zoning has been to protect the public health, safety and welfare from the individual freedom to compromise these benefits in the pursuit of profit. There are countless pictures of unhealthy, unsafe, and inadequate shelter from centuries of neglect that symbolize where we have been and still are in many places.

In my opinion, success in our efforts to protect health has been the most successful because we have developed a precise diagnostic language as a foundation, and it keeps improving. Our efforts to protect safety have produced partial success with the evolving language, opinions, strategies, and tactics of jurisprudence. Our efforts to protect our social and economic quality of life in the cross currents of cultural conflict, economic motivation, public opinion, and political leadership will continue to fail without a more precise language that can adequately monitor and shelter growing activity within limited geographic areas.

Minimum design standards in a zoning ordinance do not represent the design language needed to guide a global army of designers toward a strategic objective. The objective is shelter to protect the social and economic activity of growing populations within a geographically limited Built Domain defined to protect their quality and source of life. The goal is not unconditional surrender of the planet. It is symbiotic survival for the planet’s entire population.

The language of shelter capacity evaluation can supplement the concept of minimum design standards and contribute to the measurement, evaluation, and accurate direction needed to protect our land’s ability to sustain the built and natural worlds on a single planet.

Walter M. Hosack: August 25, 2024

Quantifying the Complex Foundation of Shelter Design Decisions

 

The Language Needed to Measure Urban Design Decisions

The shelter capacity of land has been estimated and more land has been acquired when needed by converting/consuming agriculture, undeveloped areas, and/or natural settings. The entire concept of master planning has assumed that annexation can adjust for mistaken land use allocation and population growth.

Growing populations cannot survive without shelter for their many activities, but it seems obvious that land is not infinite and must be shared with the Natural Domain to protect our source of life from eventual consumption.

Surveying defines land areas. It does not define the shelter capacity of land or its environmental significance. This has made land a commodity. The result has been the lack of general recognition that the land areas we define must be consciously managed, conserved, protected, preserved, and shared as a source of life. The lack of a common, consistent language of mathematically correlated shelter capacity evaluation has produced inconsistent decisions leading to sprawl, excessive intensity, and random land consumption.

A honeybee knows better. It builds limited shelter; grows in limited quantities; feeds in limited areas; and pollinates in return for consumption. It responds to the Law of Limits on a planet that responds to a universe beyond our comprehension. We have yet to create a language of shelter capacity evaluation that can build any segment of comparable knowledge or contribution, and the planet does not compromise with ignorance.

INTRODUCTION

Shelter capacity is first a function of the building design category chosen among six in the Shelter Division of the Built Domain. Until now, shelter has never been classified by mathematically useful building design categories. The design specification decisions related to each category and occupant activity have never been comprehensively identified or correlated with the algorithms needed to measure and/or predict shelter capacity, intensity, intrusion, and context options for any given area.

The shelter capacity of a given land area is a function of the building design category forecast model chosen; the values entered in its design specification template for each topic listed; and the floor quantity options considered. The result is a correlated mathematical prediction of shelter capacity options in sq. ft. per acre and the intensity, intrusion, and context implications related to each.

Shelter capacity decisions determine the scope of activity that can be contained within the gross building area per buildable acre measured, planned, or predicted. The nature of this activity combines with shelter capacity and intensity to determine the revenue and investment potential of the buildable land area occupied.

The correlation of mathematical decisions and floor quantity options in a design specification template produces gross building area options and related shelter capacity, intensity, intrusion, and context implications. These implications are measurements of the physical relationships involving building mass, parking, pavement, and unpaved open space that combine with movement, open space, and life support systems to form the places within our Built Domain.

ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT IMPLICATIONS

An informed allocation of capacity, intensity, and activity within a city can make the evaluation of financial stability more than an annual guessing game. It will, however, require the participation of data science and the correlation of many related data silos with the leadership calculation and evaluation of shelter capacity alternatives. It is the only way to provide shelter for growing populations within limited geographic areas defined to protect and preserve their quality and source of life. It is a fundamental physical issue.

The consistent measurement of shelter capacity, intensity, activity, and revenue from every acre within a city makes the evaluation and accumulation of knowledge feasible. The implications are significant. The knowledge will offer the opportunity to mathematically correlate and monitor a city’s land use allocation plan. This will make it possible to produce and maintain an average economic yield per acre equal to or greater than a city’s expense per acre. The implied objective is to establish, afford, and maintain financial stability that can produce a desirable quality of life within limited geographic areas.

SHELTER CAPACITY DESIGN DECISIONS

I’m including a brief example of shelter capacity forecasting in Table 1. It will be quite repetitious for previous readers but will provide an example of a tool that can be used at joint meetings of planners, investors, developers, and advisers to mutually evaluate options, reach decisions, and define objections before the expense of graphic evaluation begins. In fact, hundreds of spreadsheet options can be evaluated in the time it would take to sketch one.

The entire collection of forecast models is meant to introduce a mathematical language of correlated design specifications to replace comparable but partial and mathematically uncorrelated zoning regulations. Consistent measurement and evaluation of existing conditions based on a comparable, correlated set of design specification topics can build knowledge regarding their implications and future leadership parameters.

TABLE 1

I have explained Table 1 many times, so I’ll keep it brief. The table is a forecast model that applies to the CG1L building design category. This category includes all buildings served by a surface parking lot around, but not under, the building on the same designated premise.

The shelter capacity options in cells F44-F53 of Table 1 are predicted from the specification values entered in its shaded cells. The results may be occupied by any permitted activity. The scope of activity is affected by the shelter capacity measured, predicted, planned, and/or available.

The correlation of capacity, intensity, and activity produces a context measurement that combines with location to determine the revenue potential of the land area involved. The allocation of these relationships on every taxable parcel/acre of land within a city’s boundaries determines its total average revenue per acre. This must equal a city’s total annual operating, maintenance, improvement, and debt service expense per acre, or budget cuts ensue. The public reaction to the municipal services provided is a measure of its context allocation success and ability to explain its decisions.

Lines (a-e) identify the forecast model in Table 1. Line (g) identities the Design Specification Template. Line 2 identifies the Land Module in the specification template. The shaded cells in the module identify the locations requiring design specification decisions. The values entered are simply for illustration. The text to the left of the values explains the topic. Column G converts all values to their sq. ft. equivalents.

The Core Module in Table 1 begins after the Land Module. The shaded cells in the Core Module continue to designate design specification locations. The CORE value found in cell F33 is correlated from all specification values entered in both modules. It is converted to a sq. ft. value in cell G33, and is needed by the master equation in cell B39. Parking specification values are entered in shaded cells B35, B36. Optional floor quantity values are entered in cells A44-A53. All specification values entered are correlated for use by the master equation to find the gross building area options in cells B44-B53 of the Planning Forecast Panel. All other predictions in the Planning and Implication Modules are functions of these gross building area predictions.

CONTEXT

The values in cells J44-J53 of Table 1 are context measurements. They are a function of the capacity, intensity, and intrusion options calculated in the preceding columns. I originally designated the column as containing dominance values (DOM) but have since come to believe that context measurement (CXT) is a better title indicating the entire range of options that can result from a design specification.

DESIGN SPECIFICATION DECISIONS

There are 27 shaded design specification topics in Table 1. The first is a given land area that can be of any size. Eleven of the ensuing topics in the Land and Core Modules involve percentage decisions that can range from 0-100%. The values in cells F27-28 and A35-36 of the Core Module involve integer decisions and a more limited range of options. The column of floor quantity options in Column A44-53 is often limited by a zoning ordinance, but the potential list of choices can range beyond 100. I’ll make my point in the ensuing paragraphs.

Each specification topic requires a mathematical entry/design decision even if it is zero. Changing one or more values assigned to any shaded specification topic produces revised results in the Planning Forecast Panel and Implications Module. I’ll ignore the whole number topics and the given land area. I’ll limit the floor quantity range of choices to 100 to simplify this explanation.

The 12 topics involving decisions ranging from 1-100 in Table 1 represent a relatively infinite spectrum of low to high intensity combinations associated with the CGL1 building design category, which is the simplest of the six building design classifications. Twelve specification topics times 100 potential options each produces a great number of potential combinations. The factorial of 1200 is 6.3507890863e+3175. This can also be written as 6.3507890863 x 10³¹⁷⁵, or 63507890863+3165 more digits. If I added an estimate of 2360 for the potential fixed number specification options in the model, the total potential design choices would be 4560 and the potential number combinations would be 5.31404665706133 x 10¹⁴⁷⁰⁶.

This is the first time I have come to recognize the true complexity of the physical design decision process, the experience required to navigate these options, and the scope of research/knowledge required to improve a leadership language that currently uses intuition, talent, contradictory regulations, and missing information to produce random results. We need to more thoroughly understand the implications of the options involved and improve our ability to comprehensively, consistently lead these decisions toward desired outcomes within geographic limits designed to protect both our quality and source of life.

LEADERSHIP CHALLENGE

The design specification values entered in the shaded cells of Table 1 are examples of the decisions that must be correlated and led to consistently achieve desired results from the CG1L building design category. Without leadership, the options available to every owner, developer, real estate investor, architect, landscape architect, urban designer, civil engineer, city planner, and so on are too vast to expect results capable of consistently avoiding sprawl, excessive intensity, and continuing consumption of land that is also our source of life.

Table 1 represents one forecast model that can be used to measure and evaluate our past physical design performance, build knowledge, and improve results with a leadership language based on the mathematical knowledge acquired. It is one model in a city design portfolio of models. The portfolio choices are not a substitute for architectural form, function, and appearance decisions. They precede them. The topic values involved are meant to lay an urban design foundation of building mass, parking, pavement, and unpaved open space quantity decisions. These define massing composition/relationships that will be refined during the ensuing phases of design and construction.

City design is a strategic concept meant to achieve the goal of sustainable, symbiotic survival. Urban design defines an objective that must be achieved to move toward the goal. The specification topics in shelter capacity evaluation represent a leadership language. The value decisions assigned require mathematical correlation. These invisible decisions can lead many others to produce the visible, physical, three-dimensional form, function, and appearance of shelter that symbolizes the entire scope of knowledge acquired.

FOUR TOPICS

Four topics in Table 1 deserve special mention.

Unpaved Open Space

Cell F11 is a critical but often ignored specification. The 30% unpaved open space specified determines the amount of impervious cover that will produce stormwater runoff. In this example, the related storm sewer capacity must be able to accommodate the runoff from 70% impervious cover. This relationship has often been ignored for many reasons. One of which is the pipe size cost to accommodate the demand. Cell F11 is included to attract attention to this important planning/engineering coordination issue.

Area per Parking Space and Associated Circulation Drive Area

Cell A35 is another topic often ignored and included here to gain design attention. The sq. ft. planned per parking space and its related circulation aisle can be minimized to eliminate landscape relief and increase the parking spaces provided. The debate over function and appearance versus parking capacity affects achievable gross building area and needs careful consideration and commitment based on convincing research.

Number of Parking Spaces

Cell A36 is one of the most hotly contested topics in zoning regulation. It defines the number of parking spaces required for a given land use category and building area. The argument generally surrounds an applicant’s proposed activity and the number of parking spaces the activity requires. It often involves a conflict between experience and regulation that ignores the fact that parking deficiencies will apply to future owners. These deficiencies may affect the value/revenue potential of the land and building(s) to both the city and future owners. It is another fundamental topic that needs careful leadership attention, but the demands of a specific activity will always make a general regulation controversial.

Building Height

Cells A44-A53 display a limited range of building height options that can be changed with a few keystrokes to examine the implications of other options. It is another typical zoning regulation that is often hotly contested, but with a limited understanding of the implications. These are shown in the Implication Module of Table 1, but it is like reading blood pressure readings with no prior diagnostic history. It is no wonder that fear attends increasing building height proposals at the present time.

All building height options are not undesirable. If they were there would be no shelter for man. The potential range may suffer from generalizations that come with a lack of measurement, evaluation, and debate. There is much to learn regarding the social and economic quality of life produced by building design categories, design specification choices, and related floor quantity decisions that define the form and fabric of the Shelter Division in our Built Domain.

OBSERVATIONS

We have depended on market forces to determine the scope of shelter capacity required by growing populations. Growth has been met with supply given the assumption that land is a commodity without end. Municipal economic deficiencies have been met with the annexation of land for new revenue that may again prove inadequate as the annexation ages, prompting more annexation and sprawl. Encircled cities worry that they have no land for annexation to compensate for budget deficiencies.

We have not learned how to correlate shelter capacity, intensity, activity, and location to produce economic stability within limited geographic areas that protect our quality and source of life; but we cannot continue indefinitely on our random path without finding a solution. It will inevitably involve data science, and the formation of shelter capacity strategy based on the correlation of technical knowledge from many related professional disciplines.

Walter M. Hosack: August 2024

The Language of Shelter Capacity and Context Evaluation

The choices that will determine the land we consume to shelter growing populations on a finite planet. 

Cities have not been prepared to monitor, evaluate, or plan the economic performance of their shelter capacity, intensity, and activity pattern/form beginning at the parcel, zone, and census block/tract level of their incorporated areas. This has limited their ability to allocate shelter capacity, intensity, and activity to achieve the balance needed to plan/monitor and achieve financial stability. They have had to rely on annual budget estimates based on experience. This is one reason why cities attempt to maintain unincorporated corridors of land for annexation that can provide new revenue to meet expenses that often proves inadequate over time as age, maintenance, and demand for services increase. It is an inadvertent Ponzi scheme that has emerged based on inadequate measurement, evaluation, prediction, design, and use of land and shelter capacity within their jurisdictions. 

I should mention at the outset that shelter capacity is the square feet of gross building area present or planned per buildable acre. It may be occupied by any activity permitted by a local zoning ordinance. The objective is to correlate/balance measurable quantities of shelter capacity, intensity, and intrusion that combine to form context for activity within a city. Successful allocation/correlation/balance can produce economic stability and a desirable quality of life. If the physical context designed/produced is undesirable however, the occupant activities within and around cannot help but be compromised and endured at best.

We have not been able to measure, evaluate, predict, define, correlate, or lead the capacity, intensity, intrusion, and context characteristics of shelter mass, parking, pavement, and unpaved open spacehat combine to form shelter on parcels within the organisms we refer to as cities, regions, and conurbations. Without consistent, accurate measurement, prediction, and design we cannot lead.

I have previously referred to the measurement and prediction of “context” as “dominance” in my essays and forecast models. In either case it is the sum of shelter capacity, intensity, and intrusion measurements for a given buildable land area. A context measurement in a forecast model includes all quantity measurements of building mass, parking, pavement, and unpaved open space in a project area. I have changed the reference because I believe “context” is a better indication of the conditions created by the sum of the correlated physical design decisions and implications involved.

The language and algorithms of shelter capacity evaluation are needed before we can use data science to improve the design specification values for building design categories. These design specifications combine to form the Shelter Division of cities. Data science can improve the knowledge behind the values entered in the design specification template of a shelter capacity forecast model.

Keep in mind, however, that this essay addresses the Urban and Rural Phyla of the Shelter Division of the Built Domain. These cells are served by arteries of movement, open space, and life support. (Public open space arteries are more of a dream than reality at the present time.)

The growth of a city is driven by shelter demand, but its health, safety, and quality of life depend on the correlated allocation of shelter capacity, intensity, intrusion, and activity that combines on land to produce context within every cell of the urban anatomy. This can become excessive without design leadership formed from the measurement and evaluation of previous context specifications and decisions. The physical form and appearance that emerges from this effort will symbolize our ability to create desirable, sustainable, symbiotic relationship with our source of life. Anything less will resemble the unlimited growth of a parasite.

LEADERSHIP LANGUAGE

Our planning focus has been limited by the language we use to define options and lead the design decisions that define shelter strategies for individual parcels within cities. We have attempted to lead these innumerable project efforts with a zoning language that has not been equal to the mathematical correlation required. The result has been contradiction, confusion, and argument that has often led to variance requests and approvals attempting to resolve contradictions and disagreements with decisions that provide inconsistent design leadership at the cellular level of urban formation. The attempt to form an urban anatomy without data science and consistent cellular design leadership is a recipe for mutant formation and continuous annexation of our source of life for shelter that is only one of the essential ingredients needed to survive.

PHYSICAL DESIGN

Shelter design is involved with the correlation of knowledge required to define shelter strategy for construction at the project level of the Built Domain. Shelter projects become tactical elements in a larger Shelter Division strategy whose projects combine to form a three-dimensional shelter context served by arteries of movement, open space, and life support within the anatomy of a Built Domain. (Arteries of open space are more of a dream than reality.) Unfortunately shelter strategy can be compromised by its mathematically uncoordinated zoning regulations. Sprawl and excessive intensity often result.

Physical designers, including architects, refer to a greater level of strategic context correlation as urban design or city design depending on the scale involved. Correlation of building design categories and design specification values on parcels within these areas produces shelter capacity, intensity, intrusion, context, and economic stability alternatives. The conscious allocation of these alternatives on every parcel within cities produces context that has revenue, investment, and quality of life implications.

The correlation of shelter capacity, intensity, and activity within cities is a complex physical, social, and economic issue that cannot be adequately addressed without the participation of many related disciplines including data science, but it cannot begin without a language that can consistently translate data evaluation into a language capable of leading physical context design decisions toward the physical, social and economic context results required to provide shelter for growing populations within limited geographic/environmental limits that protect their quality and source of life.

FINE ART

In my opinion it has been a fundamental mistake to consider the correlation of knowledge required to define the strategy and tactics of shelter definition an architectural fine art. The effort has always been an applied science spinning off engineering specialties as its knowledge has increased over centuries; but engineering serves strategic design decisions. It does not make or correlate them.

The term “fine art” implies that we must rely on observation, talent, and intuition to solve the problem of shelter for growing populations on land that must be shared to protect our environmental source of life. Fine art is a reference to the physical form and appearance that emerges from client mandates and invisible design decisions for shelter construction based on intuitive logic and often contradictory zoning regulations.

I’ve never been sure if the term “function” in the historic phrase “form follows function” referred to the floor plan created or to the correlation of floor plan and engineering systems that must be correlated to produce function at the time. The phrase has been attributed to Mies van de Rohe and it was probably associated with the appearance of his fine art. In my opinion, the phrase can now be interpreted to have far more significance when the shelter decisions behind appearance become recognized for their sustainable, symbiotic, environmental importance.

ARCHITECTURE

Architects have been focused on the project definition of owner aspirations, shelter objectives for a given activity, and the correlation of all related technical and professional knowledge required to define a strategy for shelter construction. Correlation has rarely been recognized or advertised because the emphasis on fine art has given the impression that architects are artists. It is a key word, however. Correlation within architecture is a leadership/management function that defines strategic direction in phases it refers to as “programming” and “schematic design”. Correlation is gaining significance as we begin to realize that the increasing demand for shelter must be correlated with the shelter capacity of land, the intensity introduced, the functions involved, and the activity planned to protect and preserve our source of life. In my opinion, the correlation of physical design knowledge to produce desirable shelter capacity context within geographic/environmental limits will become increasingly important as shelter demand for the activities of growing populations increases.

It seems obvious that land on a finite planet is limited and that our need to consume land for shelter must be balanced against our need to preserve land and the environment as a source of life for ourselves and our specie partners. This is where familiarity with consultant correlation, shelter capacity evaluation, and context implications becomes a greater asset to the entire population, but it must expand beyond the project orientation of architecture. In fact, the correlation of all physical design disciplines related to the term “context” will become more essential as shelter capacity becomes a greater issue that can now be mathematically measured, evaluated, predicted, adjusted, and guided to produce shelter for the activities of growing populations within geographic/environmental limits defined to protect their quality and source of life.

ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT

The combination of shelter capacity, intensity, and activity on land determines the revenue and investment potential of the context per buildable acre created. These considerations take their place next to our historic concerns for the compatibility of adjacent activity to protect our health and safety. In municipal terms the allocation of shelter capacity, intensity, and activity per buildable acre within its land area determines the total annual yield it receives to support its operations, maintenance, improvements, and debt service. From this perspective, the allocation of context within municipal boundaries takes on much greater significance; but it will require much greater emphasis on the data assembly needed to build the knowledge required for design specification decisions that will be essential to a sustainable, symbiotic future.

CONCLUSION

It is now mathematically possible to accurately predict the shelter capacity, intensity, intrusion, and context implications surrounding a chosen building design category and related template of design specification decisions. The result is a mathematical forecast of physical design options and implications based on the specifications and range of floor quantity choices entered in the template. These choices represent context options that must be served with sustainable, environmental support solutions. 

It is also possible to measure the design specification decisions related to an existing building and enter them in a related building category template to measure the existing context and evaluate the implications of its design specification decisions to improve our knowledge regarding shelter design decisions.

OBSERVATIONS

Shelter context begins at the parcel level of cities with building mass, parking, pavement, and unpaved open space. The allocation of parcel capacity and intensity across the buildable acres of a city combines with permitted occupant activity to determine a city’s financial stability. The complex correlation required for economic success and an affordable quality of life within environmental boundaries will include data science and improved government cooperation. Success will continue to depend on our ability to advance knowledge with improved tools, research, measurement, evaluation, correlation, and leadership choice.

Goals are generally simple statements that require complex strategies and tactics for achievement. Strategies and tactics are the invisible, complex foundations for success. The WWII goal of unconditional surrender comes to mind. The strategy commenced in N. Africa. One of its many objectives was Operation Overlord, or Normandy. The tactics required to achieve all objectives were innumerable and the cost unimaginable.

With growth as the topic, I’d like to suggest that one objective can only be shelter for the activities of growing populations within geographic/environmental boundaries defined to protect their quality and source of life. The goal is symbiotic survival. The strategy continues to be contested. Tactics will depend on improvement in the tools available.