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.