THREE QUESTIONS from an ARCHITECT

 

Walter, your attempt to establish a mathematical basis for development is admirable. (1) You must not be alone - have others attempted the same thing? In the end, physical objects are built which conform to the desires of people with money who build them. (2) In one sense, is there even urban design in the US? (3) Do you distinguish between urban planning and urban design?

(1)   I’m not aware of any other attempts at a mathematical basis for development but I am not an academic. Development has always had a mathematical foundation, but it has never been reduced to an effective leadership language. Zoning was our first attempt to lead development decisions, but its mathematical development vocabulary has been incomplete, uncorrelated and often contradictory. This is what I have been attempting to improve with the building design category classification, design specification templates, and implication measurements/predictions of “shelter capacity evaluation”. We cannot predict shelter design alternatives and lead shelter design decisions without a correlated mathematical vocabulary. The result of inattention will be continued annexation and consumption of land without anticipation of its consequences.

(2)   I think you will find landscape architecture more focused on urban design since it involves the exterior spaces/places created by compositions of building mass/shelter capacity, parking, pavement, unpaved open space, and movement systems within urban areas. These divisions do exist within some public planning departments but the absence an adequate leadership language forces them to focus on project proposals rather than three-dimensional plans for economic stability that can afford a desirable quality of life. Architects seem to be focused on the internal context and exterior building appearance needed to satisfy the shelter requirements associated with a client’s activity. Exterior urban context seems to be more of an afterthought related to the building floor plan required and the land available. This makes the urban places created a matter of chance that continues to depend on annexation to correct inadequate physical, social, and economic decisions.

(3)   To me there is a great difference between urban planning and urban design. In my opinion, the language of planning has been concerned with the two-dimensional compatibility of social activity. It has been unable to effectively address or discuss the physical and economic implications of shelter capacity decisions beyond appearance and has failed to adequately address or define “context” in terms capable of leading hundreds of thousands of designers toward desired objectives. The only option in these cases has been annexation for more projects and hope for a financially successful future. It is a comprehensive problem that cannot be addressed by individual investors. It can only be solved with a city planning language that has mathematically correlated urban design leadership potential.

I don’t believe the problem of unlimited shelter growth on a planet with limited land area can be solved by individual investors without public leadership. In my opinion, the public and private interests involved have not been able to speak to each other in a language that can reconcile their interests. The private sector attempts to anticipate with the pattern language of design while the public sector attempts to regulate with the written word and miscellaneous, conflicting dimensional specifications. The language of shelter capacity evaluation reconciles this conflicting message with forecast models and embedded architectural algorithms that can be used to measure, evaluate, predict, regulate, and build knowledge. It is a common language that can be shared by public and private interests to break down mistrust with correlated predictions and mutual understanding.

Walter M. Hosack: November 2024