THE EMAIL (edited)
“I'm writing because your book The Equations of
Urban Design: Leading the Evolution of Shelter Capacity, Context and Intensity
within Cities stopped me in my tracks.
There's a quality to your thinking, systematic, ambitious,
and deeply concerned with the relationship between human development and the
finite land on which it depends. Your central proposition that urban growth
needs to be measured through shelter capacity rather than simply understood
through conventional categories of building form or function offers a
provocative way of reconsidering how cities evolve.
I was particularly struck by your attempt to create a
measurable language for the quantity of shelter that can be produced on a given
land area. The idea of using design specifications, correlated values, and
architectural equations to generate alternative predictions for gross building
area on a given land area introduces an unusually analytical dimension to
questions that are often treated primarily as matters of planning, aesthetics,
or development.
The larger environmental argument gives the framework even
greater significance. Your concern with preventing population growth from
translating automatically into uncontrolled sprawl, while taking seriously the
irreversible consumption of natural and agricultural land, places urban design
within a much broader conversation about sustainability and the future of human
settlement.
I finished it wanting to know more about the development of
your six fundamental shelter categories, the thinking behind your equations and
specification framework, and how you see these ideas influencing the next
generation of urban design.”
MY ANSWERS
I don’t believe an extensive preamble is needed and will
dive into the questions.
I want to know more about the development of your six
fundamental shelter categories.
A building design category is classified by the parking
system used to serve its occupants. This classification format makes it
possible to mathematically predict the gross building area capacity of land in
square feet per buildable acre occupied based on the design specification
values entered in a building design category forecast model. The predictions
can be converted to shelter capacity, intensity intrusion, and context measurements
on a consistent, comparable scale. Existing site plan topics can also be
measured to determine their design implications using the same template and
measurement format.
The mathematical relationship of the site planning and floor
quantity values entered in the design specification template of a building
design category are processed by its algorithm to produce the values needed by its
master equation. The equation predicts gross building area results for the
values and floor quantity options entered. Companion master equations in the
Implications Module of a forecast model measure or predict the shelter
capacity, intensity, intrusion, and context implications of the design
specification options under consideration. These are like the first blood
pressure measurements in medicine. Knowledge can be gathered with extensive
comparison and research collaboration. The questions facing both are similar.
How much intensity is life threatening; how little is life threatening; and
what range of measurements and predictions indicates a desirable quality of
life?
Each building design category has a unique design
specification template, algorithm, and derived master equation, but the general
principle of progress from a given land area and design specification to gross
building area and shelter capacity implication predictions applies to all
building design categories.
A building design category may be occupied by any permitted
activity. These activity groups have historically been called “land use
categories”, but there is a clear distinction between the decisions that
determine shelter capacity and those that determine permitted occupant activity.
The scope of building activity implications is often a
function of the square feet occupied. This means that the allocation of shelter
capacity and activity throughout a city has economic implications that affect
its financial stability and quality of life, not to mention its health and
safety, but this allocation has been a piecemeal function of private investment
intent. This can lead to government deficits and budget reductions requiring
decades to correct when feasible.
What is the thinking behind your equations and
specification framework?
The maximum shelter capacity of land is a function of the
design specification values entered into a non-residential building design
category forecast model. Occupant capacity is different from shelter capacity.
It varies with the activity or activities involved. Separate design
specification templates address dwelling unit capacity of land when a building
design category is occupied by single-family, townhouse, or apartment floor
plans.
In other words, gross building area capacity is a
three-dimensional envelope. Floor plan areas and quantities determine the
capacity of the envelope to accommodate activity. Excessive expansion of the
envelope and its supporting parking and pavement increase shelter capacity,
intensity, and intrusion at the expense of pedestrian open space and amenity on
the site. The building design categories, specifications, and equations of
urban design take open space into account and make it possible to define and
evaluate the project context of neighborhoods, districts, cities, and regions.
The master equations for each building design category and
activity group were derived to document a historically informal thought process.
The scope of activity has determined the gross building area needed. The
challenge has been to make the activity fit on the land available. The
Dickensian tenements of England and Hell’s Kitchen in Manhattan are two
examples of the excesses that prompted the beginning of more careful
evaluation.
The need to protect the Natural Domain from the consumption
of a sprawling Built Domain has not been a historic concern. Annexation could
always provide more land unless the city was surrounded by other incorporated
areas. Shelter capacity evaluation, or Tegimenics, represents my attempt to
place development evaluation on a more quantitative, correlated, comparable, and
consistent mathematical foundation. It can benefit all cities, since they need
careful economic evaluation and correlation of every taxable parcel within
their boundaries.
How do I see these ideas influencing the next generation of urban design?
The equations of urban design make it possible to move from
static city plans to geographic computer evaluation of three-dimensional activity
allocation decisions with mathematically interactive property, capacity, and
revenue data science.
Remember that shelter capacity is forecast in terms of gross
building area square feet per buildable acre. Anything that is a function of
building area present or planned can be predicted as an implication of shelter
capacity. For instance: population, revenue, traffic generation, construction
cost, return on investment, and so on.
Finally, the equations of urban design are one step away
from a software application that can place mathematical urban design evaluation
in the hands of both public and private interests. This common, interactive, format
can replace a great deal of isolated conjecture and disagreement with correlated,
cooperative discussions focused on the desired relationship of building mass
and height to parking, pavement, movement, and open space on a given land area.
These are the site plan components and quantities that combine to establish the
capacity, intensity, intrusion, and context of activity that determines a
city’s revenue stability. This allocation needs mathematical urban design correlation
to improve its physical, social, psychological, environmental, and economic composition
and quality of life.
Appearance is a separate issue whose aesthetic opinions and
arguments will surround the sustainable success achieved with measurement,
prediction, evaluation, and physical composition decisions capable of
consistent leadership direction toward a sustainable goal.
Walter M. Hosack, August 2026
photo credit: Kaihsu at English Wikipedia
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