Regional and Urban Design Committee

            Intensity is calculated from measurements of architectural context. It is a yardstick that can be used to index human social, psychological and economic reaction to the intensity measured. These context values can be adjusted in the design specification templates of forecast models to predict intensity options. When context knowledge is accumulated through research and indexed with intensity calculations, context values can be used to limit overdevelopment and improve a quality of life that must include physical, social, psychological and economic benefit for growing populations -- within a built environment that cannot threaten its host. 

            This is the premise of my book and software. They offer the concept and tools, but they do not provide the research required to step from awareness to formal knowledge.  Only knowledge can lead us to a built environment with a sustainable future of physical, social, psychological and economic benefit to mankind. In this case, research from many technical specialties is required, and a common intensity index is needed to correlate their findings with the cities we design and build to survive. 

            If you have time, you may want to read, "The Intensity Yardstick" on my blog. It suggests the design specification components and mathematical index needed to classify research and successfully argue for the direction needed to include human welfare, or physical, social, psychological and economic benefit, with the effort to coexist in a natural world that does not compromise with ignorance.  

            Where would physics be without a metric system of measurement? Answer: the same place we are without an intensity system of measurement to index levels of public benefit from the architecture of city design -- in a world of sprawl.

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Walter Hosack
Author
Walter M. Hosack
Dublin OH
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So, understanding that there must always be systems of measurement available to the urban design process - a given - why is the discussion thus far lacking any stabs in the direction of value systems?  Does anybody really believe metrics alone can give us direction for design without an underlying program statement for expectations of performance in service of a set of values regarding satisfaction of human needs at all stages of life, directly rather than abstracted via known design standards? 

Sustainability is not sought in service of features like healhy forests or clean water, but for the significance of these things to human life and comfort.  The range of necessary basic urban conditions for economic, social, and environmental maintenance are fairly well understood, and generally universal if not ideally proportional in other than model schemes.  What is the mix of civic features with the potential to serve everyone equally well?  What potential, if any, does urban design have to reinforce character and good citizenship, for example? 

What architect would shun a fairly rewarded urban design competition requiring inclusion of features conducive to character building and good citizenship, even if the architect did not initially believe any such features existed?  However, neither the qualitative nor quantitative dimensions of such features can be measured mathematically until the they are first identified according to a well defined system of values. 
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Gary Collins AIA
Principal
Gary R. Collins, AIA
Jacksonville OR
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