Our Design Thesis
A thesis is a proposition stated for consideration and proved. It is a dissertation on a particular subject or original research. A design thesis involves design works. A design thesis does not have a thesis question or argument similar to an academic thesis, but rather it finds solutions to a specified problem in the form of a new and innovative project, process and/or strategy.
Our design approach, or thesis, generally identifies what we perceive as a problem, why we are in business, how we can assist in problem solving by identify opportunities, laying out a roadmap of possible solutions and strategies and describing a delivery system for implementation.
The Uniqueness of Place
Every place is unique, every new addition, renovation or reuse is ‘custom’, specific to the attributes of the place in which it is located.
People respond to place. The better the environment, the more positive the experience, the greater the person. Place can provide opportunity for the individual, for social sub-networks and for the greater community. Places provide identity and a sense of belonging, infusing pride and stewardship.
However, a place, when improperly designed, configured, and constructed, can also have the opposite and negative effect. Unfortunately our society has been on a 60-year long journey of a colossal failed experiment of improperly building place, or more correctly said, building a vast place-less environment.
A return to true place-making is the reason Townscape Design is in business. The following is our roadmap, or Design Thesis, describing how we can turn the tide, and contribute, in our small way, to this endeavor and leave a positive legacy for future generations.
Building Well
The composition of buildings within a town or a development in the landscape represents enormous resources that have been invested on behalf of the community as a whole. It is the “common-wealth”. This investment serves a longstanding audience, measured in multiple decades and centuries. When done well, a work sustains the commonwealth and endures. When it does not satisfy, the commonwealth has two choices: either be a captive audience or destroy the work, rebuild, and waste the resources invested in its original creation. Therefore, it is not only logical, but fiscally responsible, efficient and sensible to build well first.
Building on History and Precedent
We respect the accumulated knowledge of millennia of builders who came before us. We hope, in a small way, to leave behind something of ourselves that will mold and shape the lives of future generations. This is an incredible responsibility, an opportunity for stewardship and that is why we strive to ‘build-well’. Good building is the exercise of common sense, based on the long history of town planning, architecture and engineering that has endured through the ages.
In his book The Architecture of Humanism, Geoffrey Scott discusses the terms firmness, commodity and delight. He describes architecture [and town planning by extension] as the “focus where [these] three separate purposes have converged. They are blended in a single method; they are fulfilled in a single result; yet in their own nature, they are distinguished from each other by a deep and permanent disparity.” He goes onto describe the architect’s role as “synthetic”. “He must take into simultaneous account our three conditions of ‘well-building’.” This phrase ‘firmness, commodity and delight’ is generally attributed to Vitruvius’ de Architectura, and as paraphrased in Sir Henry Wotten’s book The Elements of Architecture, published in 1624.
How do these three conditions affect and enhance town planning and great placemaking? The first of these, firmness, is related to science, considering structural forces and material properties. A town and the buildings within it must have the strength to survive the elements and forces of nature and protect its occupants.
The second condition, commodity, refers to the practical and efficient layout so that spaces and uses of related activities are adjacent. A town must be laid out so that the most important activities take place in the most important places, with a regard to the logic of a hierarchy of place-types, neighborhoods, spaces and structures.
Delight is the most difficult of the Vitruvian ideals to define. Scott describes it as “an aesthetic impulse … by which architecture [townscape and landscape] becomes art.” Beauty, although considered subjective by many, is absolutely quantifiable. The proper implementation of ‘beauty’ in a design increases its benefit to the individual and creates added value for its owner.
Honoring Place
These principles are general in nature and need to be calibrated to the region, the climate, and the specific locale. Each place has its unique characteristics and energy. Solutions must honor the place and the natural and urban transects of its context.
Townscape Design’s projects build on these time-tested principles of great placemaking. Similar to this, there are countless historical precedents for the proper settlement pattern and building construction as it relates to climate, energy, social behavior, efficient delivery of services, enhanced health and a host of other elements. We use these precedents to direct our designs and our design process.
Complete Towns, Great Places
The common thread of great place making with Vitruvian virtue has been lost due to a failed 60-year experiment of auto-dependant and expansive place-less-making which has created all forms of chronic problems such as the wasteful use of resources, the pitiful building designs of today, the enormous investment in single use transportation corridors, the wealth-depleting dependence on foreign sources of energy, the health risks of not being able to walk anywhere and the lack of refreshing and soul-enriching beauty. They are the legacy of our culture, one that does not value the civic realm nor its importance.
At Townscape Design, we are striving to put our places back together. The essential criteria found in classical principles of settlement have been integrated into our design philosophy, with a slight variation recognizing the importance of resource conservation, alternate energy supplies and the needs and desires of modern living.
Our design thesis combines beauty, practicality, place, utility, convenience, durability, efficiency, and sustainability into beautiful places that are fitted for people and their modern needs. Simply stated, our Design Thesis is:
Creating Sustainable Places
for People
with Permanence, Value, and Beauty
Complete Town Planning Methodology
Townscape Design is in business to provide our clients with carefully charted decisions at both the property or project level, but most importantly at the scale of the town. We conceive, create, fashion and execute plans, designs and strategies (Design) for our clients that result in a visual composition of structures within a town that is beautiful , enduring and value-additive, thus determining its distinctive character (Townscape).
We look at town planning from a holistic and integrated systems approach. We refer to this as our Complete Town Planning (CTP) Methodology. CTP comprehensively integrates placemaking with climate analysis, energy planning , sustainability, mobility, livability, economic independence, food production and distribution, social networks, efficiencies in the use of water, land and resources, waste management, recycling, dual-use efficiencies and co-generation opportunities. The CTP methodology takes a systematic approach to strategic analysis and overlays decision making with Townscape Design’s key Placemaking Principles. Learn more about our approach to town planning at www.CompleteTowns.com.
This design methodology answers the basic questions of where we should build, what form the built environment should take, and, how the specific elements of the town should be arranged and constructed.
The Where – Strategic Sites: A complete town arranges neighborhoods and districts at logical nodes of an efficient mobility network. Each node is a place with a meaningful place-type configuration. These may include town centers, neighborhood centers, shopping districts, villages and hamlets. These are the essential building blocks of a town and its region. These sites should focus development and infrastructure investments and be so located that they maximize walkability and the efficiency of the mobility system. Therefore they should generally be located along a gridded network at intervals of 1-2 miles within the town and about 3-5 miles or more within the surrounding region. A logical transect interfacing with the strategic sites framework will identify the general regional and town-wide distribution of density, open space, farmland and urban development.
The What – Neighborhood Pattern: Once the framework is established, then the goal is the delineation and proper arrangement of a neighborhood fabric. Neighborhoods are not ‘developments’ or ‘subdivisions’ but rather a complex social environment with specific characteristics. They are arranged for maximum enjoyment by people, not automobiles and therefore have definitive limits based on the mobility of a person, the ability to walk a reasonable distance to goods, services, recreation and social events. Therefore a neighborhood, in order to provide maximum convenience, is generally a 5-minute walk from center to edge, smaller in urban areas and larger in edge conditions. A person can navigate (walk) the neighborhood with ease through interconnectivity of both a properly scaled vehicular and pedestrian network, designed for the pedestrian. Neighborhoods are diverse, allowing for multiple housing choices, a variety of public venues and open spaces and a balanced mix of uses thereby providing the ability to attain most goods and services without the use of the automobile. Neighborhoods, therefore are efficient, utilizing the land in the most productive manner possible.
The How – Efficient, Green, Clean and Durable: Within the neighborhood, there are multiple elements of the built environment that should be constructed so they are contextual both in scale and detailing and are efficient, clean and durable. These include, buildings, the public realm infrastructure, the water network, the energy network, the landscape and natural environment. Each component should have multiple uses and benefits, strategically located and properly detailed in order to justify the investment. A proper arrangement and detailing of these facilities and infrastructure will allow the reuse of older buildings, a reduction in pollution, the efficient use of scarce resources, a minimization or net exporting of energy, the reuse of waste product, and the flexible, dual-use, and multi-use of community resources.
Placemaking Principles
Not to forget that we are ultimately designing places for people, Townscape Design has developed ten key placemaking principles that honor the individual and the community and provide a human framework for technical decisions.
A Bio-Climatic Approach
In addition to designing for people, a proper framework for infrastructure and investment, and the careful delineation of neighborhoods and spaces, one needs to understand the unyielding external forces of nature and how they affect town planning and building. We want to work with nature, not fight it, and that starts with understanding climate.
The proper detailing and patterning of a neighborhood starts with an understanding of the influence of the macro and micro-climatic effects and the integration of elements that maximize the benefits of a local climate, minimize the negative effects and address the bio-climatic comfort zone of the individual. This starts with the arrangement of buildings and the massing and composition of structures and landscape elements to assist in minimizing large spikes in temperature, humidity and air flow outside the bio-climatic comfort zone.
The best investment is in passive solutions first. This includes the scale, shape, orientation and configuration of corridors for summer air flow and protection from harsh winter winds. It includes access to clean and plentiful energy such as wind, solar and geo-thermal that is seamlessly integrated into the fabric of the community.
Kit of Parts Toolkit
In order to correlate and integrate all of these systems and opportunities: strategic sites, neighborhood pattern, buildings, green infrastructure, clean energy, dual-use and multiple-use opportunities, place-making principles, food production and water efficient systems, Townscape Design has developed a ‘Toolkit’ for town planning. This is not a ‘cookie-cutter’ menu of typical details and products but rather a complex array of options that can be integrated into a locales building framework.
Examples of elements in the toolkit includes a solutions-oriented approach to:
1. Town planning strategies to enhance permanence, value and beauty,
2. Neighborhood place-type design and definition,
3. Transit integration,
4. Complete streets design,
5. Passive energy planning strategies for towns, neighborhoods, districts and buildings,
6. Seamless integration of clean energy practices,
7. Seamless integration of water quality and environmentally sensitive design strategies,
8. Green Gardens Strategies for designing public spaces with a full integration of native and adaptable species with efficient irrigation practices, and
9. Restorative environmental design for damaged sites.
Matching Challenges and Solutions
Within our delivery system, we carefully step through our design thesis and design process and provide:
1. Focus: Strategic solutions for towns, neighborhoods, owners and community groups.
2. Provide practical design solutions and sustainable implementation strategies.
3. Communicate, collaborate and educate with straightforward media.
