Buildings
Tall buildings are a wind problem before they are a height problem
The objections that stop towers are rarely about the skyline. They are about what happens at the base on a windy Tuesday.
Street to Sky — Cities, read from the pavement upward
Buildings
The first four metres of a building decide the street
Almost everything a pedestrian experiences of a building happens below head height. Most architectural debate happens above it.
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Transit
Frequency is the only transit statistic that matters to a passenger
Networks are marketed on speed and length. Riders experience waiting, and waiting is set by frequency.
Transit
Bike lanes fail at junctions, which is where the collisions are
A protected lane between junctions is straightforward. Protecting the point where paths cross is the actual engineering problem.
Streets
The pavement is infrastructure, and it is measured badly
Footways carry more trips than any other mode in most cities and receive a fraction of the assessment.
Streets
Kerbside is the most contested space in a city
Parking, deliveries, buses, bikes, dining and drainage all want the same metre and a half. Most cities allocate it by inertia.
Planning
Zoning decides skylines more than architects do
The shape of a city is largely a legal document. Reading it explains buildings that otherwise look arbitrary.
Planning
Housing viability is the calculation that decides what gets built
Whether a scheme includes affordable homes is usually settled by a spreadsheet rather than by policy.
Public Space
A bench is a policy decision
Where seating exists, who it serves and whether it can be lain on are all deliberate choices that read as furniture.
Streets
All streets →Streets
The pavement is infrastructure, and it is measured badly
Footways carry more trips than any other mode in most cities and receive a fraction of the assessment.
Streets
Kerbside is the most contested space in a city
Parking, deliveries, buses, bikes, dining and drainage all want the same metre and a half. Most cities allocate it by inertia.
Streets
Street geometry sets driving speed and the sign only asks
Drivers choose a speed from what the road looks like. The posted number is a legal statement about a decision already made by the…
Streets
Corner radius is a speed limit you can measure with a tape
The curve where two streets meet decides how fast vehicles turn across a crossing and how far a pedestrian has to walk to get over…
Buildings
All buildings →Buildings
The first four metres of a building decide the street
Almost everything a pedestrian experiences of a building happens below head height. Most architectural debate happens above it.
Buildings
Tall buildings are a wind problem before they are a height problem
The objections that stop towers are rarely about the skyline. They are about what happens at the base on a windy Tuesday.
Buildings
A deep floorplate is why your flat has one window
Building depth is settled early, on a spreadsheet about site efficiency, and it determines light, air and layout for the next…
Buildings
Perimeter blocks reach tower density without the towers
Continuous street-facing blocks of moderate height achieve densities people assume require high-rise, and they do it while making…
Transit
All transit →Transit
Frequency is the only transit statistic that matters to a passenger
Networks are marketed on speed and length. Riders experience waiting, and waiting is set by frequency.
Transit
Bike lanes fail at junctions, which is where the collisions are
A protected lane between junctions is straightforward. Protecting the point where paths cross is the actual engineering problem.
Transit
Metro stations are designed around the walk, not the train
The train is the easy part. Moving several hundred people from a platform to a street in ninety seconds is the design problem.
Transit
Dwell time is where a bus route loses its speed
Buses are slow less because of traffic than because of the accumulated seconds spent stationary at stops with the doors open.
Planning
All planning →Planning
Zoning decides skylines more than architects do
The shape of a city is largely a legal document. Reading it explains buildings that otherwise look arbitrary.
Planning
Housing viability is the calculation that decides what gets built
Whether a scheme includes affordable homes is usually settled by a spreadsheet rather than by policy.
Planning
Density is measured in the wrong units almost everywhere
Dwellings per hectare tells you nothing about how many people are there, how much floorspace exists, or what the place feels like.
Planning
Growth boundaries move development rather than stopping it
A line drawn around a city constrains where building happens. Whether it constrains how much depends entirely on what is inside the…
Public Space
All public space →Public Space
A bench is a policy decision
Where seating exists, who it serves and whether it can be lain on are all deliberate choices that read as furniture.
Public Space
A square works at its edges, not in its middle
People occupy the perimeter of an open space first and the centre last, which means the edge is where the design has to succeed.
Public Space
Public toilets set how long a visit lasts
The length of time people can comfortably stay somewhere is limited by a facility most cities have spent thirty years removing.
Public Space
A park is a maintenance budget with plants on it
Parks are opened with ceremonies and funded with revenue budgets. The second of those decides what the park is like in ten years.
Climate & Cities
All climate & cities →
Climate & Cities
Urban heat is a design problem with known solutions
Cities run several degrees hotter than their surroundings for identifiable reasons, and most of them are addressable.
Climate & Cities
Cities were drained, and now they are being un-drained
A century of piping water away as fast as possible turned out to be the wrong strategy. Reversing it is slow.
Climate & Cities
Street trees die of compacted soil, not of thirst
A tree planted into a hole surrounded by structural roadbase is planted into a container. Most urban tree failures are decided…
Climate & Cities
The buildings that matter in 2050 are already standing
New construction is a small annual addition to a stock that turns over slowly. Emissions from buildings are a retrofit problem.