based on: Direct Urbanism, Nicholas Smicik-Arese, Behaviour Zones. AABook, Projects Review 2009, p135
Glossary
This glossary is intended to provide general guidance, not authoritative definitions of terms which are sometimes controversial or used with different meanings in different contexts.
Accessibility
The ability of people to move round an area and to reach places and facilities, including elderly and disabled people, those with young children and those encumbered with luggage or shopping.
Action planning
Participation techniques, including community planning weekends and Urban Design Action Teams (UDATs), which enable local people and invited teams of professionals to explore design ideas for particular areas over one or several days.
Activity spine
Street or streets along which activity is concentrated.
Activity node
Concentration of activity at a particular point.
Adaptability
The capacity of a building or space to be changed so as to respond to changing social, technological and economic conditions.
Area appraisal
An assessment of an area's land uses, built and natural environment, and social and physical characteristics.
Architecture and planning centre
An institution which provides a focus for a range of activities and services (such as discussions, information, exhibitions, collaboration and professional services) relating to architecture and planning.
Brief
This guide refers to site-specific briefs as development briefs. Site-specific briefs are also called a variety of other names, including design briefs, planning briefs and development frameworks.
Building elements
Doors, windows, cornices and other features which contribute to the overall design of a building.
Building envelope guidelines
Diagram(s) with dimensions showing the possible site and massing of a building.
Building exploratory
A centre for explaining, interpreting and providing information on the built environment.
Building line
The line formed by the frontages of buildings along a street. The building line can be shown on a plan or section.
Bulk
The combined effect of the arrangement, volume and shape of a building or group of buildings. Also called massing.
Character assessment
An area appraisal identifying distinguishing physical features and emphasising historical and cultural associations.
Charrette
An event (ranging from a couple of hours to several days) which brings together a range of people to discuss design issues. A charrette may or may not use techniques of collaborative design. Also known as a design workshop.
Conservation area character appraisal
A published document defining the special architectural or historic interest which warranted the area being designated.
Context
The setting of a site or area, including factors such as traffic, activities and land uses as well as landscape and built form.
Context (or site and area) appraisal
detailed analysis of the features of a site or area (including land uses, built and natural environment, and social and physical characteristics) which serves as the basis for an urban design framework, development brief, design guide or other policy or guidance.
Countryside design summary
Supplementary planning guidance prepared by a local authority to encourage a more regionally and locally based approach to design and planning.
Crime Pattern Analysis
Carried out by the Police and is available through liaison with the Architectural Liaison Officer/Crime Prevention Design Adviser. It comprises four components: crime series identification, trend identification, 'hot-spot' analysis and general profile analysis. This last aspect includes an examination of demographic and social change and its impact on criminality and law enforcement.
Defensible space
Public and semi-public space that is 'defensible' in the sense that it is surveyed, demarcated or maintained by somebody. Derived from Oscar Newman's 1973 study of the same name, and an important concept in securing public safety in urban areas, defensible space is also dependent upon the existence of escape routes and the level of anonymity which can be anticipated by the users of the space.
Density
The floorspace of a building or buildings or some other unit measure in relation to a given area of land. Built density can be expressed in terms of plot ratio (for commercial development); number of units or habitable rooms per hectare (for residential development); site coverage plus the number of floors or a maximum building height; or a combination of these.
Design advisory panel
A group of people (often architects) with specialist knowledge, which advises a local authority on the design merits of planning applications or other design issues. Also known as an architects panel.
Design assessment
An independent assessment of a design usually carried out for a local authority by consultants, another local authority or some other agency.
Design guide
A document providing guidance on how development can be carried out in accordance with the design policies of a local authority or other organisation often with a view to retaining local distinctiveness.
Design principle
An expression of one of the basic design ideas at the heart of an urban design framework, design guide, development brief or a development.
Design standards
Specific, usually quantifiable measures of amenity and safety in residential areas.
Design statement (a)
A pre-application design statement is made by a developer to indicate the design principles on which a development proposal in progress is based. It enables the local authority to give an initial response to the main issues raised by the proposal. (b) A planning application design statement sets out the design principles that the planning applicant has adopted in relation to the site and its wider context, as required by PPG1.
Design workshop
'charrette'.
Desire line
An imaginary line linking facilities or places which people would find it convenient to travel between easily.
Development brief
A document, prepared by a local planning authority, a developer, or jointly, providing guidance on how a site of significant size or sensitivity should be developed. Site-specific briefs are sometimes known as planning briefs, design briefs and development frameworks.
Development form
See 'form'.
Elevation
The facade of a building, or the drawing of a facade.
Enclosure
The use of buildings to create a sense of defined space.
Energy efficiency
The extent to which the use of energy is reduced through the way in which buildings are constructed and arranged on site.
Feasibility
The viability of development in relation to economic and market conditions.
Fenestration
The arrangement of windows on a facade.
Figure and ground (or figure/ground, or Nolli) diagram
A plan showing the relationship between built form and publicly accessible space (including streets) by presenting the former in black and the latter as a white background (or the other way round).
Form
The layout (structure and urban grain), density, scale (height and massing), appearance (materials and details) and landscape of development.
Fruin analysis
A method of analysing pedestrian movement devised by Bernard Fruin. It applies a 'level of service' concept to pedestrian flows. Fruin defined capacity and speeds of movement in various forms of corridors, pavements and other pedestrian routes.
Future Search
A participation technique enabling groups of people to identify common interests, discuss ideas and share information and experience. 'Open space' is a similar technique.
Grain
See 'urban grain'.
Height
The height of a building can be expressed in terms of a maximum number of floors; a maximum height of parapet or ridge; a maximum overall height; any of these maximum heights in combination with a maximum number of floors; a ratio of building height to street or space width; height relative to particular landmarks or background buildings; or strategic views.
Human scale
The use within development of elements which relate well in size to an individual human being and their assembly in a way which makes people feel comfortable rather than overwhelmed.
In-curtilage parking Parking within a building's site boundary, rather than on a public street or space.
Independent design audit
An assessment of a design, carried out for a local authority by consultants, another local authority or some other agency.
Indicative sketch
A drawing of building forms and spaces which is intended to convey the basic elements of a possible design.
Landmark
A building or structure that stands out from its background by virtue of height, size or some other aspect of design.
Landscape
The character and appearance of land, including its shape, form, ecology, natural features, colours and elements and the way these components combine. Landscape character can be expressed through landscape appraisal, and maps or plans. In towns 'townscape' describes the same concept.
Layout
The way buildings, routes and open spaces are placed in relation to each other.
Layout structure The framework or hierarchy of routes that connect in the local area and at wider scales.
Legibility
The degree to which a place can be easily understood and traversed.
Live edge
Provided by a building or other feature whose use is directly accessible from the street or space which it faces; the opposite effect to a blank wall.
Local distinctiveness
The positive features of a place and its communities which contribute to its special character and sense of place.
Lynchian analysis
The widely used method of context appraisal devised by the urban designer Kevin Lynch. It focuses on gateways to an area, nodes, landmarks, views and vistas, and edges and barriers.
Massing The combined effect of the height, bulk and silhouette of a building or group of buildings.
Mixed uses
A mix of uses within a building, on a site or within a particular area. 'Horizontal' mixed uses are side by side, usually in different buildings. 'Vertical' mixed uses are on different floors of the same building.
Modal split
How the total number of journeys in an area or to a destination is split between different means of transport, such as train, bus, car, walking and cycling.
Movement
People and vehicles going to and passing through buildings, places and spaces. The movement network can be shown on plans, by space syntax analysis, by highway designations, by figure and ground diagrams, through data on origins and destinations or pedestrian flows, by desire lines, by details of public transport services, by walk bands or by details of cycle routes.
Natural surveillance (or supervision)
The discouragement to wrong-doing by the presence of passers-by or the ability of people to be seen out of surrounding windows. Also known as passive surveillance (or supervision).
Node A place where activity and routes are concentrated often used as a synonym for junction.
Passive surveillance
See 'natural surveillance'.
Performance criterion (pl. criteria)
A means of assessing the extent to which a development achieves a particular functional requirement (such as maintaining privacy). This contrasts with a standard, which specifies how a development is to be designed (by setting out minimum distances between buildings, for example). The art of urban design lies in balancing principles which may conflict. Standards may be too inflexible to be of use in achieving a balance. Performance criteria, on the other hand, make no prior assumptions about the means of achieving a balance.
Permeability
The degree to which an area has a variety of pleasant, convenient and safe routes through it.
Perspective
Illustration showing the view from a particular point as it would be seen by the human eye.
Placecheck
A type of urban design audit advocated by the Urban Design Alliance, based on the Connected City approach. A local collaborative alliance or partnership uses checklists to investigate the connections in the built environment, in its movement network and among the people who shape it. The Placecheck becomes the first step in a continuing collaborative process of urban design.
Planning brief This guide refers to site-specific briefs as development briefs. Other names, including planning briefs, design briefs and development frameworks are also used.
Planning for Real A participation technique (pioneered by the Neighbourhood Initiatives Foundation) that involves residents and others with an interest coming together to make a model of their area and using it to help them determine their priorities for the future.
Planning Policy Guidance notes (PPGs)
embodying Government guidance on general and specific aspects of planning policy to be taken into account in formulating development plan policies and in making planning decisions.
Plot ratio
A measurement of density generally expressed as gross floor area divided by the net site area.
Proactive development control
Any process by which a local authority works with potential planning applicants to improve the quality of development proposals as early as possible before a planning application is submitted.
Public art
Permanent or temporary physical works of art visible to the general public, whether part of the building or free-standing: can include sculpture, lighting effects, street furniture, paving, railings and signs.
Public domain
parts of a village, town or city (whether publicly or privately owned) that are available, without charge, for everyone to use or see, including streets, squares and parks. Also called public realm.
Public/private interface
The point at which public areas and buildings meet private ones.
Public realm
See 'public domain'
Quality audit
A review of its management of the design and planning process by a local authority or other organisation.
Scale
The impression of a building when seen in relation to its surroundings, or the size of parts of a building or its details, particularly as experienced in relation to the size of a person. Sometimes it is the total dimensions of a building which give it its sense of scale: at other times it is the size of the elements and the way they are combined. The concept is a difficult and ambiguous one: often the word is used simply as a synonym for 'size'. See 'Human scale'.
Section
Drawing showing a slice through a building or site.
Settlement pattern
The distinctive way that the roads, paths and buildings are laid out in a particular place.
Sight line
The line of sight from a travelling vehicle or person. Sight lines will help to determine how fast vehicles are likely to move and how safe other road users are likely to be.
Space syntax analysis A technique for analysing movement through urban space and predicting the amount of activity likely to result from that movement.
Spine
or streets along which activity is concentrated.
Strategic view
The line of sight from a particular point to an important landmark or skyline.
Street furniture Structures in and adjacent to the highway which contribute to the street scene, such as bus shelters, litter bins, seating, lighting, railings and signs.
Success factor
One of the characteristics of a place (or places in general) that tends to make it attractive to live in, work in, or visit. Success factors can be expressed as design principles.
Surveillance The discouragement to wrong-doing by the presence of passers-by or the ability of people to be seen from surrounding windows.
Sustainable development
Defined by the Brundtland Commission (1987, and quoted in PPG1) as 'Development which meets present needs without compromising the ability of future generations to achieve their own needs and aspirations'. The UK's strategy for sustainable development "A better quality of life" was published in May 1999 and highlights the need for environmental improvement, social justice and economic success to go hand-in-hand.
Tissue study
Comparison of scale and layout of different settlements. This technique makes use of overprinting or tracing maps of successful places over the proposed development site or area, at the same scale. Its gives the designer a clue to the capacity of a place and how it may be structured.
Topography
A description or representation of artificial or natural features on or of the ground.
Urban design
The art of making places. Urban design involves the design of buildings, groups of buildings, spaces and landscapes, in villages, towns and cities, and the establishment of frameworks and processes which facilitate successful development.
Urban design framework
A document which informs the preparation of development plan policies, or sets out in detail how they are to be implemented in a particular area where there is a need to control, guide and promote change. Area development frameworks are also called a variety of other names, including urban design strategies, area development frameworks, spatial masterplans, and planning and urban design frameworks.
Urban grain
The pattern of the arrangement and size of buildings and their plots in a settlement; and the degree to which an area's pattern of street-blocks and street junctions is respectively small and frequent, or large and infrequent.
Vernacular
The way in which ordinary buildings were built in a particular place, making use of local styles, techniques and materials and responding to local economic and social conditions.
View
What is visible from a particular point. Compare 'Vista'.
Vista
An enclosed view, usually a long and narrow one.
Visual clutter
The uncoordinated arrangement of street furniture, signs and other features.
Village appraisal
A study identifying a local community's needs and priorities.
Village design statement
An advisory document, usually produced by a village community, suggesting how development might be carried out in harmony with the village and its setting. A village design statement can be given weight by being approved as supplementary planning guidance. The use of village design statements is promoted by the Countryside Agency.
Walk band
A line on a map or plan showing the furthest distance that can be walked from a particular point at an average pace in a certain time (usually five or ten minutes).
