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Office of Urban Regulation

Design Rules and Design With Rules!

Cities as cultural products are neither ‘built’ nor ‘planned,’ at best they are guided and steered in a certain direction. Therefore, rules and regulations are one of the few tools that are actually suitable to guide future development within such collective and complex urban settings.

We strongly believe that the field of (urban) design should not simply adhere to these standards as some neutrally existing context but should actively engage in discussing them in order to make them subject to design as well. read more

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Office for urban regulation

Engineering Height

San Gimignano / New York

Current knowledge of building construction allows the erection of structures only up to a certain height (no longer valid: a reworking of this rule is proposed).

  • A speculative San Gimignano, if the city did not limit the building height due to poor tower stability.
  • Speculative San Gimignano and its relevant heights.
  • San Gimignano, today.

Rule category

Motivation
Contextual Regimes: issues depending on the immediate context and its preservation, economic and social regimes, traditions, etc.
Managing Bulk: basic stipulations regarding the object's form and bulk
The Kind of Rule
Rule that works as reference, ratio, or dependency.
Rule that is NOT related to any preconceived zone or area.
Rule that stipulates an upper limit.
Domain
Rule that has a strong influence on urban density and its distribution.
Rule with direct impact on architectural or urban form.
Rule that regulates building heights.
Scale
Plot/Block Rule: Rule that relates to the scale of a city block or plot.
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