Menu
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

Office for urban regulation

Façade Transparency

Seattle

In Class I pedestrian streets, at least 60% of ground-level façades must be transparent. Nontransparent surfaces may be no more than 15 ft (4.6 m). For Class II pedestrian streets, transparency must be at least 30%, with utmost 30 ft (9.1 m) of blank façade.

Rule category

Motivation
Aesthetic Regimes: public beauty, visual appearance
The Kind of Rule
Rule that works as reference, ratio, or dependency.
Rule that is tied to a certain zone.
Rule that stipulates an upper limit.
Domain
Rule that influences programmatic and functional issues.
Rule with direct impact on architectural or urban form.
Rule that explicitly copes with stylistic and aesthetic concerns.
Scale
Streetscape Rule: Rule that is tied to a single street or road.