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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

Office for urban regulation

Landmarks and Icons

Kevin Lynch

A building’s significance is determined by its contrast with the immediate vicinity (i.e. with neighbors: NH) and its lucidity of form. It lies within the powers of the city administration to encourage these distinctions to emerge more strongly in a given project, or instead to attenuate them. Such decisions are contingent upon the corresponding strategies of differentiation.

Rule category

Motivation
Contextual Regimes: issues depending on the immediate context and its preservation, economic and social regimes, traditions, etc.
The Kind of Rule
Rule that works as reference, ratio, or dependency.
Rule that is NOT related to any preconceived zone or area.
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.
Rule that explicitly copes with stylistic and aesthetic concerns.
Scale
Neighborhood Rule: Rule that works at neighborhood scale.