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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

Quality of Street Views

San Francisco

By virtue of their locations, topographies, or buildings, certain streets possess special visual qualities. These stand under special protection. A quality of street view map specifies the view relationships and visual peculiarities that are to be protected.

  • Important street views in San Francisco, SF General Plan 2000.
  • Donald Appleyard made it his project. View from the Road, book with Kevin Lynch, 1965.
  • Appleyard's roadway character maps.

Rule category

Motivation
View Management: preservation of imporant views of the city
The Kind of Rule
Rule that stipulates a fixed limit.
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
Streetscape Rule: Rule that is tied to a single street or road.