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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

Sub Urban Loop

Houston

The highway loop 610 subdivides the city into an urban and a suburban zone. All regulations concerning minimums (minimum distances BD, minimum plot size LS) are augmented outside of this ring.

Rule category

Motivation
Managing Bulk: basic stipulations regarding the object's form and bulk
The Kind of Rule
Rule that stipulates a fixed limit.
Rule that is tied to a certain zone.
Rule that stipulates a lower limit.
Domain
Rule that has a strong influence on urban density and its distribution.
Rule that influences programmatic and functional issues.
Rule that regulates building heights.
Scale
General Declaration: General declaration, motive without specific scale.
General Land Use: Rule that specifies land use in general.