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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

Tendency towards Overexploitation

Garret Hardin , The Commons

There is a tendency for publicly usable space to be overexploited by individuals. For public areas where privatization is out of the question, rules must be established designed to moderate private interests on the one hand, and to mediate effectively between private and public interests on the other.

  • The tendency of overexploitation of the commons: The negative component is shared by all, whereas the positive one is not.
  • Typical traditional, tripartite village structure with the commons being the third ring around the settlement.
  • Paradox: one farmer gets the whole benefit from one more cow added.However the burden of it is shared by all.

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 tied to a certain zone.
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.