Author: Richard Just – Senior Urban Designer at P&DG
What is Coding in Urban Design?
Design codes can be simple or complex, general or detailed, area wide or site specific. There are many different levels and types of coding. It is important to correctly assess the appropriate type and level of code which is required in each individual case. At P&DG, we do not code for the sake of it simply because it is the current trend!
Ensuring Consistency and Quality
Coding is about creating a common agreed framework for a site, development approach or a masterplan that is backed by a set of mandatory rules, along with a series of guidelines that are recommended so that consistency, quality, character and placemaking can be achieved. This is especially important where development is to be undertaken and implemented by different developers to ensure that an acceptable and fully integrated product is the result. A design code by its very nature should be geared to achieving consistency and quality.
Most of P&DG design work involves developing design frameworks and elements of coding. I have been involved in the design code process for most of my working and professional career. My work in coding has a pedigree that can be traced back to my post-graduate days in the 1980’s at what was then Oxford Polytechnic (now Oxford Brookes University) and exposure to the iconic work of ‘Responsive Environments’, the work of Kevin Lynch’s ‘Image of the City’ and ‘Pattern Language’ by Christopher Alexander, Sara Ishikawa and Murray Silverstein, if you have not come across these, I highly recommend that you have a look at them as they will give you an insight and understanding the origins of design code philosophy and thought.
Context is Key for Coding
Coding is about fully understanding context and building up a relevant and responsive framework. It is a bit like a complex ‘jigsaw’ building up fully integrated layers, starting with the blue green infrastructure, connectivity and linkage movement infrastructure, spatial infrastructure, urban block infrastructure etc. On to this framework base, good practice urban and landscape design principles are added if required, including built form, good townscape and further levels of built and environmental design elements. It is at the more detailed level where good aesthetics can be addressed.
In this article, we have highlighted a sequence of steps to consider when undertaking design coding. From the following example images, you will see that coding should be a highly visual, 3-dimensional thought process and a product that will provide an agreed framework to enable a development to progress smoothly and to achieve an agreed vision of high quality and consistent good design. The objective of design coding is to raise the design bar level and public expectancy of what is acceptable as good design in new development.
