Inventory – a listing of what is there – but no opinion of its value.
Analysis – Determine if the item is an Asset (adds value) or a Liability (removes value). To determine if something is an asset or a liability you must have a defined design goal. For example, if you are designing a school – then a 6-lane highway next door would be a liability – but if you are designing a gas station – it would be an asset.
Categories to investigate based on location:
- Land Use & Zoning
- Community facilities, shopping and other services
- Open-space
- Linear or node
- Circulation (vehicular/pedestrian/bike – public/private – bus/subway -parking)
- Nodes – decision points
- Connections
- Views to and From the Site
- Environment (Noise, odors, etc)
- Climate and Micro-climate (sun exposure, shadows, N/S/E/W, winds)
- FEMA Flood plane maps
Creating the maps –
- The first pass should be purely an inventory of what exists.
- The second pass is categorizing all items as Asset/Liability or Neutral
- Design Response concept / Special District Rules
- How would you take advantage of an Asset?
- How to you minimize a given liability?
- Specific Design Solutions
- These are your designs on specific sites following your special district rules
- Evaluation
- Re-evaluate your special district rules based on the results of your designs.
- Should they be modified in any way?
- Re-evaluate your special district rules based on the results of your designs.
