General overview Flashcards
Def Site Analysis
“the art of arranging the external physical environment to support human behavior. It lies along the boundaries of architecture, engineering, landscape architecture, and city planning, and it is practiced by members of all these professions. Site plans locate structures and activities in three-dimensional space and, when appropriate, in time
Site Planning
component of smart growth and sustainable design and—as such—planning activities should ALWAYS find a way to balance social/cultural, environmental and economic considerations. Framed as such, site planning is capable of promoting the following goals: social/cultural, environmental, economic
Social/Cultural
Promote a sense of community
Protect cultural and historic resources
Reduce crime and increase public safety
Provide equitable access to public services
Increase access to outdoor recreation
Minimize negative impacts to adjacent properties
Economic
Attract investment
Drive tourism
Increase property values
Attract skilled workers
Reduce commuting times
Promote efficient land use
Benefits of site planning
Promoting public health, safety and welfare
Protecting the public from natural disasters/hazards
Reduced construction costs
Increased profit from development
Protecting valuable natural and cultural amenities
Supporting critical ecological processes
Smart growth vs sustainable design
“smart growth” principles address development at the regional or city scale and are enacted by government regulatory agencies through comprehensive plans, master plans and the zoning code. Aside from concepts such as cluster development, smart growth has little direct impact at the site scale. In contrast, sustainable design principles can be found incorporated into regional-scale planning considerations, but are also manifest at the site scale. For example, specifying pervious pavement and recycled construction materials for a plaza hardscape would be considered a form of sustainable design, but not a form of smart growth
UN sustainability definition
“meeting the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.”
Smart Growth Goals
Preserving open space, farmland, scenic areas and critical environmental areas
Directing new development toward existing communities
Encouraging mixed land use (e.g. residential apartment buildings with ground-floor retail) and creating clustered/compact developments with a variety of housing options
Fostering a strong sense of place
Creating walkable communities with a variety of transportation choices
Creating cost-effective development solutions
Encouraging community and stakeholder collaboration
Sustainable Design Goals
Protecting existing environmental resources from degradation
Restoring degraded environmental resources
Re-using previously developed sites (i.e. brownfield and urban in-fill development)
Building compact, walkable communities
Conserving resources at all scales (e.g. reducing commuting times at the regional scale, designing energy-efficient buildings)
