glaserworks
A Transect is a device used to measure elements along a linear path. The Urban Transect is such a device used to categorize the scale of complex built (or un-built) environments. Andreas Duany, one of the country's pre-eminent New Urbanist architects, created the Urban Transect as a tool to help communities visualize the desired character of places. It is incorporated into the proprietary Smart Code, which is a model Form-Based Code.
Form Based Codes typically value the form (massing, scale, placement and architectural design) of buildings more than the uses residing within the buildings themselves. The precept of Form Based Codes is that comfortable, high quality public places (e.g. -street corridors, intersections, plazas, parks, etc.) are created by the buildings that form them. Form Based Codes are usually employed to encourage walkable, mixed use development in specified urban or suburban areas.
Antithetical to common zoning practices, the Urban Transect reflects the form and massing of the built environment, not necessarily the particular uses of buildings or land within such environments. The Urban Transect helps us envision the codification of planned areas based on the desired character and scale of that environment. The Urban Transect helps communities prescribe an overall walkable, mixed use region with smaller areas of differing scales within.
The Urban Transect does not just govern private property, but also public property (i.e. streets and sidewalks) because both elements should not be divorced from each other when planning high quality, pedestrian friendly environments. In other words, a street corridor is defined by the buildings that form it. The same can be said of urban places such as plazas and parks.
The Urban Transect measures the scale of environments ranging from the Natural (T1) to the Urban Core (T6). These 'T' Zones describe, through analytical, abstract graphic methodology, different scales of the built environment. Communities can use 'T' Zones as a guide to planning their built environment. Doing so will ensure that future development will meet their needs of use (e.g. -residential, office, retail, ecumenical, institutional, etc.) and will eliminate the undesired vehicle-only, sprawling pattern of development commonplace in America's suburbs and exurbs.
You can learn more about the Urban Transect by visiting the web site of Andreas Duany's firm: www.dpz.com.
To learn more about model Form Based Codes you can visit: www.formbasedcodes.org.
To learn more about one particular model Form based Code you can visit: www.smartcodecentral.com.