Urban Design Decoder

urban design decoder.

A guide for navigating the jargon designers use when describing Lexington’s urban fabric.

This book belongs to:

If found, please return to: LFUCG Division of Planning 101 E. Vine Street, Suite 700 Lexington, KY 40507

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here’s the thing...

Urban designers like to use a lot of jargon to describe the way we envision, access, and experience different spaces and places and how they connect to the greater urban structure. Since we want you to be able to use them too, we ask that you consider this decoder your formal invitation to the planner jargon party.

The terms are divided across three themes of urban design, starting with a more broad focus on the larger public realm and then narrowing down to things relating to built form. Don’t worry, we will define those terms later!

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overview of terms. public realm.

• Activate • Figure Ground • Gateway • Greenspace • Informal Surveillance • Landmark • Legibility • Neighborhood Character • Neighborhood Focal Point • Node • Open Space • Placemaking mobility.

• Accessibility • Active Pedestrian Realm • Circulation • Complete Street • Connectivity • Cul-de-sac • Curb Cut • Desire Line • Mobility • Multimodal Transit Network

• On-street Parking • Pedestrian Amenities • Pedestrian Connection 4

• Plaza • Public Realm • Public Space • Quality of Life • Sense of Place • Single-Loaded Street • Spaces vs. Places • Street Furniture • Street Tree • Streetscape • Urban Design • Urban Structure • Pedestrian Oriented • Pedestrian Shed (or ‘Ped Shed’)

• Right-of-way • Roadway • Shared Use Path • Street Grid Plan • Traffic Calming • Transportation Network • Universal Design • Vertical Edge • Walkability • Walkable • Wayfinding

site design & building form.

• Adaptability • Adaptive Reuse • Articulation • Blank Wall • Buffer • Building Height to Street Width Ratio

• Building Line • Building Line Continuity • Built Environment • Built Form • Compatibility • Context Sensitive Development

• Diversity • Edge • Edge Condition • Enclosure • Façade • Façade Transparency

• Functional Entry • Green Infrastructure • Mass • Mixed-use Development • Proportion • Rhythm and Pattern • Scale • Scale, Automotive • Scale, Human • Setback, Front • Site Planning • Size • Sprawl • Step Back • Step Down • Stormwater • Street Wall • Sustainability • Transitional Height Plane • Urban Fabric

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public realm.

Activate To activate a space means to intentionally provide and arrange engaging amenities and uses such as places to eat, shop, or people-watch for a specific user group or the broader community. Activity should be sustained throughout the day, noting context-sensitive hours near residential areas, by a variety of uses: for example a bakery open in the morning, offices during the day, and restaurants in the evening.

Figure Ground A diagram expressing the relationship between built (figure) and unbuilt (ground) space. Figure Ground diagrams are useful for visualizing the proportions, placement, and connections between open spaces around buildings.

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Gateway A signature building, structure, or landscape to mark an entrance or arrival to an area.

Greenspace An area primarily composed of grass, trees, or other vegetation set apart for recreational, cultural, environmental, or aesthetic purposes.

Informal Surveillance Observation, from the street or from adjacent buildings, provided by ordinary people as they go about their daily activities. This kind of observation can deter criminal activity or anti-social behavior and make places feel safer. Sometimes termed ‘casual surveillance’ and ‘eyes-on-the-street’.

Landmark A highly distinctive building, structure, or landscape that provides a sense of place and orientation.

Legibility The ease with which a person is able to see, understand, and find their way around an area, building, or development. A ‘legible’ layout is one that people find easy to navigate and move through.

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Neighborhood Character Neighborhood character is a catch-all term used vaguely to express the overall look and feel of the streetscape, the size, shape, and location of buildings, as well as the uses contained within them, architectural style and details, and the presence of neighborhood focal points and amenities such as schools and parks. Due to the prevalence, yet inconsistent usage, of this term, specific information should be requested to clarify the user’s meaning.

Neighborhood Focal Point A hub-like setting that is accessible to a large number of people in a geographical area. In urban areas, they often function as compact, easily walkable nodes for eating, drinking, socializing, and the selling of goods and services. School sites, parks, libraries, and other types of community centers are also examples of neighborhood focal points.

Node A place where activity and circulation are concentrated.

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Open Space Areas of land and water that serve the purposes of providing recreation opportunities, conserving natural, cultural, and aesthetic resources, and structuring urban development and form. Open space may be public or private.

Placemaking The process of creating quality places where people want to live, work, play, shop, learn, and visit.

Plaza A type of public open space connected to the street network that can range in size from a building forecourt to a large city square.

Public Realm The public realm comprises spaces and places that are open and freely accessible to everyone, regardless of their economic or social conditions. These spaces can include streets, alleys, sidewalks and paths, parks, public plazas, waterways, and the spaces formed by the architectural or landscape features of the area. The public realm is what we experience when we live life outside our homes, cars, and workplaces.

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Public Space A designated area that is open to public access, provides a public use or recreation function, and that is owned and maintained by government agencies. Public spaces provide places for social interaction and a sense of community.

Quality of Life The well-being of a person or society, defined in terms of health and happiness, rather than wealth. Factors that increase quality of life include a physical environment that provides access to air and light, neighborhood services, economic opportunities, transportation options, and places to experience the public realm.

Sense of Place The characteristics of the area that make it recognizable as being unique or different from its surroundings and give a feeling of connection or belonging.

Single-Loaded Street A roadway that provides access to private property on one side and public access to an amenity, such as a park, on the other side. Single-loaded streets are useful for creating more visibility into public spaces and clearly delineating public from private spaces.

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Spaces vs. Places ‘Space’ is a more abstract concept than ‘place’. A ‘space’ is a blank slate—a physical location that has yet to be colored with personal experience. A ‘place’ refers to a physical location that has a meaning for the people who use it.

Street Furniture Objects and equipment placed along streets including transit shelters, bicycle racks, light fixtures, fire hydrants, trash receptacles, signs, benches, mailboxes, newspaper boxes, kiosks, or other such fixtures.

Street Tree Street trees, generally located between the sidewalk and curb, provide aesthetic, environmental, and socioeconomic benefits that help improve our quality of life.

Streetscape The visual character of a street that results from the combination of road width, sidewalk width and paving type, street furniture, trees and plantings, lighting, signage, and the surrounding built form and detail. The people and activities present also contribute to the streetscape.

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Urban Design The confluence of land use planning, architecture, and landscape architecture, which addresses the way buildings, streets, and public spaces all add up into places that work (or don’t work) for people.

Urban Structure The overall topography and land division pattern of an urban area including street pattern, the shapes and sizes of blocks and lots. Urban structure also includes the location and types of activity centers, public transport corridors, public space, community facilities, and urban infrastructure. Whether at the scale of a city, town, neighborhood, precinct or large development site, it is the interrelationship between all of the elements of urban structure, rather than their individual characteristics, that together make a place.

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mobility.

Accessibility Accessibility provides for ease, safety, and choice when moving to and through places. For built form to count as accessible it must support a person, regardless of age, ability, or income, in reaching their destinations safely and quickly.

Active Pedestrian Realm The pedestrian realm is defined as the space behind the curb of a street that provides physical space for pedestrian activity. An ‘active’ pedestrian realm intentionally provides and arranges 1) engagement through amenities and uses such as places to eat, shop, or people-watch, 2) safety through a buffer from the vehicular and bicycle traffic along the street, and 3) space for shade, street furniture, and other elements that affect pedestrian comfort.

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Circulation The movement patterns of people and vehicles through a site or community.

Complete Street A complete street is a public or private street that is designed with street-fronting land uses, slow travel speeds, multi-modal infrastructure, and pedestrian-oriented design features. A complete street safely accommodates all people who use the street, no matter their mode of transportation.

Connectivity The number of connecting routes within a particular area, often measured by counting the number of intersections per unit of area. An area may be measured for its connectivity for different travel modes – vehicle, cyclist or pedestrian. An area with high connectivity has a network of transportation options that provide multiple routes to and from destinations.

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Cul-de-sac A street with only one inlet/outlet connected to the wider street network. A closed cul-de-sac provides no possible passage except through the single road entry. An open culde-sac allows cyclists, pedestrians, or other non- automotive traffic to pass through connecting paths at the cul-de-sac head.

Curb Cut A ramp cut into a street curb to provide access (as for wheelchairs or strollers) between a sidewalk and the street, or for vehicular access to a driveway or parking space.

Desire Line The shortest or most easily navigated route marked by the erosion of the ground caused by human traffic.

Often found in places that lack sidewalk connectivity and where constructed pathways take a circuitous route.

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Mobility The ability to move or be moved safely, comfortably, and conveniently regardless of mode of transportation.

Multimodal Transit Network A transit network that accommodates all modes of travel and provides mobility for all users regardless of age, ability, or income.

On-street Parking Automobile parking typically within the right-of-way and adjacent to the curb that provides a physical barrier between vehicular traffic and pedestrians, traffic calming, and convenient, short-term parking in close proximity to activities and destinations.

Pedestrian Amenities The type of features along a street that make it a pleasing pedestrian environment. This can include the size of sidewalks, places to sit, a buffer between traffic and the pedestrian realm, trees to shade, canopies to protect from weather, public spaces, and public art.

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Pedestrian Connection A pedestrian connection provides a through connection for bicyclists and pedestrians between two streets or two lots. It may be a sidewalk that is part of a street, or it may be a paved path created solely for pedestrians and bicyclists.

Pedestrian Oriented An environment designed to create attractive, comfortable, and safe walking environments for all ages and abilities. Pedestrian oriented development locates buildings to define street edges and corners, and activates street frontages to enhance the pedestrian experience.

Pedestrian Shed (or ‘Ped Shed’) A graphic representation of the area surrounding a particular destination that can be reached on foot without obstruction, in a safe, accessible, and comfortable environment, within a specific walking time.

Its extent is based on the actual walking distance to the destination, as opposed to a simple radius from a center point. Generally, a walkable pedestrian shed is what can be reached in a five minute or one-quarter mile walk.

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Right-of-way Land used generally for streets, sidewalks, alleys, or other public uses. Right-of-way also is a land measurement term, meaning the distance between lot property lines which generally contains not only the street pavement, but also the sidewalks, grass area, and underground and aboveground utilities.

Roadway The part of a street intended for vehicles, in contrast to a sidewalk or median.

Shared Use Path A paved travel area separate from motorized traffic for bicyclists, pedestrians, skaters, wheelchair users, joggers, and other users.

Street Grid Plan A type of city plan in which streets generally run at right angles to each other, forming a grid. Two inherent characteristics of the grid plan, frequent intersections and orthogonal geometry, facilitate pedestrian movement and navigability.

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Traffic Calming Physical devices installed in or along streets to slow or reduce vehicle traffic and improve safety for pedestrians and cyclists.

Transportation Network Also known as a ‘circulation’ or ‘movement’ network, the ‘transportation network’ is the interconnected system of streets, sidewalks, roadways, and shared use paths that accommodates pedestrians, cyclists, on-road public transport, emergency and service vehicles, and private vehicles. The movement network connects places and activities, and allows people and goods to reach their intended destinations and to access private land.

Universal Design The design and composition of an environment so that it can be accessed, understood, and used to the greatest extent possible by all people regardless of their age, size, ability or disability.

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Vertical Edge In roadway design, a vertical edge is a visual traffic calming device which may include street trees, buildings, or other vertical design elements within drivers’ field of vision along roadways.

Walkability The extent to which the built environment supports walking for transport and for recreation, where the walking environment is safe, connected, accessible, and pleasant—not just the distance between two places.

Walkable An area where travel on foot is made easy, direct, and as safe as possible for all members of the community including children, people with strollers or shopping carts, and those using mobility aids.

Wayfinding Design elements that help people navigate through an area (e.g. signs, landmarks, continuous street walls).

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site design & building form.

Adaptability The capacity of a building or space to respond to changing social, technological, economic, and market conditions and accommodate new or changed uses.

Adaptive Reuse Adapting abandoned, vacant, or underutilized buildings and structures for new purposes.

Articulation The layout or patterns of building elements (e.g. windows, columns, cornice) that defines the space in front of the building and affects the building’s façade.

Blank Wall A wall which has few or no windows or doors and has no decoration or visual interest.

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Buffer A neutral space between two different types of buildings or spaces with an interest of minimizing disturbances between land uses.

Building Height to Street Width Ratio The ratio of the building height compared to the width of the street.

Generally, a ratio of 1 (Height) to 2.5 (Wide) meets people’s psychological needs for a feeling of enclosure.

1 : 2.5

Building Line The consistent edge formed by buildings fronting on an open space or street, which has a strong influence on building line continuity and enclosure. Also see, Street Wall.

Building Line Continuity The degree of uninterrupted building line along a street or open space.

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Built Environment The built environment includes the physical makeup of where we live, learn, work, and recreate—our homes, schools, businesses, streets and sidewalks, open spaces, and transportation options.

Built Form The height, mass, and overall shape of a building or structure. Built form creates visual interest and gives identity and structure to a place.

Compatibility Development or re-development that is capable of co-existing in harmony with existing development in both form and use. Compatibility should be evaluated in accordance with measurable/objective standards, where they exist.

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Context Sensitive Development A collaborative, interdisciplinary approach to developing projects that integrates projects into the context or setting in a sensitive manner through careful planning, consideration of different perspectives, and tailoring designs to particular project circumstances.

This could include, among other considerations, compatibility with scale, massing, and height step-downs between existing and proposed buildings, but does not necessarily infer replicating adjacent development characteristics.

Diversity In this context, diversity refers to a compatible mix of land uses, built forms, and mobility options that, when well designed, enable equitable access to the city.

Edge Edges define and designate places. ‘Harder’ edges such as walls and screens physically or visually separate places and ‘softer’ edges such as vegetation or distance buffers provide transitions between places.

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Edge Condition A term used in urban design analysis to describe the transition between a public space and its adjacent land uses and structures. An edge may be ‘active’ with a building’s doors and windows addressing the public space, or it may be ‘inactive’, with blank walls, a privacy fence, or high traffic volume road abutting the public space.

Enclosure An experience in which a person feels sheltered.

Building line continuity and height, trees and landscaping, and street width are all factors in creating a sense of enclosure.

Façade The exterior wall of a building exposed to public view.

It is the face of the building and helps inform passers-by about the building and the activities within.

Façade Transparency A measure of the percentage of a façade that allows for direct views from the public realm into the building interior and from the interior onto the public realm, most often achieved through windows (aka building fenestration).

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Functional Entry A building opening designed to be used by pedestrians and open during regular business hours. It does not include doors exclusively designated as an emergency exit, or a garage door not designed as a pedestrian entrance.

Green Infrastructure An approach to managing stormwater in built environments that mimics the natural hydrologic cycle by infiltrating stormwater on site.

Mass The overall volume or form of a building element.

Mixed-use Development A range of complementary uses within the same building, site, or precinct. The different uses may be arranged floor by floor, or side by side.

Proportion A comparison of dimensions within an entity or system, for example the proportions of a height-towidth ratio.

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Rhythm and Pattern The repetition of elements such as materials, details, styles, and shapes that provide visual interest.

Scale The size of an entity relative to its surroundings. Scale refers to the apparent size, not the actual size.

Scale, Automotive The size and articulation of physical elements so that they are visible from a moving vehicle—generally what is visible from 30 miles-per-hour.

Scale, Human The size and articulation of physical elements relative to a person— generally what is interesting to look at and feels pleasant to be near.

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Setback, Front The distance between the front wall of a building and the street fronting lot boundary, intended to maintain continuity along a streetscape. The font setback can add to the perceived width of the street, provide additional public or private space, and allow space for landscaping.

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Size An objective measurement.

In contrast, see ‘Scale’.

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Site Planning The act of enhancing a project’s connections to its surroundings, promoting walkability, and ensuring effective access and circulation for all modes of transportation.

Sprawl Inefficient use of land and resources with little concern for urban planning.

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Step Back A recess of taller elements of a building in order to ensure an appropriate, human-scaled presence on the street edge.

Step Down The gradual change in height between buildings.

Stormwater Stormwater is generated from rain and snowmelt events that flow over land or impervious surfaces, such as paved streets, parking lots, and building rooftops, and does not soak into the ground.

Street Wall The building line as it fronts on a street.

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Sustainability Sustainability means creating places that are environmentally responsible, healthful, just, equitable, and profitable. Creating a sustainable built environment means looking holistically at natural, human, and economic systems and finding solutions that support quality of life for all.

Transitional Height Plane A geometric measurement that creates a height transition on a building and maintains solar access for adjacent properties.

Urban Fabric The pattern of lots and blocks and streets.

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Created by: LFUCG Division of Planning Long Range Planning Section October 31, 2019