Because of the high complexity, uncertainty, and subjectivity of urban planning, it is a domain from which knowledge is often hard to extract and/or represent by the knowledge-representing methods of knowledge-based systems (KBS) which require explicit, definite, and generalized rules of thumb...

In this paper we consider architects' understanding of disability and disabled people's building and design needs in the United Kingdom. We seek to reveal the contrasting ways in which architects define, and design for, disability, the types of competencies that they have acquired to do so, and...

Human artifacts, ranging from small objects all the way up to large buildings and cities, display a variety and range of subdivisions. Repeating structural and design elements of the same size will define a particular scale. Most pleasing designs obey an inverse power-law distribution: the...

Low-density urbanization, also known as urban sprawl, has accelerated in the United States in recent years. In this article I will test the cumulative influence of locally adopted (municipal) land-use controls on sprawl. Land-use controls that shift the cost of development onto builders and away...

With the intention of reevaluating proportion theory in design, I provide here a grounding for a pictorial approach to the anthyphairetic procedures of Platonic mathematics.

In this paper I will present a methodology for the stepwise construction of complex polyhedra from basic primitive polyhedra by using a vector representation as a generalization of the two-dimensional vector approach used for the construction of polygons. Starting with the concept of an atomic...

Cooperative mandates represent new thinking about intergovernmental relationships and a shift from the top-down coercive approach. This research presents evidence on how a cooperative national environmental management mandate influences the quality of regional and district plans in New Zealand....

Space syntax, as developed at the Bartlett, University College London, proposes a fundamental relationship between the configuration of space in a city and the way that it functions. The analysis of space in terms of its configurational properties -- or syntax -- may, according to the theory,...