What should a code call for?

Although form-based codes (FBCs) are proliferating, practitioners disagree on precisely how a code should go about pursuing its goals.

Often FBCs specify height, width, setback, articulation, and other aspects of buildings. The idea is to get the buildings to work together to create well-defined public spaces that people will enjoy. If you prescribe the dimensions and placement of buildings’ walls and openings, the theory goes, an appealing urban setting is likely to result.

This “urban envelope” approach has prompted debate, however. Stefanos Polyzoides of Moule & Polyzoides argues that the code should call for specific types of buildings — whether they’re freestanding houses, rowhouses, courtyard housing, or other types. It’s important to have the right types of buildings, he believes, if you want to generate a character that will fit a particular locale.

He thinks that one of the reasons his firm’s Mission Meridian complex in South Pasadena, California, looks right is that it uses building types that complement the old single-family houses across the street. “Mission Meridian is eight times as dense but perfectly compatible,” he says.

A number of different types might be prescribed in a particular Transect zone. “All of our clients are very keen on this idea,” Polyzoides notes. “They have suffered from bad buildings being thrown at them.”

“Typology is being used very widely,” he says. Scott Polikov of Gateway Planning Group counters that specifying building types may be a good idea in small communities, but it can prove troublesome in larger places where more variety is desirable. “The challenge of building typology is that it limits the creativity of the market to respond,” he says. It becomes especially problematic when conditions change.

In Owensboro, Kentucky, Polikov points out, the code that his firm recently helped write does not prescribe building types, but specifies heights, floor dimensions, and other measures.
Debates such as this are likely to continue. “The real challenge is not getting urban plans approved,” Polyzoides asserts. “It’s producing beautiful cities.” In his view, although prescriptions for heights, build-to lines, and articulation may produce a certain order, “it is not very clear that you can get great cities” from this approach.