SmartCode Manual now available

In the works for nearly two years, a manual to help people implement the SmartCode was scheduled for release in early October. Titled SmartCode Manual and subtitled The Complete SmartCode, Annotated Version 7.5, it will be downloadable for free and available in a printed spiral bound hardcover for, at press time, a yet-to-be-determined price. Between these covers is a complete planning and urban design philosophy that has been pursued and refined relentlessly by Andres Duany of DPZ and associated practitioners for more than two decades. First came The Lexicon of the New Urbanism, which Duany and others developed in the mid-1990s — an attempt to define and standardize the concepts of urbanism, from frontages to block patterns, from thoroughfare types to civic spaces. The Lexicon was never widely printed, but its illustrations have appeared in textbooks and professional manuals so it has had an impact. Next came The Transect, which organized The Lexicon — indeed all aspects of urbanism — on a continuum from urban to rural, allowing for better practical use of the definitions and illustrations. Within a decade, The Transect has been widely absorbed as a tool by planners and urban designers. Meanwhile, DPZ had been refining community planning codes since the firm’s design of Seaside in the early 1980s, and this effort culminated in the creation of the SmartCode, released in 2003 and designed to be adapted for use in any municipality. Adoption of the SmartCode was slow at first, but appears to be picking up in the six months since it was made available for free. It has been downloaded a total of more than 60,000 times from two websites, www.place makers.com and www.tndtownpaper.com, webmasters at these sites told New Urban News. The Lexicon and The Transect are incorporated into the SmartCode. The SmartCode is comprehensive — it is a planning and urban design code, a set of thoroughfare and public works standards, and a regional planning tool — and it operates so differently from conventional zoning that even professional planners have a difficult time using it initially. Duany has said that the SmartCode must be read six times before it is fully understood. Even then, officials have questions — which is where the manual comes in. The manual is a fully annotated SmartCode, a tutorial on all of the code’s articles, tables, and illustrations. But it also includes step-by-step instructions on how to apply the code to historic cities and towns, greenfield developments, and large-scale plans that may cover many square miles. In short, a wealth of specialized planning knowledge, the cumulative intelligence and experience of many years, and the design of hundreds of towns is compressed into one package. The chief authors are Duany, attorney William Wright (who proposed the idea to Duany in a SmartCode workshop in 2003), and Sandy Sorlien, a photographer and author. Landscape architect Laura Hall, architect Mike Watson, and attorney Daniel Slone are secondary authors, and 14 contributors are listed. The book was slated to be available online by September 26 at www.placemakers.com, and available in hardcopy shortly thereafter (call 866/268-8696). Copies had to be back from the printer by October 5 when PlaceMakers scheduled a SmartCode workshop in Miami, Sorlien told New Urban News. u