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REINFORCING PLACES

Principle:Each building site lies within a largerphysical context having various and dis-tinct urban features and characteristicsto which the building design responds.

Guideline:City patterns of pedestrian circulationand desirable ground floor activities shallbe maintained and extended. New de-velopment or redevelopment shall rein-force the character of the street typewith careful attention to the pedestrianexperience of the street as a distinctplace in the City. Applicants shall dem-onstrate how their project responds tothese conditions.

New infill development that maintains the scale of surrounding buildingsand continues pedestrian-oriented ground floor activity

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VEHICULAR ACCESS

Principle:Like blank walls, vehicular curb cuts effectively “deaden”the street environment where by increasing pedestrianexposure to moving vehicles, limiting opportunities forlandscaping and trees, eliminating on-street parkingspaces, and inhibiting uses that promote interaction.

Guideline:Whenever possible, public alleys shall be preserved andused to access service areas, loading docks and parking.With the exception of public alleys the following vehicu-lar access guidelines are specific to each street type.

Shopping Streets: Vehicular access is prohibited ex-cept at public alleys.

Mixed Use Streets: Access to structured parking: Thereshall be no more than 24 feet of combined drivewaywidth for every 60 feet of block length. Drivewaysshall be no wider than 24 feet as they cross the pub-lic walk. Garage doors where required shall be trans-parent and set back a minimum of 4 feet from thebuilding’s facade.

Access to surface lots and service areas: There shallbe no more than 24 feet of driveway for every 120feet of block length. Driveways shall be no widerthan 24 feet as they cross the public walk. Whenconsolidating vehicular entrances exceptions to thedriveway width requirement may be considered. Forsurface lots see required landscaping in Zone One onpage 36.

Service Streets: Access to structured parking, surfacelots and service areas: See Mixed Use Streets above.

Vehicular access to a building provided through a porte-cochere drive that meets the guideline requirements.

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24 FeetMaximum perDriveway

60 Feet

(Maximum 24Feet of

CombinedDriveway

Width )

4 FeetMinimum

Options for Access to Structured Parking(Mixed-Use and Service Streets)

60 Feet

(Maximum 24Feet of

CombinedDriveway

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BUILD-TO-LINE AND SETBACKS

Principle:The underlying principle of all urban places is the enclosureof space by buildings. Buildings at the street edge define thespace of the public realm and reinforce the urban quality ofthe street and the pedestrian experience.

Where appropriate, well-designed open spaces that provideseating and take advantage of solar access and views pro-mote a visually pleasing, safe, and active environment forworkers, residents, and visitors.

Guideline:A percentage of the building facade must be located at theproperty line on each street. The remainder of the buildingfacade may be set back further. The build-to-line applies tothe facade from street level up to the minimum building height(regulated in the City Zoning Ordinance). Exemptions in-clude building entries less than 4 feet deep and 16 feet wideand indentations and openings that do not exceed 1 foot indepth perpendicular to the facade.

Corner lots may combine open frontage allowed on bothstreets to provide a public space that opens to one of thestreets. All spaces created by buildings that are set back aresubject to the guideline in Zone One - Transitional SpacesType III - Courts or Gardens that follows on page 29.

Shopping Streets: The building facade shall occupy a mini-mum of 90% of the lot width at the property line. Build-to-line location: 1 foot behind the property line.

Mixed Use Streets: The building facade shall occupy aminimum of 75% of the lot width at the property line.

Service Streets: No requirement.

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MIXED USE STREET Building Facade to Occupy a Minimum of75% at the Property Line

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SHOPP ING STREETBuilding Facade to Occupy a Minimum of 90% at the Property Line

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Principle:The horizontal extension of roof lines and cornice linesfrom facade to facade brings continuity to the streetreinforcing it as an urban space. However a site’shighest and best use may call for a significant increaseof floor area over and beyond historical developmentpatterns. New development can address this appar-ent contradiction with a design approach that ac-knowledges continuity of contexT.

COMPOSITION – HEIGHT

Guideline:Buildings should be context sensitive, which will en-hance distinctive skyline character and promote in-dividual expression, but need not be built at the ex-act and/or similar height as their neighbors.

The tower is setback from street while the base of thebuilding relates to surrounding building heights

The cornice line on the buildings on the right is carriedthrough as a composition feature on the building on the left

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Principle:Adopting a base middle and top composi-tional strategy not only ties the facade toa long tradition of architectural expressionbut provides a flexible method of relatingthe building to the pedestrian, at its base,to the surrounding architecture, (mid-sec-tion expression), and to the opportunity forunique formal identity in the skyline.

Guideline:The building’s street facades shall expressa base, middle and top composition strat-egy.

COMPOSITION – BASE, MIDDLE AND TOP

Zones One (Base), Two (Middle) and Three (Top)

Base

Middle

Top

Base

Middle

Top

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Principle:Proportion is the numeric ratio of two opposing di-mensions of a form or space such as height/width.The use of proportion is intended to provide a senseof visual harmony among elements of a building. Awell-proportioned building has component parts,(windows for example), that have the same propor-tion as the other parts, (structural bays, panels, fa-cades zones, etc.). A pattern of components with agreater height than width creates a preferable ver-tical proportion consistent with taller building mass-ing that is historically prevalent in the City.

Guideline:The building’s massing and resulting surfaces shalldemonstrate consistent proportional harmonies,(simple ratios), that shall be, by way of extension,used in the development of the facade’s composi-tion and details.

COMPOSITION – PROPORTION

A well proportioned facade Height : Width ratios are repeated in two differentproportioning systems

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COMPOSITION – SCALE

Guideline:In order to achieve an architectural composition re-sponsive to site context and human scale, distinctivecompositional elements (base, middle, top, etc.) mustbe distinguishable from a distance of both near andfar. This articulation strategy for building massingand facades simultaneously contributes to the notionof visual richness discussed in Zone Two.

Principle:Human scale is evident everywhere in the urban land-scape. While recent development projects have grownin size, they have also recognized and responded tothe scale of earlier development patterns evident inadjacent city blocks and buildings and to human pro-portions and scale.

Facade arranged into multiple elements

Large building scaled to context through smallercomponents