ABSTRACT
Whereas vernacular-era place-formation largely just ‘happened’ in response to varied pressures, nowadays we plan. This chapter discusses the limitations, benefits and implications of master-planning, strategic planning and incremental development. Issues include critical mass, cash flow, flexibility, speed and scale of implementation, investment recovery; and residential, commercial and workplace balance. One technique of letting built form result from life is to rehearse growth by ‘growing’ places from potential growth-nodes. This allows assessment of their activity-draw (hence economic implications). Then grow more places from these. Microclimatic, social, security and mood requirements then determine places’ shapes; buildings’ forms follow. Different scales produce different effects: whereas large developments can swamp existing communities, growth by small increments of compatible character lets each increment make the place increasingly whole. Growth-nodes include social-, economic- and movement-generators; and value-gradients’ push and/or pull aspects. As places’ activity-generation potential isn’t always obvious, such exercises help expose it.
