There are many different aspects to the design of our built environment, from street patterns, to building forms, to landscaping, to lighting, and even to signage. To make both design and evaluation manageable, I find it convenient to divide things into three main sizes, or scales: the scale of the city, town or village, which I call Cityscape; the scale of the public spaces or the streets, which I call Streetscape; and the scale of individual buildings which I refer to as Architecture. Examples of these three catagories are illustrated by the large photos on the first page of this website. This division is general, and there certainly is some overlap, but it gives us some organization to designing and evaluating our communities. It is important (but sadly often ignored) that the design of anything in our communities, respond to and contribute to all three of these scales, from the largest to the smallest. Look at the image associated with this thought on the previous page. A photo of the town center of Guanajuato in Mexico, it illustrates a domed building (Architecture) that helps define a plaza (Streetscape), which together form the intricate pattern of the city (Cityscape).
Next: Cityscape