5.3. Industrial Area

Aus Pattern Language Wiki

Within the Polycentric Region, there are many places where industrial activities must be accommodated. These should be integrated into the walkable street...


05 3 01 Industrial Area.jpg


Problem-statement: Industrial employees increasingly want to work in vibrant, mixed neighborhoods. But industries need a certain amount of security and privacy for their operations.


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Discussion:: Well-meaning planners reacted to pollution within early industrial cities by relocating all industry outside the city. But that move threw out the baby with the bathwater: it forced employees to commute long distances, and created isolated, lifeless districts. Today, only genuinely heavy industry needs to be accommodated outside. Most other light industrial activities fit well within a mixed-use city (with air and water quality protected by enlightened regulation). This mixing of work and life is the way that cities have thrived for millennia. Mixed use also facilitates commuting to work, and is one of the cornerstones of a new conception of the city as a complex system: the functions cannot be simplistically segregated without damaging it.


A new rationale for segregation in the 20th century has been security, especially security of trade secrets. This has given rise to the “supercampus” — a very large, gated, and impenetrable section of the urban (or more often suburban) fabric. This has been a terrible mistake, creating dead zones at the edges of these supercampuses, and almost always preventing employees from walking, biking or even taking transit to or from work — more likely forcing them to drive, and therefore to own a car. Even worse, this supercampus model further isolated work from home and other activities, causing an imbalance between jobs and housing, requiring extensive commuting time, and contributing to a fragmented, resource-inefficient, dysfunctional city.


In the early years of the 21st Century, the most sought-after employees have begun to demand more walkable, mixed places of work, closer to their homes and other destinations, and the supercampus is rapidly losing its competitive edge. More companies have begun to integrate their buildings into the urban fabric of walkable “innovation districts” and other creative neighborhoods.¹


Evidence has grown that there are significant economic benefits for the companies as well. Creative innovation does not thrive in isolated, inward-turning campuses, but in places that allow mixing and “knowledge spillovers” — not only within industries, but between them as well, and within the public spaces surrounding them.


05 3 02 Industrial Area.jpg
Left, an industrial “supercampus” outside of Portland, Oregon, and right, an industrial district within the city. Walkable mixed neighborhoods like the one on the right are in high demand by today’s most sought-after technology employees. Of course there are requirements to protect intellectual property as well as other kinds of company property. However, in an age of advanced digital security, it is no longer necessary to have prison-like guard houses and fortifications, and security is now much more easily managed at the building scale. Employees can now move securely between buildings with proper digital technology.


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Therefore:

Do not build isolated “supercampuses” as industrial workplaces. Instead, create a flexible cluster of buildings within a walkable street system, mixed with other uses so that employees can live nearby, and visit other destinations.


05 3 03 Industrial Area.jpg


Provide a Walkable Streetscape within the industrial area, with a mix of other uses to provide amenities and close-by housing for some employees…




¹ Notable research on this trend and its dynamics has been done by the Brookings Institution. See for example Katz, B., & Wagner, J. (2014). The rise of innovation districts: A new geography of innovation in America. Washington: Brookings Institution.



Mehaffy, M. et al. (2020). INDUSTRIAL AREA (pattern). In A New Pattern Language for Growing Regions. The Dalles: Sustasis Press. Available at https://pattern-language.wiki/.../Industrial_Area



SECTION I:

PATTERNS OF SCALE


1. REGIONAL PATTERNS

Define the large-scale spatial organization…

1.1. POLYCENTRIC REGION

1.2. BLUE-GREEN NETWORK

1.3. MOBILITY CORRIDOR

1.4. 400M THROUGH STREET NETWORK

2. URBAN PATTERNS

Establish essential urban characteristics…

2.1. WALKABLE MULTI-MOBILITY

2.2. LEVEL CITY

2.3. PUBLIC SPACE SYSTEM

2.4. BIOPHILIC URBANISM

3. STREET PATTERNS

Identify and allocate street types…

3.1. URBAN GREENWAY

3.2. MULTI-WAY BOULEVARD

3.3. AVENUE

3.4. SHARED SPACE LANE

4. NEIGHBORHOOD PATTERNS

Define neighborhood-scale elements…

4.1. STREET AS CENTER

4.2. PEDESTRIAN SANCTUARY

4.3. NEIGHBORHOOD SQUARE

4.4. NEIGHBORHOOD PARK

5. SPECIAL USE PATTERNS

Integrate unique urban elements with care…

5.1. SCHOOL CAMPUS

5.2. MARKET CENTER

5.3. INDUSTRIAL AREA

5.4. HOSPITAL

6. PUBLIC SPACE PATTERNS

Establish the character of the crucial public realm…

6.1. PLACE NETWORK

6.2. WALKABLE STREETSCAPE

6.3. MOVABLE SEATING

6.4. CAPILLARY PATHWAY

7. BLOCK AND PLOT PATTERNS

Lay out the detailed structure of property lines…

7.1. SMALL BLOCKS

7.2. PERIMETER BLOCK

7.3. SMALL PLOTS

7.4. MID-BLOCK ALLEY

8. STREETSCAPE PATTERNS

Configure the street as a welcoming place…

8.1. STREET AS ROOM

8.2. TERMINATED VISTA

8.3. STREET TREES

8.4. STREET FURNISHINGS

9. BUILDING PATTERNS

Lay out appropriate urban buildings…

9.1. PERIMETER BUILDING

9.2. ARCADE BUILDING

9.3. COURTYARD BUILDING

9.4. ROW BUILDING

10. BUILDING EDGE PATTERNS

Create interior and exterior connectivity…

10.1. INDOOR-OUTDOOR AMBIGUITY

10.2. CIRCULATION NETWORK

10.3. LAYERED ZONES

10.4. PASSAGEWAY VIEW



SECTION II:

PATTERNS OF MULTIPLE SCALE


11. GEOMETRIC PATTERNS

Build in coherent geometries at all scales…

11.1. LOCAL SYMMETRY

11.2. SMALL GROUPS OF ELEMENTS

11.3. FRACTAL PATTERN

11.4. FRAMING

12. AFFORDANCE PATTERNS

Build in user capacity to shape the environment…

12.1. HANDLES

12.2. CO-PRODUCTION

12.3. FRIENDLY SURFACES

12.4. MALLEABILITY

13. RETROFIT PATTERNS

Revitalize and improve existing urban assets …

13.1. SLUM UPGRADE

13.2. SPRAWL RETROFIT

13.3. URBAN REGENERATION

13.4. URBAN CONSOLIDATION

14. INFORMAL GROWTH PATTERNS

Accommodate “bottom-up” urban growth…

14.1. LAND TENURE

14.2. UTILITIES FIRST

14.3. DATA WITH THE PEOPLE

14.4. INCREMENTAL SELF-BUILD

15. CONSTRUCTION PATTERNS

Use the building process to enrich the result…

15.1. DESIGN-BUILD ADAPTATION

15.2. HUMAN-SCALE DETAIL

15.3. CONSTRUCTION ORNAMENT

15.4. COMPLEX MATERIALS



SECTION III:

PATTERNS OF PROCESS


16. IMPLEMENTATION TOOL PATTERNS

Use tools to achieve successful results…

16.1. FORM-BASED CODE

16.2. ENTITLEMENT STREAMLINING

16.3. NEIGHBORHOOD PLANNING CENTER

16.4. COMMUNITY MOCKUP

17. PROJECT ECONOMICS PATTERNS

Create flows of money that support urban quality…

17.1. TAX-INCREMENT FINANCING

17.2. LAND VALUE CAPTURE

17.3. EXTERNALITY VALUATION

17.4. ECONOMIES OF PLACE AND DIFFERENTIATION

18. PLACE GOVERNANCE PATTERNS

Processes for making and managing places…

18.1. SUBSIDIARITY

18.2. POLYCENTRIC GOVERNANCE

18.3. PUBLIC-PRIVATE PLACE MANAGEMENT

18.4. INFORMAL STEWARDSHIP

19. AFFORDABILITY PATTERNS

Build in affordability for all incomes…

19.1. INTEGRATED AFFORDABILITY

19.2. COMMUNITY LAND TRUST

19.3. MULTI-FAMILY INFILL

19.4. SPECULATION TAX

20. NEW TECHNOLOGY PATTERNS

Integrate new systems without damaging old ones…

20.1. SMART AV SYSTEM

20.2. RESPONSIVE TRANSPORTATION NETWORK COMPANY

20.3. AUGMENTED REALITY DESIGN

20.4. CITIZEN DATA