The 1916 Zoning Resolution Architecturally, what is striking about the 1916 legislation is that it sought to articulate a logical formula for achieving a public good in the absence of a specific vision of exactly what would actually be produced. Michael Sorkin, 20 Minutes in Manhattan regulationsconstraints
The air doesn't know about zoning boundaries Work uses suggest another bugaboo: reeking smokestacks and flying ash. Of course reeking smokestacks and flying ash are harmful, but it does not follow that intensive city manufacturing (most of which produces no such nasty by-products) or other work uses must be segregated from dwellings. Indeed, the notion that reek or fumes are to be combated by zoning and land-sorting classifications at all is ridiculous. The air doesn’t know about zoning boundaries. Regulations specifically aimed at the smoke or the reek itself are to the point. Jane Jacobs, The Death and Life of Great American Cities zoningregulationsseparation
The source code for SimCity Local Code was Sorkin’s attempt to design a whole city from scratch—with one big twist. The whole thing had been written as if it were the byzantine, nearly impossible to follow codes and regulations for an entire, hypothetical metropolis. The effect is like stumbling upon the source code for SimCity. Sorkin’s exhaustively made point was that, if you know everything about a given metropolis, from its plumbing standards to its parking requirements, its sewer capacity to the borders of its school districts, then you could more or less accurately imagine the future form of that city from the ground up. Geoff Manaugh, A Burglar's Guide to the City Local Code: The Constitution of a City at 42º N Latitude rulesregulations
Local Code: The Constitution of a City at 42º N Latitude A Book by Michael Sorkin www.goodreads.com The source code for SimCityLocal Code: 3,659 Proposals About Data, Design & The Nature of Cities regulationslawcities
Tracing Power Lines with the Pylon Appreciation Society Show image 0 Show image 1 According to Emma Ailes of BBC News, the first pylons in the UK were designed by architect Sir Reginald Blomfield in 1928, with a “lattice” approach that “sought to be more delicate than the brutalist structures used in Europe and the United States.” Reportedly, he was “inspired by the root of the word pylon – meaning an Egyptian gateway to the sun.” Kurt Kohlstedt, 99% Invisible 99percentinvisible.org The Pylon Appreciation SocietyPylon of the Month infrastructureenergypylons