User:Philip Kassanis/sandbox

Masterplanning

Terms  The term here is used to denote the branch of strategy and planning that is linked to physical territory. Commonly used alternative terms are: master planning, master plan, masterplan, spatial masterplan, development brief, urban design framework, and urban design guidance.

Variation of understanding There is a wide variation in understanding of what the term represents. Rob Cowan is fond of citing an extract from Mein Kampf: "without a master plan our vision can never be achieved" (e.g. Cowan,2009) as an amusing way of illustrating how the field of masterplanning is perceived in very disparate ways. The purpose of this article is to catalogue the various interpretations.

CABE Guidance In recent years there is only one publication that has attempted to deal specifically with the subject of masterplanning - Creating successful masterplans: a guide for clients. . This, therefore, will be the starting point.

It was originally published in 2004 and has recently been updated. It sees masterplans as strategies for physical, economic and social change, emphasising that they are not blueprints for development but show how places can work for the better in the future and what needs to be coordinated and controlled to achieve this over time. It takes the phrase spatial masterplan as the heading of a "conventional" definition: "to set out proposals for buildings, spaces, movement strategy and land use in three dimensions and match these proposals to a delivery strategy", and explains that this means a drawn plan, supported by financial, economic and social policy documents and detail about how the plan will be delivered.

It sets out some key themes inherent to masterplanning:
 * coverage of a wide range of spatial scales: from city-scale masterplans to groups of buildings across a single development;
 * long time scales - perhaps decades;
 * focus on important relationships and principles rahter than detail, which can be left to future designers;
 * balance between control with flexibility, allowing for a combination of instruction (what must happen) and guidance (what should happen).
 * integration of different themes and motives – political, economic, environmental, social, cultural – and help to deal with multiple parties having an interest in the future of a place over time.
 * importance of identifying the most enduring elements of place. Some aspects can change regularly over time others by contrast can last hundreds, perhaps thousands of years.

Influence of Urban Task Force (UTF) Perhaps the most influential piece of work that has governed the way in which masterplanning has been carried out during the last decade was Towards an Urban Renaissance (UTF, 1999) It introduced and advocated the “spatial masterplan” which was a step change from the (then) system of two dimensional zoning plans (p.73). It set out some considerations, mostly design issues (p.74), and essentially this has been the basis of most masterplanning since.

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