Urban Codes & Pattern Books

The Prince’s Foundation is leading a renaissance in the UK of the use of urban codes and pattern books as design tools.

A pattern book is an inventory of urban and architectural forms that identify the characteristics or ‘DNA’ of a place. Pattern books demonstrate a whole set of urban as well as built fabric patterns that impact on local architectural form. They seek to characterise key components of the urban form ranging from the scale and character of the various street and block typologies down to details of buildings including massing, scale, proportions and character.

Pattern book studies provide a useful framework for subsequent planning and design processes. They reinforce the character of a town or, in the case of green field development, deeply root a project in its regional urban context.

A town code is a design tool that translates the vision embodied in the town plan into practical instructions for building. It effectively sets out the design “language” of a place. An agreed set of rules and guidelines increases the certainty that the vision for the community will be realised, with benefits for all concerned.   

The code spans town-wide issues such as street design, landscape structure, building height and land use, through to more architectural elements such as the design of individual buildings, their relationship to the street and the way in which buildings are grouped in blocks.

The Prince’s Foundation has worked on the development of codes for
Coed Darcy (Llandarcy),
Upton,
Sherford and
Crewkerne, which is a winner in the neighbourhood category of the
     CNU Awards 2006.

Design Coding in the UK
At a Design Coding Session at the Congress for the New Urbanism XV, Hank Dittmar, Ben Bolgar and Senior Fellow Paul Murrain presented a joint session at the Philadelphia CNU, May 2007. The session focused on design coding in the United Kingdom, and upon the town code for Sherford.

Design Coding in the UK: Presentation by Hank Dittmar [2.2 Mb]