Site Analysis and the Blank Map#
SLOP2418 — Urban Design Studio
Week 1 · Marisol Quaye · 22 February 2027
direct readout · derived measure · worked hypothetical
How this studio works#
- One student, one save file, one district, Weeks 1 to 12.
- Everyone builds on the same site: the standard map issued today.
- Twelve lectures, twelve studio sessions, three assessed pin-ups with a jury.
- Assessed submissions include screenshots, a memo and the save. Week 1 uploads an untouched archive and a one-page site report.
- The software of record is Cities: Skylines II. No simulation-altering mods, no unlimited money, no unlock-all.
Survey before plan#
Survey before plan.
— the dictum associated with Patrick Geddes, Cities in Evolution (1915); not a verbatim line from the text, but the working principle it argues for
Today’s session ends with a site report and no roads.
What “good” has meant before#
Lynch’s five dimensions of good city form, with the two meta-criteria, set as a list:
- vitality — the settlement sustains the biology of its inhabitants
- sense — it can be perceived and structured in the mind
- fit — its spaces match the behaviours people actually perform
- access — people, goods and information can reach what they need
- control — those who use a space have some say over it
- and across all five: efficiency and justice
Kevin Lynch, Good City Form (1981).
Three metrics#
fiscal performance mobility performance livability
Every lecture. Every studio session. Every criterion on every mark sheet.
Fiscal performance#
Fiscal performance — whether the district can pay for what it has built, and keep paying as it grows.
- Read it in: the economy panel’s monthly balance; the service budget sliders and the per-service expenditure lines beneath them; road and building upkeep; outstanding loans and their repayments; the tax rates set per zone type and per resource.
- The jury asks: what does this district cost per month at the service level you are claiming, who pays that, and what does the number do when the population you have zoned for actually arrives?
Mobility performance#
Mobility performance — whether people and goods complete their trips at an acceptable cost in time, at the hour the trips are actually made.
- Read it in: the traffic info view’s flow and volume overlays; the road-level traffic readout; public transport line passenger counts, vehicle loads and stop waiting times; the path taken by a selected citizen or delivery vehicle when you follow it.
- The jury asks: for one named origin and one named destination in your district, how long is that trip at the morning peak, by which mode, and what is the second-best mode when the first one is full?
Livability#
Livability — whether the place is worth being in for the people already there, independent of how many more arrive.
- Read it in: citizen well-being and health figures; the happiness readout on individual buildings; the land value overlay; the service coverage overlays — health, education, parks, police, fire, garbage, mail; and the four pollution overlays — ground, air, noise and water.
- The jury asks: name the worst-served block in your district, say what it is short of, and say what you chose to spend the money on instead.
How the three are read, and where they are marked#
- All three are read over time, not at a moment. A screenshot is evidence of a state; the studio marks a trend.
- Take every reading at the same in-game hour. The studio convention is 08:00, and the memo says which hour the reading was taken at.
- Where two metrics conflict, name which one you traded and why. A plan that claims all three must account for costs and who benefited.
| Assessment | Due | Weight | fiscal | mobility | livability |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. Neighbourhood Unit Plan | Week 4 | 25% | 30 | 30 | 40 |
| 2. Public Realm & Infrastructure Plan | Week 9 | 25% | 30 | 25 | 45 |
| 3. Comprehensive City Plan | Week 12 | 50% | holistic | holistic | holistic |
McHarg’s layers, and where they live#
| McHarg layer | Read it in | What it constrains |
|---|---|---|
| Slope and drainage | Terrain and contour display, water info view | Road cost, pipe gradient, what can be zoned at all |
| Surface hydrology | Water info view, river flow direction | Where the intake goes, and where the outflow cannot |
| Prevailing wind | Wind arrows, inside the air pollution view | Which ground is downwind of which |
| Soils and extractives | Natural resources info view — fertile land, ore, forest, oil | What building on the ground forfeits |
| Existing access | Outside connections — highway, rail, ship, air | The first cost of reaching the site at all |
The site: Kerrow Basin#
Gold is what the site gives. Black is what somebody drew.
Kerrow Basin in Lynch’s five terms#
| Lynch term | On this site |
|---|---|
| Path | The highway spur south from Dunthorpe; the rail line along the terrace |
| Edge | The River Kerrow; the break of slope at the foot of Verrall Ridge |
| District | Halstead Reach, Verrall Ridge, Ombersley Flats |
| Node | Dunthorpe interchange; Thackray Cut, where every westward route must pass |
| Landmark | The ridge crest itself, visible from every part of the basin floor |
Four places the first road could go#
| Ground | Fiscal read | Mobility read | Livability read |
|---|---|---|---|
| Halstead Reach | Cheapest to build and service; forfeits fertile soil under everything you zone | 1.2 km to Dunthorpe; rail already alongside | Flat, unremarkable, upwind of nothing and downwind of nothing |
| Verrall Ridge shelf | 4.1 km of road including the climb; water pumped uphill; ore sterilised under any housing | Every trip runs through Thackray Cut | Long views, quiet air, the highest land-value ceiling on the map |
| Ombersley Flats | Cheap ground, flood exposure, remote from the interchange | Longest haul to every outside connection | Downwind and downstream of the whole basin |
| Thackray Cut | Not a settlement; a piece of infrastructure with a price | The only westward crossing of the ridge | Nothing lives there |
The tradeoff of the week#
Halstead Reach buys fiscal performance. Verrall Ridge buys livability. There is no version of this map on which one road buys both.
- Reach: about 1.2 km of new road to the interchange, no lift on the water network, service coverage from a single point reaching most of the first settlement.
- Ridge: about 4.1 km of new road on gradient, water lifted roughly 90 m, two service points to cover the same population.
- Both numbers are monthly, and both appear in the economy panel from the first month, not at the end of the semester.
The value was in the ground first#
The value of land is created by the community, not by the owner of it.
— the argument of Henry George, Progress and Poverty (1879)
- Land value on this map rises around the things the district paid for collectively — the roads, the services, the parks — and not around the buildings sitting on it.
- So a site decision is a revenue decision, and it is made in Week 1 whether or not it is noticed in Week 1.
Monday’s studio#
- Load the standard map. Do not regenerate it. Do not open the road tool.
- Produce a one-page site report: the five McHarg layers, one screenshot each, and one sentence per layer on what it rules out.
- Name your first settlement area and state the tradeoff you are making in the form used on Slide 14 — which metric you bought, which you paid with.
- Save as
<student ID>-w01and put a copy somewhere that is not the machine you built it on. - Monday studio 13:00–16:00, Studio 2.14. Upload the untouched save and report by 21:00.