PROGRAM AND CONTINUITY. While the logic of packing the program is made apparent in the prior posting, what must follow is a translation from raw area calculations (expressed as blocks) to infrastructural form. Insomuch as different programs have different street requirements (and different continuities), a calculation must be made as to the number and type of switch that exists today in the Fifth Ward. From this tally it is possible to generate a ratio of area to switch for each program area. This is further broken down into switch type. This ratio allows us to extract ratios from the existing Fifth Ward situation, and to apply them, with modification, to New Town. The calculations expressed in the table above left are simple. To take one example, seventy percent of a residential area is covered with intersections. Subtracting from the total, 30% of the Fifth Ward residential area is open. Of the total number of intersections, 42% are four-way, 22% are three-way, 3% are two-way and 3% are 1-way. These ratios are calculated for all program areas and listed in the table above. The table shows an enormous variation in the continuity of each program area. This variation will be directly incorporated into the form of the New Town.
GRAPHIC DISTRIBUTION. This crucial translation from the switch/area ratios to infrastructural form is graphically demonstrated in the distribution chart above right. Looking again at the residential area, the chart shows 70% of the square covered with switches which are subsequently broken down by color following the ratios calculated on the table to the left. A quick glance at the chart shows, not only the wide variation revealed by the numbers, but also the relative continuity of any given area as shown by the overall size of the block related to the number of high continuity to low continuity switches. This programmatic switch ratio allows us to extract ratios from any existing situation, and to apply them to any area of any size, old or new. With regards to designing the New Town, the distribution is the first of a three step process shown in the diagram center left.
SWITCH INTEGRATION. This crucial translation from the switch/area ratios to infrastructural form requires two more steps that are demonstrated in the charts shown above. The preceding distribution chart treated the ratios as data that cannot be translated directly into form. For example, the row of one-way switches shown in each distribution cannot be directly translated into form because dead end streets arranged side-by-side makes no sense. There are formal relations between switches that demand specific arrangements be observed. These relations are expressed in the integration chart shown above left. In the residential area, the obvious relation between four-way and three-way switches easily place the former in the center and the later at the edge. There are indeed, other patterns of the residential distribution than the one depicted in the chart and the number of possible variations grow with other program ratios. This variability is an important aspect of the procedure insomuch as it allows for both flexibility and difference to be manifest in the design process.
TABLE OF FRAGMENTS. Following the integration of the switches, there is a final step: a graphic transcription that is demonstrated in the diagram shown above right. Translating the integrated points back into a linear pattern produces a table of programmatic fragments that visually present the present continuities of the various Fifth Ward Programs. While these are not literal plans of street grids, these fragments exist within the domain of form available to design. These configurations substitute a distribution ratio based on a continuity index for the fixed forms that traditionally dominate urban development. No longer bound to static, typological forms, a complexity adequate to our urban ambitions is attained without recourse to past forms such as the gridiron. The assembly of these flexible programmatic fragments constitutes a second stage in the integration process.
SUB-GRID. A street pattern emerges based upon the ASSEMBLY of grid fragments generated from the programmatic continuities. No fragment is an island. Fragments must be made to connect with adjacent fragments in a puzzle-like procedure of combination and recombination. Rather than being specified as forms, the fragments are specified by the ratio established for each program. This provides a great amount of flexibility in the manipulation of each fragment as it is linked into other fragments to arrive at an overall configuration. The overall configuration shown here is one of many possible configurations based on these programmatic continuities.
Finally translating the arrangement of points back into a line pattern brings the processing of switch continuity full-circle. The continuities that exist in the Fifth Ward have been quantified, abstracted and reconfigured into the New Town plan.
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