PL 413 Module 04: Fundamentals of Urban Design and Community Architecture - Graphics, Signs, and Symbols

Vocabulary flashcards covering Graphics for Urban Design presentation techniques, spatial analysis plan types, public participation stages, semiotics, safety colors, and road sign classifications.

Graphics for Urban Design (Meeda, Parkyn, Walton, 2007)

The seminal 2007 reference text by Baily Meeda, Neil Parkyn, and David Stuart Walton covering graphic techniques, media, and styles in urban design.

Graphic Style

A visual approach that attracts viewers and helps them engage with well-edited and structured information.

Conceptual Presentation Technique

A presentation technique used to express strong, provisional, or unresolved ideas using cartoons, visual sound bites, painted artwork, or mood boards.

Analytical Presentation Technique

A presentation technique that identifies problems and solutions by displaying behavior and activity data as visual images rather than numbers or text.

Measurable Presentation Technique

A two-dimensional, dimensioned presentation technique that provides precise data and an accurate baseline for detailed design.

Perceptual Presentation Technique

A presentation technique that illustrates how a proposed design looks and feels using eye-level or aerial perspective realism.

Visual Consistency

A strong graphic identity that conveys energy and continuity across project stages by coordinating sketches, base-maps, and final illustrations.

Strategic Context

The broadest scale in site location (e.g., Greater Reading) showing regional transport links, patterns of urban development, and geographical features.

Local Context

An intermediate scale in site location (e.g., Central Reading) displaying transport links, local route hierarchies, urban density, scale, rivers, and main green spaces.

Site Context

The most detailed site location scale (e.g., Reading railway station) mapping precise boundaries against roads, footpaths, buildings, and plots.

Contextual Appraisal

An analysis of the physical form and history of a site's surroundings to reinforce character, identify compromising elements, and highlight opportunities for adaptation or replacement.

Figure-ground Plan

A spatial analysis plan derived from a map base that depicts solids (built form) in solid color against voids (open space and the public realm).

Nolli Plan

A spatial analysis plan that portrays private spaces in solid color and public spaces in white, including accessible building interiors such as churches and courtyards.

Character Areas Plan

A spatial analysis plan illustrating distinct urban areas and broad urban grain using keyed categories, annotations, and transitional or buffer zones.

Landmarks and Monuments Plan

A spatial analysis plan using signs and symbols exaggerated in scale to identify the location and hierarchy of significant focal points.

Designated Areas Plan

A spatial plan showing zones earmarked for protection, preservation, management, or restoration using definitive boundary lines, tone, texture, or pattern.

Views Plan

A spatial analysis plan that illustrates lines of visibility, view corridors, and protected panorama vantage points.

Listed Buildings Plan

A spatial plan indicating structures protected for architectural or historic interest, rendered in solid bold color (typically red) and graded by listing status.

Historic Evolution Plan

A plan showing a sequence of historic maps (such as Ordnance Survey maps) digitally superimposed on a common base and scale to analyze physical change over time.

Pedestrian Movement Plan

A spatial analysis plan recording where people move and stop across different time periods, user categories, or before-and-after project interventions.

Spatial Accessibility Analysis

A spatial plan that analyzes the relative accessibility influencing pedestrian, cyclist, and vehicular movement across an urban network.

Unlinks

Points in a spatial accessibility network where streets or walkways cross over or under each other without physically intersecting.

Radar Chart (Star/Spider Graph)

A statistical graphic used to compare multiple data sets simultaneously across several variables.

Initial Engagement (Public Participation)

The first public participation stage characterized by soft, accessible graphics, flyers, and posters that present issues, choices, and flexibility rather than finalized solutions.

Workshops (Public Participation)

The second public participation stage where trained facilitators use standardized base-maps, models, and cards to help non-professionals explore and aggregate ideas.

Preliminary Proposals (Public Participation)

The third public participation stage presenting synthesized ideas with a 'work in progress' feel and familiar professional conventions for public and stakeholder testing.

Storyboard (Urban Design)

A structured sequence of photos, diagrams, sketches, and cartoons used to identify core themes and build a project rationale.

Option Testing

The comparative evaluation of design alternatives using consistent, informal graphics to illustrate open space, traffic circulation, land uses, and construction phasing.

Semiotics

The study of signs and symbols and their use and interpretation in communication.

Safety Color Red

The safety color designated for Fire, Danger, and Stop.

Safety Color Yellow

The safety color designated for Caution.

Safety Color Orange

The safety color designated for Warning.

Safety Color Green

The safety color designated for Safety First.

Safety Color Blue

The safety color designated for Notice.

Mandatory Signs

A sign family setting obligations for traffic in a specific area (what traffic MUST DO), usually circular with a white symbol on a blue background or a black symbol on white with a red border.

Prohibition Signs

A sign family prohibiting behavior likely to cause health or safety risks, featuring a black symbol inside a red circle with a diagonal cross.

Warning Signs (Sign Family)

A yellow sign family alerting users to potential hazards, obstacles, or conditions that require special attention.

Safety Signs

A sign family displaying instructions on physical safety posted on walls, doors, machinery, products, or floors using symbols, text, or both.

Danger Signs

A sign family indicating a life-threatening hazard, identified by the word 'DANGER' inside a red oval positioned inside a black rectangle.

Octagon (Road Sign Shape)

A road sign shape indicating the need to stop, used exclusively for the STOP sign.

Upside-down Triangle (Road Sign Shape)

A triangular road sign shape pointing downward that always signifies 'Yield'.

Pennant (Road Sign Shape)

A horizontal, pointed triangular road sign shape that warns drivers of no-passing zones.

Diamond (Road Sign Shape)

A four-sided road sign shape that always warns of possible hazards ahead.

Pentagon (Road Sign Shape)

A five-sided road sign shape indicating a school zone ahead or approaching school crossing.

Round (Road Sign Shape)

A circular road sign shape designated specifically for railroad signs.

Fluorescent Yellow/Green (Road Sign Color)

A road sign color reserved specifically for pedestrian crossings and school zones.

Coral (Road Sign Color)

A road sign color designated specifically for incident management signs.

Brown (Road Sign Color)

A road sign color indicating guidance to sites of public recreation or cultural interest.