A Design System for Residential Development
Tada: Los Angeles County Residential Design Standards!
Approved
When I initially went back to school for planning, I was interested in having some tangible impact on housing and my local community. And even though I’m back at ArcTouch now, I still have a soft spot in my heart for my planning side quest from the past few years.
So, I was delighted to discover that the main project I worked on as a planner at Gruen Associates was finally approved last month, according to a few little press releases I found in some local news outlets.
The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors has unanimously voted to approve a new ordinance that will implement design standards for residential and mixed-use construction projects across all 42 of the county’s unincorporated communities. — Pasadena Now
I guess it’s not exactly front-page news, but I think it’s wild that this thing we worked on is like an official legal ordinance now. Developers and architects must adhere to these standards when building new residential units in all unincorporated Los Angeles County. And these structures will likely be around for decades. 😳 It’s a bit more permanent than the digital products I focus on lately.
See the entire document (including the draft user guide starting on page 255).
As I mentioned, California passed a bunch of laws to require standards as a way to speed up housing production. Theoretically, having a straightforward menu of objective and measurable standards should make it faster for housing projects to get approved without going through lengthy review processes.
Designing Systems
In the product design world, everyone’s all about design systems these days. Even though these residential design standards have nothing to do with interfaces, I think of them as a generative design system, too.
We created these rules and requirements that codify “good design,” others have to interpret them and use them to build new things without you directly overseeing the result.
I think that’s the most exciting thing about designing systems. When done well, you get to step away and see it take on a life of its own. I guess it will take a few years to see how this one turns out.
Q: What are the boundaries of Design?
A: What are the boundaries of problems?
- From one of my favorite interviews with Eames.
(I’ve probably used it before but I just really love it)
