Working at different scales

Scale refers to a relationship of size. In the built environment, “scale” not only refers to the relationship between actual size and the size of the drawing that we have just discussed, but to the relative size of the projects that we design. In the city, spatial design professionals are always designing in relation to the same complex network of interrelated systems, but at different scales. The idea of scale does not apply to size as much as to how each profession defines the outline within which the next profession works, although there are many overlaps and blurred edges.

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Urban planners and town planners work at the largest scale, considering the relationships between areas and defining the zones in which different types of development should happen. They draw the outlines that other spatial designers colour in.

Urban designers start to design the precincts defined by the Urban Planners, defining exactly where different types of buildings, public open spaces and roads should go, but they do not necessarily design these.

Within this design framework, Landscape architects design the public open spaces and the open spaces that contain buildings. The architects design the actual buildings, and the interior architects design the detail of spaces inside these buildings.

One can also look at these nested scales in relation to the numbers of people who are influenced by their decisions. In the case study of the Gautrain project that we are going to examine, the professions that we are considering working at the following scales:

Gautrain project: professions and their working scale
Region	9 million people	Urban Planning
City	2 million people	Urban Planner/ Urban Designer/ Landscape Architect
Neighbourhood	5000 people	Urban Planner/ Urban Designer/ Landscape Architect
City Block	250 -500 people	Urban Design/ Landscape Architect/ Architect
Site/Building	75 people	Landscape Architect/ Architect/ Interior Designer