Aylesbury Vale Area Design Supplementary Planning Document
C Glossary
Accessibility- The ability of people to move around an area and to reach places and facilities, including elderly and disabled people, and those with young children.
Active frontage - Refers to street frontages where there is an active visual engagement between those in the street and those on the ground and upper floors of buildings.
Building line - The line formed by the frontages of buildings along a street or space.
Bulk - The combined effect of the arrangement, volume and shape of a building or group of buildings. Also called massing.
Character assessment- An area appraisal identifying distinguishing physical features and emphasising historical and cultural associations.
Coarse grain – refer to urban grain – the areas pattern is coarse grain where the street blocks, street junctions and spaces between buildings tend to be large.
Context - The setting of a site or area, including factors such as traffic, activities and land uses as well as landscape and built form.
Defensible space – Space around a building that is defensible in the sense that it is surveyed, demarcated and maintained by somebody.
Density - The floorspace of a building or buildings or some other unit measure in relation to a given area of land. Built density is expressed in number of dwellings per hectare (for residential development) in this guide.
Desire line - An imaginary line directly linking facilities or places which people find convenient to travel between easily.
Distinctiveness - The positive features of a place and its communities which contribute to its special character and sense of place
Elevation - The facade of a building, or the drawing of a façade.
Enclosure -The use of buildings to create a sense of defined space.
Fenestration - The arrangement of windows on a facade.
Fine grain- refer to urban grain – the areas pattern is fine grain where the streets and spaces are tight knit and feature narrower building frontages, smaller blocks and more frequent junctions.
Human scale - Development which relates well in size and design to an individual human being and is assembled in a way which makes people feel comfortable rather than overwhelmed.
Landmark - A building or physical feature that stands out from its background by virtue of height, size or some other aspect of design.
Layout - The way buildings, routes and open spaces are placed in relation to each other.
Legibility - The degree to which a place can be easily understood and navigated.
Massing - The combined effect of the height, bulk and silhouette of a building or group of buildings.
Natural surveillance- The discouragement of anti- social activity by the presence of passers-by or the ability of people to be seen out of surrounding windows. Also known as passive surveillance.
Node - A place where activity and routes are concentrated often used as a synonym for junction.
Permeability- The degree to which an area has a variety of pleasant, convenient and safe routes through it.
Public art- Permanent or temporary physical work of art visible to the general public, whether part of a building or free-standing: can include sculpture, lighting effects, street furniture, paving, railings and signs.
Public realm - The parts of a village, town or city (whether publicly or privately owned) that are available, without charge, for everyone to use or, see, including streets, squares and parks.
Scale - The impression of a building when seen in relation to its surroundings, or the size of parts of a building or its details, particularly as experienced in relation to the size of a person (also refer to 'human scale'). Sometimes it is the total dimensions of a building which give it its sense of scale; at other times it is the size of the elements and the way they are combined.
Settlement pattern - The distinctive way that the roads, paths and buildings are laid out in a particular place.
Sight line - Lines of clear, uninterrupted sight from a viewer's location to other locations and distances.
Strategic view - The line of sight from a particular point to an important landmark or skyline.
Street furniture - Structures in and adjacent to the highway which contribute to the streetscape, such as bus shelters, litter bins, seating, lighting, railings and signs.
Streetscape - The visual character of a street space that results from the combination of street width, curvature, paving, street furniture, plantings and the surrounding built form and detail. The people and activities present in the street also contribute to the streetscape.
Sustainability- Meeting the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their needs.
Traffic calming - Measures taken to slow or reduce vehicle traffic and improve safety for pedestrians and cyclists.
Topography - The physical shape, form and surface configuration of an area including the slope of the land and features such as rivers.
Urban design - The art of making places. Urban design involves the design of buildings, groups of buildings, spaces and landscapes, in villages, towns and cities, and the establishment of frameworks and processes which facilitate successful development.
Urban grain - The pattern of the arrangement and size of buildings and their plots in a settlement; and the degree to which an area's pattern of street- blocks and street junctions is respectively small and frequent, or large and infrequent.
Vernacular - The way in which ordinary buildings were built in a particular place making use of local styles, techniques and materials and responding to local economic and social conditions.
