Design Transect Concept
Excerpt from Town of Marana Parks, Recreation, Trails and Open Space 5 Year Update and Strategic Plan:
There are patterns and forms of development that allow us to identify the prevailing character of a place as more or less “rural”, or “urban.” In the American West, where wide open spaces can still be found, one can typically see the whole range of gradients as one travels from the outside of a city to its downtown center. Abrupt changes from one type of environment to another are rare, and development that introduces such changes are usually seen as being inappropriate, and “out of place.” To observe the more or less gradual pattern of change along a linear path in this way is to see the environment as a “transect,” which is where the Transect Planning concept takes its name. Transect-oriented planning stems from recognition that the surrounding context of a place is important, and that this diverse range of environments are valued precisely for their differences – people choose to live in the city or visit the countryside because of the characteristics that make them distinct from one another. It is an approach that seeks to explicitly identify the physical forms and patterns of development that communicate this character, and to provide strategies such as “form-based codes” for consciously
shaping and locating new development in such a way that it either maintains or transforms the existing character of a place. The constructed features in parks and recreation facilities should likewise be responsive to surrounding character, while also enhancing recognition of the community identity unique to Marana. Our team has chosen a simplified transect-based model of organization – spanning “urban, suburban, and rural.” To identify which general areas to include in each “design transect,” we produced a map representing a synthesis of: existing development character; areas where land uses are planned to occur; measures of relative population density; and traditional transect hierarchy. Using GIS to overlay maps representing these factors over recent aerial imagery resulted in the map on the facing page(figure x). The boundaries of each transect are intentionally generalized, as this method lacks the precision necessary to apply to specific parcels, and aesthetic judgments of context and where and how transitions between areas of design character should occur.
