Looking for an inventory of street design

November 4, 2011 6:25 AM

Lost Website Filter: I have a vague memory of a website with an inventory of urban street design options. It had photos and commentary on T-intersections, streets with curves, streets with Big Fancy Buildings framed in arches or gates... an organized collection focused on the aesthetic feel of urban design from the street level. It talked about street design almost like interior design — using buildings to create 'rooms' on the street that could feel expansive or intimate.

I feel like it was an older website, because it was designed like something you would find in the late 90s (but some new websites are designed like that too!). I might remember long lists of text links. You could click through to a page with a dark (?) background with an illustrative photo and a bit of text about it. You could click through a bunch of examples that were all variations on a theme, with commentary about the effect of the variations on the experience of someone on the street.

I would also be interested in other websites that show the different layouts possible in the urban fabric and their effect at street level.

posted by heatherann to grab bag (3 answers total)

StreetSections?
posted by stopgap at 7:43 AM on November 4, 2011

It's not StreetSections, though that is an interesting site!

Rather than detailing where the photo was taken, it was specifically about the urban form details. The captions were more like "This tight corner creates a closed intimate space that is reinforced by the archway inviting pedestrians in." And then you would click next and it would say "This tight corner also creates an intimate space, but the lack of an archway makes it look like a dead end rather than a cohesive 'room' as in the previous example."

Or something! That was the spirit of it. I saw this site so many years ago and my memory of it is vague.

Here's hoping it wasn't lost in the Great Geocities Purge!
posted by heatherann at 8:02 AM on November 4, 2011

I found it! I finally stumbled onto the search term "urban morphology" and it led me to the jackpot: The principles of city design in words and pictures

Here is the series of photos about closed spaces that I referenced in my previous comment.

Hooray!
posted by heatherann at 2:12 PM on November 4, 2011 [2 favorites]