The Center for Urban Pedagogy's latest tool provides an easy and fun way to explain a difficult but critical concept: floor area ratio.
Audrey Wachs shares news of a new tool created by the Center for Urban Pedagogy (CUP) to teach the developer lingo at the heart of planning processes.
The tool, "What Is FAR?" "helps users get savvy with developer lingo—particularly the concept Floor Area Ratio (as readers may know, FAR determines the height and bulk of buildings)," explains Wachs.
"What Is FAR?" is basically a game, allowing the user to interact and create by moving blocks around a 2,000-square-foot lot. Wachs explains more:
At first, the tool asks for a building with a FAR of 1—a one-story building that fills the entire 20-by-100-foot parcel.
Using the same number of blocks, players can re-mass the structure to create a new building—also with a FAR of 1.
This is not CUP's first such interactive tool—the group and it's partners previously released a toolkit called "What Is Zoning?"
Read the full story: A new tool teaches NYC developer lingo by making you an all-powerful urban planner
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