Systems of Classification

I have been busily engaged for some weeks in the mammoth task of making a map of all the uses in the vicinity of Tottenham Hale, according to the system of use classes which structures our planning system in the UK. This was inspired by out discussion with Liza yesterday, who had mapped the buildings identified by Dalston residents as 'important', and defined their 'use class' according to the Dewey Decimal System.


This is a very interesting idea. A couple of weeks ago, I tested a system where I equated the planning use classes with something a little intangible - 'levels of socialness' ie. the amount which each type of building facilitates people being sociable with one another. For example, in my 'levels of socialness' scale, offices are the most social place. So, the [simplified] use classes look like this:

A1: shops
A2: services (estate agents, hairdressers, laundrettes, taxi firms and beauty parlours)
A3: restaurants and cafés
A4: drinking establishments
A5: hot food takeaways
B1: businesses (offices, light industry), general industrial, storage and distribution, including scrapyards
D1: non-residential institutions (schools, libraries, surgeries)
D2: assembly and leisure (theatres, cinemas, swimming baths, gymnasiums, theatres, nightclubs)

And the re-arranged use-classes according to 'socialness' look like this: 

B1: businesses (offices, light industry), general industrial, storage and distribution, including scrapyards

D1: non-residential institutions (schools, libraries, surgeries)

A3: restaurants and cafés

A4: drinking establishments

A2: services (estate agents, hairdressers, laundrettes, taxi firms and beauty parlours)

D2: assembly and leisure (churches, theatres, cinemas, swimming baths, gymnasiums, theatres, nightclubs)

A1: shops
A5: hot food takeaways

Ignoring for the moment the obvious serious flaws in my classification (like, for example, the problem of groupings), re-classifying the categories makes the information look very different. For example, it starts to look as though the major routes are lined with the least sociable uses, although there are obviously further variables which are relevant, for example, people probably visit shops more often, but stay for much less time than they would visit a church.


So, perhaps it is an obvious thing to say, but the system of classification is very, very important. Again, it's obvious, but you cannot show shades of information for which there is no classification. This relates directly to the masterplan. The master cannot plan for classifications which don't exist, hence Muf's fantastically clever use of the Dewey decimal system, which has an almost endless number of subtle subcategories. The choice of categories also speaks volumes about the chooser. For example, I visit neither the gym nor the church, so to group these things together is unproblematic for me, in a way which I suspect would not sit comfortably with a regular user of both. The use classes themselves, as a system, define very particularly the kind of cities they allow to be planned,which is a fascinating idea.


As a next step, I am going to attempt to classify a street according to the Dewey Decimal system. Wish me luck!