The Textbook of Architecture

The Cabinet of Models

The zoning envelope

New York’s 1916 zoning resolution: a street wall limited to a multiple of the street width, planes sloping back from the street centre, and a tower of any height on a quarter of the lot.

The zoning envelope Open in Models ↗

Illustrates: Art Deco

The rules it illustrates

Setbacks behind a sloping plane. At the street line a building may rise to a multiple of the street’s width; above that it must stay behind a plane drawn from the centre of the street, stepping back as it rises.

A tower on a quarter of the lot. Over one quarter of the lot area, a tower may rise to any height, free of the setback planes.

Where it appears in the book

In the styles Art Deco.

In the chapters The Modern Movement.

The terms it shows

Wedding cake · Zoning envelope