Rules · Cities · Façades · Theory
Treat the largest mass the zoning law allows as a block to be sculpted: cut it into setbacks that give usable, well-lit floors, and gather the remaining height into a tower that ends in a crown.
Ferriss’s drawings showed the envelope first as a single smooth mass, then as terraced steps, then as a finished building. Architects adopted his vision wholesale: the set-back masses of the late 1920s are handled as solid, almost geological forms, with vertical piers and recessed windows running up each tier to stress height, and the crowns (stepped, spired or gilded) made into the building’s sign on the skyline.
Treat a tall office building as base, shaft and top: an open, accessible ground storey for shops and entrances; an indefinite stack of identical office floors expressed as one; and a distinct attic that closes the composition.
base (1–2 storeys) + shaft (n identical storeys) + attic
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.
street wall H₀ = k × street width (k = 1 … 2½) · above it, 1 m back for every 2k m up
Over one quarter of the lot area, a tower may rise to any height, free of the setback planes.
tower footprint ≤ 25% of lot area · height unlimited
Lay the whole island out in a single rectangular grid regardless of the ground: avenues 100 ft wide running its length, cross streets 60 ft wide across it, and blocks 200 ft deep between them, the houses to be straight-sided and right-angled because such houses are cheapest to build and most convenient to live in.
avenue 100 ft (30 m) · street 60 ft (18 m) · block 200 ft (61 m) deep, 600–900 ft long
Divide the city into residence, business and unrestricted districts, and admit to each only the uses that belong there, so that lofts and factories cannot invade the shopping streets and houses.
Cite this page Chris Paton, “Carve the building out of the envelope”, The Textbook of Architecture, https://textbookofarchitecture.com/rule/ferriss-carved-envelope. Text, drawings and models licensed under CC BY-NC 4.0.