As roadmaps for urban development, master plans have significant limitations. Such plans typically disregard the potential for change (economic, market demand, etc.) over the often-lengthy period of their projected build-out. As an alternative approach, can strategies be devised to ensure larger goals will be achieved without limiting the form that development takes along the way?

Urbanville starts a discussion of alternatives to master planning in the form of an iterative and generative process that enables communities to establish goals, set targets, and devise metrics by which to assess various approaches to transformation. This performance-based process enables targets to be met in a multitude of formal variations.

Vancouver's False Creek South neighbourhood is an ideal test case for this approach to urban design. As the city targets this neighbourhood for significant intensification, the process will help the community establish values and agree on performance standards by which to envision alternative futures.