"City Constructor" (Form-Based Codes) and Its Implementation in the Urban Environment of Kharkiv

The article discusses an approach to the development of the city, which is based on the so-called "city constructors" or "form-based codes". It represents the normatively fixed rules for shaping, architectural design, object filling of individual zones in the form of ready-made, pre-developed fragments of the urban environment. The evolution of the development of this approach from ancient cities to the 1960s-1980s is considered. It was revealed that the city designer helps to follow a clear urban development strategy, contributes to the creation of a high-quality urban environment with minimal means, and leads to a guaranteed practical result and capitalization of territories. Methods of introducing such an approach to the urban environment of Kharkiv in the framework of the implementation of an integrated urban strategy are proposed: “designer of urban spaces”, “designer of streets” and “designer of courtyards”. Two directions are proposed for the formation of a "designer of urban spaces". The first one: it is necessary to conduct a series of design seminars and workshops to determine the format of an urban designer, a list of code documents required for the development of subsections and formation of the composition of the working group, which will continue to develop the "city constructor". The second direction of work on the “constructor” should be a series of design seminars,competitions, with the obligatory active involvement of local residents in the process. These project seminars should be aimed at revitalizing individual courtyard areas of the city. For the fruitful implementation of such participatory projects, it is necessary to develop online applications that will facilitate the involvement of representatives of different social groups in the creative process. The article also suggests ways of introducing such an approach for the strategic development of the urban environment of Kharkov and reveals two main advantages of the “city constructor”. The first one: in the case of developing the city as a constructor, we get a step-by-step and strategic search for effective solutions to form a table of city elements (types of streets, squares, buildings and structures). The second advantage is that by developing a set of elements, rules and recommendations, we have an effective system that allows you to improve the city quickly, without the constant involvement of professionals. Even if such a system is used by an ordinary person, then a result of sufficient quality is always guaranteed.