Working Paper #514
Fused Grid Planning in a Canadian City
Fanis Grammenos · Chris Pidgeon
Architecture Canada Development Housing & Residential
A new planning model, the fused grid, was tested and applied in a small town in Canada. The fused grid represents a fusion of two traditional North American approaches to residential neighborhood planning: the traditional, 19th-century grid, and the curvilinear pattern of looped streets and cul-de-sacs of modern suburbia. The fused grid combines the connectedness and legibility of the normal grid with the land efficiency, tranquility, and safety of a conventional suburban plan. Its first application demonstrates that the fused grid is adaptable to a specific context without diminishing benefits. It also shows that there are no commonly accepted definitions for qualitative attributes of subdivision plans or recognized methods for measuring these attributes. The main lesson of this application is that it is possible to combine the advantages of both planning approaches without their disadvantages.