Falk-U (University) - Design Terms - “Fine Grain”

The term “fine grain” is used to describe smaller lot sizes in a city. It is typically a desirable trait in that it breaks up the land ownership up more. This allows for more people to be property owners and reduces the cost of ownership. More property owners reduces the consequences to the neighborhood/city associated with one larger property owner not having a tenant for long periods of time or allowing his/her property to fall in disrepair.

The opposite of this is “course grain”. Course grain often happens with large development projects. Often times entire city blocks are redeveloped and as part of that redevelopment the city block loses its scale and first level retail businesses.

An in-between of “fine grain” and “course grain” is “faux fine grain”. Faux fine grain is often massive development with the first floor spaces broken up to resemble fine grain and rented to small businesses.

We’re a fan of “fine grain”, though it seems it is becoming more rare. Developers typically want to scale their projects up to maximize profits. If large scale is necessary, it is important to incorporate “faux fine grain” design principals in the first level spaces.

“Granularity” is used to describe something that is made up of smaller elements, and 'granularity' is how small or large those elements are. Read a full article on this concept:

Read more: http://andrewalexanderprice.com/blog20151021.php#.XwsWQ59Onqt