The reading defines and shows the basis of urbanism. It reflects the present urban condition in different dimensions. Its Graphical location and background along with its corporal size make of any land an urban site. Leonardo De Vinci’s sketch and the Palmanova plan can clearly exemplify site limits and scales adopted by designers and by that, the importance of site being linked to the area surrounding it rather than creating divisions of simple enclosing, can be concluded. In other words, the merge of set of dynamic functions at urban sites with spatial networks create an indispensible interaction between both within extensive processes. Familiarity with the site is represented by its construction and the former is generated from analyzing and understanding construction forms schematized by the designers.

Five concepts that are made to include urban design into a relational constructs frame fall within Urban site thinking. First, there is the Mobile Ground concept that describes the space of succession, slippage and continual revolution, involves constructive forms and focuses on frame urban relations. Based on this concept, boundaries and images of the site are not fixed, yet can shift, bend, and flex. The second concept, Site Reach, measures the interaction between a confined place and its urban surroundings in terms of level of interaction, extent and range. Within this concept, the operational and spatial extension of the associations and connections that link the site to other external surrounding places, are expressed. Moreover, site construction, which is the activity implementing design agendas and emphasizing the different urban orders and logistics before designing, stands to be the third concept of urban site thinking. It also characterizes the city as being delusionary containable or controllable. As for the fourth concept, the unbound sites, examinates site boundaries as open configurations based on various forms and forces of determination. Accordingly, the definition of site boundary becomes separated from the perception of ownership and property. Finally the fifth concept, that includes putting together the knowledge of larger-scale special logics, is the urban constellation; where constellations express the variables that reinforce understandings of a site. Through this concept, designers can, using multiple contextual frames in which any specific place can be viewed, locate their urban sites.
To a certain extent, these five concepts are not only made to put urban design within the frame of relational constructs as mentioned previously, but also can clearly pinpoint the differences between urban design sites and architectural ones.

The site, in the first characterization, plays a dynamic role in a building as being a base for materials and energy needed for construction and it is, in the second characterization, the repository for building materials and energy brought in far afield. It is after all, considered to be a mutually dependent scheme that brings together intrinsic and extrinsic resources. In addition, the description of a site has evolved through three different eras:
1^st during prehistory and continuing till today
2^nd at the beginning of industrialization and modernism
3^rd at the beginning of the present time and is characterized according to developed economies as postindustrial

Prior to industrialization, when transportation was difficult and costly, when the energy and fuel for construction were limited, and when construction material such as stone, wood, glass, and concrete were present in nature, material needed in building were brought from near-to-building lot areas. Back then, the cost of material was superior to labor costs. Consequently, this manner of construction divided the economical pattern into two societies:
1. Circular consumptions, or what is called interlocking wholes
2. Vernacular buildings, which includes connecting places and human artifacture

Later on, during the 19^th century, as new technologies and materials evolved in construction and architecture, the site became a depository of material and energy for building. As such, the new technologies caused changes in urbanization, transportation, mechanization and the factory system. Meanwhile, the new material developed to change the basic traditional construction material and became to include new categories such as reinforced plastics, and new adhesives and alloys. As for machinery, advances in technology developed new machinery for heating, ventilating buildings, and cooling. In parallel, Le Corbusier’s examined the mechanical and environmental dimensions that were discussed in his “Machines a Habiter” concept. All these advances in technology, caused buildings to become more technological in terms of using mechanical systems rather than fabric structure. Moreover, “appropriate technology” was favored over sophisticated “state-of-the-art” equipment in high performance design. Accordingly, building, on site, is no more considered as being an object yet a set of interrelated processes instead. This approach aimed to maximizing operational energy savings and limiting all possible environmental impacts.

High performance design that includes the state of art equipment consists of using less energy and material and limiting as much possible the impact on the environment. For this outcome to be met, all engineers, architects and designers of the building project have to cooperate in making sure that the high performance model meets ecological standards being simultaneously within the scale of building’s property, system and components.