Normative (or traditional) zoning has historically relied on two conditions: the regulation of land and the regulation of use. However, the interrelationship between land and use — the temporal conditions and processes that govern their fluctuations — is poorly suited to land use planning's predictive economic model. Flux Codes propose an instrumental layer of the zoning envelope that introduces time, ecological processes, and scenario-driven flexibility into land use regulation. Under the “flux code", the reductive nature of conventional land use would transition into a series of overlapping gradients of uses and conditions - eliciting a multifunctional and dynamic understanding of land use absent from current regulation.

The code is broken into a matrix composed of three segments: 1) Landscape / Land-form 2) Land Use, and 3) Variable (Density / Flooding ). Land uses and building typologies are then arranged along an axis of Flexibility from "Dynamic" (such as wetlands) to "Static" (such as airports), and from "Wet" to "Dry" along a gradient of flooding variability.