Category — Architecture

Be sure to check these links:

• The New York Times Magazine published an architecture issue titled “The Next City.” It tackles questions such as why are sidewalks essential for democracy and can an instant city ever feel like the real thing?
• City Journal features a story about how New Orleans is rebuilding from the bottom up, and avoids the pitfalls of master planning.

Pray that the cities you love may never become the topic of a photo essay like this. (Click the little gray boxes in the lower left to navigate.)

– Hat tip: Urban Planning Blog

Will the Harrison Square retail development in downtown Fort Wayne make pedestrians more or less welcome? And why would I ask the question, seeing as how there are so many pedestrians drawn on the architectural renderings?

But there’s a potential problem with the above streetscape, and David Sucher’s Three Rules for urban design (PDF) addresses it directly. Allow me to quote from his book, “City Comforts“:

If the problem is to create a walkable, pedestrian-oriented neighborhood, much of the answer is architectural. Actually, it is not so much “architectural” in the usual sense of the word, for it ignores style. Site plan trumps architecture. …

The key decision is the position of the building with respect to the sidewalk. This decision determines whether you have a city or a suburb.

1. Build to the sidewalk (i.e., property line).
2. Make the building front “permeable” (i.e., no blank walls).
3. Prohibit parking lots in front of the building.

Now, at first, it may seem that Harrison Square meets the conditions. It will be built to the sidewalk, the front will not be bare walls, and obviously there’ll be no parking lot in front.

But take another look at the streetscape above. The retail establishments are not at street level; they are maybe five feet above street level, separated from the street and sidewalk by seven steps and a brick wall.

Now, imagine walking by the retail stores. You would not be eye level with the stores. You’d be ankle level. And when you drive down Jefferson Boulevard, you’ll have the same problem of not being able to see directly into the stores. This elevation of the retail establishments reduces the building’s “permeability” — not completely, but partially.

Another interesting wrinkle is that the rendering above seems to show on-street parking on Jefferson, which would require reducing Jefferson’s four lanes to three. Is that really part of the plan? I hope so, because if not, that small sidewalk with a wall on one side and heavy traffic on the other will not feel so friendly to the pedestrian, trees or no trees.

But here’s the clincher: If you are handicapped, how do you enter the stores?

Well, if you have the misfortune of approaching Harrison Square from the west, you’ll have to travel an entire city block to find a ramp that allows you access to the stores.

Now, before my criticism gets criticized for being too, well, pedestrian, please remember that these details matter. City residents will not approach Harrison Square from the air, as in the virtual fly-throughs. We will approach it on foot. And the way we interact with the building as pedestrians is the only way we’ll ever know.

I know that renderings are only plans, and are subject to change. But since construction of the stadium has been underway for some time, bringing the first floor of Harrison Square down to street level is probably out of the question.

– images from the city of Fort Wayne Web site

One of the best features of a typical urban stone or brick building is that it’s adaptable. A former clothing store can become a bank, or apartments, or offices.

But what about parking garages? Can an underused parking garage be adapted to other uses in the future, or are we stuck with having to tear them down if we want something else? Can we even convert one or two floors into something else?

Although it’s been successful in some instances, David Sucher thinks you’re stuck with it.

Here are three necessities that he says are missing from most parking structures:

• “Adequate” headroom for a range of typical uses.
• Minimum ramps and maximum level floor plates as you don’t want to have to contend with a Guggenheim Museum ramp.
• “Adequate” floor loads as believe it or not cars are not that heavy.

Read David’s entry here.

– photo by Fetchy

Scott Greider, over on his personal blog, quotes a portion of the San Jose historic design guidelines that addresses the role of modern architecture in older neighborhoods. (If you’re adventurous, you can download the entire 95-page PDF.)

What does San Jose say? It says, “Bring it on”:

Rather than imitating older buildings, a new design should relate to the traditional design characteristics of a neighborhood while also conveying the stylistic trends of today. New construction may do so by drawing upon some basic building features — such as the way in which a building is located on its site, the manner in which it relates to the street and its basic mass, form and materials — rather than applying detailing which may or may not have been historically appropriate. When these design variables are arranged in a new building to be similar to those seen traditionally in the area, visual compatibility results. Therefore, it is possible to be compatible with the historic context while also producing a design that is distinguishable as being newer.

A modern-style home can be a wonderfully contrasting complement to a historic neighborhood. It certainly beats decay and vacant lots, and it also beats a hundred suburban neo-Colonials with three-car garages in front.

I can’t say the modern home above is my style, but frankly, plenty of older, classical homes aren’t my style, either.

The style of the structure is not the main point. Urbanism is site plan more than architecture. If you bring the house close to the sidewalk, put the parking or garage in the back and make the front wall permeable (that is, not a blank wall), you are strengthening a neighborhood, no matter the style of architecture.

– photo of modern townhouse in Lincoln Park, Ill., by Scott Greider on Flickr

Yesterday, I pointed to this article at City Journal about how New Urbanism may have changed the conversation about urban planning, but it hasn’t changed the culture.

The article points out how many New Urbanists have grabbed on to the “climate change” movement, hoping its momentum will bring its “community-building ethos into the mainstream.” And along those lines, New Urbanists have hitched their wagon to increased regulation to make their dreams happen:

(New Urbanists’) first hope was “smart growth” — basically, the imposition of regulatory guidelines concerning things like density and access to public transportation. The New Urbanists tend to regard the triumph of the automobile with skepticism and would like to think it reversible. Al Gore would agree, and as vice president he took a stab at promoting a smart-growth “livability agenda” — with underwhelming results. Smart growth, for the record, now entails advocacy of a new stratum of government: federally mandated regional authorities would control key planning decisions for core cities and their suburbs as well as the sharing of major urban assets, not to mention federal dollars.

Instead, the article’s author says New Urbanists should move beyond a top-down approach:

They need to get beyond marketing strategy, eco-hype, and trendy buzzwords, and focus on the formidable task of cultivating political leaders across the ideological spectrum who have the gumption to redeem the nation’s urban landscape — one community at a time.

The article is correct — partially. Finding political allies at the local level is much better than finding them at the federal one.

But the article’s unspoken assumption is that politics got us into this mess, and politics will get us out. It’s a fatal error.

The problem isn’t political, it’s cultural. One reason the suburbs exist as they do is because we as Americans wanted to become more isolated from each other. Until the American people realize once again the purpose of cities — and decide that they are willing to sacrifice their own comfort temporarily to make cities more livable — then our culture will continue to spin off into increasing isolation, whether the walls are single-use zoning or technology or simply never leaving your car while outside a building.

Not even $3.65 a gallon gasoline will make us love our neighbor. Forcing us to live close to one another won’t rebuilt society if we simply don’t want to.

– photo by puroticorico on Flickr

Scott Spaulding electronically tapped me on the shoulder and pointed me to this great article on New Urbanism and why it’s having trouble finding an audience. Here’s a clip:

Perhaps the New Urbanists should cherish their outsider status. A gifted crew of architects and planners, they have changed the conversation about urban planning in the United States. They reject conventional postwar developers’ essentially quantitative, two-dimensional, single-use-oriented blueprints for residential subdivisions and office parks in favor of a qualitative, three-dimensional, mixed-use approach to designing neighborhoods and towns that generally involves reliance on traditional architectural styles. In many ways it’s a conservative approach to building communities, which probably accounts for its not being in fashion.

Read it now, leave comments if’n ya wanna, and I’ll come back later today with comments of my own.

Above is an artist’s rendering of what a developer hopes will be The Shoppes on Broadway, near the corner of Broadway and Taylor Street.

Leaving aside the fact that it looks like every other suburban strip mall built in Fort Wayne over the past five years, is it a good building for a city street?

The real answer is in the site plan:

Look at the distance between the buildings and the sidewalk, very unlike real urban development. Pedestrians should not be forced to traverse yet another parking lot to reach a destination.

As David Sucher, author of “City Comforts,” said in regards to a different development:

The problem is not a matter of insufficient adherence to particular abstractions, the problem is a rather mundane one of, as I like to put it in the most banal way possible, putting the parking lot in the wrong spot. (emphasis his)

What’s the more interesting side of Broadway: the side with George’s International Market in a shopping plaza, or the side with Munchies and a block of buildings that meet the sidewalk? What side is more urban?

I am an enormous fan of Sucher’s Three Rules of urban design, which have little to do with architecture and everything to do with site plan. The proposed Shoppes of Broadway (and can we please return to American spelling someday?) breaks two of the rules that help create a walkable, pedestrian-oriented neighborhood:

• Build to the sidewalk
• Prohibit parking lots in front of the building

Why? Because neighborhoods are not only for cars. They are for people, too. As Sucher says:

If you question this, consider the places that most people like to go on vacation: New York, Paris, London, Aspen, Carmel, Nantucket, Park City, Friday Harbor, and even Disneyland. Every last one of them is built so that the building walls are right next to the sidewalk.

New businesses should be encouraged to add to the strengths of Broadway’s existing urban site plans. If the shopping center merely moved the parking lot to the side and back, and brought the building to the sidewalk, the Shoppes would be a welcome addition to an urban neighborhood that can use some good news.

– Hat tip: The Around Fort Wayne blog

During his lecture last week, Philip Bess mentioned a tasty metaphor for good urban living.

Comparing a city to a pizza is the idea of Leon Krier, whom Bess calls the most influential traditional urbanist of our time. As Bess says in his book, “Till We Have Built Jerusalem”:

A neighborhood is to the larger city what a slice of pizza is to the whole pie: a part that contains within itself the essential qualities and elements of the whole. In the case of a city made of neighborhoods, this means that a neighborhood contains within walkable proximity to one another places to live, work, play, learn and worship.

Within the legal boundaries of a postwar suburb, by contrast, the elements of the “pizza” are physically separated and at some distance from one another — as if the crust is here, the sauce over there, the cheese someplace else, and the pepperoni way out yonder.

Bess was careful to point out that such pizza-like, mixed-use neighborhoods do not eliminate the use of cars or public transportation. Maybe you live in one neighborhood and work in the next. But mixed-use neighborhoods do eliminate the necessity of driving for every single need that arises.

One of the panel members said that the average suburbanite makes 14 automobile trips every day. Imagine living in a neighborhood in which you could cut that number in half. That would allow you to not only save money on gas, but also to stay more connected to your own neighborhood — and your own neighbors.

– drawing by Leon Krier, from Philip Bess’ “Till We Have Built Jerusalem”

Now that I found my notes, I can make some hopefully intelligent comments about Philip Bess’s interesting, although two-hour long, lecture on Wednesday. And since it’s already late, I’ll make this an introduction to a series of short posts about his lecture and ideas.

But first, I must mention that it was too bad that his lecture tackled so much: Five distinct topics plus a prelude and postscript. Add that to the 20-minute delay thanks to a technical glitch, and it was no wonder many in the audience left before the panel discussion afterward.

Also, Bess’s PowerPoint slides were not as helpful as hoped because they consisted of so many small photos and so much small text. One photo or image per slide would have been easier to discern.

Bess spoke glowingly of Aristotle’s ideas of what makes a good city. And a main question Aristotle hoped to answer was: What is a city for? Bess summarized Aristotle’s answer as such:

The City exists to promote the good life — or the best life possible — for its citizens.

But what is the good life for human beings? Here’s an answer from the lecture:

The best life for human beings is the life of moral and intellectual excellence lived in community with others — arguably, in a city.

Bess said that one concept that makes a city look like a city is the use of background buildings and foreground buildings.

A city is made up of some prominent structures, such as courthouses, churches, statues and public institutions, that are shown their importance by their placement and their architecture. These are the foreground buildings, or the res publica. (See illustration at right.)

Other city buildings are more traditional block structures that can be very nice, but are not given the architectural prominence of the foreground buildings. These are the background buildings, or the res economica.

Together, these buildings form traditional city blocks, with the background buildings giving strong definition to the streets and squares.

Here is his definition of the formal order of cities:

A hierarchical network of blocks, through streets and squares, characterized by a reciprocal relationship between public spaces and more important and less important buildings.

Of course, most architecture schools would concentrate on teaching how to build foreground rather than background buildings, which makes Bess’s definition of a good city more controversial than it may seem.

There’s much more to add, but it will have to wait for the next post.

– Photo of the main piazza of Ravenna, Italy, by dolanh on Flickr