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BUILT STRUCTURES AND HOUSING
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The very limited design vocabulary presently used in construction along America’s suburban arterial roads has apparently induced a sort of generalized amnesia about how, in principle, buildings can look. At any rate, throughout the country one sees the same patterns endlessly repeated.
What follows is not, however, a set of specific design recommendations.
Also, keep in mind the relationship between building design and building use. Buildings can be single- or mixed-use. Housing can be affordable, up-scale or mixed-income, among other options. Building form also defines the population densities achievable in a given area, and this, in turn, helps define the diversity of activities that are feasible in an area (see quote from the urbanist Jane Jacobs under “Density,” below). |
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| Mixed use (and mixed income) |
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“In architecture as in literature and the drama, it is the richness of human variation that gives vitality and color to the human setting … Considering the hazard of monotony … the most serious fault in our zoning laws lies in the fact that they permit an entire area to be devoted to a single use.”
~Raskin, as quoted in Jane Jacobs’ The Death and Life of Great American Cities |
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The following case study comes from Seattle where a community fought to build something mixed-use, affordable, and green on a site slated for a one-story store surrounded by parking lots. The community won. Broadway Crossing, Seattle
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Mixed-income residential, pedestrian friendly: AIA award-winning building at Langham Court in Boston |
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Santana Row in San Jose, Calif., is one of the best-known new mixed-use developments. Tremendous attention to design and detail has created an environment that attracts crowds of people every evening. The project has been criticized for cost over-runs (it also suffered a catastrophic fire just before completion) and for its pricey shops, among other complaints. |
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Though it is true that the Santana Row site was not an organic extension of its surroundings, it is worth bearing in mind that, for miles around, that ‘surrounding environment’ looks like this snapshot (left) of Stevens Creek Boulevard--the suburban arterial off of which Santana Row was built. The same firm that built Santana Row opened Rockville Town Center last May. |
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Thomas Dolan Architects in Oakland, Calif., has produced a wide range of mixed-use and live-work projects. The Temescal Place building (left) is ‘mixed-use, urban infill workforce housing with ground-floor retail.’ (Construction completed.) |
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| On Density |
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What Jane Jacobs called “The Great Blight of Dullness” can be avoided only where there is sufficient density of population. Jacobs supports her point with the following words from a professor of business: “… decentralization produced such a thin population spread that the only effective economic demand that could exist in suburbs was that of the majority. The only goods and cultural activities available will be those that the majority requires … ”
~from The Death and Life of Great American Cities |
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Robert Gibbs, a new urbanist town planner with considerable expertise in retail, believes that both large chains and small stores are needed in an urbanizing area which wants to have a secure commercial future. A shift back to main street.
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These Arlington townhouse and apartments (left) have a single family neighborhood character while housing more families close to shopping and transportation. |
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The Northgate apartments (left) also fit in as part of an urban, pedestrian-friendly street setting. |
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| Street orientation |
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The views at left are from Society Hill, Philadelphia . The absence of a large set-back (no front lawn, no parking) shelters the sidewalk, and helps create the feeling that the street is a sort of outdoor living room, or stage. |
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