Architecture

How do You See the City?

Urban Design, Urban Planning

I see every city for how it was built when it got rich. Economies move around, cities rise, fall, and some rise again, reinvent themselves, die off, or sit stagnate waiting for its revival. But, at some point every major city got really rich, and that’s when its public streets, parks, buildings, and private buildings set the bar/tone for the next century or so.

grayscale photo of high rise buildings

Photo by Ross Richardson on Pexels.com

For example, in San Diego, it got rich in the early 1950’s, when its population double as military R&D rose/located near its military installations. High wages, lots of jobs, and land for suburban growth with great state/fed spending on highways and our pending car culture. Spending its money during our mid-century modernist era has formed/shaped the context for the city of today and beyond.

It was a trip to Buffalo, and seeing its turn of the century opulence, that showed me how to ‘see’ a city.  Every great American architect of that time, Frank Lloyd Wright, Louis Sullivan, Frederick Law Olmsted, were building in Buffalo at that time and it generated two Presidents. This view translates to seeing our old European cities, such as Venice and its well-preserved mid-millennium opulence still valuable today, as well as in seeing our Asian cities, such as ShenZhen and its booming wealth (with every architect in the world, Steven Holl, BIG, and Gensler working there), and so on…

Vancouver got rich as Hong Kong shifted hands from English to Chinese rule 20+ years ago. That era’s neo-conservative ‘free market’ architectural expression of almost urban, but not quite, townhouse wrap of a small footprint, single-core tower was urbanism-lite at time when suburbia ruled our west coast north American landscape. And, it was the right architectural form for transitioning from suburbia back to urbanism… but, its already dated and in transition again, and towards a more urban pattern.

assorted labeled signage

Photo by Arnie Chou on Pexels.com

This new era is beholden to the ‘got really rich’ era in Vancouver and will still be subservient to that context, which wasn’t true 20+ years earlier when that great flush of wealth easily overwhelmed its past and context. Meaning, the wealth generated today in Vancouver is simply the by-product of yesterday’s economic boom. Same with Venice and its tourist value today for preserving its past opulence.

We’re watching the political anxiety in the face of this urban shift playing out across the world as the last throes of that 80/90s neocon intellectual culture are desperately holding on to the last of their structured power. Those  neocons who are voraciously holding onto power today also hold the counterculture of the 1960s in great disdain as their political radicalism and animus against authority, custom, and tradition is rising and an obvious threat to the old leaders. I believe this disdain is one of the reasons for the angry, resentful, punitive political furry expressed in Washington, DC and beyond… because the neo-counterculture is being repeated by today’s younger generation but this time with their own value system/context.

The millennials are choosing to spend their money in cities that are getting rich right now. These are San Jose, Oklahoma City, and in rebound cities, such as Austin, Seattle, and maybe Detroit (an anomaly in this group of relatively ‘new’ towns as it got very rich in the 1940s and may keep its Art-Deco patterns) will be reshaped with their values. I’m looking forward to ‘seeing’ how these cities express themselves as they grow rich over the next decade (with Vancouver’s ubiquitous point towers with a townhouse wrap in mind).

A Vertical Transect / Context Elevated

Urban Design

I’ve been fussing around with a context-sensitive/form-based code for more urban neighborhoods for several years now. I’ve worked on creating many codes for small towns (San Marcos, CA and TX), new towns (Whitehall in New Castle County, Delaware), sections of mid-sized cities (El Paso) across the county, and downtown San Diego. And, it’s here in San Diego that I see the need to craft a code for tall buildings that better reflects our 21st century context.

Over a century ago, Louis Sullivan, HH Richardson and others rebuilt Chicago after its fire using the new construction technology that steel brought to building. That combination of steel and fire led to the creation of the tower as a new building type. Being without precedent then, these neo-classical, romanesque, and gothic revivalist smartly relied upon the classical column structure to design towers with a base, shaft, and cornice.

TopMiddleBase

Base/Base, Shaft/Middle, Top/Cornice. 

Today this classical configuration still seen in the now ubiquitous Vancouver Point Tower Model.

SD Vancouver Model

The Vancouver Point Tower as Applied in San Diego. Image: Me

Today, after 100-plus years of building these classically arranged towers a vertical context exist. And, we’ve worked very hard since the 60’s modernist crescendo to get tower construction at the street level to be humane (see this old blog on the topic).  I first got the idea from Jan Gehl’s book, Cities for People, and these great diagrams.

This new context is based on the following transect zones: Human connectivity is the primary objective in the street zone (floors 1 – 6), which transitions up to the facing blocks (floors 3 – 12), up again towards the surrounding city views levels (floors 9 – 20), and finally at the regional vistas (above 20 floors). These four context zones have differing design responses to consider as the now the building can reach down toward street rather than always soaring to the sky.

 

VerticalContext_2

As applied to a Vancouver Point Tower in downtown San Diego. Image: Me

The following diagram was an initial study into how to use the SmartCode template to regulate more urban buildings where their fronts/back, below/above, and middle zones could be designed in context to cultivate urban living that is human oriented rather than mechanical elevator-oriented. What do you think?

3D Urbanism 1st Draft

Borrowing from the SmartCode, a Context-Sensitive Code for 3-Dimensional Urbanism

And, we are continuing to study this approach that lends itself to coding for a specific San Diego model and moves beyond the Vancouver point-tower lite urban model.

VerticalContextIMAGES

Precedent Images Attempting to Define a San Diego Architectural Vernacular for Towers

And, finally, just because I drew it… here’s another inspiration for getting towers’ grounded into its context, a metaphor if you will.

TowerMetaphor

I drew it so I put in my blog… otherwise it’s not much to look at. Image: Me

I would appreciate any comments as this is an idea that’s still under construction. Cheers!