My amazingly talented mother

Carmen: Artwork Enlargement

My mother is a talented and prolific painter. Have a look at her artwork here.

Encounters with Cities - More discussion

I think the lesson to be learned here it to look at how we’re designing the spaces where we actually want people to be walking, enjoying the scenery, looking at the flowers and such – in small town cities this would refer directly to our main streets and commercial shopping areas, and we’ll leave aside the crack dealer alleys for now. How do we make them interesting and compelling places to be?

Much of the retail plazas that go up these days are designed for that 60 km/h speed – the intention is to pull in that fast-moving vehicle traffic whizzing by on the traffic arterial, get them into that parking lot, and then into the store. Our small towns are sold on this ideal as a design standard. Walmart is a LOVELY example of that, but then again, just drive down any major street and have a look at the profusion of large signs scaled to the automobile, and not to the pedestrian level of detail. And yet – as soon as these drivers stop, they become instant pedestrians. Where is the design attention for that?

Here’s a picture of a recently completed new retail mall right on the main approach to Kamloops. This is on the main drag of Columbia Street, by the University, right where the City is planning to see mixed-use development in the future. Notice the abundance of shade, for a City with a mean summer temperature in the mid-30s. How is stuff like this supposed to do anything to attract a pedestrian environment? Why – oh why – would anyone voluntarily go to places like this to wander, socialize, and browse the other shops? And if it isn’t designed to do that – what is it doing on the main entrance to the City – and what does it say about the City itself?

If we want this to be a functional, impersonal place, then let’s leave it as is. If we want it to be something more, a place people can use as a town centre, a new gathering place – then let’s talk about sidewalk width, texture and materials, having actual crosswalks with textured, physical material and visual prominence, put in some bike racks, get rid of the blank spaces between the big box stores (maybe some community art), make a central plaza with lots of shade trees and stuff in place of that parking lot – widen the sidewalks to allow for some benches, tables and chairs, and some shaded seating places for people to hang out in. We can fix this and make it better, it’s not too late. Unless of course we DON’T want people hanging out here, in which case, let’s leave it as is. Drive, shop, leave.

But before we even talk about putting in shade trees and nice sidewalks, we need to make a decision about what kind of environment we want our cities to have, and how we want our public spaces to interface with the people who live there. Are we designing for cars, or for people? Is there mutual exclusivity? What do we want our main people places to be for – quick, functional trips only, or something more? THEN we can talk about all the other details to make those places work.

The lesson to be learned from this article, in my opinion, is that good urban spaces function as more than just rational, functional places – places to move in and out of quickly, places that serve to expedite a particular process or function – that being the conduction of business or other functional activity. Good urban spaces have emotion, and a social context that is missing from much of our urban landscape. We need to plan for it, design for it, insist on it. While going into the details of trees, sidewalk materials, sidewalk width etc. is important, it is even more important to recognize that a dichotomy exists in the first place, before you can go ahead and use urban design techniques to treat the situation.

Close Encounters with Cities - Discussion

Hi Dave

I was looking at figure 6, which is from Stockholm. As you know I lived in Stockholm for 10 years and the street is a tourist street. Durning the summer you cannot move more than 5/km not because of the facade, but the novelty of the area for tourist. The authors contrast this with 60km/hr walking, now that is pretty fast walking; walking on crack. I grew up in New York City. Given it was New York and Americans over exaggerate we all walked 80 km,/hr, we also all took super crack. If you tripped well you where simply trampled into the concrete.

Anyway, I knew Gehl, the lead author, he is also on crack. He came an guest lectured and the Swedish students harassed. They attacked him because he never included side walk materials or design, other street elements (trees, etc), the type the commercial-residential mix, length of the street, time of day. Basically he ignored the issue that the objective of some street are move as many people as quickly as possible, while others encourage slow leisure movement and others encourage people to actually sit and enjoy the environment. Look at figure 19 do the before and after pictures show any changes in sidewalk width. NO! You think anyone wants to sit in a street corridor that gets no sunlight with deep shadows. Well maybe if you want to sell crack.

Ciao, Eric

Close Encounters with Buildings

Interesting Urban Design Article

http://www.palgrave-journals.com/udi/journal/v11/n1/pdf/9000162a.pdf

Abstract:

What we have are closed, self-absorbed buildings. What we would like to have is open, versatile, interesting and safe cities. The challenge is how to incorporate large buildings in cities where people have the same small stature and slow pace they had hundreds of years ago. There is now a considerable confusion in the gap between large and small scales and between 'quick' and 'slow' architecture. Ground floor facades provide an important link between these scales and between buildings and people. For public space and buildings to be treated as a whole, the ground floor facades must have a special and welcoming design. This good, close encounter architecture is vital for good cities.