I was intrigued by the thread on everyday walks and fascinated by the love and sometimes dismissal that was described by many. Doug Kelbaugh has claimed that Everyday Urbanism is an urbanism by default rather than intention. The thread in combination with this idea made me want to ask what Archinecters feel are the great everyday urban places - that have been designed. I do not care if they are edgy or conservative, traditional, or contemporary, realized, or unrealized. My interest is that they meet your definition of a designed everyday place in the sense that you would want, or do, with some sense of special awareness, move through them on a regular basis. Any thoughts - or a moronic impossibility?
a clarification: by designed, do you mean by one 'hand', intentionally designed as a piece? or is an agglomeration/accrual of distinct designs to make up the place part of this discussion?
two examples:
1 the student services buildings that moore rubell yudell did at university cincinnati have the feel of an urban space, having been handled very effectively as a planned-space-with-buildings (while i'm sure they may have been hired to do A building). the project depends a lot on their very crafty use of existing structures that were not very well urbanistically integrated previously: connected to old buildings in some places, developed student 'streets' in others, and broke their program into separate buildings which could begin to be used as figure in the streetscape field they had pulled together. very effective, very good, but campus urbanism is certainly different from city urbanism. certainly doesn't feel everyday but instead very intentional.
2 douglass loop here in louisville started out in the early 1900s as a streetcar turnaround and developed as a neighborhood center. the streetcar, of course, is long gone, but the hub of activity still functions well: coffee shop, sandwich shops, ice cream shop, hardware store, bread store, drug store (just closed), bars, barber shop and salon, cleaners, etc. churches across the street on two sides. professional offices in upper stories and extending down the block before it flips to residential. the traffic pattern, because it's a vestige of streetcar path, actually is NOT very handy for cars, making it much MORE convenient for pedestrians. this is real urbanism, designed for something, designed for subsequent things in several iterations and by different people, and evolving into what it is now. so is this design or default?
david mohney, dean of university of kentucky, likes to describe architecture as something like algebra - a management of multiple variables to arrive at an elegant solution - so that he can then describe urbanism as calculus - a sort of coercion of multiple algebraic functions acting independently into one system operating in a more complementary way. i'm sure he states it better...
so part of the question i guess i'm asking above may be 'is it urbanism just because it's an urban-scaled project?' moore rubell yudell's student services thing may still be algebra, while douglass loop is certainly calculus.
A very traditional plaza project that is incredibly successful as a public space functioning as a huge "community living room": Portland Oregon's Pioneer Courthouse Square (sorry no time before work to get a good image). I think the curving "stramp" (stairs/ramp integrated)that takes up a good quarter of the site and addresses a level change across the city block is key: it makes a slightly elevated viewing platform from which one can feel like both a participant and an observer. And everyone likes to sit on steps, reminds them of being a kid.
jon jerde's work is clearly designed but always feels like a mall to me, even the expansive exterior spaces between buildings at roppongi, for example. That is not "everyday" urbanism, i think...? if not what IS it?
other example is when i walk to project i am doing in ginza recently. There is a subway station within minutes of site, but i enjoy walking through ginza so get off close to emperor's palace and tokyo train station and walk 15 minutes or so...just because. The walk includes some very mundane (and some very fine) architecture that fits together with grungy train lines and tree-lined streets to become quite nice route, overall...and on weekends ginza is closed to auto-traffic so it is very nice feeling to walk on street...i think it is maybe everyday urbanism, and designed...sort of, but it was done about a hundred years ago. does that count? the original intent is surely long gone, perhaps making it possible to be nice place.
one more example from same route...on the way to ginza there is tokyo forum, which i don't care for so much as building, but the tree-filled courtyard between auditoriums and forum whale-thing building is very nice. because it fits so well into the context and is something i can walk through without feeling uncomfortable, and there is often enough some nice live music wafting down from the restaurant above, and all kinds of people hanging out...it does not in the end feel as contrived as it might do...in this sense it is both designed and nicely lively in everyday urbanism way...perhaps it helps that there is a very grungy train bridge running right past its front door so to speak that makes it fit in...it is unable to deny its context and nor does it overwhelm it.
is that everyday urbanism by design, or just luck?
as everyday urbanism i see all the informal settlements around the globe, which often give a more urban and community feel then anything else. this is everyday design based on the direct wishes (put a side economic issues) of the residents...
What seems key to me hasn't been mentioned yet, except by Jump: people. (A comment criticism against architects, alas.)
Urbanism doesn't happen without them. Each of us knows examples of highly (but maybe badly) designed plazas that have failed miserably to attract people and activity. Conversely, we also know examples of places that (by everything we were taught in architecture school) absolutely cannot be successful urban places, yet are. A narrow alley, a well-located parking lot, a non-descript patch of grass at an busy intersection... their success as urban places may have precious little to do with "design." But people, with their unpredictability and curiousity, may make them work anyway.
Land use is another important variable in the "calculus" of urbanism (I love that metaphor). Occasionally this comes under "design" of a newer project, but often not. The uses and functions outside (but next to) an urban place can be critical to its success as a hive of activity, yet are beyond the control of the designer. Plus, they can change over time.
This is probably a good time to trot out that tried and true old dear Jane Jacobs, who pleaded with us to "plan for diversity" everywhere we can: mxed uses, short blocks (with more connections), mixed ages of buildings (i.e., leave some old ones), and sufficient density to populate the streets and places and businesses. Not the solution to everything, but still a good set of guiding principles, I think, even for a designer doing her/his part on one small project.
Steven, I do think I am interested in something that has been intentionally designed but I think the mention of the factor of time by Jump might suggest that it has been designed over time. I think the element of time and the anticipation of how time might work over a project is a critical definer of an everyday project.
For instance, I have always been saddened by the way that the "Grove" an intensely successful "main street" lifestyle center in LA, turns its back on Third Street, the main drag passing by the project, but have always assumed that someday the project could be easily retrofitted to address this street and thus have been somewhat mollified by the circumstance and just hope I live long enough to see it happen.
Liberty Bell brought up Pioneer Square and this raises the question of whether the everyday approach is constitutionally more suited to landscape than architecture. After all landscape almost always deals with some aspect of time or natural cycles and the interaction of people with these factors.
Jump mentioned Jerde and I have always admired his architecture (algebra?) because it does seem to address the scripting of space in an everyday way. (calculus?) I know some of his projects are more successful than others and the detailing is often a bit thin but again, time can be a friend and improve the project when required from an architectural standpoint.
Brown 666 mentions the informal and this is of course the terrain that the everyday is most successful at explaining but I am not convinced that it is always design in the sense that most of us as designers design, i.e it lacks a connection to a larger discourse and is more about making do; i.e. not conscious design though there is much to observe and be amazed by. On the other hand, when the informal becomes the political, at least in the planning sense, than perhaps the design of the bricolage starts to describe a type of intentionality that is critical in nature.
Finally, of course Jane Jacobs is the rock upon which this everyday foundation is built upon but, I always have felt she was not so sympathetic to the people who loved their suburban neighborhoods, cul-de-sacs, malls, cars, etc. The narrowness of her vision made her see only part of the everyday and its possibilities.
Again,what are the examples where this has occurred and works and places of excellence been the result?
So I have the following examples right now from our collective conversation:
A square in Louisville.
A Jerde project
Pioneer Courthouse Square
A plaza in Tokyo Forum (along the path of a walk - very Lynchian)
A Moore Ruble Yudell project UC
Perhaps The Grove
I also have some everyday factors that are critical based upon the above thanks to your thoughts:
intentionally designed
anticipates future changes
accepting of time
incremental
scripted
informal but conscious because of a political or social frame
Are there additional examples of projects that meet the above criteria or additional critiques of the above ideas to mention that would further illuminate additional examples that all might be contributed
It's true that dear old Jane was a bit schizoid in her apporach, yes.
Essentially, she said "don't do what the supposed expert architects and planners say, they have the same solution for everything." Then she said if effect, "here, do this, I'm right, this will work everywhere." She had important points to make and critiques to level, but she mistakenly discounted other kinds of environments.
i'm generally not a fan of the "everyday." i prefer design. in that respect, rockefeller center is one of the great works of designed urbanism. it has a vision and a grandeur that contemporary work (jerde, etc.) fails to grasp.
i also appreciate how jacobs after moving to toronto grew an appreciation for the eaton centre. she was more complex than "death and life" might suggest.
I find that I rarely appreciate an urban space which is the work of a single hand, but usually those that have developed over time and been shaped by many. One of my favorite everyday spaces has been downtown Culver City (culver junction, small enough that it can be called a single space). The street junction is akward enough that cars slow down there, and in the summer pedestrians and bicycles abound. The odd angles keep everything interesting and leave some nice spaces like the odd triangle of patio outside the (ug) starbucks and the space between the theater/restaurant area and the culver hotel. Because it's been shaped over many years there are old buildings, new buildings, everything in between, but each seem to have been placed and shaped with care, and this creates a visual variety which I find vastly more pleasing than most places created in a single gesture.
jane jacobs was very savvy to the complexities all things that worked well. unfortunately like many intelligent people, her insights have been watered down as the filtered through the many minds that claimed to have been working in sympathy with the things that she believed. personally, i suspect that many have simply not even read her famous while claiming to endorse it. moreover, that book was really just the tip of her interests. i really suggest reading everything that she's written if you can find the time.
regarding specific places that were designed, i don't know but it seems to me that it's not just an issue of whether or not it was designed but also when it was designed. i can think of many examples of urban places that are quite lovely, especially in europe and the older parts of the usa such as new england that were the result of a design intention...but most of these places predate the automobile. that seismic shift in the parameters of what defined urban spaces occured sometime around 1950. even today, if you completely remove the automobile, designers are very capable of creating reasonable spaces for humans...trouble is you can only completely remove in today's context by setting up an exceptional set of circumstances, such as the amusement parks of disney.
one correction to my louisville example: there's no 'square' there. it's a triangle formed by three streets (a loop) packed with retail buildings both inside and bounding the triangle, plus a little bit of parking. the people spaces are the wide sidewalks and a little public area on one end of the triangle.
the loop doesn't look like much from the air, but i promise, it's a people place.
ok, i think i understand what we're talking about now. it's about 'setting up' conditions for urbanism by intentional design? like tschumi said he was doing in the villette competition (but didn't actually realize). like west 8s marketplaces in rotterdam. like the festival plazas that hargreaves builds into his parks, including the one here in louisville, all ready to receive the umbilicals for elephant ear wagons.
it does seem easier to give landscape examples, because an urban design doesn't become a thing until it gets built out. and if it gets built out all at once, it has a sheen and texture that doesn't often suggest 'everyday'.
how 'bout jackson square in new orleans? the pontalba and cabildo flank the cathedral very formally and the pontalba apartment blocks frame facing sides, leaving the fourth side open to the development along the river. all very controlled, but fostering an uncontrolled random everyday cacophony of activity.
sending you something, kaliski, which may or may not be useful. (not sure if this is a casual inquiry or going somewhere.)
well, i notice that it frames differently depending how big your window opens up. hm. if you get the almost triangle block with the black roof in the middle of your screen, you'll get it. argggh.
Nononono, I mean I saw it, the black roof, but from the air it looks like a one-story light industrial building with employee parking out front surrounded on three sides by road and like the whole area is economically dead and there is no activity at street level at all - but I know from your description it's actually quite active and lively and community-centered. (In fact, did you take me for ice cream there?)
What I meant to imply was that pictures can be deceiving. What looks uninteresting from the air may be fantastically engaging at street level, and what looks fun and exciting from the air (or from a brightly-colored master plan drawing) might be a dead expanse of paving from street level.
"uur·ban·ism (ûr'bə-nĭz'əm)
1. The culture or way of life of city dwellers.
2. Urbanization."
"ur·ban·ism [ur-buh-niz-uhm] –noun 1. the way of life of people who live in a large city."
I think some are using "urbanism" and "urban design" interchangably. I don't believe we design urbanism, we design FOR it. So, Rockefeller Plaza and Place Vendome are designed urban places, but don't themselves constitute urbanism or urbanity.
there's something a little trite about trotting out the just add people. it's like a photoshop collage where designers think if they can just add enough people it will give some "life" to the dim and drab space they've designed. i know the world is full of wonderful little alleys that were never designed, but frankly what good is it to simply point them out?
in many ways, this gets at the heart of my frustrations with everyday urbanism. it's a form of postmodern pastiche where if you add enough people, enough activity, enough stuff you create a great "place." what a bunch of nonsense. you might as well take a trip to the mall.
True, my last line was off-the-cuff. My point is that the people and their associated, myriad activities are almost always given short shrift (if given any shrift at all) in these kinds of discussions.
It's not just about the container, it's about who goes inside, what they do, how they do it, and when. As to the container itself, does it help these considerations, or hinder them? In what ways? It's not just about pointing out all the wonderful little alleys, but LOOKING at how they work, at why they attract urban life when many highly designed places go empty.
And God help us if thinking about people when we design and plan urban places is relegated to postmodern pastiche. If that's the case, then we deserve every claim of elitism and ivory-tower detachment that gets leveled at our profession.
our profession will always be about how space relates to people and people relate to space. there's a synergy there. i think there's a perception that modernism overemphasised space; the postmodern backlash was to overemphasis people. i believe the relationship needs to be a bit more in balance these days.
sorry i've moved this a bit off track. i'll back off.
when did pomo ever emphasise people? apart from a treatise or two? in built world it was same old same old, buildings as objects not as places, more often than not.
people who are attracted to places, for whatever reason, make a big difference. they really do, and more so than any architect can hope to design for.
On other hand, there was a lot of theorising and even some building done in the 70's intended to be built out by reglar folk, but it never really panned out cuz most found it too odd.
So there is a need for architects, somehow, to make places that attract and can still be modified on small scale to create lively place. This is the sort of neighbourhood i live in.
In fact most of japan is like that because zoning is in the national building code (11 zones TOTAL) and not locally controlled, and in any case does not segregate functions very much to begin with...
in my research i find that it is local people making selfish and personal decisions that modifies an area, making it better or worse. How this turns into everyday urbanism with a special quality, or not, is still a bit of a mystery to me. I would say that jon jerde's work does not allow very much of this kind of process to take place, much like Disney land...so i don't see him ever being responsible for anything as un-predictable as "everyday urbanism", whatever that means...
is it impossible for architects to give up that much control? Does it really need 50-100 years to get there?
Jump, I like your skepticism, re: why does iot take 50 - 100 years, and if we have an inkling of what we want to achieve, shouldn't it be possible to do so, in essence compress time into the design process? I have always thought so and thus am interested in architecture that does this,pomo or not, commercial or not, landscape or not. If one is to develop a more coherent design theory or approach that achieves this, then, it seems we have to try to understand the projects that achieve this and why, regardless of whether they were designed by FOA, Rem, Diller, or Duany or others. I am interested in the examples to understand the broadest range of possibilities.
i would like to return to the discussion about people for a moment... while citizen's "just add people" comment was a little "off-the-cuff", he's getting at something very important... however, we need to turn it on its head...
as Jan Gehl says "life, spaces, buildings... and in said order, please"... the design of public spaces should start with people... gehl gives the example of aker brygge in oslo where developers are/were offering reduced rents for ground-floor commercial spaces to encourage occupancy by local cafes, boutiques, etc (rather than trans-national chains)... there was a recognition of the value of a vibrant street life... it almost seems that these days good public space requires a bit of ingenious social engineering to create what once was able to happen organically over 50-100 years... there was another example of this type of enlightened socially engineered type of development in a recent issue of HDM, but i can't recall the author...
this social engineering is where the current trend of "lifestyle centers" fails... even ones that are well designed (a few do exist, i think) still fail as "public" spaces because of the homogenised mall culture (and the private security forces)... the uber-example of this may be atlanta's atlantic station...
also, i do think that some of the rotterdam spaces that west 8 designed work quite well... the key there was that they set up a strategy for appropriation by the public... i don't think that they have ended up functioning quite like adriaan geuze and crew may have intended... but i do think that they work...
i think one of the most important parts of good public spaces is the edge condition... of course oftentimes this brings us back again to the undesigned since a lot of public spaces designs have no control over what surrounds them... oftentimes the success of a public space relies mostly, if not wholly, on the in situ edge conditions and the potential that they have to enliven the space... public spaces need to function as both thoroughfares between other spaces and activities and destinations in their own right...
one more quote...
"Public space was not given by God, it was created by human desire."
-Adriaan Geuze
one more thing... i'm really interested in the public space potential of left over, in between spaces... rationalist alluded to this a bit with her description of culver junction... i think that there may be an interesting "everyday" strategy for utilising these types of spaces... the unused parking lot, unused rights-of-way, vacant urban lots, highway underpasses, etc... these in-between spaces are already there and surrounded by stuff that it being used... we just need to develop tactics for making them usable...
The idea of a quality in spaces inbetween other planned spaces (Rem) is usually just the sensation of releif from the confinement of the surrounding bad design and monofunctionalism - that is not a concept I would strive for.
One of my favorite places, and it isn't really an everyday place, is the center space in Kahn's Salk Institute. When I first saw it I was excited, because it was what it is: a modern masterpiece. I ran around to look at it from every angle and see all the great details. I snuck into one of the offices and looked down the openings in the concrete.
And when I was exhausted, the building just sat there, was solemn as ever. That is when I realized its actual quality: the building steps back from what really is important there, the nature, the view of the sea and the quiet.
I think this example is important for two reasons: one is to contend the idea that unplanned spaces make for good places. If we look around most of the space around us, created by traffic and land use ideas, we find that they lack any quality. Oftentimes they lack even the most basic functionality. Every day I see people on Olympic Blvd stand in the shade of the traffic light’s pole because no one bothered providing those poor people waiting for the bus in the scorching sun with any protection.
When any place becomes worth our while it is because someone, architect or not, has found a way to make the space out there better – be it by setting up a hotdog stand with a place to stand and watch the traffic or chat to a stranger and explain the importance of Pink’s.
The second reason a place becomes a good place, and why I brought up Salk is, that the design must step back to accommodate life and a feeling of place. Too often places are designed with a focus on aesthetics and the design at the center of the process. The “grand idea” is the focus.
This is why it is so easy to mistake that non-professional design makes for better places: it is less prone to center on aesthetics and effect and instead steps back and lets everyday life take its course. But I would contend that the actually great everyday places are planned with a few refinements over the years.
It is difficult to come up with a difinitive list, since you often take good everyday places for granted. Some places I like are Covent Gardens in London, most intersections in Barcelona, lots of small squares in traditional German urban design, streets of Parma, Bryant Park, Beachfront in Santa Monica and Venice. Good places tend to be there, where there is an abundance of everyday places. Where there are few, expectations and congestion seem to crush them.
Fidler, its not fair, you have witnessed firt had Speaks debate the flaws of every day urbanism...and I think that Margaret Crawford may have cried durring that debate...or was that Esieman's?
You have done a great job of pointing out the flaws the ED Urbanism debate...
bravo...
ummm, allow me to say that again, without so many typos:
Fidler, its not fair, you have witnessed first hand Speaks debate the flaws of every day urbanism...and I think that Margaret Crawford may have cried during that debate...or was that Eiseman's?
You have done a great job of pointing out the flaws the ED Urbanism debate...
bravo...
I have been incommunicado for a day or so, took the daughter to Disneyland - appropriate destination given some of the comments. Some observations from a person who had not been the Magic Kingdom in a long time. It was much better than I had remembered it and even though it is not public space in the discursive and constitutional sense, there is certainly a public using it, and using it quite civilly if not civicly.
Notwithstanding Charles Moore's "You Have To Pay For The Public Life", which identified in architecture circles at least the conundrum of Disney's World, I suspect that the place is even more diverse, crowded, and full of people having a pretty good time, then in the past - and it is designed. I think it is more complex then people just not having any other choices to spend a day, face it it works and is pleasurable (for most), from the moment that you get on the improved I-5 in Orange County until you pull into the garage (a very good garage that should be the envy of most malls - it actually has pedestrian walkways), ride the tram down the landscaped paths (shades of Fahrenheit 451 but not noirish in the least) and arrive at the main plaza and choose between the two gates or the ungated "Downtown" (working despite being single sided for much of its length).
I admit that I am more on the populist side then most but I certainly agree with jafidler that the everyday is more than just putting people in the scene and in a sense (probably perverse sense for jafidler) Disneyland proves the point - there is something ameliorative about the design, otherwise there would be a riot in this place where you are paying at least a dollar a minute to enjoy the spectacle. I know it is trite but there still are a lot of lessons to learn here.
One other observation, I enjoyed California Adventure much more than the original Mai Street, and not only because it was my first time on a looped roller coaster. This attraction seemed refreshingly clear of the Victorian clutter (now that a reformer speaking), inspired by the same airplane profiles, industrial detritus such as hangers and silos, and industrial bric-a-brac that inspired Le Corbusier!. My own thinking is that it is a generational thing. The original Disneyland hearkened back to Disney's parents and grandparents day. California Adventure perhaps appeals to me in the same way because it evokes a series of images, events, and moments that shaped the world of my parents and grandparents and that I trend to being more excited about. Indeed each generation has its kitsch and before you all get too sanctimonious and anti-nostalgic, imagine where you will be in twenty to thirty years (assuming you are that many years younger than me).
None of us avoids reflection completely even as many of us always seek the new. And even then alot of what is passed off as the new seems always to be a reflection and updating of the not so distant past (think DWELL and its fetishism for 1950's good design modernism). So the lesson for me, everyday, is design matters. And, that brings me to Sharkee (I know you!, but did not realize that you also were a Kahnman).
The Salk indeed is great as are many of his buildings and of course what makes them remarkable is their placement of the classical human figure in the space and in nature. Kahn was an overt classicist and his interest in the classic was both a rejection of early CIAM Athens Charter modernism (though he knew this well) and a wrestling with history, memory, and monumentality - all themes of post-war architecture that inexorably led to the excesses of post-modernism (a movement much maligned in these threads but far more complex and rich then some of our fellow-bloggers admit). Kahn also was known to state that a street is a linear living room or a room for living in (or something like that) - he was always interested in the haptic quality of his spaces and as a consequence they are filled with a palpable sense of being and presence even when void. With regard to the everyday, it again reminds me that the everyday can be designed and is a consequence and a result of a broad set of formal and informal considerations. It is not a style, nor a movement, but an attitude.
Citizen again also weighed in noting how a discussion of the everyday inevitably leads to a discussion of good versus bad design. I agree. Perhaps it is additionally useful to consider that discussions of good and bad are also discussions and agreements about values and while the creative impulse often has to resist values that diminish critical creativity they equally can not completely dismiss values that are critically formed within culture. For me at least this is where everyday urbanism (and design) intersects with everyday culture. I again appreciate the idea of time that Citizen raises. How many of us build in a sense of time to our designs? Perhaps both in terms of process and result this is one of the most important factors that can frame an everyday approach.
Finally, I will go back and read the debate or non-debate that took place between Crawford and Speaks. It sits on my shelf collecting dust as much of the everyday discourse typically does, everyday.
Additional thoughts. This thread is convincing me that the everyday is designed and that designers design part of it. It also is convincing me that time or the consideration of time is a factor that a design that aspires towards the everyday considers. Finally, the everyday is not, at least from a design standpoint formally ideological. It is as possible for it to be within a contemporary as traditional idiom, a formal or non-formal mode, equally done by Rem Koolhaus as by Louis Kahn though not always the case for either. It is for now still an attitude seeking an architectural process and pedogogy I am still seeking more examples of what you think are great everyday places.
i haven't had much time over the past days since my last comments (i've been at the thaddeus ARE structures seminar...woohoo)... but i just made a quick skim of the discussion since...
sharkee, i think that you may be misunderstanding what i was suggesting about the left over spaces... what i'm saying is not that all of the left over spaces are a good thing... but rather acknowledging the fact that they exist (think berger's drosscape) and suggesting that their may be a way to make them more beneficial than they currently are... i think that in a lot of typical suburban areas, these leftover spaces that are a given in the dendritic suburban pattern of development offer one of the few possibilities for inserting public spaces into suburbs (and existing urban areas too) as density continues to increase...
the rumors are that you'll always find someone you know when you walk through there. And so far its been true.
My first memory of it was when I was 10, and it was lasting (pre-pubescent urban desires?) Again when i was in my 20s, and it still kept that same magic.
I don't know if its designed, I doubt that kind of unintentional social experiment could be. There's not much to it, but you can drive through, catch a cab, walk down some narrow street, touch the brick work on the walls, grab a coffee, sit out side, rest on a stoop....et al.
Given our discussion, see red_swing'ss link posted today, good summary of the fear that consumerism, branding, and shopping will overwhelm the urban everyday which lurks in the background with a nostalgiac force that is palpable. Re: the left over spaces, , architecnophilia, design vs. dross, it seems the presence of dross space is the antidote to over design and architectural shininess, and that this type of space is uniquely different then an in-between space such as Kahn's Salk. But dross space can be designed to. I always love those moments when cul-de-sacs resolve themselves into little suburban neighborhood threshold parks at intersections with major surface streets, allowing pedestrians and bicyclists to pass through but forcing cars to enter through the main access. Sometimes these spaces even have a bench or two, allowing a glimpse into suburbia that is distinctly designed, social, and hardly New Urbanist.
an example of undesigned everyday urbanism right outside my window. theres a little niche maybe 6 x 12 that fronts the street and on one side and enclosed by fence/wall on the other three. this has become an impromptu gathering (s)p(l)ace for several middle aged neigbors to get together and shoot the shit.
like vado there's a spot in montserrat, where the main road intersects. Its one of the higher elevations of the main road with a few streets that tear off. Because of the elevation the road has to turn on itself at nearly 90 degrees. At these corners the road has to widen, and are supported by concrete barriers. Unintentionally they are used as stoops and benches. On average there's George, a builder and members of his extended family sitting down laughing when you drive past. But once a year on a public holiday just for the area (Cudjoe Head Day) it is transformed with thousands (the whole bloody island) congregating in the streets and using these very transportation device
Great examples, and JK's question highlights the bigger question: what is the role of "design" in such places?
Something as modest as adding a bench to a tiny, well-used corner of the city could be a major improvement... or not. In considering everyday urbanism (whatever that is) and our roles as designers, it seems like the caveat given physicians applies to us: "First, do no harm."
To me, the interesting thing about the many great leftover or otherwise "undesigned" urban spaces that function well is the lessons they offer. Looking at how people act in and use urban space (as our friend WH Whyte did) helps us take those lessons and apply them at work to projects where we do have a hand in determining (at least short term) outcomes.
Everyday Urbanism - Design and/or Default
I was intrigued by the thread on everyday walks and fascinated by the love and sometimes dismissal that was described by many. Doug Kelbaugh has claimed that Everyday Urbanism is an urbanism by default rather than intention. The thread in combination with this idea made me want to ask what Archinecters feel are the great everyday urban places - that have been designed. I do not care if they are edgy or conservative, traditional, or contemporary, realized, or unrealized. My interest is that they meet your definition of a designed everyday place in the sense that you would want, or do, with some sense of special awareness, move through them on a regular basis. Any thoughts - or a moronic impossibility?
a clarification: by designed, do you mean by one 'hand', intentionally designed as a piece? or is an agglomeration/accrual of distinct designs to make up the place part of this discussion?
two examples:
1 the student services buildings that moore rubell yudell did at university cincinnati have the feel of an urban space, having been handled very effectively as a planned-space-with-buildings (while i'm sure they may have been hired to do A building). the project depends a lot on their very crafty use of existing structures that were not very well urbanistically integrated previously: connected to old buildings in some places, developed student 'streets' in others, and broke their program into separate buildings which could begin to be used as figure in the streetscape field they had pulled together. very effective, very good, but campus urbanism is certainly different from city urbanism. certainly doesn't feel everyday but instead very intentional.
2 douglass loop here in louisville started out in the early 1900s as a streetcar turnaround and developed as a neighborhood center. the streetcar, of course, is long gone, but the hub of activity still functions well: coffee shop, sandwich shops, ice cream shop, hardware store, bread store, drug store (just closed), bars, barber shop and salon, cleaners, etc. churches across the street on two sides. professional offices in upper stories and extending down the block before it flips to residential. the traffic pattern, because it's a vestige of streetcar path, actually is NOT very handy for cars, making it much MORE convenient for pedestrians. this is real urbanism, designed for something, designed for subsequent things in several iterations and by different people, and evolving into what it is now. so is this design or default?
david mohney, dean of university of kentucky, likes to describe architecture as something like algebra - a management of multiple variables to arrive at an elegant solution - so that he can then describe urbanism as calculus - a sort of coercion of multiple algebraic functions acting independently into one system operating in a more complementary way. i'm sure he states it better...
so part of the question i guess i'm asking above may be 'is it urbanism just because it's an urban-scaled project?' moore rubell yudell's student services thing may still be algebra, while douglass loop is certainly calculus.
A very traditional plaza project that is incredibly successful as a public space functioning as a huge "community living room": Portland Oregon's Pioneer Courthouse Square (sorry no time before work to get a good image). I think the curving "stramp" (stairs/ramp integrated)that takes up a good quarter of the site and addresses a level change across the city block is key: it makes a slightly elevated viewing platform from which one can feel like both a participant and an observer. And everyone likes to sit on steps, reminds them of being a kid.
i am not clear about what you mean.
jon jerde's work is clearly designed but always feels like a mall to me, even the expansive exterior spaces between buildings at roppongi, for example. That is not "everyday" urbanism, i think...? if not what IS it?
other example is when i walk to project i am doing in ginza recently. There is a subway station within minutes of site, but i enjoy walking through ginza so get off close to emperor's palace and tokyo train station and walk 15 minutes or so...just because. The walk includes some very mundane (and some very fine) architecture that fits together with grungy train lines and tree-lined streets to become quite nice route, overall...and on weekends ginza is closed to auto-traffic so it is very nice feeling to walk on street...i think it is maybe everyday urbanism, and designed...sort of, but it was done about a hundred years ago. does that count? the original intent is surely long gone, perhaps making it possible to be nice place.
one more example from same route...on the way to ginza there is tokyo forum, which i don't care for so much as building, but the tree-filled courtyard between auditoriums and forum whale-thing building is very nice. because it fits so well into the context and is something i can walk through without feeling uncomfortable, and there is often enough some nice live music wafting down from the restaurant above, and all kinds of people hanging out...it does not in the end feel as contrived as it might do...in this sense it is both designed and nicely lively in everyday urbanism way...perhaps it helps that there is a very grungy train bridge running right past its front door so to speak that makes it fit in...it is unable to deny its context and nor does it overwhelm it.
is that everyday urbanism by design, or just luck?
as everyday urbanism i see all the informal settlements around the globe, which often give a more urban and community feel then anything else. this is everyday design based on the direct wishes (put a side economic issues) of the residents...
What seems key to me hasn't been mentioned yet, except by Jump: people. (A comment criticism against architects, alas.)
Urbanism doesn't happen without them. Each of us knows examples of highly (but maybe badly) designed plazas that have failed miserably to attract people and activity. Conversely, we also know examples of places that (by everything we were taught in architecture school) absolutely cannot be successful urban places, yet are. A narrow alley, a well-located parking lot, a non-descript patch of grass at an busy intersection... their success as urban places may have precious little to do with "design." But people, with their unpredictability and curiousity, may make them work anyway.
Land use is another important variable in the "calculus" of urbanism (I love that metaphor). Occasionally this comes under "design" of a newer project, but often not. The uses and functions outside (but next to) an urban place can be critical to its success as a hive of activity, yet are beyond the control of the designer. Plus, they can change over time.
This is probably a good time to trot out that tried and true old dear Jane Jacobs, who pleaded with us to "plan for diversity" everywhere we can: mxed uses, short blocks (with more connections), mixed ages of buildings (i.e., leave some old ones), and sufficient density to populate the streets and places and businesses. Not the solution to everything, but still a good set of guiding principles, I think, even for a designer doing her/his part on one small project.
Thank you all for your initial comments.
Steven, I do think I am interested in something that has been intentionally designed but I think the mention of the factor of time by Jump might suggest that it has been designed over time. I think the element of time and the anticipation of how time might work over a project is a critical definer of an everyday project.
For instance, I have always been saddened by the way that the "Grove" an intensely successful "main street" lifestyle center in LA, turns its back on Third Street, the main drag passing by the project, but have always assumed that someday the project could be easily retrofitted to address this street and thus have been somewhat mollified by the circumstance and just hope I live long enough to see it happen.
Liberty Bell brought up Pioneer Square and this raises the question of whether the everyday approach is constitutionally more suited to landscape than architecture. After all landscape almost always deals with some aspect of time or natural cycles and the interaction of people with these factors.
Jump mentioned Jerde and I have always admired his architecture (algebra?) because it does seem to address the scripting of space in an everyday way. (calculus?) I know some of his projects are more successful than others and the detailing is often a bit thin but again, time can be a friend and improve the project when required from an architectural standpoint.
Brown 666 mentions the informal and this is of course the terrain that the everyday is most successful at explaining but I am not convinced that it is always design in the sense that most of us as designers design, i.e it lacks a connection to a larger discourse and is more about making do; i.e. not conscious design though there is much to observe and be amazed by. On the other hand, when the informal becomes the political, at least in the planning sense, than perhaps the design of the bricolage starts to describe a type of intentionality that is critical in nature.
Finally, of course Jane Jacobs is the rock upon which this everyday foundation is built upon but, I always have felt she was not so sympathetic to the people who loved their suburban neighborhoods, cul-de-sacs, malls, cars, etc. The narrowness of her vision made her see only part of the everyday and its possibilities.
Again,what are the examples where this has occurred and works and places of excellence been the result?
So I have the following examples right now from our collective conversation:
A square in Louisville.
A Jerde project
Pioneer Courthouse Square
A plaza in Tokyo Forum (along the path of a walk - very Lynchian)
A Moore Ruble Yudell project UC
Perhaps The Grove
I also have some everyday factors that are critical based upon the above thanks to your thoughts:
intentionally designed
anticipates future changes
accepting of time
incremental
scripted
informal but conscious because of a political or social frame
Are there additional examples of projects that meet the above criteria or additional critiques of the above ideas to mention that would further illuminate additional examples that all might be contributed
It's true that dear old Jane was a bit schizoid in her apporach, yes.
Essentially, she said "don't do what the supposed expert architects and planners say, they have the same solution for everything." Then she said if effect, "here, do this, I'm right, this will work everywhere." She had important points to make and critiques to level, but she mistakenly discounted other kinds of environments.
damn it! "...her approach"
i'm generally not a fan of the "everyday." i prefer design. in that respect, rockefeller center is one of the great works of designed urbanism. it has a vision and a grandeur that contemporary work (jerde, etc.) fails to grasp.
i also appreciate how jacobs after moving to toronto grew an appreciation for the eaton centre. she was more complex than "death and life" might suggest.
I find that I rarely appreciate an urban space which is the work of a single hand, but usually those that have developed over time and been shaped by many. One of my favorite everyday spaces has been downtown Culver City (culver junction, small enough that it can be called a single space). The street junction is akward enough that cars slow down there, and in the summer pedestrians and bicycles abound. The odd angles keep everything interesting and leave some nice spaces like the odd triangle of patio outside the (ug) starbucks and the space between the theater/restaurant area and the culver hotel. Because it's been shaped over many years there are old buildings, new buildings, everything in between, but each seem to have been placed and shaped with care, and this creates a visual variety which I find vastly more pleasing than most places created in a single gesture.
jane jacobs was very savvy to the complexities all things that worked well. unfortunately like many intelligent people, her insights have been watered down as the filtered through the many minds that claimed to have been working in sympathy with the things that she believed. personally, i suspect that many have simply not even read her famous while claiming to endorse it. moreover, that book was really just the tip of her interests. i really suggest reading everything that she's written if you can find the time.
regarding specific places that were designed, i don't know but it seems to me that it's not just an issue of whether or not it was designed but also when it was designed. i can think of many examples of urban places that are quite lovely, especially in europe and the older parts of the usa such as new england that were the result of a design intention...but most of these places predate the automobile. that seismic shift in the parameters of what defined urban spaces occured sometime around 1950. even today, if you completely remove the automobile, designers are very capable of creating reasonable spaces for humans...trouble is you can only completely remove in today's context by setting up an exceptional set of circumstances, such as the amusement parks of disney.
one correction to my louisville example: there's no 'square' there. it's a triangle formed by three streets (a loop) packed with retail buildings both inside and bounding the triangle, plus a little bit of parking. the people spaces are the wide sidewalks and a little public area on one end of the triangle.
the loop doesn't look like much from the air, but i promise, it's a people place.
ok, i think i understand what we're talking about now. it's about 'setting up' conditions for urbanism by intentional design? like tschumi said he was doing in the villette competition (but didn't actually realize). like west 8s marketplaces in rotterdam. like the festival plazas that hargreaves builds into his parks, including the one here in louisville, all ready to receive the umbilicals for elephant ear wagons.
it does seem easier to give landscape examples, because an urban design doesn't become a thing until it gets built out. and if it gets built out all at once, it has a sheen and texture that doesn't often suggest 'everyday'.
how 'bout jackson square in new orleans? the pontalba and cabildo flank the cathedral very formally and the pontalba apartment blocks frame facing sides, leaving the fourth side open to the development along the river. all very controlled, but fostering an uncontrolled random everyday cacophony of activity.
sending you something, kaliski, which may or may not be useful. (not sure if this is a casual inquiry or going somewhere.)
Steven you're right - Douglass Loop reeeeeeeeaaaallly doesn't "look like much" from the air!!!! Let that be a lesson, oh google-earth viewers!
well, i notice that it frames differently depending how big your window opens up. hm. if you get the almost triangle block with the black roof in the middle of your screen, you'll get it. argggh.
Nononono, I mean I saw it, the black roof, but from the air it looks like a one-story light industrial building with employee parking out front surrounded on three sides by road and like the whole area is economically dead and there is no activity at street level at all - but I know from your description it's actually quite active and lively and community-centered. (In fact, did you take me for ice cream there?)
What I meant to imply was that pictures can be deceiving. What looks uninteresting from the air may be fantastically engaging at street level, and what looks fun and exciting from the air (or from a brightly-colored master plan drawing) might be a dead expanse of paving from street level.
Sorry to derail the thread. Back to topic...
yes you had ice cream there. mmmm. graeter's tonight maybe.
I looked up the word, and see these definitions:
"uur·ban·ism (ûr'bə-nĭz'əm)
1. The culture or way of life of city dwellers.
2. Urbanization."
"ur·ban·ism [ur-buh-niz-uhm] –noun 1. the way of life of people who live in a large city."
I think some are using "urbanism" and "urban design" interchangably. I don't believe we design urbanism, we design FOR it. So, Rockefeller Plaza and Place Vendome are designed urban places, but don't themselves constitute urbanism or urbanity.
Just add people.
there's something a little trite about trotting out the just add people. it's like a photoshop collage where designers think if they can just add enough people it will give some "life" to the dim and drab space they've designed. i know the world is full of wonderful little alleys that were never designed, but frankly what good is it to simply point them out?
in many ways, this gets at the heart of my frustrations with everyday urbanism. it's a form of postmodern pastiche where if you add enough people, enough activity, enough stuff you create a great "place." what a bunch of nonsense. you might as well take a trip to the mall.
True, my last line was off-the-cuff. My point is that the people and their associated, myriad activities are almost always given short shrift (if given any shrift at all) in these kinds of discussions.
It's not just about the container, it's about who goes inside, what they do, how they do it, and when. As to the container itself, does it help these considerations, or hinder them? In what ways? It's not just about pointing out all the wonderful little alleys, but LOOKING at how they work, at why they attract urban life when many highly designed places go empty.
And God help us if thinking about people when we design and plan urban places is relegated to postmodern pastiche. If that's the case, then we deserve every claim of elitism and ivory-tower detachment that gets leveled at our profession.
our profession will always be about how space relates to people and people relate to space. there's a synergy there. i think there's a perception that modernism overemphasised space; the postmodern backlash was to overemphasis people. i believe the relationship needs to be a bit more in balance these days.
sorry i've moved this a bit off track. i'll back off.
My comments were only directed at those who forget about that important relationship, jafidler... and they're out there.
OK, I'm down off my soapbox, too...
when did pomo ever emphasise people? apart from a treatise or two? in built world it was same old same old, buildings as objects not as places, more often than not.
people who are attracted to places, for whatever reason, make a big difference. they really do, and more so than any architect can hope to design for.
On other hand, there was a lot of theorising and even some building done in the 70's intended to be built out by reglar folk, but it never really panned out cuz most found it too odd.
So there is a need for architects, somehow, to make places that attract and can still be modified on small scale to create lively place. This is the sort of neighbourhood i live in.
In fact most of japan is like that because zoning is in the national building code (11 zones TOTAL) and not locally controlled, and in any case does not segregate functions very much to begin with...
in my research i find that it is local people making selfish and personal decisions that modifies an area, making it better or worse. How this turns into everyday urbanism with a special quality, or not, is still a bit of a mystery to me. I would say that jon jerde's work does not allow very much of this kind of process to take place, much like Disney land...so i don't see him ever being responsible for anything as un-predictable as "everyday urbanism", whatever that means...
is it impossible for architects to give up that much control? Does it really need 50-100 years to get there?
Jump, I like your skepticism, re: why does iot take 50 - 100 years, and if we have an inkling of what we want to achieve, shouldn't it be possible to do so, in essence compress time into the design process? I have always thought so and thus am interested in architecture that does this,pomo or not, commercial or not, landscape or not. If one is to develop a more coherent design theory or approach that achieves this, then, it seems we have to try to understand the projects that achieve this and why, regardless of whether they were designed by FOA, Rem, Diller, or Duany or others. I am interested in the examples to understand the broadest range of possibilities.
my favorite (and i know it's grim) everyday urbanism is los angeles' skid row
fuck the malls!...5th and 6th street is a homeless cardboard box community at night...
as far as getting back to topic then: citywalk
i would like to return to the discussion about people for a moment... while citizen's "just add people" comment was a little "off-the-cuff", he's getting at something very important... however, we need to turn it on its head...
as Jan Gehl says "life, spaces, buildings... and in said order, please"... the design of public spaces should start with people... gehl gives the example of aker brygge in oslo where developers are/were offering reduced rents for ground-floor commercial spaces to encourage occupancy by local cafes, boutiques, etc (rather than trans-national chains)... there was a recognition of the value of a vibrant street life... it almost seems that these days good public space requires a bit of ingenious social engineering to create what once was able to happen organically over 50-100 years... there was another example of this type of enlightened socially engineered type of development in a recent issue of HDM, but i can't recall the author...
this social engineering is where the current trend of "lifestyle centers" fails... even ones that are well designed (a few do exist, i think) still fail as "public" spaces because of the homogenised mall culture (and the private security forces)... the uber-example of this may be atlanta's atlantic station...
also, i do think that some of the rotterdam spaces that west 8 designed work quite well... the key there was that they set up a strategy for appropriation by the public... i don't think that they have ended up functioning quite like adriaan geuze and crew may have intended... but i do think that they work...
i think one of the most important parts of good public spaces is the edge condition... of course oftentimes this brings us back again to the undesigned since a lot of public spaces designs have no control over what surrounds them... oftentimes the success of a public space relies mostly, if not wholly, on the in situ edge conditions and the potential that they have to enliven the space... public spaces need to function as both thoroughfares between other spaces and activities and destinations in their own right...
one more quote...
"Public space was not given by God, it was created by human desire."
-Adriaan Geuze
one more thing... i'm really interested in the public space potential of left over, in between spaces... rationalist alluded to this a bit with her description of culver junction... i think that there may be an interesting "everyday" strategy for utilising these types of spaces... the unused parking lot, unused rights-of-way, vacant urban lots, highway underpasses, etc... these in-between spaces are already there and surrounded by stuff that it being used... we just need to develop tactics for making them usable...
@architphil
The idea of a quality in spaces inbetween other planned spaces (Rem) is usually just the sensation of releif from the confinement of the surrounding bad design and monofunctionalism - that is not a concept I would strive for.
One of my favorite places, and it isn't really an everyday place, is the center space in Kahn's Salk Institute. When I first saw it I was excited, because it was what it is: a modern masterpiece. I ran around to look at it from every angle and see all the great details. I snuck into one of the offices and looked down the openings in the concrete.
And when I was exhausted, the building just sat there, was solemn as ever. That is when I realized its actual quality: the building steps back from what really is important there, the nature, the view of the sea and the quiet.
I think this example is important for two reasons: one is to contend the idea that unplanned spaces make for good places. If we look around most of the space around us, created by traffic and land use ideas, we find that they lack any quality. Oftentimes they lack even the most basic functionality. Every day I see people on Olympic Blvd stand in the shade of the traffic light’s pole because no one bothered providing those poor people waiting for the bus in the scorching sun with any protection.
When any place becomes worth our while it is because someone, architect or not, has found a way to make the space out there better – be it by setting up a hotdog stand with a place to stand and watch the traffic or chat to a stranger and explain the importance of Pink’s.
The second reason a place becomes a good place, and why I brought up Salk is, that the design must step back to accommodate life and a feeling of place. Too often places are designed with a focus on aesthetics and the design at the center of the process. The “grand idea” is the focus.
This is why it is so easy to mistake that non-professional design makes for better places: it is less prone to center on aesthetics and effect and instead steps back and lets everyday life take its course. But I would contend that the actually great everyday places are planned with a few refinements over the years.
It is difficult to come up with a difinitive list, since you often take good everyday places for granted. Some places I like are Covent Gardens in London, most intersections in Barcelona, lots of small squares in traditional German urban design, streets of Parma, Bryant Park, Beachfront in Santa Monica and Venice. Good places tend to be there, where there is an abundance of everyday places. Where there are few, expectations and congestion seem to crush them.
well said, sharkee.
Interesting points, Sharkee, ones I'd like to tease out.
First is that it's more useful to think in terms of good versus bad design than in professional versus non-professional design.
Second is that design matters, but is only one part of a bigger, more complicated story.
Fidler, its not fair, you have witnessed firt had Speaks debate the flaws of every day urbanism...and I think that Margaret Crawford may have cried durring that debate...or was that Esieman's?
You have done a great job of pointing out the flaws the ED Urbanism debate...
bravo...
the crying was during the eisenman debate dude
ummm, allow me to say that again, without so many typos:
Fidler, its not fair, you have witnessed first hand Speaks debate the flaws of every day urbanism...and I think that Margaret Crawford may have cried during that debate...or was that Eiseman's?
You have done a great job of pointing out the flaws the ED Urbanism debate...
bravo...
well I think Crawford vs. Speaks was pretty great too
no, it was eisenman that made barbara littenberg cry over their pathetic wtc proposal.
i think speaks just got bored with crawford, stopped paying attention to her and started talking about crimson instead.
lol...that sounds about right, she was less than impressive or compelling from my recollection
Thanks all for your comments.
I have been incommunicado for a day or so, took the daughter to Disneyland - appropriate destination given some of the comments. Some observations from a person who had not been the Magic Kingdom in a long time. It was much better than I had remembered it and even though it is not public space in the discursive and constitutional sense, there is certainly a public using it, and using it quite civilly if not civicly.
Notwithstanding Charles Moore's "You Have To Pay For The Public Life", which identified in architecture circles at least the conundrum of Disney's World, I suspect that the place is even more diverse, crowded, and full of people having a pretty good time, then in the past - and it is designed. I think it is more complex then people just not having any other choices to spend a day, face it it works and is pleasurable (for most), from the moment that you get on the improved I-5 in Orange County until you pull into the garage (a very good garage that should be the envy of most malls - it actually has pedestrian walkways), ride the tram down the landscaped paths (shades of Fahrenheit 451 but not noirish in the least) and arrive at the main plaza and choose between the two gates or the ungated "Downtown" (working despite being single sided for much of its length).
I admit that I am more on the populist side then most but I certainly agree with jafidler that the everyday is more than just putting people in the scene and in a sense (probably perverse sense for jafidler) Disneyland proves the point - there is something ameliorative about the design, otherwise there would be a riot in this place where you are paying at least a dollar a minute to enjoy the spectacle. I know it is trite but there still are a lot of lessons to learn here.
One other observation, I enjoyed California Adventure much more than the original Mai Street, and not only because it was my first time on a looped roller coaster. This attraction seemed refreshingly clear of the Victorian clutter (now that a reformer speaking), inspired by the same airplane profiles, industrial detritus such as hangers and silos, and industrial bric-a-brac that inspired Le Corbusier!. My own thinking is that it is a generational thing. The original Disneyland hearkened back to Disney's parents and grandparents day. California Adventure perhaps appeals to me in the same way because it evokes a series of images, events, and moments that shaped the world of my parents and grandparents and that I trend to being more excited about. Indeed each generation has its kitsch and before you all get too sanctimonious and anti-nostalgic, imagine where you will be in twenty to thirty years (assuming you are that many years younger than me).
None of us avoids reflection completely even as many of us always seek the new. And even then alot of what is passed off as the new seems always to be a reflection and updating of the not so distant past (think DWELL and its fetishism for 1950's good design modernism). So the lesson for me, everyday, is design matters. And, that brings me to Sharkee (I know you!, but did not realize that you also were a Kahnman).
The Salk indeed is great as are many of his buildings and of course what makes them remarkable is their placement of the classical human figure in the space and in nature. Kahn was an overt classicist and his interest in the classic was both a rejection of early CIAM Athens Charter modernism (though he knew this well) and a wrestling with history, memory, and monumentality - all themes of post-war architecture that inexorably led to the excesses of post-modernism (a movement much maligned in these threads but far more complex and rich then some of our fellow-bloggers admit). Kahn also was known to state that a street is a linear living room or a room for living in (or something like that) - he was always interested in the haptic quality of his spaces and as a consequence they are filled with a palpable sense of being and presence even when void. With regard to the everyday, it again reminds me that the everyday can be designed and is a consequence and a result of a broad set of formal and informal considerations. It is not a style, nor a movement, but an attitude.
Citizen again also weighed in noting how a discussion of the everyday inevitably leads to a discussion of good versus bad design. I agree. Perhaps it is additionally useful to consider that discussions of good and bad are also discussions and agreements about values and while the creative impulse often has to resist values that diminish critical creativity they equally can not completely dismiss values that are critically formed within culture. For me at least this is where everyday urbanism (and design) intersects with everyday culture. I again appreciate the idea of time that Citizen raises. How many of us build in a sense of time to our designs? Perhaps both in terms of process and result this is one of the most important factors that can frame an everyday approach.
Finally, I will go back and read the debate or non-debate that took place between Crawford and Speaks. It sits on my shelf collecting dust as much of the everyday discourse typically does, everyday.
Additional thoughts. This thread is convincing me that the everyday is designed and that designers design part of it. It also is convincing me that time or the consideration of time is a factor that a design that aspires towards the everyday considers. Finally, the everyday is not, at least from a design standpoint formally ideological. It is as possible for it to be within a contemporary as traditional idiom, a formal or non-formal mode, equally done by Rem Koolhaus as by Louis Kahn though not always the case for either. It is for now still an attitude seeking an architectural process and pedogogy I am still seeking more examples of what you think are great everyday places.
i haven't had much time over the past days since my last comments (i've been at the thaddeus ARE structures seminar...woohoo)... but i just made a quick skim of the discussion since...
sharkee, i think that you may be misunderstanding what i was suggesting about the left over spaces... what i'm saying is not that all of the left over spaces are a good thing... but rather acknowledging the fact that they exist (think berger's drosscape) and suggesting that their may be a way to make them more beneficial than they currently are... i think that in a lot of typical suburban areas, these leftover spaces that are a given in the dendritic suburban pattern of development offer one of the few possibilities for inserting public spaces into suburbs (and existing urban areas too) as density continues to increase...
hope that makes some sense...
for me its always been picadilly circus.
the rumors are that you'll always find someone you know when you walk through there. And so far its been true.
My first memory of it was when I was 10, and it was lasting (pre-pubescent urban desires?) Again when i was in my 20s, and it still kept that same magic.
I don't know if its designed, I doubt that kind of unintentional social experiment could be. There's not much to it, but you can drive through, catch a cab, walk down some narrow street, touch the brick work on the walls, grab a coffee, sit out side, rest on a stoop....et al.
it is really quite magical.
Given our discussion, see red_swing'ss link posted today, good summary of the fear that consumerism, branding, and shopping will overwhelm the urban everyday which lurks in the background with a nostalgiac force that is palpable. Re: the left over spaces, , architecnophilia, design vs. dross, it seems the presence of dross space is the antidote to over design and architectural shininess, and that this type of space is uniquely different then an in-between space such as Kahn's Salk. But dross space can be designed to. I always love those moments when cul-de-sacs resolve themselves into little suburban neighborhood threshold parks at intersections with major surface streets, allowing pedestrians and bicyclists to pass through but forcing cars to enter through the main access. Sometimes these spaces even have a bench or two, allowing a glimpse into suburbia that is distinctly designed, social, and hardly New Urbanist.
an example of undesigned everyday urbanism right outside my window. theres a little niche maybe 6 x 12 that fronts the street and on one side and enclosed by fence/wall on the other three. this has become an impromptu gathering (s)p(l)ace for several middle aged neigbors to get together and shoot the shit.
Would you ever consider putting a bench in this space; i.e beginning a design?, or would this ruin it for you?
like vado there's a spot in montserrat, where the main road intersects. Its one of the higher elevations of the main road with a few streets that tear off. Because of the elevation the road has to turn on itself at nearly 90 degrees. At these corners the road has to widen, and are supported by concrete barriers. Unintentionally they are used as stoops and benches. On average there's George, a builder and members of his extended family sitting down laughing when you drive past. But once a year on a public holiday just for the area (Cudjoe Head Day) it is transformed with thousands (the whole bloody island) congregating in the streets and using these very transportation device
well they have folding chairs that they use.
Great examples, and JK's question highlights the bigger question: what is the role of "design" in such places?
Something as modest as adding a bench to a tiny, well-used corner of the city could be a major improvement... or not. In considering everyday urbanism (whatever that is) and our roles as designers, it seems like the caveat given physicians applies to us: "First, do no harm."
To me, the interesting thing about the many great leftover or otherwise "undesigned" urban spaces that function well is the lessons they offer. Looking at how people act in and use urban space (as our friend WH Whyte did) helps us take those lessons and apply them at work to projects where we do have a hand in determining (at least short term) outcomes.
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