Thoughts on Layering and Retrofitting
Interestingly, both the New Urbanist and several Dutch approaches to suburban development concern themselves with reorganizing the whole. They suggest relationships and juxtapositions between roads, houses, shopping areas, utilities, etc. that are radically different from the existing pattern of market-driven sprawl. (I'll post some images of the Dutch proposals later this week.)
What is frequently lacking in their proposals is serious attention to smaller scaled relationships between buildings, spaces and users. Sure the New Urbanism's lexicon includes diagrams at this scale—street frontage relationships for example, but these drawings seem to be the result of an interest in designing the project down to the last detail, rather than a sincere concern for how users, neighbors and communities interact. A good example of this is the porch, which is used in many New Urbanist schemes and intended as a method for encouraging community interaction. But historical and behavioral research of porches show that they only behave this way under certain circumstances: active street life must be present, lack of air-conditioning creates a need for cooler spaces, lack of television encourages porch use, etc.
Perhaps these "big plans" for reorganizing the suburbs miss the mark by focusing too much on formal organization. Maybe we would be better served by ideas that focus more specifically on the scale of the user. Research of relationships between buildings, streets and spaces could lead to new proposals and typologies for infill development projects at the scale of a single street or small sub-division. Ideas derived from this type of research could be used in two ways. 1) to create new, small-scale housing projects/sub-divisions that focus on shared space or 2) to retrofit the spaces between existing suburban houses and apartments. The small, incremental nature of these two strategies sets them apart and enables them to operate within existing market dynamics and constraints. It could also add a layer of richness to existing suburban neighborhoods without completely starting over again. The notion of shared spaces between the buildings could begin to re-introduce the notion of "community" at a scale that is larger than the family, yet smaller than the entire neighborhood. And finally, this strategy would offer new housing options in an environment with few choices despite its increasingly heterogenous population.
Okay just a bunch of thoughts... much clearer in my mind than in my writing. Hopefully this will start to come together as I explore several projects here in Copenhagen. Comments are especially welcome!
What is frequently lacking in their proposals is serious attention to smaller scaled relationships between buildings, spaces and users. Sure the New Urbanism's lexicon includes diagrams at this scale—street frontage relationships for example, but these drawings seem to be the result of an interest in designing the project down to the last detail, rather than a sincere concern for how users, neighbors and communities interact. A good example of this is the porch, which is used in many New Urbanist schemes and intended as a method for encouraging community interaction. But historical and behavioral research of porches show that they only behave this way under certain circumstances: active street life must be present, lack of air-conditioning creates a need for cooler spaces, lack of television encourages porch use, etc.
Perhaps these "big plans" for reorganizing the suburbs miss the mark by focusing too much on formal organization. Maybe we would be better served by ideas that focus more specifically on the scale of the user. Research of relationships between buildings, streets and spaces could lead to new proposals and typologies for infill development projects at the scale of a single street or small sub-division. Ideas derived from this type of research could be used in two ways. 1) to create new, small-scale housing projects/sub-divisions that focus on shared space or 2) to retrofit the spaces between existing suburban houses and apartments. The small, incremental nature of these two strategies sets them apart and enables them to operate within existing market dynamics and constraints. It could also add a layer of richness to existing suburban neighborhoods without completely starting over again. The notion of shared spaces between the buildings could begin to re-introduce the notion of "community" at a scale that is larger than the family, yet smaller than the entire neighborhood. And finally, this strategy would offer new housing options in an environment with few choices despite its increasingly heterogenous population.
Okay just a bunch of thoughts... much clearer in my mind than in my writing. Hopefully this will start to come together as I explore several projects here in Copenhagen. Comments are especially welcome!
posted by ryan at 9:22 AM
2 Comments:
Here's one project that's kind of in your neighborhood, I came across it today on We Make Money Not Art. A place called Svartlamoen in Trondheim, Norway was largley taken over by squatters in the mid 80s, and now, like Christiana in C-Hagen, it's prime real estate. The squatters have managed to hang on to it and get official recognition and now they've hired local architects Brendeland & Kristoffersen Arkitekter to build some new units.
From the Wallpaper article: "As stipulated by the squatters, these buildings are more about the public spaces than the private. The bedrooms have been kept small, but there are plenty of group rooms, including communal kitchens."
Similar is the Ikea BOKLOK model, I think there are some of these in Malmo (Ikea's HQ is there, too). these are organized around the shared garden space. There's always skepticism in the states about how much Americans would be willing to share this type of space, but it looks like Scandinavians have little trouble doing so.
Thanks for the leads.
There is skepticism in the states about whether Americans would share space or use shared space—but there are plenty of Americans who are interested in a stronger sense of community and others who are interested in other approaches to dwelling. I don't think these ideas would be for everybody.
It's pretty interesting that the Scandinavians have adapted to the pedestrian streets, squares and cafe culture. When these changes began to occur in Copenhagen, most people said it wouldn't work. These are Danes, not Italians! But today, 60 years later, an amazing cultural change has occured.
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