Can new architecture create successful places?

by Kathy Madden

People often ask me if a building has to be old or look historic to create a sense of place. I always answer with a definite "No!" While it may be easier to find older buildings where public activity flourishes, their success is not due to age or a particular architectural style. The main factor is actually how the base of the building is treated. A building with a well-designed (and well-managed!) ground floor can be a great place regardless of the style in which it is constructed. Let's look at two places which I think illustrate this point quite effectively: Country Club Plaza in Kansas City, and Rockefeller Center in New York.

Country Club Plaza, which debuted in the 1920s, is one of the nation's oldest shopping centers. Built in a style that mimics the architecture of Seville, Spain, it succeeds as a pedestrian district even though it was developed to accommodate cars. A few years ago PPS interviewed the managers of the complex, and we found that they attributed their success to four things. One, they offered a mix of attractions that appeal to a broad array of people – for example, by varying the price ranges of retail and restaurants. Second, they located necessities (e.g. bank branches, or doctors' and dentists' offices) in places that would lead people to pass by retail stores en route. Third, everything in the development allowed people to interact with it in some way. Children could touch sculptures; people could sit by pools and fountains; window displays were designed to maximize intrigue; outdoor cafes hosted jazz performers and other entertainment. And last, but certainly not least, blank walls were not allowed anywhere. Where management identified sterile areas around the exterior of the complex, they added plantings or artwork to liven the space up for passersby. What's remarkable is that, even though the Plaza is widely known for its historicist aesthetic, the people who run it cite very different reasons for its enduring popularity.

Rockefeller Center, though it was constructed just a short time after Country Club Plaza, couldn't look more different--but it is an even better public space. Its soaring forms are modernist icons, and the closer you get, the more these buildings come alive. Art deco sculptures grace the entrances. Ground floor windows protrude slightly from facades, enticing people to slow down and take a look at the goods inside. Changing exhibits and events in the center of the complex keep it humming in every season, while artfully placed wooden benches enable people to pause, rest, reflect, and take it all in. Here, a modern aesthetic gracefully accommodates a great public space.

Contrast the original Rockefeller Center with the more recently developed Rockefeller Center West (built in the 1970s on the west side of Sixth Avenue), however, and you'll see a very different way of building which has no sense of place. The buildings here do not have human-scaled bases: Store windows and entrances are set back from the sidewalk by nearly 50 feet, and the space between the building and the curb is basically empty. The retail is hidden so few people go window shopping. There is no reason for people to linger or make a return visit.

Rockefeller Center and Country Club Plaza make it clear that success as a public space is independent from architectural style. But as Rockefeller Center West illustrates, newer buildings often fall short of the mark. This is also true regardless of style. In fact, many of the worst new buildings are those designed to look old or historic, which don't work because they hide their ground floor uses behind a "charming" facade.

So although great new buildings may be few and far between, I stand behind my emphatic "No" -- there is NO reason new architecture can't contribute to an enhanced sense of place in the public realm. I would love to hear from readers of this blog about new buildings that succeed at their base--that engage the sidewalk with transparent ground floors and a mix of retail and other uses. What new architecture is striving to create better places?

The Ren Building

by Tylene

Architecture in China never ceases to amaze me—case in point—the REN Building. Copenhagen’s Bjarke Ingels Group (BIG) proposed this eye-catching design over a year ago to coincide with Shanghai’s “Better City, Better Life” 2010 World Expo . The building takes its form from the Chinese character for person 人 (”ren”) and combines two buildings (one symbolic of mind and the other symbolic of body). We love the poetic inspiration that reflects both site and cultural sensitivity.

“The first building, emerging from the water, is devoted to the activities of the body, and houses the sports and water culture center. The second building emerging from land, is devoted to the spirit and enlightenment, and houses the conference center and meeting facilities. The two buildings meet in a 1000 room hotel, a building for living.”
It’ll be exciting to see if the plans for the project are approved. Check out more views and an animated fly-through of the project below.

Fruitvale: Challanged TOD

from New Urban News

Fruitvale Village in Oakland, California, has become a reluctant symbol of the difficulties that transit-oriented development (TOD) can encounter.

Three years after the $100 million collection of apartments, retail, and community and professional services opened next to a Bay Area Rapid Transit station in the Fruitvale neighborhood, four of its 23 retail spaces remain empty. Slowness in filling the stores has been a source of frustration for the Unity Council, which sponsored the project.

The slowness has given developers and transit specialists yet another case to cite when cautioning about putting large volumes of retail space in TOD projects — at least in unproven locations. Dan Parolek, a principal at Opticos Design in Berkeley, says a developer at the Pleasant Hill BART station in Contra Costa County tried to use the example of Fruitvale “as the reason why they should do very little retail within the project plan.”

Fruitvale’s problems do not seem insurmountable — the vacancies are now on the way to being filled, says Jeff Pace, Unity Council’s vice president of finance and business opportunities. But they have sparked discussion about how much spending commuters can be counted on to do in TOD projects. They have also highlighted the need for effective parking strategies.

Pace, who joined Unity Council in 2004, after the retail problems emerged, says Fruitvale Village has been a huge success in most respects. The 3.7-acre development is now a vital center for its predominantly Latino section of Oakland. The Village’s 114,000 square feet of office, professional, and community space include a public library, a Head Start program, a community-based medical clinic, a children’s counseling clinic, and a senior center, as well as the Council’s headquarters. The project’s 47 apartments, ten of them designated “affordable,” rented quickly and have remained in demand.

Jeff Ordway, manager of property development for BART, credits the Council with helping to strengthen International Boulevard, an old commercial corridor nearby. Retail buildings on International “went from 40 percent vacancy in 2000 to less than 5 percent in 2004,” he notes.The one blot on Fruitvale’s achievement is the tortoise-like progress in filling the 40,000 square feet of retail. Some observers fault the design, pointing out that the stores are arranged along a pedestrian plaza — one that the station’s 6,500 daily commuters have no need to traverse. BART more or less mandated that the main commuter parking garage be built where it would create a short and direct route between commuters’ cars and the station, says Pace, noting, “Pedestrians getting out of their cars have no natural incentive to walk through the retail.”

Parolek says that placing the retail along a pedestrian-only plaza and then converting a city street between the plaza and International Boulevard into a pedestrian-only passage probably harmed the retail by making it harder for motorists to become familiar with the Village’s offerings.

Unity Council, like many nonprofit organizations with a social mission, was inexperienced at managing a retail center, and made mistakes in signing up merchants. National retailers were turned away while independent local merchants were favored. A locals-first policy can, of course, enhance local character. In Fruitvale, though, it led to selecting some merchants who were inexperienced and undercapitalized — unable to survive when pedestrian traffic fell short of expectations. “We turned away Starbucks twice,” says Pace. “That’s a really stupid thing to do.”

The Council did not obtain adequate legal protections. Its standard lease lacked a “going dark” clause, which would have stipulated that if a tenant did not get its business operating by a certain date, the agreement would terminate. “We have someone who has been paying rent for 21 months and is still not open,” Pace acknowledges. That business is now expected to open late this year. Leases contained no ban on retailers having other locations close by. “A record store had one store a block and a half away; they couldn’t make them both work,” says Pace, who is articulate and candid on what to do and what not to do.

FINDING REMEDIES
The Council has sharpened its leasing strategy in the past two years, and is now giving people more reasons for exploring the plaza. “We’ve been running a farmers’ market right in front of the BART patrons,” Pace says. “Our plan is to extend it through the main Fruitvale plaza.” In the summer, an outdoor cinema operates on Friday evenings in the plaza. “First Thursdays,” an event featuring food and mariachi music, operated until early October and will return in the spring.

The Council has introduced seating, better lighting, and other improvements to the passage from the plaza to International Boulevard. A public market will soon occupy one of the buildings along the passage, and there will be places for permanent outdoor stalls as well as stalls that can be assembled and disassembled each day, Pace says. Small merchants will sell arts and crafts and handmade foods such as tortillas.

At the end of October, negotiations were under way to fill the plaza’s four remaining vacancies. “We think we’re really turning the corner,” he says. Architect Ernesto Vasquez, a principal in McLarand, Vasquez, Emsiek & Partners, involved in the project for years, says Fruitvale Village is becoming a destination for people seeking Latino products and services. He urges developers: “Be patient; you need to avoid being rushed into getting tenants, and not getting the right tenants.” Delaying the retail component of a project or building it in phases may reduce the risk of its failing. Vasquez thinks conditions at Fruitvale will improve when the project’s second phase, containing approximately 300 to 450 housing units, is built.

“Retail is the Achilles’ heel of TODs,” warns Richard Cervero, a transportation specialist who teaches at Berkeley. “If not done right, it can really stigmatize a development as a loser.” Richard Willson, a Cal Poly Pomona planning professor who has advised BART on parking policy, says, “Among developers, I find a bit of naiveté about how people use transit facilities.” They often don’t realize that many commuters rush through, not buying much, Willson says. Ordway says commuters generally constitute a tertiary market — less important than the people who live in the surrounding community and individuals who live or work in the project area.Ordway says developers would be wise to study a TOD project that Calthorpe Associates was involved in planning next to a BART station in Richmond, north of Berkeley. There, buildings along a pathway to the station were constructed so they could start as wholly residential and be converted to live/work — with street-level offices or retail — after the location proves itself.

RECONSIDERING PARKING
BART has abandoned its policy of providing free parking at many of its East Bay stations. BART has also modified its requirement that when parking lots at a station are built upon, an equal number of new parking spaces must be provided, typically in garages or decks. The changes bode well for future TOD, by eliminating major financial hurdles.

Patrick Siegman at Nelson\Nygaard consultants in San Francisco, says the next step should be the establishment, by municipalities, of “parking benefit districts” in neighborhoods around transit stations. Commuters could pay to use designated on-street spaces. The revenue would be devoted to public improvements desired by the neighborhood, such as better sidewalks, lighting, and landscaping. “At $4 each for 250 cars, you’d have $1,000 a day in revenue to spruce up the neighborhood,” Siegman calculates. Parking benefit districts are being considered at two Oakland stations, Ordway says.Despite challenges, TOD is gaining momentum. On land owned by BART, nearly $2 billion of capital has already been invested in TOD or is in process or in negotiations, according to Ordway. At Pleasant Hill, which contains substantial housing and employment, approximately 40,000 square feet of space is expected to be available for retail. “It’s not just pure retail,” Parolek emphasizes. “It’s allowed to be used for professional services such as a dentist or optometrist.”

Sydney's Greenest Building

by Jorge

30 Bond
What’s more impressive than a building design that aims to reduce its greenhouse emissions to a 5 Star Australian Building Greenhouse Rating benchmark, which is the approximate equivalent to that of a Gold LEED greenhouse certification level? How about one which has proven to meet its target and improves on it. This is the case of the building known as 30 The Bond located at Hickson Road in Sydney.

When Lend Lease, its builder and current owner decided to create its new headquarters in Sydney it decided to hold numerous employee workshops to determine what they believed were the important priorities. Those priorities were reduction in pollutants, increase in environment quality, water management (as Australia has now been in what seems a permanent drought), waste management and a green area for them to enjoy. All of this resulted in an extremely well designed commercial building.

Built over the old contaminated gasworks site, which had to be restored, 30 The Bond was the first building in Australia to achieve the rating of 5 stars ABGR, with a certified emission that resulted in over a 20% reduction over the already stringent targets set by its initial 5 star design commitment, as well as receiving a 5 star Green Star - office as built rating from the Australian Green Building Council . It achieved this rating by using chilled beams (a first in Australia), wintergarden rooms and automatically controlled external shades to keep the heat out as well as providing external views to 60% of its occupants. It also contains low VOC carpets and paints, a roof garden with native plants and timber decking from sustainable sources. Water saving fittings as well as a sub-metering system to allow for any leak detection sealed the deal.

And while all of that is important, what we like here at Inhabitat is when we can achieve all this with style, and this building does it in droves. When entering the building you cannot help to notice the exposed four-storey sandstone wall that serves as one wall of the atrium. Aside from being a reminder of the site’s history, as it was originally cut by convicts early in Sydney’s history, it also serves as insulation as well as providing natural cooling to the atrium.
The 9 storey building was designed by PTW Architects (who we recentally raved about for their “Bubble Building”) in conjunction with WHO interior architecture and Bovis Lend Lease.

Award Winning Sustainable Design

by Evelyn

Collaborative Designworks in Houston, Texas proves that sustainable design practices can lead to award-winning architecture. Their 505 Housing was recently one of the 19 recipients of the American Institute of Architect’s (AIA) 2007 Housing Awards, winning 1st prize in the One-and Two-Family Production Homes category. Now in its seventh year, the award recognizes the best of the best in housing design while promoting the importance of housing as “a necessity of life, a sanctuary for the human spirit, and a valuable national resource.”

The 505 incorporates 4 units on a site eligible to hold 5, allowing space for yards and optimum utilization of daylight due to the reduction of shared walls. Each window was placed to maximize views, let in a considerable amount of daylight, maintain each unit’s individual privacy, and provide natural cross-ventilation. Other sustainable ideas deployed in the design of The 505 include permeable ground coverings, stack-vented rain-screens on the east and west facades, radiant barrier roofing, recycled/sustainable materials and finishes, tank-less water heaters, and high-efficiency appliances and equipment.