Bike Racks as Art

A new take on Public art? Found this interesting site today called Cycloops. They make very fun and whimsical ways to lock your bike up in the urban or suburban enviornments. You can even submit your own creative design for them to fabricate. Now that is Boho.

Workforce Housing

exerpts from Hernando Today, March 13, 2007, Michael D. Bates

Most people are familiar with affordable housing, which the federal government defines as housing that costs no more than 30 percent of a household's monthly income. Such housing also comes with state guidelines. But workforce housing is a relatively new animal whose description varies depending on who you talk to.

The federal Urban Land Institute (ULI) defines it as housing that is affordable to those between 60 and 120 percent of the area's median income. Many households in this group do not qualify for federal programs, yet do not have enough income for adequate housing, according to the ULI.

Nicholas Nicholson, president of Nicholson Engineering Associates, said his idea of workforce housing is a household that earns $45,000 annually or less, which includes teachers, firefighters, police officers and service-related workers. These people don't make the kind of money to afford $200,000-plus homes or homes on the scale of Glen Lakes or the proposed Hickory Hill.

But whatever they call them, county commissioners have made it clear they support developers' plans to build homes that meet more realistic budgetary constraints of the citizens. You need houses for all kinds of people on all kinds of income levels, County Commissioner Rose Rocco said.

Often, there is a death in the family, and the surviving spouse is forced to downsize because of income restraints, she said. Other candidates for these types of homes are older couples who don't want the hassles of yard maintenance or empty nesters who now find they don't need large, expensive homes, she said. These types of homes also provide a springboard for couples to move up in the future, she said. You want to be able to see your young couples, those who can't afford to go into a house at this point in time, and give them a nice place to live that is within their income range, she said. There isn't a whole lot out there like that now.

Considerations for Live-Work Space

by Zimmerman Volk

“Live-work” is a unit or building type that has been designed to accommodate non-residential
uses in addition to, or combined with living quarters. Live-work units are commonly
proposed in new traditional neighborhoods or new town centers, particularly as a transition
from residential to commercial areas or as a means of introducing small-scale retail.
The growing number of home-based businesses in the United States (reported in 1997 as four
million) is often cited as a justification for live-work. However, there is an important
distinction between a “home-based business” and a “business-based home.” Most home-based
businesses can be accommodated in almost any kind of dwelling unit. In contrast, the
business-based home is a true live-work unit: a dwelling unit with a configuration that is
influenced or even dictated by the non-residential activities.
Four live-work development considerations:

1. Flexibility
Live-work units should be flexible in order to respond to economic, social and technological
changes over time. The unit configuration must also be flexible in order to comply with the
requirements of the Fair Housing Amendments Act and the Americans with Disabilities Act.

2. Non-restrictive zoning
Compatible uses (retail, office, residential) should be permitted on blocks in and surrounding
the neighborhood center, regardless of unit configuration.

3. Tenure
Rental live-work units are absorbed faster than for-sale. The financial commitment of a lease
is small and of relatively short duration compared with a mortgage. A for-sale live-work unit
represents an opportunity for the small investor: a resident investor can lease the flex space for
residential, retail or office use; a non-resident investor can lease both the main residential space
and the flex space.

4. Timing
Live-work is not exempt from normal commercial real estate dynamics. In new
neighborhoods, live-work should be one of the later building types to be introduced, not the
first. It is easier to capture the full value and appeal of live-work units in locations where the
benefits of traditional neighborhoods are readily apparent.

Bodega-Innovative Retail

If you’re starting a new independent clothing store in Boston’s typically fashion-challenged environs, you’d probably take out an ad to promote your grand opening and give away cheap-but-seemingly-generous swag to the first days’ customers. But if you’re opening a high-end-streetwear boutique meant to become a global destination and you have a clue about the Internet-hyped urban market, you’d instead keep your store on the down low, build the environment into something that’s more like a living-art installation than like a straight-product shill, and wait for the customers to come to you.

Bodega’s retail concept is a stroke of genius: one of the birthplaces of hip-hop/graffiti/sneaker/urban culture is the corner store. Even one of Adidas’s most recent marketing stunts for its relaunched early-’80s product line Adicolor was to randomly display seven individual shoe samples in various New York corner stores. So while there are a couple of “magical” secrets about the place that its inventive owners are still trying to keep hush-hush, Bodega is not only designed to convert into an art gallery, but there’s also an awesome fully functional bodega on site, replete with grape sodas, candy necklaces, and ceiling tiles that have had coffee poured on them to mimic water stains. Owner Mak says with a smirk, “We wanted to get flytraps that already had flies in it and mice traps that had mice in it.”

In truth, Bodega is innovative not only for Boston, but for retail. “Will Bostonians really get it? That’s not really our aim,” says Mak. “This is a global market. But we’d like to put a flag in the sand and be like, there’s really good stuff coming out of Boston. SoHo isn’t the only scene on earth.”

Volkshaus

Devised by a design group called Landship, (see also Be-haus, A-Kit, and Oji-Group) the Volkshaus concept was intended as a means to realize the simple practicality embodied by the Volkswagen Beetle in a DIY home building system. Bearing some characteristics of a plug-in architecture platform, it uses a system which combines 4x9.5" (105x240mm) wood beams and 4x4" posts connected with a concealed modular steel joint and modular floor, roof, and prefabricated insulated wall panels which nail into place on the post and beam frame. The system integrates both Japanese and western styles of design with modern materials and new eco-sensible systems for energy and climate control, such as a roof trombe wall style heat collector, a roof-peak passive ventilator system, and integrated photovoltaic panels. It has so far been used for about 2000 homes in Japan and is offered in a variety of kits from a community of companies specializing in making products for it. Unfortunately, the exchange rates and the fact that almost all building lumber in Japan is imported makes the cost of importing these kits to the US unattainable.

TOD...Why Now?

From Reconnecting America

Housing Preferences Are Changing:

Demand is changing dramatically because of profound demographic shifts, including the aging of baby boomers, the number of new immigrants, and the fact that younger adults prefer urban, mixed-use environments. While two-thirds of demand is still for large single-family dwellings, a third is for smaller housing choices, including apartments, townhomes, live-work spaces, and bungalows. The market isn’t meeting this demand, and the increasing competition for units in denser, mixed-use neighborhoods has caused a cycle of price increases, displacement and gentrification. There is an urgent need to increase this housing stock in order to meet market demand and protect and grow the affordable housing inventory.

Workers and Firms Prefer "24-Hour Neighborhoods":

In the past companies have preferred suburban campus environments near freeways, and regions have lured employers without regard to bigger picture development goals. But other issues are coming into play, including the rise of the "creative class," and the increasing importance of talent, technology and tolerance in a region’s economic development strategy. Because firms are chasing talent, which is choosing to locate in diverse, lively urban regions, firms now prefer these locations. A recent Jones Lang LaSalle survey found access to mass transit is very important to 70 percent of New Economy companies. And, according to PricewaterhouseCoopers' respected Emerging Trends publication, 24-Hour places are the best real estate investment locations.

Rail and Bus Systems Are In A Building Boom:

More regions are developing mass transit and more consumers are choosing mass transit over driving on congested roadways. Whereas public transit had existed primarily in older Northeastern cities, new systems have begun service in cities like Dallas, Denver, Salt Lake City, Sacramento, Charlotte, San Diego, Portland and San Jose. In fact, new rail or rapid bus systems are planned or under construction in all but three of the top 30 metropolitan areas.
At the convergence of these three trends is an opportunity to create the armature for a new growth and development strategy that meets the demand for location-efficient mixed-use places, supports regional economic growth strategies, and increases housing affordability — by increasing supply in neighborhoods with lower transportation costs. TOD occurs within a half mile radius of rail or rapid bus stations, encourages walking and cycling, has a mix of retail, commercial and residential uses, and a diversity of housing types suited to a mix of generations and incomes. It is the one strategy that promises to simultaneously meet these seemingly disparate goals.

Indeed, transit-oriented development has been touted as the palliative to traffic congestion and air quality problems, the high cost of housing, and Americans’ need for physical activity. But analysts have looked at projects on the ground nationwide and found few that deliver on this promise, and they’ve concluded TOD offers few advantages. In fact, the truth lies somewhere in between. Most so-called transit-oriented projects are simply conventional development located adjacent to transit, and cannot live up to the potential of truly effective transit-oriented development.

Transit Oriented Development: Defined

Transit Oriented Development (TOD) refers to residential and Commercial Centers designed to maximize access by Transit and Nonmotorized transportation, and with other features to Encourage Transit Ridership. A TOD neighborhood has a center with a rail or bus station, surrounded by relatively high-density development, with progressively lower-density spreading outwards. For example, the neighborhood center may have a transit station and a few multi-story commercial and residential buildings surrounded by several blocks of townhouses and small-lot single-family residential, and larger-lot single-family housing farther away. TOD neighborhoods typically have a diameter of one-quarter to one-half mile (stations spaced half to 1 mile apart), which represents pedestrian scale distances. It includes these design features (Morris, 1996):

• The neighborhood is designed for Cycling and Walking, with adequate facilities and attractive street conditions.


• Streets have good Connectivity and Traffic Calming features to control vehicle traffic speeds.


• Mixed-use development that includes shops, schools and other public services, and a variety of housing types and prices, within each neighborhood.


• Parking Management to reduce the amount of land devoted to parking compared with conventional development, and to take advantage of the parking cost savings associated with reduced automobile use.

Transit Oriented Development generally requires at least 6 residential units per acre in residential areas and 25 employees per acre in Commercial Centers, and about twice that for premium quality transit, such as rail service (Pushkarev and Zupan, 1977; Ewing, 1999; Robert Cervero, et al, 2004). These densities create adequate transit ridership to justify frequent service, and help create active street life and commercial activities, such as grocery stores and coffee shops, within convenient walking distance of homes and worksites. However, other factors are also important beside simple density. Transit ridership is also affected by factors such as employment density and Clustering, demographic mix (students, seniors and lower-income people tend to be heavy transit users), transit pricing and rider subsidies, Parking Pricing and Road Tolls, the quality of transit service, the effectiveness of transit Marketing, walkability, and street design. A particular density may be inadequate to support transit service by itself, but becomes adequate if implemented with a variety of Transit Encouragement and Smart Growth strategies. The assumption that transit cannot be effective except in large cities with high population densities can be a self-fulfilling prophecy, because it results in transport and land use decisions that favor automobile travel over transit.

New Urbanism (one view)

by VirtualCity

New urbanism occasionally encompasses other city planning systems such as smart growth, and is occasionally recognized as a separate entity. The idea claims to originate in the early twentieth century with the development of the neighborhoods it uses as models, though as a movement, it is responding to the perceived weaknesses in suburban development.

Whether or not smart growth is an offshoot of new urbanism, the two share a number of concepts. Both emphasize the important of a compact, walkable community center, and the assimilation of different types of housing and commercial buildings. An emphasis on environmentally-conscious building, the renovation of brown- or greyfield land, and historic preservation are other similarities.

However, because new urbanism was created as a specific theory for urban design rather than simply being based on a looser set of ideals, its definition is more concrete than that of smart growth. Andres Duany and Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk founded the Congress for the New Urbanism, inspired by the time the husband-and-wife team spent at Yale. Their guidelines for a ‘new urban’ neighborhood suggest the inclusion of most of these elements:

• A recognizable center for the town/city/community, such as a green square or distinctive intersection, in which the transit stop is also situated.
• Buildings in the neighborhood center placed close to the street, to form a well-defined space.
• A walk of not much more than 5 minutes from any home to the community center, or approximately 2,000 feet.
• Mixed housing types, including apartments, rowhouses and detached homes, to provide a suitable dwelling for people of all ages and all economic means.
• An auxiliary building for workspace or a garage apartment is allowed in the backyard of each home.
• Parking lots or garages in the back of homes and businesses, rather than fronting the streets.
• Shops and offices to sufficiently serve the weekly needs of residents on the edge of the community.
• An elementary school close enough for most children to walk from home.
• Small parks or playgrounds near every home, not more than a tenth of a mile away.
• Streets that create a linked network to disperse traffic.
• Relatively narrow streets, suitable for pedestrians and bicycles, preferably lined with trees.
• Some major spots in the neighborhood center reserved for buildings to facilitate community meetings and activities, or for religious, cultural, or educational purposes.
• A self-governing community, guided by a council that makes decisions on maintenance and change.

There are a number of complaints lodged against new urbanism—the first, a semantics issue, that the scheme is not actually ‘new,’ as it derives its inspiration from American towns of the pre-automobile era. Some argue, conversely, that this halcyon design is based upon a system that exists only in nostalgia. Either way, it has drawn criticism chiefly for emphasizing aesthetic values over practical design, especially as a new urban community might relate to the surrounding region. The delineation of design elements irks those who feel the plan undermines American property rights and civil liberties, while on the opposite side of the spectrum, some accuse it of being a gentrification plan that would force lower-income families from their neighborhoods. Though the transportation habits of new urban residents may improve, the communities tend to remain socially homogenous ones.

A Detailed Definition of BOHO-centers

BOHO centers are the only high density mixed use retail and residential development that exceed existing standards in their economic, cultural, social, and environmentally sustainability to create the needed vitality to act as a catalyst of growth for the surrounding area.

Requirements:

Design-The standard project program is a high density multi use environment that is sensitive to the surrounding location in scale and style. Development is an 8-16 acre site with pedestrian-friendly traffic patterns and green gathering spaces for individuals to utilize for its 24-7 days worth of services and active spaces. Project must have close proximity to multiple mass transit opportunities. Projects must be (LEED) Green Building Rating System™ certified.

Economic-Take advantage of undervalued urban land to create a retail district with national independents as anchors and affordable entry level lease for boutique and localized retailers. Smaller Café’s and tavern spaces are set aside to encourage multiple styles of restaurant and relaxing options. Coffeehouses and independent bookstores are encouraged to align around exterior common gathering space. Loft style housing and office options are created with minimum design elements to reduce initial capital investment and encourage a sense of ownership in the leassors by their customization of space.