The Babuk Report

Category: Architecture

The Burnham Plan Centennial Opening Events Reception

A reception and concert was held on Friday, June 19 in Chicago to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the Burnham Plan for the City of Chicago. These events coincided with the opening of two Millennium Park pavilions that capture the essence of the Burnham Plan of 1909, and marked the start of an entire season of cultural events and presentations.

The Burnham Plan was visionary. It envisioned a prairie metropolis with public lakeshore and efficient transit; with sustainable growth and economic muscle. It spawned the now famous phrase “..make no small plans..”

Before heading into the reception, I took a quick peak at the two pavilions, located on the opposite side of the Jay Pritzker Pavilion; the Frank Gehry designed bandshell and open air theatre.

Burnham Pavilion, UNStudio, Amsterdam

The rectilinear pavilion designed by Amsterdam Architect Ben van Berkel of UNStudio is a created slot of air and sky. People could wander through the square pavilion with its diagonal pilotis gracefully piercing through a solid sky of painted surface. The upward floor lights of changing colour reinforced the experience.

Foreground: Burnham Pavilion, UNStudio, Amsterdam. Background: Burnham Pavilion, Zaha Hadid, London

The oblong pavilion design by London Architect Zaha Hadid was an ambitious ‘clam’ of fluid space. Its tenuous frame sat adroitly at the site, waiting for its fabric skin. “..it was a bit more complicated than originally thought…” was a comment heard. When finished, a multimedia presentation displayed on the fabric would give a never-ending show of Chicago.

Burnham Pavilion, Zaha Hadid, London

Both pavilions presented strong, though concepts of “sky” – an important feature in a prairie city.

At the reception, civic officials and leaders, history aficionados and those who work to carry on the Burnham Plan were in attendance, under a mammoth tent erected just behind the new Harris Theater on Randolph Street. How a kid from the Canadian Prairies could ever wind up in an event like this is beyond me though not up for question. I renewed several contacts connected with Great Chicago Places and Spaces, and discussed potential format changes for next year. I also had the chance to tell the visiting Oak Park municipal delegation about my Secret Streets of the Loop presentation, and the concept behind those streets.

In a completely separate conversation, one said “..I’m off to an event with air conditioning..”, it was rather sticky weather, though many times I’m just a bit intolerant of weather like, my internal thermostat seems permanently stuck on the high plains. The Chicago Loop had been hit by a nasty rain storm earlier, at noon; it left everything humid under a dark sky. As the crowd was being ushered towards the Pritzker Pavilion, rain ponchos were being handed out as good hostess favours. Perhaps a telling omen.

June 21, 2009
Forecasting Global Economic Strategy, Understanding Urban Planning and the 1977 Mini Clubman Estate

Wednesday, June 3, 2009

While I’ve been avoiding the temptation, the removal of General Motors from the Dow Jones Index may provide a good reason to describe my own car, to draw parallels to the direction of this economy, and to the future of urban planning, of all things.

Both General Motors and Citi Group were recently removed from the Dow Jones Index, and replaced with Travellers Insurance and Cisco Systems. One could argue that the financial conditions of both GM and Citi had made them dead weight, they were not reflective of the US economy. It was curious that General Motors was not being replaced by another car company. Could it be that the automobile industry is not being seen as the driver (pardon the pun) of the overall economy that it once was?

1977 Mini Clubman Estate

Now, I drive a 1977 Mini Clubman Estate complete with right hand drive and British plates.

People stop me on the street and ask what it is ( “a car” ).

Some ask what kind of mileage it gets ( ” about forty in town” ).

Others ask if it’s legal to drive something with the steering wheel on the wrong side ( “of course it is, I’m driving on the right side” ).

Still others: how fast can it go? ( “I’ve had it opened up at 65” )

And still others wonder if it’s safe on the same road as giant SUV’s. Why one feels a need to drive a mammoth SUV in the middle of a large city and try to park it somewhere is beyond me. My Mini Clubman Estate belongs in a big city. That said, we don’t live in a big city, nor do we make a living by hauling things. The Mini wouldn’t be at all appropriate there, or in places where snowdrifts are bigger than it is.

In 1959, Minis were produced by the British Motor Corporation, sometimes known as Austin – Morris. It was designed by a team led by Sir Alec Issigonis during a one week design charette and was a revolution automotive concept – the absolute minimum car possible to transport four people. In 1969, a jazzed up version, the Clubman, was introduced. It had a flattened front to appear more modernand several trim upgrades. Like the regular Mini, the Clubman also came in a “wagon” version, the “Estate”. A Mini Clubman Estate Estate is what I drive.

If it didn’t make so much sense, it would be fun. Maybe it’s so fun because it pushes one’s bounds of tolerance so much.

In fact, my Mini makes perfect sense as something to be driven in the city. Asides from great mileage, it takes up less space and can manoeuvre around some of the tightest places. From an urban planning standpoint, our cities have been designed and redesigned around transportation. In recent memory, cities have come to be designed around cars.

Combining examples from previous posts and from my “Secret Streets of Chicago’s Loop” presentation, one can point at the original layout of the Chicago Loop. It was designed around slower modes of transportation supporting a smaller population. It was eventually necessary to accommodate faster and heavier modes of transportation, the Great Fire providing a clean palate for redesign. The solution was to widen every second street with the other streets left as original.

Arcade Place at LaSalle Street, Chicago

Street upgrades have continued to accommodate faster modes of transportation, and to accommodate more traffic generated by a larger population base. The avenues that became primary streets of Chicago’s Loop are big and wide, able to accommodate the largest of vehicle. Out in the suburbs, where traffic travels even faster, streets are much wider and consume far more land while oddly supporting a sparser density. Back in Chicago, the remaining narrower streets – several of which still contain storefronts – make my Mini feel right at home. It’s a great example of designing streets around and the scale of our cities around the transportation we use. Going further, several sections of Chicago’s “L” use little more than a back alley’s right of way, while a subway can snake its way around, virtually unknown.

But I digress – enough about urban planning and back to my Mini and its irony concerning our economic direction…

By the time my Mini was built in 1977, the British Leyland Corporation was making itself more apparent. A variety of British marques were having difficult economic times, so the British Government and other parties stepped in, consolidated models, cut costs and proceeded on. While the Countryman version of a Mini came with real wood trim, the Clubman Estate came with a “swoosh” of fake wood trim along each side. Most Mini Clubman Estates came off the assembly line painted a “Harvest Gold” beige kind of colour with dark brown velour upholstery – the sort of fabric of jammies sold at Woolco that wound up under the Christmas tree. One would gather that producing many cars in one colour would reduce costs. As the model progressed on in years, many components came to be made from cheaper and cheaper materials. The marque’s image took a hit.

It took a solid change of course to right the Mini’s image – drop the Clubman, improve quality, and to build on the ‘fun’ aspect by producing special “themed” models.

If one were to change a couple names, this story may seem much like a drama being played out in Detroit as of this writing. Emotional connection to automobiles aside, indicators may be saying that the automobile industry isn’t going to play the major part in a manufacturing economy that it once did. Perhaps our cities have reached a point where traditional transportation systems are maxed out, and we need to return to mass transit to make our cities liveable.

Will the automobile ever regain its influence on the economy? Perhaps not. Getting around and moving about will continue to be a driver of the economy. The mode of transportation will simply have changed.

This begs the question: if Cisco replaced General Motors, are Wall Street’s forecasters envisioning that electronic communications will replace physically moving people from one place to another and that social skill known in Chicago as “schmoozing” ? I hope not.

June 3, 2009
Presentation to Fachhochshule am Main Frankfurt and Ryerson University

Tuesday, May 26, 2009

Yesterday, I made a presentation of “The Canadian Side of the Chicago School of Architecture 1884 – 1935” to a group of architecture students and faculty visiting Chicago from Fachhochscule Frankfurtam Main of Frankfort, Germany and Ryerson University of Toronto, at their request. It was a group of about fifty people, they had booked the Lecture Hall at the Chicago Architecture Foundation.

While the important role of William LeBaron Jenney towards the development of the skyscraper building format is well known, the substantial Canadian influence in his practice at that time tends to be overlooked.

YMCA Association Building, Jenney and Mundie, Architect. 1893, Chicago, Illinois.

Jenney’s practice was one of a few noteworthy architectural practices in Chicago at the time of the Great Fire in 1872. In 1879, he designed and constructed the First Leiter Building, which is seen as a significant contributing building to the skyscraper format, both technically and aesthetically. In 1884, William Bryce Mundie, a young architect from Hamilton, Ontario, entered the Jenney practice. Mundie was immediately made Site Superintendant of the Home Life Insurance Building, widely considered by historians as being the first true skyscraper. Mundie was exceptionally talented and capable. Working his way up in the Jenney practice, Mundie was made Partner in 1891, at which point the practice’s name was changed to “Jenney and Mundie”. In 1897, the State of Illinois adopted an Architect’s Act, which defined who may practice architecture and what that practice may entail. Mundie obtained licensure as an Architect; Jenney did not, and passed away in 1907.

The period of time from 1891 – 1897 was very lucrative for the Jenney and Mundie practice, producing some of the most memorable projects associated with Jenney that are rarely associated with Mundie, though it appears that Mundie had considerable influence. Those projects would include the Fair Store (1890 – 96), the Ludington Building (1891), the World’s Fair Horticultural Building (1893), the YMCA Association Building (1893) and the New York Life Building (1894).

Union Bank Tower, John D. Atchison, Architect. 1912, Winnipeg, Manitoba

During this time, another young architect, John D. Atchison, passed through the Jenney and Mundie practice. After leaving to persue his own practice, Atchison did a string of unknown greystones and courtyard apartment buildings in Evanston, Illinois; he established an architectural practice in Winnipeg that was the only local practice with the knowledge and ability to take on ‘skyscraper’ projects.

Interior Stairway, Bank of Hamilton Building, John. D. Atchison, Architect. 1916, Winnipeg, Manitoba

John Atchison was the Architect of many skyscraper in Winnipeg’s Exchange District, such as the Fairchild Building (1906), the Maltese Cross Block (1909), the Great Western Insurance Building (1909), the Union Tower Building (1912) and the Bank of Hamilton Building (1916).

William Bryce Mundie continued on, being a guiding force in the Chicago Architectural Club, developing its curriculum and competition formats, becoming a major influence for incoming generations of Chicago architects. There is evidence that he stayed in contact with Atchison, who was also a member of the Chicago Architectural Club.

Meantime, Winnipeg’s economy took a prolonged downturn. John Atchison became a civic planner, being the force behind the establishment of the “Capitol Mall” concept leading up to the Manitoba Legislature Building. Atchison also persued out of town work, first in Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan, then in Pasadena, California.

There are many unanswered questions I’ve come across in my limited research, all of which would make excellent research topics for students of architectural history. Any takers?

May 26, 2009
Great Chicago Places and Spaces 2009, Part 2

Sunday, May 17, 2009

Great Chicago Places and Spaces took place yesterday. While the overall program was shortened (one day rather than two, 100 presentations instead of more than 200) it was very well attended. All three of my presentations sold out. It was beautiful weather, albeit a bit windy at times.

Secret Streets of Chicago’s Loop was able to get up close to the ghost sign on court place in back of the Cadillac Palace Theatre that advertised the lounge inside the former Bismarck Hotel. Speaking of ghosts, no one reported capturing any mysterious orbs on photograhs they took on Couch Place, in back of the Ford Theatre. We even had a good look at what was Pickwick Place, now addressed as 22 E. Jackson Boulevard.

Delivering a lecture as part of an Architectural Walking Tour

The Great Train Stations of Clinton Street was back after a year’s hiatus; fortunately, Johnny Depp’s filming of “Public Enemies” was not. That production reaked havoc on last year’s Union Station presentation, as the entire station – Great Hall, Concourse and platforms – was closed at the last minute for filming. This year, everything was open. Amtrak, the Union Pacific Railroad and the Chicago Transit Authority were all very helpful, it all came off well. We even had a presentation from Mason Pritchett of Casimir Kujawa Architect, Mason being part of the design team that won an Honorable Mention in the Chicago Architectural Club’s design competition to integrate high speed rail into Union Station. Caz – who was one of my interns years ago – couldn’t make the presentation and Mason was an excellent stand in. A college chum in town from California for a conference in Chicago who took this tour noted that an intern of an intern of mine made the presentation.

This presentation of Just a Bit of Chicago’s Transit Archaeology was a walking tour adaptation of a trolly bus presentation I made last year. There are many bits’n’pieces of transit archaeology all over Chicago. The trolley ride between the sites was a bit much of dead air, so a walking tour od a portion of that presenattion was tried this year.

I trust that Great Chicago Places and Spaces will continue on next year. Am hoping that some of the really classic tour presentations, like “Inside a Bridgehouse” or the rendition of “Rooftop Real Estate” that saw the entire group taken up to the roof of the Sears Tower may be back.

May 17, 2009
Great Chicago Places and Spaces 2009

Friday, May 8, 2009

The City of Chicago Mayor’s Office of Special Events has just announced the presentations being offered for Great Chicago Places and Spaces this year. I am honoured to have been asked to make three separate walking tour presentations for this event, which will occur on Saturday, May 16.

Chicago's Loop, looking over the Northwestern Station Yards

In Secret Streets of Chicago’s Loop; streets like Monroe, LaSalle and Jackson are quintessentially part of Chicago’s Loop, just as are streets like Garland, Couch, Marble and Arcade. Let’s find these streets and learn about the significant events that happened there. This presentation will take place at 945AM and registration is available at the Chicago Architecture Foundation on the day of the tour.

Coaling Tower, C&NW RR 40th Street Yards (GCPS 2006)

Great Train Stations of Clinton Street occurs at 12 noon. The train stations of Clinton Street – the Old Post Office, Union Station, Northwestern Station (Olgivie Transportation Center) and the CTA Clinton / Lake Green Line and the CTA Clinton / Blue Line Stations have always played an important role in Chicago’s Development. See the stations of the past and present, and let’s glimpse at what the future holds in store.

The presentation of Just a Bit of Chicago’s Transit Archaeology takes place at 2PM. What is this lost wall, this crooked building, this odd thing in the river, this old sign? Remnants of a lost civilization? No: Chicago is loaded with all sorts of Archaeology of past transit systems. let’s look at this one part that ran up to the Loop. On my suggestion, some of this tour was previewed by Geoffrey Baer in a telecast of “Ask Geoffrey” during an episode of Chicago Tonighton WTTW-TV last January.

The two afternoon presentations “Great Train Stations of Clinton Street” and “Just a Bit of Chicago’s Transit Archaeology” require advance registration, which will be available online at www.greatchicagoplaces.us starting Tuesday, April 21. In previous years, both of these presentations sold out early.

Great Chicago Places and Spaces offers a cornucopia of other terrific presentations, most of which are not offered other times of the year. Some presentations are aimed specifically at children and families. More information is available at www.greatchicagoplaces.us

May 8, 2009
The Rise and Fall of the McMansion, and other Midwestern Housing Trends

Tuesday, September 5, 2006

In the US market, many sense that the slumping sales of Toll Brothers Builders and Lowe’s are symptomatic of an overall declining real estate and construction market. Has all of the wind gone out of the housing market, as the housing bubble doomsday promoters predicted?

Perhaps not. Perhaps the housing market has simply changed, and that change has yet to be noticed.

The evolution of the living unit concept has generated many different planning and building formats over the years. One of the most radical housing concepts occurred in that era just after the Second World War; when plentiful, convenient land supplies, a growing expressway network and inexpensive energy spawned the post-war suburban tract home. Post-war suburbs spawned this building type, requiring exposure on all sides that in turn required a rate of land consumption and ensuing density that made individual transportation – the automobile – essential. Post-war houses were efficiently planned, but small. Post-war houses also embraced labour saving devices that encouraged leisure. Growing aspirations made post-war houses larger. They became so much larger that half a century later, the same post-war tract home concept became absolutely huge.

Witness the “McMansion” housing type, nothing more than an enormous post-war suburban tract home; many times built on the extreme outer fringes of metropolitan centres, sometimes built on tear down lots in neighbourhoods that weren’t completely built out to their zoning envelopes. The post-war tract housing concept has remained more or less unchanged despite simple theme variations. All versions of the post-war suburban tract home building type have enjoyed consumer favour during their history, despite many consumer changes over the same period. That the suburban tract home building type is on the wane shouldn’t be confused as a sign of a slowing economy, rather that the market is ready for a different type of building for housing.

Consumer Reports Magazine recently reported that new car buyers rank gas mileage as important as reliability. The US Census Bureau reported more ‘extreme commuters’ who spend more than 90 minutes a trip commuting, yet average commute times in many cities are slightly less, leading one to believe that more people are living closer to their employment, resulting in shorter commutes. Close-in neighbourhoods – older suburbs that were originally self contained towns – have emerged as viable live / work options. Virtually every North American city is finding itself in some sort of urban renaissance. Some of theattraction of pre-war neighbourhoods is their convenience to mass transit, allowing the benefits of being less automobile dependent yet still seeming quite spacious. Mass transit is becoming more than merely an inexpensive method of travel. Recently, the Washington DC Metro experienced some of its busiest days in history – for no special reason.

Los Angeles has realized that freeway expansion will not positively affect traffic gridlock or commute times, and has developed a commuter rail system rivaling Chicago’s. Mass transit has become an identifiable trend, with cities as diverse as Pittsburgh and Salt Lake City developing new light rail or commuter railway systems.

While this argument describes a market segment that be open for change, there is an even larger market force ahead: housing needs to be fueled by population growth. Growing population numbers are made up of people without benefit of large, home equity financial resources, and reflect growing numbers of immigrants at levels unseen in decades. Initially, postwar housing addressed affordability; the recent McMansion craze has not. The ‘middle market’ is under-served.

A prediction of the Midwest US housing market for the near future? Smaller, more efficiently planned housing types built closer in, perhaps on redeveloped land, perhaps replacing older housing stock that requires substantial repair. ‘Age in Place’ living and renovation may become commonplace. This housing stock will be located in neighbourhoods that support denser, yet livable communities. Neighbourhoods that are prime for new housing development demand respect of existing context and zoning codes. In many locations, the building codes that support this type of housing may not promote light wood frame construction. Housing units convenient to mass transit will be most desirable. Whether people are following their employment centres or employment centres following people, people appear to be living closer to their work. The neighbourhoods that made up the original ‘pre-war’ American suburb may demonstrate how this housing type works.

Original American suburb towns have weathered market downturns, are highly desirable and tended to be built around mass transit facilities. These neighbourhoods were unattractive to McMansion development, because they were never planned to support large amounts of very low density development with underground infrastructure or municipal taxation levels.

To describe this theory another way, think of building for the ‘middle market’ by offering quality housing set in attractive surroundings, convenient to employment with viable mass transit options.

As gasoline becomes expensive and commute times increase, building large tracts in the exurbs will seem less viable, at least for those tied to employment. As for building more McMansions on existing plots? Perhaps it will remain as some sort of niche market for a while. McMansions need a steady supply of relatively large land parcels in low density neighbourhoods, the closer-in 1950’s tracts may be attractive. Yet, picture this: a very trendy real estate and consumer niche is developing around exuberant ‘mid century modern’ themes – Eichler tract homes in the San Francisco Bay area, even Pierre Koenig’s Case Study House #22 that cantilevers out over the Los Angeles basin. Themes more reminiscent of the Jetson’s rather than pseudo-tudor castles may be poised to re-overtake suburbia.

Finally.

September 5, 2006
Streetscapes

Monday, June 5, 2006

Successful streetscapes are defined by spaces between buildings. The spaces become successful places; streets where we live out our lives, nooks and crannies that create pleasant oasis, buildings that form backdrops and walls that give meter to time and space….all decidedly urban concepts.

Let’s take the flipside to this thought and think of streetscapes that are defined by buildings between spaces. Eye catching, exuberant buildings and identity signage set inside parking lots, or man made landscape that won’t detract from the eye catching, exuberant buildings and identity signage. This is the essence of the suburban experience.

The idea of negative, rather than positive space – or however you want to cast it – is something that Victor Gruen thought was America’s downfall, yet something that Robert Venturi has portrayed as a quality deserving of American pride. Instead of abiding by the rules of being polite to our neighbours in context, we simply build as far away from our neighbours as possible, to be something individual. One could even draw similarities between this design comparison and the way our society functions today. Art becomes life.

Let’s go a step further. In the urban streetscape, one approaches places on foot, whereas in a suburban streetscape, one approaches a place while inside an automobile. Between suburban buildings, places are populated by automobiles – in motion, or being stored.

Beat era guru Edward Ruscha looked at parking lots and ancillary landscaping much the same way that Andy Warhol looked at soup cans. Testing this hypothesis, the elements of suburban streetscapes aren’t buildings or ancillary landscaping – let’s get down to business here, folks – it’s our cars. despite the advent of “dress down working environments” and “casual Fridays”, we still devote time and effort to primping our automobiles. Though we eat potato chips,we would never fuel our cars with nothing but the best gasoline and motor oils. We dress them up more than we do ourselves, quite often.

The British movement ‘Archigram” recognized this concept of mobility as architecture well beyond our suburban bounds. they imagined buildings that could move to new settings if one was bored with the existing one. Still others envisioned our transportation as a type of clothing, an extension of our persona – our automobiles are every bit a part of our personal image as are our clothing. More imaginatively, one could devise a set of clothes that become our environment and transportation, all in one. Imagine a set of trousers that sprout wheels and take one to work on a busy freeway; what about jackets that double as jet packs and rocket one to another continent for an afternoon visit…or inflatable coveralls that provide the ideal, temperate indoor environment while visiting the arctic, the jungle, or outer space…Spacesuits are clothing that provide all necessary support for life, much like any other built environment. But, are they architecture?

Back on earth, or at least the American suburb, we need interesting parking lots to sustain a vibrant suburban streetscape, flamboyant buildings on their own just don’t cut the mustard. Detroit’s “Big Three” did better when they recognized this, and designed cars every bit as exuberant as were suburban buildings. However, gasoline was cheap and abundant, we could fuel this type of environment. Now that automobile styling is boring, dull and gray; and that gasoline is reaching record prices, it’s time to rethink.

Suburban streetscapes are left with highly individual buildings with parking lots. Parking lots have become prime real estate, they tend to have supported commercially successful buildings whose only direction to expand are into their parking lots. Suddenly, these exuberant buildings that stood alone in their flamboyance are cheek and jowl with other, dissimilarly exuberant buildings. And they’re still approached by automobiles.

Understanding a suburban streetscape, and retrofitting it for the new century is one of our greatest challenges.

June 5, 2006
Parking Lots

Saturday, November 19, 2005

A recent article by Paul Kaihla in BUSINESS2.0 Magazine brought me to think about the parking lot as a prolific, yet endangered landscape feature of the post war era.

The article, entitled The Next Real Estate Boom (November 1, 2005) spoke of a coming wave of expansion, growth and redevelopment of American cities, of a scale not seen since the decade immediately following the Second World War, to accommodate 70 million more people. It congealed several concepts that aren’t terribly out of the realm of imagination – “megapolitans” infilling the areas between cities, such as one urban unit consisting of Seattle and Portland; in a way, not unlike how Baltimore / Washington are being reported as a single census unit today. It predicted that existing neighbourhoods may be infilled, perhaps densified, to allow for energy conservation. In my estimation, this type of growth would require a similar movement to preserve agricultural lands, in order to feed the additional hordes of people. A quirky snippet from the article is what caught my eye, concerning the redevelopment potential of surface parking lots in American cities.

They paved paradise / And put up a parking lot
With a pink hotel, a boutique / And a swinging hot spot
Don’t it always seem to go
That you don’t know what you’ve got ’till it’s gone
They paved paradise / And put a parking lot

Joni Mitchell, big yellow taxi

Parking lots have been somewhat of a fascination, if not an icon of post war growth. More people became mobile, we came to expect large, convenient surface areas where we could park our flamboyantly styled yacht of sheet metal, as if to put of symbol of status on display for all to see while we engaged in some activity of commerce within close walking distance. Like them or not, parking lots were an important component to the generation of gross national product. While many times they were our bane – like when Life Magazine declared a hillside completely paved in asphalt as being one of the worst urban eyesores of the year; they achieved an undercurrent of recognition and appreciation in other, equally artistic circles.

"The Spike" car sculpture that graced the parking lot of the Cermak Shopping Plaza has since been demolished.

“Thirty Four Los Angeles Parking Lots” by Beat Era guru Edward Ruscha elevated expanses of empty pavement to high art – a quite random pattern of oil spots that were actually well organized. One winner of the 1978 “McDonald’s of the Future” design competition if the American Institute of Architecture Students realized their design was to place a building seen behind a backdrop of cars in a parking lot, so that parked cars were arranged with the same care and fashion as one would expect to see soup cans placed in a supermarket display. Even our own Cermak Shopping Plaza in Berwyn, Illinois turns a parking lot into a glamorous art gallery.

Quite properly, some may begin to wonder just what has happened to our sense of art, if we see surface parking lots as being our highpoint of artistic expression.

True, the sort of vehicles we park these days all tend to look like everyone else’s, even automotive interiors are rarely offered in vibrant colours like they once were. It’s imaginable that the want to display our vehicle has gone by the wayside. Perhaps lengthening commutes have made driving more drudgery than pleasure, we’re not as attached to our automobiles as we once were. And perhaps time has come to rethink the parking lot. The Chicago area has several examples of what can be done if a portion of the parking lot is developed into a parking garage that can hold at least as many vehicles as once parked on the surface, and the remainder of the site redeveloped as something else. The parking lot’s sense of scale is what’s most intriguing; by tract standards, they are relatively small, lending themselves to development by smaller, private groups, much the same entrepreneurial spirit that saw to their initial development. What’s more, parking lots are usually well located, their location is handy to urban amenities.

Joni Mitchell’s lyrics bring to mind a quote Prince Charles once made about London tabloid newspaper; how they took perfectly wonderful wooded forests, and cut down all the trees to process into pulp newsprint that in turn became Fleet Street tabloids that printed stories of dubious gossip. In our case, the original landscape that was turned into surface parking lots may not be salvageable. However, the integration of parking lots into worthwhile neighbourhoods is akin to turning the proverbial sow’s ear into a silk purse.

November 19, 2005
Chicago – A Walkable City

Thursday, August 4, 2005

Carl Schurz High School, Chicago. Dwight Perkins, Architect

The late British architectural historian Reynar Banham was fascinated with the Industrial Era. He charted the course of various mechanical inventions to show how they changed the architectural environment; he felt Los Angeles was the purely American city of the Industrial Era. Quite like me, he felt an interest for North American grain elevators, and studied how they influenced development of the skyscraper. Yet, for all of his interest in Los Angeles, there was one interest almost missed: the defining American city of the twentieth century was Chicago. Los Angeles simply built on a very different departure away from the Chicago experience. The Los Angeles urban development model seemed to gain prominence after it had effectively dumped its mass transit system. If the movie weren’t so tongue in cheek, the downfall of the “Big Red Train” was portrayed with almost embarrassing similarities in the 1988 film “Who Framed Roger Rabbit“.

At the dawn of the twentieth century, Chicago must have seemed like the epicentre of the industrial universe. Yet, for all of its new found technological advancements, Chicago was a very down to earth, if not predictable place. Chicago’s practicality was borne of ingenuity. It just seemed to convey a Midwestern notion of common sense. These days, we would try to find a fancy new term for this line of thinking, perhaps calling it….. sustainable design, or transit oriented development.

Chicago was built as a walkable city. When that walkable limit was filled, the railways came, building stations just beyond this walkable limit, and created new towns with their own walkable limits. Chicagoans were a highly mobile people, yet energy efficient thanks to walking and mass transit. It wasn’t until the motor car came along that the areas between the town centres became infilled with sprawl.

Lyman Trumbull School, Chicago. Dwight Perkins, Architect

While Chicago is chock full of bridges that go up and down and turn around, those devices that are rarely seen are as important. After departing from Frank Lloyd Wright’s Oak Park studio, Dwight Perkins came to be in charge of the Bureau of Architecture at Chicago Public Schools. His theories about preventing disease through good design were simply revolutionary. Lifting spaces out of pre-Deep Tunnel System basements that were prone to flooding, he went to enormous lengths to promote concepts of light and fresh air. Many of his schools – like Carl Schurz High School – used vast air plenums fed by decorative roof vent intakes to keep a constant supply of fresh air throughout the building. In another building, the Lyman Trumbell School, the washrooms are built around strategically placed light wells, offering light and air to those same interior washrooms that were once relegated to musty cellars. Still other schools of the era after Mr. Perkins’ tenure displayed very early examples of ‘dampers’; a mechanical device that would sense hot or cool air, and direct it appropriately for the time of year. Outside of schools, many early skyscrapers demonstrated the same principles known today as ‘green design’ by providing shallow floor plan depths between exterior walls with window openings, a simple design feature that allowed natural daylight and ventilation. Factories, industrial plants and warehouses mastered a “vertical assembly” concept: raw materials would arrive and immediately be shipped up to the top floor. The product would become more and more assembled on its trek down through the building, the finished product appearing on the ground floor, ready to be shipped back out. Compare this concept to the enormous, single level warehouses that line I-55 through Bolingbrook.

Chicagoans still use one of the best and most accessible public transit systems available in North America. We simply started with something good. Some design choices – like mining out pine forests in our quest to build – may not have been the best practice in hindsight. Other design ingenuity represented a “best practices” in sustainable design technology, still relevant today.

Let’s see what else we may do.

August 4, 2005
Urban Infills – The Coming Wave?

Thursday, May 9, 2005

Much has been said about issues concerning development on the periphery of Chicagoland. Sprawl – even the name sounds like a lethargic beast. I’ve oft wondered what sort of commute times we’ve created for folks living in the new tracts. Certainly, sprawl stands to diminish the quality of life by forcing one to spend lengthening times in daily commutes, by lessening the supply of agricultural land, and by investing enormous public funds into new infrastructure projects that serve the far flung reaches.

The notion of increasing density in existing communities often evokes arguments of crowding and increasing crime. Yet, many older communities in the Chicago area historically have been more populous, more dense. When the city of Chicago hit its population zenith in the 1950’s, many would argue that it was more livable then, than in the intervening time until today. While Chicago experienced population growth in recent years, it has yet to recover back to this population level. Some may observe that the inner city has become a more attractive place to live with the increase in population. Not only is it desirable to live closer to work and cultural centres, density hits on a specific social quality that Chicagoans have been known for. We like to schmooze. And one may say that density assists one’s ability to conduct schmoozing.

By increasing density in established communities with well respected ‘urban images’ and reputations, wanton urban renewal would simply destroy the very qualities that are desirable. Infill development, respectful of existing infrastructure, may be designed in such a way to maintain those very qualities that are desirable in an existing community. For a municipality, carefully thought infill may bolster local tax bases to fund services.

Infill development may take different shapes and sizes, and may seek many different settings to accomplish its goal. The former Dearborn Station yards are an excellent example of large scale infill redevelopment of existing land that triggered a renaissance of the Near South Side. In Bucktown, the abandoned “Bloomingdale Line” became a pocket neighbourhood providing housing and commercial activities. One only needs to gaze at the large tracts of vacant land seen from the CTA Green Line to envision future potential.

Yet, these examples are all larger scaled, and sought to bring about change to existing urban context. What about established communities looking for densification strategies? Beyond “downtown densification’ and ‘transportation corridor development’ – both excellent strategies – imagination provides a wealth of solutions done caringly with an existing context so as to not disrupt scale and urban image.

One easy example of small scale, yet effective densification is the potential of the coach house – the ‘granny flat’. When done properly to respect overall site coverage and setbacks from property lines and other buildings to allow sunlight and open space, the notion of an apartment over a garage on a residential alley addresses many issues. The overall site coverage increases minimally, a neighbourhood known for open spaces and gardens can still maintain that image. The notion of people living off of alleys helps to police those spaces by giving a full time human presence. The notion of smaller living units addresses affordability. As for what this may look like, one only needs to conjure images of quaint London-style ‘mews’ of flats located off of the main street on lanes.

London-style ‘mews’ provide a further example of creative densification when applied to other neighbourhoods. Think of the sort of artist studios that could be created along alleys. The idea of a community having its own ‘Gallery Walk’ along its backside has an attraction. Growing from this, some small commercial galleries could blossom along alleys. Home offices could flourish, with addresses based on “Randolph Lane” rather than “Randolph Street”.

I wonder….what if a neighbourhood put very small theatres and cinemas along its alleys, and used this to generate festivals for the locals…

Urban infills offer countless creative solutions to urban problems.

May 9, 2005