Architecture design theory; Vastra Hamnen in reference to"New Urbanism movement"

-

2

Chapter 1 Instant Architecture, Instant Cities, and Incremental Metropolitanism

INSTANT CITIES AND SUBURBAN RETROFITS

he goal of urbanizing suburbs ca lls into question

many long-standing cultural stereotypes. If cit-

ies are conventionally understood as old places

with new buildin gs versus suburbs as new places

with simu lations of older buildings, how do we

make sense of suburban retrofits? ' How do t hese

projects challenge expectat ions of responsible urban

design-both in terms of respect f or the immediate

context and reconfiguring metropolitan areas? How

shou ld w e evaluate t heir success? This chapter situ-

ates t he arguments for retrofitting suburbia within

contemporary urban design polemics at three dif-

ferent sca les: instant architectu re, instant cit ies, and

incremental metropol itanism.

In al ignment with democratic idea ls, profes-

sionals en gaged in city making have come to sha re

a pervasive enthusiasm for incre mental u rbanism-

cities that evolve over ti me t hrough gradual accre-

t ions and infill so that t he collective form bears the

imprint of a broad spectrum of interests . Much as

case law is shaped by incremental j ud icia l decisions

to reflect both our past and our current va lues,

urban form that has been co ntinually added t o

an d adjusted is genera lly perceived as an authen-

tic rep resentation of culture. Organic met aphors

further reinforce our perception that urban growth

naturally morphs not through the artifice of master

p lans and government policies b ut in response to

ever-changing cond it ions.

There is no question that the world's great cities

exemplify incremental urbanism and that sensitive

intervent ions that both respect the existing urban

structu re and advance evolving cultures over time

contribute to great places. Much of the motivatio n

behind t his book is to encourage more such int er-

vent ions in su burba n areas.

However, love of incremental urbanism can also

lead to indiscriminate disdain for that w hich is per-

ceived as inauthentic. Large new urbanist projects in

pa rticular are often derided as "i nstant cities" and

" f aux downtowns. " 2 This kind of design critique

applies to many suburban retrofit s, but often fails

to dist inguish t he detrimental effects of " instant

architect ure " from t he potential benefit s of "i nsta nt

cit ies." At a time when climate change and peak

oi l prices call for vast swat hs of existing suburban

areas to be retrofitted on a scale and at a speed that

is beyond the capacity of incremental urbanism, it

is worth recogniZing when the kind of large-scale

changes associated with "instant cities" might be

welcomed rather than shunned.

The global urgency of reducing greenhouse

gases provides the latest and most time-sensitive im-

perative for reshaping sprawl development patterns,

for converting areas that now foster the largest per

capita carbon footprints into more sustainable, less

auto-dependent places.; The transforming of ag-

ing and underperforming shopping centers, office

parks, garden apartment complexes, and other pro-

totypical large suburban properties into more urban

places allows new population growth to be redi-

rected from metropolitan greenfield edges into more

central, VMT-reducing, greyfield redevelopment' It

also allows for the development of an incremental

metropolitan ism at a scale far more capable of con-

fronting the problems of sprawl than incremental

urbanism is. This jump in scale is more relevant both

to the realities of contemporary development prac-

tices and to the scope of the challenges confronting

us. Ironically, at a time when well over 75% of U.S.

construction is in the suburbs, the critiques of faux

urbanism often betray more nostalgia for no-longer-

as-tenable development practices than the projects'

des1gns do.

Later chapters document the before and after

transformations of these low-density, auto-depen-

dent, single-use, suburban formats into urban places,

and the roles of the public and private realms in ef-

fecting these changes. Some of the changes have in

fact been incremental and indicative of both gradual

demographic sh1fts and public efforts to induce

change. For instance, every one of the original Levit-

towns has added not only countless additions to in-

dividual houses but also multiunit housing for seniors

as inhabitants have aged. A decade after Boulder,

Colorado, revised zoning and setback regulations

along suburban arterials, new mixed-use buildings

with sidewalk cafes appear cheek by JOWl with older

carpet-supply stores set behind large parking lots.

Across the country those older stand-alone re-

tail buildings are also increasingly being adaptively

reused for community-serving purposes. A dozen

Wai-Mart stores were converted to churches be-

tween 2002 and 2005. As described in Chapter 4,

La Grande Orange in Phoenix is a reborn strip mall

whose locally owned restaurants and shops have

become so popular that it has its own T-shirts and IS

regularly mentioned as a selling point in real estate

ads for the neighborhood. Daly Genik Architects

made an L-shaped mini-mall into an award-winning

elementary school in Los Angeles. The addition of

sidewalks and pervious public green space figured

into both Meyer, Scherer, and Rockcastle's elegant

transformation of a grocery store into a public li-

brary in Texas, and The Beck Group's award-winning

conversion of a Super Kmart into a megachurch in

Georgia. Many other vacant big-box stores have

been converted to call centers and off1ce space-

including the headquarters for Harmel Foods, which

includes the Spam Museum in a former Kmart in

Minnesota. There are countless additional examples

of this kind of recycling that show welcome but

minor improvements to the physical and social infra-

structure. 5

However, retrofitting's greater potential goes

well beyond incremental adaptive reuse or renova-

tion. By urbanizing larger suburban properties with

a denser, walkable, synergistic mix of uses and

housing types, more significant reductions in carbon

emissions, gains in social capital, and changes to

systemic growth patterns can be achieved. On emis-

sions alone, new comprehensive research asserts

that "it is realistic to assume a 30% cut in VMT with

compact development."' The key to achieving this

CHt\PHR I iNSTM~l ARCHiflCTURE. INS.!M·!T CITIES, 1\ND INCkEMENf1H IV1ETROPOLITI\NISM 3

4 THE ARGUMENT

target is t he appropriate balancing of uses so that,

once on-site, residents, shoppers, office workers,

and others can accomplish mu lt iple, everyday trips

w it hout getting back in their cars or back o n t he

road. This allows mixed-use new urbanist greyfield

retrofits to routinely achieve projections of 25% t o

30% internal t rip captu re rates. In t urn, this means

t hat such projects will generate 25% to 30% fewer

net external t rips on nearby roads than a project

of equiva lent density but w ithout the same urban

qualit ies. Such capt uring of internal trips is depen-

dent upon achieving t he critical mass associated

with instant cit ies, not with incremental changes to

t he suburban pattern .

A re these projections t o be trusted? Atlantic

Stat ion, an example of co mpact mixed-use develop-

ment adjacent to midtown Atlanta on a former steel

mill site, is generat ing far greater reductio ns in VMT

than initial estimates projected . In a region where

the average employed resident d rives 66 miles per

day, employees in Atlantic Stat ion are driving an av-

erage of 10.7 miles per day and residents an average

of 8 miles per day.7

The most dramatic and prevalent retrofits tend

to be o n dead mall sites, retrofits such as Belmar in

La kewood, Colorado; Mizner Park in Boca Raton ;

and Cottonwood outside Salt Lake City. The numer-

ous examples have each replaced a typical low-rise

enclosed shopping mall surrounded by parking lots

with a more or less interconnected, walkable street

grid, lushly planted public spaces, and grou nd-level

retail topped by two to eight stories of offices and

residences. In Denver alone, seven of t he re gion's

t hirt een malls have closed to be retrofitte d. There

are also, however, sig nifica nt retrofits on the land

adjacent t o th riving malls. Retrofits such as Down-

town Kendaii/Dadeland outside M iami incorporate a

mall (the Dadeland Mall) and new twenty-plu s-story

residential towers, as does Perimeter Place adjacent to

Peri meter Center Mall in Atla nta. Both are examples

of how thirty-year-old "edge cities," even bete noire Tysons Corner, are being repositioned by infilling and

urbanizing.

Suburban offi ce and industrial parks are also be-

ing retrofitted. The parking lots of an Edward Durell

Stone-d esigned office park of ten-st ory Kennedy

Center-like buildi ngs in Hyattsville, Maryland, are get-

t ing infilled with a new Main Street and mix of uses

to become University Town Center. The owners of a

low-rise ind ustrial park in Westwood, Massachusetts,

are taking advantage of its location on a commuter

rai l line to redevelop it as Westwood Station. a 4.5-

million-square-foot, four-to-f ive-story live-work -shop

TOO and the largest suburban development project

ever in Massachusetts.

Golf courses, car dealerships, park-and-rides,

garden apartment complexes, residential subdivisions,

and entire commercial st rip corridors are being retro-

fitted in ways that integrate rather t han isolat e uses

and regenerate underperforming asphalt into urban

neighborhoods.

What's d ri ving all this? Several factors: reduced

percentages of households with children and a

growing ma rket f or multiunit housing in the sub-

urbs,8 continued growth in t he percentage of jobs

in suburban locations; regional g rowth patterns

that are giving leapfrogged suburban areas a new

centrality; rising gas prices mak ing housing on the

periphery less affordable; lengthening com mutes

ma king leapfrogged suburban locations more at-

t ractive; and local smart-growth policies and t ransit

investments that are limiting spraw l and redirecting

growth to existing infrast ructure. Rising land values;

the dearth of good, cheap, undeveloped sites in

increasingly built- out suburban markets; and aging

greyfield propert ies with an abundance of surface

parking lots are all factoring 1nto a changed subur-

ban market. Collectively, these market forces and polictes are

enabling implementation of the principal benefit of proJects like these: the retrofitting of the underlying settlement structure itself so as to change unhealthy suburban patterns and behaviors into more sustain- able ones. Incremental infill within as-of-right zon- ing in most suburban municipalities is simply not a feasible path toward achieving diversification or densification. The larger, denser, and more urban the redevelopment, the more ability its designers have to change the existing development pattern and

reduce vehicle miles traveled and improve public health by creating a transit-served or transit-

ready mix of uses in a walkable street pattern connected to adjacent uses reduce land consumption and per capita costs of public investment by absorbing growth that with- out alternatives would otherwise expand in sprawl

and edgeless cities tncrease the feasibility and efficiency of transit

increase local interconnectivity increase permeable surfaces and green space increase public and civic space increase choice in housing type and affordability increase diversification of the tax base establish an urban node within a polycentric region

The key design challenge to altering the suburban settlement structure is internal and external integra-

tion of the parts over time and over multiple parcels. This research has yet to uncover built examples of connected culs-de-sac (a long-standing holy grail of suburban reform) or other perfectly seamless transi- tions between properties. But designers are produc- ing innovative adaptations to zoning and subdivision

regulations to overcome suburban fragmentation. Michael Gamble and Jude LeBlanc have proposed trading the right to build liner buildings within the front setback along arterials for giving up half the width of a new street on the side setback as a means to gradually establish a finer-grained street and pe- destrian network on suburban superblocks. Similarly, Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk, Victor Dover, and Joseph Kohl have developed a unique strategy for linking open spaces within Downtown Kendaii!Dadeland's 324 acres. Working for Miami-Dade County on new Zon- ing across numerous parcels, they devised a system of points at the corners of property boundanes to which each owner's mandated 15% of open space had to connect. Their suggested, rather than man- dated, shapes of public space have been substantially followed by property owners and are far more appro- priately sized to the development as a whole than a series of uncoordinated 15% bits would have been.<:~

Internal integration of parts is indeed far easier to control on single-parcel sites-especially sites

of 30 or more acres. Projects as small as 15 acres, such as San Diego's Uptown District on the site of a former Sears store, can transform the character of suburban areas and excite local imagination about further change. But larger parcels can more easily justify the inclusion of public space, decked park- ing, and a fine-grained street network on suburban superblocks. 10 Large sites are also more likely than small ones to be able and/or required to include housing for a mix of incomes. This has not been uni- versally achieved-witness the exclusively high-end residences at Santana Row or exclusively lower-end apartments at CityCenter Englewood-but projects like Mizner Park, Belmar, and Perimeter Place provide a range of housing types, tenures, and costs. While they do not contain the social and physical diversity of incremental cities, the degree of internal integra-

CHAf1 HR l INSTANT l\RCHIHCTURF, INSTMiT CITIES, AND aJCRFrv![NTAI. METHOPOI .. ITI\N!Sf\t1 5

6 THE ARGUMENT

tion, diversification, and densification of these

"instant cities" deserves commendation.

Large, single-parcel projects also foster integra-

tion external to the property. By forcing municipali-

ties to address rezoning and use tax-incremen t

financing to provide infrastructure upgrades for t he

new density, la rger projects are gradually reform-

ing the regulations and financing practices that

otherwise continue to favor sprawl. Large projects

in particular increase a municipality's experience

with and capability to further permit mixed use,

mixed incomes, shared parking, form-based codes,

context-sensitive street standards, transfer-of-de-

velopment r ights, and other tools, standards, and

regulations that f oster urban development pat-

terns. As a result, one successfu l retrofit tends to

breed another.

At the same time, the financing and develop-

ment communities are gaining experience w ith

eva luating mixed-use public-private deals. Gradually,

the financial performances of large projects are pro-

vid ing the predictable metrics that lenders require to

offer the most competitive rates not on ly to conven-

t ional suburban development but also to urbanizing

redevelopment (i ncreasing the feasibility of incl uding

affordable housing). Evidence of the magn itude of

change in the rules of t he game is that the b ig play-

ers have now stepped onto the field.

As deta iled in Chapter 7, General Growth Prop-

erties, the second-largest ma ll owner in the country

and the second-largest U.S.-based publicly traded

REIT, is retrofitting the Cottonwood Mall outside

Salt Lake City as a test case f or repositioning it s

underperforming and/or redundant properties

into mixed-use town centers. Recognition of the

changed market has also led many of the country's

high-production single-family home residential

builders over t he past two years to start "urban"

d ivisions offering lofts, yoga studios, and billiards

lounges.'' It should not be surprising that these

divisions have been the best perfo rmers when the

rest of the housing market has tanked . 12

INSTANT ARCHITECTURE, INSTANT PUBLIC SPACE

On the one hand, t he urban divisions by K. Hovna-

nian Homes, KB Homes, Toll Brothers, and Centex

Homes, along w ith sma ller "urban" retail formats by

Wai-Mart, Target , and Home Depot (their "neighbor-

hood format" is approximately 30,000 square f eet

in two stories instead of 115,000 square feet on 1 0

acres, and it incorporates more "do it for me" than

"do it yourself" home decor) are a promising indica-

t ion that even the big guns are recognizing both t he

market for and the benefits of urbanism. 13 The impact

could be enormous if the new divisions perform well

enough to shift these companies' focus away from

spreading unwalkable, single-use suburban formats

across the country. Combining affordability w ith ur-

banism in new construction, whether in new develop-

ments or redevelopments, has been difficult. and t he

expertise of these companies in providing affordable

products should be welcomed.

On the other hand, their mass-produced "instant

architecture," seemingly dropped from a catalog

onto land scraped and f lattened of distinguishing

features, is high ly unwelcome. Nor is th is a problem

limited to the big production builders. The retail and

residential buildings of many retrofits are engineered

t o optimize sales and parking rather t han designed

to facilitate synergistic interaction between uses and

respond to the nuances of place or t he complexi-

ties of mixed-use bui lding. The time and energy that

goes into coordinating the high ly varied ground floor

footprints for different retailers and restaurateurs with

Figure 1-1 A. compsriso11 of

from "L897 anci \9Ei illustrai:c the

::Jston,shing pdce oF ckveloprnent h

the In !897, when the

develop1ncn! .. of the ;Hij<Knlt Upper

West Side h.'Kl jliSt. be2·1 cornolctcc.

tiw i)n:y builc.~il'lg'; :n lck,mlcw•l,k

He1ghts \Vcrr; lllStitution;J[· C"ollegcs,

11 cc~ti·I\''C1rai. and ,J hcspi'lal_ l .. es:, thun

two di'Cadcs [;)\'1~r. tile bu;ldinc; fabric

vv<l:, e·1t:rcly f!lled :n ~;vi':h 1·esid~::rl""'d

bu·!d1ngs. dc;igm~d 2nd wnstt·uctcc!

by interccm:'\CCtcd groups of in vc·;;tCYS, .--Jrcht'lects. 3nd bui!clerc;

(Souru::: Dro;l'lky ,A,~·las of the City

of New \'ork, Mnnhattan hiCJtxL)

a mix of residential unit types above, surrounding a deck of dedicated, shared, and public parking, is far from "instant" But the complexity, especially in the hurried atmosphere of a charrette, tends to default to the formulaic. Despite occasional instructions such as Columbia Pike's "Keep the Pike Funky," form-based codes risk dumbing down design when they are over- ly prescriptive about style. In their efforts to raise the bar on the design's relationship to the urban context, they can also lower the bar on the designer's ability to incrementally improve the architecture of the place. Designers sometimes self-deprecatingly refer to their "wallpaper" facades. Too much of this uniformity, even in relatively high-density retrofits, results in a pervasive air of predictability and control that is more suburban than urban-at least at first

Do instant cities age well? How _many great ur- ban neighborhoods rolled out repetitive examples of

the "instant architecture" of their day? A surprising number: the brick bow fronts of Boston's South End, Brooklyn's brownstones, and countless others. The entire Upper West Side of Manhattan was graded and rebuilt in one decade, 1885 to 1895. In 1886, the New York Times noted, "Thousands of carpen- ters and masons are engaged in rearing substantial buildings where a year ago nothing was to be seen but market gardens or barren rocky fields." The rapid urbanization of Morningside Heights was next, and so on up the island of Manhattan' 4 (See Figure 1-1.) However, in contrast to contemporary suburban con- struction, these earlier examples tended to have much better workmanship, materials, and detailrng. This is especially important in an urban context, where good detailing contributes to walkability by rewarding up-close pedestrian viewing. At the larger scale, the good bones of these neighborhoods have provided

CHAPTER 1 IIISTANT A.RCHIHCTURf, INSTI\Nl ClllfS. AND IIICR[MfNTAI NIETROPOIITANISivl 7

- an accommodating urban structure for ensuing gen- erations, allowing improvement and adaptation over t ime. The trees have matured, adding varied light, shade, and scale to streets that might have initially appeared stark, monoto nous, even "faux." Individual stoop gardens, corner shops, paint choices, additions, repairs, and other responses to needs and opportun i- ties further differentiate the urban experience and its patina of inhabitant participation. 15

One could argue that many post~ar suburban subdivisions have similarly improved. Mat ure plant- ings, house additions, and surface treatments have different iated what were initia lly mass-produced, re- petitive products . In fact, less than 1% of the houses in Levittown, New York, remain in the ir original state, without add itions or remodeling. (The most public part of Levittown , the retail strips on Hemp- stead Turnpike, is, however, badly decayed.)

While it is extremely difficult to reproduce either t he character of ind ividuated inhabitation or high- qua lity detailing in affordable new construction, retrofits such as Addison Circle and Legacy Town Center outside Dallas (described in Chapter 9) are taking the more urban route by investing in gener- ous, high-q uality publ ic spaces. (See Figures 1-3 and 9-1 1 .) Especially in suburban contexts, the parks, am- phitheaters, cafes, and street life compensate for the lack of private outdoor space in urban housing. Some

Figures 1-2 & 1-3 The building o f Legacy Town Cente•

outside Da ll as in the summer of 2007 (below left) loo~s

much like the building of the the n m1ddle-class area at

ll6th Street and Lenox Aven ue in Manhattan inl893 (above

left). except that in Dallas the displaced cattle have been

sentimentally memo1 ialized 111 bronze. We may feel sympa-

t hy for t he shanty dwellers displaced in I' lew York during

the rapid urbanization of upper Manhattan. but given the

huge di sconnect between the ir makeshift wooden dwell-

ings and the high-density apartments that replaced them.

there was never any suggest1on that the development

might be gradual

,,

e

critics scoff at the "pseudo-civilizing" effect of sani-

tized streetscapes that reference "real" urban places

but lack the diversity of urban people. We agree that

the diversity of people within public space is a use-

ful measure of urbanity and nurtures the creativity

of Richard Florida's "creative class." However, the establishment of public space where none previously

existed 1s the first step. And again, if we look to his-

tory, the population of Morningside Heights diversi-

fied over time as the buildings aged and their markets

differentiated. As its inhabitants and buildings ma-

ture, Addison Circle's wide, tree-lined sidewalks and

art-filled common green may well accommodate a

broader range of incomes and ages. ln the meantime,

the streetscapes of suburban retrofits accommodate

the socializing activities of their many young profes- sionals and shift the focus of suburban outdoor space

from playgrounds and ball fields to more urban and

public, and less family-centered, spaces. Belmar's

avant-garde Laboratory of Arts and Ideas and the

museums of CityCenter Englewood and Mizner Park

further enhance public life in these "instant cities."

One way to enhance the character and diver-

sity of the public realm of retrofits is to take ad-

vantage of the unique adaptive reuse opportunities

in redevelopment. Although most aging low-rise

suburban buildings lack the systems or construc-

tion quality to merit restoration, the most distinc-

tive retrofits tend to creatively retain at least some

buildings. Surrey Central City, discussed in Chapter

6, revived a mall by grafting a new five-story galle-

ria of university classrooms on top. The multistory

department store buildings of several dead mall

retrofits have been converted to housing, offices,

and city halls. As counters to "instant architec-

ture," these legacies contribute a sense of history,

diversity, affordability (renting for less than new

construction), and a reduction of waste. 16 They

also force the master plan to engage with exist-

ing conditions rather than lay down an entirely

pre-engineered template of formulaic block-sizes

based on optimum building footprints for wrapped

deck housing. 17 The resulting quirks contribute

enormously to the creativity and quality of the

placemaking. They can also insert a cool factor to

suburban places and help recruit the anticub1cle,

anticorporate digerati. Upper Rock in Rockville,

Maryland, and Cloud 9 Sky Flats in Minnetonka,

Minnesota, incorporate modern loft conversions

of suburban office buildings. These are but some

examples of how retrofitted sites formerly associ-

ated with office-park-dads and moms-in-minivans

are now also bustling with hipsters, divorcees, and

empty nesters.

INC

Bit by bit, beneath the static image of uniform tract

houses, many suburbs are undergoing significant

physical, social, and cultural change. For the first

time in history, suburban municipalities now house

more people living in poverty than central cities

do. 18 This trend is attributed in part to the increased

immigrant populations in "first-ring suburbs" built

shortly after World War II. Maps in 2008 showing

mortgage foreclosures concentrated in the newer

outermost suburbs indicate the likelihood of further

decentralization of poverty and an ever-shifting ter-

rain. Suburban retrofits have also contributed to ris-

ing property prices. Entire subdivisions in suburban

Washington, DC, and Atlanta have been bought up

house by house, and as discussed in Chapter 2, one

subdivision in Atlanta even self-organized and put

itself up for sale for redevelopment. New transit

systems, infrastructure improvements, programs to

CHt.I.PTER 1 !NSHNT 1\l{\,HIHCTIJR(, iNSIAifl CITIES. M~D iNCREME.NT/\LIV'iETHOPOUTt\NiSiVI 9

10 TH E ARGUM ENT

fund planning studies, and new overlay zoning dis- trict designations are further incentivizing suburban urbanization.

But all this is not happening everywhere. It is hap- pening at specific nodes and along specific corridors, generally where the transportation infrastructure (usually with some improvements) can support it. The outer rings of new exurban expansion continue to be low density overa ll. but the densified retrofits and countless revitalized small-town Main Streets are join- ing the edge cities as increasingly signif icant suburban activity centers. Arthur C. Nelson, coordinator of the Metropolitan Institute at Virginia Tech, esti mates that 2.8 million acres of greyfields w ill become available in the next fifteen years. If on ly one quarter is redevel- oped into mixed-use centers, they have the potential to su pply half the housing required by 2030. As a result, the regional pattern emergi ng and likely to become more prominent is increasingly polycentric. While we are indeed still decentralizing away from central cities, we are also recentralizing around new and existing suburban centers-and becoming more sustainable in the process. More bottom-up than top- down, these new instant cities are demonstrations of an incremental metropolitanism. 19 And, while it is fair to fault instant cities when their replication of incre- mental urbanism is unsatisfying, the more relevant issue today is how well each cont ributes to retrofit- ting the larger systems of sprawl.

One of the fi rst steps is to recognize the inef- ficiencies of sprawl development. Most lower-priced houses are at the outer edges but come with higher transportation costs. Jobs and retail are located along arteria ls, but typically with little transit access. Thor- oughfares designed for high-speed travel between centers have become so lined with uses that t hey do not work well for either access or mobility. And all is designed .in isolated pods. Even larger retrofits run the risk of becoming stand-alone fragments unless

their urban structure integrates them into both lo- cal networks and larger sustainable systems. Only as nodes of a polycentric metropolis can they contribute to regional efficiencies in transit and other civi l infra- structure, per capita land and energy conservation, shorter commute distances, lower housing and trans- portation costs, a jobs-housing balance, and special- ized labor agglomeration.

The inclusion of increasingly sign if icant amounts of office space within mixed-use retrofits is particu- larly important for ba lancing polycent ric growth and reducing VMT. Twinbrook Station in Rockville, Mary- land, and Li ndbergh City Center in Atlanta are inte- grating twelve- and fourteen-story corporate office buildings onto the sites of former park-and-ride lots. SkySong in Phoen ix and Surrey Central City outside Vancouver are building incubator office space for Arizona State University and Simon Fraser University, respectively, on the site of a dead shopping center and a mall's parking lot.

Far from serving as self-conta in ed villages, today's retrofits simultaneously serve as gathering spaces for t he immediate residents, who use the public spaces as extensions of thei r private space; immediate and nearby office workers for their cof- fee breaks, lunches, and after-work drinks; nearby suburban parents combini ng get-togethers with errands; teens and singles seeking friendship and entertainment; and more. In other words, they serve a greater diversity of people than did single-group places like sports bars. They may not yet be as urban as "real cit ies," but they are relat ively vibrant nodes.

These efficiencies are not always immediately apparent. A map of cont emporary retrofits around Washington, DC, drawn in the same manner as Joel Ga rreau's maps of "edge cities," reveals a similar pe- ripheral pattern. (See Figure 1-4.) However, whereas edge cities are predominantly located at suburban spoke-and-hub highway intersections, retrofits are

Upper Rock 41> \

Rockville Town Center 8

Reston Town Center

•••••• ••• •• Tysons Corner ••• ••• •• Street Grids

····· ... , ....•. Tysons Corner Center :

Metro West Feirfax

THE WASHINGTON AREA ..6.. Downtown • Suburban Retrofits

• Planned Suburban Retrofits

Downtown Columbia fj)

5 MILES

8 KILOMETERS

Figure 1-4

hue. ·Nhere

Wcd1irw1 on. DC, is one of t!v,, rno'.it fXOliftc: rniJXket', for s~;burban rett·oh l's a~ shown

are mapped in relation to the Metro sysTem. The presence or promise of mass 1 'dn-

~,u. tather ihan new hkhw""' ,'52

predominantly located at the intersection of exist-

ing or proposed DC Metrorail stations and suburban

arterial corridors. While Garreau's maps of edge cit-

ies promised the benefits of a polycentric metropolis,

their extreme auto dependency and lack of local or

larger interconnectivity other than highways resulted

in lengthened commute times, overcrowded roads,

reduced access to jobs by those most in need, and a

suburban privileging of private space.

Washington, DC's retrofits are far better po-

sitioned to deliver on that original promise. Their

internal urban structure minimizes auto dependency

and values public space and shared commitments to

the common good. As important (rf not more), their

location on transit vastly improves the metropolis's

efficiencies. Transit systems also benefit: those in

single-center regions are far less efficient than those

in polycentric regions, where suburban stations are

destinations throughout the day, not only for the

evening commute.

Unfortunately, most potential suburban retrofit

sites are not on transit lines. And while they can

still enhance local conditions, many dots ·remain to

be connected if they are to achieve the benefits of

a more sustainable metropolis. There are two prin-

cipal strategies on the horizon. The first is to add

transit to improve access, encourage even greater

differentiation between nodes, and reduce VMT.

The planned extensions of DC Metrorail through

Tysons Corner is an example of this strategy and

reveals the high cost and design difficulties of

inserting stations and TODs into an edge city not

planned for them. The hope is that densification

of enough retrofitted sites will make suburban

transit feasible. However, the track record so far

indicates that more often transit in the suburbs is

what makes densification feasible. In fact, examina-

tion of over eighty retrofits reveals that the arrival

of a rail system is one of the strongest triggers for

CH!iPHP 1 lliSTANl ARCH!HCTURE INSTANT ClllrS, liND INCRfMfiHAf lvlfTRIIPOLITMIISM 11

12 THE ARGUMENT

large-scale suburban redevelopment. In addition to

the examples of Washington, DC, and Denver, the

availability (or constru ction) of rail transit in Boston,

Dallas, Los Angeles, and Phoenix has stimu lated

suburban retrofitting at existing and proposed rail

stations .20

The second strategy for connecting the dots is

to retrofit corridors t hemselves. This is discussed in

more detail in Chapter 4. The general argument is

that if commercia l strip corridors are made more

attractive and safer to pedestrians, they can better

attract redevelopment. Where nodal deve lopment

is preferred, transfer of development rights can be

used to downzone thoroughfares between intersec-

tions and concentrate development at intersections.

Wh ile th is strategy is not in practice yet, there are

several examples of public agencies retrofi tting

corridors either t hrough rezon ing or throug h new

streetscaping. In the most ambitious examples,

commercial strip corridors are reconstructed as

urban bouleva rds capable of both handli ng high

traffic volume, includ ing streetcars or buses, and

attracting dense urban housing, offices, and retail

stores .21 Cat hedral City, California, converted four

blocks of what had become a commercial strip cor-

ridor back into its downtown by retrofitting it into

a multiway boulevard. Palm-lined medians separate

the high-speed traffic from slower local traffic and

wide sidewalks. Now serving as the town's Main

Street, the retrofitted corridor has attracted upsca le

hotels, shops, and housi ng to join the new city ha ll

on a site that would not previously have been con-

sidered attractive .

The more incremental approach for re t rofit-

t ing corridors is to use form-based codes to re-

qu ire more urban sidewalks, build-to-lines, and

pedestrian-oriented treatment of ground f loors. As

discussed in Chapt er 4, Arlington County, Virgin ia,

is using form-based codes, fast permitting, and the

promise of a streetcar as incentives for its ongoing

redevelopment of low-rise supermarkets and strip

malls on Columbia Pike into six- to ten -story mixed-

use buildings.

HOW SUSTAINABLE? HOW URBAN?

So how well do instant cities and suburban retrofits

live up to their susta inable aspirations? While we are

opt im ist ic, each case is uniq ue and merits consider-

ation of at least the following questions.

At metropolitan and regional scales, does the

project make it easier for people to have access

to JObs, affordable housing, and affordable trans-

portation while simu ltaneously reducing VMT

and carbon footprints? Or is it gentrifying an

important remnant of an affordable lan dscape

and/or dra ini ng an existing downtown?

Are there tang ible means, such as transfer of

development rights , to link densification at tar-

geted nodes with equally targeted land conser-

vation elsewhere? Or are developers getting a

free ride as local communities get overbu rdened

with traffic and displacement and the region as a

whole benefits little?

At the local scale, does t he settlement have an

urban structure that supports interconnectivity,

density, t ransit, and walkability? Has it triggered

further redevelopment?

Will its design and mix of uses improve w ith age

and endure, or will it remain a fragment of drive-

to walkable "product" with a life span driven by

its retail and li mited to the fashiona bility of its

scenography?

At the building scale, does it offer a variety of

housing choices to accommodate a diverse population with varied needs and ideas about

public and private space, or are the choices

too similar and the expectations of behavior

too conformist?

These are difficult to answer, but they will be at

the heart of local and metropolitan politics as

we move beyond debates of sprawl versus smart growth and tackle the thorny specifics of imple-

menting real change.

In many respects, the even more difficult as-

sessment is determining how well instant cities

and suburban retrofits live up to their urban aspi-

rations. It is easy to compare them to "real" cities

and find them lacking the culture, excitement, di-

versity, conflict, grit, and suffering that coexist in

core cities. But this misses the point. Instant cities

and suburban retrofits are not core cities. They are

urban nodes within a new polycentric metropolis

that simultaneously complement the core city's

downtown and serve a predominantly suburban

population. They are hybrids and reflect aspects

of both centeredness and decentralization.

This hybridity rs revealed in rnany ways, in-

cluding the following:

suburban parking ratios and urban

streetscapes ambiguous "public" spaces developed in pub-

lic-private partnerships and privately owned or

leased

urban building types filled mostly with subur-

ban chain retail outlets

new, single-ownership parcels deliberately

masked to look old and multi parceled

urban qualities delivered at suburban costs transit orientation and automobile depen-

dency

the appearance of self-contained village/town

centers and reliance on larger networks of

shoppers, workers, and visitors

local placemaking by national developers and designers

Hybrid network nodes are neither suburban

nor urban. As a result, they are prone to critique

from the advocates of both better understood

categories. But are cities and suburbs really so

drfferent in the polycentric metropolis? The old

dichotomy of suburb versus city as the separa-

tion of home and work was always oversimpli-

fiedn Today it is further complicated by contin-

ued metropolitan decentralization, new forces

of recentralization, the replication of national

retailers throughout, and the extended networks

afforded by global communications. Over 40%

of U.S. office space is now in the suburbs," but

many of the same metropolitan regions seeing

the most retrofitting in suburban contexts are

also seeing population growth in their central

cities. 24 Postwar suburbs originally built at the

edges of the metropolis have been so surpassed

by new growth (often losing property value in

the process) that they now enjoy relatively cen-

tral locations. New instant cities exploit those

centralities and activate them as metropolitan

nodes in a network increasingly reinforced by

mass transit. Retrofitting ushers in networked

urbanity rn which living, working, shopping, and

playing are no longer separated (but neither are

they entirely conjoined). The networked urbanity

of metropolitan ism reinterprets the Aristotelian

ideal of the city~living together well~at the

larger scale. This bodes well for confronting the

challenges of economic and environmental sus-

tainability but is less promising for dealing with

entrenched social inequity.

CHM)lt.R l iNSTf\NT ~\RCHiTECTURE, INSfi\IH CITit.S, t\ND INCl\EMl:.Nrt\L ME"l'RUPOlii"MJISfVI 13

14 THE ARGUMENT

Although instant cities and suburban retrofits

are neither as sustainable nor as urban as o lder es-

tablished cities, they are more sustainable and more

urban than the conditions they have replaced and,

as such, have great potential to shape the metropo-

lis. They also have many cha llenges, not t he least of

w hich are constructing t he infrastructure to support

them and addressing gentrification. Perhaps most

important, t hey need to recognize t he signif icance

of their leadership in t he new met ropolis and t he

accompanying expectation of representing larger

cu ltural aspirations.

Today, instant cities and sub urban retrofi ts are

for the most part more exciting programmat ical ly

t han architecturally. Serving as conventional back-

ground buildings to the outdoor p ublic rooms of

t he st reets they foregrou nd, their buildings express

a f ar greater valuat ion of p lacema king and p ublic

space than d id the private objed bui ld ings they

replaced. This is a good thing, but too often, as at

Perimeter Place near Atlanta, banal contemporary

buildings are aggregated into quasi-urbanistic con-

figurations but are utterly lacking in mean ingful

architectura l expression . At other t imes, as in many

of the p rojects featured in the pages to come, in-

stead of be ing instant arch itect ure, t he buildings

are very well detailed, even with in t ight budgets,

and thoughtful ly sca led to transition from the exist-

ing cont ext to greater density with careful attention

to sustaina bility.

While many critics fault traditional styling as

nostalg ic, it should be respected when it is done well

and converts a community's fear of change into as-

pirations for urbanism. Some of us would like to see

more stylistic d iversity and experimentation exploring

hybridity in the architecture o f suburban retrof its.

And this may come as retrofits become more com-

mon and communities less fearful of change. But

d iscussions of architectural style miss the point. The point is urbanism.

Americans have an opportunity to retrofit the

suburbs into more urban places that re duce VMT,

expand publ ic space, diversify housing choices, and

conserve undeveloped land at the periphery. We need

both incremental changes and instant cities in order to reshape socia lly and environmentally destructive

sprawli ng patterns into healt hier, polycentric me-

tropolises. We need to better understand the myriad

dynamic systems of more sustainable regions, places,

and bu ildings. Above all, w e need informed imagi-

nations that can look at entrenched patterns and

q uestion alternative possibilities- while working with

communities. This is an exciting agenda for all of the

professions involved with the built environment. We

would do well to heed M ichael So rkin's w ise advice to

see " the good city as an evolving project. " 15