Yankee "drag rats"

The New York Times puts a humorous spin on Brooklyn's version of "drag rats" - the homeless, often addicted vagrants who can be found day in and day out along Guadalupe where it fronts the UT Campus. Replace Bedford Avenue with Gudalupe Street in the article, and you have an identical description of the way these drifters do business on the sidewalks.

Rather than giving money to these panhandlers, the article suggests that you print out your own "gutter punk" cut-out bank and put your loose change there instead. A comedic, if unfortunate reminder that cities face many common challenges, regardless of their relative sizes and locations.

When pigs fly...

I've been noticing these unfortunately prophetic posters around town.

Finding Inspiration on The High Line

The High Line is a one of-a-kind park and landmark in the Meatpacking District of New York. And as any good landmark should, High Line Park makes a compelling and relevant statement that is quietly changing the way people understand the resilience of urban landscapes.

Initially slated for demolition, the elevated rail line that serves as the platform for High Line Park now carries crowds of people along a path that once transported food and goods from factories along 10^th Avenue in far west Chelsea. What was once considered an eyesore is now a bustling and vibrant linear park, the transformation of which has been mirrored by the newly revitalized neighborhoods through which it winds.

High Line Park is successful as an instance of modern landscape architecture because it effectively alters user’s perceptions of the urban space around them. On a literal and practical basis, the park gives people a new perspective – one that is raised three stories above street level. This reveals vistas once blocked by buildings, and in the case of the plaza and amphitheater at 10^th Ave., allows people to look down the middle of a long street without the fear of being run over by automobile traffic. The breezes and sunshine that grace the park are rare at street level, and the physical elevation of the park conveys a spiritual and emotional sense of “being above it all.”

The High Line provides a new visual perspective through which to view the city, and looking through this lens begins to reveal dynamics and realities that may otherwise go overlooked and unnoticed. How many times in literature or in everyday public discourse do we characterize cities as dark, unfriendly and devoid of natural life and the wholesomeness such qualities often represent? The High Line demonstrates that such characterizations are unjust. It shows that life is tenacious, and that even America’s “greatest city” is not powerful enough to completely undermine the quiet forces of natural life. Indeed, the initial idea for the park was inspired by the urban meadow that, over the course of twenty years, spontaneously established itself atop the abandoned railway. Even with the addition of thousands of visitors per day, the High Line meadow still attracts populations of birds and butterflies.

All pictures also include commentary. Go to "Full Screen" and click "Show Info" to reveal

descriptions of the photographs.

Debunking the notion that cities and nature are mutually exclusive, the High Line goes further by challenging people to find beauty in unexpected places. In a culture that is quick to throw away, we run the risk of losing unique treasures simply because we do not take time to appreciate their value before determining that they must be removed. The High Line is the result of a fight against demolition, and ultimately what was once called a “blight” has been revealed as an extraordinary expression of rebirth and possibility. The High Line is itself a statement of hope because it shows that our surroundings - and indeed our lives - can be improved without the need for “more,” a message which is topically relevant in a time of economic and environmental distress. What already existed was reimagined into something spectacular, and if the same money had been spent on an entirely new park at level ground, the result could not have been nearly as inspiring.

No other city is quite like New York, but that doesn’t mean that other cities can’t apply lessons learned at the High Line to their own urban environments. Among the many concerns driving Austin’s anti-urbanization crowd, I imagine that a fear of losing the natural environment that characterizes our city is one of them. Certainly urbanization will change Austin’s environment, but it doesn’t necessarily mean losing the natural conditions that make the city so pleasant. (Indeed, further suburbanization is far more dangerous to Austin’s wild places.) The High Line demonstrates that nature is tenacious, and that it will thrive in urban conditions with or without the help of humans. Additionally, the High Line emphasizes the need to seek beauty and usefulness in neglected structures and neighborhoods.

The Seaholm Project (if it ever gets underway) is an excellent example of how this philosophy is being put into practice in Austin. More, though, should be done to seek out ways in which the identities of traditionally overlooked parts of the city can be reinforced by reimagining existing structures. Rather than neighborhood embarrassments, perhaps derelict structures around the city can serve as focal points for community involvement, cooperation and creativity.

Learn more about The High Line

Big-boxed in by too much empty space.

According to this article in the New York Times , the United States has an overabundance of retail, and particularly big-box retail, when compared with ever other nation on Earth. Aside from sporadic chain-wide closures (bankrupt Circuit City and Linens N Things) big-box stores go vacant more quickly than traditional retail outlets because it is easier and cheaper to abandon an existing store and construct a new one than it is to expand or improve the existing building.

Two examples in Austin come to mind, although I am sure many others exist. Both instances are Home Depots that up and relocated several blocks away when newer and more glamorous shopping centers became available. The first is the Gateway location, which moved from a standalone location across from the Arboretum to a new shopping center outside of The Domain, and the second is a standalone location on St. John’s which moved to the new big-box portion of Mueller.

View Austin Big-Box Movement in a larger map

 

While the abandoned store near the Arboretum became a Target, the abandoned location near St. John’s seems less likely to become another retail brand, due in part to the availability of much higher quality retail space in Mueller, just down the road. Regardless of the sustainability issues this trend raises (throw-away buildings anyone?) there is also the question of what is to be done with the many abandoned big-box stores not only in Austin, but in the rest of the county.

If the New York Times article is correct, and our nation really does quite simply have too much retail square footage, is it naive to simply hope that different stores will move into the shells of vacant big-box locations. The site bigboxreuse offers some examples of repurposed big-box stores around the country, including an old Wal-Mart in Round Rock which was turned into an indoor go-kart track.

Last year I got the opportunity to tour a former San Antonio Wal-Mart that had been converted into a community college campus. While the building was sparkling new, it couldn’t seem to shake off the fact that it was built as a Wal-Mart, not a community college. Repurposing old buildings is nothing new. But generally in the past buildings which were repurposed were built well to begin with. While on vacation last week I ate at a restaurant in Hanalei, Kauai that was located in the town’s old schoolhouse. The building was a bit awkward, and it clearly wasn’t built to be a restaurant, but eating there felt like we were helping to continue the narrative of the historic building, rather than interloping in a structure not intended for what we were using it as.  Big-box stores are popular because they are cheap to build, and it is only with great expense can a new tenant make a cheaply built structure feel not so. Rather than adding to a glorious past, big-box reuse projects generally try all possible measures to mask the decidedly inglorious past of the structures they intend to occupy. Thus, what is to be done with the likely increasing number of empty big-box shells?

Big-box retail is a seemingly unavoidable facet of modern life. As usual, I am not proposing any grand solutions, but rather beginning to consider how we can do big-box retail better, since it does not appear that we can do away with it entirely anytime soon.

For more reading on big-box retail in Austin, read the City’s report: Big Box Retail and Austin

Transformers: Home Edition

A recent blog entry from my friend Dave got me thinking about small living spaces, and how to reconcile them with Americans’ (and especially Texans’) penchant for increasingly large homes. For all but the wealthiest of urban residents, estate-sized apartments and town-houses are simple out of the question. Higher land values in urban areas make them cost prohibitive. As the world becomes increasingly urban, though, will we begin to see demand for more multi-functional, if smaller, places of residence?

According to USA Today, Americans are finally beginning to build smaller homes. Whether this has been spurred by the declining economy, or is truly representative of a long-term shift in consumer preference has yet to be seen. Nonetheless, many urban residents, in the US and abroad, have already begun to figure out how to engineer the most use from incredibly small spaces.

For a nation addicted to our iPhones and Blackberrys – devices small enough to fit in the palm of your hand but which perform a seemingly countless number of tasks at the touch of a finger – it is surprising that we do not yet seem to demand just as much functionality from the spaces we inhabit everyday: our homes.

In New York, architecture firm Normal Projects took a tiny 450 square foot studio and installed a transforming built-in cabinet that houses many of the functional programmatic elements of the apartment in what the architects call a “strategy of extreme density.”

 

Taking this concept to a more mechanical extreme is Hong Kong resident Gary Chang, who has a system in place that allows him to rearrange his 344 square foot apartment into 24 different configurations. Far from cramped and grungy, Mr. Chang’s home is elegant and luxuriantly spacious, proving that smaller homes are not the exclusive domain of the financially stressed.

An article in the New York Times describes the “Domestic Transformer” and includes a photo slideshow.

While such extreme economy of space is not likely a serious concern for many Austinites, these two examples nonetheless show that small, well designed spaces can themselves be things of beauty. And if we have indeed reached the point from which housing square footage will decline rather than grow (just for fun let’s call it “Peak House”) they may also offer practical solutions for a society that is perhaps just beginning to rediscover the peculiar satisfactions of living large in a small space. Just because we can build a sprawling house or purchase a giant penthouse condo does not necessarily mean that we should.

Hybrid Housing

Danish architecture firm BIG set themselves up for quite a challenge when they asked “how to combine the splendours of the suburban backyard with the social intensity of urban density?” Their solution is elegant and compelling, and could be the iconic American backyard’s saving grace in a world where scarcity makes dense, urban living ever more necessary.

I hope never again to live in a suburb, however I cannot deny the fact that suburbs have contributed much to the narrative of American history. Indeed, I’d argue that much of the United States’ image as a country of prosperity and high quality of life is thanks in part to the suburbs where the majority of Americans live. This being said, the current economic episode likely indicates a major change in the way Americans will live, including where they live. Suburbs may soon no longer be a practical living situation, but this doesn’t mean that the green space and privacy they provide are not still desirable qualities in a residence. Nor does it mean that we should completely eschew their major programmatic design elements, and the contributions they have made to our national narrative, in favor of shiny glass condo towers and relentless city street grids.

 

BIG’s “Mountain Residence” in Copenhagen, Denmark, seeks a balance between suburban privacy and urban practicality, and begins a dialogue which could lead to new ways in which to build and live.

© architecture-page

Austin is a city which is inherently suburban. As much as I support the “social intensity” being created by dense downtown skyscrapers, it’s difficult for me to reconcile gleaming glass towers with the leafy, suburban homes that overwhelmingly characterize the city. Austin is an outdoor city, and this is something that the architects of downtown condo towers haven’t yet seemed to realize. While “Mountain Residence” is not necessarily appropriate for a downtown city block, it begins to raise questions that developers ought to have been considering all along. Namely, “How can we take a highly successful model (the single-family suburban house) and make it work in a denser, and more sustainable urban setting?”

© dezeen

The modern suburban house did not simply spring into being. It is the result of design and manufacturing innovations developed by the Levitt Company  during the construction of the (in)famous suburban communities that bear its name. Similarly, an alternative to the wildly popular balloon-frame single-family house in the suburbs will not simply appear, but will be the result of architectural dialogues such as that begun by BIG’s “Mountain Residence.” Indeed, the very idea that we ought be “combining” the various successful elements of both suburban and urban living has been lost by most developers and architects in Austin who insist that home buyers choose between one or the other.

Austin, and the world, will not solve the impending scarcity of land, resources and oil by forcing people unwillingly into banal high-rises, but should instead seek to develop a new urban housing vocabulary that is as universally appealing as it is practical, efficient and sustainable. 

Two articles about “Mountain Residences” with many more pictures:

architecture-page

Dezeen - design magazine

Something to squawk about.

Both NPR and the Washington Post have recently run pieces about the growing popularity of urban chicken-keeping. In cities across the United States households have begun to raise fowl in their backyards in an effort to localize their food production and cut grocery bills.

According to this website it is legal in Austin to keep chickens in your backyard. Each household may have up to ten chickens so long as they are kept 50 feet away from neighboring properties (so obviously no chickens for Mueller residents!).

A quick Google search reveals several discussion boards for Austin chicken keepers. Last November there was even a “Funky Chicken Coop Tour” to show off Austin’s urban chicken coops. A slideshow of the event can be found here.

When I was younger I remember visiting a friend’s farm and gathering the eggs we would later scramble for breakfast. I remember realizing on some visceral level that this was somehow more real than getting eggs from a grocery store. Because I participated in the process, however minimally, I knew where my food came from, and eating became a more complete nutritive experience because of that.

As FDA food scares become a near-monthly event and food scarcity becomes an ever-nearer looming crisis, agricultural urbanism may be one way that we can ensure the safety of our food while putting otherwise un-used or under-used urban land to work as a means of local food production.

Backyard kitchen gardens, such as the  recently planted White House garden (plan), have long been a valuable source of locally grown fruits and vegetables. Why not add a chicken coop and enjoy a fresh, locally-produced  frittata or omelet for breakfast or lunch?