unionstudioarch

[unionstudioarch]

My esteemed colleague Ben Willis recently wrote a nuanced and thoughtful essay about “The Myths (and Truths) About Out of Town Experts” (I know, I didn’t realize that nuance was allowed on the internet either!)  In the essay, Ben explores the pros and cons of bringing in outside experts.  Pro: They bring a fresh perspective, seeing opportunity where locals see cost. Con: They (often) lack sensitivity towards the embodied wisdom of the community, ignoring local context in pursuit of their own brand.

Here in Providence, this phenomenon often rears its ugly head in the form of “big city thinking.”  For example, when RI Senate President Dominick Ruggerio wanted to express his support for a triple high rise project on the 195 land, he said, “I think it’s a great project.  It looks like a big-city project.”  Which is to say, if a project looks like a big city project, it is a great project.    

I appreciate that Ruggerio is trying to combat a case of statewide low self-esteem by projecting ambition, but using “big city” as an unqualified compliment is a mistake.  On the one hand, it celebrates “bigness” without critically engaging with the drawbacks of big city projects.  And on the other, it ignores the fact that many people seek out small cities because of their size, not in spite of it.  

The big city will always be a source for new ideas, if only because there are so many different ideas represented there.  But not all of those ideas are worth repeating; as I was taught in school, “precedent is not permission.”  Just because it looks like it belongs somewhere else, doesn’t mean you should try it here.  I, for one, would rather live in a great version of Providence than a bad version of Boston.  

Is there a small city handling this issue particularly well?

Enter: Chattanooga, Tennessee, the self-proclaimed Tom Hanks of Places

Rather than try to do what the “big city” does, the good people of Chattanooga have released a literally perfect ad campaign that champions the city’s unique assets – low cost of living, small size, access to nature, weirdly fast internet speeds – to lure people away from the big cities on the coast. In both content and format (over-the-top, low-budget, not focus-grouped to death), this ad campaign embraces what makes their small city special.  Bravo!

By: Joel VanderWeele

[unionstudioarch]

How to Grow a City

I recently discovered a beautiful series of 3D animations that visualize the growth of Amsterdam from 1600 to 1900.  In addition to being visually stunning -- think Game of Thrones intro, but real life -- the animations demonstrate the brilliance of the Dutch model of urban growth.

When Amsterdam was poised for growth, it would annex a big chunk of land, build a fortification around it, and lay out a brand-new grid of streets and canals.  The formerly agricultural land was then subdivided into small lots and new houses were built up, filling the new district from the center-out.  Basically all of the new buildings were designed to be attached to each other, right along the street edge.  It may have been odd to live in that first house on a new block, built like a town house but with no neighbors to speak of, but as you can see from the video, the growth was pretty fast, filling out entire neighborhoods in a decade or less. 

When the latest district was full, the city would annex a new chunk of land and repeat the process, controlling the direction of growth and the outer limits of the city. 

This method of growing in discrete sections (as opposed to uncontrolled outward growth – aka sprawl) resulted in a dense and charming city filled with beautiful and well-defined streets and very little wasted space.  Despite the very dense street network, notice how much green space is preserved, both within the urban blocks, and outside the city walls. 

By Joel VanderWeele

[unionstudioarch]

Our former writer Aaron Renn flagged your piece and thought we should connect. Would it be possible to reprint the July post to GoLocalProv and site the original publication and link over. It is still timely and wonderfully interesting.

Hello -- Of course, feel free to repost and link. Thanks for asking!

[unionstudioarch]

How many architects does it take to design a three-armed human?

99% Invisible, my go-to design podcast, recently covered a fascinating attempt to study creativity in a methodical and scientific way, working to determine what specific personality traits make certain people creative.  The study, conducted by the Institute of Personality Assessment and Research (IPAR), posed questions to people in various creative fields, including several famous architects, like, "if man had developed a third arm, where might this arm be best attached?”  

Spoiler alert: Because they were architects, and thus predisposed to reject the premises of the design problem and embrace a more perfect and symmetrical solution, they agreed that four arms would be far better than three.

The most fascinating part of the episode is a recorded conversation between heavy hitters Eero Saarinen, Philip Johnson, and Victor Lundy in which they try to decide how to handle a difficult client.  

Listen Here: http://99percentinvisible.org/episode/the-mind-of-an-architect/

By: Joel VanderWeele

[unionstudioarch]

The I-195 Land: Subdivide & Conquer

About a decade ago, Providence began the relocation of I-195, a stretch of highway that cut through the heart of the city. The highway is gone now, leaving in its wake about 20 acres of prime real estate in the core of the Creative Capital.  The city and state have spent the last few years making the site shovel-ready so that this valuable land can be added back to the tax rolls.

Brand new infrastructure? Built!

Taxes? Stabilized!  

Approvals process? Streamlined!

Incentives?  $25 million!  And probably more if you know a guy… it is Rhode Island, after all.

You would think that developers would be kicking down the door for the opportunity to knit the city back together, but redevelopment has been s - l - o - w.

The powers-that-be did a competent job of knitting the street grid back together, creating a network of medium-sized, interconnected blocks.  The new grid is not as fine-grained as the old city plan, and doesn’t have anything as sexy as the curves of Weybosset, but I would give it a solid B/B+.

But they neglected the crucial next step – lot subdivision. Nearly all of the 18 lots that are available on the I-195 land, plus 15 vacant lots adjacent to it, take up an entire city block, and that is bad news indeed.  

Now, there may be a reason for this.  According to the website, the I-195 Commission hopes to attract life science, research & development, and institutional buyers - splashy, big ticket projects that would have an obvious impact, fast.  These uses typically occupy large-floor-plate buildings that can be packed with offices, laboratories, and long hallways -- also the types of buildings that make for great ribbon-cutting ceremonies.  Stacking the deck in favor of these large-scale developments, however, has not paid off in the short-term and will only hurt the city in the long run.

Why?

Large urban lots are expensive to buy and expensive to build on, so the list of potential buyers is pretty short.  It includes mostly multinational real estate development companies looking to construct the one type of building they’ve perfected, make a quick profit for their shareholders, and get out of dodge.  This development model extracts value from the city, rather than cultivating it -- not ideal if you’re hoping for sustained economic growth.

Big building projects also bring with them big risk, and the government will be more inclined to throw bailout-level incentives at a large-scale project that is threatening to fail or walk away (38 Studios, anyone?).  The city can maybe handle two or three of these projects, but definitely not 33 of them all at once.  

Even if the commission did manage to attract the big time developers (which they’re struggling to do) and have them all succeed (which is unlikely), the results would be ugly.  Literally ugly.  Ugly and boring.  Architecturally speaking, buildings that take up entire city blocks are difficult to design well, especially when you’re on a tight budget.  I take the highly detailed design scenarios developed by the commission as an implicit acknowledgement of this difficulty.  When every side of the building is essentially a “front,” the budget for the exterior is stretched pretty thin, usually resulting in a boring building with at least one “front” that looks very much like a back.  By contrast, look at nearly every building on Westminster, or any commercial street built before 1950, for that matter.   Thanks to party walls and alleyways, the exterior budget could be focused on one or two sides of the building, resulting in dignified buildings that contribute to the beauty of the city.    

The building-as-block problem is especially difficult to overcome when you have 33 of them in a row.  One or two big boring buildings can be absorbed into the urban fabric without too much trouble. 33 of them?  Not so much.  If the I-195 land is developed as it is currently designed, there will be 20 acres worth of boring and lifeless streets cutting through Providence for years to come.

To recap: Urban lots the size of city blocks will lead to out-of-town developers getting free money from the state to construct big boring buildings that create lifeless streets and extract value from the city instead of cultivating it.

Thankfully the problem is fixable, and it’s a quick fix.  If the I-195 commission were to simply subdivide each lot into 20 - 30 foot widths and half the depth of the block -- you know, the way American cities have developed since the days of westward expansion -- they could lower the barriers to entry, encourage local investment, add more properties to the city’s tax rolls, give away smaller incentives, enable better architecture, and create a more interesting cityscape.  

And because the land is owned by one entity, they could do all of this without jeopardizing the splashy big-time developments in the future.  Large-scale developers could still buy several adjacent lots and combine them for a super-project, but instead of being surrounded by other super-projects, they would be surrounded by a wide variety of smaller, locally-owned and operated buildings designed by and for people with a vested interest in the future of Providence.  

By: Joel VanderWeele

[unionstudioarch]

A Recipe for "Good" Design

What is “good” design?

A loaded question, is it not? But given the intended longevity of our built environment, it seems particularly consequential for architects to consider. The tools of our trade have come a long way since humans first held leaves over our heads as shelter from the elements. Yet when you boil away the centuries of philosophical arguments about art, style, and power that we have used buildings to explore, has much changed? Is the principle role of a “good” building still to shelter its inhabitants from the elements? Although architects would be well advised to keep this in mind, I don’t think humanity would be satisfied (nor should we be) with such a blasé answer: the question of “what is ‘good’ food” can hardly be answered well by merely “whatever meets your nutritional needs.”

Emily Hall (resident tastemaker at Union Studio) recently brought this article from Michael LaValley at the Evolving Architect to our office’s collective attention. In it, he explores what “good” design is by examining the relationship of architecture and ego. Without becoming riddled in the writings of either Freud or Ayn Rand (shudder), his conclusion is that “good” design happens when the architect’s desire to leave a legacy (ego) is paired with a desire to bring the client’s best visions for the built environment to life (community). This equation as it were seems like a wise insight. It is disingenuous to suggest that any designer can “check their ego at the door,” yet that ego can be turned from a liability into an asset by directing its energy towards helping deliver the highest ideals of a group of people into a real, built project.

Nevertheless, this equation provides only a partial answer to the question at hand; there must be more to ensure that design turns out “good” (er, well). As an amateur chef — read: home cook who uses the Epicurious app — I’m interested in unpacking the food analogy. Does a “recipe” for “good” design exist?

.......

Recipes have two parts — the ingredients and the process. The ingredients of “good” architectural design might include:

Client, realistic but still visionary, funded as much as possible

Problem, well-examined and clearly understood by all stakeholders

Capacity to communicate visually (i.e. drawing)

Capacity to communicate verbally (i.e. succinct emails)

Respect for history, context, authenticity

Knowledge of (and respect for) detailing

Equal parts Curiosity, Imagination, Daring

Ego, best if chilled in the fridge overnight

Experience

Collaborative team members

Sense of Humor (may be substituted with Wit or, in extreme circumstances, Good-Looks)

Once all the ingredients are gathered, the process might read something like this:

Secure client. Begin by listening, add your capacity to communicate and sense of humor, to taste.

Blend curiosity and imagination with your knowledge of context until authentic design solutions emerge.

Slowly stir in experience as these solutions develop.

Initial solutions will run into problems, to overcome add a healthy amount of daring and imagination. Refer to experience and history where possible.

In a separate bowl, temper ego with continual feedback via your capacity to communicate. Include community as much as possible.

Combine and work with team until a complete design emerges.

Pricing may not meet budget on the first try. Increase imagination and experience and repeat earlier steps. Sense of humor required.

Set timer for two months longer than anticipated and await construction.

Once complete, garnish with outstanding landscape and enjoy.

Fool-proof, right? Somehow I’m still not convinced that this prescriptive set of steps can necessarily pave the way to “good” design or even completely answer our question. Even a recipe made with the highest quality items, executed to perfection, might still not be considered “good.” (Case in point, there exists a recipe for Jellied Chicken, that could be executed perfectly and still be, well, disgusting.) Indeed design is very rarely judged on its process or even the things that went into it. Give us the results, you say! Perhaps then, the third and most critical piece to this analogy is how to evaluate those results.

Does somebody have the Yelp app handy?

.......

In the eras preceding the 20th century, most dominant cultures had a generally unified understanding of beauty in the built environment, often arising from local materials and traditions. There certainly were spirited debates in the Roman Forum about buildings even in the midst of this unity, but individual (or even community) preferences had little impact unless those individuals held title or significant financial resources. Fast-forward past the destruction of our collective building cultures (a discussion for another time) and into the fertile ground for design criticism that a democratic society full of eager, insert-a-style-movement-here supporters with easy access to communication platforms has created. Elected leaders and developers alike find a landscape that is tricky to navigate. In the age of Yelp, design review committees, and Change.org petitions, whose evaluation of “good” design matters most?

It is still the case that those with money and power make the final decisions about our built enviornment. But if the people that a building is intended to serve hate the building — no matter how much praise it receives from the academy and the profession — is it still “good” design? Architects can easily do more harm than good if we don’t heed the acute wisdom of a broad perspective. “Good” does not require a genius solo pioneer, but it can be stifled by a lack of diverse experiences, ideas, and brainstorming.

This has certainly hit close to home in the Ocean State lately. Both the Rhode Island state tourism campaign and the Department of Transportationhave been served a large portion of the public’s passion about design that they don’t consider “good.”

At the end of the day, neither the public’s opinion nor the trained professionals’ opinion need drown each other out: both bring different kinds of value. If we want the public to recognize and advocate for “good” design, we need to show them the role that better design plays. Here’s where the importance of the design process comes in: designers should not only be involving, but also educating, the community stakeholders in that process.

.......

And how should we educate them to evaluate “good” design? Critiques of our built environment are sometimes unfairly weighted by aesthetic concerns. Humanity could allow ourselves this leisure if buildings only had to be large, interactive sculptures. But buildings owe us more than just a good view. Architects should encourage people to look beyond, not just up: look beyond the shiny material on the outside of the building to whether that material actually keeps water (or ice) from dumping on pedestrians; whether the material will hold itself together after 10 years of the freeze-thaw cycle; whether that material came from 50 miles away or 500 miles away. We would hardly consider a coffee mug that’s impossible to wash by hand but breaks in the dishwasher on the first cycle to be “good” design, so why do we accept the same of buildings?

Evaluation will never be perfectly objective — to be subjective is to be human!— but I do believe there exist a broad set of principles to guide our subjectivity. These principles shouldn’t limit expression or critique, but elevate it. A millennial though I may be, I still rely on an old-school (read: time-tested) set of principals laid out by the original master builder Vitruvius. He suggested that “good” design involves a balance of firmitas (structure), utilitas (function), and venustas (the joy of beauty). In food terms, the Vitruvian triad might be akin to a dish’s taste, portion size, and mouth feel.

Importantly, these three principals transcend style: both a French dish and a molecular gastronomy dish might be evaluated on the basis of taste, portion size, and mouth feel. They merely provide a framework for the public to explore why they appreciate certain designs, which is different from telling them what designs they should or shouldn’t like. I have grown to appreciate particular food dishes more as I learn more about their particular gastronomic traditions (i.g. why Indian meals are so successful because of their variety of flavor bases). Expanding the world’s design vocabulary should help elevate the discourse, even if it means they will be more savvy to our mistakes.

.......

One last thought: “good” design is not the same as “transcendent” design (i.g. the Pantheon, the Guggenheims, insert-that-building-that-brings-you-to-tears-here). Transcendent design is rare and certainly has no quantifiable recipe — indeed it wouldn’t lift us out of the ordinary if the skill, daring, and luck that align to elevate design beyond “good” happened all the time. But following the “recipe” laid out here — well proportioned ingredients, a finely tuned process, and well-educated (and well-listened-to!) stakeholders — may leave the world with more consistently “good” design down the block, across the street, and in the town square.

Bon appetit!

                                                                        .......

Submitted by Ben Willis

[unionstudioarch]

Love this!

[unionstudioarch]

...and if you look closely, you can also spot Douglas & a fern.

[unionstudioarch]

Would You Ride The Hyperloop

My Name is Cole Gannon and I am Currently a sophomore at the Met high school  in Providence, RI. It is an internship based school and I have an interest in architecture, and I was lucky enough to get an internship here at Union Studio. The Met's curriculum requires every student to have a project correlated to their internship and the project that I have decided to do is to design a hyper-loop station here in Providence. If you don't already know the hyper-loop is Elon Musk's proposed design for a pneumatic transportation system that moves a capsule, similar to a train car, at speeds of 1.5 times that of an airplane. The system is not only faster than high speed trains, but more energy efficient and significantly cheaper. This form of transportation would be the start of a transportation revolution allowing people to virtually work anywhere in the US no matter where they live. The site I decided to use for this building is a vacant waterfront lot on the outskirts of Providence. The site is perfect for the station because the proposed design of the hyper-loop is to have the tracks run along the highways and the site has very close highway access. Also the site has nearby parking allowing me to utilize more of the lot for the building and less for parking. Another reason the site is great is the fact that it's a waterfront lot, so anyone that is coming in to the station would get a nice view of the water effectively allowing Rhode Island to embody its nickname of the Ocean State from the gates.

So far I have designed several parti charts to get an idea of how the site could be organized and have a basic idea of the layout of the building. After choosing a parti to go with I laid out  several scale items on to a basic shell of the building to see how furniture, stairs and bathrooms would fit into the building. This also allows me to get a concept of size of the building. The next step for me  to do is lay out the scale items on the second floor. 

I am a huge fan of classical architecture because it's simple, there's not an overwhelming amount of detail and intricacy, yet it remains aesthetically pleasing and monumental. A classical hyper loop station would be great because this brand new technology would be a perfect contrast to the style of buildings that we created thousands of years ago really outlining the progress mankind has made.  

Updates in progress on the design will be posted here 

[unionstudioarch]

No More Weird Buildings in China

For the last few decades, big name western architects have treated China like their own personal Sim City, taking advantage of big budgets and centralized decision-making to erect bizarre and outlandish monuments to their own egos.  Or maybe it's their id. 

These buildings are the architectural equivalent of memes.  Billion dollar memes.  They grab headlines and entertain the critics for a year or two, but unlike a gif these memes can't be discarded once the novelty has worn off. 

Imagine spending hundreds of millions of dollars and valuable natural resources so that office workers and apartment dwellers (and in many cases everyone within several square miles) could confront one internet meme, say, James Van Der Beek crying, every single day for decades. 

  EVERY. SINGLE. DAY.

Well, folks, China is sick of being rickrolled. 

China's State Council and the Communist Party's Central Committee issued a directive on Sunday banning buildings that are "oversized, xenocentric, weird" and devoid of cultural tradition.  From now on, Chinese buildings are to be "suitable, economic, green and pleasing to the eye." 

Does that last bit sound familiar?  That's because it sounds suspiciously like a translation of the two-thousand year old Vitruvian triad: "All these [departments of architecture] must be built with due reference to durability, convenience, and beauty"  (Book 1, Chapter III, Section 2). 

[unionstudioarch]

We’re Hiring!

We’re hiring talented, mission-driven architects and/or urban designers who are passionate about community-centered design. Ideal candidates will have 5 -7 years of experience with the desire to develop project management skills. We’re looking for the right balance of technical skill, field knowledge, drawing ability, and team management potential. A sense of humor, willingness to learn, and a hearty appetite for good urbanism are all pluses. We are an Equal Opportunity Employer.

Sound like you or someone you know? Please send a cover letter, resume, and portfolio or website link to dana(at)unionstudioarch.com. No calls please.

[unionstudioarch]

Union Studio's dodgeball team is gearing up for our first game!

[unionstudioarch]

We Need to Call Walmart...

This environmentally-responsible, vernacular pocket-neighborhood brought you by the Walton family!

Yes, that Walton family.  

See this ARCHITECT article here if you don't believe me.  Christy Walton had the idea for, and financed, the development of this stunning cluster of houses just outside Bentonville, Arkansas, teaming up with Virginia design/build firm GreenSpur.  Given that her family is really good at taking an idea nation-wide, would it not be a poetic atonement for their big-box sins if they brought vernacular, sustainable neighborhood development to the masses?

- submitted by Ben Willis

http://cdnassets.hw.net/dims4/GG/e065f90/2147483647/resize/876x%3E/quality/90/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fcdnassets.hw.net%2Fd9%2F66%2F399be7024a47b3e17cd3a1485ae9%2Fblackapple-ba-outside-071.jpg

[unionstudioarch]

Pondering the Politics of PassiveHaus

As PassiveHaus -- the spreadsheet-heavy, sustainability-nerd-nirvana construction metric that was developed in Germany -- becomes a more visible contender in the American construction world, it has turned up the heat on long-simmering questions about sustainable building standards, their real-world impact, and the way that they present themselves to potential adopters.

Politico ran this long-form article last month which introduced PHaus to a larger share of the non-architecture/builder world.  It illustrates some recent US success stories, discusses the on-going debate between the original, one-size-fits-all-climates model and the recently-released US version that accounts for micro-climate nuance, and ends by hinting at the importance of PassiveHaus’s future marketing strategy.  It is this last suggestion that I think points to the hot debate in the green building industry today: has it compromised its environmental aims with slick graphics, lengthy checklists, and fancy (read: expensive) titles?

One can hardly discuss this issue without looking at USGBC’s LEED program.  It was arguably the first mass-marketed wake-up call to the demand for a healthier built environment, and it began satisfying that demand with locally-sourced materials, light-filled interiors, and low-flow fixtures.  For all of the remarkable steps forward that LEED has helped the design/building industry take – particularly by encouraging manufacturers to release better products that help even non-LEED projects be more sustainable – has it been compromised by its heavy emphasis on marketing its own brand?  The most widespread complaint I hear about LEED is that the high cost of the program (or more specifically, the final certification that comes with a plaque to hang in the lobby) gives nothing to mother nature except bragging rights to the building owners.  As this article about a recent skyscraper in NYC points out, a LEED building may not be much to brag about given the energy it still consumes, even with all of its LEED platinum boxes checked.  Depending on how you interpret this energy data, that fact would seem to be a much more serious problem than how much their program costs.  In the balancing act of cultural cache and sustainable intentions, some argue that LEED has been consumed by the former.

On the other hand, LEED’s emphasis on ‘cultural cache’ has certainly gotten developers and real estate agents on board, and that momentum has led to a much greater public awareness, including many government agencies (another political dimension to this issue).  Designers, myself included, would be hard pressed to say we don’t appreciate clean, beautiful graphic design -- imagine if all code books were produced with the same graphic quality as the USGBC website!  I don’t doubt that the plaques hanging in corporate and institutional lobbies have encouraged other good environmental behavior.  And any step towards healthier, more informed inhabitants is a step in the right direction, even if these standards will allow a glass box in the middle of the desert to be branded “sustainable.”

If the world is not ready to call the green building movement “all grown up yet,” maybe many of these perceived flaws are just part of its awkward teenage years (what teenager isn’t a little self-obsessed with image?)  In any case, PassiveHaus is a welcome addition to the club.  Whether it gets a full American make-over or not, my hope is that it will continue to lead with its no-frills numbers: numbers that shape a data-driven response to a lighter environmental impact, numbers that equate to a more comfortable living experience, and numbers that bolster the stories of homeowners telling developers/builders/government officials that these goals are worth more than the cheapest bottom line.  And hopefully it will open the door to sustainable construction that is financially accessible far beyond the luxury home consumer.  If it can get that done, maybe PassiveHaus will be "the house that saves the world…"

(Want to learn more?  Visit the PassiveHaus Institute or call Joe Haskett, at Union Studio)

- submitted by Ben Willis

[unionstudioarch]

Something we, as New Urbanists, pay attention to when designing communities! Interesting to see it identified in the context of adult friendships. So true.

[unionstudioarch]

Weekly Listen: "Never Treat Drivers as Idiots"

By: Joel VanderWeele

As a native Midwesterner and self-proclaimed expert driver, I can say with complete confidence that Rhode Island drivers are the absolute worst.  

About once a week, I'll see a driver treat a green light like a stop sign: they roll up to the line, come to a complete stop (what?!), look both ways... and just wait there, hoping to cede the right-of-way to whoever strolls by.  This is happening at a green light!  

Pedestrians and cyclists see this bizarre behavior, and after a few seconds come to the conclusion that the driver is trying to offer them a clear crossing.  But just as the bright-eyed pedestrian steps off the curb, the driver gets tired of waiting - probably annoyed that no one has accepted their generous gift - and floors it so they can make it through the intersection before the light turns, nearly running over the handsome pedestrian in the process.  

This is just one small example of typical behavior.  When Little Rhodies get behind the wheel, they switch back and forth between being annoyingly passive and dangerously aggressive, and you never know which one you're going to get.

Drivers from the Ocean State may be terrible, but according to this week's podcast with Ben Hamilton-Baillie, they are not idiots.  Hamilton-Baillie sits down with Strong Towns founder Chuck Marohn to talk about shared space - the idea that streets are best (and safest) when shared by everyone, not just those on four wheels.  

Extra Credit Listening: another conversation with Ben Hamilton-Baillie