MISA GRANNIS | THESIS SUMMER RESEARCH PRESENTATION | SEPTEMBER 2011

suburbs as...

MISA GRANNIS | THESIS SUMMER RESEARCH PRESENTATION | SEPTEMBER 2011

texture

MISA GRANNIS | THESIS SUMMER RESEARCH PRESENTATION | SEPTEMBER 2011

fabric

MISA GRANNIS | THESIS SUMMER RESEARCH PRESENTATION | SEPTEMBER 2011

pattern

MISA GRANNIS | THESIS SUMMER RESEARCH PRESENTATION | SEPTEMBER 2011

abomination?

Saving the Suburbs

In Search of Common Ground

MISA GRANNIS | THESIS SUMMER RESEARCH PRESENTATION | SEPTEMBER 2011

bad?
plano, tx

henderson, nv

levittown, ny

sun city, az

good?
london, uk

paris, fr

new york, ny

tokyo, jp

MISA GRANNIS | THESIS SUMMER RESEARCH PRESENTATION | SEPTEMBER 2011

MISA GRANNIS | THESIS SUMMER RESEARCH PRESENTATION | SEPTEMBER 2011

And what exactly do you mean by sprawl?

Define suburb. Arent there many different kinds?

9 out of 10 architects agree: the suburbs are suburban sprawl is TOTALLY GROSS BLECHHH
(Then what is more than half of the country thinking living there???)

So what makes the bad ones so bad?

MISA GRANNIS | THESIS SUMMER RESEARCH PRESENTATION | SEPTEMBER 2011

1) Theyre UGLY 2) They embody and encourage everything thats wrong with our car-dependent consumer culture and increase our dependence on foreign oil 3) Theyre environmentally hazardous! Air pollution, loss of farmland, habitat destruction, acres of pavement causing runoff issues. The spread-out infrastructure and wasted land is unsustainable for the population we need to be able to support 4) Theyre bad for your health! All that driving is contributing to the obesity epidemic 5) They empty out our city centers, draining their essential life force (a density of people), and the cities are what generate our culture, our society, our humanity! City air makes people free! 6) Cul-de-sacs and volumetric housing breed isolation and destroy community and democracy. Theyre socially irresponsible and selfishly constructed! 7) Architects are never invited to the party!

Is this what people really want? Why havent things improved since 1947?

MISA GRANNIS | THESIS SUMMER RESEARCH PRESENTATION | SEPTEMBER 2011

So, can we fix it?

MISA GRANNIS | THESIS SUMMER RESEARCH PRESENTATION | SEPTEMBER 2011

Possible solutions:
Abandon them!
The suburbs are a trend, people will reurbanize. Look at the foreclosure rate!
(See: Kenneth Jackson, optimists)

Plan better cities

With mixed zoning, better access to transit and walkable neighborhoods well get it right next time!
(See: New Urbanism, Smart Growth)

Retrofit existing suburbs

Theyve already got the infrastructure, lets funnel new growth there, extend our transit network and increase density in the old neighborhoods
(See: Dolores Hayden, Tysons Corner, Build a Better Burb Competition)

MISA GRANNIS | THESIS SUMMER RESEARCH PRESENTATION | SEPTEMBER 2011

6) Cul-de-sacs and volumetric housing breed isolation and destroy community and democracy. Theyre socially irresponsible and selfishly constructed!

Retrofit existing suburbs

Theyve already got the infrastructure, lets funnel new growth there, extend our transit network and increase density in the old neighborhoods
(See: Dolores Hayden, Tysons Corner, Build a Better Burb Competition)

MISA GRANNIS | THESIS SUMMER RESEARCH PRESENTATION | SEPTEMBER 2011

Define the public

Define public space

So whats a good public space?

Public space is where democracy is born!

Does it even exist anymore?

Can you produce it or does it only exist insofar as it is claimed by the public?
MISA GRANNIS | THESIS SUMMER RESEARCH PRESENTATION | SEPTEMBER 2011

Use strip mall parking lots as staging grounds for densification/introduction of public space or program -Margaret Crawford

big public spaces are impossible to create, the big developers own every inch of land. create small moments for people to engage in on a more intimate scale -Marcel Smets

some current ideas

public space has become an individual experience (think: foam city), so build temporary spaces that people can move through and have chance interactions -Marcel Smets accept the fact that our society has always been tied to the bottom line and allow public spaces to be profitable -Sarah Whiting

MISA GRANNIS | THESIS SUMMER RESEARCH PRESENTATION | SEPTEMBER 2011

DESIGN EXPERIMENTS

MISA GRANNIS | THESIS SUMMER RESEARCH PRESENTATION | SEPTEMBER 2011

MISA GRANNIS | THESIS SUMMER RESEARCH PRESENTATION | SEPTEMBER 2011

glen oaks, ny

san francisco, ca

detroit, mi

west village, ny

detroit, mi

lakewood, ca

schaumburg, il

riverside, nj

MISA GRANNIS | THESIS SUMMER RESEARCH PRESENTATION | SEPTEMBER 2011

MODIFIED NOLLI
public, open retail public, feebased private

Mapping Dwelling
[Renee Chows diagramming techniques, with some modifications, applied to residential neighborhoods in Mission Viejo and San Francisco, CA]

Modified Nolli plan of Yerba Buena Gardens. Grannis, 2010.

Renee Chows mappings of containment (2 left diagrams) and claim (2 right diagrams), from Suburban Space, 2002.

MISA GRANNIS | THESIS SUMMER RESEARCH PRESENTATION | SEPTEMBER 2011

BUILT/UNBUILT

CONTAINED

built

unbuilt

MISA GRANNIS | THESIS SUMMER RESEARCH PRESENTATION | SEPTEMBER 2011

MODIFIED NOLLI

CLAIM

public, open public, feebased

private

public community

household individual

MISA GRANNIS | THESIS SUMMER RESEARCH PRESENTATION | SEPTEMBER 2011

CONNECTIONS

to outside neighborhood between residences blocked connection

MISA GRANNIS | THESIS SUMMER RESEARCH PRESENTATION | SEPTEMBER 2011

Densifying the Suburbs

[Using several competition entries as precedents, converting a strip mall and parking lot into housing, public space and better retail by adding on and packing in]

Upcycling 2.0. Lovett, Simons and Cobb, 2010.

The Articulated Strip: How the strip mall can save suburbia. De Jong and Ruffing, 2010.

Urban Sprawl Repair Kit: Repairing the urban fabric. Tahchieva, 2009.

MISA GRANNIS | THESIS SUMMER RESEARCH PRESENTATION | SEPTEMBER 2011

SITE: Supermarket and strip mall at corner of major intersection between city artery and freeway exit

MISA GRANNIS | THESIS SUMMER RESEARCH PRESENTATION | SEPTEMBER 2011

existing condition

MISA GRANNIS | THESIS SUMMER RESEARCH PRESENTATION | SEPTEMBER 2011

proposal

-parking moved to top of existing retail -housing added on top of parking -building added to densify lot -different degrees of public space created by new structure

MISA GRANNIS | THESIS SUMMER RESEARCH PRESENTATION | SEPTEMBER 2011

The Shape of Suburbia

[Thinking of Michael Thompson and Albert Popes theses on the effect of terminal organization (cul-de-sacs) on social politics, the bedroom suburb of Mission Viejo, CA is mapped and analyzed for its distribution of different types of spaces, public and private.]

MISA GRANNIS | THESIS SUMMER RESEARCH PRESENTATION | SEPTEMBER 2011

MISA GRANNIS | THESIS SUMMER RESEARCH PRESENTATION | SEPTEMBER 2011

MISA GRANNIS | THESIS SUMMER RESEARCH PRESENTATION | SEPTEMBER 2011

MISA GRANNIS | THESIS SUMMER RESEARCH PRESENTATION | SEPTEMBER 2011

MISA GRANNIS | THESIS SUMMER RESEARCH PRESENTATION | SEPTEMBER 2011

Parting questions:
What is the form of public space in todays suburbs? (Does it exist? Is it the mall?) At which scales do the problems of suburbia exist? (Scale of the city, neighborhood, house?) How is politics embedded in the layout of our homes, neighborhoods and cities? Is detached housing completely unsustainable or are there ways to make it work? (There will always be demand for it.) How big of a community is sustainable before it has to be subdivided into smaller ones? If were going to be stuck with the suburbs, can a rethinking of public space and how it might pertain to the decentralized city help solve some of the problems of sprawl and make the suburbs suck less? In fact, can we make them awesome?

MISA GRANNIS | THESIS SUMMER RESEARCH PRESENTATION | SEPTEMBER 2011