Balancing

Green and Brown in Urban Design

Dean Sai4a University of Denver
Presented at the Aurora History Museum, 19 March 2013

American ci;es na;onwide are dealing with numerous issues that aect their environmental and cultural sustainability. They have to redesign and re-t to accommodate energy shortages and climate change, as well as the fact that America as illustrated so clearly in the 2012 presiden;al elec;onis rapidly becoming a majority minority na;on. This talk considers the urban planning issues and challenges with par;cular reference to the greater Denver metropolitan area.

Study ranks Denver as 5th Greenest City in US and Canada

The ethnic diversity of American society is increasing. This will be especially evident in ciCes.

The Intercultural City

Welcomes diversity (ethnic, linguisCc, religious). Views diversity as an opportunity, not a problem. Adapts its services, insCtuCons, and governance structures to the needs of diverse populaCons. Takes acCons and creates policies that encourage social mixing, interacCon, and investment. Designs public space to meet the needs of a culturally-diverse populaCon.

Intercultural Urbanism

Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Urban Culture, Space, Architecture, and Design

hLp://www.interculturalurbanism.com/

Imagine a Great City -Campaign slogan of Federico Pena, Denver Mayor 1983-1991

New Urbanism

Denver is na;onally known for implemen;ng New Urbanist approaches to imagining, and regenera;ng, the city. New Urbanism advocates the restructuring of public policy and development pracCces to support the following principles: neighborhoods should be diverse in use and popula;on; communiCes should be designed for the pedestrian and public transit as well as the car; i.e., dedicated to smart growth; ciCes and towns should be shaped by physically dened and universally accessible public spaces and community ins;tu;ons; urban places should be framed by architecture and landscape design that celebrate local history, climate, ecology, and building prac;ce.

Cri;cs of New Urbanism Ques;on its Newness.

Much of what it recommends overlaps with European Old Urbanism.

what is claimed as new within New Urbanism is in reality old. What is being advocated is, in reality, everyday barrio life. -David Diaz, 2005.

Prac;cing New Urbanism: Three Denver Regenera;on Schemes

All seek to reconnect relaCvely big spaces to the established street grid, and to regenerate those spaces in conformance with New Urbanist design principles.

#1. Stapleton Airport

These images exemplify Stapletons redevelopment as a mixed use, architecturally- variable, green community.

Crescent Lo`s (top right) and 29th Avenue, Denver

Stapleton also displays a touch of what Spiro Kostof calls The Grand Manner: a set of baroque planning principles that emphasize geometric order and formal vistas.
Park Crescent, London

#2. Elitch Gardens Amusement Park

Before

A`er: Highlands Garden Village

Highlands Garden Village

Pitched Roof and Front Porch AestheCc

Preserved Carousel Preserved Theatre

#3. Villa Italia Mall (1965-2001). At its opening it was the largest suburban mall west of Chicago.

The Villa Italia site today. Known as Belmar, its intended to provide a new downtown for suburban Lakewood. Its surrounding community is largely Hispanic in ethnic composiCon.

Lo`s

Belmars Neo-Modern or American MercanCle AestheCc Plaza Alley Housing

Block 7 ArCst Galleries

Intercultural Urbanism

Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Urban Culture, Space, Architecture, and Design

Denvers New Urbanism has mixed appeal for a diverse group of interna;onal Millennials (American, English, Italian, Czech, African) -European students overwhelmingly preferred Highlands Garden Village. -American students narrowly preferred Belmar. These preferences suggest that New Urbanism is on the right track in terms of appealing to at least Western Anglo and Con:nental intercultural tastes and values. However, a4rac;ng and mixing ethnic groups is another ma4er altogether. The built form of Denvers New Urban developments, their retail establishments and adver;sing, their housing prices, and their lack of seamless integra;on with surrounding neighborhoods s;ll signal to all studentswhite upper/middle class homogeneity and exclusivity. -my one Hispanic student reluctantly threw in with Belmar. My one African (Liberia) student hated all three New Urban developments equally.

These results raise the ques;on of whether New Urbanism can succeed in accomplishing, at the same ;me, its diversity and civic engagement (community- building) goals.

One student ques;oned whether New Urbanism is capable of producing an intercultural city at all. As she put it, perhaps an intercultural city already exists in the urban fabric and just needs some poking and proddingusing other varie;es of urbanism as a guideto draw it out.

Minimally, there was a fairly good consensus that architects and planners interested in intercultural city-building must either (a) structure space so that dierent cultures might see and use it in a variety of ways, or (b) create more open-ended spaces to which a diversity of people can adapt.

Intercultural Urbanism

Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Urban Culture, Space, Architecture, and Design

Images of the exisCng hospital site. All of this will be demolished.

A small piece of this historic, 1920s Nurses Dorm along with its adjacent grassy quadrangle will be preserved as the social heart of the site.

Map of the proposed and sCll un-named development. The preserved Nurses Dorm will house retail and oce space on the north side of the public square (center). The large retail store at upper le` will be a 100,000 square foot Big Box store that will be the anchor tenant for the site. ResidenCal buildings for mulC-family housing are at lower right.

Urban Design Standards and Guidelines reect the planning principles of New Urbanism.

A Model for 9th and Colorados Restaurant Row: South Pearl Street, Denver

Conceptual renderings feature pedestrian-oriented design and ground oor transparency that allows a closer connecCon between the buildings and street.

Parking lots will be concealed. This will likely prevent development of informal economies (e.g., food trucks) important to some barrio cultures.

One worry for an intercultural urbanist is that the main square will end up looking like a place thats more invested in Cdy Grand Manner symmetry and visual order rather than messy cosmopolitan interacCon (e.g., Place des Vosges, Paris, early 1600s)

Barcelona, Plaza Real

Renderings of the Big Box Store also have a Neo-Modern cast. These examples of Big Box design (from ciCes around the United States) range from the banal (upper le`) to the more adventurous (lower right)..

Architecture and Place-Making

Ive suggested to the developer that something dierent would be appropriate for the Big Box at 9th and Colorado. An exposed skeleton structure like Paris Centre Georges Pompidou would honor the sites historic use as a hospital and also likely make for an interesCng conversaCon piece. As ScoL Doyon, a New Urbanist, percepCvely suggests: (Memorable visual events) make our communi:es more interes:ng, and interes:ng places engage people at a more in:mate, emo:onal level. When we talk of making places more pedestrian friendly, we o.en focus on sidewalks, road geometries and diversity of des8na8ons but its less o.en that we also focus on delight the visual candy that engages our senses as we travel from point A to point B.

AlternaCvely, something like the Idea Store in Whitechapel, London a building that inCmately connects to its context and that also aLracts an ethnically diverse user populaConwould also work for the Big Box.

The 9th Avenue Bridge: Why Not Save it?

Why not a 9th Avenue and Colorado Boulevard pedestrian overpass that threads the development into Congress Park?

An Urban Planning Sideshow

Does it BeLer Resonate with Millennial SensibiliCes?

Intercultural Urbanism

Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Urban Culture, Space, Architecture, and Design

RetroLng Dead and Dying Suburban Places

POSTED BY DEAN SAITTA ON FEBRUARY 07, 2013

Why students like CityCenter Englewood! outdoor sculpture, public library and art museum. greater residenCal aordability. Light Rail transit connecCvity (Belmars eight connecCng bus lines did very liLle for them). In this respect my students disagreed with Alan Ehrenhalts assessment that CityCenter Englewood turns its back on the light rail staCon and on transit oriented development in general. greater opportunity for encountering ethnic diversity at CityCenter Englewood, which some students explicitly linked to the nearby presence of value shopping retail outlets like Walmart. Walmart is apparently not an issue for these students as it is for ciCzens of their parents age living elsewhere in the city. In short, CityCenter Englewood struck my students as a more authen;c urban place than other Denver urban retrots. Belmar is seen as ar;cial. Takeaway Lesson: Student experience in, and evalua8on of Denver suburban retrots was very dierent from that of the professional opinion-shapers.