Columbia Town Center and TED Talks: what can we learn?

I've been watching the old archives of the TED Conference, and I noticed how many of them concerned architecture and city development as a whole.

Let me start off with one from James Howard Kunstler. While he's certainly an ass, he does give us some insight into how we could look at Columbia Town Center. Let's watch:

Walkable, permeable, and civic minded. Which does not describe town center in the very least. Remember the Boston City Hall image where the wino's don't even show up. Well, that's the lakefront. There are some great restaurants and the stuff during the summer, but it's mostly a place where people drive up, park, go in the restaurant, eat, and leave. What is keeping people down there? In web site terms, what's sticky about the lakefront? What about it makes us citizens rather than consumers? The mall area is all about making us consumers and not citizens. Then there is the office buildings ringing the area that are barren at night. There are the newer apartment buildings and townhomes that, as Kunstler might say, are cartoons of normalcy. The townhouses with their front doors that are never opened up. The townhouses have a lack of balconies and decks for people to hang out at and chat with the neighbors. No place in the "front" of the townhouse to connect us to others as citizens. The apartments that are turned towards each other across a big parking lot with very little connection to the world outside the complex.

There is some hope though. And Kunstler touches on it in a few ways. There are some other things I would like to pay attention to. I would contend that unless the buildings are interesting to look at and are designed to connect us to one another in some way. There's another talk from Bjarke Ingels which touches upon that idea. Let's watch:

Here, he is going to great lengths to use buildings as connectors between people. The "Mountain" that keeps its neighbors in mind. Even making a parking garage that's interesting to look at. Imagine that where the tower is supposed to go. Let's even expand that to what is now the parking lot next to the Clark building. Let's even replace those two small office buildings and integrate them into the base of a giant building. Offices and parking below with condos that have gardens and a view of the lakefront. Heck, that can be a place or a thousand people or so to enjoy the 4th of July fireworks and we would still have more nearby parking than we have today or with what is currently proposed.

Let me follow this idea for a moment. One of the good points of the GGP plan is connecting a lot of the different spaces in town center together, but their ideas of parking and the lack of mass transit is still a problem. So while we work out our local and regional mass transit infrastructure, we need to keep in mind the immediate needs until the mass transit is completed. And that, unfortunately means more than one space per occupant since we also need to keep the civic activities in mind as development progresses.

The People's Building in China is another good example where the building is interesting to look at, but is also something that people can relate to. It speaks to us in a personal way.

The harbor island that connects the urban to the rural, but using the resources available to make a real impact on building a sustainable world. While LEED certification is commendable, it's really a green wash that companies can use to say that they're "green" while not actually doing much to make a real impact towards a zero carbon world.

Which brings us to the talk from Bill Gates. Let's watch:

This now presents us with the question, "Okay. That sounds good and possible. How does this apply to me?" Well, if we are going to get to zero CO2 emissions, that means that the building designs need to be more efficient. GGP has proposed a few ideas that are moves us in the right direction. Roofs that use dirt and vegetation to reduce the "heat island" effect that cities have. Using vegetation throughout the plan to purify water as it travels to the Little Patauxent River in such a way that puts less of a burden on the water purification plants downstream. Even their paltry use of solar, as insignificant as it is, is a step up from where we currently are. The big problem is that they do not go far enough. The challenge tat GGP and the county faces is not to put on a green wash with LEED certifications, but a real effort to make Columbia Town Center, and later, the rest of the city, a real zero carbon mecca that can and will be a model for the rest of the region.

How is it done? Well, let's watch Norman Foster give us some insights into his approach:

 So his approach is to not only use design in a functional way, but build in such a way as to future-proof the building. This means anticipating potential cabling issues, but in our case, how to integrate newer energy sources and energy saving technologies into how we build the neighborhood. Now I have advocated use of geo-thermal heat pumps before, and I will stress that again. The energy savings, it being generally a 100 year system, using less chemicals than a traditional cooling system. All of those items and more, despite being more expensive to install, can enable future use of even solar thermal technologies and storage of the heated water/steam for use later. Basically, building a thermos for the ground to store the hot stuff and using the cooling properties of the constant 60 degree ground to replace AC systems and at least a good start to heating the building during the winter months.

Now there's the issue of the materials used to build buildings. Concrete is a major source of CO2 pollution and there are solutions to that. I'll have to dig that up and post it later, but there's also items as mundane as drywall. Let's watch:

Or even carpet. Let's watch

 Ray Anderson makes the case that sustainability is the right business practice as well. There's a lot of money to be made by being really green with a long term perspective. Not just a green wash for short term profits.

All of this being said, it won't help if we don't prepare for a proper mass transit system. Oil is going to be a major problem and electric cars, while a good transition approach, is not necessarily a long term solution either. Let's get a summary of the problem:

So this means a better transportation system. I would argue for 2 systems. One express system to connect us to Baltimore, DC, Frederick, Annapolis and even Fort Meade. This would be like the MARC trains, but probably one that uses newer train technologies that can permit vehicles that can fit up to 4 people, which will come in handy during the off peak hours when full length trains are not economical. Kind of like the PPT system in Morgantown, WV, but convertible between a traditional subway system and a PPT. But it will take planning now so its eventual integrating with town center can be done efficiently and hopefully less expensively. The second system would be the local system which would probably be a complete PPT system. Perhaps one like this. In the interim though, it will likely be electric cars. Let's watch:

So what does this all mean? I'm not entirely sure yet, but it's at least a start to a true discussion about Columbia's future. I'll save that discussion for later.

To finish though, let me post a talk from Frank Gehry, who did a good chunk of the more iconic buildings in Columbia for some ideas to ponder.

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Christopher Alexander: A City is not a Tree

I encountered this essay back in the 80s, in a Johns Hopkins publication called
Zone. It's a layered, nuanced critique of artificial cities vs. natural cities. The
'tree' in the title refers to a mathematical construct, like a family tree -- a hierarchy
wherein only one path exists between any two nodes (no loops). Humans have
difficulty envisioning or designing 'natural' cities that are unconstrained by these
kinds of logical grid systems.

Muses Alexander:
..." Does a concert hall ask to be next to an opera house? Can the two feed on one another? Will anybody ever visit them both, gluttonously, in a single evening, or even buy tickets from one after going to a performance in the other? In Vienna, London, Paris, each of the performing arts has found its own place, because all are not mixed randomly. Each has created its own familiar section of the city. In Manhattan itself, Carnegie Hall and the Metropolitan Opera House were not built side by side. Each found its own place, and now creates its own atmosphere. The influence of each overlaps the parts of the city which have been made unique to it.

The only reason that these functions have all been brought together in Lincoln Center is that the concept of performing art links them to one another.

But this tree, and the idea of a single hierarchy of urban cores which is its parent, do not illuminate the relations between art and city life. They are merely born of the mania every simple-minded person has for putting things with the same name into the same basket" ...

Anyone interested in a future for Columbia should read these articles ...

http://www.rudi.net/pages/8755
http://www.rudi.net/books/201

... "Figure 1. Columbia, Maryland, Community Research and Development, Inc.: Neighbourhoods,in clusters of five, form 'villages'. Transportation joins the villages into a new town. The organization is a tree" ...