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What I lament most about architectural debates is that they focus too much on individual buildings. The alienating part of the built environment where I live, w

What I lament most about architectural debates is that they focus too much on individual buildings. The alienating part of the built environment where I live, which is one of the better built environments in the US, is the street layout. It's a grid, it's repetitive, and it's car-centered. We have already figured out how to build beautiful buildings in any number of styles from many eras. That's because a building is a discrete entity whose design is managed by one group of people, who can form a relationship with an architect who pours their heart and soul into the design. A street network, on the other hand, is managed by successive governments staffed by much more disinterested operators, and often by different governments who may be working at cross purposes. I'm not saying there should be a master plan (I actually don't like those) but rather that the logistics of designing a street network are much, much harder than for a single building, however you go about it. I also consider the harmonization of automobile and pedestrian traffic to be an open problem. Maximalists on both sides just talk past each other. Car-oriented development is bad, but at the same time we aren't going back to a pre-car world. Whether your model is Brasilia (modern) or Cayala (traditional), there are just so few opportunities to actually think about the design of the street network of a city. Street networks are just taken as given and then architects try to make the best of them. That's not a criticism of architects or city planners; the street network design largely seems to be on autopilot with very few opportunities for a change in direction. And for established cities, changing the network is nearly impossible.

feoren 3y ago
> I'm not saying there should be a master plan (I actually don't like those) > the street network design largely seems to be on autopilot with very few opportunities for a change in direction You can't have it both ways. The solution to a tragedy of the commons is to manage the commons. How can you say that you dislike master plans, but you want a planned design!? Architects pouring their heart and soul into a building's design is a good thing, but city planners pouring their heart and soul into a neighborhood's design is a bad thing!? One reason it's impossible to do anything is because large-scale planning is unfairly villainized as "inefficient big government intervention", and here you are villainizing it, while simultaneously wishing for intervention (from, who else? Government!)
crabmusket 3y ago
This is why I'm addicted to Christopher Alexander, who is billed as an architect but wrote about the integration of architecture, site planning, streets, town planning, etc. As did Jane Jacobs. Both champion local decision-making, organic growth of places, and emphasize the integration of places on the street level.
- Duanemclemore 3y ago
  I've just recently re-read the Alexander chapter in Molly Steenson's book Architectural Intelligence. It's the most cogent and useful short reading I've found of Alexander. Well worth a look for the unfamiliar. Which you are not of course, but this comment is to help other folks find a good onramp.
  - crabmusket 3y ago
    That book sounds really interesting, thanks for the reference!
    - Duanemclemore 3y ago
      It's great - enjoy!
bluGill 3y ago
Everywhere I've been in the US the grid was a sign of the old part of town. Newer parts don't have a grid. Newer streets are very crooked, dead end, otherwise do no go through - to keep cars away. There is a nearby highways system, but even that doesn't look much like a grid
- Duanemclemore 3y ago
  Developing on this - not to keep -cars- away as they're usually "suburbs" which would atrophy and collapse without the private auto. But to - keep -anyone who doesn't know the street layout- away. It's a method to make the locale less hospitable to outsiders. This pattern is also due to the fact that these individual subdivisions do not connect to a distributed grid but to a tree-like branching of streets from largest trunk (freeways) through to branches (thoroughfares) to twigs (local streets) to leaves (individual properties). The subdivisions themselves are the investment of a single real estate development entity, and created without the requirement to connect to the larger whole except in this tree-mimicing organization.
  - throwup238 3y ago
    This is especially obvious in Southern California where they've been putting up "emergency access roads" that have automated gates that respond to IR flashes from emergency vehicles so commuters can't use the suburbs as through streets but emergency services can still drive through in case of fire or other emergency and pedestrians can walk through. They're required for developments that want to stay isolated. One of those roads splits my neighborhood into two clear halves with each half only access by one artery, so that commuters don't go gunning through the neighborhood.
    - MichaelZuo 3y ago
      How do local residents drive in?
      - callalex 3y ago
vlaxx 3y ago
I hate to break it to you but, the city grid plan is ancient. The Greeks and Romans used it, even the Pre-Columbian Americans had it. The system is great for directions and general movement of people.
- fuzztester 3y ago
  Maybe these guys had city grid plans too, not sure: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indus_Valley_Civilisation https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indus_Valley_Civilisation We had IVC as a topic in school, vaguely remember it being mentioned, could be wrong.
- duderific 3y ago
  Downtown Redwood City, California, is rotated at a 45° angle to its surrounding streets. Though I've been there dozens of times (worked nearby for 10 years), I still never quite feel like I know where I'm going.
  - mixmastamyk 3y ago
    That’s a Spanish thing I believe… lots of towns in Latin America like that, including Los Angeles.
ryukafalz 3y ago
> I also consider the harmonization of automobile and pedestrian traffic to be an open problem. Maximalists on both sides just talk past each other. Car-oriented development is bad, but at the same time we aren't going back to a pre-car world. Of course we're not going back to a pre-car world, but I feel like even advocating for relatively minor changes like protected bike lanes or limiting car access in city centers gets you labeled a maximalist. Drivers have a countrywide pedestrian-free transportation network (the interstate highway system) but there is practically no place at all in the US that you can walk or especially bike for transportation without frequent potential conflict with cars. And even small steps towards establishing such spaces meet fierce opposition.
- Fatnino 3y ago
  Stanford campus is, I would say, hostile to cars. Stanford is a very big place as far as university campuses go and besides a loop road around the edges there are only a few roads that go to the inside and a lot of it you simply can't get to by car. You need to park and walk or bike. If you do choose to walk, don't let your guard down because while the cars are absent, the bikes are still a (slightly less lethal) menace.
- FooBarBizBazz 3y ago
  > Drivers have a countrywide pedestrian-free transportation network (the interstate highway system) but there is practically no place at all in the US that you can walk or especially bike for transportation without frequent potential conflict with cars. This is a great observation, and it immediately suggests a vision: An interstate pedestrian path system, and an interstate bicycle network. The Park Service is already imagining these things, but many of the "trails" are just marked sections of automobile-road. They don't have the resources to go further, but we should go further. Define minimum standards. The most important is physical separation from vehicle traffic. Mere paint or bollards is insufficient. Ideally some limited infrastructure like occasional benches and water fountains. Fire Robert Moses and put Charles Olmstead in charge. The funny thing is, when you create nice environments, people want to be in them. A market is created. All of a sudden, cyclists are passing through. I can run a little cafe that caters to them. Commerce happens. Yes, much of it's leisure-oriented, but that's still GDP.
scythe 3y ago
I find the grid to be much more walkable than more recent layouts which are overtly hostile to pedestrians. There's an entire ideal of "access control" in modern design (part of CPTED) that focuses on making it harder to get to places because criminals will use the access routes to evade capture. And of all the ways to deal with crime, making the built environment more alienating to everyone is among the worst. But you can humanize the grid a little: https://tilings.math.uni-bielefeld.de/substitution/pentomino/ https://tilings.math.uni-bielefeld.de/substitution/pentomino... https://tilings.math.uni-bielefeld.de/substitution/domino/ https://tilings.math.uni-bielefeld.de/substitution/domino/ >I also consider the harmonization of automobile and pedestrian traffic to be an open problem. Maximalists on both sides just talk past each other. In its early days, StrongTowns made a big deal out of arguing that parking should always be put behind commercial buildings instead of in front of them, so the storefront reaches the sidewalk. They've spent less time talking about this now because it attracts vitriol from the people who want to get rid of parking altogether. Unfortunately, it seems like the loud people have found the urbanism discourse.
- crabmusket 3y ago
  I thought that Alexander's "A City is not a Tree" had a statement about how grids are not necessarily a problem, and organically-shaped streets/towns are not necessarily a solution, but skimming it again I can't find it. Maybe it was in an essay responding to Alexander. But grids themselves aren't necessarily bad. One can imagine a street grid as a trellis, on top of which life is able to grow in abundance. Alexander and Jacobs both didn't seem to have a problem with grids and right angles, only with poor uses of such. For example, Jacobs talks about long blocks which prevent cross-mingling between parallel streets. She also describes how staggering streets with dog-legs and other obstructions can improve neighbourhoods by slowing traffic.
lazyasciiart 3y ago
Barcelona is the go-to example of a city managing their existing street network for improved living environments. https://www.vox.com/2016/8/4/12342806/barcelona-superblocks https://www.vox.com/2016/8/4/12342806/barcelona-superblocks

feoren 3y ago

> I'm not saying there should be a master plan (I actually don't like those) > the street network design largely seems to be on autopilot with very few opportunities for a change in direction You can't have it both ways. The solution to a tragedy of the commons is to manage the commons. How can you say that you dislike master plans, but you want a planned design!? Architects pouring their heart and soul into a building's design is a good thing, but city planners pouring their heart and soul into a neighborhood's design is a bad thing!? One reason it's impossible to do anything is because large-scale planning is unfairly villainized as "inefficient big government intervention", and here you are villainizing it, while simultaneously wishing for intervention (from, who else? Government!)

crabmusket 3y ago

This is why I'm addicted to Christopher Alexander, who is billed as an architect but wrote about the integration of architecture, site planning, streets, town planning, etc. As did Jane Jacobs. Both champion local decision-making, organic growth of places, and emphasize the integration of places on the street level.

Duanemclemore 3y ago
I've just recently re-read the Alexander chapter in Molly Steenson's book Architectural Intelligence. It's the most cogent and useful short reading I've found of Alexander. Well worth a look for the unfamiliar. Which you are not of course, but this comment is to help other folks find a good onramp.
- crabmusket 3y ago
  That book sounds really interesting, thanks for the reference!
  - Duanemclemore 3y ago
    It's great - enjoy!

bluGill 3y ago

Everywhere I've been in the US the grid was a sign of the old part of town. Newer parts don't have a grid. Newer streets are very crooked, dead end, otherwise do no go through - to keep cars away. There is a nearby highways system, but even that doesn't look much like a grid

Duanemclemore 3y ago
Developing on this - not to keep -cars- away as they're usually "suburbs" which would atrophy and collapse without the private auto. But to - keep -anyone who doesn't know the street layout- away. It's a method to make the locale less hospitable to outsiders. This pattern is also due to the fact that these individual subdivisions do not connect to a distributed grid but to a tree-like branching of streets from largest trunk (freeways) through to branches (thoroughfares) to twigs (local streets) to leaves (individual properties). The subdivisions themselves are the investment of a single real estate development entity, and created without the requirement to connect to the larger whole except in this tree-mimicing organization.
- throwup238 3y ago
  This is especially obvious in Southern California where they've been putting up "emergency access roads" that have automated gates that respond to IR flashes from emergency vehicles so commuters can't use the suburbs as through streets but emergency services can still drive through in case of fire or other emergency and pedestrians can walk through. They're required for developments that want to stay isolated. One of those roads splits my neighborhood into two clear halves with each half only access by one artery, so that commuters don't go gunning through the neighborhood.
  - MichaelZuo 3y ago
    How do local residents drive in?
    - callalex 3y ago

vlaxx 3y ago

I hate to break it to you but, the city grid plan is ancient. The Greeks and Romans used it, even the Pre-Columbian Americans had it. The system is great for directions and general movement of people.

fuzztester 3y ago
Maybe these guys had city grid plans too, not sure: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indus_Valley_Civilisation https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indus_Valley_Civilisation We had IVC as a topic in school, vaguely remember it being mentioned, could be wrong.
duderific 3y ago
Downtown Redwood City, California, is rotated at a 45° angle to its surrounding streets. Though I've been there dozens of times (worked nearby for 10 years), I still never quite feel like I know where I'm going.
- mixmastamyk 3y ago
  That’s a Spanish thing I believe… lots of towns in Latin America like that, including Los Angeles.

ryukafalz 3y ago

> I also consider the harmonization of automobile and pedestrian traffic to be an open problem. Maximalists on both sides just talk past each other. Car-oriented development is bad, but at the same time we aren't going back to a pre-car world. Of course we're not going back to a pre-car world, but I feel like even advocating for relatively minor changes like protected bike lanes or limiting car access in city centers gets you labeled a maximalist. Drivers have a countrywide pedestrian-free transportation network (the interstate highway system) but there is practically no place at all in the US that you can walk or especially bike for transportation without frequent potential conflict with cars. And even small steps towards establishing such spaces meet fierce opposition.

Fatnino 3y ago
Stanford campus is, I would say, hostile to cars. Stanford is a very big place as far as university campuses go and besides a loop road around the edges there are only a few roads that go to the inside and a lot of it you simply can't get to by car. You need to park and walk or bike. If you do choose to walk, don't let your guard down because while the cars are absent, the bikes are still a (slightly less lethal) menace.
FooBarBizBazz 3y ago
> Drivers have a countrywide pedestrian-free transportation network (the interstate highway system) but there is practically no place at all in the US that you can walk or especially bike for transportation without frequent potential conflict with cars. This is a great observation, and it immediately suggests a vision: An interstate pedestrian path system, and an interstate bicycle network. The Park Service is already imagining these things, but many of the "trails" are just marked sections of automobile-road. They don't have the resources to go further, but we should go further. Define minimum standards. The most important is physical separation from vehicle traffic. Mere paint or bollards is insufficient. Ideally some limited infrastructure like occasional benches and water fountains. Fire Robert Moses and put Charles Olmstead in charge. The funny thing is, when you create nice environments, people want to be in them. A market is created. All of a sudden, cyclists are passing through. I can run a little cafe that caters to them. Commerce happens. Yes, much of it's leisure-oriented, but that's still GDP.

scythe 3y ago

I find the grid to be much more walkable than more recent layouts which are overtly hostile to pedestrians. There's an entire ideal of "access control" in modern design (part of CPTED) that focuses on making it harder to get to places because criminals will use the access routes to evade capture. And of all the ways to deal with crime, making the built environment more alienating to everyone is among the worst. But you can humanize the grid a little: https://tilings.math.uni-bielefeld.de/substitution/pentomino/ https://tilings.math.uni-bielefeld.de/substitution/pentomino... https://tilings.math.uni-bielefeld.de/substitution/domino/ https://tilings.math.uni-bielefeld.de/substitution/domino/ >I also consider the harmonization of automobile and pedestrian traffic to be an open problem. Maximalists on both sides just talk past each other. In its early days, StrongTowns made a big deal out of arguing that parking should always be put behind commercial buildings instead of in front of them, so the storefront reaches the sidewalk. They've spent less time talking about this now because it attracts vitriol from the people who want to get rid of parking altogether. Unfortunately, it seems like the loud people have found the urbanism discourse.

crabmusket 3y ago
I thought that Alexander's "A City is not a Tree" had a statement about how grids are not necessarily a problem, and organically-shaped streets/towns are not necessarily a solution, but skimming it again I can't find it. Maybe it was in an essay responding to Alexander. But grids themselves aren't necessarily bad. One can imagine a street grid as a trellis, on top of which life is able to grow in abundance. Alexander and Jacobs both didn't seem to have a problem with grids and right angles, only with poor uses of such. For example, Jacobs talks about long blocks which prevent cross-mingling between parallel streets. She also describes how staggering streets with dog-legs and other obstructions can improve neighbourhoods by slowing traffic.

lazyasciiart 3y ago

Barcelona is the go-to example of a city managing their existing street network for improved living environments. https://www.vox.com/2016/8/4/12342806/barcelona-superblocks https://www.vox.com/2016/8/4/12342806/barcelona-superblocks