A grid analysis by Fanis Grammenos

The turning radius of a team of four oxen pulling a four-wheel cart determined the width of the streets in Salt Lake City. (Image source: Wikipedia)

I´ve been reading the article by Fanis Grammenos at Planetizen.com, which I´ve found highly interesting, specially for me that have been living in Buenos Aires´ grid for so many years.

He writes about the pros and cons of the grid, first of all, he shows two charts of developable land compared to right of way (ROW) and size of block for some cities in USA.

Then, he gives us examples of critics from urbanists, beginning from those who defend urban fractal morphology. At this point, I should make a separate note. As an example ¨in between¨, Buenos Aires is a strict grid but seen in 3D or seen by a pedestrian, it is highly fractal; I wrote many articles about it. So, articulations and scaling are not lost.

A sampling of 3 simple grids and their corresponding percentage of land used for ROWs.

¨Olmstead in the 1800s abandoned orthogonal planning and introduced curvilinear streets that were to become the model for innumerable subdivisions. Camillo Sitte portrays the grid as unimaginative and unworthy of consideration for new towns. Raymond Unwin in his writings and works rejects the simple, open grid, succeeds in ushering the cul-de-sac through the British parliament and lays out plans free of the rigidity and repetitiveness of the simple grid.

As contemporary theory embraces the city as an organism that obeys fractal laws (seen in the works of Alexander, Salingaros, Mehaffy, Mashall and Salat), more fundamental weaknesses of the uniform grid emerged. For example we read that: “Making a line straight, or regularizing a street, as 19th century urbanism has often done, eliminated intermediary scales and hence the possibility of geometric interaction and coupling of smaller scales. In other words it killed life. For thousands of years, historical cities avoided straight lines, creating multiply connected rich structures by way of slight discontinuities in relation to straight lines.”(Salat)¨

Then, Grammenos explains that some blocks length are the product of the need for a team of four oxen pulling a cart to turn around within the street; and of course, a modern adaptation is needed.

We cannot copy good examples from another countries, to prioritize pedestrians; what is good for Middle East, is not good for fast avenues in California, right?

Finally, he proposes a middle-term solution, which I like very much, it´s a block with partitions as needed for vehicles and pedestrians.

Savannah´s composite

Grammenos´conclusion:

Breaking the convenient, but outdated, uniformity of the 18th and 19th Century American grids would be a first step in recovering the land efficiency mandated by current ecological and economic imperatives. Pointing in that direction, Savannah’s composite, cellular grid includes variable size streets and blocks for private, civic and religious functions. A second step would be to include block sizes that can accommodate building types and sizes unknown in the 1800s, again defying block uniformity. A third step would be to adapt its streets for the now universal motorized mobility, of cars, buses, trucks, trams and motorcycles, that is radically different from when oxen, equine and legs shared the transport of goods and people.

In summary, examining the simple grids in this set serves as an introduction to optimizing land use, people circulation and the movement of goods. The resulting challenge is to use these insights to develop patterns that accommodate contemporary urban land economics, transportation, environmental priorities and citizen aspirations as these patterns may have done in their time.

Read the article in full:

http://www.planetizen.com/node/54477

More from tactical urbanism!

I´ve been looking at some pictures from theatlanticcities.com of urban guerrillas (in the good sense of the word), organized groups of people trying to make the cities more livable for everybody; that is called ¨Tactical Urbanism.¨ The examples are really interesting, some of them a little shocking, it´s impossible for the authorities not to pay attention to the inhabitants´ necessities.

¨In mid-January, a group calling themselves Walk Raleigh posted 27 such signs at three intersections around the city, and we hear (by reading their Facebook page), that the stunt has actually caught the eye of city officials who may look to make the signs permanent. This is tactical urbanism at its best: a fly-by-night citizen-led escapade whose whimsy could ultimately prompt real improvements to city amenities.(....)This got us thinking about some of our other favorite tactical urbanism capers: yarn bombing, chair bombing – and guerrilla gardening, of course.¨


Read the full article:

http://www.theatlanticcities.com/neighborhoods/2012/02/guerilla-wayfinding-raleigh/1139/

Memorias de la Piedra

Un libro que me gustaría tener. Comparto algunos párrafos del artículo de Cecilia Macón para La Nación:

http://www.lanacion.com.ar/1446771-espacios-con-historia

Los doce artículos reunidos en Memorias de la piedra por Béatrice Fleury y Jacques Walter -ambos a cargo del centro especializado en la Universidad de Metz- no sólo refieren a debates teóricos y disputas sobre casos específicos de manera inspiradora, sino que son capaces de ampliar la cuestión más allá de sus consecuencias más evidentes. A esto ayuda el prólogo de la argentina Claudia Feld dedicado a exponer los procesos de calificación -es decir, de la institución de un sentido- y descalificación -la condena al olvido- de espacios como los campos de exterminio en términos más que sutiles.(...)

La actualidad del enfoque elegido enriquece muy especialmente trabajos que son el resultado de coloquios realizados entre 2007 y 2010. La cuestión de la mundialización de la memoria, que obliga a reconstruir el pasado para que sea foco de interés a escala mundial, se abre a la tensión entre lo global y lo local, a la constitución de un espacio público transnacional y a la dificultad de establecer relatos definitivos en un mundo incierto. El recorrido por los distintos casos lleva a también a una pregunta inevitable: ¿en qué medida el turismo memorialista ya instituido colabora con los procesos de memoria y hasta qué punto los desnaturaliza? Es ante estas preguntas que Philippe Mesnard y Joanna Teklik argumentan sobre el peligro del turismo cultural que escinde el presente de los individuos y neutraliza su sentido crítico. Los análisis de los pabellones nacionales en el Museo de Auschwitz -muy especialmente las disputas alrededor del belga- y del memorial al genocidio armenio en Montreal sacan a la luz la naturaleza política de la memoria pública y su tensión con la lógica empresarial del turismo.

Es esa inevitabilidad de lo político la que surge con virulencia del recorrido por las disputas recientes sobre dos sitios de memoria dedicados en Francia a la Guerra de Argelia. ¿A quiénes corresponde conmemorar?, ¿cómo establecer la dicotomía víctimas/victimarios? Las respuestas a estas preguntas tienden a ser formuladas haciendo a un lado cualquier intento de heroificación.

Lea el prólogo:

http://www.ejercitarlamemoria.com.ar/pdf/prolog_memorias.pdf

The rooms in Poe´s The Masque of the Red Death

The Masque of the Red Death by Edgar Alan Poe is one of my favorites, specially the part that describe the rooms in different colors. It has always been intriguing for me, the way they were arranged. I can understand they were connected by side hallways, arranged like a labyrinth, considering nobody could access from one room to the other in a straight direction.

I use the plural for hallways, because he says the Gothic windows are on the right and left, facing the corridors. And, if there is no possibility to see two rooms completely at one time, it means that they are intertwined and most probably without doors, I imagine them like alternating chambers.

Maybe I have to make a sketch to solve this spatial problem, re read the following paragraphs from the story and figure out the layout.

Anyway, nothing could be so misinterpreted as the scenography of the 1964 British movie, with horror star Vincent Price.

Here, one room is directly next to the other, suppose the doors are open, you would have the one point of view perspective that Poe said was not for the Prince´s bizarre preference.

There are candelabra everywhere, and the phantasmagorical effect due to the fire light entering through the windows is nonexistent.

I took this shots from the movie and was astonished to see that specially the yellow and the white rooms are so terribly domestic, I think Poe would be very disappointed....  ABSOLUTE WHITE???.

¨It was a voluptuous scene, that masquerade. But first let me tell of the rooms in which it was held. There were seven -- an imperial suite. In many palaces, however, such suites form a long and straight vista, while the folding doors slide back nearly to the walls on either hand, so that the view of the whole extent is scarcely impeded. Here the case was very different; as might have been expected from the duke's love of the bizarre. The apartments were so irregularly disposed that the vision embraced but little more than one at a time. There was a sharp turn at every twenty or thirty yards, and at each turn a novel effect. To the right and left, in the middle of each wall, a tall and narrow Gothic window looked out upon a closed corridor which pursued the windings of the suite. These windows were of stained glass whose color varied in accordance with the prevailing hue of the decorations of the chamber into which it opened. That at the eastern extremity was hung, for example, in blue -- and vividly blue were its windows. The second chamber was purple in its ornaments and tapestries, and here the panes were purple. The third was green throughout, and so were the casements. The fourth was furnished and lighted with orange -- the fifth with white -- the sixth with violet. The seventh apartment was closely shrouded in black velvet tapestries that hung all over the ceiling and down the walls, falling in heavy folds upon a carpet of the same material and hue. But in this chamber only, the color of the windows failed to correspond with the decorations. The panes here were scarlet -- a deep blood color. Now in no one of the seven apartments was there any lamp or candelabrum, amid the profusion of golden ornaments that lay scattered to and fro or depended from the roof. There was no light of any kind emanating from lamp or candle within the suite of chambers. But in the corridors that followed the suite, there stood, opposite to each window, a heavy tripod, bearing a brazier of fire that protected its rays through the tinted glass and so glaringly illumined the room. And thus were produced a multitude of gaudy and fantastic appearances. But in the western or black chamber the effect of the fire-light that streamed upon the dark hangings through the blood-tinted panes, was ghastly in the extreme, and produced so wild a look upon the countenances of those who entered, that there were few of the company bold enough to set foot within its precincts at all.¨

Enjoy the story in full:

http://www.online-literature.com/poe/36/

Representations of Heorot. Hrothgar´s Meadhall

Bill Mather's BeoWulf ConceptArt. From http://www.matherart.com/digimather/htmls.Concept/beowulf.concepts1.html

To Hrothgar was given such glory of war,
such honor of combat, that all his kin
obeyed him gladly till great grew his band
of youthful comrades. It came in his mind
to bid his henchmen a hall uprear,
a master mead-house, mightier far
than ever was seen by the sons of earth,
and within it, then, to old and young
he would all allot that the Lord had sent him,
save only the land and the lives of his men.
Wide, I heard, was the work commanded,
for many a tribe this mid-earth round,
to fashion the folkstead. It fell, as he ordered,
in rapid achievement that ready it stood there,
of halls the noblest: Heorot  he named it
whose message had might in many a land.
Not reckless of promise, the rings he dealt,
treasure at banquet: there towered the hall,
high, gabled wide, the hot surge waiting
of furious flame.  Nor far was that day
when father and son-in-law stood in feud
for warfare and hatred that woke again.


From Beowulf. Author anonymous. This translation is by Gummere.
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/981/981-h/981-h.htm

Bill Mather's BeoWulf ConceptArt. From http://www.matherart.com/digimather/htmls.Concept/beowulf.concepts1.html

From http://www.matherart.com/digimather/concept/meadhallOpen.jpg

Reconstruction of ca. 1000 Viking hall at Trelleborg, Denmark. From

https://netfiles.uiuc.edu/rwb/www/teaching/engl209/outlines/outline2.html

Image from http://goatrope.blogspot.com/

Mead hall from the movie Beowulf and Grendel. From http://www.coldfusionvideo.com/archives/beowulf-grendel-2005/

In ancient Scandinavia and Germanic Europe a mead hall or feasting hall was initially simply a large building with a single room. From the fifth century to early medieval times such a building was the residence of a lord and his retainers. The mead hall was generally the great hall of the king. As such, it was likely to be the safest place in the kingdom.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mead_hall

Mead, also called honey wine, is an alcoholic beverage that is produced by fermenting a solution of honey and water.It may also be produced by fermenting a solution of water and honey with grain mash, which is strained after fermentation.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mead

Pros and cons of landmark preservation

Boston landmarked Back Bay neighborhood. Photo by Jorge Salcedo

I´m not a preservationist myself, but I respect historic buildings while it´s worthwhile. I took a couple of courses on preservationism being a young architect, and I can say that sometimes, there´s too much exaggeration in the subject. If old buildings with no important historicity are kept, some urban areas could be affected by the lack of economical impulse. Another issue, some new projects have to be ¨disguised¨ to match the existing, losing their modern character, becoming scenography. Let us read some paragraphs from the article by Ben Adler for Architectural Record:

East Village Block and Williamsburg Bank Landmarked. From http://www.nyc.gov/html/lpc/html/home/home.shtml

Metropolitan church, Chicago. From http://www.preservationchicago.org/chicago-seven/2003/heritage/49

This past year, Harvard economist Ed Glaeser, in his book Triumph of the City, attacked landmarking, along with such restrictions as zoning that limits density or requires parking lots. Glaeser points to the case of a proposed 30-story addition, designed by Norman Foster, at 980 Madison Avenue on Manhattan’s Upper East Side, that was rejected by the Landmarks Preservation Commission even though it would have kept the original 1950 limestone gallery building as well. “The cost of restricted development is that protected areas become more expensive and exclusive,” writes Glaeser. Legions of urban policy bloggers around the country agree.

The aesthetic critique of landmarking is also gaining currency. Rem Koolhaas mounted an exhibition at New York’s New Museum last spring that was a broadside against landmarking. “[Koolhaas] paints a picture of an army of well-meaning but clueless preservationists who, in their zeal to protect the world’s architectural legacies, end up debasing them by creating tasteful scenery for docile consumers while airbrushing out the most difficult chapters of history,” reported the New York Times.

These issues may be most extreme in New York, where the razing of McKim, Mead & White’s Pennsylvania Station in 1963 still stings. But similar controversies have erupted in older cities across the country. What the Washington City Paper calls “the weaponization of preservation” includes the efforts of the Tenleytown Historical Society to prevent American University from expanding its campus by pushing landmark status for an entire block to protect the fairly banal 1904 Immaculata Seminary.

In Boston, tradition often trumps the new. “The South End is very restrictive about what you can do to your buildings, in many cases with very good reason,” says architect and preservation expert David Fixler. Yet people can be prevented from making changes just “to keep things the way they are.” Sometimes officials require new construction be designed in an architecturally contextual manner, even when the building is an inherently modern structure. In San Francisco, on the other hand, the Historic Preservation Commission has responded to criticism that Modernism is underappreciated by seeking protection of such undistinguished modern buildings as the 1959 North Beach Branch Library.

http://archrecord.construction.com/features/critique/2012/1202commentary.asp

A landmarked shelter. From the City of Boulder´s web page.

To illustrate the post, let us read now, how tempting it could be to have one´s house landmarked, this is for the City of Boulder, Colorado:

Benefits of Landmarking

The city offers several incentives to property owners, as a way to encourage landmark designation of the city's eligible historic resources.

Tax Advantages

Federal Investment Tax Credits are available for approved rehabilitations that are used for commercial purposes, including rental housing to properties listed on the National Register of Historic Places or contributing to a National Register of Historic Districts.

State Income Tax Credits are available for approved rehabilitations to local landmarks and contributing buildings in local historic districts.

A waiver of city sales tax on construction materials is available when applying for a building permit, if at least 30 percent of the value of materials is for the building's exterior.

Possible Exemptions or Variances from Select Building Code and Zoning Standards

including floodplain, height, solar and residential growth management requirements.

Recognition

Dedication of a bronze plaque commemorating the establishment of an individual landmark status at a public ceremony.

http://www.bouldercolorado.gov/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=3514&Itemid=22

Murales de la Ciudad de Buenos Aires. Argentina

De la nota de Leonardo Tarifeño para la Nación:

¨La mejor prueba de que la ciudad tiene vida propia es que sus muros cambian todo el tiempo. Durante la crisis de 2001, cuando el centro porteño amanecía con la leyenda "que se vayan todos" en cada rincón, un grupo de artistas callejeros se propuso intervenir el espacio público con imágenes y mensajes ajenos al escepticismo que imponía el desastre. Ante la violencia y la agresión del latigazo político, Tec, Tester, Defi y otros graf iteros respondieron con trazos y dibujos que abrían una puerta de alegría incipiente a través de los ladrillos. Desde entonces, Buenos Aires se ha convertido en una de las grandes capitales mundiales del street art , un auténtico museo al aire libre donde las obras aparecen, deslumbran y se borran en absoluta sintonía con el vertiginoso ritmo de lo que no siempre se alcanza a ver.

Las "salas" más atractivas de ese museo son Colegiales, Palermo y Villa Crespo, no en vano los barrios por donde transcurre el tour organizado por Graffitimundo ( www.graffitimundo.com ), que muestra y cuenta la historia detrás de los principales trabajos que brillan en esa zona de la ciudad. Mientras tanto, en Buenos Aires como en el resto del mundo, el street art parece haber alcanzado su mayoría de edad.¨

Las fotos fueron bajadas del mismo artículo y sus autores están mencionados en él.

Two curious houses

From houselogic.com I´ve selected two curious houses to share with my readers. I´m leaving the link for the gallery and pictures´ references:

1) This egg-shaped, fully solar-powered home in Beijing has close proximity to parking and is ideal for any frugal individual who stands under 6 feet tall.

2) For those who never felt at home on this planet but still love earthly amenities, this sci-fi home has a fireplace to keep cozy in every “room.” Use its Texas location or move it to your back yard.

http://www.houselogic.com/photos/home-thoughts/7-crazy-houses-which-one-would-you-live/slide/upside-down-house/?nicmp=outbrain&nichn=cpc&niseg=hlss#upside-down-house