More thoughts on the edge (with a little gloom attached)
The comment thread on the On the edge (of cities) post right below shows there is a lot of passionate interest in the topic — Thomas Sieverts’ idea that architects need to lift their eyes from the city core and regard the outer limits of the city with the same intensity and, well, we’ll say it, love that they have for the traditional European city center. Whether that interest is also broad we’ll test with another post on the matter, this one arising from two Monday night events: Metro president David Bragdon speaking with Portland Spaces editor Randy Gragg at Jimmy Mak’s; and a big-name concluding panel at PNCA that featured Sieverts, architect Brad Cloepfil, Reed Kroloff (who runs Cranbrook Academy, supervised our tram design competition and who was dean of architecture at Tulane when Katrina hit), and Matthew Stadler as moderator.
The topic of both the panel and the Bragdon-Gragg exchange went something like this: What can governments do to encourage good design? And it frequently kept to the question, though this “healthy” topic also generated a number of tasty digressions and frankly was never as dry as the question seemed to promise. And thanks to Stadler, the Sieverts analysis/prescription was always lurking in the background.
I know from the clock on the wall that I won’t be able to give a full account of what happened in this post (I know what you’re thinking: O sweet mother of the Titans, don’t tell me there’s a third post brewing; what is this, the Halprin fountains?), but I will get a few thoughts out there, and perhaps the Scatter regulars at the event can fill in some details.
I’ll start with my own “revelation.” Which the more I think about it is pretty obvious. During Bragdon-Gragg I wanted to ask the following “question.” We know that when the Couch-Burnside couplet idea (which turns Couch into a major arterial downtown and across the river and makes Burnside a one-way street) starts to enter the public domain that there will be an immediate, massive response from Portlanders, one way or another, that will affect the deliberation and, if it’s allowed to, the design of the project (if it’s built). But if you proposed a similar radical idea for the TV Highway (from say highway 217 to Hillsboro), who would really care? How could it possibly happen without substantial public and government support by all the jurisdictions along the way? How does an agency like Metro deal with such poles of interest?
I didn’t get a chance to ask the question, but by the end of the panel a few hours later, I had my answer. The passion that will make the passage of the Burnside-Couch couplet idea a contentious slog for promoters (and for the record, I am NOT convinced that it would be a good thing) would be missing from a Master Plan process for the TV Highway (I think). And that means it might be possible to DO it — without an endless process, without lawsuits, without mobilization of competing constituencies who make it hard to maintain the political will to do something important, etc. The great thing about unloved places is that they are less likely to resist change.
I think this “answer” would bother Matthew, who in his heart of hearts wants the people of Aloha, say, to love the TV Highway as much as he does. Who wants them to be active, interested participants in decisions that change their lives. Who in fact thinks that good design can ONLY come about through that participation, because good design is functional design and only those involved have insights into what is truly most useful to them. In fact he concluded the panel with the following question, which I paraphrase: how do you manufacture public will in a place that has so successfully championed atomization? And I suppose I’m saying, maybe sometimes good design can create the public will that will turn good design into better design somewhere down the road.
It was tough going to come up with a conclusion this “positive,” even after the optimism of Bragdon in the first event. Bragdon sees a vacant lot in Gresham and sees opportunity, he sees ways to connect our system of parks and trails to make them a more central part of our lives, he even believes the Columbia Crossing project, assuming federal money for a gigantic bridge project will still be there, can be designed well. Gragg occasionally attempted to knock him off of “sunny,” but Bragdon was unruffled, defending Light Rail decisions deftly and also gracefully conceding that bus lines in some places would work better.
The panel plunged into gloom almost immediately with Stadler’s first question: what went right with the aerial tram? “You want to talk about what went right?” Cloepfil asked. “I could start with that.” And you knew he had a devastating critique of what went wrong to pull out (which he did: The tram was just a commercial ornament; the planning didn’t extend to the urban design at either end of the tram… in the end it was promotion for South Waterfront more than anything else). Kroloff managed the tram competition, which he thinks produced an excellent design (he’s right, in my book), but he conceded Cloepfil’s point and marveled at the crowds that turned up for public presentations and hearings during the tram building process. But this was a mixed blessing because it narrowed the focus of the project. Cloepfil helpfully pointed out that the logical conclusion of the tram competition was a competition to master design the entire district or at least the public spaces inside it.
This led to a long section on design competitions, which Sieverts pointed out are at the heart of the process in Germany. But the more he talked, the more it became apparent to Cloepfil and Kroloff how different things were in Europe, where an informed jury presides over the process, an educated public responds to design proposals and the government is prepared to eliminate policy hurdles for the good of the project. Here, a competition simply “covers a lot of politicans’ ass (es)”, Cloepfil said. But the real tension was this: How important, how necessary, is public input? And the panelists were divided, each within himself. So, for example, Cloepfil applauded the public interest in the Clyfford Still museum he is designing in Denver, while groaning over the results in other places. And Kroloff related his experience attempting to produce a plan for the rebuilding of New Orleans after Katrina, which ended unhappily, and after he’d left, with a plan that he deplores.
Sieverts held out. “The culture of architecture must be deeply rooted in the local culture,” he said. Then the design becomes better, “not just a sour compromise.” But by this time a melancholy had set in about the role of the public. And we flirted briefly with benevolent dictatorships, enlightened oligarchs and other examples of personal will overcoming the chaos or the indifference or the ignorance of the public. Transportation planners and the AIA were excoriated by Kroloff, who also suggested that sometimes benevolent dictators aren’t so benevolent, citing Robert Moses (who at one point seemed on the verge of annihilating the very neighborhoods in Portland that we now revere) as a case in point. Cloepfil pointed to the success of the arts district in Dallas, Tex., which was accomplished by civic leaders, political and otherwise, without public engagement. (He contributed an arts magnet high school to the mix of museums and performance spaces.)
This was all too much for Stadler, firm in his democratic convictions, who argued for an ecology of leadership rather than one single charismatic leader and for the importance of public debate as part of the process simply to help generate “meaning” for the subsequent designs. And Cloepfil agreed that public tension can provoke an idea unless that public response becomes a “normative hum.” You have to love this guy!
Excellent questions from a very distinguished audience followed, all playing with the idea of how to make great design practical in the modern American city, specifically Portland, holding forth on the importance of constituencies (Gragg) and the importance of robust institutions public or not (Arun Jain), among other things.
And Sieverts, appropriately concluded things by redirecting us to the suburbs, where we already have more than enough of everything — cars, square footage in our houses, roads. “People in their inner wisdom know we cannot go on living this way,” he said. “We need to change the way we live.” And he envisioned a city that managed to be dense and service-heavy at the center with a telecommuting edge closer to open landscapes. And the interventions he suggested were “soft” ones — better pedestrian and cycling paths, better access to open landscapes, connecting the elements of our sprawl in a better way.
At one point Sieverts said something that reminded me of a line from a poem by the late William Stafford. He suggested that enormous changes were coming, but in thousands of small steps. Stafford put it a little less optimistically: We want a particular outcome and it’s going to take a million tiny perfect moves to get there. I end up, I suppose, somewhere in the middle of these two wise men.
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Nicely put, Mr. Scatter. I too shall strive for three posts on das zwischenstadt.
Take I:
http://www.portlandspaces.net/blog/the-burnside-blog/2008/10/7/suddenly-sieverts
TdR
Comment by Tim DuRoche — October 7, 2008 @ 10:03 am
Good take. I especially like the quick summary of other ideas about the suburbs. Expanded, that would be another essay in and of itself! Lead us on to Take Two!
Comment by barry — October 7, 2008 @ 2:19 pm
Thanks so much for this post. we were having a public meeting on design possibilities for 7 Corners on SE Division and I was disappointed that these two gatherings conflicted. My own initial thought on quality urban design and leaders versus the public (not that this was framed so crudely) is the need for both. I have yet to experience a good urban design outcome that didn’t involve great designers/artists and an engaged public. One may get a great design without the public, but you don’t often get community engagement with the outcome. And I find this is just hard work. We have been working on a Green Street meets Main Street plan for Division for five plus years. We have had almost all key agencies involved (the state, Metro, city agencies, and broad diversity of neighborhood groups) and we still struggle with developing inspiring designs that are doable. And we are keeping at it.
Comment by Charles — October 7, 2008 @ 3:28 pm
Charles, thanks for your report on SE Division! After the panel, I was pretty persuaded by the design competition structure, and maybe it would work for Division. I’m not sure how you’d set it up, or pay for it. But I’m sure a city full of architects and planners would respond with very inspiring ideas, many of them do-able because everyone knows how limited money is going to be. Good luck, and please keep us up to date on what’s happening with a great Portland street!
Comment by barry — October 7, 2008 @ 7:10 pm
Barry’s excellent summary captures the main action and especially the contradictions that surfaced. What started as a debate about design turned into a discussion of democracy, and that was probably more interesting to the non architects in the audience. One element that never quite got properly discussed was the power of developers over design in private projects. For all the advocacy of public scrutiny, the most scrutinized single project of the past decade at least was the former World Trade Center site, and that didn’t stop the owner from turning it into a debacle. I’d like to’ve heard from Sieverts how it’s different, if at all, in Europe and how (or whether) things might change here.
When I interviewed Cloepfil for a magazine profile and asked him why he hadn’t been hired to build any of the new condos then sprouting in Portland, he said, approximately, that the market was so hot that Portland developers didn’t need to pay him extra for cool design. They were doing just fine with generic towers — why reduce their profits to get better design? That may change as the market cools. Vancouver BC leaders complain about the same thing. So that leaves me little hope that design will be any better in smaller cities. Those are private projects (with some public involvement, though, yes?) and the public and design advocates don’t ultimately have much power. Can that be changed? Should it?
There were plenty of other questions there was no time to address or that went beyond the ostensible scope of the agenda. I’d sure like to’ve heard more from the delightfully cynical Kroloff, for example. But I’d like to step back for a minute here and just point out what a remarkable phenomenon we’ve just experienced. Over the past month, via TBA, the South Waterfront Artist in Residence program, Suddenly, PNCA, Portland Spaces (am I leaving anything out?), we’ve had quite a discussion about the past and future shaping of our city, informed by art, history, and experience. I’m filled with admiration for the people (none of them elected or appointed officials, BTW) who invested so much time and energy to spark this discussion — the indefatigable Gragg, Stadler and the rest. And to the people and groups (from PNCA to PICA to AIR funder Homer Williams to this very blog) that funded and hosted it. And to the participants like Cloepfil, Sieverts et al.
How often do these kinds of fundamental discussions — what should our communities look like? — happen in other cities? It makes me really proud of Portland, though a bit frustrated that it’s not happening in the traditional venues for such discussions — the old media (not just the O but also WWeek and the rest) and the halls of government. That limits the scope of participation. (Like war and generals, city planning is too important to be left to the architects and planners.) At least the academy (UO and PNCA, and surely PSU, now helmed by an urbanist, will soon follow) stepped up. I’m not a member, but I hear City Club sometimes hosts such discussions. But the real motivators this time were simply private Portlanders who are committed to improving their community, and my rain hat’s off to them.
My question now is, what happens next? Some terrific ideas have been generated in these discussions and performances. Will any of this make any kind of difference? Ideally, we’d have a follow up that turned these relatively abstract ideas into an actual agenda. Bragdon, Sam Adams, and other officials would be involved. It’d revolve around questions such as, what public policies need to be adopted and amended to make better design happen in public and private projects? What specific steps need to be taken and by whom to bring meaning to suburban spaces? etc etc. If funding is required, where’s it gonna come from? So, where do we go from here?
Comment by brett — October 7, 2008 @ 8:58 pm
Here’s a second to Brett’s thanks to the organizers of the events he listed. And I think they answer what’s next… more. More discussion. More new ideas. More interviews and panels. More competitions (I hope). More building. More scrutiny of what gets proposed and built. And Charles working on a Division St plan is what’s next, too. We keep our eyes open. We struggle to stay informed. We come up with ideas of our own, ideas excellent and ridiculous. This constant process of of more and more useful descriptions and re-descriptions is how we make progress, I think.
Another thing I have to second in Brett’s comment — the effort to engage the public by our local colleges and universities is truly unprecedented during my time in Portland (since 1979). I think it won’t be long before media of all sorts catches up and helps bring more of the public to the table.
The place of the public is a crucial element in all of this, and like any other factor, it’s unpredictable. I liked Kroloff’s cynicism, too, and felt a chill when he asked how we could expect our citizens to make informed arguments about design when many of them have had no arts and design education whatsoever, courtesy of public schools that have eliminated art classes of all sorts. Good question, though I think as adults we find ways of educating ourselves about these matters, too… Thanks for the thoughts, Brett!
Comment by Barry Johnson — October 7, 2008 @ 9:24 pm
If Barry’s last was intended to be a coda, let me give the traditional Portland standing ovation and shout “Bravo!” Between this lively and smart discussion of the city’s “edges,” and the previous series on the Halprin fountains, my mind has been set abuzz. I’ve been looking at my environs through new perspectives. When the discussion shifted to (or was augmented by) issues of the public’s role in shaping design and planning decisions, it matched my thinking about the same with regard to arts and cultural planning. I left last week’s Creative Capacity Town Hall meeting (hosted by Sam Adams at PNCA) thinking: “Is this populist approach to planning the best way to set priorities?” The event felt designed to “engage stakeholders” and get “buy in,” rather than generate real dialogue on the appropriate role of the public sector in strengthening the region’s creative capacity. Those questions intersect with urban design issues when we talk about investments in the city’s cultural infrastructure, from performing arts venues to affordable housing for artists. I’m looking forward to continued dialogue.
Comment by MightyToyCannon — October 8, 2008 @ 9:56 am
I know exactly what you mean, MTC … at least I think I do. When do we get to discuss and shape and create a variety of possibilities, before we are asked to “buy in”? What if we subsequently develop better ideas than ones we are supposed to buy-in to? A good process is going to generate a creative response, and I think you want to keep that loop open as long as you can, until some kind of “deadline” approaches. We don’t have to buy-in to inadequate descriptions of proposals… Actually, the more I think about it, the more I like Charles’s situation — they’ve got a lot of “stakeholders” on board to improve Division, now they are waiting for inspiration!
Anyway, I’m glad you’ve enjoyed both the Halprin and Sieverts posts. I think I’ve got one more Sieverts visitation in me…
Comment by Barry Johnson — October 8, 2008 @ 10:45 am
I’m with you all on how great it is that we as a community are having these engaging conversations, I have found them stimulating and mind opening. Yet I’m aware that some of the folks that most need to be a part of these discussions are Portland Planning and Portland Transportation staff and their decision makers, especially on pubic infrastructure projects like Division street. What we run into is coming up with creative design ideas that then get diluted by all the different agency stakeholders. There is so much budget pressure that value engineering tends to win the final design decision. I personally believe that alot of the inspiring developments in this city will be one project at a time. And I also believe that some of these can be public infrastructure projects, not just developer projects.
We in SE PDX decided to see if we could create a neighborhood led effort and collective vision that distilled down to two core values: about enlivening a Main Street and Green Street for Division. And through Metro and the city we have 5.5 million dollars to try and do some of this as part of a repaving project. Our goal all along has been to be a model for new sort of neighborhood project that cares deeply about collaboration and the quality of the plan and the design that is created. Not that this is surprising to anyone reading on this site, but making this happen amidst all the competing demands within the city is really challenging. And for a few of us stalwarts, well worth the effort.
Comment by Charles — October 8, 2008 @ 2:44 pm
Good point. what’s next is to DO something right!
Comment by Barry Johnson — October 8, 2008 @ 3:08 pm
“Normative Hum!” What a perfect name for a new blog–I dibs.
Comment by Tim Appelo — October 28, 2008 @ 7:53 pm