Put That In My Backyard - Implementation

Design Aspirations
So how might such an urban village appear? Mother Nature, as usual, has a rather delightful hint to tickle the imagination of any creative designer. A few miles east of Moab, Utah, concealed within a hairpin bend of the Colorado River, is a majestic sandstone formation. It takes but little imagination to see, with forms such as these, abundant in our southwest, how doors, windows, balconies, exterior elevators, and trees might accommodate themselves into and orchestrate a magnificence of this sort. Designers should note for their own reference how light transforms this mono-material structure in shadow, in reflections, and in direct sunshine into jewels of delight. Just think of the Sydney Opera House Interior Auditorium. It would not be at all out of place housed in a volume such as this. On a last pilgrimage to this site we did not get this late afternoon sun angle that Ian Parker has captured, but how wonderful it is at any time of the day - or season or in moonlight. Speaking personally, I certainly would have no problem in living my years in an edifice even just barely reflecting this magnificence and design coherence.

Certainly this masonry gravity design example is but one approach to an architectural problem of this sort. Consider that alternatively a series of separated staggered towers acting as tree trunks joined, or corbelled at eight or ten stories above ground, creating openings to the sky and producing marvelous shadows upon the land, could also address the visual problem while providing spectacular night lighting possibilities. There is no limit upon the variety of solutions to spatial adaptations with this land clearing and space recapturing design paradigm. What a magnificent challenge for the most creative of our many talented architects.

We certainly cannot imagine that this future would or even should happen all at once or even rapidly. The idea itself is a seed planted that requires nurturing. We predict that when the first canny and bold developer successfully completes such a substantial venture and sees people flock to become its occupants, other investors will rapidly demand and gravitate to this concept progressively in ever-greater numbers. Many citizens will cling to their present circumstance and contemplate moving in only when the concept demonstrates its pleasures, utility, economic value and convenience. All that hesitancy is understandable and quite proper, but we expect that even those who are initially reticent will eventually help fill Peter's melluva hess hole so many have dug for our modern civilization.

Ground rules for imposing such a change upon any community must of course be carefully studied and implemented in order to protect and enhance property values present and proposed. Policy Making Officials in any jurisdiction can themselves readily and responsibly, enhance their community economic development and reduce pollution. Additionally they can eliminate the need for sprawl, reduce traffic congestion, and save enormous amounts of energy. Add to this also by creating their very own pedestrian Garden Community that will attract many corporate relocations for lifestyle and economics. These benefits can all be achieved without disturbing existing processes and procedures. How? By creating for their own community, Fuller's "Trimtab" by adding a zone description to their own previously created code, avoiding only the description of specific locations. Call it "The Urban Village Zone". Design this zone to entice opportunistic developers' profit motives. Allow developers to construct anything the market demands and code usage allows, wherever desired, subject to those things perceived to be worthwhile and necessary community objectives. Making the project area large enough will avoid any possible undesirable impact upon adjacent properties. The objective is to provide walkable convenience, modest public investment, and recaptured open space. Entail submittals with a number of basic requirements. Note that planners and community activists might constructively add other objectives such as required public facilities, acceptable types of permanent ownership, subsequent property sales to include the entire area of an initial proposal, ways to preserve views, landmarks, and historic buildings, orderly hierarchy for conservation use, or required parking capacities. Design it well for others will soon challenge your leadership.

Multiple commercial, residential, public, institutional and possibly light industrial uses are required. Two independent grocery stores would establish and attract appropriate numbers of other competitive merchandizing participants. The number of living units provided must, at a bare minimum, be equal to six for every acre in the total land submittal. Local preference can determine how many of these housing units must be "affordable" or "subsidized". Land costs may also ascertain the appropriate and economical number of housing units as productive consumers in this as in any other proposal.

Propose a suggested minimum of a hundred contiguous acres. (Ideally, quarter and half square mile sections could be considered, as well as smaller parcels down to perhaps as small as 40 acres, which might prove to be profitable in the right circumstance.) We would prefer the 100-acre tracts but acknowledge that such a demand might conspire to initially derail the acceptance of such a unique approach to development or redevelopment. Smaller parcels might expose investors to less risk but would provide far fewer amenities and far more modest investment returns.

Allow a maximum building footprint, required parking, and vehicle access of a suggested ten percent of the total tract surface area. Subgrade parking, shipping, receiving and storage could extend this dimension as appropriate. Special circumstances such as, for example, Manhattan's limited area and its vast economic opportunity, based fundamentally upon deep water shipping, might require some modification of desired areas of footprint limitations.

Limit allowable height of structures only to the dictates of economics and aircraft landing requirements. Set back high-rises, at least initially, their own height from adjacent street centerlines for sunlight, shadow, and view protection of adjacent private properties.

Disallow building within a suggested 20 feet of property lines above grade, at least during formative periods of these developments.

Allow landscaping and other site amenities (such as tennis courts, swimming pools, terraces) an additional maximum of, say, five percent of the project land surface area. These areas might be walled or fenced for privacy.

Develop, preserve, and maintain the balance of the land, acquired by some modification of current condemnation laws, in some type of developer financed, publicly administered, and publicly accessed unfenced "Conservation Easement Trust" (agriculture, lakes and streams, park, wetland, or woodland are possibilities). The developer and subsequent owners will have a substantial interest in the appearance of these grounds since the richness of use of these environments and the quality of their maintenance will vitally affect location equity values and interests. These will also prove to be far less expensive to maintain and much more attractive than the current replaced street and limited park coverage.

Master plan adjacent, similarly developed, properties for access, village clustering, and continuity of conservation usage. Ideally the hundred acre multi-use proposals would be master-planned as economically viable, fully accessible, and ultimately replaceable community urban village units.

Consider also the potential economy of utility distribution, of energy conservation, its contribution to diminishing the horrors of global warming and the recovery of despoiled lands these redeveloped areas would create. All of these delights evolve and increase over time as the world's populations perceive and opt for this more sustainable, convenient, healthful, and beautiful future.

Perhaps at some future date, when we humans have learned to be true stewards of the land, when our waste replenishes rather than contaminates the earth and we have carefully accommodated the other creatures who share this planet with us, we may earn the right to live in and share earth's truly wondrous places. How marvelous it would be to create such an urban village with all of those community amenities at or adjacent to one of our treasured National Parks. How restful to the soul yet thrilling to the eyes. At the time these Parks were initiated it was the only available and legal way to preserve the land from future developer depredations. It may still be the only way, but might not be if we can find our way into getting such an urban village properly, intelligently, and ecologically built, like William McDonough's "Cradle to Cradle" fecund fruit tree, spreading its bounty and goodness upon all its neighboring plant, animal, and mineral partners in existence. Then perhaps we all might be welcomed there. What a marvelous legacy this would create for our posterity. Speaking personally again, such a thought might make me wish for a resurrection! You too?

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