CABE's lastest publication, Ordinary Places says a 'Smart' thing: "We have a serious problem with the quality of most ordinary streets. Streets determine how places feel,
yet cars still dominate. To civilise them, streets need to be designed first and foremost as places in themselves, prioritising the needs of disabled people,pedestrians and carers with pushchairs, and cyclists, above the motorist. This frees councils to remove clutter such as unnecessary signage and guardrails.
Once sights are raised, streets can start to reflect local identity".
They call this 'Sparking the Debate', and then proclaim the need to teach people visual literacy.
Excuse me, but who did the ******* designing in the first place? Was it 'Ordinary' people or the people trained in visual literacy? If post-war development is anything to go by, training in 'visual-literacy' isn't necessarily an asset.
The pamphlet is described as "a starting point for debate about creating the culture and conditions to help ordinary places to become valued and valuable".
Its 2010, why are we at a starting point? Jane Jacobs pointed this all out over 40 years ago.
CABE goes on to say "It asks how people can directly influence the quality of their places? Why don’t all pupils learn about design, to help make sense of the places around them?"
Another question must be, why should normal people have to give up time from their busy lives to tell professional designers how to do their job for them?
Jane Jacobs pointed the finger firmly at the professional planners, architects and traffic engineers and challenged them to recognise the value of ordinary, messy, mixed use places, which the quantitative models couldn't and can't deal with.
Its entirely condescending and elitist to presume ordinary people need teaching a bit of visual literacy to improve the public spaces and public elevations they have no control over. Isn't this somebody elses job??
Recognising the value of ordinary places is really the only show in town now. Value in the ordinary comes from appreciation of the small humble things, and taking the time patience and care to do things well.. plot by plot..builidng by building etc.
Monday, March 29, 2010
Thursday, March 25, 2010
The Dalkey Dilemma
David McWilliams has a genius for coining a phrase, so that whenever we talk about town centre retail we just need to call it the 'Dalkey Dilemma' from now on. He was talking on RTE Radio 1 today following his article in the Irish Independent http://bit.ly/bqntMm. Its very welcome that a high profile, media friendly figure can highlight this pressing crisis: - the death of the mainstreet. He is entirely right that the response needs to be grass route led. The people who need to be making decisions, are the ones whos livelihoods are on the line.
However, any response needs to be seriously organised, professional, and full-time. Traders don't have the time, and while have plenty of good ideas, they may not be the right ones, at a particular time, or geared to the particular challenges of of a village. DunLaoghaire Rathdown Co. Co. brings in millions of euro in commercial rates from Dundrum Shopping Centre, and Carrickmines Retail Park - the retail centres the Council permitted. This income needs to be reinvested in the traditional towns and villages - but the Council arn't the ones to do it alone. They need to set up autonomous BID companies/TCM partnerships which they heavily invest in, and start getting serious.
However, any response needs to be seriously organised, professional, and full-time. Traders don't have the time, and while have plenty of good ideas, they may not be the right ones, at a particular time, or geared to the particular challenges of of a village. DunLaoghaire Rathdown Co. Co. brings in millions of euro in commercial rates from Dundrum Shopping Centre, and Carrickmines Retail Park - the retail centres the Council permitted. This income needs to be reinvested in the traditional towns and villages - but the Council arn't the ones to do it alone. They need to set up autonomous BID companies/TCM partnerships which they heavily invest in, and start getting serious.
Wednesday, March 24, 2010
Marylebone High Street, London
Marylebone High Street http://bit.ly/rkpLp is so good, when you walk down it, that you think its just happened by itself. The eclectic mix of stores is so natural,that the street is a place and somewhere you want to meander a while. Its in such marked contrast to the hostility (no I dont understand the need for 20 different shoe shops) of the typical high street (Oxford Street is just around the corner). But then people who do the right thing over a long period of time rarely make the headlines.
The Howard de Walden Estate, is the main landlord in the area, and quite uniquely (as far as I know) take a long term view on the tenant mix of the street, not because they are philantropists or do goodie types (who cares!), but because it makes good business sense, because good business is creating good place that are sustainable places because they last and have a sense they'll last, and reassure you that in you're somewhere better than the suburban retail park. This example cannot be easily followed, but it shows what can be achieved. http://www.marylebonevillage.com/en/marylebone-village/..... Adapt and prosper.
Post note: Of course like any street in London, the traffic engineers really do their best to make a mess of it.. and put up as many people cages, poles, barriers, signposts as possible...
Doughnut Dublin
Dublin Chamber of Commerce provided an interesting view on city centre vacancy by saying we need more cars and parking spaces! They got national coverage on RTE on Monday for their submission to the Dublin City Plan http://www.rte.ie/news/2010/0322/dublin.html This seems to ignore all evidence from city development of the last 50 years, where its been shown time and again that its people that are needed in city centres not cars!
This headline is a shame because their submission does say some sensible things (www.dubchamber.ie/Uploads/Development_Plan-Dublin_Chamber.pdf). They're right to focus on the importance of delivering public transport. The evidence from studies such as Jan Gehl's of Copenhagen (which the Council are well familiar with), is that you have to improve the quality of the city centre, make it more people friendly and get more people living there, and enjoying the city as the 3rd space. Dublin has hundreds of iconic buildings already; it doesn't need an iconic 'tall' building to define the city, no more than the 'Gherkin' says anything about London (of course an iconic building doesn't have to be tall either!). There is a lot of space to build a flourishing city without indiscriminate glass towers.
The most disappointing aspect of their submission is their lack of understanding as a representative commercial body of retail. The first thing they don't say is that institutional investors/landlords are killing the city's main shopping streets through greed.
Secondly they point to the sad Retail Strategy for the Greater Dublin Area statement that: “The reality is that most shoppers, especially families, do not have the luxury of daily shopping (as in other parts of Europe) and will do one or two big shopping trips per week, necessitating the use of private transport, especially in more rural areas and in urban areas where there is a lack of competitive foodstores.” This was presumably written by Tesco.
The answer to this question is not more supermarkets everywhere (as they suggest), but make daily shopping convenient, attractive and affordable, because this is one of the key elements that makes urban living advantageous and enjoyable. I could go on......
This headline is a shame because their submission does say some sensible things (www.dubchamber.ie/Uploads/Development_Plan-Dublin_Chamber.pdf). They're right to focus on the importance of delivering public transport. The evidence from studies such as Jan Gehl's of Copenhagen (which the Council are well familiar with), is that you have to improve the quality of the city centre, make it more people friendly and get more people living there, and enjoying the city as the 3rd space. Dublin has hundreds of iconic buildings already; it doesn't need an iconic 'tall' building to define the city, no more than the 'Gherkin' says anything about London (of course an iconic building doesn't have to be tall either!). There is a lot of space to build a flourishing city without indiscriminate glass towers.
The most disappointing aspect of their submission is their lack of understanding as a representative commercial body of retail. The first thing they don't say is that institutional investors/landlords are killing the city's main shopping streets through greed.
Secondly they point to the sad Retail Strategy for the Greater Dublin Area statement that: “The reality is that most shoppers, especially families, do not have the luxury of daily shopping (as in other parts of Europe) and will do one or two big shopping trips per week, necessitating the use of private transport, especially in more rural areas and in urban areas where there is a lack of competitive foodstores.” This was presumably written by Tesco.
The answer to this question is not more supermarkets everywhere (as they suggest), but make daily shopping convenient, attractive and affordable, because this is one of the key elements that makes urban living advantageous and enjoyable. I could go on......
Thursday, February 11, 2010
Gulag #4 Sandyford Co. Dublin
When I was a student in Edinburgh many moons ago I read Alice Coleman's book Utopia on Trial, which castigated "utopian" planning and architectural thinking. This could be seen walking around socially deprived areas (as they were back then) such as Wester Hailes. Particular criticism was directed toward streets in the sky - deck access, and the security risk they posed. Today I walked around Sandyford, a former industrial estate being transformed as a new urban centre in DunLaoghaire Rathdown. And well, its just like a modernist housing project from 60s. James Sterling would be proud of these guys.
Tuesday, February 9, 2010
Limerick Regeneration Hits a wall
The Irish times reports today that "Limerick’s regeneration project is in jeopardy due to a scarcity of public funding and locals in the city’s most disadvantaged estates are becoming disillusioned". The funds referred amount to a staggering €3bn.
http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/features/2010/0209/1224264025064.html
Talk about throwing good money after bad. What the regeneration agencies want to do is bulldoze down one new town project and replace with in another one, on the presumption that we're so much smarter now that we were 30 years ago (NAMA anyone?).
According to the issues paper for the Limerick City Plan 2010-2016, The City Plan 2004 expected the population of Limerick City and Suburbs would increase from 92,000 to between 97,000 and 101,000 by 2006. It was also expected that the population of the area within the City Boundary would rise to over 55,000. However,the population within the City Boundary fell from 54,000 to 52,000 and the population of the City and Suburbs rose to a little over 95,000 persons. i.e. in a very short period 6,000
persons left the City to elsewhere in the Region and very little of this migration
settled in the suburbs of Limerick City. In fact there was also net outmigration from
the City and suburbs of about 4,000 persons.
Somebody do the maths? They're want to spend €3bn rebuilding a failed new town,for a population of approx. 6,000 when 6,000 have just left the city centre? Just imagine what half of €3bn could achieve in terms of investment, jobs, and city confidence if invested in micro-schemes throughout the city of Limerick.
http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/features/2010/0209/1224264025064.html
Talk about throwing good money after bad. What the regeneration agencies want to do is bulldoze down one new town project and replace with in another one, on the presumption that we're so much smarter now that we were 30 years ago (NAMA anyone?).
According to the issues paper for the Limerick City Plan 2010-2016, The City Plan 2004 expected the population of Limerick City and Suburbs would increase from 92,000 to between 97,000 and 101,000 by 2006. It was also expected that the population of the area within the City Boundary would rise to over 55,000. However,the population within the City Boundary fell from 54,000 to 52,000 and the population of the City and Suburbs rose to a little over 95,000 persons. i.e. in a very short period 6,000
persons left the City to elsewhere in the Region and very little of this migration
settled in the suburbs of Limerick City. In fact there was also net outmigration from
the City and suburbs of about 4,000 persons.
Somebody do the maths? They're want to spend €3bn rebuilding a failed new town,for a population of approx. 6,000 when 6,000 have just left the city centre? Just imagine what half of €3bn could achieve in terms of investment, jobs, and city confidence if invested in micro-schemes throughout the city of Limerick.
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