It's interesting that this feels very much like a prefab version of Shirlington, which of course is ... mostly a former parking lot and (older) car-centered department/retail store area. One of the things this appears to be missing is one of the elements the Shirlington plan incorporates, which is a balance between retail, daytime office work, and residential that guarantees a better spreading of demand for things like restaurants and shops through the days. But I agree that this sort of thing really looks and likely feels better. One of the problems with doing something like this in an urban or core suburban setting is just finding the sheer amount of land (even for a "small" development like this)--redevelopment of existing spaces, like malls, would probably be the best way to make it happen.
Suburban Square in Ardmore, Penn. is very similar to this. There's even an 8 story office building done up with an NYC kind of facade and a gym on the ground floor. There are grassy areas, wide sidewalks, and every time we're there (our favorite Taiwanese restaurant is in there) I think about how far the developers went to recreate what people clearly want: a walkable downtown.
There is still much surface parking at this development. Eyeballing, it is no less than 20 percent. That's an improvement, but it's not getting me too excited, either.
I still use photos of streets to make points about urbanism, but my research on nineteenth-century Houston has changed my view on formalism. I now believe that urbanism is more of a behavioral phenomenon than a formal one. At the same time, creating urbanism after the proliferation of the car also has different requirements compared to urbanism before the streetcar. I am still thinking out loud about this.
Thanks Addison. I find it very interesting seeing these 'everday' places as opposed to the small % of lauded high design examples. To me this is the 90% of urban fabric and we should care about how it works, performs. Every improvement is a win for people, economy, environment.
I have only visited the US a couple of times, briefly, so I'm not personally familiar with this kind of suburban place. I'm curious: do you have a sense of who was there, whether there was a neighbourhood catchment of whether driving access made that hard to assess? I'm pleasantly surprised by the surrounding grid of streets and street-facing residential buildings, but it's hard to know if that leads to actual neighbourhood walking!
The only bit of architecture in this development that I found truly distinguished was the art deco building with the entrance at the corner. Reminded me of the art deco drug store in Ephrata PA, but even nicer! BTW Art Deco revival hasn't been done to death like Georgian architecture.
Otherwise, I found the development a little too obviously prefab. Not small enough to be intimate, and hard to read. I know I would have a hard time finding an address in this this development. One boring but undeniable characteristic of car-centric architecture is that it is incredibly readable. You can identify a Walmart 1/3 of a mile away.
So much better than your usual plaza development – and therefore necessary that those currently existing get redeveloped and bumped-up like this. But I ask for one thing, everywhere, everywhere dammit (those automobilistes who don’t like it can go get stuffed!): Parking Lots Need Mature Trees. And so they also need covered swales for roof runoff, rather than parking-lot runoff. But if it’s a dry/low-snow climate, the parking lot could easily be paved green.
It's interesting that this feels very much like a prefab version of Shirlington, which of course is ... mostly a former parking lot and (older) car-centered department/retail store area. One of the things this appears to be missing is one of the elements the Shirlington plan incorporates, which is a balance between retail, daytime office work, and residential that guarantees a better spreading of demand for things like restaurants and shops through the days. But I agree that this sort of thing really looks and likely feels better. One of the problems with doing something like this in an urban or core suburban setting is just finding the sheer amount of land (even for a "small" development like this)--redevelopment of existing spaces, like malls, would probably be the best way to make it happen.
Suburban Square in Ardmore, Penn. is very similar to this. There's even an 8 story office building done up with an NYC kind of facade and a gym on the ground floor. There are grassy areas, wide sidewalks, and every time we're there (our favorite Taiwanese restaurant is in there) I think about how far the developers went to recreate what people clearly want: a walkable downtown.
There is still much surface parking at this development. Eyeballing, it is no less than 20 percent. That's an improvement, but it's not getting me too excited, either.
I still use photos of streets to make points about urbanism, but my research on nineteenth-century Houston has changed my view on formalism. I now believe that urbanism is more of a behavioral phenomenon than a formal one. At the same time, creating urbanism after the proliferation of the car also has different requirements compared to urbanism before the streetcar. I am still thinking out loud about this.
Thanks Addison. I find it very interesting seeing these 'everday' places as opposed to the small % of lauded high design examples. To me this is the 90% of urban fabric and we should care about how it works, performs. Every improvement is a win for people, economy, environment.
I have only visited the US a couple of times, briefly, so I'm not personally familiar with this kind of suburban place. I'm curious: do you have a sense of who was there, whether there was a neighbourhood catchment of whether driving access made that hard to assess? I'm pleasantly surprised by the surrounding grid of streets and street-facing residential buildings, but it's hard to know if that leads to actual neighbourhood walking!
The only bit of architecture in this development that I found truly distinguished was the art deco building with the entrance at the corner. Reminded me of the art deco drug store in Ephrata PA, but even nicer! BTW Art Deco revival hasn't been done to death like Georgian architecture.
https://lancasteronline.com/news/local/ephrata-based-royer-pharmacy-to-close-its-5-stores-this-month-cvs-to-get-prescription/article_1507a7fe-5fc9-11ea-a9c7-4353a828f59a.html
Otherwise, I found the development a little too obviously prefab. Not small enough to be intimate, and hard to read. I know I would have a hard time finding an address in this this development. One boring but undeniable characteristic of car-centric architecture is that it is incredibly readable. You can identify a Walmart 1/3 of a mile away.
So much better than your usual plaza development – and therefore necessary that those currently existing get redeveloped and bumped-up like this. But I ask for one thing, everywhere, everywhere dammit (those automobilistes who don’t like it can go get stuffed!): Parking Lots Need Mature Trees. And so they also need covered swales for roof runoff, rather than parking-lot runoff. But if it’s a dry/low-snow climate, the parking lot could easily be paved green.
OK if street parking is metered to time of day. Commercial development is downstream of legislated low density.
Please tell us where this is. Writing 101: locate the place for the reader.
Woodland Park Crossing in Herndon (the stickers in the windows in several photos identify it)
There needs to be a new term to more poetically and linguistically entertainingly encapsulate the notion of a "YIMBY hardon".