build a better burb again

[Trace One]

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/17/nyregion/17artsli.html?ref=nyregion

 

Man! I have stopped looking for competitions after flaming out with “Just Jerusalem”..This looks like it was a good one!

[nca]

‘grass pave streets’ ..hmm.

[Thomas J. Johnson]

That’s an interesting design competition. Similar to what we did in Urban Design Studio in school… I think our school project was more rooted in reality though. I’m growing increasingly weary of these super abstract entries that appear to be the result of a hallucination that wishes to impose itself on the world, rather than a true, thoughtful study of how people want to live and what makes cities successful.

I’m beginning to question the validity of urban planning in general. It seems heavy handed and inhumane, not based on anything other than a designers ego and corporate objectives. I just watched a program on China’s Mega Dam and it made me want to scream! (OK,OK, maybe I did yell at the TV). Here they are, destroying 4,000 year old communities and moving it’s residence to government designed communities at higher ground. The citizens go from a place that took millennia to evolve and is an expression of their family’s history, composed of rich materials with great meaning to a place constructed of cheap cinder blocks with all the depth and creativity of prison camp.

I’m beginning to believe that urban design should take a lot of time, several generations, working at a smaller scale. Good growth is slow (oak tree) bad growth is fast (atom bomb). Our current model of explosive, “planned” growth is not only inhumane but it’s too rigid to adapt to the changing needs of a city/culture. By designing and developing huge blocks of land we are actually limiting ourselves. Nobody can see that far into the future and what we think is hip and cutting edge now will be viewed as archaic, insensitive and destructive 50 years from now.

Instead of trying to implement extremely expensive and unproven designs / technology, we should be focusing on what we know works (i.e. trains, bicycles and walking). Train stations don’t need to be cutting edge technological wonders surrounded by organic farms. They need to be four walls and a roof where you can get a cup of coffee and drop off your dry cleaning. I’ve yet to see one study that shows it is more environmentally sound/ sustainable/”green” etc.etc. to grow vegetables in a small urban garden than it is to grow them on a massive scale outside of the city and transport them into the city. Large farms are highly efficient operations, designed for maximum yields with minimum inputs. Small, community gardens, look nice and feel nice but they are extremely labor intensive, very water intensive and low yielding. I question the logic of “designers” who envision organic gardens next to the light rail stop / busy roads. That’s not really where I want my veggies coming from… and it just doesn’t make sense.

I feel like the whole “design” world has been taking too many goof balls lately. Come’on guys, all things in moderation. It’s one thing to be visionary, it’s another thing to be on another planet. West8 does a great job of walking this fine line. We need urban environments that “work”, that are functional, humane and invigorating, not static, overly contrived, confusing and stifling. Many of these far-out designs make the user feel separate from the environment, like a visitor to space, not “in” the environment. It’s important for humans to feel like we can effect our space, that it is a part of us, as much as we are a part of it. That takes time. Quick, cheap, thoughtless design deprives us of our history, our culture and our dignity. That is what I learned from watching the program on China’s mega dam. If that is considered “progress” through urban/environmental planning then I want no part of it. Under that model, we are “progressing” towards our self destruction, not self-actualization.

OK, too-much-coffee-man signing out…

[nca]

Very well written Tom.

[Andrew Garulay, RLA]

@ TJ

It is nice to have someone drinking coffee instead of Kool-Aide. Well said and well grounded.

[Trace One]

nice rant. good to have space to rant. dams are bad. dreaming is bad..? dream on!

[Thomas J. Johnson]

Thanks G and Ace, I don’t know how well written or well grounded it is. I just needed to purge my brain a bit. It’s a little disjointed and ranty but sometimes that’s what you need to clear out the ol’ RAM…

T1 – Dams ARE bad. Bad in just about every way imaginable. They are devastating to river systems and everything associated with them such as spawning fish and the animals that are dependent on them… erosion, silt accumulation, warming of water/oxygen deprivation, elimination of habitat. Dams due two, arguably, positive things; create electricity and a temporary surplus of water. Both of these are considered positive because they allow for the expansion of human populations-development-“progress”. The problem is that the water surplus is a temporary illusion. The water that went down stream, no longer goes down stream. You don’t have more water, just more water in one place. Then you develop the region, put a million straws in the pond and start drinking… What you end up with is a huge population dependent on an artificial and finite water source. Ever notice “the bathtub ring” around Lake Mead? That’s water that’s gone and not coming back and it gets bigger and bigger every year. Eventually Vegas will run out of water… That is why dams are bad. They are short sighted solutions with permanent consequences.

I never said dreaming is bad. I said that our dreams need to be based in reality. I’ve grown tired of presentation boards that are nothing more than flashy graphics and photoshop collages that lack real substance and viable solutions.

For instance one winning entry proposed rezoning so that granny flats can be built in the name of social justice. Translation: Poor people can no longer afford to buy homes in the area so lets build them an apartment above the garage so that they can stay in the area and serve me coffee in the morning while paying a majority of my mortgage. Brilliant! While granny flats do make good economic sense, they are a product of market demand not social justice. Home owners build apartments because they don’t want to or can’t afford to put their aging parents in a home or because they want renters to offset their mortgage payments, not because it would be nice to have a poor person living on the property…

I could go on and on about the entries… rezone long island to make it 50% agriculture!? Really? How high were you when you came up with that!? What do you think it would take to turn developed land into productive agricultural land? By the time that happens, long island will be under water from global warming… have you ever lived next to a farm? Like being woken up at 4:30 every morning by the heavy equipment? Oh, that’s right, your farms are all going to be maintained organically, by hand, by seas of people on lsd who would rather toil in the dirt for free than have an office job and they’re all going to live in granny flats in my back yard…

Oh, you’re just going to move the rail-yard outside of the downtown area because it’s an eyesore and it divides the community? Really!? Do you know what that would cost? Have you run that by Union Pacific, BNSF or whoever owns the tracks?… that probably won’t go over too well. Besides, if you move them a mile or two away, in 10 years that area will be a new downtown and you’ll just have to move them again… does that make any sense beyond the scope of your pipe dream? Oh, I get it now, we’ll plant a few trees in one of the cars and turn a few others into an office or a skateboard ramp and the world will rejoice because “nature” has over taken the evil industrial complex… OK, smoke another one… alternately, we could just build a playground in the middle of the rail-yard and the children could frolic amongst the freight cars, playing frogger in a celebration of appreciation for the source of their fuel, raw goods and resources that make their lives possible…

One of the few projects that actually made sense was “Reclaiming Community” or something to that effect but really all it did was reiterate the principals of gentrification and basic real estate market dynamics ; I.E. gay/artsy people move into an undesirable community and make it beautiful and functional(open cafes, bars, bakeries, ride bikes, plant flowers add creative whimsy), mainstream people (suites) see that it would be a nice place to live, investors and developers move into the area replacing home-grown small businesses with chain stores, neighborhood becomes expensive while simultaneously loosing it’s character that brought people there in the first place, it ends up looking like every other hipster neighborhood, gays and artists leave because it’s expensive and depressingly homogenized while the yuppies rejoice at the proliferation of starbucks, outrageously expensive baby stores and home accessory boutiques. Repeat ad infinitum…

I just want to see something new. Something thought provoking. I’m so tired of seeing the same ideas regurgitated over and over again that are either not based in reality or a simply stating the obvious. If I read the phrase “urban fabric” one more time I’m going rip out what little hair I have left. If I see one more amorphous-modified-geodesic-dome structure representing the wave of the future, I’m moving to mars. You’re going to have a farmers market on the light-rail platform!? Have you ever been on a train at rush hour before (the time that people would want to pick up something for dinner)? You’ll be wearing your tomatoes by the time you get home. Maybe we can convert the ticket machines to pasta makers and then you’ll be all set… Ahhhhhhh…..!!!!

Get a grip people. The party’s over. That period of drunken drug-fueled boom-growth we experienced the last 8 years is over. The hang-over is going to be a b*tch but it’s time to sober up. Design is no longer about how contrived and complicated we can make things, just for the sake of being unique. We’re entering an era requiring real design solutions to real-existing problems. It’s not going to be pretty or glamorous but we need to get to work with our feet on the ground. Somebody’s got to clean up after the party and that’s where I see landscape architecture thriving… addressing the issues created by this poorly planned, explosive and ultimately destructive growth we’ve experienced.

[Trace One]

Long Island is some of the best agricultural land in the country!!!.I don’t see what is wrong with that idea..Agriculture should be local, end of story..That concept could only require re-zoning – all of Southampton Town was zoned for 3-5 acre subdivision lots – just with the stroke of the pen, it could be returned to farmland – it is actually pretty nasty flat farmland full of pesticides anyway, I don’t know what people are doing living in Sagaponack, anyway…..Yuck..

So your contention that ideas need to be more grounded seems a little ungrounded to me…

Why don’t you try to sit on a design jury somewhere – that might get some of your anger out, by talking to real humans who can respond.. You sound like you need to meet a few people you respect , instead of feeling like you are always the only big dog in the room..

It must be hard to live with so much pent-up frustration..The models that you posted looked really excessively fussy for designs – perhaps this is a case of an overly -idealistic young man now turned into a bitter resentful adult? Balance, Thomas, balance – both in your designs and in your life!
.
I have about as much sympathy for angry bitter people as you do for the working poor.

ps, Steve Jobs, who has done a little bit to transform our world, attributes much of his succes to his days tripping on LSD and visiting India..Perhaps you should try it!

[Thomas J. Johnson]

“Agriculture should be local, end of story” is the most idealistic and naive thing you could say. Should agriculture be local if you live in an arid climate without local fresh water sources? Should agriculture be local if you don’t have the right soils? Agriculture is destroying the rain forest and agriculture in poor soils created the dust bowl… perhaps we’d be better off shipping food to such regions… or, gasp, not inhabiting them at all.

My idea, that ideas should be more grounded, more based in reality, is ungrounded? Does that even make any sense? OK, if you say so… I won’t argue the point that my preference for grounded ideas is itself ungrounded. But I will argue – I never said that I’m a big dog, in fact, I’ll tell you I’m not a big dog. I’m an unemployed BSLA with 1.5 years of LA experience. That does not make me a big dog but I can sniff out B.S…. and call it when I see it.

Am I frustrated? Yes, I’m frustrated. I’m frustrated that I went back to school for LA only to graduate into the worst economy since the great depression. I’m frustrated that I’m broke. I’m frustrated that I spent every penny I had pursuing a career that has essentially vanished. I’m frustrated that I can’t afford to pay my student loans. And I don’t take much comfort in knowing that I’m not alone in the boat.

My models look excessively fussy? Apparently you haven’t seen many good models. My models look like crap compared to the great model makers. Do I care about scale, geometry and details? Yes. Do I want to be represented by a rush job, using crap materials with poor cuts and glue drips? No. Why don’t you please post some of your models… I’d like to see what less fussy models look like.

Wow, you got idealistic young man turned bitter resentful adult from my rant and models!? You must be some kind of idiot savant… except only 3 years has lapsed in that time. Has a lot changed in 3 years, yup, it sure has… If you’re not bitter and resentful then you don’t read the paper enough. Oh, I forgot, you’ve got a cushy government job. Reality doesn’t apply to you. You clock in at 9 leave at 5, get paid 30% more than the private sector with full benefits and a pension. Of course you’re not bitter…

No sympathy for the working class poor!? I AM the working class poor! Minus the job… I don’t knock the working class poor. I knock the landscape architect who proposes rezoning an area in the name of “social justice” so that people who have been gentrified from that neighborhood can now live in the granny flat of the rich person who owns the house they couldn’t afford to keep. If social justice is the motive, then why not just put a cap on property taxes / real estate appraisals in working class neighborhoods, prone to gentrification? I’m not in favor of doing that because I believe in free markets but that would be real social justice in the most liberal sense… rezoning for granny flats is in the best interest of land owners and tax collectors, not the working class… and I’m fine with that, just don’t call it social justice. That’s like justifying the war in Iraq with 911, wait, no, WMDs, no, it was Sadam, we had to liberate those poor barrels of oil, er, I mean, Iraqis. Just call it what it is… I’m fine with that…

And since you brought it up, I’m all for hallucinogens. The only reason they are illegal is because they offer powerful insights into “reality” and make you realize “reality” is a mailable human construct.That conclusion, on a massive scale, is very dangerous for those relying on that social structure for their political power. Everybody should experience psychedelics, at least everyone who wants to truly know themselves and experience the realization that we’re all connected, that everything is alive and connected, that the earth is a beautiful living thing to be cherished and worshiped, as it provides us with our very means of survival. It is a spiritual experience that transcends anything you can be told in church but it’s not going to convince me that selling tomatoes on a busy train platform is a good idea… or that moving a stockyard a mile or two is a viable solution or that your social justice zoning plan isn’t really intended to further increase land value and taxes… hallucinogens also help you see through the B.S.

You posted an interesting article from the NY Times. I took issue with many of the proposed design solutions. My rants were intended to be both critical and humorous. They were not directed at you personally. Apparently we can add “sense of humor” to things we don’t share in common… as usual always a pleasure. Until next time Trace One…

[Andrew Garulay, RLA]

I found them both critical and humorous while appreciating your frustration at the same time. There is nothing wrong with a good rant mixing some bitter reality with humor, and pointing out absurdity as you see it. Not everyone has to agree with you on all of it, but I think we can all agree with a lot of it. I happen to agree with most of it, but don’t have a problem with some that might agree with less of it.

Our profession is like those Brown Bears in Alaska. Everyone prospers and gets along when the fish are everywhere. Each bear picks his spot and can barely miss. More and more gather. When the run slows down there is not enough to go around. You can’t just sit on your favorite rock and pick out the fattest fish. All the bears start getting more touchy and don’t get along so well. If someone has a sweet spot that is still producing, everyone else moves in on it. If you try fishing where there are no fish, you go hungry. After a while many start to scatter off to look for food elsewhere. The ones that still make their living fishing are the ones who figure out where the limited fish are and find a way to catch them. They are not going to feast, but they are still bears that are fishing.

Is grad school the equivalent of hibernation? …. going to sleep until spring time and living off of your fat? I don’t know. I’m nibbling on guppies and don’t plan on hibernating or turning logs for termites, or raiding any landfills or dumpsters any time soon. I will if I have to, but if I’m not too proud I can keep fishing little pools for whatever is there until the fat salmon come back. The most important thing is to make sure that the salmon can fatten and will come back. Don’t dam the rivers, get them past the trawlers and gill netters, and see that they can propsper out in the ocean so they can come back and feed us.

[Trace One]

but you weren’t really funny, in your rant, just angry and condescending…And my government job is only three years old, and when I was in your position, 1990, I had been laid off from a $30,000 a year job as a designer for a nursery,and spent the next four years as a gardener in the summers and working for a florist and teaching landscape design for a community college in the winters, and that is after getting an MLA…..there were no jobs then either, really none..
.
and as for agriculture being local, I stick to that one..And don’t live in the freaking desert where there is no water, don’t have eight babies, don’t allow Mosanto to dictate how we live.
Lighten up – people, including me, have been where you are before. And if you want to be funny, ya got a little work to do.. Mean is not funny. Glenn Beck is never funny. But Jon Stewart is never mean. and have you never heard that “brevity is the soul of wit?’ But wit was not what you were aiming at, at all..
as you say, a pleasure, as usual..

[Andrew Garulay, RLA]

I was laughing when I read it. I felt the stress of the current situation, his and the overall, as well. It is one way of many diverse ways to look at what is going on. You don’t have to be against something to point out the irony of situations. Let’s face it.

There is irony all over the place. … urban renewal cleans up dilapidated neighborhoods yet displaces the inhabitants. …. the same people who push for affordable housing are against large chain stores that provide jobs that unskilled, uneducated people can actually get and cheap stuff that they can actually afford to buy. … growth management boards come up with calculations to require the most parking possible for every use and then do everything they can to keep you from being able to fit any on a site. …. they come up with regulation to get redevelopers to transform areas of uninterupted pavement and roof into green space and then push it so far that the projects get killed and years later it is still pavement and roof even though twenty projects had been proposed to change it. …environmental activist LAs are often left out of work while more pro-development LAs are actually working and designing bioretention areas, wetland mitigation and restoration, and converting pavement into green space.

We may or may not agree with all of the goals of these ironic points, yet still take a minute to laugh at it, can’t we?

I hope we can.

[Trace One]

Mr. G, I was not laughing, it just was not funny..All I could feel from Thomas was condescension, frustration, and anger and the need to lash out – if it was irony he was after, he needed to be wittier about it, instead of so voluminously verbally diarrehtic….

I don’t like long posts in general, it seems so self-indulgent to me..

But it also has occurred to me that Thomas is a lot closer to the schooldays of crazy designs and the ridiculous predjudice of biased and non-working professors..I have been out of school for twenty years, and there is almost no idealism, no dreaming, going on in landscape plans..it’s all greenies around the pig, no matter where you live, desert, coast, etc….
We had one professor in school who was really funny, Giegengack, who taught geology, and absolutely broke us up with his tales of the army corps of engineers..
I just don’t see it, the way Thomas writes..Perhaps he can try again, no meaness, more wit, more brevity..
I do agree with a lot of the outright criticisms he had, in terms of our disfunctional social system, however…..

[Thomas J. Johnson]

OK, here we go… in the name of brevity, morning coffee and humor…Well, I may have come up short on the humor bit again, but you get the gist…

An Ode to the Granny Flatters

Working class citizens
your homes are so close
to the business district
I prefer the most

They are well built
of brick and with yards
your neighborhood has parks
and wide boulevards

Though I’m sorry to say
you can’t afford to stay
taxes are going up
beginning today

But I’ll make you a deal
if you promise not to squeal
you can stay above my garage
if you clean and cook meals

Just a bit of rezoning
and I will be owning
your granny flat
out back
which to you
I’ll be loaning

[Trace One]

Ok, Thomas, that IS funny..

[Author]

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