Big Boxes

Posted by on . 8 comments.

Yesterday’s Times took a look at some of the massive projects in the works in New York City–developments like Brooklyn’s Atlantic Yards and Manhattan’s West Side Railyards–and lamented that the designs are so utterly uninspiring. Richard Layman builds on the theme, noting that the waves of construction proceeding along Massachusetts Avenue and up toward Florida Avenue have produced a lot of strikingly similar, and dull, building plans. The projects are hulking, boxy, and covered in either glass or brick.

Now, the fact that New York is facing these same issues suggests that design review is important in producing good buildings. So, too, does the existence of attractive older structures along K Street, holdovers from the first half of last century squished between concrete squares and bland, glass ice-cubes. If the District wants memorable buildings, it needs to demand them.

I do think it’s important to note that the additional constraint of the height limit in Washington has a dulling effect on even the well-designed structures in the city. Intense market demand pushes buildings up and out, such that boxiness and flat rooflines are practically unavoidable. And a lot of contemporary architectural flourishes look weird when used on stunted buildings.

Opponents of height increases often cite the importance of view protection. That’s all well and good, but I think the value of varying heights and flexible shapes in producing lovely viewscapes is vastly underappreciated.

Comments

  1. Alex B. says:
    March 28, 2008 at 12:30 pm

    I support some systematic relaxing of the height limits for the sake of density, but I don’t think they’re the cause of bland design – nor do I think all glass makes for bland design, either.

    On the contrary, I think the limitations offers another challenge to architects and designers to show their creative side. I’d also note that design review doesn’t always ensure that, either. A lot of comments like Richard’s (and from my readings of his past writings) lend me to think that there’s not a lot of respect for modern architecture amongst all the armchair architectural critics out there.

    Also, are memorable buildings really the goal? Some buildings are appropriately monumental, others are not. It’s one of those things where if everything’s unique, then they all disappear in a sea of sameness…

  2. BeyondDC says:
    March 28, 2008 at 2:20 pm

    Paris proves that block after block of like-sized buildings can be designed attractively.

    Frankly, I cast blame for the bland squarely on the shoulders of architects, who have us in the midst of a neo-modernist circle jerk. Faux colonial is passé, but faux Meisian is apparently avant garde. I will celebrate the day the architecture profession takes its collective head out of its ass and realizes that the whole point of modernism was to stand out as an exception from the traditionalist rule of the day, and that the trick doesn’t work when modernism is the rule rather than the exception. Unfortunately, big time architecture is still more worried about abstract *sculpture* than about producing buildings fit for human use.

    Not that I’m bitter from my experience at architecture school, or anything. All that time spent learning how to spew about the synergistic dichotomies of sacred geometry in sculptural form was *way* more useful than, uh, reading Death and Life of Great American Cities once on my own, outside of class… Oh, wait, no it wasn’t.

  3. ryan says:
    March 28, 2008 at 3:58 pm

    I guess I should be careful speculating too much about architecture, that not really being my area of expertise. I guess I’m thinking that it’s a lot to ask of the District to adopt rules which might produce Parisian streetscapes. Given that, what’s the best way to create a pleasant and varied building stock?

  4. Alex B. says:
    March 28, 2008 at 4:25 pm

    What I was trying to convey in my post was that it’s both difficult and dangerous to try and legislate styles through design review. Many cherished buildings now were once highly criticized as arrogant pieces of old crap. Styles change, but there’s a lot more to architecture than just aesthetics.

    Design guidelines and review should focus on the very basics of urban form – setbacks, build-to lines, active uses at the street, transparent street level facades, no blank walls, etc.

    For a varied building stock, I think a lot of that just comes with age. Part of the problem is that we’re stuck in a rut of massive investment and divestment, Jane Jacobs’ ‘cataclysmic money.’ Not that you can turn down the big influx, however, in any pragmatic sense. We need a varied building stock in age, style, price point, etc. As a lot of these areas develop, then age, and then redevelop, they’ll become more coherent and vibrant spaces.

  5. BeyondDC says:
    March 28, 2008 at 5:11 pm

    >what’s the best way to create a pleasant and varied building stock?

    Narrow lots and a form based code.

  6. monkeyrotica says:
    March 28, 2008 at 7:01 pm

    I gotta agree with BDC. Some of the po-po-mo architecture slop being hoisted off as hip and trendy is just atrocious. There’s good contemporary design and there’s bad contemporary design. Unfortunately, DC seems to be getting the latter.

    I guess it’s just me, but I look back on past design trends like Colonialism or Neo-Georgian with a little wistfulness. I can’t imagine people doing the same over some of the fug brutalist nightmare condos that litter the urban landscape. They all seem to look like womens’ prisons for some reason.

  7. ryan says:
    March 28, 2008 at 8:09 pm

    I do think Alex has hit on a key point in noting that a variety of ages in the buildings makes a difference. But there’s little to be done about that in places like NoMa where the alternative is empty land.

  8. Victor says:
    March 28, 2008 at 8:48 pm

    For places like NoMa where variation of age doesn’t mean much because it’s being reinvented from the ground up, you can still have the building designs, densities and uses vary. DC needs to embrace these ideas and try to take some chances. Some designs will stand the test of time and some won’t, but if some simple urban planning issues are taken to heart, it won’t be so bad.