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19 Jul 08

A design-savvy city defined, by Knute Berger (Crosscut Seattle)

For future reference: Berger's article about a report by architectural firm RMJM, which identifies America's top 10 best-designed cities. His article focuses on the aspect of heritage preservation, which factors into RMJM's weighting and criteria, and he notes that Portland seems to beat out Seattle.

From there, Berger segues into whether or not (or to what extent) citizens are "pleased with their urban architecture," and observes that only LA residents are "less happy with their city" than Seattlites. (I'm not sure how he manages the leap from heritage preservation to 'being pleased" by contemporary/new architecture, but there you have it.)

Anyway, the really useful thing about this article is that Berger lists the 7 categories RMJM used to answer the question, "what makes a design-savvy city?", and also summarizes each aspect (with commentary of his own, in italics). All in all, the list makes a great framework for thinking about urban design.

www.crosscut.com/...A+design-savvy+city+defined - Preview

urban_design urbanplanning seattle crosscut knute_berger heritage preservation designsavvy

Public transit and urban infrastructure: Public transit systems can't stand still, even in mature transit cities like Boston and New York.
Portland was off the charts in transportation favorability, rating a higher approval than any of the top 10 cities at 79 percent.
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- Sustainable design: It's important to make things greener and some cities, like Seattle, have ambitious greenhouse goals, but the report found that in the top-10 designed American cities, only 45 percent of people surveyed were even aware of their city's sustainable initiatives. Those numbers were higher in Seattle (59 percent) and Portland (64 percent).
  - - if residents aren't aware of it, that indicates that city planners (staff) aren't articulating it clearly enough for the elected politicians to convey the message to residents/ voters. It's a failure of leadership on both sides. - on 2008-07-19
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- Art and design education: "Creative schools, especially at a university level, spawn creative businesses and endeavors and, in turn, elevate design sensibilities in their local communities," the report maintains. Boston, with top architectural programs at Harvard and MIT, is an exemplar. The gist: Break the barriers down between city and classroom.
- Innovative architecture: The report says the "Bilbao effect," where one stunning building can put a city on the map, actually dates back to the ancient Greeks. The Parthenon was the first Guggenheim. World's fairs and the Olympic games are occasions for creating legacy structures which act as statements "of investment in a city, demonstrating commitment to the future and driving up tourism."
  - - in his aside, Berger asks, "How do we overcome our tradition of hiring great architects to do mediocre work (Frank Gehry's EMP, Robert Venturi's SAM). Do the ephemeral Rem Koolhaas library or Olympic Sculpture Park get us off the hook? Or should we be satisfied that the Space Needle will make a great ruin one day?" - on 2008-07-19
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- Creative community: Great cities, it seems, are filled with idea people, the creative class who, if they are not lucky to be architects are perhaps their social and creative equals. San Francisco is cited as being "one of the most well-known havens of the creative economy."
  (Great cities, in other words, need to have a high tolerance for over-educated trustafarians and a capacity for vigorous self-regard.)
- Art, galleries, theater spaces, and museums: All the places where the creative class does its business are important, but so is bringing art to the masses. The study points to Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper's public art initiative, timed to coincide with the 2008 Democratic National Convention there in August and featuring, according to a press release, "10 site-specific art installations catalyzing public discourse in neighborhoods" throughout the city. "Catalyzing discourse" is always good for bonus points in a "savvy city" competition.
- Preserving historic buildings: The report says, "How a city treats the past says a lot about its values for the future. And anecdotal evidence suggests that cities that take care of their old landmarks are likely to embrace new ones." In addition, the study encourages sustainability through preservation by touting an effort in Boston to "revitalize the existing City Hall in Government Center as opposed to relocating it to the South Boston waterfront, claiming adaptive reuse would provide more environmental benefits than building a new sustainability designed building."

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A design-savvy city defined, by Knute Berger (Crosscut Seattle)

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