‘Creating nature’ with an urban village in Seattle

via cooltownstudios

This is apparently Seattle’s first transit-oriented development (TOD). If it gets better than this with TODs so come, hold on to your seats, you’re in for a fun ride.

The starting point is a 9-acre parking lot (left of photo), pretty much your standard building block in many U.S. cities, though adjacent to a major bus transfer station with planned light rail access, which means walkable urban village development is a natural next step. However, one half of what makes this a model for the rest of country is that rather than develop right over the parking block, the public-private partnership between the public and private sectors “daylighted” a creek that was covered by the lot, which as close as you’re going to get in actually creating nature. Within one month after opening, native birds were observed at the project. The restored Thornton Creek also collects urban stormwater runoff from 680 acres.

The other half of what makes this a national model is what they did with the rest of the parking lot block (about twice the size of a typical Seattle block), replacing an exclusive hang out for cars with Thornton Place, a habitat for people and no thoroughfare for cars: 109 condos, 278 apartments (20% affordable), a 14-screen cinema, 50,000 sf of retail and a beautiful, vibrant plaza surrounded by restaurants (above). Maybe they’ll eventually enlarge the plaza by replacing the head-on parking spaces with outdoor dining area.

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more about urban village:

City Comforts – How to Build an Urban Village – Book Review

In Markham, the dream of an urban village that never was

neo-traditional development: a post modern way in urban design

City Comforts – How to Build an Urban Village – Book Review

By Dave Reid

“City Comforts – How to Build an Urban Village” by David Sucher is almost a CliffsNotes on the topic of urban planning.  While much of planning is about the big things or big projects, “this book shows examples of small things –city comforts– that make urban life pleasant: places where people can meet; methods to tame cars and to make buildings good neighbors; art that infuses personality into locations and makes them into places.”  To emphasis these ‘city comforts’ the book extensively uses photography to illustrate a design element, such as a photo of a curb as an example of the importance that curbs ramps play in allowing a parent to easily push a stroller on to the sidewalk.  It’s about how these little things make a great city.

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more book reviews:

Léon Krier discusses The Architecture of Community

Think Globally, Act Regionally: GIS and Data Visualization for Social Science and Public Policy Research

Book Review: Self Sufficient City Envisioning the habitat of the future

In Markham, the dream of an urban village that never was

by Aaron Lynett

More than 10 years ago, a charismatic Cuban American architect embarked on a bold plan to transform a plot of Ontario farmland into a bustling urban utopia, a place where dwellers would swap cars for walking shoes and enjoy a sense of urbanity in what would have otherwise been just another suburb.
Or so that was Andres Duany’s plan.

Instead, cars today zip up and down the narrow avenues and not a pedestrian, charming coffee shop, nor restaurant is in sight. It is a Tuesday afternoon, and two beauty salons are inexplicably closed for the day, a real estate office is locked with snow piled high outside its door, not a single child is playing in Mews Park, and the convenience store sees only a trickling of residents. Here and there a York Regional Transit bus rolls along, but public transportation to, from  and within Cornell is far from comprehensive.

“The mindset was that people wanted a village feel, but what emerged was a sort of pseudo-village,” said Michael Spaziani, a Toronto architect who a decade ago helped create Cornell’s open-space master plan, adding that Cornell is so far nothing more than a “cuter form of sprawl.”

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Cornell 8, by Sean_Marshall

Cornell 18, photo by Sean_Marshall

more about urban planning in Toronto:

Why Private Transit is Destined to Fail

Urban and Regional Planning Programs, Courses, Schools and Degrees in Ontario Universities

Developing sustain ability: sustainability policy and gentrification on Toronto's waterfront

neo-traditional development: a post modern way in urban design

May 1, 2010 

by Houshmand E. Masoumi

Neo-Traditional Development (NTD) or Neo-Traditional Town Planning is an urban design trend which has drawn the attention of planners and architects during the past two decades. This post modern flow is focused on creating well-planned, mixed-use, compact cities.
Density has an important role in NTDs. Neo-Traditionalists try to plan communities with dense fabric as well as promoting pedestrian and bicycle amenities. This is a reaction to the recent criticisms of urban sprawl. Critics of urban sprawl believe that sprawling urban areas and suburbs cause low sense of community, high construction costs, high automobile dependency, high environmental pollutions, low public health, etc.

The Different Forms of Neo-Traditional Developments

There are no definite categories for NTD. But some scholars have classified some planning trends as types of NTD. For example, in 1994 Alexander Christoforidis categorized NTD into five main approaches:

1. Traditional Neighborhood Development (TND) or the New Urbanism
2. Transit Oriented Development (TOD)
3. Hamlets
4. Metropolitan purlieus
5. Revitalization of the existing traditional towns.

Later in 2006, Yosef Rafeq Jabareen defined the following 3 traditional types of planning as the most important NTDs:

1. New Urbanism
2. Transit Oriented Development (TOD)
3. The Urban Village

The Characteristics of Neo-Traditional Developments

The planners of the NTDs usually try to locate most of the following aspects in their plans:
Mixed use neighborhoods, civic centers, sense of community, public open spaces, connected network of streets, strong public transit, etc.

The gird-like network of streets usually helps people easily reach their destinations. Therefore there is a high connectivity in such urban fabrics. This connectivity is for pedestrians, bikers, and the cars. So it is obvious that the neo-traditionalist planners do not intend to omit the cars from the streets, but their aim is to lower the necessity of using car as a daily mode of transport.
This is done through designing and building special public, pedestrian and biking amenities like pedestrian routes, bicycle routes, and of course public transit. In Transit-Oriented Development, public transport is the base of the plans.
Another aspect of the neo-traditional plans is the features that are designed to promote socialization among the residents of the neighborhoods. For example the neighborhood centers and public spaces are of these features. They are often used in plans related to New Urbanism and Urban Village. Mixed land-use is effective in creating better social relations and diversity. In the meantime, it causes the proximity of houses and work places. So the daily trips to work can be shorter.

Prospect new town in Longmont, Colorado: designed based on New Urbanism principles

Generally, neo-traditional planning aims at providing better quality of life. It is tried to be done by means of traditional values which were used in the old neighborhoods and towns.
References:

• Christoforidis, A. (1994), “New Alternatives to the Suburb: Neo Traditional Developments”, Journal of Planning Literature 1994; 8; 429.
• Jabareen, Y. R. (2006), “Sustainable Urban Forms: Their Typologies, Models, and Concepts” Journal of Planning Education and Research 2006; 26; 38

more readings:

What Andres Duany and Peter Calthrope Beieved in 1995

The Definitions and Characteristics of Urban Sprawl

New Urbanism: An Alternative to Urban Sprawl