Tag Archives: architecture

Stewart Burgess – Architect-at-Large

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Who are you?

Stewartworks is an architecture student, supermodernist critic and community investigator.

What do you do for fun?

Investigate architectural communities by bicycle, spend many hours designing projects that will most likely never be bulit, bake occasionally delicious treats, attempt to become increasingly climate-secure through DIY projects like jam and blackberry picking

What is your favourite community and why?

Community is the feeling of general well-being that can be achieved in many situations.  It can come from a store clerk’s smile or the collective sigh of a music festival audience as a space shuttle passes overhead, twinkling dimly.

What is your superpower?

The courage to say the wrong thing at the wrong time and own up to it.

How do you use this power to build community?

Honesty, tempered by attention to detail, must be fundamental to community development.

My Three Favourite Things about Stew Are…

1. Creativity. This word/term/idea is thrown around a lot in our hyper-innovative society, but Stewart takes the concept to amazing new levels. He builds things. Draws things. Creates exceptionally fertile grounds for discussions and thought-sharing. Hey, he even stores compost in his freezer with very, very, very creative results. I absolutely love spending hours talking with Stew, because I always learn something new about life, the universe and everything.

2. Directness. Straight. To the point. Razor sharp. Poignant. Slightly edgy. Personally, I appreciate straight-shooting and feel that all-too-often people sugar-coat and glove-wear when delivering difficult information. I like how Stew

3. Stylish, Tight Clothing. French hipster architect artist poet professional recycler revolutionary soccer player gardener jam makers wish they looked as good as Stew looks, baby. Mostly, as a creator and wearer of hilarious t-shirts, I am inspired by Stew’s collection of simply fantastic – and thoughtful – attire.

SPECIAL BONUS REASON: Nose-solidarity! Few close friends can sympathize with what it means and what it feels like to have a beak. Stew can. And, I think, we’re both better people because we have each other. And our noses.

As told by John Horn…

do your commuting choices disengage you from your community?

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driving

in the car

biking

on the bike

walking

by foot

In these images, red is ‘private’ life, and the grey to white spectrum is ‘public’ life.

These exploratory images suggest that walking and or biking would offer more opportunities to interact with your community due to a physical closeness to the public realm.   This also means that your car is in essence a projection of the private, domestic space of your home.   Is this reasonable?   What are the consequences of cars-as-private, domestic space on a city’s public realm?   What if your community is far away, and you interact with them while driving on your (hands-free) cellphone?    Do we truly interact with the our fellow citizens more when we walk or bike?   Is your community composed of individuals you seek out, or those that you encounter by chance on the street?

How do your transportation choices impact your feelings of community with those around you?

the corridor//community isolation?

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One of the key goals for the modernist project has been an ongoing search for efficiency in all areas of life, but particularly in the home.  Layered into the contemporary home are a few hundred years of effort on the part of builders, designers, and corporations trying to smooth out the daily lives of its inhabitants into one, frictionless existence.

Social structures have traditionally informed the locus of this spatial research; a few examples are the intensive studies on kitchen layouts in the early 20th C; or the placement of groom’s quarters adjacent to the stables in earlier centuries.  In recent years the search for efficiency in spatial layout has been based on the need to streamline the family experience in order to maximize individual production/leisure/consumption time, the triad of the ideal late capitalist existence.

Kitchens, while interesting, remain over-analyzed.  Let us examine the corridor with this context in mind.  How can a corridor effect the spatial efficiency and community of a home or workplace?

The corridor has a relatively recent existence, being invented around 1600 at Beaufort House, in England, in order to separate servants’ movement from the wealthier inhabitants.  At this point, rooms could still have several doors, leading from one to an other.  This separation slowly developed into complete hierarchy of space, with individual rooms adjacent to corridors, with a single door leading into each space.  Robert Kerr’s “The Gentleman’s House” (1864) talks about the ‘wretched inconveience of thoroughfare rooms’.   This slow spatial retreat of rooms from each other has been related to evolving relationships of our society to privacy, household structures of power and the prevailing social view of the body.

What happens when we think about the evolution of “the passage” and its relationship to community building?  Maybe a little friction is required…

(referencing the image below) On the left is the passage-less space (the matrix system in archispeak, hilariously).  On the right is the usual passage/room combination we are so used to experiencing (a series of servant/served spaces in archispeak).  From top to bottom, the comparisons are:

movement in these spaces:      matrix vs. corridor circulation system

the matrix layout: unintended meetings happen merely through movement; social space is created and a social community must be negotiated.        The body is stimulated as it is forced to negotiate multiple spatial conditions
the passage creates transitory moments of connection, easily avoided by the maintenance of a direct gaze.  Vision and the eye is bored by a single perspective

activity + movement:

the matrix: private activity is difficult, creating social norms around the sharing of tasks and ideas
the passage effectively segregates activities from the movement of the passerby.  isolation, solitude and secrecy are encouraged

activity only:

solitary activity is possible in the matrix system, yet there is always a connection to others in the space.
private activity is the default in a corridor system, unless two individuals choose to inhabit the same space (who works in the corridor beside those who clean it?)

Perhaps it is time for a little community friction, caused by the implementation of more matrix-style spaces, complete with glowing numerical wallpaper.

What do you think?  How does the spatial layout of your home or workplace impact your community?
note — this article was inspired by Robin Evans’ excellent essay “Figures, Doors + Passages” (1978).  read it if you are curious about these sort of things.

Let’s Preserve Vancouver’s Views

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This is my 3rd year in Vancouver and I continue to be bowled over whenever I witness the amazing landscapes which frame the city.  I took this natural beauty for granted until I was informed that our multiple views of the mountains aren’t there by accident. Our fantastic views onto the Grouse, Cypress and Seymour Mountains are not just there by chance – they are the result of a forward-thinking urban planning policy which protects a whole bunch of  “view corridors.” This started with a city planning initiative 30 years ago, when citizens were asked what their top priorities for the city were and preservation of views came out on top.

capacitystudy

By the late 1980’s view protection rose on the city’s priority list as anticipated development around downtown south and north False Creek meant that views of the  mountains from the waters of False Creek could be permanently compromised or entirely lost.  Communities mobilized and progressive individuals in the urban planning office at City Hall took action. After a lot of uphill work, pioneering View Protection Guidelines were issued in 1989 containing 26 protected view corridors.

View Corridors from False Creek

View Corridors from False Creek

The policy protects views of the North Shore Mountains, the downtown skyline and the waters of False Creek from a number of public view points located along the south shore of False Creek, arterial roadways, and from the Granville and Cambie bridges.

According to the City, “In the intervening 20 years a significant number of new buildings have been added to the downtown skyline. The view corridors have had a visible effect on the site location and design of buildings, resulting in the retention of panoramic and narrow views in and around the downtown area.” Check out this walking map and video to explore the view corridors for yourself.

Today, these views and the policies protecting them are coming under threat. The city is conducting a review of the view corridor policy seeing if “ the Council adopted heights limits and view corridors” could undergo changes “to achieve additional development capacity.” The city claims that, with this study it’s 100% behind “the objective underlying the current height and view corridor policies.” Not exactly – this is just window dressing: the purpose of this “study” is really to see which of our views the city could eliminate, paving the way for more downtown skyscrapers: It will “ determine which views the public values most, and work to preserve those views, while possibly altering others.” How noble. Not only does it look like that the vision of Vancouver’s city’s planners will be eroded, the unique harmony between the city and the mountains could be permanently disrupted. Once a view is gone, it is gone. There is no turning back.

So, I have two simple requests:

1)      If you hear from the city and are asked which view you value most, say “All of them”

2)      Tell everyone you know that, or don’t for that matter, that Vancouver’s amazing views have been put there by us and that we need to keep them there.

HELLO new-new urbanism

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The idea of new urbanism was developed a number of years ago by architects and planners in order to combat urban sprawl, tract housing, and all of those evil ideas.

A common criticism of new urbanism is that it exclusively creates community or private space; you are either always around people who you sort-of know, and are accountable to for your actions, or are by yourself/your family and are accountable to them. There is no ‘public space’ — areas where you can be anonymously public or free to be loud or quiet, private or open without fear of long-term social consequences or judgements.

There is a corresponding concern about the architectural aesthetic that is often built in concert with new urbanist communities. Rather than encouraging or allowing diversity in the urban form, design is handicapped by neighbourhood restrictions (not always a bad idea…). An extreme example of this is the Disney-town of Celebration, FL. However, this is not the place for a discussion of architectural aesthetics but rather of community.

Returning to this idea of private/public/community space. One reaction to this criticism could be the new HELLO development in Brooklyn, NYC. The development is urban infill — ie creates space within the existing urban fabric. The key word is ‘within the existing urban fabric’; rather than demolishing or redeveloping an entire block, the buildings are small-scale interventions carefully inserted into a few block radius.

This allows the existing community of businesses, residences, etc to maintain their internal dynamic while slowly integrating new residents. Rather than a downtown-eastside feeling of ‘street, big fence around wealthy enclave with amenities, street’ (woodwards redevelopment?), they are forcing their residents to interact with the community at large. They are carefully placing a new social/built network into an urban environment.

The network is facilitated by the following: within each building in the HELLO development there are community facilities available to HELLO residents: a pool, wi-fi lounge, exercise room, kid’s area, etc. They are accessed by a key card available to all residents. This means a trip to an amenity could start in ‘private’ space (your home), enter ‘public’ space (the street), and end in ‘community’ space (HELLO’s gym). This combination allows residents to feel safe (at home), interact with the community-at-large on the street, and finally exclusive (only they access their amenities).

I know there are numerous discussions about the merit of exclusivity and community; at the same time everyone loves the feeling of being in a secret club!

Are developments like this the future of new urbanism? How would this work in Vancouver? Could this be applied to other communities — artist’s studios, offices, etc — could we create networks of communities that require the same resources, but do not need to share a physical, built connection?