September 8, 2009 Smackdown with Frank Gehry By Urban Design WITH People | September 08, 2009 at 05:55 PM EDT Wow! The exchange between starchitect Frank Gehry and Project for Public Places' (PPS), Fred Kent, or rather the non exchange, stimulated a great exchange. The exchange is still going on. Below is my response to Dobbins' response. If you read this, I hope you visit PPS and add your comment to strengthen citizen guided urban design of the civic environment, and interest beyond us in URBAN DESIGN AND PEOPLE.
Irving
------------ I was glad this exchange provoked Mike Dobbins to chime in (Aug 30) with his synthesis of the dialectic which has sharpened, not only thanks to Kent and Gehry, but also thanks to the collapse of the financial market for trophy architecture. The coincidence of this economic “context” with Wiley’s publication this year of Dobbins’ URBAN DESIGN AND PEOPLE could (repeat, could) provide a turning point. My fear, however, is that as celebrity and wannabe celebrity architecture firms scramble to survive by sniffing out and scooping up the public projects, we’ll see more celebrity dictated urban design disasters than Dobbins’ style “citizen guided” urban design successes.
I also suspect that what we are discussing here — the dialectic between the 5% of buildings Gehry deems “architecture” and Dobbins’ “civic environment” which the “architecture” complements or embarrasses — does, for better or worse, have as much to do with personality as economics. or perhaps more aptly said, one’s personal values and practice vis a vis the economy. Some years ago after watching Dobbins interact with a neighborhood group, I described him as “a pencil in the hands of the people.” This takes an architect with a personality vis a vis economics different from one said to design by crumpling a piece of paper and hiring structural engineers to “make it so.”
August 26,2009 Urban Design AND People to be published in Chinese By Urban Design WITH People | August 26, 2009 at 04:16 PM EDT | )
July 22,2009 Fed critic, Tech innovators, and Citizen Guided Urban Design? By Urban Design WITH People | July 22, 2009 at 08:54 PM EDT | (1 new)
Greider, an expert on the Federal Reserve doesn't call what he's proposing "citizen guided monetary policy" but it is to economists what "citizen guided urban design" is to architects.
On the other hand it looks, at least to the NYT, like MIT's avant garde collective tech innovators are having second thoughts about democracy.
Irving
July 16,2009 parking lots, vacant lots, and civic ritual performances By Urban Design WITH People | July 16, 2009 at 05:24 PM EDT
posting, by the hardest, reply to artnews: Karen, David, Mandie, Jon.
fussing with this trying to put your exchanges onto this blog, I reread the ambitious E.Atl/Kirkwood events!!! I'm very curious to know how Oakland Foundation members responded to 'which side are you on?" or was that the genius of the Kirkwood organizers: art of transmogrification? If so, my hats off to K burgers, god bless them everyone. But I'm still inclined to wonder if we'd maybe have been spared that epoch worse than slavery if Lee and Davis had been convicted, not hung, but irreparably dishonored. I'm big on honoring McPherson; now there's where Atlanta could get its lake!! Since I'm using the urbandesignBLOGwithpeople, I should emphasize invitation to make corrections and additions to Urban Design AND People pd
Peggy Dobbins reply to artnews.pd
Frankly, my dears," I'm thrilled to see the Liberation of Atlanta celebrated. Go E. Atl and Kirkwood! I had been wanting to participate in a Liberation Procession over there where the monument of the, dare I say "surrender" occurred, at Marietta and NSide, between Nexus and Sandler-Hudson (I am forgetting the names of places) some Sept 2. But it looks as if the spirit has properly moved a sufficient mass for significant motion. Yay!! As for vacant lots and suspended kindaminimums, driving in to town (pop 2000) Mike was just talking about trying to get the code change to dis-require paving of parking lots. Permeable surfaces -- even gravel -- being better. He said there are some hard working enviros working on getting that along with other green building code amendments passed by C of Atl.
Mandie, I was glad to see your comment about new buildings with store fronts that will remain empty. Perfect eg of overdoing new formulaic mandates to correct the last ones. I'm forwarding this to Mr.-Pedestrians-gotta-have-
storefronts-Mike, who, coincidentally also remarked this morning that he ought to start sending in errors and omissions to Urban Design And People on the blog I started at Urbandesign.pro to promote it, and invite others to do so too so the next version will be a collective improvement.
Peggy aka IrvingDZeiner@Urbandesign.pro
well, dawgone. I've been messing with this an hour trying to include the exchanges towhich I was responding. anyone curious will just have to subscribe to artnews.pd
June 11,2009- Urban design jobs for changing economy By Urban Design WITH People | June 11, 2009 at 02:51 PM EDT | 2 comments I'm sitting in the lobby of the Congress for New Urbanism congress in Denver.
I just interrupted Michael Dobbins talking to two of his former students about where the jobs for urban designers are in the new economy. Aaron [ with Tunnell, Ward, and someone] said the big project guys are hurting, but "you know me, I learned my lessons. I'm starting a job I'm really excited about in North Little Rock. Bill Clinton is coming to do our kick off. We have a very enlightened long term investor with 40 acres with whom we're going to do agricultural projects in the interim. He's already started holding the farmers' market there." Dobbins' wife lept up and kissed him: "Just exactly what we were talking to the community around Ft. McPherson about."
Rebecca, [also with Tunnel ... they will have to blog on to promo proper corp id] took pics this am of a community garden 4 blocks n of where we are. (court & 18th). Brilliant. They just put raised beds with wood bottoms on top of the paving on a parking lot.
June 3,2009(my dad's birthday) Hello world! By Urban Design WITH People | June 03, 2009 at 12:41 PM EDT | No Comments (2 new) Frances posted a good question on the message board comments page about how citizen guided urban design interacts, (I would say "should" interact) vis a vis investment in real estate -- land and development. I think what she had in mind at the time were
if as Dobbins maintains in Urban Design and People, citizen guided design yields the best result meaning a) it happens, it gets built, which means those putting up the capital are satisfied with the projected return and b) it delivers community benefits as defined by citizens who participate in the design process and citizen guided design improves as a function of citizen information, transparency, "sunshine."
yet good public projects often fail because the land prices rise as a function of investments made on the basis of information about where projects are scheduled, Then, what is to be done?
I know when I related this to Mike, he said, 'that's one of the things people who argue against citizen guided urban design say. Jonathan would say that.
You'd think I'd be able to get Mike and Jonathan to debate on this site. Eventually. According to the guru on PBS last night, I just have to keep at it.
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