Agenda - Planning Commission - 02/03/2005

Home

Visualizing Change: Photo-reirn. aging America's Built Landscape By Steve Price Man is an ima§inin§ bein§, --G^STOII 8^CHEL.~D (~884--:962) "Here is a beloved example of Columbia Pike architecture." '['he large hall full of people groaned as a photograph of a well-known Safeway store appeared on the giant screen. The photograph showed a windowless white wall facing the street, capped with a cheap red mansard roof. The site was emblematic of the whoie cord- dor--buiJdin§s that turn away from the street, that bespeak a lack of faith in the street as community space. Two hundred and seventy Arlington, Virginia, citizens sat watching a PowerPoint presentation about the future of the Coiumbia Pike, a three-and-a-half-mile strip arterial of fast food establishments, parking tots, pylon signs, and blank walls. Urban designer Victor Dover, of Dover-Kohl and Partners, was pre- sentin§the work of a design team at the end of a week-long charrette, Advocating hos- pitable urbanism for America's auto-oriented landscape can be a yep/difficult sell--citizens may not like present conditions, but it strains the public imagination to envision anything better. The urban design team's assignment; to craft a form-based code, a set of physical rules to govern the build-out of the Pike. "How would the avenue look if we required build- ings to face the street with plentiful windows and clear entrances accessible from the side- walk?" Dover pressed a button on his remote controt and the pt~otograph of the Safeway store with the brutal blank wail morphed into a three-story Federalist-style mixed-use build- ing with §Lass shop fronts, awnings, generous windows on the upper floors, and a row of street trees casting cooling shadows on the facade. A voice in the back of the room exclaimed, "YES!" and the rest of the room followed with enthusiastic applause. hanging the sidewalk morphed into attractive shop fronts with big windows facing' the side- walk. This time there was restrained applause. Two people were implausibly shown standin~ cbmfortably near the lane of traffic passing next to the curb. "The sidewalk shouid be a comfortable entrywby to stores and restau- rants, but there is something incom.plete about this image." Oover pressed his remote controt button and the photograph changed again; a line of parked cars appeared in the traffic lane, providing a physical barrier between pedestrians and fast-moving traffic. Hearty applause again erupted throughout the room. ' Photo-reimaging is a technique that can demonstrate development concepts in a pal- pabiy realistic way. It's a computerized virtual makeover of a !andscape through the alter- ation of a photograph, Photoshop is the favored tool. An existing-conditions photo- §raph of a tandscape is taken. Then other pho- ro~.ranhs ,)( buildings, trees, ~.treet {amos. the photograph. A new landscape based on the old is composed. The new vision looks like a photograph because most, if not all, of its components are photographic. As the great pragmatist philosopher John Dewey.said, the greatest challenge to the pub- lic is to find itself, to find what desires and' intentions are shared so as to coordinate sociai forces. 8ut how do diverse citizens arrive at shared intentions? Through the wide study of technical ana[ysis? Sprawl and urban decline represent scattered intentions, but analysis describes the problem, not the solu- tion. in his classic book, The Public and its Problems (New York: Holt, t9;~7), Oewey said that art is key: "Presentation is fundamentally important, and presentation is a question of art." The art of photo-reima§ing can be a pow- erful tool to help a community move towards agreement on intentions. Land development regulations need to be informed by community intentions. In mnsr -lmerican communities, we regulate 104 70NING?RACTIC,~ t2.o4 ~MERICAN gb~,FlNING ASSOC~A[IO[~ '. 2Pge 2