Alternative Urban Pattern Prototypes: Looking at Pomona/Los Angeles
GSD 1511, with Bing Wang, Spring 2006

The complexity within the formation of urban patterns is always beyond any mere comprehension of the form itself. A case in point is metropolitan Los Angeles. Within its various developmental stages, determined by the availability of new technology in transportation, altered by social and racial class structures and facilitated through modern financial techniques; the urban formative process of the metropolis Los Angeles defies any typical urban development prototype and has long been a controversial topic among design professionals. On one hand, it is regarded as a paradigmatic urban development pattern given its diverse, flexible economic sectors including financial, business services, fashion, high-tech and music recording, and its multi-racial demographic compositions; on the other hand, it is considered a devastating failure of urban design/planning represented by its endless urban sprawl on the form.

Today, in a new era of rapid developments of technology and financial instruments, we have one of the best opportunities to re-examine the developmental patterns within the urban context of Los Angeles to further understand the perplexing theoretical and practical urban issues and thus contemplate and develop new thinking (proposals) that would further sustain vibrancy of urbanism in the region.

The city of Pomona, with its identity as one of the collection of cities within the metropolitan boundary of Los Angeles and as an independent urban entity in its own right, provides a rich and challenging focal point for the studio. Pomona's multiple dimensional linkages with LA, together with the spillover of economic forces from the metropolis, have typically influenced the developmental market cycles and corresponding financial structures that facilitate, if not determined, its own urban formation. Located within a 30-minute drive from downtown LA, the city of Pomona is well surrounded by a modern infrastructural network of freeways and nearby Ontario International airport. Linear railroad tracks—a palpable symbol of the past modernization—have intersected the city center creating an evident physical boundary within the downtown area itself that awaits remediation. Its rigid urban grid-pattern as most American cities possess, based on utility and driven by real estate speculation, illustrates the morphological consequences of urban interventions in the past. With a population of 170,000 of whom more than 50% are Hispanic, and 1.1 million people residing within a 10-mile radius from the town center, Pomona's social diversity and cultural heterogeneity has been an active component in forming the architectural past and the current urbanism of the city. However, spatial urban voids left over by the modern infrastructure construction or as the undesired physical products of the operation of capital market and ownership structure are increasingly becoming barriers to a vibrant urbanism in cities at the scale of Pomona.

Pedagogical Framework

The pedagogical structure of the studio is two-fold: first, the students study the development of Pomona at the regional and city scale during the first three weeks of the term. A multi-disciplinary approach is encouraged so as to broaden the understanding the historical trajectory of developments in the region and in the city with a particular emphasis on real estate market mechanisms and economic forces among the confluence of many variables comprising of formal representations including planning regulatory systems, and social class structure.

Secondly, based on this platform of intellectual play with form and its underlying forces at the regional and urban scale, students narrow their focus to individual sites chosen from the seven potential study areas, all of which are critical urban developmental nodes of the city. With the emphasis on programmatic repositioning of the sites and alternative real estate financing structures (both public and private) for program implementation, formal proposals of design and planning are utilized as means to concretize programmatic strategies and thus construct visualized urbanism with specific architectural languages.

Studio Organization

Under the sponsorship of the City Council and the City Redevelopment Agency, students visit Pomona and its corresponding sites in late February / early March. During the trip, various meetings with City Council members, Planning, and Redevelopment Agency officials, and other key stakeholders including landowners, surrounding neighborhoods, civic leaders and others are scheduled to facilitate the understanding of the vision for the key areas as well as many dimensions that are part of strategic redevelopment planning for the City.

A social event with leading Southern California real estate developers, design and financial professionals also takes place in the new Los Angeles Cathedral, itself a master architectural piece.

Newry, Northern Ireland - Revealing History in Urban Reconstruction
GSD 1512, with Bing Wang, Spring 2005

Background

On April 10, 1998, a historic peace deal was signed between the Nationalists and the Unionists in Northern Ireland, UK. As part of the deal, the Republic of Ireland abandoned its constitutional claim over the territory of Northern Ireland. The town of Newry is situated on the main road from Dublin to Belfast, one hour from each city, and just north of the border. It had been the scene of many violent episodes during the thirty year conflict.

Six years later, Newry is bursting with activity and the signs of the peace dividend. In fact, if one did not know about the conflict, one would see few indications that it had ever occurred. Newry is where economic activities linking Northern Ireland with the Republic of Ireland are joined.

Site and Program

Newry and Mourne District Council in conjunction with Gerard O’Hare, a major local developer, are sponsoring this Studio to provide design and development alternatives for a key site adjacent to the old town center called the Albert Basin. The site is located on an island, bordered to the east by Newry Canal, the oldest summit level cannel built in the British Isles and to the west by Newry River. Announced by the District Council in 2003, the site is set to become a significant new city centre of mixed use development in Newry. Programs for the 15 acre site must reconcile a number of competing uses including residential, retail, industrial, water-oriented recreation, art entertainment, a proposed stadium, open space, and port activities. This juxtaposition of historic urban infrastructural elements, picturesque townscape as well as recent modern commercial and industrial facilities constitutes the immediate urban context surrounding the site and reflects a unique potential urbanism for Newry, Northern Ireland.

Pedagogic Objectives

The focus of the Studio is to understand the site both as physically static and ideologically floating.

Physically, the historic imprint on the urban morphology of Newry has created a basic formal context for the site. The aim of the Studio is to use design as an effective means to provide strategies and solutions for a complex set of urban problems encountered by a rapid pace of urbanization together with economic growth in a town with a long and turbulent history. History itself becomes a medium for the transformation of this historic town from its past to its continuous future and in this process design acts as a revealing agent of the constantly mutating urban form.

At the same time, ideologically, the site is understood as a multi-layered floating construct, operating on planes as diverse and as broad as the financial, legal, political or ecological. The challenge of the Studio is to integrate design strategies with these multi-layered focuses, especially the economic forces driving real estate development of the city, as elements for reconstruction of the city’s current urbanscape.

Studio Organization

The Studio initiates with a site visit in February to Newry, Northern Ireland. City leaders from both government and the private sector are intensely interested in the results of the Studio and may participate in mid-term and final juries. Students evaluate how the site interacts with the rest of the urban context. They provide design solutions for the site and examine alternative sites with potential for development, and recommend a strategic development framework for the city, taking into account Newry’s role as a regional transit center, economic hub and a gateway between Belfast and Dublin. Design scenarios for the site need to meet the City’s goals and be responsive to historical urban forms and architectural styles, as well as local economic and real estate market conditions. GSD students will interact with planning and real estate students from the University of Ulster in Belfast, who work simultaneously on the project.

Alternative Futures for the West Lake, Hangzhou, People's Republic of China
GSD 1402, GSD 1502, Fall 2001
with Carl Steinitz

The studio began with an intensive 13-day visit to China in late August. Extensive tours of Hangzhou and Shanghai provided students with the opportunity to evaluate the issues of development, growth management, and environmental protection now facing southeastern China. Detailed site visits and extensive surveys were conducted in Hangzhou to record and document existing conditions and types of development. Meetings were held with Hangzhou officials and planners and with representatives of its real estate development industry. In order to determine land use allocations, it was assumed that the study area would absorb one third of the region’s urban development in the next 20 years. From this assumption, the following built program was derived: 11 million square meters of residential, which can accommodate approximately a half-million new residents, 945,000 square meters of retail, 945,000 square meters of new office space, 500,000 square meters of civic space, including government and cultural, and 2 million square meters of industrial. It was also agreed that within the 20 year horizon the city would absorb a new University and Convention Center. Thus, 150,000 square meters was assigned to a University campus and 500,000 square meters was reserved for a Convention Center. Several planning concepts were represented in our three alternatives, which we believed should be incorporated in any plan for this area. There were major differences among the three alternative plans prepared in the studio. The most important differences were the location of a new Hangzhou government center, the distribution of office and commercial centers, transport systems, and major public amenities. Hangzhou’s important role in Chinese history, its West Lake, and its exceptional natural and cultural environment serve to create an "image" of Hangzhou as a great city. We believe that our alternative designs for a new city center on the Qiantang River envision a future Hangzhou that continues to enjoy the highest possible urban, environmental, and economic qualities.

The Revitalization of Underperforming Shopping Centers into Mixed-Use Village Centers
GSD 1320-18, Spring 2000
with Martin Zogran

One of the most significant design and development challenges in the coming decade will be the redevelopment of large infill sites within virtually every metropolitan region in the United States. Among the most attractive class of infill properties offering redevelopment potential are first- and second-generation shopping centers. Most of these properties are twenty to thirty-five years in age and tend to be located inside the first suburban ring of a region. They have typically been made obsolete by newer, more modern facilities out in the second and third suburban rings. While these properties are often large enough and well-located enough to make them excellent infill sites, they are usually not affordable until they cycle through the entire devaluation process to the point when they can be sold solely for their land value. However, that may often take another seven to fifteen years, and in the meantime the property might sit vacant or become home to a series of incompatible uses in a desperate attempt to keep it alive. There are numerous malls around the country whose land could be converted to a more stable, long-term use if there were mechanisms to accelerate the redevelopment from the inevitable devaluation. Such tools would help many towns struggling with large nonproductive properties that provide ever-decreasing tax revenues and are often located in highly visible sites within their communities. It also would make available a significant inventory of large, affordable infill sites for denser and more compact development. The spring development studio brought an interdisciplinary approach to the investigation of different strategies to redevelop these older shopping centers. The emphasis was on exploring practical solutions that integrated market conditions, community objectives and impacts, urban design relationships, owner financial performance, and lending criteria by both the private and public sector. Following a three-week, all-studio case study exercise on Assembly Square Mall in Somerville, students formed teams to undertake the analysis of shopping malls in three cities: Los Angeles, Denver, and Syracuse. The sites present different redevelopment situations ranging from high demand in a suburban location to uncertain market potential in an inner-city location. All sites are expected to require mixed-use solutions that include residential as well as commercial uses. While each team focused on a single site, the comparison of solutions for the three sites was expected to contribute to our understanding of how different design approaches may be more or less successful under different conditions. Several interested parties sponsored this studio, including the Congress for New Urbanism, the International Council of Shopping Centers, McFarland Partners, Community Redevelopment Agency, CEO Center Trust, Continuum Partners, and City of Lakewood, CO. CNU has initiated the study to propose solutions to accelerate the reutilization of older shopping centers into vital, pedestrian-oriented, mixed-use places.

Alternative Futures of the West Lake, Hangzhou, People's Republic of China
GSD 1310-04, GSD 1320-01, Fall 2000
with Carl Steinitz

Translated into English, the title of this studio, “Tian Ren He Yi,” means “Nature and Humanity in Harmony.” Throughout its history, the West Lake has exemplified this Chinese ideal. The West Lake is located on the western edge of the City of Hangzhou, 200 kilometers from the East China Sea in the People’s Republic of China. The lake itself covers an area of 568 hectares within an area of 60 square kilometers designated by the City of Hangzhou as the West Lake Scenic Area. Bounded on two sides by a city with an urban area of approximately 150 square kilometers, the lake and its environs are threatened by the pressures of tourism and urban development. The work of this studio is part of an ongoing effort by the City of Hangzhou and the Bureau of Landscape to define an action plan to protect the cultural and natural integrity of the West Lake. Such a plan is essential for obtaining UNESCO recognition as a World Heritage Site. The studio approached the question of the West Lake’s future by exploring six issues: tourism, history, ecology, transportation, development, and visual quality. Key objectives were then established: to protect the West Lake and its resources; to accommodate future growth around the West Lake; and to direct future growth to other areas of the city. Development continues to occur in the downtown, but limited road access and stringent height requirements push taller, non-tourist-related development further away from the lake. New regulations resulting from UNESCO recognition of the West Lake as a World Heritage Site also control lakeside development. The new amenities and transportation infrastructure pull a significant amount of development away from the lake area to new locations. Smaller hotels and residential uses are able to compete for locations near the lake on the city side, reducing pressure to develop in the Scenic Area. New visitor centers, road improvements, and added tourist sites near the lake are likely to improve tourist circulation and achieve a more even distribution of visitors around the West Lake. Projects relating to the water quality of the West Lake will likely have the desired results, improving lake water. By simulating the development process in three alternative scenarios, the studio assessed the potential distribution of anticipated future development. Three alternative futures were developed, each with more amenities than the previous, more transportation and infrastructure projects, more ecological improvement projects, and increasing regulatory control. Each alternative was then evaluated according to the objectives in the six key issues. In addition to the implementation of projects and regulations, the studio recommended creating a new special management area, which would be proposed to UNESCO as the West Lake area-of-influence. A comprehensive management plan with specific performance standards, which would coordinate efforts among all stakeholders, should be adopted to protect and maintain this area. A centralized management agency must be designated to carry out the management plan. This agency must have the authority to enforce regulations and to grant discretionary approval for development in the West Lake area. It should also have legislative capabilities for drafting regulations—not general policies or informal agreements. Finally, it must have influence over regional development activities insofar as they affect the West Lake. Adequate funding is crucial for the plan to meet its stated objectives. This funding must be provided by stakeholders and not depend on revenues from further development around the West Lake. For the long-term future, greater investment and a broader base of support provides greater returns. Most important, this will assure the protection of the West Lake as one of the world’s most treasured landscapes. This studio was sponsored by the City of Hangzhou.