One of the many things I love about cities.
Wednesday, October 27, 2010
Venice Biennale
Wednesday, October 20, 2010
Ørestad Part 2
Continued from part 1
The first thing you notice when you arrive at Ørestad City--by bike, at least--is that it's difficult to tell that you've arrived. After entering the site from the west I found myself in an ambiguous space surrounded by parking lots, a few department stores, and the rear ends of apartment buildings. In the hour I spent criss-crossing the site, I never found the "100% corner." I don't think there is one. Not yet at least.
What I did find were some classic urban design blunders.
The elevated Metro line slices through the center of Ørestad from north to south, creating a ribbon of these shadowed interzones through the development. While they've been spruced up with landscaping and water features, they still feel like smaller versions of the Alaska Way Viaduct: okay during the day, perhaps, but spooky at night and lacking in street life. I'm not going to blame the designers of Ørestad for creating the problem. I doubt the planning of the Metro was under their control. But it is unfortunate that the physical center of this town is a series of underpasses.
Just up the street I found a much less forgivable condition. Get a load of this facade.
There is no excuse for such an antisocial frontage in a dense, urban area--especially on a main drag. In a city like Copenhagen this comes across as surprisingly inept. I wonder how the development regulations missed it. By the way, notice that utility cabinet. After only a few years in this unwatched space it stands dented and vandalized.
Under the train tracks, on the east side of Ørestad City, we have the only collection of leased street-level commercial space I found during my visit.
You feel like you're about 2 feet tall while walking along this streetwall, thanks to that cladding that extends, unvaryingly, from the top of the entranceways to something like 50' up. That's beyond your peripheral vision when you're looking straight ahead, so you get the sense that it continues up forever. The outdoor seating is right there in the walkway, no awning, alcove, or ropes to give you some psychological separation from the public way. Compare this to an image I took of the streetwall along the main drag of Greenville, SC (my sweetie's home town). Where would you choose to sit to drink your cup of coffee?
There are things I liked about Ørestad. All the residents are within walking distance of a Metro stop.
Between that and the long term plan for the town, which calls for a mix of shopping, employment, and housing, the vehicle miles traveled for Ørestad residents (and, consequently, their carbon emissions) will probably be low. I couldn't read the Danish-language promotional materials, but I got the impression that the area uses advanced wastewater treatment techniques. I'm sure the buildings are built to high environmental standards. And then there's that wind turbine we saw in the previous post.
I liked the look of the buildings, generally. They were fresh without any Gehry-like absurdity.
In other positive impressions, I was surprised at how much I enjoyed the central green. It's a large space, surrounded by apartment blocks. Here's a model of it that I spotted at Denmark's exhibit at the Venice Biennale, so you can get a sense of the scale. North is toward the upper left.
And here's a photo from the ground level.
I was prepared to dismiss it as Radiant City folly; Corbusier's "towers in a park" scheme was the inspiration for some of the most tragic and alienating urban planning of the 20th century. Maybe it was because the sun was shining that day, or maybe it's because this area is new and entropy hasn't set in, but I thought the grassy area was quite pleasant. There were families using the playgrounds. Mounds--like you see on the left of the above photo--divided up the space into more manageable pieces, so you never felt overwhelmed. If I had to improve it, I would only add commerce to the center, maybe some food vendors, to give people a reason to visit and to create a hub for people watching.
Ørestad is struggling. Many of the commercial spaces are empty and there aren't many people walking around. That's especially disappointed considering how much I want places like this to succeed. On paper it's doing the big things right. It's got the density. It's oriented around transit. It mixes uses. This is what we must do as a society if we're going to tame climate change and rebuild our cities. Maybe Ørestad's slump will pass in time. Maybe more residents will trickle in, and businesses will follow, and you'll have more people on the street than I saw. But even if it fills up completely, you've got irreversible damage at the street level. It's just not a pleasant place to walk around.
For example, look at the ground floor of the building to the right. How could a sucking void like this have been constructed here? Street-level garages like this one are banned along Eastlake Ave, a comparable street in my old neighborhood in Seattle. Seattle's pretty progressive when it comes to urbanism, but I wouldn't expect it to outperform Copenhagen. And yet here we are.
I think part of the problem has to do with the way Ørestad was created. A handful of architectural firms were given design control over individual portions of the development. They each had a blank slate. In that vacuum, with no context to draw upon, they all built monuments. Nobody built the ordinary buildings that form the fabric of a city. Don't get me wrong, I like monuments when appropriately spaced. But a town that's entirely monuments is like a party guest who begins every sentence with the word "I."
The experience of visiting Ørestad got me thinking about a book I read recently, The Timeless Way of Building. In it, author Christopher Alexander encourages the architecture and urban design communities to seek common languages of design, or "pattern languages." Users of a pattern language are free to innovate within commonly understood limits. For example, some communities might reach a consensus that the right height of its buildings is four stories, but that the colors should be up to the owner. Like the syntax of a spoken language, a pattern language might also mandate that some classes of design features must be paired with others; buildings must have sidewalks or pedestrian pathways, for example.
In Ørestad can you see what happens when builders lack a shared language of design. Instead of a city you get a collection of buildings. I don't know all of Ørestad's backstory, or who did what job. But I hope as the city continues to develop the area it attends to this problem. Short of a consensus among architects about what constitutes good urbanism, we need someone overseeing these projects whose job it is enforce some basic constraints.
The first thing you notice when you arrive at Ørestad City--by bike, at least--is that it's difficult to tell that you've arrived. After entering the site from the west I found myself in an ambiguous space surrounded by parking lots, a few department stores, and the rear ends of apartment buildings. In the hour I spent criss-crossing the site, I never found the "100% corner." I don't think there is one. Not yet at least.
What I did find were some classic urban design blunders.
The elevated Metro line slices through the center of Ørestad from north to south, creating a ribbon of these shadowed interzones through the development. While they've been spruced up with landscaping and water features, they still feel like smaller versions of the Alaska Way Viaduct: okay during the day, perhaps, but spooky at night and lacking in street life. I'm not going to blame the designers of Ørestad for creating the problem. I doubt the planning of the Metro was under their control. But it is unfortunate that the physical center of this town is a series of underpasses.
Just up the street I found a much less forgivable condition. Get a load of this facade.
Under the train tracks, on the east side of Ørestad City, we have the only collection of leased street-level commercial space I found during my visit.
You feel like you're about 2 feet tall while walking along this streetwall, thanks to that cladding that extends, unvaryingly, from the top of the entranceways to something like 50' up. That's beyond your peripheral vision when you're looking straight ahead, so you get the sense that it continues up forever. The outdoor seating is right there in the walkway, no awning, alcove, or ropes to give you some psychological separation from the public way. Compare this to an image I took of the streetwall along the main drag of Greenville, SC (my sweetie's home town). Where would you choose to sit to drink your cup of coffee?
There are things I liked about Ørestad. All the residents are within walking distance of a Metro stop.
Between that and the long term plan for the town, which calls for a mix of shopping, employment, and housing, the vehicle miles traveled for Ørestad residents (and, consequently, their carbon emissions) will probably be low. I couldn't read the Danish-language promotional materials, but I got the impression that the area uses advanced wastewater treatment techniques. I'm sure the buildings are built to high environmental standards. And then there's that wind turbine we saw in the previous post.
I liked the look of the buildings, generally. They were fresh without any Gehry-like absurdity.
In other positive impressions, I was surprised at how much I enjoyed the central green. It's a large space, surrounded by apartment blocks. Here's a model of it that I spotted at Denmark's exhibit at the Venice Biennale, so you can get a sense of the scale. North is toward the upper left.
I was prepared to dismiss it as Radiant City folly; Corbusier's "towers in a park" scheme was the inspiration for some of the most tragic and alienating urban planning of the 20th century. Maybe it was because the sun was shining that day, or maybe it's because this area is new and entropy hasn't set in, but I thought the grassy area was quite pleasant. There were families using the playgrounds. Mounds--like you see on the left of the above photo--divided up the space into more manageable pieces, so you never felt overwhelmed. If I had to improve it, I would only add commerce to the center, maybe some food vendors, to give people a reason to visit and to create a hub for people watching.
...
Ørestad is struggling. Many of the commercial spaces are empty and there aren't many people walking around. That's especially disappointed considering how much I want places like this to succeed. On paper it's doing the big things right. It's got the density. It's oriented around transit. It mixes uses. This is what we must do as a society if we're going to tame climate change and rebuild our cities. Maybe Ørestad's slump will pass in time. Maybe more residents will trickle in, and businesses will follow, and you'll have more people on the street than I saw. But even if it fills up completely, you've got irreversible damage at the street level. It's just not a pleasant place to walk around.
For example, look at the ground floor of the building to the right. How could a sucking void like this have been constructed here? Street-level garages like this one are banned along Eastlake Ave, a comparable street in my old neighborhood in Seattle. Seattle's pretty progressive when it comes to urbanism, but I wouldn't expect it to outperform Copenhagen. And yet here we are.
I think part of the problem has to do with the way Ørestad was created. A handful of architectural firms were given design control over individual portions of the development. They each had a blank slate. In that vacuum, with no context to draw upon, they all built monuments. Nobody built the ordinary buildings that form the fabric of a city. Don't get me wrong, I like monuments when appropriately spaced. But a town that's entirely monuments is like a party guest who begins every sentence with the word "I."
The experience of visiting Ørestad got me thinking about a book I read recently, The Timeless Way of Building. In it, author Christopher Alexander encourages the architecture and urban design communities to seek common languages of design, or "pattern languages." Users of a pattern language are free to innovate within commonly understood limits. For example, some communities might reach a consensus that the right height of its buildings is four stories, but that the colors should be up to the owner. Like the syntax of a spoken language, a pattern language might also mandate that some classes of design features must be paired with others; buildings must have sidewalks or pedestrian pathways, for example.
In Ørestad can you see what happens when builders lack a shared language of design. Instead of a city you get a collection of buildings. I don't know all of Ørestad's backstory, or who did what job. But I hope as the city continues to develop the area it attends to this problem. Short of a consensus among architects about what constitutes good urbanism, we need someone overseeing these projects whose job it is enforce some basic constraints.
Monday, October 18, 2010
Agh! It's dripping funny smelling water on me!
I recently got an envelope from my sweetie back in the USA. Oh boy! As I handled it I noticed it was thicker than a sheet of paper. I opened it up and tipped out the contents into my hand.
'Gee, how did these get past customs?' I wondered. After dutifully swallowing a few and waiting an hour, my gut told me that maybe they weren't pills after all. No, they were something much better: toy sponges!
Like Bart Simpson in 3F02, I had diabolical plans for these babies.
So I popped one in a glass of water. It sat there doing nothing. I poked it. It bobbed. I waited. And waited. 15 minutes went by. Then another.
Finally the gelatin coating dissolved enough to release its monstrous contents. I peered down...
So I'm thinking,
Right?
But a few minutes later I saw that, in fact, I had a giraffe on my hands.
Majestic? Yes. Absurd? Sadly no.
Like Bart Simpson in 3F02, I had diabolical plans for these babies.
So I popped one in a glass of water. It sat there doing nothing. I poked it. It bobbed. I waited. And waited. 15 minutes went by. Then another.
Finally the gelatin coating dissolved enough to release its monstrous contents. I peered down...
So I'm thinking,
But a few minutes later I saw that, in fact, I had a giraffe on my hands.
Majestic? Yes. Absurd? Sadly no.
Monday, October 11, 2010
Ørestad Part 1
Sunday was a beautiful, crisp fall day here in Copenhagen, and I took the opportunity to visit a place I've heard a lot about: Ørestad. Ørestad is a “new town,” a built-from-scratch development outside of the city. Fellow students described it (positively) as a showcase of modern architecture, but always with the caveat that the street life “is weird” or “doesn't work.” The City of Bellevue, where I've interned for the past two years, is working with Sound Transit and the private sector to develop the areas around the East Link light rail stations, and this seemed like a good opportunity to see how Copenhagen—a smart growth giant—performed when it got a similar chance.
The Danish parliament passed the enabling legislation for Ørestad in the early 1990s as part of a long term plan to channel growth and boost the competitiveness of the region. The Øresund bridge, which now links Copenhagen and Malmö, Sweden, was also included in that plan. The legislation created a company—jointly owned by the Copenhagen municipality and the state—to oversee an architecture competition and to develop the site. If all goes according to plan, Ørestad will some day be home to 20,000 people and 80,000 jobs. A strip of land about 3 miles long and 2000' wide, it straddles an impressive confluence of infrastructure: a regional rail line, a metro line, bus lines, arterials, and a motorway leading to the Øresund bridge. It's a monster TOD by Western standards.
I approached Ørestad by bike, across the Sjællandsbroen (“Zealand Bridge”) which connects mainland Copenhagen to Amager island across the Kalvebodløbet waterway. You can see Ørestad rising in the background of this photo.
Ørestad's far enough from the central city that I'm guessing your typical cyclist won't be pedaling out there. It feels like it's in the middle of nowhere.
Speaking of, you might expect transportation planners to cut corners in this context, painting a bike lane instead of pouring a grade-separated cycle track, for instance. You'd be wrong. I was on paths and tracks the entire four miles from my apartment building to the site. That's one of the great things about Copenhagen. You can trust the network, even through the least-trafficked segments. In the U.S. the infrastructure would have shriveled up and died on the side of some 50 mph highway, leaving me to white-knuckle it along the shoulder. I'm convinced that, especially for vulnerable users, the chain is only as strong as its weakest link.
Moving on now. Here are a couple of shots to show you just how strange this place looks from the outside. You've got avant-garde, high-density architecture next to a wind turbine, next to...a huge empty field?
When I was a kid I read a sci-fi short story about the last humans on a 50th-century Earth. They ran out the clock by sailing around and using nanoassemblers to conjure up replicas of cities from the wasteland. I was reminded of that story while standing here, alone between the shiny new buildings and the not-quite-natural grassland of the Amager Fælled.
Saturday, October 9, 2010
Balkans expenses
Kristen and I traveled through six of the Balkan states back in August, and it was interesting to see how much prices varied from country to country. It felt like a big spread. Since then I've wanted to see that data in a graphical format, so with some time today I went ahead and made a chart. The green line is a three day rolling average, and the gray dots are individual withdrawals, with $0 values for the days when we didn't withdraw anything.
As I remembered, Macedonia and Albania were the least expensive, with prices going up as you go north toward Central Europe. The overall average day was about $125 for the two of us. That does not include plane tickets, but it does include a five day car rental in Slovenia. Not too shabby!
Sunday, October 3, 2010
A day in my life
Hello friends and family! I've prepared a photo tour of one of my typical days here in Copenhagen. Below is a map with numbers; these correspond to the numbered photos below. We'll be following my commute, starting at my apartment building, riding through town to school, and then back again.
1.
This is the front entrance of Otto Mønteds Kollegium ('Danmarks Bedste Kollegium!'), where I live. Kollegiums (Kollegia?) are basically unaffiliated dorms--students from any school can live in one. My floor is all graduate students.
Built in 1956 and very much of its time, OMK isn't the prettiest building to look at from the outside, but the rooms are nice and so is the social atmosphere. In the foreground is my bike. It's too small for me, but it's zippy.
2.
And we're off. We've hopped on the bike and are leaving Rektorparken street and joining the main road. On the left is the old Carlsberg brewery.
3.
Now we're headed east on Ingerslevsgade, which parallels the track tracks that enter town from the west. As you can see there's not a lot to look at on this stretch of road, but, being next to the tracks, there are few cross streets to deal with so you can cover a lot of ground quickly. That's good in my case, because I live relatively far from my school.
4.
We've arrived in the city center and are passing by the central train station, also known as Hovedbanegård. I just call it the central station. Lot of bikes here. This is the overflow parking. There are rows and rows of racks on the other sides of this building and they're always packed.
Behind the station you can see one of the rides in Tivoli, Copenhagen's amusement park/promenade/fair food spot. I think it just closed for the season, but it will reopen for Christmas, when they deck it out. Kristen, we're definitely going.
5.
6.
We're crossing another canal, out of the city center an into the neighborhood of Christianshavn. This is an artificial island, built in the early 17th century. On a canal tour I took with the other international students, the guide told us that the king at the time had to offer tax benefits to entice people to live there, since it was unpleasantly marshy and wind-swept. Now it's a hip part of town.
8.
A plaza in Christianshavn, just off Torvegade. This is the middle of the day, so there aren't too many people around other than those guys on the left, drinking on the benches. I'm pretty sure they were Greenland natives (Greenland was a Danish colony). Sadly, alcoholism and rootlessness seem to be common problems in that community.
9.
We've turned left off of Torvegade and are riding northeast along Prinsessagade. This picture doesn't do it justice, but the spiraling steeple of the Vor Frelsers Kirke (Church of Our Savior) is one of the highlights of my ride. It shines a brilliant gold in the sun.
10.
Past the Church of Our Savior, on the right, we ride by the main entrance to Christiania, Copenhagen's famous "experimental community." Christiania got its start back in the '70s, when hippies took over a naval base and repurposed it as a commune. To me, Christiania seems a mixed success. You still have healthy, happy families there, doing their communal living thing. On the other hand, the open sale of marijuana and freewheeling vibe has attracted organized crime and a raft of junkies and burnouts.
11.
Continuing down Prinsessegade, we see the fence marking off Christiania, which residents have decorated with some well-done graffiti murals.
12.
13.
14.
...until we finally arrive at my school. This is Building Y, home to the department of architecture, city, and landscape. There are 9 departments at the Arkitektskole, numbered 1 - 11 (two are defunct). Each has a three-word title, and they range in scope from large (city planning) to small (furniture design). The school is located in Holmen, a decommissioned naval base that escaped the attention of those Christiania hippies. Let's go inside, shall we?
15.
This is my desk. I just got assigned it the other week.
16.
A few of my Department 1 classmates. On the left is Francis, from England, and on the right is Gunnar, from Iceland. This last week we were working on an assignment in which we had propose, rapid fire, a series of interventions for a neighborhood in Copenhagen.
17.
Back outside, we've walked west and are passing by a row of housing. This is one of those "home zone" or "woonerf" road treatments I heard so much about back in the US: no curbs, very slow traffic. Good show, sirs, good show.
18.
Now we're at the western edge of my campus, looking at some boats that are tied up in a canal. Beyond is the harbor. During the first week of school, teams of first year students had to cross this canal as a sort of game or hazing ritual. They all dressed up in costumes; there was lots of laughing and falling in the water. Luckily for them, the water in Copenhagen's harbor is clean enough to swim in.
19.
The nice thing about going to an architecture school is that you are surrounded by fancy, artsy stuff. Like this, an exhibit of the work of architect Kristin Jarmund.
20.
High tea with the cats in Department 11. I thank the English students for introducing me to this ritual. From left to right: Francis (England), Sally (New Zealand), Mario (Spain), Hollie (England).
21.
Built in 1956 and very much of its time, OMK isn't the prettiest building to look at from the outside, but the rooms are nice and so is the social atmosphere. In the foreground is my bike. It's too small for me, but it's zippy.
2.
3.
Now we're headed east on Ingerslevsgade, which parallels the track tracks that enter town from the west. As you can see there's not a lot to look at on this stretch of road, but, being next to the tracks, there are few cross streets to deal with so you can cover a lot of ground quickly. That's good in my case, because I live relatively far from my school.
4.
Behind the station you can see one of the rides in Tivoli, Copenhagen's amusement park/promenade/fair food spot. I think it just closed for the season, but it will reopen for Christmas, when they deck it out. Kristen, we're definitely going.
5.
We're still in the center, crossing a canal. I cheated with this photo--my actual route is the road on the right, but this was the better shot. That dome in the upper right is the Christiansborg Palace Chapel, and the green spire to the left is the steeple of the Nikolaj Church, Copenhagen's first church, which was built in 1200. The copper-clad steeple is circa 1909. Nowadays the building is used as an art center.
We've gone past the chapel and have taken a right; now we're looking back over our right shoulder at this statue of Frederik VII, which was installed ten years after the king died, in 1873. Frederik is notable for overseeing the adoption of Denmark's first democratic constitution. I like to imagine that this gentleman and his long-suffering horse are showing me to the way to school, gesturing with his outstretched hand.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.
We cross another canal...
13.
And another...
14.
15.
16.
17.
18.
19.
20.
21.
We're headed back home now. This is rush hour on Copenhagen's cycle tracks. No spandex here. No mercy either. If you aren't quick off the blocks, or break an unwritten rule, you'll get the business.
22.
Our tour ends with dinner in my floor's shared kitchen. These are a few of the wonderful people I live and eat with: Felippe, Johan, Lauge, Ida, and Steffen.
And that's it. I hope you enjoyed a day in my life.
And that's it. I hope you enjoyed a day in my life.
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