Outdoor Commercial Entertainment Malls: Disneyland or Genus Loci

Erin Berg

The West Coast population continues to grow and some of the most popular regions have become conglomerates of several auto-dominated municipalities that, from the eye of the driver, merge seamlessly. The backbones of these communities are freeways and the hearts of these communities are boulevards. Most of the time you leave your house, you are bound for your car door only to get out again when you have arrived at your specific destination. Therefore, a day-to-day experience involves little walking, only intended social encounters and a sensory experience limited to what is seen out of the windshield. Many people are not satisfied with this narrow experience and developers are recognizing a new market.
Outdoor commercial entertainment malls are gaining popularity and may soon pop up all over the country. The urban design techniques employed in these developments create a comfortable pedestrian experience and a vibrant urban landscape. They are places where you can park you car just one time, walk around, interact with other people, feel the sun, smell the restaurants and see the flowers. Santana Row is one of these developments. Although Santana Row shows us how good urban design can activate a place, it’s sense of place is contrived. Foreign imported artifacts create a Disneyland effect while the pear orchards previously on-site are forgotten with its authentic genus loci.

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University Heights Center for Community

Josho Somine
LARCH 598
Winter 2009
Final Site Assessment

Site Summary
The University Heights Center for Community (UHCC) occupies a full city block north and west of NE 50th St. and University Way NE in Seattle. A large old building, formerly an elementary school, occupies the center of the block, and is surrounded by parking lots and a variety of small open spaces. The building facilities are managed by a nonprofit organization, and several other organizations rent spaces inside. Some additional rooms are available for classes and events.
The spatial and temporal uses outside the building are similarly diverse. Paved parking makes up about 2/3 of all the open space, and has multiple tenants with jurisdiction over certain sections of the lots. One large lot is turned over to the district Farmers’ Market on Saturday mornings, which is heavily attended year-round. The site also contains 2 playgrounds, one private and one public, a community garden, a small enclosed lawn, and a public entrance plaza. (See site diagram and context diagram for details of the layout.)
The Center’s stated focus is “our local community, children, arts and education, and continuing education” , and they encourage a changeable variety of tenant organizations and activities. (See current list in Appendix A) Although there is an effort to be welcoming, there is also some conflict implicit with the “seedier” aspects of the adjoining neighborhood, which is reflected in an abundance of fencing and regulatory signage all around the site.

Slideshow:

the everyday edge

The everyday edge is not a particular place. Instead it is the agglomeration of the many metaphorical boundaries between our everyday spaces: a crosswalk, a curb cut, the space between inside and outside, and the threshold or sometimes plaza between the public sidewalk and the private office. It is a boundary between the safety of the sidewalk and the untamed dangers of the automobile road. It determines the limits of public and private. It is also the informal stage where we perform our public life and share this with each other. The everyday edge is the third place, between home and work where we see the same person on the corner everyday, and on some days stop to talk or just say hello. These acts are the essence of our participation in a democratic society, and the design of the everyday edge is the hidden curriculum of democratic education. The daily performances of everyday people manifest the care we show to our home and society. Some of these spaces are left over, abandon by formal use, and become new homes to the underprivileged. Everyday people contribute pieces of paper from their pockets, a paper bag from the grocery store, a traffic cone abandon by construction crews, and many plastic bags and wrappers. Little hollow spaces collect debris, build soil, and slowly everyday plants take hold.

Everyday Sidewalks

James Ellingboe

Sidewalk as Platform

Location: Seattle downtown retail core: map.

Are sidewalks just for moving people?

The following observations demonstrate that sidewalks are platforms for a multitude of forums. In this particular case study, entrepreneurial, political, and entertainment forums from Seattle’s Pike Street Public Market up Pine Street through the downtown retail core. The observed activities seemed to follow a pattern of being located at street intersection corners or at mid-block. These areas of activity also happened to coincide with the sunniest parts of the street, an important note for a cold January day.

The intended timing of the observations was to be during the lunch hour, but even an hour or so after the lunch crowds had vacated the sidewalks, there was plenty of pedestrian activity to warrant the presence of people using the sidewalk as a performance, sales, religious, or political platform. All of these activities lend to a vibrancy of social life within the urban form.

Good urban design should afford opportunities for people to use the public realm, as participants or observers, for a variety of discourse. Good sidewalk design should allow people the choice to ebb away from these observed activities or flow through them.