Aggregate Urbanism: streets

Showing posts with label streets. Show all posts

Everyday Landscape in Cal Anderson and Thomas Street Park

Min Koh

Placed in the densely populated area of Capitol Hill, Cal Anderson Park and Thomas Street Park provide good get-away spaces to the surrounding neighbors. Although two parks place in the same neighborhood of the Capitol Hill, they have many differences. Cal Anderson Park is a large park that placed between Denny Way and Pine Street with 11th AVE on the West, and a block away from Broadway to the East. Because of its location surrounded by busy streets and Seattle Central Community College, Cal Anderson is open to large number of floating populations. The park is also well organized with different activity areas for the users and neighbors: play area, public restrooms, water feature, soccer and baseball, and outdoor tennis courts with lights. Unlike Cal Anderson, which is 7.37 acre wide, Thomas Street Park is only 0.25 acre small site that located on the corner of Thomas Street and Bellevue Way. Not much program due to its small size, hilled grass area with one bench is all. Since two parks are only few blocks away from each other and take about 7 minutes of walking, I thought those two parks will make a good comparison to each other about who are the users? What kinds of activities are they looking for and happening on two different parks?

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.

http://maps.google.com/maps?client=safari&rls=en-us&q=santana+row+map&oe=UTF-8&um=1&ie=UTF-8&split=0&gl=us&ei=n9u-SYNmivawA8zYxbYM&sa=X&oi=geocode_result&resnum=1&ct=image

Rush. Rush. Wait...

Jenny Hampton

Within the urban landscape, there are often unplanned spaces where people have to wait for the next event to occur. These spaces can be incorporated into the everyday routine of people, or occur at certain times of the day, week, month, or year. These waiting spaces can consist of small groups often forming a larger group that eventually takes up a space in the city.

Waiting spaces are fluidity built upon everyday and develop differently over time. For example, at brunch spots in certain neighborhoods in the city, crowds of people can stand on the sidewalk around the hours of 10-2 on the weekend making a community of people, however any other time of day these city sidewalks would be just ordinary sidewalks.

Waiting spaces also take on a particular form. Some spaces can be shaped in a more sporadic nature, creating clusters and circles with no particular order. Whereas other waiting spaces are formed in a more linear approach, giving a controlled sense to the act of waiting.

Lastly, waiting spaces interrupt movement patterns throughout the city. Groups of people waiting act as yield signs throughout the city sidewalks, where people have to navigate through a temporarily occupied space to reach their destination. People can make a decision to join, pass-through or avoid a group of people creating a space by waiting.