O O Ø O O O O
And The Winner Is...
Early this year I entered a short written piece in the Berkeley Undergraduate Prize for Architectural Design Excellence competition. Beyond the ponderous name, this is simply an essay competition to promote architecture writing and criticism, and to elaborate on “architecture as a social art.”
Given my aversion to anything containing forms of the word society, you might estimate that my prospects were poor. My policy while at school however, is to enter absolutely everything, and that includes the Berkeley Prize and its stated goal “to play a significant role in the new global arena of student discourse created by the Internet.”
The contest included these photos, and was to address the following question:
Throughout history, the Street has served as a mediator between our public and private lives.... With rapid change occurring today in every culture, the traditional social value of the street is also undergoing change and in many instances is losing this human element. As an architect, how do you address this issue?
On January 17, the Berkeley people announced 25 finalists. I was not one of them. I’m sure I wasn’t even close. Here’s my entry, under the equally weighty title of The Modern Scale And Speed Of The Street:
The problem of the loss of human scale on the street is a result of the denial of the accelerated and liberating nature of our technology. The roadway, as a mere conduit between private destinations, has compressed time at the expense of the human elements at the level of the street. These in turn have recoiled from the scale and tempo of the traffic, creating a widening rift between the private and public spheres.
As an architect, I must first put to rest any thought of putting the genie back in the bottle. Private individuals have readily adopted faster, more efficient technology as a solution to the problem of movement through space. At the same time, our public and transitional zones have adopted none of these. The solution isn’t to curtail or restrict the use of private vehicles around the street. The solution lies in the bold adoption of advanced technology and architecture to bring the human face of the public zones back to—and beyond—the edge of the roadway.
My plan is to restore the permeability of the street, not by turning my back on the thoroughfares, but by embracing them totally with a new architectural membrane that offers conveyance and transience in unlimited directions. This architecture will take into account the new scale and speed of the street, reflecting both in vigorous, arching forms. The sidewalk is no longer effective as a permeable lining by which to segregate thoroughfares from our various civic spaces. Architecture itself is now required to provide this permeability. No longer restricted to the simple two dimensional role of the walkway, complex forms will thrust both pedestrians and their destinations over and through the street, ending the segregation of journey and arrival. Finished too, will be the subjugation of individuals to their vehicles, as people are elevated physically and symbolically over their machines.
This membrane will become the substructure of the roadways themselves, permitting open access to the infrastructure services housed there. In this way, the architectural solution will simultaneously support and enclose private traffic and public destinations to achieve the desired gestalt: the street.
The resulting forms will be rational, quickened and linear. Their execution will be heroic.
Obviously, no architect could ask Prometheus to take back his gift. Our means of transportation have accelerated. So too should the architecture of our streets.
Oh, brother. I’m sure you can see what I mean.
Here’s what I should have entered:
As an architect, I can’t wave my magic wand (staff? rod? cane?) and halt the progression of the incursion of private spaces onto the territory of our public streets. I can’t roll back the evolution of our transportation into aggressive rolling fortresses. I can’t remake the connections between lost, accelerated souls. As an individual, I don’t decry these limitations any more so than I should rail against the colour of the sky. As an architect, however, my staff (mace? scarf?) does enable me to change the form of the city, its fabric, and its street to more appropriately address these three varied constraints: speed, privacy, aggression.
I will remove the asphalt from the roads, so those who have substituted sport and utility for an actual life can feel fulfilled, and their low ratio gears can finally see some use. As the streets become the new, rugged green space, the old pedestrian parks can be zoned for more repetitive commercial use. That way, although citizens will necessarily be slowed by the terrain, all their favourite destinations (Gap, Home Depot, Nike Word should do it,) will likely be within close trailblazing distance.
Green space will be fairly and equitably auctioned to private corporations in precisely the same manner as the radio spectrum. This ensures equal opportunities to all multi-billion dollar conglomerates. Proceeds from the auction will be used to ensure equitable access to consumption opportunities for all global citizens.
There remains the problem of the incursion of private space into the traditionally public area of the street. As an architect, I will acknowledge this move, and invert it once more by thrusting the public straight back into all private, commercial spaces: drive-throughs. All new development will feature mandatory (code) drive-through elements, creating a joyous public thoroughfare of private vehicles through private spaces.
Marvellous!
Not surprisingly, I wrote the latter copy in the bar, precisely 18 Pint Days ago. Does it show?
I can almost taste next year’s prize. It tastes like another beer.
Evan Spence
Tuesday, April 9,
2002
PD
DXLII