SUPER SUB URBAN Anthony Vischansky
TABLE OF CONTENTS
1 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Abstract 2 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Thesis Statement 3 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Research 3.1 Area of Focus Summary 3.2 Literature Review 3.3 Questions/Theoretical Issues Raised 3.4 Architectural Issues 3.5 Architectural Precedents 4 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Site + Context Analysis 4.1 Maps of Site 4.2 Site Documentation 4.3 Site Studies 4.4 Site Parameters 5 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Program 5.1 Program Type, Description, and Assessment 5.2 Programmatic Elements and Interrelationships 5.3 Graphic Representation of Program 6 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Conceptual / Preliminary Design Studies 6.1 Studies/Devices Revealing Architectonic Ideas 7 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Conclusions 8 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Bibliography
ABSTRACT + THESIS STATEMENT
1 + 2
American community ideology, rooted in antiquated agrarian ideals, would have us believe that “the good life� lies outside the realm of the city. This has promoted a culture engrossed in individual freedoms, manifesting itself in the changing settlement structures of the early twentieth century. Suburban settlements were not immune to the pervading community bias and were unable to detach themselves from a fundamentally rural sentiment of home. The resulting urban neglect has produced a perpetually stigmatized city and a disassociated domain on the urban periphery. To discourage these tendencies, cities must offer an architecture which reconciles these competing residential preferences and lifestyles.
The suburban life does not need to be lived in the suburbs. To destigmatize our
decaying city centers, the unique sentiment of the American home must be allowed to operate within the quasi-urban cavity defined by urbanity and sub-urbanity.
AREA OF FOCUS SUMMARY 3.1
This project explores the American resident’s conception of place and space, with a particular interest in the motives which drove suburbanization and the conditions necessary for re-urbanization. Metropolitan Detroit residents will be surveyed to gain an understanding of preferred and current communities and residential typologies, creating a primarily technical and conceptual framework to approach the research. The thesis will also establish a comprehensive and meaningful understanding for such a vague and carelessly used term as “suburban.�
LITERATURE REVIEW 3.2
In 7 Commonplaces- Community Ideology and Identity in American Culture, David Hummon provides insight in to American beliefs about various settlement structures. Through comprehensive personal interviews, Hummon offers an understanding of how people perceive of place, including rural, suburban, and urban environments. He explains people’s beliefs in terms of community ideologies which define how an individual makes sense of their surroundings as well as how they understand the built environments of other individuals. Although community ideologies provide a framework for individuals to define what types of places exist, all ideologies do not agree on the existence of all places. For example, many of those characterized as rural residents do not identify the suburbs as a separate form of community from its adjacent urban area. In addition, a large percentage of suburbanites do not identify suburbia as a distinct type of community either, identifying their community as “rural” or “small town.” Urbanites, or those who idealize the urban lifestyle, tended to believe that suburbs lack sufficient autonomy to be considered a distinct place. Hummon’s interviews have concluded that our behavior in a particular environment has less to do with personal experiences or observations, and more to do with the images of urban life that we bring to such experience. The conclusions we draw from experiences, however, are filtered through our community ideologies. To illustrate this, the idea that city people are less likely to talk with people on the street than other types of people is put forth. Individuals with more rural backgrounds are likely to label this as symptomatic of their inherent rudeness, while city dwellers may see the action simply as a virtue of the privacy of the city.
The author goes on to explain the origins of the American suburban preference by stating that throughout the development of the United States, elites often had rural backgrounds. Because people of a higher social class inhabited areas outside the city, this became a primary goal, though unattainable for most individuals. This also promoted an unfavorable view of urban. Parallels can be drawn between urban expansion and the conquering of the American frontier, where explorers claimed their small piece of the environment, away from traditionally inhabited areas. Historical, rural-urban conflicts have made their way in to contemporary community ideology not through realities of community life or experiences, but through prejudicial feelings about a place. Hummon goes on to say that American agrarianism does not simply assert the superiority of rural life over urban, but involves a series of claims: that rural life is inherently closer to nature, it fosters greater independence, and that it nourishes moral life. Andrew Jackson Downing echoes these views in 3 The Architecture of Country Houses, written during a time when rural ideals were most widespread. Downing states that a country home is a authoritative means of civilization, is of great social value to the individual, and that it is a source of moral character for its inhabitants. He contrasts the type of people that reside in “the good country home” with those who are content with dwelling in slums by suggesting that they are behind in education, the arts, and other indicators of progress. He also implies that country homes gives rise to the most refined and intelligent individuals. Last he states that the hearth of the family home, as a central point of all things good and beautiful, instills the finest character in its inhabitants, ingraining positive memories of their childhood and family for whenever their thoughts may go astray. In concluding, Downing argues that rural architecture is “much more a sentiment” than civil architecture, and that people who build their homes in the country are far more likely to impart their own character in to the structure, while at the same time building with precision and care. Downing’s assertions present stark contrasts with many of those interviewed by Hummon. Individuals representing all forms of settlement critique the suburbs as homogenous places with few indications of individuality. City dwellers, however, are most likely to characterize suburbs in terms of their sameness and lack of diversity, both built and cultural. Commonplaces asserts that American city residents are likely to be a supporter of their particular urban community, but are not as likely to advocate for cities and urban life in general. This may be attributed to the pervasive anti-urban sentiments of American culture. City residents may then conceive of their urban experiences as anomalous, believing that what they have experienced is contrary to popular opinion, and therefore an outlying event. Some may even dissociate their city
from other urban environments, going as far as saying that their city is not even an authentic city. Urban community ideology believes cities protect personal privacy and enhance personal freedoms. These are places which are not subject to the scrutiny and criticism of neighbors, as in rural or suburban conditions. Some urbanists that were interviewed expressed the idea of possessing the city for themselves. Even though they know the city is home to tens if not hundreds of thousands of individuals, they felt a sense of belonging, that they have it to themselves. Most urbanites also agree that cities offer the most in terms of culture, whereas rural locales are deprived of such things. On the whole, most urbanites contend that daily encounters in a city are vastly different from those in suburban communities. Rural community ideology contrasts the most with urban ideology, and most who opt to live in a rural setting see cities as the least preferable living condition by a vast margin. At the forefront of city concerns is high crime rates, often attributed to the density of people in a single place. In addition, they believe cities tend to attract types of people who are more inclined to violence and other forms of crime, echoing their generalizations of rude city folks. Rural ideology tends to favor privacy, but in a way that does not acknowledge the privacy of city life, seeming to value privacy of the household over privacy and freedom of the individual. Rural residents bolster their locale as the embodiment of community, where “everyone knows each other.” Suburban community ideology is the least defined generalization of the three as a result of the vastly varied responses by those interviewed. However, most suburbanites, or at least those who identify with living in a suburb, see their living situation as an opportunity to achieve a middle ground between advantageous aspects of both conditions, while selectively avoiding unfavorable aspects that may come with city or small town life. Suburbanites, from their view, are able to enjoy the privacy of a single family home while escaping crime, but are still close enough to the city to enjoy the luxuries of entertainment, culture, and a rich social life. The way people understand a place or “read a city” is also outlined by Hummon in terms of “mental maps.” When asked to record maps of their city, residents construct these images in very different ways. Suburban professionals, with easy access to transportation throughout the metro drew considerably larger geographical areas than impoverished inner city residents who are often confined to specific neighborhoods due to economic reasons. Mental maps also present differences between typical male and female experiences of place. Reflecting traditional gender roles, women’s maps were more focused on the home than those of their male companions.
Herbert Gans, in 5 The Levittowners: Ways of Life and Politics in a New Suburban Community and 6 The Urban Villagers: Group and Class in the Life of Italian-Americans, conducted ethnographic research of Boston’s working-class West End and suburban Levittown, finding that the communities that upper-middle class professionals considered “tacky wastelands” or “slums” were actually valued highly by their residents. However, planned communities, such as those often found in suburbia, often generated little enthusiasm amongst residents. This illustrates the lack of identity in the aforementioned “middle ground” and the strong sense of identity and place at either end of the field. 10 Public Attitude Towards Population Distribution Issues in Population, Distribution, and Policy, Volume 5 by Sara Mills reveals that individuals exhibit community preferences that correspond with the type of community in which they currently reside. People tend to live where they are most comfortable, or at least, most accustomed to living. As an example, somehow who is raised in an urban environment during their childhood is more likely to prefer urban living later in life, regardless of having experienced other types of community life. Alison and Peter Smithson proclaim that compactness is essential at all scales of settlement in 13 Urban Structuring- Studies of Alison & Peter Smithson. The Smithsons refer to settlements as “clusters”, and use clusters to denote everything from small rural communities to large metropolitan areas. They believe in a compactness of services within these clusters such as banking, shipping, and various other industries, but not necessarily a mixed-use type of compactness. The Smithson identify communities as being the same everywhere, in regards to form and type, throughout the world. In our cities, they recognize our inclination to layer our activities and mechanics, but argue that metropolitan cities lose “structure” and “feeling”. They advocate for a legible city; one which we can use unthinkingly. Here they introduce the mutually exclusive concepts of habitat in a landscape versus habitat as a landscape, of which decaying post-industrial cities exhibit both. Finally, they beg to question whether we truly believe layered cities are ideal, or if it is simply what we are accustomed to. Most importantly, the Smithsons declare it useless to divorce the concept of house from that of community, or a grouping of houses and their relationship to one another. Although those interviewed by Hummon would disagree, Matthew Lassiter and Christopher Niedt assert in 9 Suburban Diversity in Postwar America that it no longer makes sense to generalize suburbs as less heterogenous than inner cities. Recent census data has uncovered that minorities currently make up one third of the total suburban population in the United States’ one hundred largest metropolitan areas. Their settlement patterns cover a variety of community types, from affluent
single family neighborhoods to impoverished first-ring suburbs. The U.S. suburbs are composed of nearly half of all renters and include first-generation immigrants as well as poor residents formerly from urban areas. Lassiter and Niedt also show that despite the insistence on the traditional family, heterosexual married couples with children, they only comprise about a quarter of today’s suburban households. Laura Bliss and Sam Sturgis cite Suburban Diversity in 1 Why You Shouldn't Mock Suburbanites Who Say They're From the City, which explains the many reasons why Americans tend to use cities as stand-ins to describe their place of residence, despite not living within its borders. Often times describing you are from a city when you are in fact from the suburbs is simply a matter of convenience. It is convenient both geographically and sociologically, as most people expect others to have at least a limited understanding of where a particular place is located, as opposed to a small suburb. However, many people enjoy calling these people out on their misinformation, which not only demonstrates one’s ability to relate to other types of communities, but shows the defensiveness many individuals have for their city. Bliss and Sturgis go on to compare identifying with place as similar to identifying with race, and that no one should question someone who identifies with a city when they do not. This is for the same reason that people should not query one’s race, because people don’t like explaining how they “look white but are actually black.” Bliss and Sturgis concluded that rather than mock those who incorrectly identify with cities, we should attempt to understand what makes them feel a sense of connection to a place. Although Boston and southern Maine are nearly one hundred miles apart, perhaps they share similarities in the built environment that are analogous. Kenneth Jackson attempts a broad summary of American suburbanization in 8 Crabgrass Frontier: The Suburbanization of the United States, and outlines the breadth of such a topic, claiming that “an account that covers all important suburbs is certain to be exhausting before it is exhaustive.” Jackson brings the difficulty of defining and identifying a suburb, using Highland Park, Michigan as an example. Highland Park is a legally independent entity, yet is surrounded on all sides by the city of Detroit. Jackson also outlines recurring themes in his analysis of the suburb, citing the importance of developers, cheap lots and construction methods, improved means of transportation, and racial tensions, among others. He also suggests that social change happens from the top down, that is to say that those who are afford significant flexibility from excess financial resources, generally middle to upper classes, generate the popular opinions which diffuse in to lower social classes. Jackson opens with the first sentiment of the suburban ideal in written history, from 539 B.C.: “Our property seems to me the most beautiful in the world. It is so close to Babylon that we
come home we are away from all the noise and dust.” J. John Palen’s 11 The Suburbs expresses many of the same ideologies and imagery as Commonplaces, and discusses contemporary issues facing suburban communities. Palen addresses the significance of zoning ordinances as a law, rather than significance as a means to control land-use. The original goal of these land-use regulations was to lessen the overcrowding and congestion in the streets and prevent improper uses of otherwise homogenous areas. In 1916, the New York Zoning Resolution was enacted which essentially promoted segregation. Communities throughout the nation followed similar regulations with the aim to prevent lower-class housing from destroying the homogeneity of otherwise middle and upper class communities. Palen also introduces the idea of annexation and consolidation of cities to accommodate metropolitan growth. In general, the citizen’s impressions of annexation was positive, as joining the city often meant greater access to services such as water and utilities, fire protection, and road maintenance. However, a few communities fought against the mergers. In 1873, Brookline, Massachusetts became the first documented example of affluent suburbs resisting annexation to the city, initiating what became a common occurrence in the twentieth century. Grosse Pointe, Michigan, resisted annexation in to Detroit in a similar fashion. The independence of suburbs from cities as sovereign entities is explained exhaustively in Richardson Dilworth’s 2 The Origins of Suburban Autonomy. The author not only argues that the development of such infrastructure as water, utilities, and roads led to the ability of urban areas to expand by annexing adjoining exurbs, but the development of such infrastructure allowed communities to break away from cities, forming autonomous communities. Dilworth uses “metropolitan fragmentation” as a means to explain this phenomenon. In illustrating these early tensions between city and suburb, he asserts that these divisions between communities predate the post-World War II issues of deindustrialization and racial segregation. Jon Gallagher shows in 4 Detroit Free Press, Metro Detroit job sprawl worst in U.S.; many jobs beyond reach of poor, that the Detroit metropolitan area has the nation’s most sprawling job market, according to 2010 Census data. Job sprawl is defined by distance of available jobs from the central downtown core. In Detroit, only 7.3 percent of metropolitan area jobs are found within 3 miles of the central business district, while 15.3 percent are within 3 to 10 miles, and 77.4 percent are between 10 and 35 miles from the core. This decentralization of jobs deny opportunities to center city residents who lack sufficient access to public transportation.
In 12 The City and Self-Identity, Harold Proshansky argues that the study of self-identity has placed great emphasis on the social experiences of being in a family, becoming educated, and belonging to a particular race or sexually orientation, but allocates almost no attention to the role of physical space on the development of such identity. Proshansky contends that a family is “not simply a mother, father, brothers, and sisters, but also a place called ‘home’.” Schools, by this understanding are not relegated to classmates and teachers, but classrooms, playgrounds, and cafeterias. It can be deduced that for each self-identity characteristic of an individual, there exists a corresponding place-identity or physical environment which contributes towards this identity of self. Place-identity cannot be perceived as a static condition. An individual may identify strongly with an urban environment, but the terms of this identity are likely to change as the individual ages physically, as the city changes, and as economic and cultural conditions of the city change. Perhaps the strongest idea put forth is that we are not often self-aware when it comes to things we experience on a day-today basis until we are made cognizant of these conceptions through asking the right questions. Proshansky makes the point that physical characteristics of a place are often the final determining factor in comprehension of people within the place. For example, the author finds it difficult that a competent physician could ever house their office in a commercial storefront in a retail district, and at the same time finds it difficult for teaching to be achieved in a make-shift warehouse classroom.
THEORETICAL ISSUES 3.3
This project questions the possibility of reconciling conflicting ideals between potential suburban homeowners and architects / planners. Does the rejection of suburbia intrinsically diminish the value of home in an American society? Are generalizations of particular types of community dwellers inherent to the type of people attracted to those communities, or does the environment simply support these characteristics? Is there a way to exclusively define various forms of community structures in a way in which is recognizable to all? Can communities become holistic entities, comprised of a fluid gradient of ambiguous settlement types, or is the distinction necessary to give us a sense of belonging and identity?
SCALES OF ASSOCIATION AND RE-OCCUPIED CAVITIES
DENSIFIED AND ASSOCIATED SETTLEMENT STRUCTURE
Adaptation of Alison and Peter Smithson’s “Valley Section”
ARCHITECTURAL ISSUES 3.4
The fundamental architectural issue to be addressed is that of American housing. The creation of a new architectural typology that mediates ingrained preconceived housing notions is at the center of this issue. By exploring the fabricated mutual exclusivity of the built form of suburban homes and city housing, in pursuit of their overlaps, we can begin to surrender these notions. In this project, suburbia is framed as an obsolete ideal and freeloader of authentic settlement structures. Throughout the research, ideas of community and independence have been at the forefront of American residential preference. Both issues rely on an architectural construct to present an interpretation of its significance. Ideas of community can either be fostered or neglected through the ways in which a building frames human interaction. Communal space and private terraces speak equally to ideas of community, but it drastically different ways. In the same manner, independence is either encouraged or inhibited through built form.
ARCHITECTURAL PRECEDENTS 3.5
As a result of a long history of unsuccessful projects, American architects have recently shied away from the vision of redefining urban housing. In the same way cities have been stigmatized by outsiders, urban housing too has been tainted. I am choosing to engage this defeated territory of fantasy and failure to gain an understanding of not only their shortcomings, but their many successes and positive intentions.
Algiers Housing Project, Le Corbusier, 1932 Le Corbusier’s plan for the Algerian city integrated rapidly-changing transportation, increasing demand for housing, and the Algerian’s resistance to losing their cultural identity through westernization by exhibiting each dwelling unit as objects amongst a vast framework of columns and elevated streets. Expressing individuality in an otherwise shared environment has implications for independence as well as the sentiment of ownership, two ideas which will be highlighted throughout this thesis.
https://www.pinterest.com/pin/48906345925681907/
Unité d'Habitation, Marseille, Le Corbusier, 1952
http://www.building.co.uk/welcome-to-the-machine-le-corb usier’s-unite-d’habitation/3123479.article
Unité d'Habitation sought to provide housing for displaced Marseille residents following the Second World War. The most pertinent idea displayed here was that the typical aggregate of city neighborhoods, consisting of spaces for living, dining, shopping, and recreating, was arranged vertically within a single structure. However, such an inward-facing program suggests exclusiveness, isolation, and confinement. Unité succeeds in providing an identity to the individual living unit as well as connecting its inhabitants to the outdoors through an interlocking building section, a unique interpretation of the double loaded corridor.
Narkomfin Building, Moisei Ginzburg, 1932 Narkomfin predates Le Corbusier’s UnitÊ by twenty years, but uses a similar interlaced arrangement of residential units which describes a tightly knit and internally dependent residential community within. The building, however, neglects the individuality of the residents, and encourages a collectivist mentality through communal kitchens and laundry areas. Formally, the building rejects any indication of personal preferences and identity through its infinite bands of horizontal windows.
https://www.studyblue.com/notes/note/n/final-exam/deck/1658797
http://www2.archi.fr/DOCOMOMO-FR/narkomfin-fr.htm
https://www.pinterest.com/pin/ 370984088025627619/
Highrise of Homes, James Wines + SITE, 1981 Highrise of Homes was conceived as a response to the homogeneity of city highrises and attempted to allow its inhabitants to regain expressions of diverse identities within an urban context. What interests me most about this project is its literal and charicature-like representation of the import of the suburb in to urban conditions. This juxtaposition of public domain and private dwelling highlights the continually-shifting conversation between personal desires and fixed built environment.
http://oliveventures.tumblr.com/post/65235988348/ryanpanos-highrise-of-holmes-james-wines
MAPS OF SITE + DOCUMENTATION 4.1 + 4.2 UNIVERSITY
MIDTOWN
DOWNTOWN DETROIT
RURAL
SUBURBAN
GREATER DETROIT POPULATION
URBAN
URBAN CORE
1950
2015
Metro: 3,200,000 City: 1,800,000
Metro: 4,300,000 City: 680,000
Commerce and residence often meet awkwardly and abruptly in the city. Midtown is sandwiched by two conditions: Downtown and Wayne State University in the north-south direction, and various forms of residential in the east-west direction.
SITE STUDIES + PARAMETERS 4.3 + 4.4
My site is without parameter information (zoning, allowable building areas, setbacks, etc.) as it is a stand-in until I intensively analyze Midtown and adjacent areas. I am planning a map which locates the fault line between suburban and urban condition. I will be overlaying my own quantifiable definition of suburban as a typology with suburban as defined by community type. I am also drawing a three dimensional section map of “population topographies� depicting evacuated areas as depressions or craters in the landscape, overlaid with zoning or community type information.
PROGRAM 5.1 + 5.2 + 5.3
At this point a program has not been investigated, but the project will be residential in nature. This does not exclude any type of mixed-use, however. The primary dwelling units will target potential suburban, single family, detached homeowners. Communal space, where both building and neighborhood residents can cross-pollenate may also be incorporated.
CONCEPTUAL / PRELIMINARY DESIGN STUDIES 6.1
CONCLUSIONS
7
The suburban life does not need to be lived in the suburbs. To destigmatize our decaying city centers, the unique sentiment of the American home must be allowed to operate within the quasi-urban cavity defined by urbanity and sub-urbanity. I have concluded that the spirit of home life does not inseparably tie itself to the physicality of front porches and backyards, but rather is the essence of such constructs: the meaning attached by its homeowner. The suburban life can be lived in the city.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
8
1 Bliss, Laura, and Sam Sturgis. "Why You Shouldn't Mock Suburbanites Who Say They're From the City." CITYLAB 25 July 2014. Web. 2 Dilworth, Richardson. The Urban Origins of Suburban Autonomy. Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 2005. Print. 3 Downing, Andrew Jackson. The Architecture of Country Houses. De Capo Press reprint ed. 11.;11; Vol. New York: Da Capo Press, 1968. Web. 4 Gallagher, John. "Metro Detroit Job Sprawl Worst in U.S.; Many Jobs beyond Reach of Poor." Detroit Free Press 18 Apr. 2013. Web. 5 Gans, Herbert J. The Levittowners: Ways of Life and Politics in a New Suburban Community. New York: Random House, 1967. Print. 6 Gans, Herbert J. The Urban Villagers: Group and Class in the Life of Italian-Americans. Updat and expand ed. New York;London;: Free Press, 1982. Print. 7 Hummon, David Mark. Commonplaces: Community Ideology and Identity in American Culture. Albany, N.Y: State University of New York Press, 1990. Print. 8 Jackson, Kenneth T. Crabgrass Frontier: The Suburbanization of the United States. New York: Oxford University Press, 1985. Print. 9 Lassiter, Matthew D., and Christopher Niedt. "Suburban Diversity in Postwar America." Journal of Urban History 39.1 (2013): 3-14. Web. 10 Mazie, Sara Mills, and United States. Commission on Population Growth and the American Future. Population, Distribution, and Policy. 5.;5; Vol. Washington: Commission on Population Growth and the American Future; for sale by the Supt. of Docs., U.S. Govt. Print. Off, 1973. Web. 11 Palen, J. John. The Suburbs. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1995. Print. 12 Proshansky, Harold M. "The City and Self-Identity." Environment and Behavior 10.2 (1978): 147-69. Web. 13 Smithson, Alison Margaret, and Peter Smithson. Urban Structuring: Studies of Alison & Peter Smithson. New York;London;: Studio Vista, 1967. Print.