Negotiating Transitions: A Strategy for Post-Oil Urbanism by Dylan Morgan

Negotiating Transitions

A Strategy for Post-Oil Urbanism

Negotiating Transitions A Strategy for Post-Oil Urbanism by Dylan Morgan

Thesis document submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Architecture at Portland State University Portland, Oregon June 2014

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PORTLAND STATE UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF ARCHITECTURE COLLEGE OF THE ARTS The undersigned hereby certify that the Masters thesis of Dylan Morgan has been approved as partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Architecture

Thesis Committee: Advisor L. Rudolph Barton Professor of Architecture

Date

Jeff Schnabel Associate Professor of Architecture

Date

Acknowledgements Many thanks to the School of Architecture at Portland State University. I am proud to have contributed to the formation of one of the unique architecture programs in the United States. With a pedagogy of urbanism, community activism and poetic making, PSU has informed all of my attitudes as a designer. I am grateful to every member of the faculty for bringing passion to their studios and seminars each day. Thank you to those professors that served on my thesis committee. Thank you Rudy Barton. Rudy was the perfect faculty advisor for this project. He had patience as I struggled to define the scope of my work, and he had wisdom when I was in search of a way to express my ideas. Thank you to Jeff Schnabel for being a great teacher and a great critic. I will always refer to what you taught me in my first architecture studio. Many professionals rescheduled meetings and gave up their limited free time to attend reviews and join my thesis committee. A special thanks to Taryn Mudge of SRG Partnership, Paul Wroblewski of PLACE Studio, and Ryan Sullivan of Paste in Place for participating in many reviews and one-onone meetings throughout this process. I am grateful to James McGrath of CH2M Hill, Miguel Camacho-Serna of PLACE Studio, and Marcy McInelly of Urbsworks for their contributions of expertise and advice. Thank you to my family for all of their love and support. Thank you to my mother, father and brother for always believing in me and encouraging me to be whatever I wanted to be. Most importantly, thank you to my wife, Ellen Dully. To say that I couldnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t have completed graduate school without Ellenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s help would be an understatement. Whether I was stuck at the studio late at night, or simply unable to stop talking about one of my projects, she has been there to support me.

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Abstract As the worldâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s oil reserves continue to shrink, cities and populations remain dependent upon this diminishing resource for daily commuting and the shipment of goods. Low-density suburban sprawl now dominates the fabric of U.S. cities, ensuring that driving a car is the dominant mode of transportation. In response to rising fuel costs, suburban residents are looking for more affordable transit options and housing within walkable neighborhoods. This shift in demand for housing within dense mixeduse environments corresponds with the need to reduce energy use and promote driving alternatives such as public transit, walking and cycling. In East Portland, low-density suburban sprawl has taken the form of vast residential areas with limited access to resources such as affordable groceries and local employment. Without cheap oil, finding new ways to connect suburban residents to these resources will be one of the central tasks of this century. This project explores how post-oil urbanism must reassert the importance of pedestrian space, mixed land use and density within the distributed territory of the contemporary city. The danger of not taking action is that many people will lose access to resources that are currently only accessible by car. This is the coming conflict between the current design of cities and expected decreases in oil production. We must transform our auto-centric suburbs into more dense mixed-use pedestrian fabric or suffer the environmental, social and economic consequences of continuing to drive cars as our primary means of mobility. Oil currently makes up one third of the worldâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s energy use and production is expected to decrease significantly over the next 30 years as we discover fewer and fewer new reserves. Replacing one of the most readily available fuel sources on earth will be difficult and potentially dangerous. In the future, finding thoughtful ways to use less energy will be essential to any urban design strategy.

Table of Contents 1

Main Research Question ��2

2 Introduction ��4 Section 1: Setting the Stage 3

Modern Planning ��10

Peak Oil and Energy Use in the City ��16

Contemporary Urban Design Theory ��20

Section 2: Study Context 6

Portland Growth ��28

Corridor as Site of Intervention ��30

82nd Avenue Study Area ��32

What’s Wrong with this Picture? ��36

Section 3: Design Proposal 10

Reclaiming the Street ��44

A Framework for Diverse Programs ��48

The Post-Oil Street ��52

Repartialization and Mixed-Uses ��54

Productive Alleyways ��56

Corridor as Linear Center ��60

Reflections on the Role of the Designer in the City ��68

17 Conclusion ��70 18

List of Images and Diagrams ��73

19 Bibliography ��75 xi

Fig 1: Parking Day, Downtown Portland, 2013

Main Research Question

As the depletion of natural resources threatens our auto-centric patterns of development, how can we retrofit our urban environment and return to a lifestyle based on local resources and walkable neighborhoods?

Fig 2: Gas Lines During the 1973 Oil Crisis

Introduction This project is about the conflict between the depletion of oil as a natural resource and our current auto-dependant lifestyle. At its core it is driven by my concern for people’s everyday experience. Oil has become so ubiquitous in our daily lives that it is difficult to imagine how we might live, one day, without it. Yet, decreases in oil production over the next 30 years will pose a significant threat to the average American’s daily routine. Each morning the majority of Americans walk out to their cars and begin a circuitous commute – one that usually follows multiple collector streets, several highway interchanges and various degrees of frustrating traffic congestion. Over the past century, we have built our homes and businesses within a system of roads and highways that has become inadequate in the face of rapidly urbanizing populations. As more and more drivers are added to city transit infrastructure, the current system of roads and highways has reached its capacity. With each increase in number of vehicle lanes and alternative routes, the traffic level simply rises, and we find ourselves once again stuck in traffic, wasting our time and the world’s energy.

Not only has our current way of life contributed to environmental degradation, it has degraded our social environment. Most of us now live in residential suburban areas disconnected from all of our daily needs. The car is currently the only way to reach work, school, the grocery store and the movie theater. In such an environment, it is no longer possible for children to walk to school or ride their bikes to the park to play with their neighbors. When we find that we need a piece of hardware for a home improvement project, we can no longer simply walk to the corner store. Without basic daily pedestrian trips, we have lost an element of what holds society together: the chance encounter between neighbors. Lost is the social environment that provides what Jane Jacobs called, “eyes on the street.” Her simple observation, that our previous more pedestrian-based lifestyle was central to the health and safety of the public, has never truly been understood outside of the professions of architecture and urban planning. We have become so accepting of the car’s role in our lives that we directly associate it with our own freedom of movement. So much so 4

that when a new urban design project is presented to a community the first question that is often asked is, “Where do I park my car?” Despite our almost complete dependence on the car, few people seem concerned about the impending end of the car’s primary fuel source. In fact, price controls and media campaigns by oil and car companies continue to promote an image of the future that is virtually identical to today except that it has unlimited resources. Yet in reality, growing populations and limited fuel supplies make the current reality completely unsustainable. This project is an attempt to imagine how a suburban environment that includes our existing homes, schools, businesses and growing populations, can make the transition to a post-oil lifestyle. By first studying modern planning and development, I have tried to understand how previous generations of urban planners shaped the development of the American city. In hopes that I might learn from the past, I closely studied pre-oil environments such as the streetcar suburbs of late 19th century Boston as well as the enormous highway construction boom of the 1950s and 1960s. I also looked deeply at the current debates in contemporary urban design. The New Urbanists have clearly outlined the causes for urban sprawl, including consumer preference and functional zoning, but despite their large influence over the planning profession, they do not seem able to prevent it from occurring. Neither do their environmentally conscious and more academically minded counterparts, Landscape Urbanists. Peak oil, the maximum rate of global oil production and the following decreases in production, is a real concern. While its precise date may be debated, most experts agree that oil production will decrease significantly over the next 30 years.1 In this context, the auto industry, local planning agencies and the majority of urban residents appear unconcerned with the conflict between their current practices and the loss of the automobile’s primary fuel source. In fact, many recent megaprojects like the Big Dig in Boston and Madrid Rio actually increase auto capacity while burying cars underground and covering them with wide pedestrian boulevards and parks. These huge multi-billion dollar projects simply reinvest in auto infrastructure and contribute to increased dependence on oil. Even in Portland, Oregon, a city of 600,000 residents in a region of 1,750,000 people, a suburban lifestyle dominates. Currently only 10% 5

of Portland residents commute each day by public transportation, while 12% walk or ride a bike and 67% travel by car.2 Portland has embraced the highway, and we now have highways running through downtowns— linking relative low-density centers, by European standards, into a typical constellation known as the regional city. Within this context, major efforts to reimagine such a city without oil are not being made. This lack of radically progressive suburban retrofits is often associated with following established local zoning restrictions instead of a more conceptual plan that represents city-wide infrastructure goals. The fact that East Portland developed outside of the original concept for the city can be seen in a comparison between the 1976 Portland Comprehensive Plan Alternative 2 and the city’s current Comprehensive Plan (see Fig 3 and 4).3 With the exception of recent light rail line extensions, there is very little evidence of projects that attempt to provide alternatives to East Portland’s car-dominated suburban fabric. One available new model for a post-oil city comes from Moshe Safdie’s The City After the Automobile. In his 1997 book, Safdie describes a linear center that while utilizing shared vehicles, is much more accessible to those on foot and those traveling by public transit. With both Safdie’s work and the current efforts of New Urbanist planners and Landscape Urbanist theorists in mind, this project is a strategy for designing a new linear center within the context of a current suburban auto corridor. With a high capacity for multifamily housing and connectivity, corridors have become popular New Urbanist sites in recent years. This work is an attempt to go beyond the typical New Urbanist pedestrian safety improvements and begin to layout a framework for the kind of radical redevelopment that the end of oil demands. The following project is a proposal for completely flipping the design hierarchy in an auto corridor for the purposes establishing a car-free lifestyle for as many suburban residents as possible. The framework prosed here addresses the context of East Portland and its primary auto-corridor, 82nd Avenue, in three ways. The first is a transformation of 82nd Avenue itself into a new multi-model street with a central programmable pedestrian space. Secondly, a repartialization of the existing commercial lots is intended to create a much more diverse, pedestrian-scaled, mixed-use economic environment. Lastly, a series of alleyways take pressure off of the street and support a density of activities within the corridor.

With a pedestrian oriented public space, this scheme is intended to help create an attractive civic center that will support a more localized and energy efficient lifestyle within the current suburban fabric of East Portland. As a test site, 82nd Avenue is a good example of a contemporary suburban corridor morphology. By taking advantage of its high capacity for growth and its central location, this project attempts to meet the demands of reduced oil production by helping to transition auto-centric suburban fabric into dense walkable urbanism. NOTES: 1. “Annual Energy Outlook 2014,” U.S. Energy Information Administration, accessed May 10, 2014, http://www. eia.gov/forecasts/aeo/. 2. “Commuting to Work in Portland,” Moving to Portland, accessed June 2, 2014, http://www.movingtoportland. net/portland-information/commuting-to-work/. 3. “Comprehensive Plan Chapter 6: Planning-The evolution of planning practice in Portland,” The City of Portland, accessed May 4, 2014, http://www.portlandoregon.gov/bps/article/122767.

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Fig 3: Portland Comprehensive Plan Alternative 2, 1976

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SETTING THE STAGE Fig 5: Fabric Study of Brasilia, Brazil

Fig 6: Electric Streetcars Awaiting Destruction, Los Angeles, Circa 1943

Modern City Planning In an effort to understand how the suburbs came to be the typical setting for most city residents, I looked at the development of American cities. The growth of these cities coincided with the first mass production of automobiles and as a result their fabric reflects an auto-centric design perspective. Initially the industrial revolution allowed cities to construct extensive streetcar networks, but as the car grew in popularity city infrastructure and development patterns changed. The car allowed Modernist city planners to imagine functionally zoned cities where the smoke of industry would be separated from the more natural setting of our homes and schools. While cheap gasoline made such a lifestyle possible, the expected loss of oil resources now threatens our ability to access various parts of the city and the associated resources. Due to modernist planning, many suburban residents are already feeling the effects of rising fuel costs and increased demand for housing in urban neighborhoods. These two trends lead to many families being forced to move to a more affordable suburban neighborhood where they are even more financially at risk when transportation costs increase.

Sam Warner’s book, Streetcar Suburbs: The Process of Growth in Boston, 1870-1900, is an excellent account of the transportation and urban planning changes in Boston during the industrial revolution. According to Warner’s account, as immigrants began to flood into the city, a culture that appreciated work and the accumulation of wealth grew. Inspired by memories of village life in Europe and the lifestyle of Europe’s wealthy, Boston’s upper classes began to keep two houses, a townhouse in the city for business and a country villa for leisure. As the middle class began to aspire to this lifestyle, there developed a distrust of the city and its inhabitants’ desire to get ahead. The city with its tall buildings and factories was seen as artificial when compared to country life and better access to the natural landscape. The streetcar provided access to the country side from the town center and many middle and lower income households began to move out of the city. However, most families lacked the financial resources to own two houses. Instead the daily commute between home and work became a typical routine. The streetcar facilitated this new commuter lifestyle and 10

the routes began to define the growth of neighborhoods and main streets beyond Boston’ center. However, each expansion of the streetcar lines brought with it increased levels of income and land use segregation.2 In the 1920s mass production made the car available to more people and Model T sales topped 15 million. The street at this time was a space shared by pedestrians, cars, streetcars and bicycles. As these modes competed for space, a large percentage of people began to drive cars. In the 1940s, Pacific City Lines (PCL), a subsidiary of General Motors, Standard Oil and Firestone Tire and Rubber, began buying streetcar lines in many U.S. cities and offering to replace them with bus systems. By 1950, PCL had allowed many of the new bus systems to fail, and urban residents were left without public transit in most U.S. cities.4 The process, referred to as “the Los Angelizing of America,” was the result of a strategy from then GM chairman, Alfred Sloan, to shift federal funding away from public transit and toward highway construction.5 In the form of the Federal Highway Acts of 1944, 1956 and 1968, the government adopted Sloan’s strategy and began redeveloping vast areas of low-density single family housing. What began as a new kind of design for the car in the 1920s became the federal standard for developing cities in the mid 20th century. The U.S. city was becoming primarily a modernist suburban environment. Functional zoning, an idea promoted by early modernists such as Le Corbusier, was about using the car to separate different types of land use by function. Using the metaphor of the body, its various functional organs and its circulatory system, early modernists designed the city’s financial districts, industrial zones and residential suburbs, all connected by the highway system. This kind of separation of functions has proven to be problematic and difficult to repair. While we initially saw the benefits of separating toxic industrial activities from schools and residences, our near complete reliance on the car to connect us to these various activities has led to wasteful traffic congestion, high transportation costs and dependence on oil. Oil-dependent behavior is deeply ingrained in American life, often in ways that we take for granted. For example, economic policies have forced many Americans to live near the edge of the city. A phenomenon, known as Drive till you Qualify, is the result of banking policies that require housing expenses to not exceed 30 percent of the household 11

budget. Since these policies ignore transportation costs, lower income households are forced to move out to the suburbs where they can qualify for a mortgage.6 These families are then susceptible to rising fuel costs, and they suffer from a lower quality of life in the form of long commutes, limited public transit alternatives and poor access to grocery stores and neighborhood cafes. Without cheap fuel, finding a way to keep suburban residents connected to resources such as employment, markets, education and social activities will be the major challenge of this century. Recently, consumer preference for the suburbs has declined. Arthur C. Nelson, a professor at the University of Utah, has found that 66% of Baby Boomers and Millennials prefer to live in walkable mixed-use environments with multiple transit options. Demographic forces like this drove the growth of the suburbs, but they have yet to change our development patterns. Currently only 10% of what we build has these newly desired characteristics. While these issues are on the minds of contemporary urban planners throughout the country, few have demonstrated the ability to influence the market or change established development practices. NOTES: 1. Sam Warner, Jr., Streetcar Suburbs: The Process of Growth in Boston, 1870-1900 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press and M.I.T. Press, 1962), 16. 2. Warner, Streetcar Suburbs, 46. 3. Warner, Streetcar Suburbs, 14. 4, 5. Koolhaas, Content (Koln: Taschen, 2004), 40. 6. Films for the Humanities & Sciences (Firm), Films Media Group, and TED Conferences LLC, TEDTalks Ellen Dunham-Jones - Retrofitting Suburbia (New York: Films Media Group, 2010), https://ezproxy.uu.edu/ login?url=http://digital.films.com/PortalPlaylists. aspx?aid=13753&xtid=48530.

r = 2 miles

r = 4 miles

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Case Study:

Fig 7 (left): Boston 1880 Fig 8 (above): Electric Streetcar, Boston, Circa 1920

Streetcar Suburbs, Boston, Massachusetts, 1850 - 1900

Before 1850 the size of Boston was limited to the distance a business person could walk to communicate face-to-face with other shop owners. By 1873 the city had grown to a radius of two and half miles from the city center. When the electric railroad was introduced in the 1880s and 1890s, the city grew to a radius of 6 miles. At that time Boston was still very mixed in terms of income and land uses. Along the transit lines, middle class households lived side-by-side with dock works and worker housing.1 At the beginning of the 20th century, industry became a large presence in the city. As more factories went up, residents fought to get ahead in the new job market. The streetcar was an escape for many, and the countryside was perceived as the more virtuous and natural counterpart to the artificial city. Streetcar suburbs grew along transit lines. The upper class built country villas in addition to their townhouses, and many middle class families chose to move out to the suburbs and commute each day to work on the streetcar. NOTES: 1. Sam Warner, Jr., Streetcar Suburbs: The Process of Growth in Boston, 1870-1900 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press and M.I.T. Press, 1962). 16.

mobility The evolution of mobility in Boston began with horse drawn carriages and steam engine trains as supplements to walking. In 1850 a one-hour walk defined the width of the city because business was done face-to-face. Horse and rail streetcars expanded the city to a 4 mile radius in 1880, and a complex network of competing electric streetcar companies had reached a 6 mile radius by 1900. morphology Bostonâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s growth has always been limited by its geography. The south end and the back bay were filled in by 1890 and the city continued to grow out towards the south and southwest. Despite this lopsided expansion, communication and transit technology allowed the city to retain its centralized systems . meaning Between 1850 and 1900 in Boston, we can see the effects of new technologies on peoples lives. New industries change the sounds and air quality of the city. Electric streetcars allow residents affordable access to the outer areas of the city and the telephone allows a suburban environment to grow while remaining connected to the businesses in the central city.

r = 10 miles

Case Study:

Freeway System Los Angeles, California, 1920 - 1990

In Rem Koolhaas’s 2004 book, Content, Bill Millard describes the subversion of the LA transit system as “Urbicide.” Millard provides a time line for the dismantling of the public streetcar network by Pacific City Lines, and describes how the Federal Highway Acts of 1944, 1956, and 1968 were the result of a strategy designed by Alfred Sloan, GM’s Chairman from 1923-1956, to suburbanize or “Los Angelize” the national landscape and economy. Sloan’s vision was to be achieved by undermining city infrastructure, replacing trollies and streetcars with buses, and redirecting public transit funding toward highway construction. As a result of the strong reaction against these policies by Green Activism and New Urbanists, Los Angeles began to rebuild light rail and subway lines in the early 1990s.1 NOTES: 1. Koolhaas, Content (Koln: Taschen, 2004), 40. 2. John Kaliski, “Re-Visualizing the Dream: Los Angeles and the Future of the Single-Family House.” In Re: American Dream: Six Urban Housing Prototypes for Los Angeles, Los Angeles Municipal Art Gallery. New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 1995, 16.

LA finds itself engaged in a tempestuous debate about turf, its storied landscape a holy grail contested between those who would defend it at any cost and those who desire to transform it but have yet to gain control.2 -John Kaliski, Re:Visualizing the Dream

mobility Like many US cities, Los Angeles had an extensive streetcar network prior to 1930. By 1943, LA citizens were entirely dependant upon the car for mobility. Federal Highway programs in the 1950s and 1960s helped fund an expansion of LA’s highway system. Only in recent years have public transit line been reinstalled. Due to a lack of interconnectivity, the partial transit network of light rail and subway lines remains susceptible to low ridership. morphology Highways distributed throughout Los Angeles form a grid pattern resembling city blocks at an enormous scale. In 1990 the city began to reintroduce some public transit in the form of light rail and subway lines, but LA has consistently developed large lots with single family homes. This suburban morphology makes efficient public transit and safe pedestrian paths difficult to achieve. meaning LA has become synonymous with car culture. Unfortunately, that means congestion and long commutes for many LA residents. The city’s near complete dependence on cars means that as the city grows the traffic continues to get worse. With so many corridors over capacity even short trips can become long trips.

r = 5 miles

Fig 9 (opposite left): Los Angeles, 1944 Fig 10 (opposite right): 4-Level Freeway Interchange, Los Angeles Fig 11 (upper left): Curitiba BRT System Map Fig 12 (lower left): Diagrams Of Growth Alternatives, Curitiba Masterplan Fig 13 (above): Modular Loading Platforms

Case Study:

Bus Rapid Transit Curitiba, Brazil, 1965 - 1990

Curitiba’s Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) system is a model for the contemporary world. A modular loading platform design revolutionized bus transit and achieved an efficiency comparable to a subway system. With buses traveling on surface streets, BRT has much lower infrastructure cost than alternatives such as light rail or subway systems, but it does require dedicated lanes. Curitiba was motivated to build an efficient mass transit system to deal with social issues such as a lack of mobility amongst residents living in dense slums with minimal street access. By instituting a free ticket policy and a system of “trash for ticket” exchanges, the city was able to dramatically improve residents access to affordable transit. The program benefited the city and local residents in the form of cleaner streets and better access to employment opportunities. While BRT is not currently a popular transit solution in the U.S., similar systems are being used in 30 cities.1 NOTES: 1, 2. Hugh H. Schwartz, Urban Renewal, Municipal Revitalization: The Case of Curitiba, Brazil (Alexandria, VA: Hugh Schwartz), 2004.

mobility Curitiba’s BRT system currently utilizes a hierarchy of 5 different lines. Traditional feeder bus routes connect residents to the 5 main BRT lines. These main lines often run as frequently as every 90 seconds. 28 percent of BRT riders previously commuted by car. Today BRT serves more than 1.3 million passengers, 50 times the amount from 20 years ago. morphology Buses run along dedicated lanes and stop at clear-walled circular passenger loading stations with steps and wheelchair lifts. The system takes the form of a spoke and wheel with the 5 major BRT lines radiating out from the city center and linked by peripheral lines. Linear development along these lines has reduced congestion and de-emphasized development at the city center. meaning Curitiba’s system is a model for the transition from car travel to bus travel. “The introduction of the BRT caused a reduction of about 27 million auto trips per year, saving about 27 million liters of fuel annually.” It also contributes to a significant improvement in the daily lives of the city’s poor, many of them children who are now better connected to education.2

PEAK OIL IS HERE

BILLION BARRELS PER YEAR

OIL AGE TIME LINE

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1900 Horse drawn streetcars stretch Boston to a radius of 2.5 miles Boston introduces first electric trolley line

1890 Electric Streetcars allow Boston to grow to a radius of 6 miles

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1947 Pacific City Lines, a subsidiary of GM, purchases and destroys all the major streetcar lines in 18 U.S. cities

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1950 Nearly all public transit in the U.S. has failed

2013 Oil makes up 33 % of the worldâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s total energy use

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Highway Act of 1968

Combustion engine begins to be replaced by electric cars

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New power grids incorporate shared electric car fleets as batteries

OIL AGE 4000 BCE

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Peak Oil and Energy Use in the City

BILLION BARRELS PER YEAR

Fig 14 (opposite): Peak Oil Timeline Fig 15 (above): Oil Age Diagram 70 60 50 40

2030 @ 3% GROWTH 2037 @ 2% GROWTH 2050 @ 1% GROWTH

Of course the statistics of change never tell the whole story, nor absent as they are of human will, do they point the way toward the future.1 -John Kaliski, Re:Visualizing the Dream While some form of the car may survive our transition away from oil, our current daily commute will not. Geologists disagree about exactly when the world will reach peak oil, the maximum rate of petroleum extraction, but all accept that oil production will decrease significantly during the next 30 years. Oil is the easiest natural resource to extract and use, and it currently makes up 33 percent of the worldâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s total energy use.2 Replacing this fuel will be difficult, and simply using less energy must be one of the ways that we respond to this large social, economic and political shift. In online forums such as the Seattle Transit Blog the debate over the dangers of peak oil continues. Recent light rail projects in Seattle and Portland have generated heated debates over how soon such

investments in public transit infrastructure might pay off. City planners 20 site current ridership statistics and occasionally take the time to discuss some 10 of the big topics related to long-term urban planning. On the subject of peak oil, the concern is not the loss of oil, but an economically 0 or 1900 environmentally transition of oil. 2075 Most planners seem to 1925 1950 disastrous 1975 2000 2025 off2050 2100 2125 agree that a transition away from oil will include significant changes to infrastructure or transportation technology, but many also find extreme predictions related to peak oil to be alarmist and without justification.3 In any conversation about peak oil the following questions remain: Will a sudden rise in gas prices trigger an economic disaster or will new technologies and the economic markets simply cradle us during a transition from one fuel source to another? How soon will the effects of peak oil lead to major changes in the urban environment? There are certainly many factors at play in this debate. For example, if we were to transition from combustion engines to another fuel source, experts say it takes about 20 years to turn over the national fleet of cars.4 Natural gas is often cited as a gas alternative, but it too is a limited 16

resource not capable of significantly altering the general arc of declining oil and gas production rates. Natural gas and hydrofracking are a significant part of recent increases in U.S. oil and gas production, but these increases appear more likely to contribute to local environmental degradation and a boom and bust economic environment than they are to provide a long-term solution to the end of oil production.

a framework that will help repair the inefficiency of functional zoning, we can support fuel efficiency and greatly reduce the need for personal driving— currently 65% of U.S. transportation fuel consumption.8 Perhaps if we can demonstrate the inherent benefits of mixed land use and pedestrian space, we can contribute to a proliferation of such environments throughout suburban areas and limit further sprawl.

Local energy grids are likely going to play a role in the process of replacing oil as a fuel. As local power utilities look for ways to reduce carbon emissions from coal, alternative energy sources such as hydro, solar, wind and tidal are currently being promoted. If we choose to power cars with these diverse sources through the power grid, we have to accommodate adding vast amounts of electric cars to the system. This major shift in demand for electricity would require a new electric grid for higher volumes and potentially a form of centralized control to intelligently moderate peaks in demand.5 Centralized control near power generation sites also works well with the idea of cars being used as batteries for inconsistent energy streams like wind and solar. In fact, the benefit to both the user and the energy utility will likely support a market for shared electric vehicles collected and recharged near power generation sites.6

One primary societal change that oil production has supported over the years includes the mass adoption of the car as a primary transportation mode and the collective population migration from the city center to the suburbs. The loss of oil might lead to similar societal changes. One certainty about the future is that it will be very different from today in terms of mobility and the urban experience. Therefore, we should be actively engaged in a meaningful debate about possible future urban environments and needed transitions away from our present course.

Regardless of how optimistic or pessimistic one is regarding the economics of peak oil, the years between 2035 and 2050 appear to be a transitional period. It is during this time that new development strategies will likely be implemented to support economic and social shifts. According to the Energy Institute of America, gasoline prices will reach $5 per gallon shortly after 2040. At that time electric vehicles will become cost effective alternatives to combustion engines over the lifespan of the vehicle.7 A proactive plan should therefore look beyond the next 30 years, a time period that limits one’s view of potential new energy realities and underestimates the associated changes in local lifestyle. The point here is not to definitively decide on one expected fuel outcome but to recognize that future shifts in energy supply will likely require new energy networks and those new networks will help shape new behaviors. So that regardless of the specific change in our urban experience, a few consistent themes will emerge: greater fuel efficiency, a significant investment in new infrastructure and new mobility behaviors. Together these transitions amount to a enormous opportunity. If paired with intelligent design interventions, future infrastructure demands could support revolutionary changes in our daily experience. If we can outline 17

Corridors with a high capacity for multi-family housing will likely experience a transition from prioritizing regional travel effciency to a concern for increases in local quality of life. This will eventually result in a new economic reality. Efficiency will equal affordability, will equal less trips per day. The new demand for local living will help necessitate appropriate public spaces within densifying areas. The loss of cheap oil will force us to live a local lifestyle that is currently advocated for by planners but rarely realized due to ingrained suburban development practices. In short, many urban residents don’t know what they are missing, but they will soon find out. A switch to a lifestyle based on density, mixed uses and less car commuting avoids many of the current problems in the city, such as long car commutes, a lack of access to resources and the crime associated with less eyes on the street. This is the unexpected good news of peak oil, but in order to get to this smarter future without the growing pains of excessive hydrofracking and other heavily polluting energy extraction methods, we must find a way to better explain the benefits of such smart development. At this point the demand is growing for walkable environments, but the economic motivation for the developer appears to be lagging behind. For the sake of design research, I believe designers should engage in a series of challenges to current urban models. However, the city is so complex that many designers fear engagement with it. As Rem Koolhaas writes, we have been “laughing the professional field of urbanism out of existence, dismantling it in our contempt for those who planned (and made huge mistakes in planning) airports, New Towns, satellite cities,

highways, highrise buildings, infrastructures, and all the other fallout from modernization.”9 With the arrival of peak oil it is now more important than ever for us to embrace the field of urbanism. After all, the world is rapidly urbanizing and urbanism is the only field that claims responsibility for the urban experience as a whole. If big changes are on the way, we should advocate for how those changes will be made and not simply accept whatever market forces might generate. That would be a wasted opportunity and potentially a disastrous result of our own failure to take responsibility for designing our cities. NOTES: 1. Kaliski, “Re-Visualizing the Dream,”16. 2. “Annual Energy Outlook 2014,” U.S. Energy Information Administration, accessed May 10, 2014, http://www. eia.gov/forecasts/aeo/. 3, 4. “The Peak Oil Post,” Seattle Transit Blog, accessed April 22, 2014, http://seattletransitblog.com/2012/03/31/ the-peak-oil-post/ 5. Di Wu, Chengrui Cai, and Dionysios C. Aliprantis, “Potential Impacts of Aggregator-Controlled Plug-in Electric Vehicles on Distribution Systems,” (Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering Iowa State University), 1. 6. Paul, Makovski, “A Complete Rethink,” Metrolpolis Magazine March 2010, accessed May 14, 2014, http://www. metropolismag.com/March-2010/A-Complete-Rethink/. 7. “Annual Energy Outlook 2014 Early Release Overview,” Energy Information Administration, accessed April 22, 2014, http://www.eia.gov/forecasts/aeo/ 8. “American Fuels,” AmericanEnergyIndependence.com, accessed June 2, 2014, http://www. americanenergyindependence.com/fuels.aspx 9. Rem Koolhaas, “Whatever happened to Urbanism?” Design Quarterly 164 (1995): 30.

THE NEW URBANISM

return to traditional forms

INFLUENCES

CODE

INFLUENCES

LEON KRIER ANDRES DUANY ELLEN DUNHAMJONES

CULTURAL CONTEXT

practicing city planners & urban designers

Learn From The Past Work Within Political And Economic Systems Prioritize Pedestrians

MODERN PLANNING

ATTITUDE TOWARD THE CITY

URBAN

STRATEGY

Look To The Future Seek New Solutions and Hybrid Programs Experiment In The Field

FRAMEWORKS FOR GROWTH

ENVIRONMENTAL STRATEGY

DENSITY T2

the academy & the architectural avant garde

TOOLS

TRANSECT & SMARTCODE

THEORY

CULTURAL CONTEXT

DOUBTFUL

TOOLS

RURAL

REM KOOLHAAS STAN ALLEN JAMES CORNER

RESPONSES TO

CONFIDENT

STRATEGY

LANDSCAPE URBANISM

new program combinations

WATER CYCLE

OMA’S PARC DE LA VILLETTE MODELS MODELS

THE TRADITIONAL CITY

THE HIGHLINE

Fig 16: Urban Theory Diagram

too prescriptive focused on traditional form

COMMON TROPE: DENIAL OF A PRIMARY GROUND PLANE

quality designs and graphics focus on natural cycles

PROS CONS

proven record of success accepted standards of practice

PROS CONS

COMMON TROPE: MEDIEVAL VILLAGE AS NEW TOWN

too expensive not integrated into practice greenwashed

Contemporary Urban Design Theory The 1980s and 1990s in North America mark two decades of particular disengagement from, and suspicion of, planning citiesâ&#x20AC;&#x201D; new and old. The broad visions of modernist urbanism, so indelibly marked in the minds of designers around the world from the 1930s into the 1950s, depended upon a powerful central planning entity. And we have grown to associate many of the catastrophes of real-life projects (like the now crime- infested Robert Taylor homes in Chicago or the now demolished Pruitt-Igoe housing in St. Louis) with an image of rampant power transforming entire neighborhoods, several broad strokes at a time.1 -Moshe Safdie, The City After the Automobile Our distrust of planning, after modernist urban renewal failures, has almost killed the profession. With the exception of a few highly planned cities like Portland and New York, city planning has become as deregulated as the banking industry. In cities like Dallas, there is virtually a lack of zoning and the result is a highly suburban fabric.

Despite city planningâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s apparent failure to prove its effectiveness as a discipline in many cities, there are two primary groups currently debating the best way to respond to modernism and the existing suburban landscape. With an eye to the past, New Urbanists advocate for the use of proven urban models. They have persuaded the majority of practicing urban planners to adopt their graphic codes and zoning tools. Landscape Urbanists on the other hand, have advocated for a much more flexible and less prescriptive model for urban growth. They favor the use of systems that encourage new programs to emerge, and they accept that the future city may bare little resemblance to those of the past. New Urbanists begin their argument with a critique of the existing. In many U.S. cities land area has out grown population by a scale of ten to one.2 As a result, driving to work each day has become synonymous with wasted time and energy. As world oil production decreases in the coming years, auto commuters will carry the added burden of rising fuel costs and limited access to local resources. In a 2010 opinion in the 20

Washington Post, Andrés Duany and Jeff Speck described the real American experience in contrast to the one portrayed in advertising images.

In much of America — and almost all of the places built in the past half-century — the smiling woman has no choice but to take the car. She lives on a cul-de-sac in a subdivision along a collector road that leads to a state highway, and that highway leads to another collector road that leads to the office, the school, the Walmart and the gym. Often, the voyage also requires using the interstate. This is sprawl, the dominant American pattern of settlement, and sprawl, more than anything else, has cemented our relationship with oil.3

Duany, the New Urbanism’s most persuasive and controversial proponent, has listed the following reasons for sprawl.4 • • • • •

American preference for low-density housing Racism and white flight Lending practices and federal subsidies Common construction practices Systems of governance

Together these forces have encouraged many urban residents to adopt an auto-centric lifestyle. While this may have been an attractive routine in the mid 20th century, it has become an undesirable one. In an attempt to correct many of the failures of modern planning, the Congress for the New Urbanism (CNU) has produced many urban design methodologies including the Urban Transect, the Smart Code and the Lexicon— each created to repair the mistakes of modern functional planning by reintroducing proven strategies from the past such as clearly defined street edges, urban density, and mixed land use. In recent years, many New Urbanist strategies have been adopted by city planners around the country in the form of graphic codes: sets of diagrammatic drawings that represent the generally intended built environment. Through the use of graphic codes, New Urbanists attempt to fight modernist zoning with zoning of their own. Retrofitting Suburbia is a collection of case studies that reuse suburban parking lots and strip malls to create parks, community art centers and ecological restoration. The book, by current CNU Board Chair Ellen Dunham-Jones, and June Williamson, promotes the idea of bringing an 21

urban lifestyle into the suburbs as a sustainable strategy that discourages sprawl. The projects featured in Retrofitting Suburbia save building materials by reusing existing structures and preserve green space by reinvigorating existing neighborhoods. These projects also help to create complete urban environments where residents might find work, housing and third places like cafes and markets. Third spaces are essential to social life and community, and single use zoning prevents such spaces from being developed near housing and office buildings. New Urbanism has achieved a level of success in practice because they have identified proven strategies and demonstrated the confidence to impose rules on the urban environment. The broad acceptance of new urbanists principles is particularly impressive in the context of distrust we currently inhabit. But despite new urbanist successes, the majority of urban residents still live a suburban lifestyle. In focusing on zoning, New Urbanists are perhaps repeating modernism’s failure to address the shortcomings of suburban fabric in a more radical way. Landscape Urbanists, and their predecessors, such as Rem Koolhaas and Stan Allen have a much less prescriptive approach to urban design. In his 1995 essay, Whatever Happened to Urbanism, Koolhaas points out the irony of the New Urbanist’s rediscovery of the values of the traditional city at the very moment of its impossibility.

If there is to be a ‘new urbanism’ it will no longer be concerned with the arrangement of more or less permanent objects but with the irrigation of territories with potential...5

Landscape Urbanism is a theory promoted by urban designers seeking an alternative to inflexible modernist visions and the regressive structuralist and poststructuralist ideas that followed. The protagonists of this theory, Rem Koolhaas, Stan Allen and James Corner, seek a better understanding of the forces that shape the contemporary city. Landscape Urbanism is a site-specific approach that runs counter to the prohibitive top-down methods of urban planners.6 For the Landscape Urbanist, the vitality of the city no longer issues from the center, in the form of a centralized plan, and is instead sustained through a distribution of events across a dynamic field. The only urbanism that can survive in this context is a flexible one—an urbanism no longer concerned with form, but with the charged voids between forms. If we accept the position that the suburbs are now the urban experience for most people, then architects and urban designers must stop denying

this territory and begin to study the processes at work. The writing of theorists such as Rem Koolhaas points out that we won’t learn what the future city is by studying ancient cities one tenth the size of Atlanta, formed in a forgotten age before trains, and cars, without the sprawl that has become so problematic in this country.7 In fact, according to these theorists, it is at the edge of the city, where zoning and codes are less restrictive, that contemporary urbanism can be found in its purest state.8 In these edge conditions designers can more clearly identify the flows of material and energy that make up the urban field. By employing flexible frameworks of specific architectural aggregates, Landscape Urbanism directs flows of people, materials and natural systems without restricting future growth. It incorporates architectural specificity and programmatic indeterminacy while retaining enough slack in its systems to adjust to future needs and emergent programs.9

when faced with the complexity of the contemporary urban environment. They fill their writing with doubt and admit that their plans may fail when put to the test. It is this very humility, the acceptance of failure, that sets these thinkers apart. They recognize the need for multiple authors in urban design and they promote a spirit of improvisation as the disciplines of urban design, architecture and landscape architecture begin to adopt aspects of one another setting the stage for a new era of urban exploration and experimentation. For the Landscape Urbanist, fewer restrictions are the necessary response to the inflexibility of modernist functional zoning. However, the restrictions used by Koolhaas and others are often the defining elements of their work. Koolhaas’s Office of Metropolitan Architecture submitted a proposal for the 1982 Parc de la Villette competition that represents a Landscape Urbanist framework. The word framework is used here in an effort to suggest great flexibility within very clearly defined limits. In the eventual runner-up submission, Koolhaas divided the Parisian park program into bands evenly distributed across the site (see Fig 17). His stated intention was to create a social condenser: a place where diverse programs are in close proximity with one another and the number of potential social interactions is maximized. Koolhaas so concerned himself with program, that he described the project as “congestion without matter.” 10 Here the word matter can be read as a reference to the permanence of modernist composition and a concern for overall form. In striking contrast, his design’s ultimate flexibility (program bands could be replaced as the desired use changed over time) can be associated with an inherent doubt about the future.

But17:more thanBands, this,OMA, Landscape profess a degree of humility Fig Program Parc deUrbanists la Villette Competition Entry, 1982

The recognition of modernisms failure combined with Koolhaas’s study of sprawling cities like Atlanta begins a new conversation about the future of urbanism. Both Allen and Koolhaas discuss how modernist urban visions proved too inflexible to support the changing needs of the city and suggest that our regression towards earlier models in the form of New Urbanist planning regulations and codes, was not the answer. As the city becomes more complex and more difficult to understand, Allen and Koolhaas call for the design of site-specific flexible infrastructures that can serve multiple programs and change over time. In his 1989 essay Toward the Contemporary City, Koolhaas writes we must “leave Paris and Amsterdam” and “go look at Atlanta, quickly, and without preconception.” He points out architecture’s general lack of interest in the suburbs and suggests that these peripheries are actually the 22

contemporary state of urbanism. As unattractive as they might appear to those nostalgic for the traditional city, these less controlled urban fabrics might teach us something about the future of urbanism. They “might generate a form of manifesto.” In these unstudied territories, Koolhaas asserts, “we might eventually recognize as many gains as losses.”11 But in order for the realizations to take place, he believes we must let go of our current image of the city. We must imagine new urbanisms that may or may not succeed, and we must anticipate our own inability to fully comprehend the complexity of the city. In 1996 Stan Allen published his seminal essay Field Conditions. At once challenging and straightforward, Field Conditions can be viewed as the precise distillation of a theory that emerged out of the academic environment of the time and provided the foundation for Charles Waldheim and James Corner’s theory of Landscape Urbanism. Allen had studied under Tschumi and alongside Greg Lynn and Sanford Kwinter, the latter two recognized for their field-like contributions to digital theory. He had written about Koolhaas and partnered with James Corner. He had taught with Kenneth Frampton and Peter Eisenman and eventually became Dean of the School of Architecture at Princeton University. Allen had discovered this theoretical track while at Columbia during the high point of Bernard Tschumi’s influence. Field Conditions cannot claim to produce a systematic theory of architectural form or composition. The theoretical model proposed here anticipates its own irrelevance when faced with the realities of practice. These are working concepts derived from experimentation in contact with the real.12 -Stan Allen For Allen the concept of the field is the elimination of the object. Once the field is engaged as such, the object is no longer a singularity. It is instead part of a distribution in process. Actions and events create intensities that can be viewed as such while remaining part of a continuous field. Bruno Latour describes a similar perspective in his well-known sociological treatise Actor Network Theory. He blurs the line between actors and the networks they participate in. 23

We have alternated between two types of equally powerful dissatisfactions: when social scientists concentrate on what could be called the micro level, that is face to face interactions, local sites, they quickly realize that many of the elements necessary to make sense of the situation are already in place or are coming

from far away; hence this urge to look for something else, some other level, and to concentrate on what is not directly visible in the situation but has made the situation what it is.13

Latour goes on to explain Actor Network Theory as a way of perceiving a larger context through a careful study of the local. “This is already an important contribution of ANT since it means that when one explores the structures of the social, one is not lead away from the local sites— as it was the case with the dissatisfied social scientists—but closer to them.”13 This local perspective allows urban designers like Allen to let go of any concern for overall form. Formalism in this view is a hindrance that distracts the designer from an already complex milieu of conflicting ideas. Allen’s field is also a counterpoint to New Urbanist planning codes. He calls instead for a bottom up approach that tests itself in the context of its site. Unlike the top down model of centralized control in the form of citywide codes and ordinances, Allen’s Infrastructural Urbanism is free to explore experimental models that might better accommodate new transit modes or our rapidly expanding urban populations. His approach is free of aesthetic limitations and is not concerned with either the promotion of history or the communication of meaning. It neither advocates for the new or the old. It favors instead an exploration of the existing and an opening up of future possibilities. Both Allen and Koolhaas advocate for involving multiple authors when designing at the urban scale. They site modernist influences and wish to correct the functionalist flaws in modern urban design: inflexibility and idealized form. According to Allen, “Any theoretical approach that can’t account for architecture’s inherent instrumental character is going to fall short.”14 While New Urbanists such as Duany share the Landscape Urbanist’s critique of modernism, he doesn’t agree with their response. His recent writing describes the Landscape Urbanist position as a kin to greenwashed modernism. In an attempt to return to innovative and creative form making, Duany accuses the Landscape Urbanists of denying even the most proven tools of the New Urbanist planners. In the book Landscape Urbanism and Its Discontents, Duany and Emily Talen describe the Landscape Urbanist position:

Rather than an urban fabric based on the spatial definition by buildings, landscape would be the “structuring medium.” “The look and shape of the city” was to be a matter of “open space within

which buildings are set.” When Stan Allen stated that “designers can activate space and produce urban effects without the weighty apparatus of traditional space making,” it was a radical proposition only against the then-consensus that a disciplined building frontage was the primary component of a successful urban outcome - and its absence a catalyst for failure.15 By asserting nearly all positions counter to those New Urbanism, Landscape Urbanism was forced to reject many accepted successful urban strategies including, “grids, blocks, sidewalks directly associated to building frontages, primary ground planes, standard issue pavement, trees coinciding with paths, multiple buildings accreting to define public space, and any of those design techniques that could promote and reconcile the super-adjacency of disparate social and functional programs.”16 The Landscape Urbanist preoccupation with natural systems and the water cycle is also called into question by Duany and Talen. The perverse implications of hydrological privilege gradually became evident. Manhattan and Charleston emerged as polemical counterexamples. What would the effect be on Manhattan’s transportation network if the nearly 3,000 streams and wetlands then in pipes were to have remained “riparian corridors” as per Landscape Urbanist praxis? How much street connectivity would be interrupted, thereby severely reducing density? How many thousands of square miles of actual, functioning, wilderness would have been consumed by the dwellings, stores, and offices of millions of consequently dispersed Manhattanites — all adding their lower-density carbon footprints to the global crisis.17

both the pedestrian priorities of the New Urbanists and the creative innovation of the Landscape Urbanists. NOTES: 1. Moshe Safdie and Wendy Kohn, The CIty After the Automobile: An Architect’s Vision, New York: Basic Books, 1997, 114. 2. Douglas S. Kelbaugh, Repairing the American Metropolis: Common Place Revisited, Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2002. 3. Andrés Duany and Jeff Speck, “Plan to reduce sprawl will boost health, environment,” TheWashingtonPost. com, Saturday, October 16, 2010. 4. Andrés Duany and Emily Talen, “Transect Planning,” APA Journal, Vol. 68, No. 3 (2002): 246. 5. Rem Koolhaas, “Whatever Happened to Urbanism,” Design Quarterly 164 (1995): 29. 6, 7. Dylan Morgan, “Infrastructural Urbanism: Charged Fields and Programmatic Emergence,” (Academic paper, Portland State University, 2013) 3. 8. Rem Koolhaas, “Toward the Contemporary City,” In Theorizing a New Agenda for Architecture: 1965 – 1995, Kate Nesbit (New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 1996), 328. 9. Stan Allen, Points and Lines: Diagrams and Projects for the City (New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 1996), 102. 10. Office for Metropolitan Architecture et al. S, M, L, XL (New York: Montecelli Press, 1995), 895. 11. Rem Koolhaas, “Toward the Contemporary City,” 328. 12. Allen, Points and Lines, 96. 13. Bruno Latour “On recalling ANT,” In Actor Network Theory and After, ed. John Law and John Hassard (Malden: The Editorial Board of the Sociologic Review, 1999), 16-17. 14. Latour, “On recalling ANT,” 16-17. 15. Stan Allen, Practice: Architecture, Technique and Representation (Amsterdam: G+B Arts International, 2000), XIV. 16. Andrés Duany and Emily Talen, Landscape Urbanism and Its Discontents, 4. 17. Duany and Talen, Landscape Urbanism, 7.

While an ongoing debate is perhaps a better situation than a silent standoff, the division between these two camps is clear. It will be up to the current generation of students and young designers to see beyond these deeply ingrained theoretical positions to a new more practical and meaningful third position. As the world begins to transition away from using oil as its primary transportation fuel, both of these urban design attitudes will be required. We will need to relearn how to design for a car-free lifestyle, but we will also need to embrace new concepts of urban life. We will need to utilize many of the proven strategies of the past, while also being willing to test new models. We will need the confidence of the New Urbanists as well as the flexibility and doubt of the Landscape Urbanists. We will need 24

STUDY CONTEXT Fig 18: Fabric Study Of Radburn, New Jersey

PORTLAND GROWTH

RADIUS =

City Limits are a function of how far a person can walk in 1 hour. Business is done face-to-face.

800

1 mi

POPULATION:

RADIUS =

TRANSITIONAL CITY

3 mi

Streetcar allows business to be conducted from farther away. Commuting via streetcar becomes a reliable daily routine. The city grows in direct relation to the length of the streetcar lines.

POPULATION:

90,426

RADIUS =

340,000

775,000

5 mi

POPULATION:

2050

AUTO CITY

Public transportation is now a mixture of streetcars, trollies and buses. A transition to buses is being supported by the auto industry and the federal government. Cars are becoming a common mode of travel. The city now stretches to greater lengths but is still capable of being fully served by public transit.

METRO:

PORTLAND MOBILITY

2000

RADIUS =

POST-OIL CITY

10 mi

The automobile is the primary mode of transportation for daily commuting and freight shipping. As the public transit system struggles for ridership some bus service is being reduced. Despite low ridership Portland continues to invest in new light rail lines.

POPULATION: METRO:

529,121

1,700,000

82ND AVE

1950

STREETCAR CITY

82ND AVE

1900

WALKING CITY

82ND AVE

1850

RADIUS =

10 mi

Without cheap gasoline, Portland is forced to rethink its urban plan. Dense neighborhood centers become the alternative to daily commuting. Shared automated vehicles, mixeduse construction and pedestrian public space increase local access to employment, food and social space.

POPULATION: METRO:

750,000

2,700,000

82ND AVE

EASTWARD GROWTH

CITY CENTER

Fig 19 (opposite): Portland Growth and Mobility Timllines Fig 20 (above): Looking East, Portland, 1879

Portland Growth As highly planned as the city of Portland is, it has grown in a very typically American way. Like Boston it was once a streetcar city, and like Los Angeles, it has embraced the highway and the suburb. Bounded to the north by the Columbia River and to the west by hills of Forest Park, Portland has primarily grown eastward. In the early 20th century, streetcar lines stretched out from the city center and reinforced this trajectory. Even after the removal of the streetcars in Portland, and a switch to buses, main streets continued to develop along the same eastwest routes. At present the City of Portland has reached a radius of 10 miles to the east, and the Urban Growth Boundary, the metro areaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s regional development limit, has been expanded to a 15 mile radius. Within the city limits, Portland is now only one third as dense as Vancouver, BC and only a quarter as dense as Barcelona. This relative low density is representative of most U.S. cities and is largely supported by our current auto-commuter lifestyle.

Low-density urban areas such as East Portland are difficult to serve with mass transit and therefore they present a challenge to our local communities in a post-oil future. Without oil, how will the 67 percent of Portland residents who currently commute by car to work each day remain connected to employment and other resources? In the future, the population of East Portland will find it increasingly difficult to utilize the residential fabric that functional zoning has created. Current development, nearly all of which prioritizes single-family homes, large apartment blocks and big box stores, requires automobile commuting. The resulting infrastructure makes walking difficult, and due to relatively low densities, it prevents reliable transit from reaching many areas. This thesis project is an examination of how 82nd Avenue, a corridor in East Portland, can be retrofitted to reduce auto dependency and establish a new mixed-use fabric that promotes economic activity. Without this type of intervention, East Portland communities will remain susceptible to rising fuel costs, decreased mobility and increased isolation.

RESIDENTIAL / [SUB]URBAN

82ND AVE

RESIDENTIAL / URBAN

INDUSTRY

RIVER /

CENTRAL CITY

RESIDENTIAL / URBAN

RESIDENTIAL / [SUB]URBAN

11-15 MI COMMUTE

7-10 MI COMMUTE

3-5 MI COMMUTE

Fig 21 (opposite): Portland Map and Section Showing 82nd Ave and Typical Commute Lengths Fig 22 (above): Sectional Corridor Study Model

Corridor as Site of Intervention As oil production decreases, increased fuel costs will trigger a demand for dense mixed-use neighborhoods. In fact this trend has already begun. Arthur C. Nelson, a professor at the University of Utah has found that 66 percent of both Baby Boomers and Millennials would prefer to live in a walkable mixed-use environment with multiple transit options. The preferences of these two large demographic groups may have the ability to change the urban environment the way that previous Baby Boomer preferences influenced the demand for suburban housing. Unfortunately, only 10 percent of what we currently build has these newly desired characteristics, and major shifts in development and construction practices will be required to transition to a sustaunable mixed-use environment.1 Suburban corridors are some of the sites where this new demand might be satisfied. Because of their high capacity for multifamily housing development, corridors have become a popular site for suburban retrofits. Ellen Dunham-Jones cataloged many recent corridor projects in her book Retrofitting Suburbia. Most of these projects reintegrate

pedestrians, bicyclists and public transit into the suburban environment, but few go beyond the current New Urbanist inspired standards embraced by planning departments around the country. Without a more aggressive and experimental approach to retrofits, we will likely be unable to adapt these corridors to the needs of a post-oil world. Many suburban corridors are currently commercial strips surrounded by resource-deprived food deserts. Created by single-use zoning which prioritizes residential development, these car dominated landscapes disregard the social implications of separating land uses throughout the city. Retrofitting these corridors, many of which already possess the necessary street width for public transit, wider sidewalks and nearby space for commercial development, could provide the new infrastructure required for a more fuel-efficient future. Corridor retrofits could also provide nearly all of the stock needed to meet the new demand for smart housing while improving peopleâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s everyday experience.2 NOTES: 1, 2. Arthur C. Nelson, Reshaping Metropolitan America: Development Trends and Opportunities to 2030, Washington, DC: Island Press, 2013.

Fig 23 (opposite): 82nd Ave Figure Ground Map Near Portland Community College and Model 2 with Proposed Infill Fig 24 (above): Typical 82nd Ave Condition

82nd Avenue Study Area This thesis project uses 82nd Avenue, a corridor in Portland, Oregon, as a site to test a post-oil retrofit strategy. 82nd Avenue is the line where urbanism stops in Portland. To the east of this 5-mile, northsouth commercial strip lies 10 miles of residential sprawl. The corridor is important not only for its abundance of retail and service businesses but also as one of the few continuous north-south routes in East Portland. With a high capacity for multifamily housing, the commercial corridor will remain an essential part of daily life in East Portland for the foreseeable future. In fact, 82nd Avenue already receives the highest grade within the Portland Plan’s 20-minute Neighborhood concept analysis.1 Unfortunately, while many resources are located within walking distance of nearby East Portland residents, 82nd Avenue’s suburban strip morphology makes it difficult, and dangerous, to access without a car. While this corridor certainly needs to be retrofitted in order to reach its commercial and housing development capacity, 82nd Avenue is currently closer to providing a walkable environment than the Portland Plan’s intended east side center, known as Gateway. Unlike Gateway,

82nd Avenue has the potential to serve pedestrians within a grid of surface streets the way that former streetcar streets such as Hawthorne and Alberta act as main streets in the inner southeast and northeast quadrants of the city. Gateway on the other hand is a suburban transit hub at the intersection of two highways. Despite the city’s continued promotion of Gateway, it has yet to attract residents and will likely never reach its potential as a second center due to its auto-centric morphology. As a point, or node, Gateway also represents the traditional vision of a city center. 82nd Avenue in its linear form has the potential to serve a much broader portion of East Portland. For these reasons, I am advocating for the adoption of 82nd Avenue as a second center within the Portland Plan and a redirection of city resources away from auto-centric Gateway and toward this potential pedestrian area. In this new scenario, Gateway would remain a transit hub, including a potential high-speed rail stop, and new streetcar lines, currently being studied by Portland Streetcar, would connect 82nd to Gateway. 32

82ND AVE

82ND AVE Fig 25: Portland Traction Company Trolley Map, 1943

Fig 26: Portland Streetcar Concept Study, 2009

The Portland Traction Company Map above shows 82nd Avenue as the end of the line for multiple streetcar lines. This former edge of town still marks the historic edge between the more planned parts of the city to the west and the recently annexed suburban fabric to the east.

This Portland Street Car Study shows recent attempts to integrate East Portland into the Portlandâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s public transit system. Few streets outside of downtown Portland are currently served by streetcars, but this study indicates there is a demand for many addition lines throughout the city.

82ND AVE Fig 27: Portland 20-Minute Neighborhoods, 2010

The City of Portland’s 20-Minute Neighborhoods map is the clearest expression of 82nd Avenue’s critical role within East Portland. The “heat map,” as it is called, provides a color-coded comparison of areas of the city with resources within a 20-minute walking radius. The map gives the visual description of how walking access to resources drops off beyond 82nd Avenue, while the corridor itself receives the highest walkability score. However the reality of 82nd Avenue, is that it doesn’t encourage pedestrian access, and many of the streets immediately east of 82nd lack sidewalks and safe bicycle routes. NOTES 1. “20-Minute Neighborhoods,” Portland Plan, accessed May 20, 2014, http://www.portlandonline.com/ portlandplan/index.cfm?a=288098&c=52256.

1. UNDEFINED STREET EDGE On SE Stark Street, the urbanism of the Montavilla neighborhood ends before it reaches the suburban strip morphology of 82nd Avenue. Without a defined edge the strip is not attractive to pedestrians.

Whatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Wrong with this Picture? Despite its many advantages as a potential second center, 82nd Avenue is so lacking in safe pedestrian space, that it was easy to identify a variety of issues to be addressed. The following images present just a few of the siteâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s existing shortcomings. Many of these issues have contributed to a lack of pedestrian activity, high crime rates and many pedestrian fatalities. All of these traits are typical of corridors throughout U.S. cities. In order to better serve the needs of local residents, I believe the City of Portland should request to take responsibility for 82nd Avenue from the state Department of Transportation. The city should then institute traffic calming devices such as on street parking, additional stoplights and pedestrian crossings, lane reductions, lower speed limits and eventually the establishment of a bike lane in each direction. But this thesis project is not about these much needed short-term safety and mobility improvements. It is about contributing to a long-term vision of what 82nd Avenue could become. East Portland desperately requires a center for identity, economic sustainability and future energy efficiency, and 82nd Avenue is the part of East Portland best suited to take on that role. 36

2. LACK OF ON-STREET PARKING One of the practical roles of onstreet parking is that of a barrier between pedestrians and drivers. Without a barrier high-speed traffic becomes a physical and psychological threat.

3. FREQUENT CURB CUTS Curb cuts are places where vehicles cross pedestrian paths. An excessive amount of curb cuts presents a significant threat to pedestrians and prevents an active pedestrian culture from forming.

4. LOUD AND DANGEROUS TRAFFIC Even new development on 82nd Avenue is forced to hedge between establishing a pedestrian street edge and stepping back to avoid the loud, dangerous and unwelcoming nature of the street.

5. LACK OF BIKE LANE 82nd Avenue prioritizes vehicle traffic at the expense of bicycle and pedestrian accessibility. With 4 lanes of traffic plus a center turning lane, there simply is not room for bicycles.

DESIGN PROPOSAL Fig 33: Fabric Study of Portland, Oregon

AUTO FABRIC

PEDESTRIAN FABRIC

Fig 34 (opposite): Diagram of Potential Changes to Street Over Perspective Sketch Fig 35 (above): Diagrams of 82nd Avenueâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Existing and Proposed Fabric

Reclaiming the Street of the human experience in a place designed to be enjoyed and experienced from the car. In their investigation, the authors uncover the phenomenology of driving and walking in Las Vegas, and their impartial record of the morphology of the strip highlights the spacing of an autocentric urban fabric. For example along the Las Vegas strip, in order to better serve the parking needs of drivers, parking lots take priority at the street edge with little thought given to the experience of the pedestrian.

In Learning from Las Vegas (LFLV), Robert Venturi, Denise Scott Brown and Steven Izenour compare the Las Vegas strip to a middle eastern bazaar where shoppers are persuaded by shopkeepers to buy their merchandise. In Las Vegas this persuasive communication takes the form of signs that can be read by automobile drivers and passengers. LFLV is a study of the auto-based design of Route 66 and the Las Vegas Strip. Venturi, Scott Brown, and Izenour describe how buildings are rotated near the strip to be better perceived in elevation by passing cars. The experience of the strip is compared to a filmstrip of images because one cannot perceive it in its entirety. Each building is presented individually with the intention of communicating to the driver - buildings acting as signs similar to the billboards along Route 66. The concept of building as sign is expressed in the famous example of the Duck and the decorated shed. The Duck (a building shaped like a duck) looks like what it is, while the decorated shed uses a sign to say what it is. In both cases the communication of interior program relies on signs.

LFLV remains influential to my research as one of the best descriptions

This project began with a simple idea about reversing the suburban

The Las Vegas strip has much in common with the typical suburban commercial strip. One of the effects of residential suburban sprawl has been the corresponding construction of commercial strips and regional highway infrastructure. These high-speed corridors have cut more dense urban fabric and made it difficult to walk through the city. The costs of this lack of pedestrian space cannot be underestimated. Increased transportation costs, less active social spaces, and fewer eyes on the street have all contributed to an unhealthy suburban environment.

BUILD-TO LINE

hierarchy of the car over all other modes of travel. Any reduction in daily auto trips would improve the city’s chances of surviving without oil, and an urban fabric that could accommodate all modes of travel would be better suited to the changing and unknown demands of the future. With this idea in mind, I began to develop a strategy with the goal of diversifying the rideshare within the 82nd Avenue corridor. The following sections compare the existing 82nd Avenue corridor and Portland’s current commuter rideshare to a post-oil street and a corresponding more diverse commuter rideshare. Instead of trying to fully replace oil as a fuel, the concept of reclaiming the street is intended to reduce the need for transportation fuel by encouraging density, mixed land use and pedestrian access.

+ BUILD-TO LINE

POST-FORDIAN MULTI MODAL STREET THAT PRIORITIZES PEDESTRIAN MOBILITY

SMALL MIXED USE BUILDINGS THAT DEFINE THE PUBLIC REALM AND PROVIDE ECONOMIC OPPORTUNITIES AT A VARIETY OF SCALES

Fig 36 (above): Framework Concept Sketch Fig 37 (opposite): Existing and Proposed 82nd Ave Street Sections

SERVICE ALLEYS THAT LINK RESIDENTIAL, COMMERCIAL AND PRODUCTIVE ACTIVITIES

67% EXISTING PORTLAND COMMUTER RIDE SHARE

67’

7’

12’

EXISTING STREET SECTION [82ND AVENUE AT MONTAVILLA]

10’

12’

10’

12’

7’

24’

70’

POST-OIL PORTLAND COMMUTER RIDE SHARE

25’

POST-OIL STREET SECTION [82ND AVENUE AT MONTAVILLA]

72’

10’

15’

25’

75’

15’

10 ’

72’ 0 1 2

25’

LT IP

CREATING A NEW MULTIUSE, MULTI-MODAL PUBLIC REALM

PUBLIC SPACE DIVERSE PROGRAMS

The new post-oil street can be adapted to multiple uses throughout the day and throughout the length of the corridor.

CREATING A NEW MULTIUSE, MULTI-MODAL PUBLIC REALM

REPARTIALIZATION FOR THE PEDESTRIAN EXPERIENCE EN

PUBLIC SPACE DIVERSE PROGRAMS CREATING A NEW MULTIUSE, MULTI-MODAL PUBLIC REALM

AG I

LT IP

E The new post-oil street can be adapted to multiple uses throughout the day and throughout the length of the corridor.

An Economic Overlay Zone encourages subdivision of existing parcels and provides tax incentives for programmatic diversity.

DIVERSE PROGRAMS LOCAL ALLEYWAYS 5’ - 50’ WIDE PARCELS

REPARTIALIZATION FOR THE PEDESTRIAN EXPERIENCE

NEW SERVICE ALLEYWAYS LINK RESIDENTIAL, COMMERCIAL Fig 38: Diagrams of the Framework for 82nd Avenue AND PRODUCTIVE ACTIVITIES BU I

Mid-block alleyways provide increased access to economic opportunities in the new center.

The new post-oil street can be adapted to multiple uses throughout the day and throughout the length of the corridor.

An Economic Overlay Zone encourages subdivision of existing parcels and provides tax incentives for programmatic diversity.

DIVERSE PROGRAMS LOCAL ALLEYWAYS REPARTIALIZATION FOR THE PEDESTRIAN EXPERIENCE

NEW SERVICE ALLEYWAYS LINK RESIDENTIAL, COMMERCIAL AND PRODUCTIVE ACTIVITIES BU I

25’ - 50’ WIDE PARCELS

REPARTIALIZATION FOR THE PEDESTRIAN EXPERIENCE

Existing commercial strip fabric

The new post-oil street can be adapted to multiple uses throughout the day and throughout the length of the corridor.

LT IP

AG I

BU I

AG I

BU I

25’ - 50’ WIDE PARCELS

Existing commercial strip fabric

25’ - 50’ WIDE PARCELS

A FRAMEWORK PUBLIC SPACE FOR:

Existing commercial strip fabric

Mid-block alleyways provide increased access to economic opportunities in the new center.

’A

An Economic Overlay Zone encourages subdivision of existing parcels and provides tax incentives for programmatic diversity.

Home businesses and start-ups connect to productive and commercial activities along the alleyways.

LOCAL ALLEYWAYS

NEW SERVICE ALLEYWAYS LINK RESIDENTIAL, COMMERCIAL AND PRODUCTIVE ACTIVITIES Mid-block alleyways provide increased access to economic opportunities in the new center.

Fig 39: Study Model Showing Existing Condition and Desired Infill with Defined Street Edge

A Framework for Diverse Programs Most suburban development consists of large residential lots connected by highways and commercial strips. This less dense pattern of growth cannot support reliable public transportation. As a result, residents have no choice but to drive for all of their daily needs including work, groceries and social activities. Density improves access to public transit and decreases the amount of energy used in transportation, housing and the shipment of goods. For these reasons, density will be an essential part of post-oil planning and development. Before the automobile, all urbanism was mixed-use by necessity. In 19th century Boston, the middle class lived side-by-side with worker housing and industrial land. This mix was part of a complete environment that included housing, work places, and markets. Perhaps most importantly mixed-use environments support a healthy social life where neighbors help one another and businesses host people of diverse backgrounds. Mass production of the car and increased pollution from industry upset this balance, but future energy costs could provide the opportunity for many people to return to a true mixed-use environment.

Urban industry is much less toxic than it was in the 19th century, and the nature of manufacturing has changed significantly. Cities such as Madrid have recently created economic zones where owners are free to change the use of their buildings from commercial to industrial without a change of use permit. As long as production is sustainable, it should be reintroduced into commercial and residential areas as we begin to retrofit our suburbs and create new development opportunities. Without the ability to relocate the entire suburban population within the city center, we must bring more of the cityâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s economic activity to the suburbs and the urban edges. With three major components, this framework is designed to support a car-free lifestyle within 82nd Avenueâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s existing auto-centric fabric. Using diversity as a theme, the framework adds a diversity of transit modes, a diversity of program types and a diversity of program scales to the corridor. Such diversity and the increased density of repartialized lots will decrease the need for auto trips by bringing more economic opportunities and essential resources to this geographically central, but 48

economically isolated, location in Portland. The design of the street came out of a concern for encouraging a diversity of modes of travel. Any move toward a more balanced rideshare would mean a reduction in car trips. Because the 82nd Avenue corridor is so central to Portland and has such a high capacity for development, it could become a second center for the city, but only if it was accessible via sustainable transportation modes. A diversity of modes further supports sustainability by providing opportunities for multiple fuel sources to be utilized. To further explore the possibilities of new streetscape designs I became very interested in the concept of post-Fordist infrastructure described by Jonathan Solomon in his pamphlet architecture book, 13 Projects for the Sheridan Expressway. In the book, Solomon describes post-Fordist infrastructure as the antithesis of the modernist highway. Instead of a highway having a uniform character throughout its length like the product of an assembly line, why couldn’t the space of the street be mass customized to fit the needs of various locations and different times of day? In Solomon’s argument for a more progressive approach to the highway, he points out the similarities of the modernist elevated highway and the contemporary buried freeway such as Boston’s Big Dig. Both are an attempt to separate uses. In each case the person in the car is not present in the local environment. They have been isolated and contributed to the isolation of nearby residents on the ground. The concept of the post-Fordist street challenges the designer to reconcile the local and the regional. No longer should one of these two user groups win favor at the expense of the other. New technologies such as automated cars might help significantly in this effort. Current projects such as Solomon’s redesign of the Sheridan Expressway also demonstrates how simple time tables for changes in lane use and the associated electronic signage can greatly reduce conflicts between drivers, pedestrians and cyclists. In the context of the street, we might find the best use of Landscape Urbanist innovation. Recently streets in Madrid have been transformed into Rambla-like, pedestrian-centric boulevards. Currently these creatively designed and heavily landscaped streets are achieved by burying vehicle lanes underground. In the future we might be able to design with this pedestrian hierarchy without the expense of burying the car. Smarter car technology might allow for a better mix of transit modes and provide the opportunity for new street concepts to be realized. 49

With the goal of providing a new economic and social center in East Portland comes the requirement for revitalized public space. One of the great losses in the suburban environment is the experience of being a pedestrian. Because the car accommodates a much larger field of operation, we have stopped designing the type of spaces that the pedestrian requires. This is where many of the time tested models of the past need to be used as precedent. When we travel on foot we obviously move more slowly and over shorter distances. These physical realities have a profound affect on whether we find an environment attractive. While all streets are unique some basic pedestrian desires are easily tested in cities around the world. One of the most mysterious elements of quality pedestrian space is the relationship between public space and the adjacent privately owned businesses. Even this issue can be tested in a variety of contexts until one experiences the benefits of programs that engage and relate to space of the street. In the end we know that there are proven favorable relationships between building facade, sidewalk and street. As pedestrians we like to feel safe in regards to nearby traffic and we like to feel contained within a defined space by a consistent street edge. We also know that as pedestrians we prefer to be able to glimpse a variety of programs as we move along the street. This is part of what keeps use interested in exploring each successive block along a street. With these pedestrian concepts in mind this design attempts to prioritize the pedestrian experience in the hopes of cultivating an active public realm. This is perhaps the most attractive pedestrian amenity of all and therefore a critical component of a sustainable city center. To achieve a diversity of program within a pedestrian walking radius, I am proposing a repartialization based on new 25 to 50 foot wide sub parcels. An Economic Overlay Zone will provide tax incentives for repartialization and redevelopment of the commercial strip along the corridor. Existing buildings will be accommodated where the existing owners choose to remain, but the new development will be required to establish a new street edge wherever possible. To reinforce pedestrian space, new curb cuts along 82nd will be prohibited and existing curb cuts will be gradually removed over time. The third component of this design is a support for the other two elements of the framework. As part of the repartialization, the back 25 feet of existing commercial lots along 82nd Avenue is set aside for mid-

block alleyways. The alleyways allow for service vehicles to reach each property without interrupting a continuous pedestrian space along the street. Alleyways also establish a back facade for the new center. The back facade can be utilized for more productive activities within the center. As an access route to businesses and residential fabric, the new alleyways act as a buffer and a connector. Nearby residential properties are given access to the commercial activity of the center. They might choose to open a backyard business or simply use the alleyway as an alternate route to bring goods to market. In essence the new alleyways are an example of the value of zoning. Some control is necessary in order to construct a sustainable environment. The alleyway contributes to a more porous environment than the current suburban morphology. By providing additional travel routes and access points, flexibility is build into the currently auto-dominated corridor. Increased pedestrian safety and a more programmable civic space are additional benefits of the alleyways. In total this three-part framework is designed to retrofit 82nd Avenueâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s suburban fabric in a manner that fits the needs of a post-oil community. With new priorities like pedestrian space and fuel efficiency, this proposal is but one vision of a possible future. There are surely many more contributions needed in the context of suburban retrofits, but this is one attempt to reimagine our urban fabric through the lens of a different energy reality. As an optimist, I have tried to take advantage of the opportunity peak oil provides to revise the suburban landscape as a more inclusive and healthy human environment.

Fig 40: Sketch of 82nd Avenue Corridor Retrofit

THE POST-OIL STREET

AN ATTRACTIVE PUBLIC REALM IS CRITICAL IN A DENSE POST-OIL ENVIRONMENT. A REDUCED DEPENDENCE ON THE AUTOMOBILE ALLOWS THE TERRITORY OF THE STREET TO BE USED BY MULTIPLE TRANSIT MODES AND DIVERSE PROGRAMS.

PUBLIC SPACE

CREATING A NEW MULTIUSE, MULTI-MODAL PUBLIC REALM

AG I

LT IP

The new post-oil street can be adapted to multiple uses throughout the day and throughout the length of the corridor.

DIVERSE PROGRAMS The Post-Oil Street The first component of this strategic framework is a reconception of the public space of the street. In order to compensate for the lack of existing pedestrian space on 82nd Avenue, I am proposing a mixed-use multimodal street. After many iterations, I chose a Rambla-like street section because of its capacity for public programs and civic identity— two things that are currently lacking in this environment. Elements of the street include a build-to line to create a defined street edge, two personal vehicle lanes shared by bicycles and smart cars, and a central pedestrian space with an alternative bicycle path.

BU I

25’ - 50’ WIDE PARCELS

REPARTIALIZATION FOR THE PEDESTRIAN EXPERIENCE

An Economic Overlay Zone encourages subdivision of existing parcels and provides tax incentives for programmatic diversity.

LOCAL ALLEYWAYS

NEW SERVICE ALLEYWAYS LINK RESIDENTIAL, COMMERCIAL AND PRODUCTIVE ACTIVITIES Mid-block alleyways provide increased access to economic opportunities in the new center.

Fig 42: Avenida de Portugal, Madrid, A Recent Attempt to Reclaim the Street for Pedestrians by Burying The Car 25

’A

Home businesses and

MIXED-USE INCUBATORS

A CONCENTRATED AND DIVERSE RANGE OF PROGRAMS WILL BE REQUIRED TO GENERATE A CAR-FREE LIFESTYLE. STOREFRONTS AND SHARED SPACES AT MULTIPLE SCALES WILL INCREASE ACCESS TO THE ECONOMY OF THE NEW CENTER.

throughout the day and throughout the length of the corridor.

DIVERSE PROGRAMS BU I

25’ - 50’ WIDE PARCELS

REPARTIALIZATION FOR THE PEDESTRIAN EXPERIENCE

An Economic Overlay Zone encourages subdivision of existing parcels and provides tax incentives for programmatic diversity.

LOCAL ALLEYWAYS

NEW SERVICE ALLEYWAYS LINK RESIDENTIAL, COMMERCIAL AND PRODUCTIVE ACTIVITIES Mid-block alleyways provide increased access to economic opportunities in the new center.

Repartialization and Mixed-Uses The second part of the framework is intended to generate diverse programs within a walking radius. The most efficient way to replace the loss of oil as a transportation fuel will be to limit the need for personal vehicle travel. This form of travel currently makes up 65 percent of U.S. transportation fuel consumption and could be greatly reduced in a more dense and diversified environment.1 An Economic Overlay Zone will provide tax incentives for property owners to subdivide their existing commercial lots into 25 to 50 foot wide parcels. Based on similar probusiness economic zones in Madrid, property owners have the freedom to switch back and forth between commercial and industrial activities without approval from the city.2 Incentives for introducing desired program types into each block will further support the possibility of accessing one’s daily needs without a car. On the new smaller parcels mixed-use buildings will add housing to the existing commercial landscape. NOTES: 1. “American Fuels,” AmericanEnergyIndependence.com. 2. Feargus O’Sullivan, “Madrid’s Big Plan to Swear Off Cars,” City Lab, The Altantic, December 4, 2013, accessed June 2, 2014, http://www.citylab.com/commute/2013/12/madrids-big-plan-swear-cars/7744/.

’A

Home businesses and start-ups connect to productive and commercial activities along the alleyways.

Fig 44: Alberta Street, A Main Street and Former Streetcar Street in NE Portland

PRODUCTIVE ALLEYWAYS

NEW MID-BLOCK ALLEYWAYS PROVIDE AN ACCESSIBLE BACK FACADE FOR THE LINEAR CENTER. THESE SPACES, AND THE NEIGHBORING RESIDENTIAL LOTS CAN BE USED FOR PRODUCTIVE ACTIVITIES AND SMALL BUSINESSES.

provides tax incentives for programmatic diversity.

LOCAL ALLEYWAYS

NEW SERVICE ALLEYWAYS LINK RESIDENTIAL, COMMERCIAL AND PRODUCTIVE ACTIVITIES Mid-block alleyways provide increased access to economic opportunities in the new center.

â&#x20AC;&#x2122;A

Home businesses and start-ups connect to productive and commercial activities along the alleyways.

Productive Alleyways The third piece of the framework is a series of alleyways on the back 25 feet of the existing commercial lots. The alleyways play a critical role in this new scheme as they take service traffic off of 82nd Avenue while providing a buffer between commercial and residential fabric. Alleyways also add a second facade to the commercial strip. They provide space for productive activities that correspond to those of the commercial front facade and they also provide access points for backyard businesses of various scales to plug-in to the economic activity of the corridor.

Fig 46: Alleys Behind New Mixed-Use Buildings on Alberta Street, NE Portland

1. LACK OF BIKE LANE

NEGOTIATING TRANSITIONS:

PEAK OIL IS HERE

OIL AGE TIMELINE

66%

67’

1900

Boston introduces

1920 15 million

1950 Model T sales top

grow to a radius of

Nearly all

1950

public

1944

Highway Act of 1944

1947

Pacific City

has failed a

subsidiary of

2050

WRONG

Oil makes up

2013

New power

2050

33 %

grids

of the world’s total energy use

shared electric car

1956

Highway Act of 1956

2035 begins to

1968

Highway Act of 1968

fleets as batteries

1991 Los Angeles begins to rebuild light rail and subway lines

purchases and

incorporate

Combusion engine

2035 Boomers

3. LACK OF ON-STREET PARKING

Last of the Baby

SE DI VI

SION

reaches retirement age 2035

PORTLAND GROWTH

STRE

Automated cars

integrated into pubic

2050 POST-OIL CITY

82ND AVE

2000 AUTO CITY

82ND AVE

1950

TRANSITIONAL CITY

82ND AVE

1900 STREETCAR CITY

SE 82ND AVENUE EXISTING CONDITIONS

tranist infrastructure

WALKING CITY

RADIUS = City Limits are a funtion of how far a person can walk in 1 hour. Business is done face-to-face.

11-15 MI COMMUTE

7-10 MI COMMUTE POPULATION:

800

Streetcar allows business to be conducted from farther away. Commuting via streetcar becomes a reliable daily routine. The city grows in direct relation to the length of the streetcar lines.

POPULATION:

90,426

RESIDENTIAL / [SUB]URBAN

82ND AVE

METRO:

COMMERCIAL STRIP CORRIDOR

RESIDENTIAL / URBAN

RIVER / INDUSTRY

3-5 MI COMMUTE

On SE Stark Street, the urbanism of the Montevilla neighborhood ends before it reaches the suburban strip morphology of 82nd Avenue. Without a defined edge the strip is not attractive to pedestrians.

be replaced by electric cars

General Motors,

1850

2. UNDEFINED STREET EDGE

CORRIDOR RETROFITS COULD PROVIDE NEARLY ALL OF THE SUPPLY NECESSARY TO MEET THIS NEW DEMAND.

2100

transit in the U.S.

Lines,

electric trolley line 1890 Electric Streetcars allow Boston to

2000

CORRIDOR AS SITE OF INTERVENTION

Horse drawn stretch Boston to a

1889 first

CENTRAL CITY

12’

10’

12’

10’

12’

7’

24’

70’

10%

radius of 2.5 miles

RESIDENTIAL / URBAN

7’

1873 streetcars

RESIDENTIAL / [SUB]URBAN

EXISTING COMMUTER

OF BABYBOOMERS AND MILLENIALS PREFER TO LIVE IN WALKABLE NEIGHBORHOODS WITH MULTIPLE TRANSIT OPTIONS.

1850

67%

WHAT’S

OF WHAT WE CURRENTLY BUILD HAS THESE CHARACTERISTICS.

EXISTING STREET SECTION [82ND AVENUE AT MONTEVILLA]

340,000

775,000

RECLAIMING THE STREET

As the depletion of natural resources threatens our autocentric patterns of development, how can we retrofit our urban environment and return to a lifestyle based on local resources and walkable neighborhoods?

BILLION BARRELS PER YEAR

A STRATEGY FOR POST-OIL URBANISM

IN THE PAST THE CHANGING PREFERENCES OF BABYBOOMERS HELPED TO FUEL URBAN SPRAWL. IN THE FUTURE CHANGING PREFERENCES WILL MOVE US TOWARD MORE DENSE MIXED-USE DEVELOPMENT.

82nd Avenue prioritizes vehicle traffic at the expense of bicycle and pedestrian accessibility. With 4 lanes of traffic plus a center turning lane, there simply is not room for bicycles.

The automobile is the primary mode of transportation for daily commuting and freight shipping. As the public transit system struggles for ridership some bus service is being reduced. Desite low ridership Portland continues to invest in new lightrail lines.

POPULATION: METRO:

529,121

1,700,000

POPULATION: METRO:

750,000

2,700,000

PORTLAND MOBILITY

0’

50’

POST-OIL STREET SECTION [82ND AVENUE AT MONTEVILLA]

One of the practical roles of onstreet parking is that of a barrier between pedestrians and drivers. Without a barrier high-speed traffic becomes a physical and psychological threat.

WITH 25’

72’

10’

15’

4. LOUD AND DANGEROUS TRAFFIC

POST-OIL COMMUTER

10 ’

72’

THE LOSS OF THE WORLD’S PRIMA TRANSPORTION FUEL PROVIDES T OPPORTUNITY TO RETHINK THE W THROUGH THE CITY.

Even new development on 82nd Avenue is forced to hendge between helping to establish a pedestrian street edge and stepping back to avoid the loud, dangerous and unwelcoming nature of the street.

INSTEAD OF REPLACING THE FUEL CURRENTLY PROVIDES THIS IS A S FOR REDUCING THE NEED FOR PE VEHICLES AND PROVIDING PUBLIC THAT PRIORITIZES PEDESTRIAN A

THIS

5. FREQUENT CURB CUTS Curb cuts are places where vehicles cross pedestrian paths. An excessive amount of curb cuts presents a significant threat to pedestrians and prevents an active pedestrian culture from forming.

100’

Fig 47: Presentation Boards Formatted to Express the Project’s Framework Concept, Fields Of Diverse Textures and Media Represent the Intention to Generate Diverse Programs within a Linear Corridor

PICTURE?

BUILD-TO LINE

POST-FORDIAN MULTI MODAL STREET THAT PRIORITIZES PEDESTRIAN MOBILITY

SMALL MIXED USE BUILDINGS THAT DEFINE THE PUBLIC REALM AND PROVIDE ECONOMIC OPPORTUNITIES AT A VARIETY OF SCALES

PORTLAND INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT

THE POST-OIL STREET

ND 82

PUBLIC SPACE

MONTEVILLA NEIGHBORHOOD

CREATING A NEW MULTIUSE, MULTI-MODAL PUBLIC REALM

GATEWAY TRANSIT CENTER

CAR-SHARE HUBS CONTRIBUTE TO A NETWROK OF INTERCONNECTED TRANSPORTION INCLUDING THE MONTEVILLA STREETCAR AND A BIKE-SHARE SYSTEM

82ND AVENUE

TEMPORARY EVENT INFRASTRUCTURE ALLOWS THE STREET TO SERVE MULTIPLE PROGRAMS

MODEL 1

Existing commercial strip fabric

UE EN AV

G PORTLAND R RIDERSHARE

DIRECTION OF GROWTH

A FRAMEWORK FOR:

STA

SE STARK STREET

SECTION EN

FUTURE TRANSIT LINE

AG IN

LT IP

MALL 205

SERVICE ALLEYS MT TABOR PARK

DIVERSE PROGRAMS

SE POWELL BOULEVARD 25’

ARY THE WAY WE MOVE

An Economic Overlay Zone encourages subdivision of existing parcels and provides tax incentives for programmatic diversity.

LOCAL ALLEYWAYS

NEW SERVICE ALLEYWAYS LINK RESIDENTIAL, COMMERCIAL AND PRODUCTIVE ACTIVITIES

’A

Home businesses and start-ups connect to productive and commercial activities along the alleyways.

SERVICE ALLEYS THAT LINK RESIDENTIAL, COMMERCIAL AND PRODUCTIVE ACTIVITIES

AUTO FABRIC

PEDESTRIAN FABRIC

Mid-block alleyways provide increased access to economic opportunities in the new center.

EL THAT OIL STRATEGY ERSONAL IC SPACE ACCESS.

DIRECTION OF ACCESS

FUTURE TRANSIT LINE

RO AD

INCLUDE SEATING AND LIGHTING THAT REENFORCES THE HUMAN SCALE

FUBON MARKET A SINGLE ONE-WAY LANE ON EACH SIDE OF THE STREET IS SHARED BY PERSONAL VEHICLES AND BICYCLES

GAS STATION CANOPY DIRECTION OF ACCESS

REUSED AS A COVERED PATIO FOR A BAR AND RESTAURANT

A CONCENTRATED AND DIVERSE RANGE OF PROGRAMS WILL BE REQUIRED TO GENERATE A CAR-FREE LIFESTYLE. STOREFRONTS AND SHARED SPACES AT MULTIPLE SCALES WILL INCREASE ACCESS TO THE ECONOMY OF THE NEW CENTER.

EASTPORT PLAZA

FUTURE HIGH-SPEED RAIL LINE

RAMBLA-LIKE CENTRAL PEDESTRIAN SPACES

SE DIVISION STREET

GRADUAL INFILL BETWEEN NODES

DIN

CORRIDOR AS LINEAR CENTER

25’ - 50’ WIDE PARCELS

BU IL

MIXED-USE INCUBATORS

PROVIDE THE OPPORTUNITY FOR RESIDENTIAL NEIGHBORS AND INCUBATOR BUSINESSES TO PLUG INTO THE ECONOMY OF 82ND

PORTLAND COMMUNITY COLLEGE

REPARTIALIZATION FOR THE PEDESTRIAN EXPERIENCE

DIRECTION OF GROWTH

PORTLAND R RIDESHARE

COMMERCIAL STRIP SIGNAGE REPURPOSED AS HISTORIC LIGHTING WITHIN A PEDESTRIAN LANDSCAPE

MODEL 2

The new post-oil street can be adapted to multiple uses throughout the day and throughout the length of the corridor.

PRODUCTIVE ALLEYWAYS

THE ABSENCE OF CURBS ENCOURAGES FREEDOM OF MOVEMENT AND A MORE BALANCED RIDE SHARE

ING LD T A V E FIEES I T I L CUDENSTIVIT A F AC O SE

N TO

PERSONAL VEHICLE LANES

ING

ARE MARKED ONLY BY THE LOCATION OF PLANTED AREAS AND STREET FURNITURE.

GARDEN BLOCKS ATTRACT NEW RESIDENTS AND CONTRIBUTE TO 82ND AVENUE’S IDENTITY AS A CIVIC SPACE AND PART OF THE WILLAMETTE BASIN

NEW MID-BLOCK ALLEYWAYS PROVIDE AN ACCESSIBLE BACK FACADE FOR THE LINEAR CENTER. THESE SPACES, AND THE NEIGHBORING RESIDENTIAL LOTS CAN BE USED FOR PRODUCTIVE ACTIVITIES AND SMALL BUSINESSES.

MODEL 1

82ND AVENUE

DIRECTION OF GROWTH MONTAVILLA NEIGHBORHOOD

GATEWAY TRANSIT CENTER

SE STARK STREET

SECTION FUTURE TRANSIT LINE

MALL 205

MODEL 2

MT TABOR PARK

RO AD

DIRECTION OF ACCESS

EASTPORT PLAZA

FUTURE HIGH-SPEED RAIL LINE

FUTURE TRANSIT LINE

FUBON MARKET

GRADUAL INFILL BETWEEN NODES

DIRECTION OF ACCESS

SE DIVISION STREET

DIRECTION OF GROWTH

SE POWELL BOULEVARD

CORRIDOR AS LINEAR CENTER

PORTLAND COMMUNITY COLLEGE

Fig 48 (opposite): Map of 82Nd Avenue as a Linear Center with Transit Connections to Nearby Resources Fig 49 (right): Model 2 with Subdivided Properties, Infill and Mid-Block Alleyways

Corridor as Linear Center In his 1997 book, The City After the Automobile, Moshe Safdie describes a linear center within a future regional city. His vision of a future center fits the morphology of 82nd Avenue and the need to address concerns about pedestrian access and smart mobility. Like Safdieâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s center, this project anticipates advances in automobile technology that will support a public realm shared by multiple transit modes. Automated electric vehicles will reduce the need for street side parking and improve pedestrian safety. With a continuous gradient from residential to commercial, the linear center fills in between nodes, and eventually grows in length along its axis. As density grows within the corridor additional residents will gain access to the many resources currently gathered around 82nd Avenue including, a public highschool and elementary school, Mt. Tabor Park, the Montavilla Neighborhood, Portland Community College, Fubon Market and a culturally diverse collection of restaurants. Anticipated additions to the area such as a potential high-speed rail line along Interstate 205 and reestablished historic streetcar lines further support the growth of a 60

TEMPORARY EVENT INFRASTRUCTURE ALLOWS THE STREET TO SERVE MULTIPLE PROGRAMS

RK STA

SE 82N VEN DA UE

SERVICE ALLEYS COMMERCIAL STRIP SIGNAGE REPURPOSED AS HISTORIC LIGHTING WITHIN A PEDESTRIAN LANDSCAPE

PROVIDE THE OPPORTUNITY FOR RESIDENTIAL NEIGHBORS AND INCUBATOR BUSINESSES TO PLUG INTO THE ECONOMY OF 82ND

RAMBLA-LIKE CENTRAL PEDESTRIAN SPACES INCLUDE SEATING AND LIGHTING THAT REENFORCES THE HUMAN SCALE

A SINGLE ONE-WAY LANE ON EACH SIDE OF THE STREET IS SHARED BY PERSONAL VEHICLES AND BICYCLES

GAS STATION CANOPY REUSED AS A COVERED PATIO FOR A BAR AND RESTAURANT

THE ABSENCE OF CURBS ENCOURAGES FREEDOM OF MOVEMENT AND A MORE BALANCED RIDE SHARE

EET

HIN

S ON GT

PERSONAL VEHICLE LANES ARE MARKED ONLY

dense center along 82nd Avenue. In order to achieve the density required to serve a large and growing population with as few vehicle trips as possible, the linear center must be an attractive one and a place of connectivity between people and diverse modes of travel. With this in mind, the following images show a variety of block types that all fit within the same framework, displaying a diverse range of programming options and opportunities for local cultural expression.

Fig 50 (opposite): Axon Showing Potential Details within the Future Corridor Fig 51 (above): Models of Potential Rambla-like Streetscape Designs

TEMPORARY EVE INFRASTRUCTUR

ALLOWS THE STREET SERVE MULTIPLE PRO

SE UE

VEN DA

82N

CAR-SHARE HUBS CONTRIBUTE TO A NETWORK OF INTERCONNECTED TRANSPORTATION INCLUDING THE MONTAVILLA STREETCAR AND A BIKE-SHARE SYSTEM

ENT RE

TO OGRAMS

K TAR

E TR

COMMERCIAL STRIP SIGNAGE REPURPOSED AS HISTORIC LIGHTING WITHIN A PEDESTRIAN LANDSCAPE

GAS STATION CANOPY REUSED AS A COVERED PATIO FOR A BAR AND RESTAURANT

SERVICE ALLEYS PROVIDE THE OPPORTUNITY FOR RESIDENTIAL NEIGHBORS AND INCUBATOR BUSINESSES TO PLUG INTO THE ECONOMY OF 82ND

RAMBLA-LIKE CENTRAL PEDESTRIAN SPACES INCLUDE SEATING AND LIGHTING THAT REENFORCES THE HUMAN SCALE

Fig 52: Final Thesis Presentation

Reflections on the Role of the Designer in the City While the reader will surely find elements of the city that appear to have been left out of my consideration in this work, every attempt has been made to retain a realistic attitude about future development in East Portland. For example, the Economic Overlay Zone described here is an attempt to deal with the reality of slow changes in property ownership over time. In truth, any attempt to account for all aspects of the contemporary city will surely show faults upon close inspection. It is the very impossibility of fully comprehending the complexity of the urban environment that drives designers away from this work. But without design, apparent obstacles cannot be turned into opportunities. Therefore, a sense of doubt in our own ability to perceive the future of the city must be embraced. As designers we must let go of our need to fully control the subject of our work and instead we must use the unknowable as inspiration for speculation. To quote Rem Koolhaas once more, “We have to imagine 1001 other concepts of city.”1 NOTES: 1. Koolhaas, “Whatever happened to Urbanism?” 31.

Fig 53: Studio Desk with Study Models and Sketches

Conclusion While the precise date of peak oil may be debated, the conflict between future decreases in oil production and our current auto-dependant lifestyle cannot be denied. For decades we have been driving cars as our primary means of mobility and we have designed urban environments that separate the various aspects of our lives â&#x20AC;&#x201D; work, school, dwelling, shopping and recreation among others. In the United States most of us are currently living a suburban lifestyle where the only way to access our daily needs is by driving in a car. Such environments are designed for the car and despite recent efforts by New Urbanist planners this suburban pattern of development persists. Despite recent evidence that public preference for walkable urban environments are growing there are limited examples of cities that have been able to significantly repair the effects of functional zoning and the separation of land uses. The suburbs continue to be built even though peak oil presents a significant threat to our primary means of mobility: the car. Even

conservative estimates for declines in oil production include major declines in the coming years. For example the EIA 2014 Energy Outlook forecasts that gas prices will not exceed $5 per gallon until after 2040, but then sharply increase as global production decreases after 2040. In truth we have a relatively small amount of time to attempt to repair the mistakes of modernism before oil runs out. However we seem to believe that the market will solve this problem for us. In recent years we have lost all faith in urban planning due to the failures of modernist planners. Our distrust in planning is now threatening to prevent us from responding to major shifts in energy production and access, right at the very moment when smart planning and efficiency will be most required. There are only a few examples of attempts to conceive of a post-oil environment that doesnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t involve burying cars and assuming that they will still be our primary mode of transportation. This project is indebted to Ellen Dunham-Jones and June Williamsonâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Retrofitting Suburbia as well as 70

Moshe Safdieâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s, The City After the Automobile. While Dunham-Jones and Williamson represent the tried and true methods of New Urbanist planners, Safdie inspires a new vision for the regional city. In the context of peak oil, the pedestrian will finally be able to return to the public realm, but only if a new vision for suburban space can inspire change at the scale of urban sprawl.

about how our cities can be adopted for a post-oil lifestyle. Both sides of the current debate in urbanism seem to agree that the suburbs must be addressed in regards to sustainability. Suburbs are where most urban residents currently live and keeping these areas connected to resources and sustainable modes of transit will be the biggest challenge of this century.

This work is an attempt to contribute to a meaningful conversation about post-oil urbanism. As I have shown, even progressive American cities like Portland suffer from the effects of sprawl. East Portland is in many ways a typical suburb, predominately residential with a few major collector roads and highway interchanges running through it. In such suburban fabric there is limited access to local resources like employment and affordable groceries.

While the stakes are currently high in urban planning and design, the potential improvements to peopleâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s daily lives should also be a significant motivation. If we can design better urban and suburban environments we might avoid some of the economic hardships already experienced in the suburbs due to a lack of local resources. As designers we simply have to reengage with the city and once again take responsibility for the everyday experience of the urban environment.

82nd Avenue is a commercial strip that was formerly the edge of town. As the City of Portland has expanded eastward, 82nd has become a typical suburban corridor. Within this context, a corridor like 82nd Avenue should be considered valuable territory for future development. With a high capacity for multifamily housing and mixed-use development and a geographically central location, corridors like 82nd can become new urban centers. By prioritizing density and mixed uses, this project demonstrates the potential of a corridor retrofit. Instead of trying to maintain our current auto-commuter lifestyle after oil, let us reduce the need for vehicle trips by encouraging a diversity of programs within the typical monocultures of both the suburban residential environment and the commercial strip. In order to reach its potential however, any new center must be an attractive civic space. It must contain opportunities for various modes of transportation to connect and for productive activities at various scales to emerge. The framework proposed here is intended to address the context of 82nd Avenue in three ways. The first is the transformation of 82nd Avenue itself, into a multi-modal street with a central programmable public space. Secondly repartialization for the pedestrian experience is recommended to achieve a sustainable mixed use environment. Finally alleyways take pressure off of the street and support the density of activities in the corridor. Together these three elements create a vision of a linear center for the post-oil city. It is my hope that this project contributes to a national conversation

List of Images and Diagrams Fig 1: Parking Day, Downtown Portland, 2013.

Fig 11: Curitiba BRT System Map

“Park(ing) Day Portland.” Park(ing) Day D.I.Y. Planning Network. Accessed June 9, 2014. http://my.parkingday.org/photo/parking-day-10?.

Schwartz, Hugh H. Urban Renewal, Municipal Revitalization: The Case of Curitiba, Brazil. Alexandria, VA: Hugh Schwartz, 2004.

Fig 2: Gas Lines During the 1973 Oil Crisis

Fig 12: Diagrams Of Growth Alternatives, Curitiba Masterplan

Myre, Greg. “The 1973 Arab Oil Embargo: The Old Rules No Longer Apply.” NPR Parallels, October 16, 2013. Accessed June 9, 2014. http://www. npr.org/blogs/parallels/2013/10/15/234771573/the-1973-arab-oil- embargo-the-old-rules-no-longer-apply.

Schwartz, Hugh H. Urban Renewal, Municipal Revitalization: The Case of Curitiba, Brazil. Alexandria, VA: Hugh Schwartz, 2004. Fig 13: Modular Loading Platforms, Curitiba

Fig 3: Portland Comprehensive Plan Alternative 2, 1976 and The City of Portland. “Comprehensive Plan Chapter 6: Planning-The evolution of planning practice in Portland.” Accessed May 4, 2014. https://www. portlandoregon.gov/bps/42773.

“Curitiba Revisited.” Cities for People. November 30, 2010. Accessed April 25, 2014. http://gehlcitiesforpeople.dk/2010/11/30/curitiba-revisited/. Fig 14: Peak Oil Timeline

Fig 4: Current Comprehensive Plan, City of Portland, 2006

Fig 15: Oil Age Diagram

The City of Portland. “Comprehensive Plan Chapter 6: Planning-The evolution of planning practice in Portland.”

Based on a Lecture Slide from Dr. Robert Perkins, Professor of Geology, PSU, 2012.

Fig 5: Fabric Study of Brasilia, Brazil

Fig 16: Urban Theory Diagram

Fig 6: Electric Streetcars Awaiting Destruction, Los Angeles, Circa 1943

Fig 17: Program Bands, OMA, Parc de la Villette Competition Entry, 1982

“File: Pacific-Electric-Red-Cars-Awaiting-Destruction.gif.” Wikipedia Commons. Accessed May 30, 2014. http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/ File:Pacific-Electric-Red-Cars-Awaiting-Destruction.gif.

Office for Metropolitan Architecture, Rem Koolhaas and Bruce Mau. S, M, L, XL. New York: Montecelli Press, 1995. Fig 18: Fabric Study of Radburn, New Jersey

Fig 7: Boston 1880 “History of Boston.” Wikipedia. Accessed April 10, 2014. http://en.wikipedia.org/ wiki/History_of_Boston#mediaviewer/File:Boston_ground_1880.jpg Fig 8: Electric Streetcar, Boston, Circa 1920 “Why are There Still Streetcars in Boston?” Boston Streetcars. Accessed May 10, 2014. http://www.bostonstreetcars.com/why-are-there-still- streetcars-in-boston.html.

Fig 19: Portland Growth and Mobility Timllines Fig 20: Looking East, Portland, 1879 Fig 21: Portland Map and Section Showing 82nd Ave and Typical Commute Lengths Fig 22: Sectional Corridor Study Model

Fig 9: Los Angeles, 1944

Fig 23: 82nd Ave Figure Ground Map Near Portland Community College and Model 2 with Proposed Infill

“California City Maps.” American Roads. Accessed May 10, 2014. http://www. americanroads.us/citymaps/California.html.

Fig 24: Typical 82nd Ave Condition

Fig 10: 4-Level Freeway Interchange, Los Angeles

Fig 25: Portland Traction Company Trolley Map, 1943

Vintage Portland. “Portland Trolley Map.” Accessed May 25, 2014. http:// Masters, Nathan. “L.A.’s Famous Four-Level Freeway Interchange, ‘The Stack,’ vintageportland.wordpress.com/2010/05/04/portland-trolley-map/. Turns 58.” KCET. September 22, 2011. Accessed April 25, 2014. http:// www.kcet.org/updaily/socal_focus/history/la-as-subject/navigating-the- stack-the-four-level-turns-58.html.

Fig 26: Portland Streetcar Concept Study, 2009 Portland Streetcar. “Portland Streecar System Concept Plan.” Accessed June 9, 2014. http://www.portlandstreetcar.org/node/24. Fig 27: Portland 20-Minute Neighborhoods, 2010 Portland Plan. “20-Minute Neighborhoods.” Accessed May 20, 2014. http://www.portlandonline.com/portlandplan/index. cfm?a=288098&c=52256.

Fig 48: Map of 82Nd Avenue as a Linear Center with Transit Connections to Nearby Resources Fig 49: Model 2 with Subdivided Properties, Infill and Mid-Block Alleyways Fig 50: Axon Showing Potential Details within the Future Corridor Fig 51: Models of Potential Rambla-like Streetscape Designs

Fig 28-32: What’s Wrong with this Picture? 82nd Avenue Diagrams

Fig 44: Axon Showing Potential Details Within The Future Corridor

Fig 33: Fabric Study of Portland, Oregon

Fig 46: Final Thesis Presentation

Fig 34: Diagram of Potential Changes to Street Over Perspective Sketch

Fig 47: Studio Desk with Study Models and Sketches

Fig 35: Diagrams of 82nd Avenue’s Existing and Proposed Fabric Fig 36: Framework Concept Sketch Fig 37: Existing and Proposed 82nd Ave Street Sections Fig 38: Diagrams of the Framework for 82nd Avenue Fig 39: Study Model Showing Existing Condition and Desired Infill with Defined Street Edge Fig 40: Sketch of 82nd Avenue Corridor Retrofit Fig 41: Drawing of Propsed Post-Oil Street Fig 42: Avenida de Portugal, Madrid, A Recent Attempt to Reclaim the Street by Burying the Car West 8. “Madrid Rio.” Accessed June 9, 2014. http://www.west8.nl/projects/ madrid_rio/. Fig 43: Drawing of Mixed-Use Storefront Interior Fig 44: Alberta Street, A Main Street and Former Streetcar Street in NE Portland Fig 45: Drawing of Productive Alleyway Fig 46: Alleys Behind New Mixed-Use Buildings on Alberta Street, NE Portland Fig 47: Presentation Boards Formatted to Express the Project’s Framework Concept, Fields of Diverse Textures and Media Represent the Intention to Generate Diverse Programs within a Linear Corridor

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