AVENUES VOL: 5 - Happy Cities

AVENUES, VOLUME 5: HAPPY CITIES

URBAN DESIGN COMMITTEE

AMERICAN INSTITUTE OF ARCHITECTS, WASHINGTON, DC

MANAGING EDITORS

JANKI SHAH, ASSOCIATE AIA

SAAKSHI TERWAY, ASSOCIATE AIA

KUMI WICKRAMANAYAKA, AIA

PUBLISHED BY AIA, WASHINGTON CHAPTER

421 7TH STREET NW WASHINGTON, DC 20004

AIADC.COM

2023

THE VIEWS EXPRESSED ARE THOSE OF THE AUTHOR AND NOT THOSE OF THE URBAN DESIGN COMMITTEE NOR THE WASHINGTON CHAPTER, AMERICAN INSTITUTE OF ARCHITECTS.

06 letter from the chair: happy cities by Saakshi Terway

12 provocations

14 urban design and the happy city: on community representation within the public square by Timothy Maher

24 happy! by Greg Luongo & Erin Peavey

42 public space for a privatized individual by Ameya Lokesh Kaulaskar

50 the lived-in city | happiness in urban form by Dominic Weilminster

58 firmitas, utilitas, venustas no longer by Joseph Mckenley

70 metamorphosis: a vision for the urban cemetery of tomorrow by Bradley Benmoshe

by Rita Wu

letter from the chair

happy cities

I am delighted to introduce the fifth annual publication of Avenues, the journal of the Urban Design Committee of the American Institute of Architects, Washington DC Chapter (AIA|DC).

Who We Are

Founded in 2017, the Urban Design Committee acts to improve the quality of cities and people’s lives. This mission is supported by our five key goals:

1. Create a Forum to engage other organizations in Urban Design.

2. Raise Public Awareness of the value of Urban Design.

3. Promote Visionary Thinking about the future of cities.

4. Advocate for Public Policy that promotes livability, spatial equity, and environmental stewardship.

5. Develop Allies among architects, planners, landscape architects, stakeholders, and policymakers.

Journal Overview

This journal is divided into three sections.

Section 1, “Provocations”, talks about what authenticity means in today’s context.

Section 2, “Happenings”, highlights the milestone events that were organized within the year to understand authenticity in the city better.

Section 3, “Ideas”, exhibits a collection of competition entries that animate the essence of authenticity.

Happy Cities

This year we focused on the overarching issue: what makes a city happy?

Each year we adopt an openended theme to frame our critical thinking on the challenges we face in urban design. The theme for 2021 was “Happy Cities”. Throughout the year, we looked

at “what makes a city happy” through various lenses of urbanism like community engagement, community development, equity and equality, sustainability, crime prevention through environmental design (CPTED), etc.

Can design make the world a better place? It is often argued that a well-designed space can change lives, and this may be true. Nevertheless, any design is ultimately impacted by the context in which it is placed. Cities are designed spaces embedding past trials and errors, built on layers and layers of context. We, as urban designers, strive to insert ourselves into this amalgamation. Composed of architects, philosophers, investors, artists, sociologists, activists, and citizens, we engage with these contexts, and ultimately—whether we like it or not—we affect lives in our communities and our world.

Cities are magnets for those seeking better jobs and a wider range of opportunities. But increasing urbanization is causing cities to become sprawling spaces without a sense of community. The sustainable development of a city directly impacts human well-being. In terms of happiness, people across cultures, creeds, genders, and geographical regions can find a common ground. Happiness is not just an individual characteristic, but also a community characteristic strongly influenced by social connections, cohesion, and local amenities.

As urban designers, planners, and architects, we know there are techniques that can encourage people to think of their city not just as a place, but as a community shared by all. There is growing awareness that social bonds may be shaped by characteristics of the built and social environment. These social bonds, in turn, may help to overcome community threats that could diminish residents’ happiness and weaken their social cohesion.

What’s Next

If the utopian concept of a happy city has a weakness, it is that it is subjective to every individual’s experiences. As practitioners and passionate urbanists, we must strive to affect positive change in the very real challenges of our time. There has never been a greater need for urban design to be a critical multidisciplinary practice for our city, our nation, and our global community. We invite you to find new avenues for exploration in the text that follows and to join us as a member or collaborator in 2022.

Saakshi Terway, Associate AIA Chair, AIA|DC Urban Design Committee

provocations

this section challenges our assumptions and explores the meaning and application of our theme HAPPY CITIES

urban design and the happy city: on community representation within the public square

by Timothy Maher, Urban Designer, DC Office of Planning Urban Design Division

JUST WHO IS THE HAPPY CITY FOR?

To actively pursue the notion that we can create the happy city, urban designers, planners, and policymakers must first recognize that our work must elevate participation in the public sphere so that all who desire to be in this space can feel safe and welcome within it. Our work must first be grounded in the ideals of resilience, sustainability, and equity so that people from many disparate backgrounds (cultural, racial/ ethnic, socio-economic) feel their voices have the power to influence how they are governed. This has long been an integral promise of the American experience, spoken of often by the founding fathers, but never seriously contemplated until recently.

One immediate facet of the idea of equity – and where urban

designers and planners play an integral role – is the issue of representation in the public square. Do the members of a community feel like their values are reflected in the physical design of their neighborhood? Can they feel as safe or welcomed in the public spaces they inhabit as anyone else of a different background? Do they feel that if they were to speak up about an issue occurring within that space they would be heard or that frequently marginalized voices would be elevated? These questions form the building blocks for inclusion and belonging in a neighborhood and lay an important cornerstone: If members of a community feel represented, acknowledged, and free to fully participate in the public square, only then have the prerequisites been met for our aspiration to the happy city.

Representation in the public

square is intrinsically important, otherwise the issue of who is memorialized in statuary across the country – and who has access to the power structures that make such decisions – wouldn’t be so heated a discussion at this time. Similarly, we direct a wealth of resources into historic preservation and the creation of historic districts, in part to shape which collective memories or aesthetics are prioritized as neighborhoods ebb and flow over time.

Representation should be so intrinsic to the field of urban design that it ought to make up much of the curriculum of Urban Design 101 courses at universities. But herein lies the challenge for urban planning and design at all levels – how do we engage the whole of a community in such a way as to honestly elicit input on how they want to shape the design of their surroundings?

UNDERSTANDING ENGAGEMENT AND A NEEDED PARADIGM SHIFT

Over the past several years, the DC Office of Planning (OP) has made several efforts to shift the thinking as to how community members are included in planning efforts. The first of these pilot efforts, organized as part of a grant award by the Kresge Foundation in 2016, was the citywide Crossing the Street program, an effort to use art and culture as a means to bring communities together and begin dialogue with neighborhoods experiencing rapid demographic and social change.

Through outdoor music, art, and cultural performances, tactical urbanism demonstrations, and neighborhood potlucks, dozens of individual events and installations were hosted across the city, all scoped and workshopped with community stakeholders. This effort pushed city planners into the physical space of the neighborhood where they could directly engage community members on what was their turf – to ask questions about what is cherished within a neighborhood and what challenges need to be addressed while physically inhabiting that very space. It became an outdoor forum that better allowed individuals who

have not previously interacted with the Office of Planning before to have an avenue for engagement.

Simultaneously, OP began conducting Public Life Studies as another shift in public engagement efforts. Based on the Jan Gehl idea that direct observation of activity (and inactivity) can provide clues as to the way people use their public spaces, a Public Life Study can better assess how the physical design features of a public square are actually used rather than relying on vague design intentions and assumptions. Following up the direct observations are intercept surveys to provide insight into

Protest at the statue of Confederate General Albert Pike, D Street NW, on who should be represented in the public square, 2017

Photo credit Vision Planet Media

how people perceive the spaces they inhabit and their reactions to various elements within a space. In turn, new or proposed conceptual designs for public spaces can then be improved by understanding some of the myriad ways in which people interact with their surroundings. For example, observations can focus on how users pass through a space, where they opt to linger (whether by themselves or with a group), or by watching for when a wall is just an aesthetic fixture versus when it is used as a bench, footrest, or playground.

TO MOVE FORWARD, WE AS PLANNERS AND DESIGNERS NEED TO RECOGNIZE OUR ROLE

IN IMPROVING COMMUNITY REPRESENTATION WITHIN THE PUBLIC SQUARE. THIS IS A MARATHON EFFORT TO BUILD TRUST AND RECONSTRUCT RELATIONSHIPS WITHIN COMMUNITIES, ESPECIALLY WHERE ECONOMIC SEGREGATION AND DISPLACEMENT HAVE OCCURRED.

Both of OP’s proactive engagement models are light years beyond the standard practice of community engagement that has persisted for decades – a weeknight evening meeting that is typically attended only by those with the free time to – and yet they still fall short of what could be. Though, a

critical shortcoming of the Public Life Study method is that direct observation and surveying of people as they inhabit a space homes in on groups already comfortable in that space and proceeds to set their behavior up as the baseline. What is left unseen (or lesser seen) are groups marginalized in public or those more hyper aware and uncomfortable with being watched or recorded while going about their daily lives.

THE LONG AND INCREMENTAL ROAD TO BETTER COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT

To move forward, we as planners

Left: Crossing the Street events: Okuplaza Fest in Adams Morgan, 2016. Right: See/Change in Park View, 2016.

Photo credit: DC Office of Planning

and designers need to recognize our role in improving community representation within the public square. This is a marathon effort to build trust and reconstruct relationships within communities, especially where economic segregation and displacement have occurred. And while our current toolkit of engagement ideas is improving, it does not yet suggest a flawless solution. On that end, we should consider that each project moving forward can serve as a testing ground for new and potentially inspiring means of expanding our outreach to the members of a community that have yet to give us their time or trust.

A chance for a novel approach to engagement came in 2020, notably during the summer and fall months of the first year of the Covid-19 pandemic when District residents were facing a slew of unprecedented pressures stemming from the public health crisis. At the time, the city was operating under ‘Phase 2’ restrictions that set limits on the interior capacity of restaurants and shops, and mandated physical distancing and mask use in public. With people’s behaviors so intensely altered during the health emergency and safety orders, the direct observation of a Public Life Study was an uncertain endeavor. At that time, however, OP began a series of investigations into the Frank D. Reeves municipal center and its surrounding public spaces

at the intersection of 14th and U Streets, NW.

First, a bit of history. The Reeves Center plays a fairly significant and at times nostalgic role in the memories of many longtime District residents – it was intended in the mid-1980s to help reinvigorate a neighborhood struggling with a lack of investment following the 1968 riots less than two decades prior. The calculated ‘investment’ of a large municipal office building set back from the street to create an expansive front plaza would kickstart weekday activity along the corridor with a thousand daily government workers. These workers would have an immediate need for a variety of surrounding retail spaces, lunchtime diners, dry cleaning, shoe repair shops, and the like. The plan was that this would in turn spur new residential and office development to then induce additional demand for retail in a positive feedback loop of economic vitality and growth and set the course for a self-sufficient and desirable neighborhood again.

In time, the U Street corridor, once the bustling arts and finance center known as Black Broadway in the early and mid- 20th Century, re-emerged as a place of exciting nightlife, flashy retail and restaurants, high-rise residential buildings, and rebuilt historic theaters. Arguments can be made as to whether or not it was the Reeves Center that really did act

as catalyst for the neighborhood (and academics continue to go back and forth on it), but the idea that it played a significant role in revitalizing a Black neighborhood by a Black mayor in the early days of Home Rule is still present in the minds of many long-term residents of the District.

A CASE STUDY ALONG BLACK BROADWAY

One illustration of the microcosm of this re-birth was the 14th and U Street intersection and the adjacent public plaza which has played witness to many spontaneous protests and celebrations over the years as a central gathering space.

On the night that Barack Obama first secured his party’s nomination as a presidential candidate, celebrants including a makeshift drum circle gathered at the plaza in revelry. Similarly, several years later, activists in the Don’t Mute DC campaign purposefully selected the 14th and U Street plaza as a site of protest and demonstration when a white newcomer to the neighborhood filed a complaint in an attempt to shut down a nearby corner store for playing Go-Go music on a speaker from the sidewalk. Events of this nature have a way of gravitating towards the open plaza.A clear challenge to exploring urban design is presented by this cocktail of ingredients:

Protest at the statue of Confederate General Albert Pike, D Street NW, on who should be represented in the public square, 2017

Photo credit Vision Planet Media

The Frank D. Reeves Municipal Center, view from the southeast.

Photo credit Erkin Ozberk

Activity on the 14th and U Street NW intersection, view from the northwest

Photo credit Timothy Maher

Public Plaza at the 14th and U Street NW intersection, daytime weekday .

Photo credit Timothy Maher

A municipal center built by an important Black political figure in a city with a majority Black population located in a renowned, former Black financial/ entertainment district;

A public plaza and community gathering space for local political protest and celebration; and

The potential redevelopment of a site in a neighborhood that has been experiencing economic pressures that can lead to displacement.

And so for urban designers the question is raised; how can we ensure that any future

development proactively carries and builds upon the shared cultural memories of a space, positively acknowledging the rich history of Black enterprise, while taking note of how residents want to participate in the public square today? And can we address this effectively both meeting the needs of existing residents while also making room to welcome new members to the community so that all can feel represented and coexist within their public square?

As OP embarked on a Public Life Study of the 14th and U Street intersection during the first fall season of Covid, it was clear that

in-person observation would be unreliable (few were behaving normally in public and even fewer were comfortable answering questions from a stranger in a mask) so we resorted to a series of community storytelling and narrative exercises conducted online. During this process, we asked community respondents to expound on their memories of the space, what types of activities do they believe still belong on the site and if they want any new activities introduced. What we got in return was something different than the typical snapshot of pedestrian activity over a single weekend at the site; we received

Columbia Heights Plaza; Though approximately the same size as the 14th and U plaza (~0.3 acres) the plaza in Columbia Heights sees considerably more daily use, much stemming from the fountain and adjacent retailers.

Photo credit Timothy Maher

a broad mosaic of many positive and negative perceptions of the space that spanned decades, told to us from the perspective of the persons witnessing it firsthand. Though it was a cacophony of points of view with many gaps and some events we were unable to corroborate, it did allow us to home in on a sense of collective memory and cultural value of the immediate area.

ON MOVING URBAN DESIGN AND ENGAGEMENT FORWARD

As a case study in improving public engagement, the Reeves Center site is far from faultless. It illuminated for us a novel method of tapping into collective memory that we have only just begun to explore, but fell short in reaching marginalized populations that are not connected to the internet. But if we can learn these lessons and improve our next model, it serves an overall positive purpose.

And as with any planning study, the true challenge of seeking a more equitable representation and a voice for communities within the public square must inspire the work conducted during the design and implementation stages of development. The study is still necessary – we can continue to broadcast these issues so that future participants in this ongoing process can build on top of the information that has already been gathered. Planning and urban

design here can act as planting the seed of an idea, and so OP introduced the following design principles to be considered for any proposals on the site moving forward:

Living Legacy: Recognize the once-in-a-generation opportunity to celebrate and honor the living legacy of a neighborhood steeped in the U Street corridor’s historic link to Black identity, culture, and enterprise. Acknowledge the Reeves Center’s ties to civic activism and the struggle for Home Rule in the District through architecture, urban design, commemoration, and public art and promote Black-owned businesses as principal tenants of any redevelopment.

Public Plaza: Maintain a true public open space along the site by transferring a portion of the private lot for use and ownership by the public. Design an open plaza that prioritizes visual openness, physical access, and comfortable environmental conditions and that reflects the shared values of the District and its people.

Engaging Edges: Prioritize day-today activity, foot traffic and visual interest along the site through site design, architecture, and a curated selection of ground floor tenants with opportunities for outdoor retail or café spaces to the benefit of the surrounding neighborhood.

As we continue to address the role urban designers and planners play in a community’s access to and representation within the public square, we welcome the chance to constantly learn and evolve from past attempts. It is only through the long-term building of community trust that they lend us their voices and guide us to better, more sustainable and inclusive outcomes. It is on us as designers and planners to not turn back when facing sticky problems and instead open our ears to improvement.

REFERENCES

To follow up on OP’s Public Life Studies and other Placemaking and Public Engagement efforts, check out the following:

Creative Placemaking at OP and the Crossing the Street Project: https://planning.dc.gov/page/creative-placemaking

Public Life Studies at OP: https://planning.dc.gov/publication/guide-public-life-studies-dc

Public Space Activation & Stewardship Guide: https://planning.dc.gov/page/district-columbia-public-space-activation-stewardship-guide

Our City, Our Spaces Guide: https://planning.dc.gov/our-city-our-spaces

Happy!

By Greg Luongo, AIA and Erin Peavey, AIA, WELL AP, EDAC, LEED AP BD+C, HKS

WHAT MAKES US HAPPY?

To answer that question, we looked to the Nordic countries, which are consistently ranked as some of the happiest places on the planet. And while the reasons why vary, a handful of universal characteristics came up in research conducted by The Happiness Research Institute in Copenhagen, Denmark. According to their findings, seven factors are fundamental to contributing to a sense of happiness:

Health: No surprise here really. If we’re sick, we are generally unhappy. Health is also one of the factors that not only affects us as individuals, but our family and friends as well.

Wealth: This one doesn’t come as a surprise either. Data shows that richer countries and people are simply happier in general. But the important thing to understand

here is the trigger: being without money is the root of unhappiness. If we can’t put food on the table or provide a roof overhead, it causes stress and anxiety. There’s also an interesting factor of diminishing returns when it comes to wealth, where more or excessive wealth does not necessarily have a corresponding bump in happiness.

Trust: This factor is less obvious than money or health. In Nordic countries, foundational trust comes in two forms. First is trust in the state and government, which can come as a result of low levels of corruption, strong governance and democratic institutions, and widespread access to basic services that support well-being. The second is trust in one’s fellow citizens and neighbors. When we can trust our neighbors, we generally have fewer worries — we’re less anxious about theft or threats of harm. Trust just makes

life a little bit easier and more convenient.

Personal Freedoms: There is a strong correlation between the level of personal freedom in a given country and the level of happiness. Beyond civil liberties like freedom of speech and assembly, personal freedom means having the ability to decide how to spend one’s time, which can lead to increased well-being and a balance between work and personal life. People in most Nordic countries have a fairly good work-life balance, meaning that they are relatively in control of what they get to spend their time doing. Of course, freedom and choice are affected by our life circumstances such as where and how we work, whether we have children, and what our support networks look like — but regardless, having more personal freedoms is proven to increase happiness.

Quality Relationships: In every study the Happiness Research Institute conducts and in every data set they look at, whether it’s local, national, or international, the quality of our relationships is often the best predictor of whether people are happy or not. This appears to be true for humans across all geographies and cultures. No matter where we come from or where we live, what drives happiness in Copenhagen is similar to what drives happiness in Washington, DC.

Generosity: As humans and social beings, we are fundamentally wired to feel good by doing good. Being kind and/or generous to those around us provides a shortterm boost to well-being — often called a “helper’s high.” Engaging in long-term volunteering can also lead to feelings like having a greater sense of meaning and purpose.

Community: The last factor highlights the importance of togetherness and belonging. Being part of a collective, and having strong relationships and a

community consistently appears as a major contributor to happiness — whether it’s measured at a precise moment in time, in general across a lifetime, or in terms of our sense of purpose.

Nyhaven, Copenhagan, Denmark

Photo credit: Febiyan - Unsplash

happiness and the built environment

Our understanding of how our environment shapes our happiness has evolved quite a bit in the last few years. These seven “happiness factors” can provide direction for us as we design the built environment moving forward. The way we live and work is rapidly transforming — the dividing lines between the two continue to disappear. The COVID-19 pandemic accelerated trends associated with the physical and virtual hybridization of urban life while also exposing other social, environmental, and economic challenges our cities will face in the future.

The pandemic also brought to light the health impacts of loneliness and social isolation, which have been linked to sleep loss, ill health, dementia, premature, death and even heartbreak. A 2010 study found that these effects on our health are as harmful to our life

expectancy as a 15-cigarette-a-day smoking habit. Even before the pandemic, global trends towards individualism and away from traditional sources of solidarity and community exacerbated loneliness.

A recent Kaiser Family Foundation Study showed that more than one in five adults in the United States (22%), United Kingdom (23%), and one in ten in Japan (9%) report being frequently feeling lonely or socially isolated.

Coupled with the effects of the pandemic, technology, and social media continue to simultaneously connect and isolate us. Many of us have an increased desire for meaningful shared experiences in connected, socially enriching environments.

So how can we design the built environment to promote social connection? What are some urban design strategies we can leverage

to improve our happiness? As designers and researchers at the global design firm HKS, we are committed to answering these questions. We believe that through research, informed intent, and meaningful (measurable) impact, are core tenets of responsible design and innovative practices. An HKS original research report, How the Built Environment Can Foster Social Health, identifies guidelines for design spaces that combat loneliness and social isolation and foster social capital and communities. Here are excerpts from the report:

Next Page: Main Street. Charlottesville, Virginia

Photo credit: Tach - AdobeStock

the built environment as a social determinant of health

As humans, we evolved living in communities. People gathered in small tribes to support one another, to provide protection, warmth, food, and care for children. Given our nature, being completely autonomous and independent was a threat to survival. Our basic need to be interdependent remains, even though the backdrop of humanity has transformed over centuries.

The scientific community is just beginning to understand the extent to which the built environment of all scales is a social determinant of health. Research shows that designers and urban planners can increase people’s social capital in a place by creating spatial designs that facilitate social interaction among residents. Early research indicated that certain elements in neighborhoods, such as porches and tree-lined streets, can promote neighborly conversations and voter

turnout. Furthermore, a large-scale systematic review of the scientific literature showed that the design qualities of a place—walk-ability, sense of place, greenness, street design, and architecture—have the potential to increase social interaction, the integration of diverse people, social support, civic pride, social resilience, and social and political involvement.

Many American communities have become very car-dependent and less walkable through zoning ordinances that deemphasized public transit and essentially banned mixed-use zoning, and thus, pedestrian-oriented neighborhoods. However, walkable neighborhoods have been linked to higher social capital, lower rates of depression, less reported alcohol abuse, and more physical activity. Researchers have tied certain characteristics of the environment, such as house and

street design, population density, mixed land use, proximity to the city center, the amount of greenery and communal space to improvements in a range of social health markers, including social well-being, network size, trust, and perceived safety. Communities are feeling the pressure of urban sprawl, with commuting taking up more time that was once dedicated to leisure or family and friends. In contrast, high-rises and rows of cookie-cutter condominiums have popped up throughout cities like Seattle, San Francisco, and Dallas, marketed as modern living, but it appears developers gave little thought to how these facilities connect with the rest of the urban fabric, featuring buildings that crowd out any shared space between neighbors and that fail to offer a sense of welcome or scale in the form of overhangs, trees, and benches at street level.

This disregard for the surrounding environment may be partially to blame for an emerging body of research warning against adopting this development model. In addition, the popularity of door-delivery services and virtual

transactions is chipping away at the core of our humanity: the need for physical interactions with other people. We are losing the intervals in our everyday lives that get us to slow down and bond with those around us—the glue between the

physical spaces that frame our existence.

Communal Meal

Photo credit: Priscilla Du Preeze

the power of third places

The prehistoric Stonehenge monument and other archaeological sites offer ample evidence of human civilization’s enduring need for communal gathering spaces, those places where people can come together for celebration, ritual, and the mundane. These places are what sociologist Ray Oldenburg coined third places—places unlike the private, informal home and the public, formal workplace, being both informal and public. These are places where people gather and socialize deliberately or casually: meet friends, cheer for the home team with fellow fans, or just sit to people-watch.

The physical environment is an important factor underlying our health ecosystem, influencing how we think, feel, and behave. This is why third places — libraries, coffee shops, parks — deserve our attention. Third places are a

special type of place unlike the private, informal home and the public, formal workplace, being both informal and public. Third places can strengthen social capital, foster social connection, and boost diversity and wellbeing. They also serve as “enabling places” that promote recovery from mental illness by providing social and material resources. Yet little is known about what design characteristics of a third place can help improve social health.

As designers and urban planners, we too often discount the importance of preserving and elevating human connection in an effort to focus on efficiency and lowering costs. Designing for social health is important for people in any era, but it is especially relevant today as loneliness and social isolation become more prevalent.

We are just beginning to recognize the role of our built environments in shaping our social experiences and opportunities for connection. Spaces designed and activated to facilitate social connection can help us overcome loneliness by sparking or supporting meaningful relationships.

The following guidelines are a resource on how to design for social health and empowers everybody with the tools to create better spaces.

Next Page: Union Station Market, Washington DC

Photo credit: Susie Ho - Unsplash

Accessibility: Creating Places That are Safe, Inclusive, and Walkable

Perhaps the most foundational attribute of a good third place is that it is accessible to those who can use it. The best versions foster a sense of ownership and become regular parts of people’s lives. This requires safe, convenient, affordable, and comfortable access to the place. For children, this means they can gather, play, and explore with some independence from parents as developmentally appropriate. For senior adults or people with disabilities, this means that there are easy physical access options, benches to rest, and spaces to shelter them from the elements. For all ages, the ideal is a space that is within walking distance from home, work, or school. Humans evolved to navigate our worlds on our feet, and much research has shown the benefits of physical activity on the health of our minds and bodies, and the role of walkable streets, neighborhoods, and cities in fostering well-being.

Studies have demonstrated that people living in walkable, mixed-use neighborhoods have more social capital compared to residents of car-oriented suburbs People in walkable neighborhoods report being more likely to trust others, participate politically, know their neighbors, and be socially engaged. Car dependence

limits opportunities for in-person interaction, and whenever possible, it is best to shift away from auto travel when we think about how people access a third place.

Activation: Programming Place from Ordinary to Extraordinary

Ideal third places bring together diverse people who seek recreation, amenities, or a break from monotony. Connections will happen naturally. The celebrated urban designer Jan Gehl put it this way: “Social activity is the fruit of the quality and length of the other types of activities because it occurs spontaneously when people meet in a particular place”. For third places to be successful, they must intentionally serve people’s fundamental needs, from quiet time to socializing.

At a coffee shop, this means spaces for meeting people, as well as spaces for focused work and patios for pets. Library activation can happen through child reading circles, spaces for teens to study and socialize after school, fun meetups for older adults, and cubicles for those just needing to hammer out work. For workspaces, activation means placing lunch tables and coffee machines next to the intersection of natural paths of travel but also providing places where the whole staff can gather for celebrations or town

halls. At the neighborhood block, this means having places where people can eat with their families, pick up a gift for a party, or cheer for a sports team. Activation can also include events on the street made possible by temporary road closures. This array of options interspersed with housing and work provides for a mixed-use area that is vibrant day and night and provides natural safety through “eyes on the street”. Often city or neighborhood parks fail, not because of the lack of green space or playscapes, but because there is little else to pull people to the park that supports the full spectrum of daily life.

Designing “purposeful inconveniences” that funnel everyday activities through a common point can lead people to slow down and connect with theirs. This strategy has been used at Pixar with its famous single set of bathrooms at the center of its Emeryville, California office, and at Zappos’ Las Vegas headquarters with its central plaza that is the single point of entry.

Next Page: People biking in Washington DC

Photo credit: Tim - Adobe Stock

Choice: Finding Joy in Variety, Flexibility, and Control

Places that provide variety, flexibility, and choices on how to use the space fosters personal control and support habitual use for a wide range of activities that suit people’s varying needs and moods. Providing people, the freedom to choose how to engage (e.g., play, relax, focus) and where to locate themselves (e.g., booth seating, communal table) facilitates person-environment fit, or the ability for a person to choose or modify an environment to fit his or her needs and preferences, and creates a sense of comfort. The dynamic and changing nature of comfortable spatial proximities to people we encounter (e.g., strangers, acquaintances, or friends) is the basis of proxemics, the study of personal space, and helps inform different types of seating options.

Third places should support a wide range of uses and options for gathering with people or finding privacy. There should also be flexibility to fit a spectrum of needs and abilities (e.g., older adults, new mothers, and children’s groups). For children, this means creating a variety of ways to play (e.g., reading corner vs. jungle gym, playing in the fountain vs. on the grass) and the ability to control what activities to engage in. In workplaces, this means balancing

privacy and collaboration—a concept often called “we, me, us”—by allowing people to control where they sit and how they engage with others, based on the formality or informality of the circumstances.

Human Scale: Weaving Comfort into the DNA of a Place

Spaces designed at a human scale use architectural detailing and variety to create small and intimate environments that are comfortable for people to move through or occupy. These are spaces that meet our basic human needs for comfort, safety, and interest, and that feels good to be in for reasons that are often indescribable. City blocks designed at a human scale have been shown to promote more social interactions and lingering, whereas research reveals that blocks with large expanses of monotonous storefronts elevate stress responses and speed walking. This conclusion was tested at a Whole Foods in New York City, where a research team found that despite the store operator’s desire for Whole Foods to feel like a local grocery store and blend with the existing neighborhood, the expansive glass storefront repelled passersby, who quickened their pace to get past it. This finding echoes a growing body of research in both human and mouse models that show how spaces devoid of ornamentation and variety can elicit a strong stress response,

believed to be linked to the painful boredom they provoke.

A well-established components of the human-scale design is the quality of providing prospect and refuge, offered by buildings or spaces that create a sense of enclosure while giving people the ability to look out—for instance, being under a patio pergola or on a front porch and watching the street. If you have ever felt the pull of a cozy booth seat or rested at the base of a tree, you have experienced the natural comfort of a space that provided prospect and refuge. This quality promotes a dual sense of security and openness that allows us to deepen existing friendships and form new ones.

Next Page: Outdoor Dining

Photo credit: Franz12 - Adobe Stock

Photo by franz12 - AdobeStock

Nature: Moving from Gray to Green

As humans, we evolved to be comforted by nature, a phenomenon known as biophilia. The benefits of exposure to nature have been demonstrated across environments, from hospitals to workplaces, schools, and beyond. There is growing evidence that exposure to direct and indirect natural elements, such as large and small greenery, daylight, and outdoor spaces, is positively linked to mental health. Urban green space has been tied to better physical and mental health, increased sociability, and decreased aggression and stress. And researchers have associated higher quantity and quality of streetscape greenery, which includes dense, well-maintained foliage, trees, and plantings, with elevated social cohesion. Furthermore, streetscape greenery has been identified as a factor that works with social cohesion to reduce acute health-related complaints and improve people’s perceptions of their general health and mental health. Greenery and natural elements can be especially important in places that are significant to well-being and restoration because of their known salutogenic effects. Third, places that blend the indoors and outdoors and integrate greenery are more effective at creating environments where people feel comfortable and want to linger—all ingredients in creating

opportunities for connection. We can design biophilic environments along three different dimensions: direct, indirect, and symbolic. Direct biophilic features are natural elements that do not rely on humans to sustain (e.g., daylight, native plants, animals). Indirect biophilic features require human intervention to preserve (e.g., potted plants). Symbolic biophilic features do not offer nature itself, but rather images or virtual experiences of nature.

Sense of Place: Crafting a Place as Unique as the People Who Use It.

A handful of architectural theorists mused that in the digital age, all spaces should be a blank canvas on which the digital world can imprint. That probably feels wrong to most of us, and rightfully so. We value uniqueness, whether it is a character in a favorite TV show, a quirky friend, or a beloved local hang-out. Capturing the uniqueness of the people who use a space and the community around it is vital to creating a third place that feels authentic, and sparks a sense of belonging. Since early studies of human geography, the place has been understood as space, imbued with human relations, culture, meaning, values, and activities. A third place may incorporate features or elements that are significant to its community through their meaning may not be immediately apparent to outsiders or their

appearance aesthetically pleasing to the public. For example, a Texas taco joint in Dallas’ Lower Greenville neighborhood has 10-foot-tall dancing frogs that perhaps make some drivers cringe, but they are nostalgic remnants of an old tango club and have become neighborhood icons. Especially effective third places can often provide types of social interactions that are lacking elsewhere in people’s lives. For instance, these places can help connect new mothers, patients struggling with cancer, and women dealing with infertility with other people in their shoes, and those connections can ultimately turn into friendships. In co-working spaces, certain features can make the environment feel vibrant and creative and motivate membership. People can symbolically honor this shared identity in many ways: by featuring rotating local artwork, having local community members create murals, pinning messages of encouragement in public areas, or displaying special pieces of décor to mirror the character of the place.Having the local community participate in the design and creation of a space contributes to the sense that the space is not merely a vessel for the masses but a unique reflection of the people who live and work in the area. Involving local stakeholders helps ensure not only that the aesthetics feel true to the community but also that the place serves local needs with the activities and amenities it provides.

Next Page: Rock Creek Park, Washington DC

Photo credit: Silver Media- Adobe Stock

A Call to Action: Creating third places and enhancing happiness!

It is up to each of us to create connections in our own lives: to linger outside so we can spend time with our neighbors, to bring back block parties, to invite colleagues to join us for lunch. This kind of interplay is what transforms a space into a collective third place. Or better said: “Communal space becomes relevant to mental health when and only when it is humanized: urban residents invest communal space with meanings, emotions, and relations that lie at the heart of social life.” Whether it is turning a driveway into an

afterwork neighborly tea spot, or gathering other new moms for a regular night out, or petitioning the city for a new playscape at an old neighborhood park, our actions can cumulatively transform communities.

The six guidelines – accessibility, activation, choice, human scales, nature, and sense of place – for design for social health can apply to small or large built environments, from the office coffee station to the city block.

By using them in our own neighborhoods and backyards,

we can be a part of making cities happier, by design.

Visit HKS’ website for a full copy of the report. In it you will find additional research and guideline details, grounding the concepts in science and illustrating them with case studies. The section for each of the six guidelines also lists principles for the design of the physical environment, programming, and policy to give you the tools to take concrete action in your community, whether you’re a resident, business owner, or government authority.

Cherry Blossom Festival, Washington DC

Photo credit: Sergio Ruiz- Adobe Stock

A parklet in San Fransisco CA

Photo credit: Sergio Ruiz- Adobe Stock

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public space for a privatized individual

By Ameya Lokesh Kaulaskar, iSTUDIOS

ABSTRACT

Architects have often used the 3 basic planes of designing spaces. The roof, wall and floor plane. These planes are used to determine our relationship with space. With the development of digital technology, this has changed our relationship with space again.

Digital technology is now integrated in our daily lives more than ever. It has changed how we share information with each other and how we engage with the spaces around us. We can sit on a couch and work, enjoy entertainment, order groceries and food, connect and communicate with each other. In particular, the impact of digital technology can be seen in the changes in how we communicate in the public realm.

Before the internet, the public realm was found in the form of

public space. People gathered in physical spaces to display public opinion about the latest policies and to share their thoughts about their governments. The public space was also a stage for artists, a place where people could remain anonymous, but still be connected to the people around the area. The space formed an environment which nurtured and interacted with human behavior, thereby giving rise to a people-environment relationship.

The project investigates the impact of the digital space on our relationship with space and on a newly emergent form of public sphere in the digital world.

IMPACT OF DIGITAL SPACE ON SOCIETY

Shalini Misra and Daniel Stokols in their paper discuss the importance of the people-environment

relationship at a societal level.

There has been considerable concern about the societal consequences of virtual forms of interpersonal communication and social interaction, such as in the form of chat rooms and virtual communities, as well as the privatization of public life. Putnam, for example, voices the concern that the effortless ability to communicate through the internet might encourage people to spend more time alone and interact with unknown people, reducing their ability to make meaningful relationships with face-to-face interaction and instead encouraging superficial exchanges with strangers. Further, online communication by avid Internet users may result in underdeveloped social relationships with their online communication partners, at least in some instances (Misra,

Stokols

2012). Even when conversing with close friends and family, impoverished online conversations might displace higher-quality, face-to-face conversations as people tend to omit the social niceties that promote and maintain social relationships (Misra, Stokols 2012). Gergen contends that online conversations, as in the case of email, become obligatory and pragmatic acts, instead of personal expressions. Horizontal relationships that emphasize a breadth of contacts are favored over vertical relationships that require dedicated attention, effort, time, and commitment (Misra, Stokols 2012).

The digital space has given rise to multiple ways of being connected to each other, but has failed to offer a way to develop a meaningful relationship with each other,though this meaningful bond between humans is critical in keeping the social fabric intact.

PUBLIC SPACE AND PUBLIC SPHERE

The terms “public space” and “public sphere” have both been used by different actors to signify differing meanings. The Habermasian formulation of the public sphere posited a novel form of social interaction facilitated by a

network of institutions comprised by physical locations and mediated discourses. Following this model, the public sphere is understood by scholars as mediated exchanges that are deeply rooted in placebased communication. “A set of physical and mediated spaces” is what Catherine Quires has defined as the public sphere, where people come together to deliberate, express, and identify interests of common concern.

I understand the public sphere as a theater and the citizens as its actors. As a form,the public sphere stirs social and collective imagination. This form also enables

Diagram of the three planes of space making along with the 4th plane, the digital plane. Image Credit: Ameya Lokesh Kaulaskar

people to come together and agree on principles to achieve social consensus. Thus, the form of the public sphere uses the most optimum way to reach the masses. The diagram illustrates the relations between the public space and the public sphere.

STRATEGY

Existing design-based studies of public spaces offer some clues as to their importance, but most do not value public spaces for their ties to public spheres. These designs are constrained by incomplete definitions, and the endings and scope of their research are limited.

The most successful public spaces have successful physical and programmatic qualities that can be applied elsewhere. A successful public sphere also attracts users on the platform with the most engaging features.

Taking this basis forward, the design solution is divided into a place and cyber-based strategy. The place-based strategy is a collection of public spaces and places in a city that respond to the vibrant socio -cultural nature of every neighborhood. The public space can be permanent or temporary based on the community’s choice to participate.

These spaces of a city collectively form a single public space for the city. The public spaces can be used by the citizens for social gatherings/ events or any other event of collective nature.

The cyber-based strategy is a platform for the organizer of the event to use it as a platform to inform the citizens around the public space. The cyber-based strategy is in the form of a digital application. As the usage of mobile phones has increased and is owned by almost everyone. The cyber space thus gives everyone a possibility to engage in social events in the physical space. The

Diagram of the components that shape the public sphere Image Credit: Ameya Lokesh Kaulaskar

combination of this place-cyber strategy enables the reachability of the social events conducted throughout the city but engages the public in the physical faceto-face situations. This enables citizens to engage in public space with civility. Richard Sennett (1978) best models the Citizen of Affairs for us in his vision of a public life based on civility, the activity that protects people from one another and yet allows them to enjoy one another’s company and makes it possible for people to act together as citizens in the political and social affairs of the city (IRwin. Zube, 1989).

PHYSICAL SPACE

“Habermas’s account of the bourgeois conception of the public sphere stresses its claim to be open and accessible to all. Indeed, this idea of open access is one of the central meanings of the norm of publicity” (Fraser 1990).

The digital application is the space where the user gets an idea about the space and chooses to come for the event. This puts the emphasis on the physical design of the space to attract the crowds. The strategy compels the organizer to develop

the space in a manner that can be attractive for the visitor. Just as the design/atmosphere of a restaurant is also important as much as the food to attract customers, it is the design of the individual spaces that will attract visitors.

The reason for having movable furniture is to encourage vibrancy and change in the public place design. The furniture can be made to encourage interaction or solitude for the visitor. The furniture could be a set of benches and tables that can be used by visitors for playing board games. The furniture could even be designed by local communities

An example set of physical public space in the city embedded across a pedestrian pathway Image Credit: Ameya Lokesh Kaulaskar

Above: An example set of physical public furniture across the city.

Image Credit: Ameya Lokesh Kaulaskar

A digital public space application as an aggregator for social activities in the physical space.

Image Credit: Ameya Lokesh Kaulaskar

to celebrate their festivals thus increasing the diversity and inclusivity in public space design. The furniture could be locally made or brought from any commercial shop.

The community can pool together capital to arrange furniture for a local event or make the furniture itself. This initiative creates a new market for locals to engage in furniture making that can be designed and sold for specific events. This enables local talents for shaping local districts.

The furniture could be designed in space such as a park, a sidewalk, or a street. Each of these types of spaces is then designed following a vocabulary of typologies such as a curb, a bench, or a lawn. The typologies that we use to design public space do not consider the way we communicate and navigate the city through digital devices.

DIGITAL SPACE

The Cyber-based design is in the form of an application. The application can be downloaded on the iOS and Android platform and is owned by a private company. The company provides the application as a platform for public discourse. The digital application does not control the curation of any event but rather just enables the user to reach out their target audience for the event.

event, the organizer is the main curator of the event and feeds the information of the event accordingly. The organizer also sets the location of the space. They can also leave images of how the place looks and feedback rating if it has been rated before.

When a visitor is near an event, they get a notification of what is happening in that area. If interested further, the visitor can click on it and get a more descriptive view of the event. This is when the visitor scrolls through the review of the event or of the place. The review is a rating system based on how comfortable, safe, and inclusive the event/ space is. The notification radius can be the organizer for the kind of event that is to be conducted. This creates an equal platform for organizers to host a community or city wide event. The objective of this platform is to bring together people for face-to-face interactions but are stimulated to the place by the design of the space.

WHY IS IT IMPORTANT ?

The thinking and development of digital futures has often been pioneered by engineers or people with an science background. The developments of engineering and technology is efficiency. However, in the pursuit of efficiency we end up stepping on the very values that keep the social fabric of the society together. These are the most connected but the loneliest times of history. This very paradoxical nature of our society shows the advantage and the curse of technology.

Technology works of efficiency; design aims for synthesis of form and reason. Both are important for innovation and society but if one is left behind, the society faces the consequences of the first. It is important designers start taking a leading role in thinking about the future and build research to show the future direction to technology.

The user can login into the application and set up an

Just as grub hub or google reviews helps us get an understanding of what is review of a restaurant that we go to. This application gives and idea of what is kind review of spaces the visitor wants to visit. The feedback system of the application gives data for urban designer to understand public’s response to the furniture and thus enable the participation of the public in the making of their urban spaces.

REFERENCES

Altman, Irwin, and Ervin H. Zube. Human Behavior and Environment, Advances in Theory and Research. First ed., vol. 2 2, Plenum, 1989.

Curry, Chandler. “Public Space, the Public Sphere, and the Urban as Public Realm.” Curry Chandler, Curry Chandler, 6 Feb. 2017, https:// currychandler.com/cool-medium/2017/2/6/public-space-the-public-sphere-and-the-urban-as-public-realm.

Fraser, Nancy. “Rethinking the Public Sphere: A Contribution to the Critique of Actually Existing Democracy.” Social Text, no. 25/26, 1990, p. 56., https://doi.org/10.2307/466240.

Keswani, Serena C. “The Form and Use of Public Space in a Changing Urban Context.” Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1992.

Misra, Shalini, and Daniel Stokols. “A Typology of People–Environment Relationships in the Digital Age.” Technology in Society, vol. 34, no. 4, 2012, pp. 311–325., https://doi.org/10.1016/j.techsoc.2012.10.003.

Sennett, Richard. The Fall of the Public Man. Penguin, 2002.

Canovan, Margaret. “POLITICS AS CULTURE: HANNAH ARENDT AND THE PUBLIC REALM.” History of Political Thought, vol. 6, no. 3, 1985, pp. 617–42. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/26212420. Accessed 11 Jun. 2022.

MILLER, KRISTINE F. “Introduction: What Is Public Space?” Designs on the Public: The Private Lives of New York’s Public Spaces, NED-New edition, University of Minnesota Press, 2007, pp. ix–xxii. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.5749/j.ctttv5pq.4. Accessed 11 Jun. 2022.

Stokes, Benjamin. “Locally Played - https://direct.mit.edu/books/book/4862/Locally-PlayedReal-World-Games-for-Stronger-Places

the lived-in city | happiness in urban form.

by Dominic Weilminster, AIA LEED AP BD+C, Points West Design Works

We’ve all experienced it, though it can be difficult to pin down in words: a lived-in space. Growing up, I can remember spending childhood summers at a family ranch near Steamboat Springs, Colorado. The modest ranch house and the agrarian structures, each well-worn with age and use. Everything had accumulated as a function of purpose at some time — no corner was left too sharp, no surface too pristine. The imprint of inhabitants was everywhere and, therefore, we felt welcome everywhere. As it turns out, some of the world’s most livable (aka happiest) places capture this same sense at an urban scale.

If understood, we can define the recipe to craft humanistic habitats that support our natural happiness.

Within the German city of Freiburg, the neighborhood of Vauban is a somewhat experimental

residential mixed-use community that exemplifies the simple values of happiness: of being connected, of being yourself, of slowing down and enjoying life. In Vauban, the importance of creating a city that feels rich in investment from its residents and that is authentically reflective of its community—what one of my colleagues termed “messiness”—becomes apparent. When a house feels lived in, you see that the kitchen is used daily for cooking. Books and magazines lay across the coffee table— not just for looks, but with the expectation of being dog-eared. The yard is a constant experiment in urban farming. Vauban is an entire neighborhood that feels this way.

In terms of happiness, Vauban creates an almost campus-like atmosphere of colorful structures, plazas, and paseos. Cars are part

of the mix, but are relegated to second or third-class status, behind pedestrians and bikes. On-street parking is the only option and there are a significant number of streets—likely 40 percent—that is organized for a strictly temporary car presence and are otherwise designed as places for pedestrian activity.

Understanding the relationship between urban design, transit, open space and social factors is key to building better spaces and communities in the future.

Perhaps the most striking aspect of Vauban is the organic nature of the public realm and the lived-in quality of the residential developments. Although much of the architecture is not very old, maxing at around 15 to 20 years, the housing has been imbued with significant personality, giving

it the sense of being occupied much longer than it has in reality. What this tells the casual observer is that people in Vauban have a considerable association with their place of residence. It also implies a certain social cohesion within the community; people aren’t just manicuring their lawns to show that they can keep up with the Joneses, they are comfortable expressing themselves.

Vauban, with its quiet play streets and its cohesive and calm residential developments, provides almost familial neighbor to neighbor interaction—providing

social stimulus, but also privacy. Connecting everything is a strong bike network which is linked to comfortable walking spaces and a high-frequency streetcar system. Together, these elements simplify and increase the speed of travel between Vauban and greater Freiburg, while promoting social interaction.

Understanding the relationship between urban design, transit, open space, and social factors is key to building better spaces and communities in the future. This seems logical enough but, more often than not, the intangible

pursuit of happiness is not a part of our design, planning, and development dialogues. Typically, expansion of the built environment is focused on marketdriven growth, which responds to land use planning that serves a type of functional and organized logic. The design of these spaces is then heavily biased by desires for convenience, security, and familiarity. But what about if we also thought about what makes us happy?

People are both social and contemplative: too much isolation or over-stimulation

A typical neighborhood street in Vauban provides the whole picture of how these spaces are used, including garden spaces along each street which are shaped by residents’ investment in the public realm. Image Credit - Dominic Weilminster

can both result in discomfort. Our physical environments are never homogenous (at least they shouldn’t be) and designing for happiness centers shaping experiences to provide a balance of dynamic engagement and comfort to meet both sides of human nature Think about your own experience with happiness – there are scales. We are not necessarily speaking about that fleeting sense of being overjoyed. A better target for happiness is perhaps a sense of fulfillment, satisfaction, and consistent connectedness. A form of happiness in which you are comfortable in your own skin and feel a sense of openness, empathy, and even kinship with those in your community. This is the baseline we

likely all want for our lives, so how does it translate to the physical environment around us?

The notion of a city form that promotes day-to-day human happiness relates to the ability of a city to provide a living and working environment that affords people both the time and freedom to pursue their own happiness, either in a private or social manner. This is a simple statement, but it has a number of implications for urban form. A city that affords individuals with time is one that is connected, which implies a certain degree of density. A city that allows people to engage socially is one that contains open-ended public spaces for organic human

interaction, offering a diversity of uses and providing flexibility to users as to how they would like to engage. This ultimately opens the door for people to function and participate in a long-term community. However, just as a city needs to provide spaces for interaction, it also needs to afford privacy. Humans may be social but are often most comfortably social in smaller numbers. Urban spaces that break an overall experience down into bite-size use clusters provide for a greater sense of ownership over smaller-scale public or semi-public spaces. By designing for smaller-use clusters in cities, we support people by providing opportunities for more open social engagement, while also

Contextual Map highlighting Vauban & Copenhagen Image Credit - Dominic Weilminster

Image Credit - www.vienncouver.com

offering them the ability to feel more secure in their surroundings. When spaces are designed to encourage people to be openly social and also secure, we can quiet the fight or flight instincts and encourage residents are more to feel more positive and reflective.

Amazing things happen when places are designed around happiness: We are better connected with others and we play more often. A trip to Copenhagen’s waterfront on a warm weekend expresses this perfectly. With rolling sculpted piers of varying sizes, the water’s edge through the heart of the city becomes a

playground for kids and adults alike. No special event or cost of admission required. The design of spaces to invite whimsy and exploration provide an unspoken permission (not to mention a draw) for the community to claim the waterfront—and to have a great time doing so.

So what does all of this mean? Really, for a city to work well, it needs to provide opportunities for human investment and support that investment. The term human investment does not necessarily mean monetary investment, although that may be required. It refers to people being able to

really ‘live’ in a community, and to call it their own. Our cities need amenitized infrastructure which is appropriately sized for the human pace of the population that it serves. It does not need to be glamorous or refined, but it does need to be easily accessed through resident-propelled, convenient mobility strategies.

When spaces are designed to encourage people to be openly social and also secure, we can quiet the fight or flight instincts and encourage residents are more to feel more positive and reflective.

Copenhagen’s waterfront invites interaction, play and individual interpretation for it’s use making it a loved destination for all demographics of the community..

Above - Typical pedestrian activated streetscapes

Image Credit - Dominic Weilminster

Once people have access, the spaces need to provide them with social and physical comfort via scale, a sense of ownership in the relationship they hold with the common spaces in which they live and work, and at best, an

experience of discovery or delight which invites all members of the community to make those spaces more memorable. Happy cities are fundamentally places where each member of the local population is a participant (and ultimately

becomes) the foundation of the city’s viability. It is not a strategy about making a destination; it is working simply with what (and who) we have to create a place that feels ‘lived in’.

Apart from showcasing sustainability, Vaubaun is designed with a degree of colorful organic texture allowing for and encouraging self-expression by residents. This subtle strategy allows this relatively young urban neighborhood to feel ‘lived-in’. Image Credit - joergens.mi - Wikimedia Commons

Copenhagen’s general building orientation is toward the public realm, which is designed for open-ended use and sociability. Whether as a feature of public or privately owned space, the culture of life in the city allows residents and visitors to ‘make themselves at home’ in the public open space around building Image Credit - Dominic Weilminster

firmitas, utilitas, venustas no longer

Joseph McKenley, AIA , NCARB, Grizform Design Architects

We are introduced to the famous triad of Firmitas, Utilitas, and Venustas in book three of Vitruvius’

Ten Books on Architecture circa 27 BCE. “Firmness or physical strength secured the building’s structural integrity. The utility provided an efficient arrangement of spaces and mechanical systems to meet the functional needs of its occupants. And venustas, the aesthetic quality associated with the goddess Venus, imparted style, proportion, and visual beauty.

Rendered memorably into English by Henry Wotton, a seventeenthcentury translator, “firmness, commodity, and delight” remain the essential components of all successful architectural design.” With all advancements since then, it still holds true that a building well built meets all three traits equally. By extension, a city of buildings that meet all three traits equally is a happy city. Today, I

find that triangles are often more obtuse than equilateral.

I find this especially apparent in the façades we build today. I find that Architects, under tremendous pressure, have given over to a new triad of priorities - speed, performance, and commerce. I find that this new triad results in buildings that quite often leaves me wanting for more - more strength in their structure and materials; and more beauty. Not usually more utility. Thanks to everincreasing building performance standards, and to costs of construction, efficiency seems to remain a very high priority for clients and so for buildings.

The façade, coming from the Latin word “faccia” or face, is a critical element in the design of cities. The façades of buildings amalgamate to define the streets and plazas that create cities.

So, building façades are the DNA of a city - their uniqueness or sameness contributes to the gestalt of that city - and as such that face is of high importance to a happy city.

Yearly, I give a lecture at the University of Maryland School of Architecture on the Façade as Mediator and as Metaphor. In that lecture, I recognized that the purpose of the façade is two-fold. First, a façade must protect the building and its inhabitants from the elements. A façade must first provide an enclosure; it should keep the rain and snow out, and contribute to providing a thermally comfortable interior. Then, the façade has a duty to the built environment - an aesthetic duty. It also has an opportunity. Façades are able to project an ideal into the built environment, in fact in my lecture I go as far as to say that façades are projections of

our attitude towards typology, culture, economy, and ideology (architectural theory). Like an outfit, there is a choice in how a façade comes together - in what it looks like and what it is made of. Like an outfit, it can be appropriate or not, challenge conventions or not, be of high quality or not, but at the end of the day it is a choice (or a series of choices). It is a choice that we make on behalf of our clients that affects the built environment.

Architects have always had to choose how to make a façade, but I argue today that the factors influencing today’s choices have

changed and that that change ought to be surveilled. Before talking about that change, I find it helpful to recall a condensed timeline of Architecture. I’ll start in sixteenth century Rome and Florence, where many of our Architectural History lessons were focused in (western) architecture schools. Then, I’ll leap forward to Modernism and to the International Style movement of the early 1900s; then to the 1970s energy crisis, and fast forward to today - the change or the globalized era.

The façade was of critical importance to Rome and Florence.

It was understood that buildings shaped the outdoor space - that life in a city happens outside the walls of the home and that the spaces between buildings - the streets and the plaza were just as important as the building itself.

Take for instance the Church of San Lorenzo in Florence c.1400s built by Filipo Brunelleschi - also responsible for the dome of the Florence Cathedral. According to Professor Brian Kelly’s 2021 lecture, Making Face, the church was built for the Medici family with the intent to build the front façade, made of the most important materials, last. However, the family ran out of money and so the façade

Infamous Grenfell Tower fire in West London Image Credit: Wikimedia Commons

Facde lecture title slide

Image Credit: Joseph McKenley

The Basilica of San Lorenzo with Michelangelo’s facade proposal on page 62

Image Credit: izi travel - https://izi.travel/ru/8411-the-basilica-of-san-lorenzo-preaching-to-the-women/en

Previous page:Michelangelo’s facade proposal for the Basilica of San Lorenzo Image Credit:Google Arts and Culture

Approach to Villa Stein shot with car in the foreground Image Credit:Fondation Le Corbusier

Above: Rear elevation of Villa Stein Image Credit:Fondation Le Corbusier

Historic photo illlustrating the gas shortage during the 1970’s energy crisis Image Credit: Wiki Commons

Construction in New York City

Image Credit: Jeenah Moon/ Bloomburg

Next page:Photo taken in midtown Manhattan, 2019

Image Credit:Joseph McKenley

was not built and what stands today is the rough ‘backup’ wall that the façade would have been attached to.

However, what really is notable about this case is the emphasis that was placed on this façade. According to Kelly, the family received several bids to design

the façade including the one from Michelangelo pictured. Michelangelo’s façade design intended to mask the high nave and low side aisle in order to have more of a temple front to the building - elevating the scale and importance of the building. Scale and beauty and metaphor were the driving forces behind the design.

Jumping forward to the early 1900s, we find a push towards functionalism and away from ornamentation and classical orders. We find an embrace of technology that preferences speed of construction over craft. We find a push towards openness versus solidity - more glass, less wall. We still find a quest for beauty

Photo taken in Malmo, Sweden, 2016 Image Credit:Joseph McKenley

(venustas) but in a new sense - one not relating to symmetry and classical orders but to the balance of asymmetries. This push culminates in and is disseminated through the International Style movement of the 1920s and 1930s and is characterized by works such as Le Corbusier’s Villa Stein (1926). Whereas the church in San Lorenzo was trying to mask the inside design with its façade, the Villa Stein’s façades are reflective of the interior spatial arrangement, consistent with Le Corbusier saying “the exterior is a result of an interior” in Towards a New Architecture, 1927, page 167. On page 177 Le Corbusier goes on to mention that “...the exterior is always an interior’’ illustrating again the importance of a welldesigned façade even despite the lack of ornamentation.

By the 1960s the international style movement began to lose traction after having far-reaching global impacts through European Architects who settled around the world post World War II. By the 1970s, Architecture, in the US, began to contend less with style and more with energy demands. According to Elizabeth Donoff, “The energy crises of the 1970s changed the way we think about natural resources, inspired environmental advocacy, and laid the groundwork(sic) for government oversight with the establishment of the Department of Energy in August 1977.” We saw the development of the

AIA Energy Committee in 1973 and by the early 1990s we saw the AIA Committee on the Environment’s and U.S. Green Building Council’s formations. This drive towards reducing energy use and making buildings more sustainable introduced a new, farreaching design criteria - building performance.

Today, performance demands on buildings are higher than they have ever been (and rightly so). Architects have been made aware of the tremendous contribution buildings make to global warmingthe biggest contribution. And with global warming currently being our biggest threat as a species, buildings will need to perform better and better, contributing less and less to global warming. Architects also have to contend with the commoditization of Architecture. Whereas historically clients might have been wealthy families and patrons of Art, today more and more the client is a business entity interested in their bottom line rather than the quality of the built environment. Building materials are a line item on a spreadsheet, waiting to be value engineered to reduce project costs. The choice between brick or stone or a composite is less and less an aesthetic decision and more and more a commercial decision. With the commoditization of Architecture also comes a new driver of decision-making - speed. Given the advancements of the industrialization that gave birth to

the International Style movement and commercial pressures, clients are asking for projects to be delivered faster than ever before.

This leads me to hypothesize that cities are being built with commerce, speed, and performance as the primary driving force over firmness, utility, and beauty and it leaves me wondering if our future cities will be happy cities, filled with the delight of a beautiful built environment, or if our cities will become commodities - products of decisions made in a boardroom and passed on to an Architect.

REFERENCES

Corbusier, Le. 2007. Toward an Architecture. Translated by John Goodman. N.p.: Getty Research Institute.

Donoff, Elizabeth. 2016. “The Energy Crises of the 70s.” Architect Magazine. https://www.architectmagazine.com/ technology/lighting/the-energy-crises-of-the-70s_o.

“Firmness, Commodity and Delight - Firmness, Commodity, and Delight.” n.d. The University of Chicago Library. Accessed May 4, 2022. https://www.lib.uchicago.edu/collex/exhibits/firmness-commodity-and-delight/.

Kelly, Brian. 2021. Making Face, Virtual lecture. University of Maryland School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation, College Park, Maryland.

Metamorphosis: A Vision for the Urban Cemetery of Tomorrow

Bradley Benmoshé, CNU-A, LEED Green Associate, CPTED | Rhodeside Harwell (RHI)

Forests may be gorgeous but there is nothing more alive than a tree that learns how to grow in a cemetery. —

Andrea Gibson

Imagine it’s a beautiful spring day in Washington, DC. You’re enjoying a picnic with your loved ones under the same mature tree your family has been visiting since you too were a child. The flowers are in full bloom, exhibiting a cacophony of vibrant colors. The nearby magnolia trees fill the air with a sweet fragrance, and the birds are chirping joyously. You smile as you see several children frolicking about merrily with their relatives. Except their relatives are dead, and the kids are playing on their gravesite. You’re having a picnic in a cemetery, yet life is in abundance.

Most of us may not like to think about death, burials, and funerals, but in a rapidly densifying and urbanizing global population, we must plan for how to dispose of all these bodies when the inevitable eventually occurs.

Death rituals can be traced back to the Neanderthals, an ancient species of early humans that lived over 160,000 years ago. Since then, civilizations across the globe have developed and practiced meaningful burial customs to memorialize their dead. In much the same way that the spoken language, religious practices, and societal norms vary between cultures, so too does the practice of body disposition. For instance, the ancient Egyptians believed in life after death, and so they mummified their dead before burying them in tombs; Buddhist Mongolians and Tibetans believe

in the transmigration of spirits, and so, after death, the body, now believed to be an empty vessel, is cut into pieces, and fed to vultures, who are viewed as angels, carrying the spirits up to heaven, following an elaborate ceremony.

Modern western-world countries use similar practices for body disposition, such as interment within a cemetery. Yet, people are seeking new ways of burial that they find more meaningful and in line with their beliefs, including the wish to celebrate the life of a person rather than mourn in the traditional solemn funeral manner. Isn’t it time that our customs caught up with new ideas and ways of living?

Today’s urban cemeteries are facing many challenges, including running out of space for burials and expansion, being “landlocked”

Next Page: A family enjoying a picnic under a blooming cherry blossom tree Image Credit: Jerome Strauss, The New Yorker

by development, increased upkeep costs and declining revenues (because of fewer plots being available), disrepair and neglect, NIMBYism, and even environmental issues. Therefore, tomorrow’s cemeteries could have a more positive, impactful, equitable, sustainable, and welcoming presence within the community.

With the coronavirus pandemic still raging around the world — having caused nearly 6.75 million deaths globally as of January 2023, it is one of the deadliest pandemics in human history. Given such a large loss of life and a complete

jolt in our world order, many must confront death, including how to memorialize and dispose of the bodies of those lost. Many grieving families are faced with the financial burden associated with traditional funeral and burial expenses, which have risen nearly twice as fast as consumer prices for all items.

Funeral expenses rose 227.1%, while all items rose 123.4%, in the thirty years since the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics began tracking funeral expenses.

Therefore, perhaps now is the time for the next generation of the cemetery. One that not only

provides a space to memorialize our deceased loved ones, but that helps to give back to its community, is affordable and accessible to all, and contributes to a happier and healthier city.

CEMETERIES: AMERICA’S FIRST PARKS

In the 1820s, America’s growing cities had a problem: People kept dying, and urban graveyards were filling up. There was growing concern about the unhealthiness of burials under churches, as well as potentially running out of space for burials within the church grounds. Fortunately, a trio of horticulturists and landscape

A painting of Mount Auburn Cemetery Image Credit: Mount Auburn Cemetery Historical Collections, Cambridge and Watertown, Massachusetts

architects in Massachusetts, having been inspired by Paris’ PereLachaise Cemetery, came up with an idea to transform cemeteries into experimental gardens on the edges of town, and away from church grounds.

In 1831, their bold vision would become reality when the Massachusetts Horticultural Society purchased 72 acres of mature woodland six miles west of the Boston city center, for the creation of a “rural cemetery,” named Mount Auburn Cemetery. Designed by Henry Dearborn, the head of the Massachusetts Horticultural Society, in the naturalistic English style, this cemetery provided a tranquil and beautiful public space where families could memorialize their loved ones in an inviting and natural setting.

The trio’s bold idea to design cemeteries as inviting public spaces on the outskirts of town became very popular throughout the growing nation. Within a few decades, nearly every major city in America emulated its elegant and dual-purpose solution for body disposition. These rural cemeteries not only temporarily solved the problem of urban burials, but they gave rise to the rural “garden” cemetery movement, and they ultimately became the first public parks established in the United States of America.

In the 19th century, epidemics took many children at an early age, and women died in childbirth, making death far too common in families.

Having a picnic at the burial site of a deceased loved one was very common, acceptable, and popular, as this allowed grieving families to include their deceased loved ones.

Over time, many cemeteries would ban the practice of consuming food within the grounds, because of the large crowds on the grounds and the litter visitors often left behind. While there are a handful of cemeteries throughout the United States that still permit bringing in and consuming food on the grounds, the idea of picnicking and spending leisure time in a cemetery seems outlandish, creepy, and even taboo to so many in this country.

OPTIONS FOR BODY DISPOSITION

Today, there are more and more options for body disposition than ever before. For example, Florida’s Neptune Memorial Reef uses the cremated remains (“cremains”) to create artificial reef material to transform over 16 acres of the barren ocean floor. A UK-based company will press your loved one’s ashes into a vinyl record that can play songs for you to remember them by. There is even an option to use the decomposing body to feed a germinating seed that will eventually grow into a big

tree. These colorful and unique options are becoming increasingly popular over traditional burials and offer a more personalized and memorable way to celebrate a life. Moreover, they are helping to shift our collective mentality about our relationship with death, what the cemetery of tomorrow could be, how it can play a greater role, and how it can better contribute to our communities. Additional options for body disposition include:

Casket Burial

One of the oldest options in human history for body disposition, dating back to the ancient Egyptians, is casket burial. Today, to ready the body for burial, it is bathed and disinfected, and, unless specifically requested not to, is typically pumped with embalming fluids that help to temporarily preserve the body; this practice is more for vanity and convenience than for sanitary or decomposition purposes. The body is then placed into an airtight and oversized box designed and manufactured to remain intact for a long time, buried 5-7 feet below ground, and adorned with a large granite or bronze marker. This option for body disposition is in decline as more people want something other than this traditional method.

Cremation

First practiced by the ancient Greeks, cremation is the process of burning a dead body at very high temperatures until there is

Cremation is now the preferred method of body disposition in the USA Image Credit: National Funeral Directors Association

The cremation process illustrated Image Credit: Funeralwise

only brittle, calcified bone left, which is then pulverized into “ashes.” These ashes can be kept in an urn, buried, scattered, or even incorporated into keepsake objects, such as jewelry and artwork, as part of the last rites of death. Several factors which affect the duration of the cremation process include the bone structure of the body; the percentage of body fat to lean muscle mass; the cremation machine and support equipment’s performance; the operating temperature of the cremation chamber; and the type of casket or urn in which the body is placed. This practice recently surpassed traditional casket burial as the preferred option for body disposition in the United States of America.

Green Burials

Today, more and more people are concerned about and aware of their impact on the environment. Many are opting for a green burial versus a traditional burial practice — nearly 52% of Americans expressed interest in green-burial options, according to a 2019 survey from the funeral directors’ association. Most of those surveyed cited environmental reasons and cost as the main reasons for wanting a green burial over traditional burial practices.

Simply stated, green burial is a way of caring for the deceased with as little impact on the natural environment as possible, especially compared to traditional and more common burial practices.

Green burial is a great way for many religious persons, specifically those practicing the Jewish and Muslim faith, to meet the requirements of the religious law regarding burial rituals and customs. This burial option conserves natural resources because the caskets are made from sustainably produced materials created from renewable sources; conventional caskets are often constructed using wood or metal not typically produced sustainably. Green burial caskets are created from sustainable sources; they do not use chemical-based paints or finishes, and they are biodegradable. Therefore, they do not add harsh toxins to the earth as they decompose, thus aiding in the preservation of the environment.

An example of an all-natural, biodegradable casket

Image Credit: John Christian Phifer

Resomation

An alternative to traditional burial and flame cremation, resomation practices mimic a faster, natural decomposition process. This process involves placing the cadaver in a special wool coffin into a resomation chamber, and instead of fire, uses an alkali hydrolysis chemical and water to quickly reduce the body to ash. Typically, this process takes 3 to 4 hours to complete; it also uses less energy, relies on fewer fossil fuels, and emits fewer particles and pollutants into the air than fire cremation. Currently, resomation is approved for pets in all 50 states and humans in 26 states. However, this number is expected to increase as demand for this option for body disposition continues to grow.

Metamorphosis (Ashes to Soil)

Another option for body disposition is metamorphosis — mixing cremation ashes with planting soil, to create new life. On their own, cremation ashes can be quite harmful to the environment, largely because of their high levels of PH and toxic levels of sodium. By taking the proper steps needed to “purify” them, cremation ashes can help provide many nutrients and qualities needed for sustaining plant life. Metamorphosis is a unique way to not only create a living memorial, but it directly aids in returning nutrients to the earth. Traditional burial and cremation rituals prevent this crucial phase from occurring, largely because of

the airtight containers the interred are placed in.

ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACTS

Today, many cultures around the world use similar practices for body disposition, including burials, cremation, interment in a cemetery, and embalming fluids, despite their adverse effects on the natural environment. According to National Geographic:

American funerals are responsible each year for the felling of 30 million board feet of casket wood (some of which come from tropical hardwoods), 90,000 tons of steel, 1.6 million tons of concrete for burial vaults, and 800,000 gallons of embalming fluid. Even cremation is an environmental horror story, with the incineration process emitting many noxious substances, including dioxin, hydrochloric acid, sulfur dioxide, and climate-changing carbon dioxide.

Traditional “full-service” burials (casket, flowers, burial plot or tomb, grave marker, etc.) have an enormous impact on the natural environment. For instance, 10 acres of burial ground contain nearly 1,000 tons of casket steel, 20,000 tons of concrete for vaults, and enough wood from buried coffins to build over 40 singlefamily homes. To accommodate many bodies, whether being buried in a grave or a mausoleum,

cemeteries typically require many acres of land, causing much destruction to the natural environment and habitats that initially occupied the land.

Contrary to popular belief, the practice of cremating bodies is not the “green” alternative to underground burial. While it may not be as damaging to the environment as full-service burials, large amounts of nonrenewable energy (typically natural gas) are needed to power the furnaces. By using nonrenewable sources of energy, greenhouse gasses and chemicals that have been vaporized during the cremation process are released into the atmosphere.

Among the most destructive burial rituals to the environment is the use of embalming fluids - a replacement of bodily fluids with a preservative solution. Although government law or regulation in many parts of the world does not require using embalming fluids, it remains a common practice throughout the funeral industry. Alternatives to using embalming fluid include refrigerating the body and opting for a closed casket service.

The resomation process illustrated Image Credit: Resomation, Ltd.

New life growing from the nutrients provided by cremains Image Credit: Spiritree Forest Co.

TYPES OF CEMETERIES

While all cemeteries are developed to serve the same purpose, there are many types of cemeteries with varying levels of service, burial options offered, type of memorialization allowed, and even religious, cultural, or organization affiliation. Thus, based on these features and characteristics, cemeteries are generally categorized into one of the fifteen types listed below. Changes in burial traditions, legal regulations, and demand have led to the creation of many types of cemeteries.

1. The Church Cemetery: Between the Middle Ages and the Victorian era, the dead were often buried on the properties of churches. However, with limited space, graves were often used multiple times. But as plagues and disease rose through the soils infecting those who attended mass, new regulations were formed regarding burials and burial plots, which included making it illegal to bury bodies less than six feet under the soil. These days, churchyards are still used to house the dead, and while a church cemetery is often found in the churchyard, it can often be separate from the church. These churchyards are owned by the church and are considered

private property; however, churchyards are generally open for all to visit.

2. Public Cemeteries are plots of land owned by a governmental unit within a town, city, or county and are, by law, public cemeteries that must remain open to the public.

3. The Customary Cemetery: With no formal or legal status, customary cemeteries are simply plots used by neighbors as burying places, which are further cared for by survivors of those buried within. While they are not generally legal, this type of cemetery is tolerated and can often be found in rural areas.

A comparison between traditional and green burials Image Credit: Nathan Butler, Stephen J. Beard, The Star

4. Private Cemeteries are often owned and operated by a corporation, lodge, community organization, military, or specific family. This type of cemetery is restrictive to the public and will list the owners and/or caretakers at the cemetery entrance.

5. The Lodge Cemetery: Like the private cemetery, a lodge cemetery is owned and operated by lodges or other fraternal organizations, such as the Bohemian Grove Club, Freemasons, or Oddfellows. Most times, this type of cemetery is strictly for members of the organization.

6. Ethnic Cemeteries can be private or public, but are owned, operated, and maintained to support a religious group.

7. Family Cemeteries are privately held parcels of land specifically for the burial of members of the same family. This type of cemetery was commonly used in rural parts of the United States, often located on family farms, and helped to keep burial costs down.

8. Veterans’ Cemeteries are owned, operated, and controlled by the Veterans Affairs Administration on both the state and national levels. This type of cemetery limits interment to those who qualify for veteran burial benefits. Currently, there are 119 national veterans’ cemeteries in the United States.

9. Monumental Cemeteries may be what most of us picture when we think of a cemetery or graveyard. They are cemeteries in which headstones, and other monuments made of marble, granite, or similar materials rise vertically above the ground. However, because the maintenance of monuments is the responsibility of the family as well as the high density of graves inside the cemetery, monumental cemeteries have been considered unsightly.

10. The Memorial Park: With no gravestones or grave mounds, memorial parks are more commemorative memorials in honor of the deaths of many lives.

11. The Lawn Park Cemetery: With commemorative plaques placed horizontally at the head of the grave at ground level, a lawn cemetery is void of grave mounds but covered entirely with flat grassy lawns which barely show any evidence that people have been buried there. However, because the plaques are in the ground, many families are restricted from leaving objects on grave markers, because of lawn maintenance and the use of mowers.

12. Lawn Beam Cemeteries are a recent addition to the cemetery that addresses the problems a lawn park cemetery may impose on maintenance workers. Using a low raised concrete slab placed across the cemetery which allows for commemorative plaques to be mounted, this feature allows space between the slabs where grass can grow, giving cemetery care workers ease to work mowers without the risk of blades damaging plaques and objects left behind by families.

13. Garden Cemeteries combine a mixture of trees, flowers, and benches to give them a parklike atmosphere, but still use the traditional grave markers and monuments to identify the locations of final resting places.

14. Natural Cemeteries are a more environmentally conscious type of cemetery that allows “natural burials.” To be considered a natural burial, several focus areas must be met, including using a biodegradable container, natural decomposition, conserving natural resources, environment preservation, and protecting the health of the industry workers.

15. Pet Cemeteries provide a space for pets to be interred. While a person cannot be buried with their pets in pet cemeteries, their cremains can be.

Next Page - Examples of the various types of cemeteries Image Credit: Wikimedia Common

CELEBRATORY PARKS: A METAMORPHOSIS OF LIFE

Today, the urban cemetery is faced with similar challenges as cemeteries from the 19th century, including overcrowding and potential health risks to the surrounding community and environment. Therefore, we must once again look for new solutions to address this largely neglected topic.

A growing number of urban planners, designers, developers, and startup companies are hoping to solve this problem with innovative and bold concepts that will not only change the funerary industry but also how we think about and develop our cemeteries. Some ideas include building high

rises to house the dead, floating cemetery islands, and even sending cremains into orbit around the earth. While these concepts are helping to get the conversation started about what the cemetery of the future may look like, each would require significant resources and could impact the environment adversely. These concepts may provide some creative solutions for saving space, but they can potentially run into many of the same challenges today’s cemeteries are facing. Moreover, they don’t appear to contribute to effective placemaking and community building. People want to make meaningful memories and establish a sense of place. Thus, cemeteries should fit into community life and impart a sense of community.

Therefore, a new hybrid model, which combines many of the great qualities and benefits of the parklike cemeteries of yesterday, could serve the needs of the living and the dead; it would also provide a more sustainable alternative for those seeking non-traditional places of body disposition. Similarly, to the Mount Auburn Cemetery, the next generation of the cemetery could also serve as an inviting and vital public green space within the community. However, rather than being set within a passive natural landscape on the outskirts of town, these “celebratory parks” would look and function like urban parks.

Designing this new type of mixeduse cemetery to include amenities such as playgrounds, water

Colorado’s Seven Stones Botanical Gardens Cemetery was designed for the living as much as for the dead Image Credit: Seven Stones Botanical Gardens Cemetery

features, wide pedestrian pathways, flexible spaces, street furniture, and even year-round events helps to maximize the use of the land and contribute to effective placemaking. Versatile, engaging, and adaptive; this new generation of the cemetery can be established all over the municipality, providing a multitude of benefits to the community for generations to come. Such benefits would provide the community with greater accessibility and connectivity to green space, a greater sense of place, more equitable and affordable options for final disposition, reducing adverse impacts on the environment, and a happier and healthier quality of life.

A stark contrast from previous cemetery designs would be the

absence of formal and costly stone grave monuments and markers. Instead, memorial trees and gardens would serve as natural monuments, but with a twist – the remains of the deceased will serve as fertilizer to help the tree grow and flourish, allowing the deceased to sustainably contribute to the circle of life. This could be achieved by using biodegradable burial pods and urns, such as Capsula Mundi, Bios Urn, and The Living Urn. Unlike traditional burial caskets and columbarium structures, which prevent the body’s nutrients from being released into the ground during the decomposition process, these vessels are made from organic matter and are designed to break down. Thus, allowing the nutrients and microbes to feed

the tree above. Additionally, the ashes of multiple generations of family members can be used to provide the same “parent” tree with nutrients. This would not only allow for subsequent generations to be more connected to their family roots and tree, but it would also reduce the amount of land that would otherwise be required if each additional member were to have their interment.

Memorial trees and gardens within the celebratory parks could be identified using digital markers such as QR codes. Using their smart device’s barcode reader, visitors would be able to identify the exact location of their loved one’s burial site as well as view an online tribute filled with pre-populated

A digital burial marker at the plot of Gaston Leroux, author of The Phantom of the Opera, in Nice, France Image Credit: Bradley Benmoshé

life stories, photos, videos, and accomplishments of the deceased. And, in today’s highly connected and digital world, they would also be able to contribute their memories of the deceased, thus allowing them to contribute to that person’s legacy as well as honor and memorize them. Additionally, this could help the deceased’s loved ones feel connected to and interact with the space.

Many public cemeteries are owned by the local municipality, with upkeep and maintenance typically falling within the public works department. However, cemetery services, such as the opening of graves and burial services, are often outsourced to funeral homes or professional cemetery service organizations. These celebratory parks could be owned and managed by the local municipality, much like any city-owned public park, and the municipality could

offset some costs by collecting a nominal fee for “planting” permit applications. Additionally, the local municipality would be able to restrict the species of trees to only allow for native species to be planted.

CONCLUSION

While cemeteries may have a somber purpose, they can and do serve as beautiful, inviting, and tranquil green spaces. They also help to tell a community’s story, serve as valuable historic resources, and provide a space for reflection and recreation. For centuries, whether out of necessity, superstition, or desire, people continue to reimagine the cemetery. Therefore, now is the perfect time for us to talk about what the cemetery of tomorrow might look and feel like. The cemetery of tomorrow could serve as a source of community

pride, gathering, healing, and growth. The next generation of cemetery has a great opportunity to provide equitable, affordable, and convenient access to green and burial spaces, reduce carbon emissions and promote more sustainable practices. It could even serve as a bridge between the living and the dead, providing a space for members of the community to come together and form new connections, and could even lead to happier cities.

Things we lose have a way of coming back to us in the end, if not always in the way we expect. After all, to the well-organized mind, death is but the next great adventure. — Joanne Kathleen Rowling

Life in full abundance in the urban cemetery of tomorrow Image Credit: Bradley Benmoshé

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Gibson, A. (2011). Gospel Salt [Recorded by A. Gibson]. On Flower Boy [Audio CD].

Than, K. (2013, December 16). Neanderthal Burials Confirmed as Ancient Ritual. Retrieved from National Geographic: http://news. nationalgeographic.com/news/2013/12/131216-la-chapelle-neanderthal-burials-graves/

Torgovnick, K. (2013, October 1). Death is not the end: Fascinating funeral traditions from around the globe. Retrieved from Ted.com: http://ideas. ted.com/11-fascinating-funeral-traditions-from-around-the-globe/

Interment: The final disposition of human remains by burial, entombment, or inurnment. (International Cemetery and Funeral Association, 1998)

NIMBY: Opposition to the locating of something considered undesirable (such as a prison or incinerator) in one’s neighborhood. https://covid19.who.int/table

Bureau of Labor Statistics, U.S. Department of Labor, The Economics Daily, the rising cost of dying, 1986–2017 at https://www.bls.gov/opub/ ted/2017/the-rising-cost-of-dying-1986-2017.htm (visited April 13, 2022).

How Is A Body Cremated? (2017). Retrieved from Cremation Resource: http://www.cremationresource.org/cremation/how-is-a-body-cremated. html

National Funeral Directors Association. (2011). Annual CANA Statistics Report.

Brown, A. (2019, November 30). Eco-friendly cemeteries? More people preferring “green” over standard burials. The Washington Post. https:// www.washingtonpost.com/science/eco-friendly-cemeteries-more-people-preferring-green-over-standard-burials/2019/11/29/af9de6ce-0fc511ea-bf62-eadd5d11f559_story.html

Sullivan, S. (2016). A Need for Change. Retrieved from Resomation: http://resomation.com/about/need-for-change/

Bay Area Funeral Consumers Association (BA-FCA). (n.d.). Resomation - more than you wanted to know. San Francisco. Retrieved from http://www. ba-fca.org/Resomation.for.newsletter.pdf

Planting Cremation Ashes. (2015). Retrieved from Let Your Love Grow: http://www.letyourlovegrow.com/eco-friendly-burial/cremation-ashesplanting/

Brackett, A. (2017). Environmental Impact of Death. Retrieved from Seven Ponds: http://www.sevenponds.com/after-death/environmentalimpact-of-death

Elemental Cremation & Burial. (2017). Embalming FAQ. Retrieved from Elemental Cremation & Burial: http://www.elementalnw.com/embalmingfaq/

Gillies, M. (2017). The 15 Types of Cemeteries. Retrieved from Mysendoff.com: https://mysendoff.com/2012/05/the-15-types-of-cemeteries/ EverPlans. (2017). Important Facts to Know About Green burials. Retrieved from Everplans: https://www.everplans.com/articles/important-factsto-know-about-green-burials

happenings

this section exhibits the committee’s milestone events that have convened thought leaders throughout 2021

politics, protest and placethe role of inclusive urbanism in civic activism

of authenticity and equity, and discussed the following prompts/ questions and more:

- How can design interventions make activism more inclusive and safer for all?

- How can urban spaces reframe community gathering spaces to highlight commonalities?

- How can existing urban forms be leveraged to promote participation for inclusive public protest?

This webinar continued the dialog about designing an inclusive urban realm for free expression and activism. A continuation from the competition hosted by the committee in 2020 a panel discussion was organized as a collaboration between the AIA|DC Urban Design Committee & AIA Equity Committee by WIELD. The Panel consisted of interdisciplinary experts from various design

relatred fields and explored aspects relating to how designers can influence change towards a more equitable built environment.

The winning entry and runnerup of the 2020 AIA|DC Politics, Protest, and Place – A call for an Inclusive Urban Realm Competition was also presented during this occation. The discussion focused on the 2020 committee theme

- How can place bolster the voices of all of our neighbors, whether embedded in DC’s residential communities, situated alongside sites of American history, or by confronting the symbols of our democracy?

-How can space be transformed to take on meaning in yet to be determined ways?

Winning proposal - The Mirror Wall by Zhu Wenyi, Jiang Yaobeilong, Lee Minhui and Huai Zeyu Image Credit: Zhu Wenyi, Jiang Yaobeilong, Lee Minhui and Huai Zeyu

Runner up proposal - The Forum by Scott McGhee Image Credit: Scott McGhee

daily city nature challenge 2021

The City Nature Challenge is a global citizen science event that brings together cities around the globe in a friendly competition to observe and identify the biodiversity in communities.

Last year, through the participation in the challenge, participants were able to explore local parks, and neighborhoods to observe wild plants and animals that share our environment.

The event was a collaboration between the AIA|DC Urban Design Committee (UD|DC), ASLA Potomac Chapter and Capital Nature, and an opportunity to use the unique skills of architects, urban designers, and landscape architects, to compete and help the scientists get valuable data on the biodiversity of the region – and the planet.

All image courtesy of the Urban Design Committee, 2020

Event Image & Interactive Map with DC Metro Area Parks Image Credit: AIA|DC Urban Design Committee

rethinking & revitalizing urban parks post COVID-19

has prompted city officials, planners and designers, and community activists to think even more creatively about the role of parks in urban life. It is sparking conversations about how these urban parks can be reimagined post pandemic. As society emerges from pandemic restrictions in the months ahead, how can we design our parks to nurture this new found appreciation for the outdoors and ensure parks and greenscapes remain a vital part of people’s daily lives?

Parks and urban green spaces enrich people’s lives in many ways and are known to provide a range of physical and mental health benefits to communities within which they are located. In the past year, with the increasing number of restrictions and guidelines for social distancing due to the global pandemic, parks across the world

have seen dramatic increase in use. They have become spaces of resilience, personal restoration, and social activity when the usual amenities were not available.

Urban designers and landscape architects have always played a prominent role in parks development and design. The popularity of parks today, however,

This event sparked an interesting conversation about what strategies can desginers employ to rethink and redesign parks for their continued resilience. The multi deciplinary panel also discussed how professions across different fields can support and enhance parks in our communities and their critical place in urban life? .

portfolio & resume workshop

The Portfolio & Resume workshop was aimed at at new graduates as well as young professionals trying to advance their careers and wanted to gain insight into the industry hiring and talent aquisition process.

Executed as a collaborative event between the AIA|DC Emerging Architects Committee and the

Event Image

Urban Design Committee the event included one on one review of porfolios and conducting mock interviews.

The event began with remarks by the guest speaker speaker, Rob Holzbach, who focused greatly on what happens behind-the-scenes during the hiring process at a typical architecture firm.

Image Credit: AIA|DC Urban Design Committee & AIA|DC Emerging Architects Committee

Rob also provided valuable insights into how firms find and select candidates to interview and what makes a successful resume package. In an adapted virtual format, each attendee was then paired into a series of breakout rooms with other reviewers for one-on-one feedback.

culture amplifier - ideas competition

the globally diverse city? The goal of this competition was to seek ideas on how architects, designers, planners, and the general public can contribute towards an informed citizenry that promotes awareness on culture, ethnicity and identity. Can spaces, designs and interventions that promote tolerance and equity better facilitate multicultural exchange?

In the past, cities were often direct manifestations of their culture. The ability for civic gatherings, the exchange of ideas and values and for cultural celebration reflected in the public realm and programming of the urban fabric. During the 21st century we have experienced unprecedented global integration. This rapid pace of globalization has fueled economic opportunities and brought with it many other

benefits, but it has also begun to diffuse cultural identity in cities. Culture is so much more than the branded image of the city. It is defined by the people and communities within it. And as technology and social media continue to both connect and isolate us, what is the role of cultural identity in cities? Is cultural identity still relevant in

Using the tools of design, technology and policy, we were seeking ideas that create new, or adapt existing public spaces and cultural infrastructure for people to gather and express both their individual and collective voices.. Emphasis was given to proposals that created cultural destinations, not another monumental landmark.

DC Space by Rishika Dhawan & Aaron Greiner

Image Credit: Top: Rishika Dhawan & Aaron Greiner

Can a bus stop make a change by Rita Wu

Image Credit: Rita Wu:

ideas

this section exhibits the committee’s 2020 competition winner and runners-up

DC Space

By Aaron Greiner, Executive Director, CultureHouse and Rishika Dhawan, Community Manager, CultureHouse

ABOUT CULTUREHOUSE

CultureHouse is an urban design nonprofit that uses creative placemaking to address global challenges at the local scale. We transform underutilized places into vibrant social infrastructure, work with partners to implement tactical urbanist interventions, and conduct research into new ways of making cities livable.

As an organization dedicated to lasting change, we empower others to create public spaces in their own communities. We provide a range of services that adapt the CultureHouse process to address critical needs. In addition to working directly with collaborators, we document and open source our projects—setting guidelines for others who want to create vital public spaces in their own communities.

In his book, Palaces for the People, sociologist Eric Klinenberg argues that “building places where all kinds of people can gather is the best way to repair the fractured societies we live in today”. By increasing access to social infrastructure, we create the conditions for communities to tackle climate change, social inequality, political division, and cultural isolation.

COMPETITION ENTRY

Washington DC has been witness to many fracturing incidents, most recently on January 6th, 2021. Each event has brought with it an uncertainty within the city. With ever-evolving ups and downs, the notion of community and belonging is no longer associated with a feeling of positivity. An urban intervention is required that is able to bridge the gaps between the city and its people in order to

create a lasting cultural identity. The intervention we propose is DC SPACE.

DC SPACE is a community pop-up that will serve as a communal living room, third space, and host for regular programming. This relaxed free-to-enter space will strengthen community bonds between previously disparate groups and create a context where all generations can coexist in an atmosphere of play. It will provide a place where people can build interpersonal networks that are critical to creating the thriving, sustainable, and resilient neighborhoods needed to combat current and future needs.

Jane Jacobs said, ‘cities have the capability of providing something for everybody, only because, and only when, they are created by everybody’. How do we represent a cultural identity for evolving and

diverse communities? One of the best tools we have to confront this is to strengthen the existing social fabric between communities. Sociologist Eric Klinenberg wrote, “building places where all kinds of people can gather is the best way to repair the fractured societies we live in today.” Working together using the creativity and resilience of our community members is our biggest asset. Washington DC lacks the social infrastructure necessary to bring people together in meaningful ways.

An example of welcoming social infrastructure is Studenterhuset,

a vibrant nonprofit student center located in central Copenhagen. This is a student-run non-profit that serves as a uniting space for university students to work, play, meet, and learn. By embracing the diversity among Copenhagen students, they are able to appeal to a wide range of people, giving everyone a reason to come. A lot of the location has the feeling of being created by and for peers, and so is welcoming and unpretentious. The space is dynamic — allowing for team meetings during the day, a concert at night, and a flea market on the weekends.

THE LOCATION

The location for DC SPACE will depend on a few factors. We assess whether the space is a low or high traffic area which will affect the kind of programs we will need to attract more people. Accessibility is important, there should be no barriers from untapped communities or physical accessibility constraints. It is important to establish a relationship with surrounding owners of the space and ensure that they are supportive towards the goals of the pop-up.

Zoning map showing commercial corridor along 14th street Image Credit: DC office of Zoning, Zoning Map (2016)

We form these relationships by meeting people where they are, going door to door and introducing ourselves, being a part of community meetings and establishing local partners that can help build relationships.

Judging by these factors, the Columbia Heights Civic Plaza is the most suited location for DC SPACE. Having selected the location, we determine the exact address of the space in collaboration with the community and their specific needs and goals. As the nature of the pop-up is temporary, we are flexible with the exact space.

The neighborhood of Columbia Heights has experienced many ups and downs over the years. From the designation of a “colored” school that created a home for the African American Population to

being the location of the 1968 riots which forced an exodus of people, there has been a lot of history both good and bad.

Previously a neglected neighborhood, there have been significant attempts at urban revitalization with the metro station and new housing developments. The strength of this neighborhood has always been its connectivity to Downtown.

The neighborhood has been designated as mostly residential with a commercial corridor along 14th street. There are two kinds of communities present in Columbia Heights; the first are the newer, wealthier residents that are creating meaningful spaces for themselves and the second are the long-time residents that feel neglected and left behind by the

changes.Existing organizations such as BloomBar and the GALA Theater, and the nearby Howard University, have helped keep the cultural identity of Columbia Heights alive. DC SPACE would be able to enhance the same with an intervention that stems from the community, for the community.

THE PROCESS

A successful social infrastructure intervention is defined by its process. It is about how we engage, involve, and empower the community to lead to the creation and operation of a pop-up. Keeping specific community needs central we customize and change the popup to fit local conditions. Engaging the community at each step of the process ensures that the pop-up is centering those who need it the most.

RESEARCH

Working with similar organizations and others present in the community keeps the identity of the neighborhood intact. With their help we gather information about the community and the neighborhood and understand the existing needs and concerns. This creates a homely environment at DC SPACE whether you have been living in DC for years or are just visiting. It acts as a bridge between government officials and their constituents, providing a neutral territory where they can meet and connect. Prominent partners to consider will be the Civic Plaza Partners, Columbia Heights Main Streets as well as the Advisory Neighborhood Commission.

COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT

A pop-up does not happen to a community, it happens with a community. We spend time engaging with the community and understanding what they want to see in their spaces. We often use a large chalk prompt board where we write “I wish I had a place too…” and ask people to fill in the blank. The nature of the pop-up model is temporary which allows for constant iteration and molding to accommodate evolving needs. It encourages positive interaction by functioning as a space to meet new people and those who have lived in DC for a while.

DESIGN/BUILD

Using tactical urbanism methods we will build a space that is inviting, accessible and fosters community. DC SPACE thrives on being visually and experientially different which brings people into an environment they can be comfortable in and peacefully interact. It is important to plan for adaptability as spaces may need to evolve depending on how they are used. A successful pop-up is accessible to all ages, abilities and languages. The pop-up has a barrier free entrance and internal structure. Things like metal detectors in public institutions of DC that might get in the way of universal access do not hinder the situation here.

OPERATION

Events are a chance to bring in collaborators, expand audiences, support local creatives, and give people an excuse to stop by. Events will almost always be free, we want to reduce as many barriers as we can to getting people in the door. Not relying on event revenue for funding lets us build a more equitable environment. A public space attracts a wide range of people which means that sometimes there will be conflict. The host and staff are members of the community, giving visitors a person they can relate to. All staff are trained on de-escalation strategies to create a comfortable environment where situations can be easily diffused. People can build connections with people who are different from them through interactions in spaces and events, which builds tolerance across identities and facilitates multicultural exchange.

IMPACT REPORT AND DATA COLLECTION

Throughout the process we will collect data from the experiences and interactions of the community. Stepping back and looking at the space from a birds-eye view and comparing it with other similar efforts can yield larger discoveries. Often a solution that works for a specific community can also be adapted to other communities in DC. Publishing a report publicly allows others to read it and gain inspiration that they can take to their own neighborhood.

THE SPACE

DC SPACE will address city level problems at a neighborhood scale. The events and programs create a playful atmosphere that promotes livability and joy. And, by giving people a platform to locate problems and find solutions within their community, this pop-up will spur inclusive neighborhood development. This pop-up space will be a temporary means of supporting communities to make long term dreams a reality and serve as research hubs that generate future placemaking

opportunities.

In Washington DC, the tourists have access to the larger open spaces and museums, the national government takes a seat at the highest point of the city, and the local residents are spread throught the outer periphery of the city divided by prominent racial definitions. The process of realizing DC SPACE uses urban design, planning, art, human centered design, and architecture strategies to give social infrastructure a new form. Due to its temporary nature DC SPACE can be adapted

to various forms of existing public spaces. The nature of constant engagement and research ensures that all voices are not only heard but differences are recognized, understood and supported through the design and operation of the space. The nature and importance of a human scale at DC SPACE creates a sense of place and an authentic cultural destination.

Washington DC sets an example for the rest of the country. With a space like DC SPACE we can ensure that the value of the city stays intact as it continues to evolve.

Conceptual rendering of DC SPACE Image Credit: Culture House

Conceptual exterior render for DC SPACE with spaces for play, relaxation and performances

Image Credit: Culture House

Conceptual interior render for DC SPACE with spaces living room spaces and working spaces

Image Credit: Culture House

REFERENCES

Batty, M. (2013). The New Science of Cities. Massachusetts Institute of Technology: MIT Press

Bauman, Z. (2001) Community: Seeking Safety in an Insecure World. Cambridge: Polity Press.

Campbell, J. Livengood, S. (2021) personal communication. December, 2, 2021. United States Capitol Historical Society.

DC Office of Zoning. (2016) Official Zoning Map

Klinenberg, E. (2019). Palaces for the People: How Social Infrastructure Can Help Fight Inequality, Polarization, and the Decline of Civic Life. Crown

the reconstruction of chinatown in washington dc

Rita Wu, University of Virginia

TO BEGIN WITH...

The impact of this competition on me is far larger than just these several pages of work. It takes more than that to rethink different aspects of the word ‘culture’. What is culture? The dictionary defines it as “the customary beliefs, social forms, and material traits of a racial, religious, or social group” in the web dictionary. I don’t really like this definition because it is too vague and could apply to nearly everything from our daily life. The only thing I am sure of is that it is hard to explain in simple words,and harder to visualize it in a specific space. “

A quick self-introduction, I am a second-year university student and my hometown is China. I’ve lived in the U.S. for a year. While you may think that I will spend lots of time talking about how I adapt

to the new environment, I can say that it’s pretty easy—I started to fit into the new lifestyle and act like other natives after my first week here. Living in a globalized world, the internet, education, and international trade make people’s (especially the young generation’s) daily lifestyles familiar, even if we may come from different “cultural backgrounds.”So, here’s the question: what do we need culture for? I had mixed feelings when I saw the lion dance at the spring festival gala at my school. It is definitely a part of Chinese culture, but actually, I seldom see it even when I am in China. Then I realized a problem, those “Chinese elements” famous in the U.S. are only a limited iconic part and far away from people’s daily life.

Since I had never been to Washington DC when I first saw I chose Chinatown as the place

I wanted to study. No matter how time changes, Chinatown is no doubt the first place that people (especially visitors and local groups) can think of when mentioning Chinese culture.

ABOUT CHINATOWN IN DC

People may wrongly interpret Chinatown as a flourishing place if they see the beautiful pictures on the websites. Although it is true that the typical entrance gate is still attractive and marks the glorious history of Asian immigrants, the current population in the community was reported as low as 300 in 2015, while Asian is no longer the dominant group in the area.

The origin of DC Chinatown can be dated back to the 1890s, when the gathering of Asian people finally caught the attention of local

media, which announced the community’s existence. From then on, it continued its function as an important social infrastructure— providing both physical and emotional support for new immigrants. It kept attracting more Chinese Americans due to the language convenience and job opportunities. On one hand, I guess the culture of Chinatown at that time was really traditional because most residents were first-generation immigrants from

China. Still, on the other hand, the community must have been highly exclusive from the local people’s perspective, which resulted in another kind of social segregation caused by culture—although we cannot say if it is a good thing or not.

Many issues affect the continued expansion of Chinatown. However, the most severe impact is caused by the formalization process that started in the 1980s [3]. In the zoning plan at that time, the

Chinatown districts were marked as wild and messy, so it became an urgent task to demolish the whole place and make it an urban renewal project. Blocks around the community were quickly modernized and replaced by new concrete buildings, and commercial sites began to invade the Chinatown neighborhood. Even though citizens showed strong disagreement and refusal, some were still forced to move to suburban areas.

Chinatown DC - The Friendship Archway was dedicated in 1986 to mark the friendship between DC and Beijing. Streets of Washington Image Credit: Flickr/CC BY-NC 2.0

NOWADAYS

Nowadays, due to the excellent location near the city center, the land price and rent of the Chinatown area make it more difficult for small businesses to survive [4]. The simple business model (restaurant only) causes the decline of community vitality, leading to the lack of street activities and community maintenance. Therefore, it results in the disappearance of the sense of belonging and cultural identity.

WHAT ABOUT MY PROJECT?

Personally, I believe that a good economic status and enough social interactions are the basis of promoting “culture.” In the ideal situation, “culture” should be a part of our daily life.

My project aims to promote the economic growth and the social interaction of the community while revitalizing the culture represented by Chinatown and encouraging effective exchanges and integration with local cultures. So, I chose “shared public space” as the main focus of my project to try to explore new possibilities in different

kinds of space. The first step I took was to take an overall look at the whole area in the east of Downtown Washington, D.C. along H and I Streets between 5th and 8th Streets [5]—the most direct feeling is that it is a really dense area that has a strong contrast with its surroundings.The “dense” here does not refer to the population but the significant numbers of buildings in the limited space; most are only several floors high. The whole Chinatown community lacks additional but essential space for people to do activities.

Chinatown DC - A mural painted by a Chinatown resident artist, covering a boarded vaccant lot Image Credit: Will Schick

Instead of coming up with a whole zoning plan for the entire area and demolishing the existing built environment, I am thinking of solving this problem by adding small changes. When I walked from school to my dorm one day, I suddenly realized that the streets could serve many different functions and are one kind of the “third space” that people stayed in for the longest time. As

a result, my project improves the streets in the China Town area, making it a “complete street” with green space, bike lanes, and open public space for more street activities. Especially during this COVID time, it is better to encourage outside interaction than inside the buildings. Meanwhile, according to the theory of Jane Jacobs, street activity means that more people can pay attention to

the development of this area and reduce street crime to some extent.

Meanwhile, I notice there are about 14+ bus stops near this area. (When I was working on the project, I compared them to the bus stops near my home. However, it turns out that those differ slightly from the ones in Chinatown. I will describe how in more detail later.)

Context Study

Image Credit: Rita Wu

Design Sketches Image Credit: Rita Wu

So, why not do some decorations and change them to unique elements just like the front gate of China Town? As bus stops can also be considered an ignored public space, they also have the functions of improving social communication and showing knowledge of the Chinese culture.

The project includes giving bus stops an entirely new appearance

(the shape of Nian and lions) related to Chinese culture, along with constructing unique and dynamic tiny museums, food stores, or Chinese gift shops near them. Some of these “exchanging sites” can be automatic. For example, some can be introductions to festivals in China, and others can be interactive, like selling some snacks and experiencing the procedure

of cultural crafts. It provides some workplaces for “low-income” people living here, and it has the potential to be a new fashion trend that attracts young people and makes the waiting time more fun and comfortable. Lastly, I found a medium-sized vacant lot inside by viewing the community’s plan. I decided to make it a mini-park with trees, water, and most important—a bridge in the shape

Design Sketches Image Credit: Rita Wu

of a dragon. The reason that I chose a dragon is that it is a typical character and easy to emulate. This action can add to the community’s social infrastructure and green space, benefiting residents and visitors. However, after visiting the actual site, I realized this park action is unrealistic, but I want to leave it here as a part of my thinking process.

THOUGHTS FOR FUTURE AND SUGGESIONS FOR IMPROVEMENTS

During the spring break of 2022, I finally got the chance to visit Chinatown in Washington DC. It is pretty different from what I have expected. I am a little bit disappointed to find myself being the only Asian visitor in this area during my trip, so I sincerely hope that my project can help the situation better.

One problem I found is that I made a mistake when interpreting the scale of the vacant lot, so it came out to be too small for the park, so maybe the park can be moved to

another place where needed. The currently vacant lot can be used as a small plaza for children and elders to do some daily exercise.

The good thing is that I noticed that there are already some traditional Chinese elements inside the community, including red trash cans, dragon-shaped lights, etc. But I think that my project is still valuable even if these elements exist—the bus stop proposal integrates culture into its function. Compared to the trash cans and lights, a bus stop is an actual place that provides people with incentives to stay and contains more content. While carefully examining the bus stops in Washington DC, I found that they already have roofs to prevent people from sun and rain. That will make my proposal even more straightforward: no need to construct them from zero; we can just invite artists, residents, and anyone interested in the project to decorate it; this process is also an excellent way to promote culture. Moreover, some bus stops near Chinatown are also

linked to the internet and GPS guidance, which gives me ideas on the future possibilities of this project in further researching the role Chinatown plays nowadays in people’s lives. One idea is that we can make every bus stop unique and match them with QR codes (even maybe change the decoration every half year) for people to “make a collection” around Chinatown, maybe set up some posts collection on social media like Ins or Facebook blogs or apps, that can attract people to come to Chinatown for travel. Another idea is related to the concept of the “smart city”: to track people’s movements related to Chinatown, for example, where they come from in the city, and which store they most commonly go to. In this way, we can identify the attraction groups and the most frequent functions of Chinatown, which can provide a reference for future planning.

REFERENCES

Chinatown demographics and statistics. Niche. (n.d.). Retrieved May 24, 2022, from https://www.niche.com/places-to-live/n/chinatownwashington-dc/residents/

Cooper, R. (2021, September 6). A neighborhood guide to Chinatown in Washington, DC. TripSavvy. Retrieved May 24, 2022, from https://www. tripsavvy.com/chinatown-washington-dc-neighborhood-guide-1039373

Wang, Y. (2015, July 18). D.C.’s Chinatown has only 300 Chinese Americans left, and they’re fighting to stay. The Washington Post. Retrieved May 24, 2022, from https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/dcs-chinatown-has-only-300-chinese-americans-left--and-fighting-tostay/2015/07/16/86d54e84-2191-11e5-bf41-c23f5d3face1_story.html

Weta. (2020, April 10). The History & Survival of Washington D.C.’s Chinatown. Boundary Stones: WETA’s Washington DC History Blog. Retrieved May 24, 2022, from https://boundarystones.weta.org/2020/04/10/history-survival-washington-dc%E2%80%99s-chinatown#footnote-marker-1-1

Wikimedia Foundation. (2022, March 1). Chinatown (Washington, D.C.). Wikipedia. Retrieved May 24, 2022, from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ Chinatown_(Washington,_D.C.)

contributions

Urban Design Committee

AIA|DC

managing editors

Janki Shah, Assoc. AIA

Saakshi Terway, Assoc. AIA

Kumi Wickramanayaka, AIA

co-chairs

Janki Shah, Assoc. AIA

Kumi Wickramanayaka, AIA

past chair

Saakshi Terway, Assoc. AIA

2022 COMMITTEE SPONSORERS

editorial review

Bohesa Won

Hinali Shah

Mary Eveleigh

Mary Fitch, AICP, Hon. AIA

Scott Archer. AIA

Temitayo Fasusi, RA

graphic review

Ameya Lokesh Kaulaskar

Ana Gabriela Mendoza Flores

Bohesa Won

Dita Bittenbender

contributing authors

Bradley Benmoshe

Rishika Dhawan

Aaron Greiner

Ameya Lokesh Kaulaskar

Greg Luongo

Timothy Maher

Joseph McKenley

Erin Peavey

Dominic Weilminster

Rita Wu