Some years back I
attended a public input meeting for our 5 year Town Master Plan Review. A
number of dignitaries milled about looking important. They referred most of the
questions to their hired engineers.
I was pointed to
one of them. He asked about my thoughts. “Well” I said, “I see buildings and
streets, major traffic corridors, but I don’t see any people”.
This confounded
him, like I was suggesting there should be little stick figure graphics all
over his blue prints. It took a good 10 minutes for me to explain my point. As
an example I pointed out a few neatly ordered distinct housing groups. They
were connected by roads but not crisscrossed with shortcut foot paths. Other
than bus stops there were no pedestrian gathering points like a parkette with a
bench.
He hmmm’d a
little. I went on to suggest that these pedestrian nodes should also be choke
points, that would force a little human interaction.
He hmmm’d a little
more and then proudly pointed out a few of the large scale community hubs
planned in other areas of town. His argument was that they were trying to “put
people first” by building these great cathedrals to sports and culture.
I can see that, I
replied, but reality is, that these really become nothing more that collection
points for masses of unrelated people from all over town, to use for their own
individual benefit. Yes the crowds will gather, but do they encourage
interaction and community? “Here” I
said, “you show a public square, with 10 or 12 little tables for people to
sit”. “Why not replace that with one great long table”?
Fast forward, the
one suggestion that did sink in and was eventually acted on, was the need for a
community vegetable garden.
Building is
strictly a utilitarian endeavour. You need shelter, you build a hut. Architecture
is an embellishment. It adds artistic expression, shows off wealth or status,
frames a picture, inspires awe and creates a focal point.
All good things,
but in that pursuit it is easy to forget humanity’s most primal needs.
Interaction,
companionship, acceptance and a need to feel like you belong. Every one of us
has either lived or had friends that lived in a high density area, where almost
no one knew their immediate neighbours.
Contrast that to
almost any older neighbourhood in any city, where most of life played out on
the front porches and rolled into the street. You could sit on your stoop and
look left or right and see a neighbour on either side.
Somehow we have
moved life into the private and secretive enclave of the backyard. Out the
front, you may see the guy to the left getting into his car in the morning, but
the other side is blocked from view and conversation by a hulking garage.
An other
unintended side effect of architecture is the seeming need for order and
uniformity. As a result the corner stores, neighbourhood pubs or little bread
bakeries have been systematically removed as gathering points in communities.
Try these days to strike up a conversation with a stranger at the Super Grocery
Mega-center, and you’re viewed with suspicion or thought of as a lunatic.
I recently visited
Valencia. I was astounded about the creative and unique architecture and public
spaces just up the river from the harbour. One of the buildings was so cleaver
in it’s engineering that it seemed to defy gravity. After taking a lot of
photos, passing a number of tourist taking lots of photos, I started to get a
sensation of loneliness.
I headed back to
the chaos and mishmash on the narrow streets in the old part of the city, near
the train station. After brushing by and bumping into numerous perfect
strangers on these crowed streets, my feeling of loneliness disappeared.
Adding elements
into Architectural design that not only encourage human interaction, but leave
people no other choice can be difficult to do, but is vital if we are to talk
about “walkable/liveable” communities.
While not architectural, one of the most ingenious
elements I have seen was that from a little old Lady, re designing her front
garden. She had lived in the little house for all of her adult life and wanted
desperately to stay. The area had changed so much over the years. All
of her neighbours had passed or moved away.
Lot’s of young
families and immigrants were moving in. Regularly out in her garden, she tried
to engage her new neighbours, with little success. She noticed many of them had
dogs. She liked dogs. For fear of earning her ire, they would hustle their dog
past the yard to do business in the next ditch.
The situation took
a huge turn one day. Her son took her to the garden center. Siting with a host
of concrete garden ornaments was a brightly painted fake fire hydrant. Today
every dog defies it’s master’s commands and stops at that fire hydrant. She now
knows all of her neighbours!
Good Architecture
is an extension of the space it occupies, and some of that space is in hearts
and emotions of the people it needs to interact with.
