The Atlantic Cities: 

“The Strange Beauty of Density Taken to the Extreme

Emily Badger May 17, 2013

The Hong Kong-based photographer Michael Wolf first began to photograph the city’s residential high-rises, like the one pictured above, in their entirety – or, at least, with some sense of sky and horizon and scale in the frame. Then he printed them out and began to rearrange them.

“At some point, I just began folding the prints, folding way the sky, folding away the sides, until I basically had an image that looked like a supermarket bar code,” Wolf says. “I somehow had the feeling this was the right way of doing it, this was the gut decision.”

This was the best way to capture life amid extreme density, in a compact city of 7 million people jammed full of 80-story apartments and infinitely replicated facades. Wolf’s own 300 square-foot studio looks out on such patterns of stacked homes, with maybe 10,000 other units in view. Collectively, they form a kind of geometric art that appears in Wolf’s tightly cropped photos as simultaneously stunning and claustrophobic. The images have recently been reprinted in the book Architecture of Density. Each photo produces the disorienting sense that these buildings could stretch into the sky forever.”

Photo: Michael Wolf

“America’s Truly Densest Metros

• RICHARD FLORIDA
• OCT 15, 2012

Economists and urbanists have long argued that density plays a key role in innovation and economic growth. As important as it is, density is a tough thing to measure. Metros come in different shapes as well as sizes: Some have more concentrated populations near the center, others are more continuously sprawling. Yet, density is typically measured rather crudely by simply dividing the total population of a city or metro area by its land area.

A new report [PDF] from the U.S. Census Bureau helps to fill the gap, providing detailed estimates of different types of density for America’s metros. This includes new data on “population-weighted density” as well as of density at various distances from the city center. Population-weighted density, which essentially measures the actual concentration of people within a metro, is an important improvement on the standard measure of density. For this reason, I like to think of it as a measure of concentrated density. The Census calculates population-weighted density based on the average densities of the separate census tracts that make up a metro.

The differences in the two density measures are striking. The overall density across all 366 U.S. metro areas is 283 people per square mile. Concentrated or population-weighted density for all metros is over 20 times higher, at 6,321 people per square mile.

This Census report is not the first to use population-weighted density. A 2001 study by Gary Barnes of the University of Minnesota developed such a measure to examine sprawl and commuting patterns. In 2008, Jordan Rappaport of the Kansas City Fed published an intriguing study in the Journal of Urban Economics (non-gated version here), which looked at the relationship between density (including population-weighted density) and the productivity of regions. Christopher Bradford, who blogs at his Austin Contrarian, has also advocated for using population-weighted density to better understand urban development.

What’s particularly useful about the new Census report is that it provides detailed data on population-weighted density for all U.S. metros for both 2000 and 2010 (full data set here [xls]). This took some doing, because metro boundaries change over time. To develop consistent estimates, Census researchers went back and recalculated population-weighted densities for 2000 based on the revised metro boundaries for 2010. This makes it possible to compare the two time periods and examine changes over time.”

“STEALTH DENSITY

Carren Jao. October 9, 2012

Barbara Bestor’s Blackbirds gives a single-family look to high-density housing that puts pedestrians and cyclists first.

With the help of LA’s 2004 Small Lot Ordinance, which allows developers to build single-family homes and detached townhouses on a single lot originally zoned for multi-family housing or commercial development, LocalConstruct and architect Barbara Bestor are hoping to turn a one-acre hillside parcel in Echo Park into a prime example of smart growth.

“We felt that there were few existing projects that took advantage of the ordinance’s potential,” said Casey Lynch, LocalConstruct co-founder. He and his partner Mike Brown started the company in 2009 with a focus on “green retrofits” for distressed apartment buildings and homes in Los Angeles.

The plan for Blackbirds—located between the neighborhood’s Preston and Vestal avenues—calls for 18 small-lot homes clustered around an internal living street designed after the Dutch Woonerf concept, where pedestrians and cyclists have priority. The project’s unusual rooflines and its resulting configuration reminded developers of birds surrounding a pond, which gave rise to the development’s unusual name. Blackbirds will consist of three 1,800-square-foot single-family homes, three side-by-side 1,400-square-foot duplexes and three side-by-side 1,300 square-foot-triplexes.

“Their density is similar to the fabric of housing around them. The trick visually is that some of the units are in duplex or triplex configurations but still appear similar to unique houses, a sort of ‘stealth density’,” said Bestor, who up until now had always worked on single-family residences.

Also intriguing is the focus on a less car-centric lifestyle at Blackbirds. Lynch adds that some units will also be “un-garaged.” Carports or open parking spaces will be placed strategically around the internal living street, which would leave more open space on the site. “We think that is a needed step in the evolution of LA typologies,” said Lynch.

“I am curious as to why larger scale housing projects so often have a lower level of finish and stultifying repetitiveness given their prices,” commented Bestor. “We are attempting to add quality and individuality to each of these units as well as a structure engendering community and neighborliness in the way they are grouped together.”

An initial presentation to the Echo Park Neighborhood Council garnered the usual concerns of increased traffic and parking congestion due to added density, but also notes of approval at the development’s utopian impulses.

Blackbirds is finalizing its schematics and the possible changes discussed include further reducing the density of the development, adding traffic safety measures, and access to lower streets for parking. A construction start date is dependent on a Zoning Administration hearing, but LocalConstruct is targeting construction to begin by the end of 2012 with units completed by late 2013.”

Via: The Atlantic Cities

Image: Barbara Bestor Architects

“The Dreaded Density Issue

Having worked in communities big and small across the continent, we’ve had ample opportunity to test ideas and find approaches that work best. Urban design details. Outreach tactics. Implementation tricks. Many of these lessons are transferable, which is why we’ve created “Back of the Envelope,” a weekly feature where we jot ‘em down for your consideration.

A number of recent conversations with Stefanos Polyzoides, Howard Blackson, and Matt Lambert regarding density and residential types has me thinking about building typology as one solution to visualizing and embracing density.

The Lincoln Institute has done a good job of making the touchy subject more approachable on their website and the wonderful aerial photography of Alex S. MacLean goes a long way to clarifying the difference between similar densities that ultimately prove more or less desirable in their final built form. For example, compare the similar densities from San Francisco and Boston below. The narrow buildings around Louisburg Square are human scaled and very approachable from the view of the pedestrian. In contrast, the monolithic buildings in San Francisco create a canyon at the street level and contribute very little to the effort to promote sustainable densities.

Instead of debating the number of units per acres, planners and city staff should consider addressing types of buildings that are permitted within different zoning categories. Not only is this the most understandable approach for the lay person, it’s the most predictable for the builder and the city.” 

Via: Placeshakers

Image: Bing Maps

“Are Skyscrapers Torpedoing the World’s Economies?

Jennifer Hattam. Jan 15, 2012

Does pride goeth before a fall, as the biblically based saying has it, for the world’s booming cities too? A new report by an investment bank that postulates an “unhealthy” link between skyscraper construction and financial crisis suggests it might.

Barclays Capital recently issued a warning to investors about avid skyscraper-builders China and India, noting an “unhealthy correlation between construction of the next world’s tallest building and an impending financial crisis”:

[O]ften the world’s tallest buildings are simply the edifice of a broader skyscraper building boom, reflecting a widespread misallocation of capital and an impending economic correction.

But Isn’t Density Good?
The news might come as a bit of a downer to advocates of greater density, typically an environmental plus, but the focus of Barclays’ attention appears to be “bubble” construction, where skyscrapers and other skyline-defining buildings are erected because they can be (due, in China’s case, to cheap liquidity) or as shows of economic might, not because they provide a well-thought-out solution to the city’s needs.”

Via: Treehugger

Photo: Chelsea Hicks/CC BY 2.0; The Hong Kong skyline.

“Designing for Density Doesn’t Have to Be Ugly, or Scary

Allison Arieff   Oct 28, 2011

Few architects take the challenge of density done right as seriously—and creatively—as David Baker, principal of David Baker + Partners Architects. Among the many tools in his impressive design arsenal is one you might not expect: an ability to humanize the data. He’s designing not for stats and acronyms but for citizens.

Density per square mile is a pretty normal concept for people looking at macro-scale planning, and most architects tend to focus on “dwelling units per acre,” or DUA. But this, says Baker, ignores how big those dwellings are and also ignores the effects of streets, parks and parking, commercial uses, and public uses like schools, libraries, and civic offices.

Dense urban areas don’t have to be all highrises. With a mix of housing types, Oakland, California’s new Tassafaronga Village contains 33 dwellings per acre, making it five times as dense as the average American City.

The San Francisco-based architect opts instead for “people per square mile,” a concept he was first was exposed to by a Canadian landscape architecture professor who presented various green districts in British Columbia. There, says Baker, “they seemed to have taken up the idea that to be a ‘green district’ you should have a goal of 100,000 people per square mile. It’s an arbitrary goal, but quite achievable without resorting to mega buildings. I think it’s a great metric to measure a design by—a quantitative measure.”

Via: the Atlantic

Sze Tsung Leong, Putuo District, Shanghai, 2005/ Photo: Design Observer

Interesting article by Mark Lamster at Design Observer that highlights a possible disconnect between Western urbanist attitudes and the realities of rapid urbanization in East Asia, as exemplified by the remarks of leading New Urbanist architect/planner, Andres Duany. 

 ”Andrés Duany’s Asian Problem

 Only ten years ago, in the wake of 9/11, there were many voices telling us that we had come to the end of the skyscraper era: that no one would want to work or live in tall buildings with the threat of terror ever-present, and that the Internet would so decentralize our lives that cities (and tall buildings) would be obsolete. As I write in a feature, Castles in the Air, for Scientific American’s special issue on cities, this has not turned out to be true. We live in the greatest skyscraper age of all time.”