Tag Archives: Waterfronts

Links: Metro’s disco inferno; the power of ports

Two items worth sharing:

7000 Series Metro Cars: 

Over the weekend, WMATA released a few pictures and some videos (complete with a soundtrack that would make Michael Bay jealous) of the prototype of the 7000 series, currently under assembly in Japan.

The front end of the cars looks sharp – the black background with the white Metro logo is clean and easily read and identified at a distance.  Compare against a rendering here.

It’s unfortunate that the side doesn’t share the same clean look.  The industrial design of the car body is fine – echoing other transit vehicles (both old and new) with the corrugated steel.  The contrast against the smooth finish at the window levels provides a similar effect to the current fleet’s brown stripe.

The car interiors will feature real-time strip maps showing the next stations on the line – early commentary has focused on misspellings.

While the old paint scheme (essentially just the brown stripe) might seem a little dated, the future cars feature this “disco ball” motif around the Metro logo, both inside and out.  It’s an upgrade from the hideous “America’s Metro” debacle, but still feels like it will be dated quickly.  The large penumbra around the M means that the disco ball on the exterior is centered on the entire carbody, rather than having the M aligned with the windows, as it is now with the brown stripe.  The front end of the 7000 car shows the crisp M logo well – I’m not sure why they didn’t keep the same approach with the sides and resorted to this disco gimmick.

The importance of ports: 

As each of those new Metro cars is manufactured, they’ll be shipped to the US for final assembly – likely arriving in some large port complex. Will Doig has an interesting article on the battles over waterfront land between maritime uses and real estate interests:

The problem (if you can call it that) is that this is happening just as the maritime industry is booming, thanks to an explosion of cheapo imports from Asia. It’s conventional wisdom that urban industries are dying, but shipping isn’t one of them. Even with the recession, the container trade has doubled since 2000, and 2012 is expected to be another record-breaking year. “I think it’s great to have a park, but you can put a park anywhere,” says Hughes. “There has to be someplace to do this.”

Are cities that place? After centuries of ports fueling urban growth, some people are starting to think: Maybe not anymore. “The scale of port activity requires much more space than it used to,” says Doucet, referring to the massive container ships that require not just deep-water ports, but dry-land acreage and fleets of trucks to unload their cargo. “It’s actually much more practical for ports to be located outside the city center.”

Doig’s article only touches on the changes to the landscapes that the current state of the art of shipping has brought upon our landscapes.  The article reminded me of some excellent Mammoth posts on the subject (shipping and border control, the landscape of globalization, and the physical distribution network as a sampling), noting how the economic logic and physical requirements of this type of trade, combined with legal structures and other constraints has created entirely new landscapes.

The key point that Mr. Doucet makes in Doig’s article is that the geography of shipping today is very different from the old landscape of longshoremen working on Manhattan’s docks.  Framing the battle over this real estate has something to do with the longevity and ‘stickiness’ of land uses – but often isn’t looking forward to the changing environment such infrastructure is operating in.

More ideas for the Eco-City Beautiful

I’ve been meaning to say something on some more water + city issues raised by mammoth a short time ago, but I haven’t gotten around to it.   Mammoth points us to another entrant in the design competition for Toronto’s Port Lands (following up on some of the discussion about McMillan Two).  The project, called River+City+Life, aims to re-imagine urban wetlands rather than simply recreate a faux natural setting.

The design team faced a complex challenge: to renaturalize the mouth of the Don River while simultaneously reengineering the flood plain and creating a new thriving edge to the city’s downtown. Working at the confluence of urban core and derelict waterfront, Stoss pursued an adaptive strategy based on the primacy of the river and its dynamics. Of particular significance is the project’s explicit emphasis on building resilience, which was to be achieved by recalibrating the mouth of the river and its floodplain as a new estuary — not a restored estuary, but a landscape transformed through the creation of a new river channel and “river spits” — sculpted landforms capable of withstanding changing lake levels and seasonal flooding, while also providing new spaces for recreation and housing.

River+City+Life - Site Rendering

River+City+Life - Site Rendering

By proposing new, integrated ecologies for the site, organized principally by the river and its innate properties, the Stoss plan “puts the river first.” This constitutes a complete reversal of a century and a half of straightening, channelizing and deepening the river for the economic benefit of the citizens of Toronto. Centered on renewal rather than restoration, the design strategy comprises adaptation to occasional flooding, mediation between native and alien species, and a thick layering of habitats and edges, both cultural and natural, seasonal and permanent. In this way River+City+Life weaves a resilient urban tapestry of public amenity, urban edge and ecological performance, conceiving the city as a hybrid cultural–natural space and setting in motion long-term evolutionary processes in which new ecologies would be encouraged not suppressed.

River+City+Life - Hydrologic Elements

River+City+Life - Hydrologic Elements

River+City+Life - Massing Study

River+City+Life - Massing Study

This is the kind of potential meshing of green infrastructure, site, and urbanism we should demand from McMillan Two.  Though this specific example raises some questions in my mind about public space, streetscapes, and other urban design elements – the overall approach of the city and its infrastructure as a kind of living machine is fascinating.

River+City+Life - Aerial

River+City+Life - Aerial

With this specific proposal, a few of those renderings and massing studies scare me from an urban design standpoint – with arcaded buildings suspended over streets and sidewalks – but it’s a tremendously interesting idea to play around with.

Speaking of water…

A book that I really ought to add I’ve added to the reading list is Cadillac Desert by Marc Reisner.  It’s the story of the American West and the battle for water resources.

A Parisian Anacostia

Yesterday, Kojo Nnamdi hosted classical architect Nir Buras on his show, talking about (among other things) narrowing and urbanizing the Anacostia River so it more resembles the Seine‘s course through Paris.  Such a massive public works undertaking would be under the guise of a new iteration of the L’Enfant and MacMillan plans for the city.

Buras hit on a wide variety of topics – some of which I agree with, some I do not, and some that raise serious concerns about his ideas.   They include the interface between city and water, hydrology and flooding, the supposed superiority of classical design, and a desire to make everything revolve around Paris.

Thoughts on the various topics:

Urban Waterfronts

Buras is certainly correct in noting that DC’s waterfronts are woefully underutilized.  I know I’ve had those thoughts myself, and think there are many opportunities on the shores of the Anacostia to help the city engage the water that flows through it.  We see some good examples of this here and there within the region – Georgetown’s waterfront, Alexandria’s waterfront, and even the SW DC waterfront (something’s just fun about grabbing a beer at Cantina Marina).  Still, there’s a far greater opportunity that we’ve missed.  Given the pending redevelopment of Poplar Point, this condition is poised to change in the relatively near future.

The problem with Mr. Buras’ idea is that he’s promoting Paris as the ideal, when he admittedly notes the dimensions of the Anacostia are more similar to the Thames in London.  He specifically calls to narrow the river from ~1000 feet wide to ~500 feet wide.  Instead of making the urban design meet the natural conditions of the land (as L’Enfant did so well, siting the Capitol atop Jenkins Hill, keeping his grid within the relatively flat plain below the fall line, etc).  Similarly, he dismisses Amsterdam and Venice as problematic for engineering reasons.

Having the city meet the water is a great idea.  Re-creating Paris is a solution looking for a problem.

Transportation

Buras mentions the Anacostia serving as a barrier – and rightfully notes the barriers also imposed by both the SE/SW freeway and 295 – yet this major infrastructural idea gets little treatment from Buras compared to the idea of narrowing the river channel.  In my mind, removal of the freeway is a far more important decision, yet it’s not nearly the sexy idea.

Ecology and Hydrology

JD Hammond summed it up succinctly: “I do worry about flooding.”  So do I.  I’m no hydrologist, but some of Buras’ answer to astute questions from callers don’t leave me with a lot of confidence that he’s fully assessed the impacts of such a decision.  One points out the damage done to New Orleans by Hurricane Katrina, particularly noting how man’s manipulation of the Mississippi River and various wetlands didn’t help that city – it hurt it.  Man’s engineering can’t replicate nature.  JD Hammond emphasizes this point as well, looking to Los Angeles and the concrete gutters that serve as rivers.

The other thing is that I can’t quite tell exactly where Mr. Buras proposes to narrow the river.  Presumably, he’s talking about the region between the confluence with the Potomac and the area around RFK Stadium – any further upstream, and the river is quickly surrounded by both the National Arboretum and the Kenilworth Aquatic Gardens – trying to force the river into an urban condition amongst such natural parks is boneheaded.

Classical Architecture

Perhaps the most tedious bit of Buras’ talk was the rambling was his talk on the superiority of classical design.  For one, conflating classical aesthetics and architecture with good urban design is annoying.  I’ve got nothing against classical architecture, but I happen to rather like modern architecture as well.  I’m far more interested in good design, regardless of the style it fits into.   As it relates to the city, I’m more interested in how those buildings fit into and function within an urban environment.

Holistic Understanding

I find it curious that Buras talks of having a holistic understanding of architecture and urbanism, while the hydrology of his proposal shows a profound lack of any sort of holistic understanding of water systems and their intricate feedback mechanisms.

All in All…

Buras raises an intriguing idea.  I certainly support the idea of crafting a new vision for DC, guiding it as the city’s previous plans have done.  I appreciate the fact that Buras is focused on the city, not just the Federal elements (as some other plan proponents have done). I absolutely embrace the desire to have DC interface with her rivers and waterways in a far more productive and beneficial fashion.

However, the focus on classical design (to the point of exclusion, it seems, of all else) troubles me.  Likewise, the details of the plan that were the focus of the Kojo interview (narrowing the river by half) look to be an attempt to force Paris upon DC.  Also, the lack of concern over the hydrologic impacts is both troubling and a step in the wrong direction – as we embrace sustainability in terms of design, we should apply what we’ve learned about rivers and their ecosystems rather than just throw up something that looks good.

There needs to be more to a plan than just good-looking classical design elements.