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MATTHEW ALBERT WILDERPacking Boxes: Suburban Infill of Recent Sprawl(Under the Direction of LEONARDO ALVAREZ)
Current trends in suburban development have led to an overabundance of empty
and abandoned “big-box” retail buildings and similar structures. Opponents of suburban
sprawl have become evermore vocal about the aesthetic and social problems associated
with sprawl, especially sprawl of the past thirty years. Past and present theories of
suburban development compete to solve the problem of sprawl, yet few have taken an
honest look at the current state of the suburban landscape. This thesis examines the
theories of Robert Venturi, Rem Koolhaas, the New Urbanists, and others in order to
develop an honest understanding of the suburban landscape. By combining the ideas of
the many theorists and incorporating strategies of infill and reuse an example of suburban
infill is presented through the design component of this thesis. An infill and reuse
program is presented for a former Ford automobile dealership in suburban Athens,
Georgia.
INDEX WORDS: Suburb, Suburban infill, Adaptive reuse, Sprawl, Big-box,
Landscape architecture, Temporary architecture, Athens Georgia,
Learning from Las Vegas, Greyfield, Grey belt
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PACKING BOXES: SUBURBAN INFILL OF RECENT SPRAWL
by
MATTHEW ALBERT WILDER
B.S. Miami University, 1997
A Thesis Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of The University of Georgia in Partial
Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree
MASTER OF LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE
ATHENS, GEORGIA
2001
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© 2001
Matthew Albert Wilder
All Rights Reserved
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PACKING BOXES: SUBURBAN INFILL OF RECENT SPRAWL
by
MATTHEW ALBERT WILDER
Approved:
Major Professor: Leonardo Alvarez
Committee: Hank MethvinDr. Paul SutterLucy Rowland
Electronic Version Approved:
Gordhan L. PatelDean of the Graduate SchoolThe University of GeorgiaMay 2001
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To Lisa,for all of her love and support.
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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I would like to thank the members of my reading committee, Lucy Rowland, Dr.
Paul Sutter, and the chair of my reading committee Hank Methvin, for their individual
perspectives, valuable insight, and critique of this text. I must also thank my major
professor Leo Alvarez for all of his hard work throughout this endeavor.
I would also like to thank my friends and family for supporting me through all of
my years of school. Their love and support helped me to make all of this possible. I
cannot forget my wonderful fiancée, Lisa. She was always there to support me through
the longest and toughest of days, and for that I must thank her.
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
Page
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS .......................................................................................................v
CHAPTER
1 INTRODUCTION ....................................................................................................1
2 RECONFIGURATION OF THE LANDSCAPE: THE LANDSCAPE OF
SPRAWL...................................................................................................................6
Issues of Development and Redevelopment....................................................11
Disposable Landscape.......................................................................................12
3 SUBURBAN DEVELOPMENT THEORY.........................................................17
Post-war Suburban Fascination ........................................................................17
An Early Deciphering of the Suburban Strip...................................................19
Learning from Las Vegas..................................................................................21
Spatial Relationships .........................................................................................22
Symbol, Iconography, and Communication ....................................................24
System and Order of the Suburban Strip .........................................................27
Change and Permanence Along the Strip.........................................................28
Architecture of the Strip: Monumentality Versus Big Low Spaces...............29
Las Vegas and the Strip: Thirty Years Later....................................................30
Rem Koolhaas....................................................................................................34
The New Urbanism: Against a Landscape of Sprawl .....................................37
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4 INFILL AND REUSE ............................................................................................40
Infill ....................................................................................................................40
Adaptive Reuse..................................................................................................43
Advantages of Reuse .........................................................................................46
Case Studies .......................................................................................................47
Blue Hen Corporate Center...............................................................................48
River Village at Liberty Park............................................................................49
Togawa and Smith Architects...........................................................................52
Smith and Hawken Outlet .................................................................................52
Chelsea Piers, New York ..................................................................................54
5 SITE ANALYSIS ...................................................................................................58
6 THE DESIGN APPLICATION.............................................................................68
Conclusion .........................................................................................................82
REFERENCES.......................................................................................................................83
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CHAPTER 1
INTRODUCTION
Although the name of a city may remain forever constant, its physical structure constantly evolves,
being deformed or forgotten, adapted to other purposes or eradicated by different needs. The demands and
pressures of social reality constantly affect the material order of the city yet it remains the theater of our
memory. Christine M. Boyer The City of Collective Memory (1994)
This thesis aims to decipher an understanding of the landscape of sprawl and to
present a viable design solution for a suburban infill site. I will present current
information to shed light on the state of sprawl across the United States, from the
landscape architect’s perspective. Utilizing the works and writings of prominent figures
such as John Brickerhoff Jackson, Rem Koolhaas, and Robert Venturi, I will present an
understanding of the complex order of suburban sprawl and an argument for the need to
utilize suburban infill as a means to retrofit this particular landscape. More specifically, I
will present a suburban infill design for the recently vacated University Ford automobile
dealership site along the Atlanta Highway at Epps-Bridge Road, on the west side of
Athens.
During the last fifty years of the twentieth century, the American city has
sprawled upon the landscape at an unprecedented rate. Formerly recognizable boundary
lines have been blurred as major cities have spilled out into the countryside, while in
some cases cities have literally grown together, such as Dallas-Fort Worth, Texas, or
Miami and Fort Lauderdale, Florida. These days, as we begin the twenty-first century,
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sprawl is at the top of the list of buzzwords that describe the state of growth and
development that predominates across the American landscape.
In the August 2000 issue of Architectural Record, Suzannah Lessard stated that,
“Sprawl has turned the world inside out.” Her feeling is that the blurring of boundaries
between city and country has left us with no way to make sense of the landscape at hand.
Yet, we try to make sense of it, to civilize sprawl in order to reverse the situation that has
so quickly befallen America. The American public is beginning to mount a hefty attack
against the sprawling of America.
In the presence of their peers Americans are typically harsh critics of sprawl, but
if we pay close attention we come to realize that the critics quickly contradict themselves.
In a Time/CNN poll Americans favored the establishment of greenbelt areas around their
communities by a two to one majority. However, the same people, by a three to one
majority also believed that the right to control the destiny of their own land was much
more important than government regulation of the land for the common good (Krieger
54). As Krieger writes, “Americans seem to be saying: Do not limit my ability to benefit
from-or even enjoy-the sprawl of my own making, but do protect me from future sprawl”
(54).
There is no doubt in the minds of many environmentalists and social scientists
that there are detrimental impacts upon the environment and society as a direct result of
sprawl. However, the juggernaut of suburban sprawl has been the established growth
trend for the past fifty years and does not appear to be slowing anytime soon. The New
Urbanists have begun a great effort to corral sprawl − to show developers that there are
viable alternatives, but often the end result is simply stylized sprawl. Suzannah Lessard
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has made a bold statement in reference to the widespread desire to civilize suburban
sprawl. She writes, “learning to see the landscape of sprawl in a way that is free of old
preconceptions [is necessary] to address the radical reconfiguration of [the] landscape by
sprawl”(55). She goes on to say that the profession of landscape architecture is “perhaps
better equipped to come to grips with these compositional issues…than architecture, or
even planning.” (55-56). Her reason for saying this stems from her view that landscape
architects are both environmentalists and designers who relate equally to the built and
natural worlds. She writes, “They [landscape architects] have both the practical
experience and the spiritual sensitivity to look over a region and select the natural
configuration of open space around which the built world could arrange itself” (56). The
physical structure and material order of cities is changing, and not according to any
established architectural or planning theory. Complex changes are occurring in the
landscape of sprawl and in order for positive transformations to take place we must learn
to see and understand the landscape of sprawl in its own right.
In J.B. Jackson’s ongoing search for the quintessential definition of “landscape”
he suggested that we should be concerned with the nature of the American landscape.
The nature of the American landscape, as we currently understand it, is that of the
suburban landscape of sprawl. Robert Venturi's Learning from Las Vegas, first published
in 1972, is an essential manuscript for the student of architecture, landscape architecture,
and planning to read in order to honestly see and begin to understand the nature of
sprawl. The study was not about Las Vegas, Nevada, the city; rather, it was about the
Las Vegas strip of 1968. The Las Vegas Strip of 1968 was the archetype from which to
derive lessons for the typical American highway strip (Venturi, et al 18). Venturi, Scott
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Brown, and Izenour, the studio originators, recognized that in the decades since the end
of World War II, growth and development strategies and practices had evolved into a
complex and difficult to understand metropolitan form. As Venturi suggests in Learning
from Las Vegas, “…the complex order of the strip… is a manifestation of an opposite
direction in architectural theory…the order in this landscape is not obvious” (52). What
the studio participants set out to do was to argue that the gaudy vernacular and complex
order of the highway strip in fact had architectural value. At the time of publication, and
for many years afterward, the Learning from Las Vegas thesis was widely rejected. Not
until recently has the body of this work been validated by much of the architecture
profession. J.B. Jackson and Robert Venturi’s writings offer an honest assessment of the
suburban landscape that is key to the future development of the suburban highway strip.
The radical reconfiguration of the American landscape, outside of the traditional
urban center, is a result of sprawl and the suburban sprawl as we know it is changing
before our eyes. Growth is occurring so rapidly and marketing techniques change with
such frequency that the suburban landscape has an air of disposability about it. Big-box
retailers such as Wal-Mart and Target are making a nationwide push to build new
supercenters to replace older stores that can no longer compete in the eye (or bottom line)
of the company. The suburban landscape is left blighted as a result of the leapfrog effect;
the result is that vast seas of asphalt are left unused and buildings empty when the retailer
relocates only a couple of miles away, or even just across the street. Empty buildings that
cannot be filled with replacement retailers can eventually lead to the death of portions of
the suburban strip.
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Urban infill has been a popular topic for many years, especially in the field of
historic preservation. However, not until recently have we discovered the need for
suburban infill, to say nothing of strategies to retrofit the suburban landscape. During the
summer of 2000, a charrette sponsored by the Urban Land Institute resulted in a list of
ten principles for reinventing America’s commercial suburban strips; however these
proposed principles struggle to adhere to an urban architectural theory that is not
applicable to the suburban landscape.
We can look at virtually any suburban site in America and examine the complex
order so that we may see the landscape of sprawl and begin to address it in an appropriate
way. Athens, Georgia is a good place to begin. It is a city known for its small-town
atmosphere, but it is quickly becoming a victim of sprawl. In a February 2001 report
released by USA Today, Athens was highly ranked among the nation’s cities for worst
sprawl. According to the report, Athens is the worst of seven cities studied in Georgia,
including Atlanta, and sixteenth worst nationwide (Gallentine 1A).
In the following chapters, I will present a brief summary of the development of
sprawl, largely over the past thirty years. I will also present urban and suburban
architectural theory from some of the leading minds of the profession of architecture,
landscape architecture, and related fields. I will explain, in further detail, infill and
adaptive reuse before assimilating this information to present an argument for suburban
infill. In order to better demonstrate my conclusions I will produce a design solution
through a series of images and drawings to represent one specific possibility.
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CHAPTER 2
RECONFIGURATION OF THE LANDSCAPE:
THE LANDSCAPE OF SPRAWL
Unless fresh ideas are introduced the continued growth of loose suburban areas will undermine
our historic cities and deface the natural landscape, creating a large mass of undifferentiated, low grade
urban tissue, which in order to perform even the minimal functions of a city will impose a maximum
amount of private locomotion, and incidentally, push the countryside even farther away from the sprawling
suburban areas. Lewis Mumford The Urban Prospect (1956)
Lewis Mumford was quite accurate in his prediction of increased "private
locomotion" leading to the domination of the suburban landscape by the automobile. The
spread of the American public further beyond the traditional boundaries of the city and
the continual erasure of any distinction between city and country has led to one of the
most hotly debated topics of the past twenty years: suburban sprawl. In fact, sprawl had
already become an issue with the regional planners of the early twentieth century, such as
Mumford.
From the urban contingent, Jane Jacobs spoke openly and critically in her book,
The Death and Life of Great American Cities, about American cities and the needs that
must be met in order for them to be reaffirmed as centers of human life. Her critique is
largely of the urban center; however, she does speak to the woes of suburbanization. In
fact, she said, “The semi-suburbanized and the suburbanized messes we create…become
despised by their own inhabitants tomorrow” (445). A truer statement could not be made
today. Suburban populations across the United States are raising their voices against the
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proliferation of suburban sprawl, proven by the nearly 200 ballot measures designed to
limit growth or preserve open space, which were passed nationwide in the 2000 general
election (Easterbrook).
Published in 1961, Jacobs’ book was quite a statement about American cities as a
whole. The post-war boom of sprawl had already begun and she recognized the
processes associated with it that were leading to the exponential death of cities. Speaking
to the historic fact that many people moved out of the cities in order to distance
themselves from the filth and crime, and to be closer to the country, Jacobs pointed out
that, “indeed an immense amount of today’s city gray belts was yesterday’s dispersion
closer to nature” (445). Though Jane Jacobs was primarily concerned with the urban
core she is important to include for her insights on the future of suburban America. She
was the first to clearly recognize the grey belts and patterns of suburban development
leading to their formation.
These gray belts that Jacobs refers to are the dying areas of suburbia left behind as
prosperity and affluence continue to push cities horizontally across the American
countryside. Of the horizontal push she says, “Nor, however destructive, is this
something which happens accidentally or without will. This is exactly what we as a
society, have willed to happen” (Jacobs 446). Forty years ago, Jacobs could read the
American landscape and understand the processes of dramatic change as they were
happening. She was even able to predict that, “thirty years from now, we shall have
accumulated new problems of blight and decay over acreages so immense that in
comparison the present problems of the great cities’ gray belts will look piddling” (446).
Now ten years beyond her prediction, the American landscape of sprawl is still going
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strong, pushing further into the countryside, continually blurring an already
indistinguishable boundary that might delineate city from country.
In the decade of the 1950s, the United States population became predominately
suburban, and by 1980 sixty-five percent of all Americans lived in the suburbs (Rowe 4).
Not only has the majority of the United States population come to reside in the suburbs,
but many of the same people now also work in the suburbs. Suburban metropolitan
development has led to the decentralization of many American cities and to the creation
of what Peter Rowe calls the "middle landscape." Suburbia is in fact a landscape that has
become the middle between the country and the city, the purgatory between what some
consider heaven and some consider hell.
The development of the suburbs is in fact quite simple. As transportation and
communication lines have become more advanced and more prevalent in the United
States, the ease with which the population can move and remain in contact has increased
dramatically. The sprawl of the suburbs is not a phenomenon that has only occurred
since the end of World War II. Since the latter part of the nineteenth century, with the
advent of railroads and streetcars, people have been progressing further away from the
city center. This can be seen in any major city, as well as in a smaller city such as
Athens, Georgia. In Athens, for example, a survey of the historic districts that surround
the downtown give one a good cross-section of pre-World War II suburban development.
Neighborhoods of craftsman style or colonial revival homes circumscribe downtown
Athens. Even closer to downtown are suburban neighborhoods comprised of homes built
prior to 1900. Many of these neighborhoods still remain in varying degrees of stability.
The stigma that is attached to sprawl, by prominent figures and the media, since 1950 is
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the perceived quickness with which it has occurred and the new characteristics associated
with it. The most derided characteristic of suburbia, one that has its roots planted deeply
in the 1950s and early 1960s, is that of the suburban commercial strip. The strip is and
has been dominated by strip malls, restaurants, automobile dealerships, gas stations,
supermarkets, discount superstores, and many other services that have left the cities for
any multitude of reasons.
As Timothy Davis writes, "As the twentieth century draws to a close, it is time to
re-examine one of America's most maligned and misunderstood landscapes: the
automobile-oriented strip" (93). In order to correct the landscape of sprawl, the core of
its existence must be understood. The "nebulous zone of drab buildings and half empty
parking lots," that Timothy Davis describes as being bypassed by suburbanites, is the
heart of suburban sprawl (93). Many of the popular retail establishments have
continually moved further away from the urban core. As they have moved further out
they have left a "hand-me-down landscape" in what Peter Rowe calls the middle
landscape. Suburban strip structures are occupied by successively less "popular"
businesses until no one is left and the businesses stand empty.
The strip as we know it came into existence in the early 1950s. Since the end of
World War II open-air strip malls and enclosed malls have dominated the suburban
landscape, and they are still popping up all over the country. The impact of the mall, as a
whole, has been felt on almost every aspect of contemporary life (Clausen 144). In the
boom period after World War II and continuing on through the 1960’s the automobile
was king in the eyes and hearts of most U.S. citizens. The suburbs grew rapidly and
Americans openly embraced the suburban strip. After World War II, the sudden rise of
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large suburban residential subdivisions spurred the development of these strip retail and
service centers to tremendous proportions (Clausen 147). Peter Rowe contends that, "In
the American suburban landscape, the automobile-oriented shopping center is a prolific
companion to the single family home" (109).
Post World War II life in America was prosperous and the demand for consumer
goods was higher than ever before. All of this prosperity led to the period between 1950
and 1965 as being the “big bang” in the development of the modern day strip in the
United States (Clausen 147). Since the strip has been dominated by the development of
the strip mall, it is worthwhile to look at some figures to develop a better understanding
of the massive boom in growth throughout America's suburbs in the past fifty years.
By 1964 there were more than 7,600 shopping centers across the United States,
most of which were strip malls serving vast new housing developments (ICSC). By 1972
that number had nearly doubled to over 13,000 shopping malls. The boom continued
through the decade of the 1980s with the construction of more than 16,000 new malls for
a total of more than 29,000 (ICSC). Currently there are more than 43,600 shopping
centers in the United States, only 1800 of which are enclosed malls (ICSC). The trend in
retail development has been to sprawl outward from the city, along the highways, leaving
behind outdated and outmoded structures for new, bigger, and more innovative buildings.
The presentation of success and vitality, aesthetically and technologically, is an important
selling point for retailers of pop culture. Underlying economic forces are also at work on
the suburban strip. When the economic base shifts to a new location there is little that
businesses along the strip can do to resist. However, retailers are not the only entities
affected by the desires to move to newer, bigger, and better locations. Suburban light
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industry, commercial offices, and other retail establishments such as automobile
dealerships will move on, leaving empty sites in their wake which will eventually become
new pieces of the gray belt. This continual process of location upgrading has left an
oversupply of retail spaces in cities across the country.
Peter Rowe contends that, "the most disconcerting physical characteristic of the
middle landscape is the desolate and inhospitable space left between many buildings and
building complexes" (249). Rowe is speaking to the complex and rapid development of
the landscape of sprawl when he denounces the leftover and neglected pieces of land
between suburban strip buildings. As the sprawl continues to move further away from
the city center, sites are left abandoned and these "desolate and inhospitable spaces"
between buildings begin to be combined. The gray belt that Jane Jacobs recognized
grows larger as more and more derelict sites appear in the landscape in closer proximity
to one another. The disjointed ugliness that holds the suburban fabric together is one of
the predominant eyesores that gives the suburban strip a bad reputation. As Lewis
Mumford suggested long ago, maybe these spaces could in part be used for a higher
purpose.
Issues of Development and Redevelopment
Peter Rowe writes, “Depending on which prism is used, the resulting view of
suburban metropolitan development can vary widely. Moreover like many other
evolving and unresolved subjects it very much depends on who is doing the looking”
(35). Many people and groups have been looking through individual prisms at the
landscape of sprawl in recent years. Most of them have the same goal; they wish to stop
sprawl, and what they consider to be its cancerous effects, dead in its tracks. Jane Jacobs
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was recently quoted as saying, "Here comes a generation or two that just can't stand what
the previous generations did, and for whatever reason they want to expunge it. And they
are absolutely ruthless with the remnants of it" (Kunstler). Environmentalists, architects,
landscape architects, planners, social scientists, economists, politicians, and even the self-
serving suburbanites are all raising their voices and concerns against what they are
calling the monster of sprawl. Many different ideas for putting a stop to it have been and
are being presented and debated in the hope of finding a way to curb suburban sprawl.
One seemingly obvious potential seems to be often over looked as pointed out by Jane
Jacobs, in a September 2000 interview, with James Kunstler. She said, "But [what]
nobody is even thinking about now is the suburban infill" (Kunstler).
Disposable Landscape
The gray areas that Jacobs described are areas of economic death and aesthetic
blight both in and around our great American cities. They are a direct result of the
continuation of suburban sprawl. As technologies improve, market demands change, and
the population increases, the suburbs move further away from the center of the city.
Being left behind are often abandoned and derelict sites that were once thriving centers of
retail and commercial activity (Figure 2-1). These days it is very common for retailers
and commercial enterprises to move just a couple of miles away or even just across the
street, leaving behind large empty buildings, parking lots, and thousands of square feet of
unused space. As development practices stand now, new development and/or
redevelopment rarely occurs on these dead and dying suburban sites. Often these sites
remain empty because the economic base is gone, or simply because the specific built
structure of the site does not readily lend itself to reuse. Sometimes new retailers move
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in to fill the large voids, or the space is subdivided with the hope that a number of smaller
businesses can fill it. Or, as is more often becoming the case, the buildings and parking
lots stand empty and fall victim to a state of neglect and disrepair.
Fig. 2-1. Abandoned Kmart, Schwarzer, Mitchell. “The Spectacle of Ordinary
Building,” Harvard Design Magazine. N.12, Fall 2000: 13.
Infill and adaptive use projects in historic districts of many cities have become
quite popular means of reviving city centers near death; however, the treatment of the
suburban landscape has been quite the opposite. The suburbs have been so greatly
divided into distinct uses by numerous regulations that it is quite difficult for
"innovative" development practices to take place. In an interview with James Howard
Kunstler, Jane Jacobs speaks to that fact:
When enough of the old regulations can be gotten out of the way–which is
what is holding things up, there is going to be some great period of
infilling. And a lot of that will be makeshift and messy, and it won't
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measure up to New Urbanist ideas of design-but it will measure up to a lot
of their philosophy. And in fact if there isn't a lot of this popular and
makeshift infilling the suburbs will never get corrected. (Kunstler)
Beyond old regulations, the suburban landscape also struggles with an unspoken
stigma of disposability. Peter Rowe states that, "Many buildings have a temporary
quality, suggesting that they might be here today and gone tomorrow" (249).
Construction of buildings, especially among suburban strips, has come to be highly
driven by economic forces different from those of decades past. We are fully into the era
of the big box retailer and it seems the boxes just keep getting bigger. Buildings go up
quickly and cheaply so when it comes time to upgrade or move on, the current structure
has profited the company well. Even most historic preservationists have no desire to
retain properties such as those occupied by Wal-Mart, Home Depot, and automobile
dealers, as they see no architectural value in them–not to mention buildings such as these
do not stay in their original constructed form for very long. It is not a conscious thought
process by most Americans, but the underlying truth is that structures in the suburban
landscape are treated as disposable. The corporations, which construct these buildings,
have little regard for their future use. In fact, Wal-Mart has been known to hold the lease
on a vacated site as a tactic to keep competition from moving in. Most of the American
public that patronizes these big box retailers do so without thought or concern for the
structure in which they shop. Typically, if thoughts do occur, they are of the need or
desire for a new store or building. This temporary use and disposal of the "big-boxes" is
a major contributing factor in the rapid outward sprawl of the suburbs. Arguments
abound that even if we were to continue developing and building at the current rate (some
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400,000 plus acres per year according to the Sierra Club) that it would take 50 years of
sprawl to consume a single percent more of America’s expanse (Easterbrook). Figures
like these can easily be misleading when no supporting evidence is presented. The truth
is, the expanse of open land in the United States is tremendous, but the figures not being
presented are how much of that land is truly developable.
Why should we make an effort to reincorporate derelict suburban sites into the
suburban fabric? We should make an effort because the suburban landscape is one that is
not disappearing any time soon. We now must deal with the consequences of previous
generations of development in a reasonable manner. The concern that we are using up
land too quickly can also begin to be addressed if we reuse suburban sites. There is a
movement beginning to gain momentum with regard to current suburban development
practices. It is starting to swing in a new direction, signifying the end of the first major
wave of suburbanization and the beginning of a new form of suburbia. As the
momentum increases, the American public becomes more acutely aware of the
consequences of suburbanization, especially of the past thirty years. Cheap, temporary
suburban buildings are not as disposable as some might think. Many of these structures
will remain into the future, long after their original occupants have moved on. It is time
for a second wave of development to wash over the suburbs leaving behind a new
approach to suburban development, an approach of smart growth that searches for
strategies to link the suburban fabric together physically or fundamentally. Alex Krieger
has said that, "reinvestment is the hardest concept to popularize or achieve. Without it
we have not yet reached a culture of smart growth" (57). Reinvestment is an important
first step yet it is often difficult to achieve, primarily because it is cheaper and less risky
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to build in greenfield sites. The reasoning is that places that have failed once may fail
again. Economic risk is probably the biggest deterrent to developers
There is a real social, economic, and environmental need to reincorporate these
gray belt sites that ring our cities and blight our suburbs back into the suburban fabric as
viable suburban destinations. Cities have gradually increased in density around a tight
urban core, while the suburbs have not. The suburbs are the epitome of waste, especially
of wasted space. However, rethinking the already made landscape can lessen the waste
and ultimately lead to a better life, socially, economically, and environmentally. The
landscape of sprawl is one that may never be completely stopped, but it may be slowed
dramatically and corrected, as Ms. Jacobs suggests, if a concerted effort is made to
reincorporate dead spaces along the suburban strip once again into the suburban fabric.
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CHAPTER 3
SUBURBAN DEVELOPMENT THEORY
Post-war Suburban Fascination
During the last third of the twentieth century, different scholars, architects,
planners, and the like have studied the landscape of sprawl, many with an interest in
stopping suburban sprawl. However, a number of these minds have been interested in
actually finding a better understanding of this landscape. They understand that sprawl
has nearly crippled American cities such as Atlanta, Georgia and Los Angeles,
California, but they also understand that sprawl has occurred for many specific reasons
and not merely by accident. One must learn to honestly see the landscape of sprawl in its
own right, and attempt to understand the seemingly complex order in which it has taken
place. Simplistic and superficial denouncements of sprawl will not help to bring about
positive change if we do not honestly understand the suburban landscape. We must get
beyond the aesthetic problems and realize the forces at work that have given shape to the
suburban highways.
Honestly seeing the suburban landscape is not a new idea. Nearly half a century
ago J. B. Jackson had an essay published in the journal Landscape. The essay was
entitled “Other-Directed Houses,” and in it Jackson spoke of the landscape of sprawl. In
the mid 1950s, many Americans were already recognizing an “untidiness and ugliness” in
much of the landscape. Bernard DeVoto labeled the suburban strip “longitudinal slums”
(Jackson 55). Americans were becoming more numerous and more mobile; therefore,
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previously unspoiled stretches of highways leading into and out of cities were being
invaded by new roadside developments. Even in 1956 Jackson suggested that the
development along the highways was overwhelming, yet, "it would be hard (though not
impossible) to exaggerate the extent of this blight" (Jackson 56). This, at the time, newly
evolving feature of the American landscape was already coming under fire from critics,
yet the American public was showing a great fascination with it. In response to both the
critics and the admirers J. B. Jackson stated:
A liking for this feature of the human landscape of America should not
blind anyone to its frequent depravity and confusion and dirt. Its
potentialities for trouble–aesthetic, social, economic–are as great as its
potentialities for good, and indeed it is this ambidexterity which gives the
highway and its margins so much significance and fascination. (58)
Jackson was essentially arguing that the suburban landscape, though often seen as a place
of jumble, neglect, and disarray, is a place that has as much potential to be profitable and
enjoyable as any other part of the American landscape. It’s just a matter of perception.
Few people today would readily support Jaskson’s argument, even though it
remains valid to this day. It seems that there are many more critics of sprawl and the
highway strip than ever before. Very few people support the potentialities of good in the
suburban landscape; rather, the suburbs have become demonized for environmental,
social, aesthetic, and economic problems that are perceived by its critics, most notably
James Kunstler and Andres Duany. Kunstler’s books, Home from Nowhere and
Geography of Nowhere, and his website are filled with condemnation and criticisms of
what he calls, “the fiasco of suburbanism.” Jackson took an honest look at the suburban
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landscape and noted that there was potential in it, both good and bad. He saw that the
American public had a desire to frequent places such as these and that there was a certain
amount of enjoyment that could be gained from the strip. He suggested that the
landscape of sprawl maintained a "fleeting beauty" and an "occasional usefulness." As a
counter to the critics of the new highway development, Jackson asked, "would it not be
better–fairer, that is to say and more intelligent–to see if the potentialities of these
roadside slums cannot somehow be realized for the greater profit and pleasure of all"
(58). Quite significant in Jackson's essay, with relation to Learning from Las Vegas, is
the fact that Jackson said that we had not yet tried to understand the landscape of sprawl.
He asked, "How are we to tame this force [suburban sprawl] unless we understand it and
even develop a kind of love for it?" (58).
An Early Deciphering of the Suburban Strip
In truth, Jackson's essay, “Other-Directed Houses,” is a compact precursor of the
Venturi work, Learning from Las Vegas. Jackson pointed out the fact that the American
public had already begun to spend more of its time along the highways connecting our
cities, recognizing the significance of the sprawling highway developments. Already
groups had begun condemning the highway developments and "devising legal and moral
means of destroying them" (Jackson 58). Jackson countered this desire to condemn the
highway strips by noting:
Thus any highway reform program which has at the back of its mind the
old-fashioned notion that our roads are really nothing but means for fast
and efficient long distance transportation, to the neglect of the leisurely
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pleasure seeker and the establishments which exist to serve him, will run
head on into a flourishing American institution. (60)
The suburban strip is an American institution indeed, and it is still going strong nearly
fifty years after Jackson's “Other-Directed Houses.”
Not only did J. B. Jackson see the suburban landscape differently than most, as a
place of interest and potential, but he also recognized the architecture of the strip as being
its own – an “other-directed architecture.” This other-directed architecture of the strip is
one of “conspicuous facades, exotic decoration and landscaping, a lavish use of lights and
colors and signs, and an indiscriminate borrowing and imitating to produce certain
pleasing effects” (Jackson 68). The strip is based on the customer and the architecture is
designed to communicate and attract. He says, “the only possible criterion of its success
is whether or not it is liked” (62). Even in 1956 critics were bemoaning the “vernacular”
and gaudy architecture of the suburban strip. Popular taste and the basic need for
communication was muddling the strip according to the “high-minded groups.” Jackson
said what others still repeat: “We have become too fastidious, too conformist, in
architectural matters. The austere ambitions of the contemporary architect to create a
self-justifying work of art have no place in this other part of town” (62). This “other part
of town” remains to this day as the suburban strip and the debate continues as to how it
will be “corrected.”
Jackson's essay has unintentionally stood the test of time. Published in 1956 it
was a charge to the design and planning professions to come to grips with the
complexities of the suburban strip and the landscape of commercial sprawl, yet decades
later few people have taken action. Sixteen years later Learning from Las Vegas was
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published with a very similar yet more provocative message: that the landscape of sprawl
deserved to be understood and appreciated. Learning from Las Vegas argued that the
most derided American landscape was actually the most important and vigorous part of
American cities.
Learning from Las Vegas
Learning from Las Vegas, first published in 1972, is an in-depth analysis of the
Las Vegas, Nevada strip and a discussion of symbolism in architecture and the
iconography of urban sprawl. Best of all, it is an honest description and understanding of
the suburban strip. It evolved from a studio project in which participants spent ten days
in Las Vegas, collecting information along the strip, and the remaining ten weeks of the
course analyzing the information and presenting the results. Venturi begins by saying:
Learning from the existing landscape is a way of being revolutionary for
an architect. Not the obvious way, which is to tear down Paris and begin
again, as LeCorbusier suggested in the 1920s, but another, more tolerant
way; that is, to question how we look at things. (3)
Venturi's main argument is that modern architecture has not allowed for a non-
judgmental examination of the environment in which we live. He says, "modern
architecture is dissatisfied with existing conditions" and that "architects have preferred to
change the existing environment rather than enhance what is there" (3). Written nearly
thirty years and an architectural era ago, this statement still stands tall today. As we
listen to and read about the supposed agonizing troubles presented by sprawl today, we
find the dominant discussion revolving around the desire to completely eliminate sprawl.
Nearly everyone is dissatisfied with the existing conditions produced by the suburban
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landscape and the desire to expunge the work of previous generations reverberates
throughout architectural, planning, and design circles across the United States.
Venturi, Scott Brown, and Izenour chose the Las Vegas strip as the focus of their
analysis not because of the values or morality presented in the architecture of the strip,
but because the Las Vegas strip of 1968 was the archetype of the modern landscape of
sprawl; it was a "phenomenon of architectural communication" (6). It was a technical
studio in which "new analytical tools for understanding new space and form" were
developed (73). There was a trend developing along the highways leading out of
American cities in the form of strip development and the Las Vegas strip represented the
epitome of what was to come. The studio originators had the foresight to recognize the
trend and fact that the American public maintained an intense attraction to the strip,
beyond its material offerings. Learning from Las Vegas systematically creates a
suburban model of the strip according to Las Vegas strip of 1968. However, since that
time little work such as that produced in Learning from Las Vegas has been
accomplished. Even so, there is still valuable information that can be extracted from the
project and applied to current suburban problems. Learning from Las Vegas presents
characteristics of the strip that can serve to help form a model for future strip
development and suburban infill.
Spatial Relationships
Venturi says, "the strip is something else…not chaos, but a new spatial order
relating the automobile and highway communication in an architecture which abandons
pure form in favor of mixed media" (75). Modernism was a reaction against mixed
media. Pure form and space was the rule in modern architectural theory, and the
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suburban strip was the antithesis. Suburban sprawl and the strip cannot be understood
using established architectural theories of pure form. The first and most basic observation
put forth by Venturi et al is that architecture has always been infatuated with one single
design element: space (6). The "design" of the strip has no regard for spatial
relationships; therefore, there is no obvious order or system of design readily visible to
observers. The spatial sprawl of the strip is not so easy to like as compared to something
highly designed such as an Italian piazza (Venturi, et al 6). In comparison sprawl is
condemned as ugly. Space may be defined for the many individual parts that comprise
the strip, but as a whole there is nearly zero relationship between these spaces linking the
suburban fabric. Each new addition to the strip is typically sited with little regard to
existing structures and conditions, ignoring any possible linkage that is alternative to the
highway.
Spatial relationships between parts of the strip may be lost, but space exists in
grand form. "The A&P parking lot is a current phase in the evolution of vast space since
Versailles" (Venturi et al 13). Over thirty years has passed and the parking lot is still an
exercise in "vast space" (Figure 3-1). In comparison, Venturi describes parking lots as
being the "megatexture" of the commercial landscape:
The parking lot is the parterre of the asphalt landscape. The patterns of
parking lines give direction much as the paving patterns, curbs, borders,
and tapis vert give direction in Versailles; grids of lamp posts substitute
for obelisks, rows of urns and statues as points of identity and continuity
in the vast space. (13)
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In this suburban space, architecture defines very little. Instead sign and symbol
define space. The iconography of the suburban strip dictates direction to the visitor
rather than direction being "communicated through the inherent, physiognomic
characteristics of form" (Venturi et al 7). Spatial relationships do not define the strip, yet
they have a great impact upon its success and how the public perceives the strip.
Fig. 3-1. Aladdin casino, hotel, and parking lot, Venturi, Robert et al. Learning From
Las Vegas Revised Edition. Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press, 1998: 16.
Symbol, Iconography, and Communication
The architecture of communication is the dominant form of architecture along the
suburban strip (Figure 3-2). "Communication dominates space as an element in the
architecture and the landscape" (Venturi, et al 8). Anyone who has driven through the
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typical American suburban strip understands the high degree to which communication is
necessary and present. We are bombarded with symbols, signs, billboards, lights and
movement, and familiar building designs in nearly every city that we visit. Densities of
retail establishments along the strip are by no means high, nor therefore overly difficult to
navigate, but poor communication of the location of any business may spell out its
untimely doom.
Fig. 3-2. Looking north on the Las Vegas strip, 1968, Venturi, Robert et al. Learning
From Las Vegas Revised Edition. Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press, 1998: 37.
Roadside architecture has a high degree of commercial persuasion. The
iconographic representations of so many American franchises not only permeate our lives
but those of people in other countries as well. Few cannot recognize the "golden arches”
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of McDonald's or the Texaco star while driving along the highway. Roadside
architecture of the strip has a "bold impact on a vast and complex setting of a landscape
of big spaces, high speeds, and complex programs" (Venturi, et al 8). In seeing the
landscape of sprawl, Venturi notes that, "the graphic sign in space has become the
architecture of this landscape" (13). A windshield survey of most suburban strips will
prove that the sign and symbol are typically much more dominant than the building
which they are advertising. High-style architecture of the building matters very little on
the strip. Sign and symbol dominate followed by the iconographic architecture of the
franchise. In more recent years we have, however, seen a reversal of this trend due in
large part to the institution of local sign ordinances in an attempt to "clean up" the
suburbs. These ordinances often limit the height, size, and materials from which signs
can be made, yet there is no doubt that the suburban strip is still one dominated by "bold
communication rather than subtle expression" (Venturi et al 8). The will of small groups
of vocal protesters is changing the face of the strip through their adamant dislike of the
highway strip aesthetic.
The architecture of the suburban strip buildings is typically not dominant, as is
often the case in the urban core. Often the suburban building front is simply a modified
billboard, with an entrance and an exit to and from the goods inside. Venturi says,
"regardless of the front, the back of the building is styleless, because the whole is turned
toward the front and no one sees the back" (35). While this may be true, it is no different
from that of buildings designed for the urban core of a city. The difference is that in the
suburbs all sides of the building are often more readily visible, a direct result of a lack of
definition of space in designing the strip.
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The suburban strip thrives on symbol and iconographic imagery in architecture.
Commissions putting controls on architecture have only hindered the true design of the
suburban strip. There are only a few controls that can be instituted that will not make the
strip become a monotonous bore and even so they are little more than superficial
aesthetic considerations that have almost nothing to do with the architecture of the
buildings and communication. The complete suppression of symbol and iconography
along the strip, to nothing more than token gestures, defeats the novelty and whimsy of
the strip. The strip acts as an expression of the freedom from the grid form of the city. In
fact, some cities have expressive centers such as Times Square in New York City, but
typically the strip is the city’s expression of freedom.
System and Order of the Suburban Strip
"The image of the commercial strip is chaos. The order in this landscape is not
obvious" (Venturi et al 20). The strip is very loosely ordered. Highways and secondary
roads comprise the strip, yet the relationships of the spaces and buildings often seem
independent of the road system and even of themselves. Venturi points out that the
highway system at least gives direction to the growth of the strip, yet little more (20).
Because densities are low, "immediate proximity of related uses, as on Main Street,
where you walk from one store to another, is not required along the strip because
interaction is by car and highway" (Venturi et al 20). Some developments have
attempted to make the strip more pedestrian friendly by clustering big-box retailers
together, but even then the individual stores are not even at a human scale. The task of
walking from store to store can still seem a daunting one because no attempt is made to
connect adjoining properties. Related activities and businesses may be next to each other
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yet completely inaccessible without an automobile. Along the strip we find unrelated
activities juxtaposed next to one another on a regular basis – a strange mix of uses
completely unrelated except for the fact that the automobile ties them all together. We
find gas stations next to hotels, next to restaurants, next to movie theaters, next to car
washes, next to grocery stores, all of which must somehow be accessed via the
automobile. The chaotic order of the highway strip is its main characteristic. It can,
however, be supplemented with layers of alternative linkages to ease some of the chaos
associated with the automobile and the strip.
Change and Permanence Along the Strip
Venturi only briefly touches upon the permanence of the strip and the frequency
with which it changes. While looking at the Las Vegas strip, he noted, "the rate of
obsolescence of a sign seems to be nearer to that of an automobile than that of a building.
The reason is not physical degeneration but what competitors are doing around you"
(Venturi et al 34). Thirty years ago this may well have been true, but to make an equal
comparison today we have to recognize that the life span of a suburban strip building, for
its original use, is now much shorter than in previous generations. Big-box retailers
along the strip are becoming notorious for building fast and cheap. Once the building has
served its purpose and the business has outgrown its location, it moves on to another site
leaving behind a deserted building. This goes hand-in-hand with Peter Rowe's
declaration of buildings having a temporary quality. Change is the norm along the strip,
whereas permanence is often an anomaly.
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Architecture of the Strip: Monumentality Versus Big, Low Spaces
Monumentality in architecture along the strip has rarely been dominant. Flashy
electric signs and neon lights dominated the Las Vegas strip of 1968 (Figure 3-3). The
buildings were often subordinate to the architecture of communication. Buildings that
did present themselves as dominant did so only because the façade acted as both building
and billboard, or the "decorated shed" as Venturi describes.
Fig. 3-3. The lights of the Horseshoe casino “decorated shed,”
http://home.earthlink.net/~mjceditor/
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Venturi described the casinos as "big, low space," almost cavern-like in their
separation from the world outside on the strip (Venturi et al 50). The casino is "…the
archetype for all public interior spaces whose heights are diminished for reasons of
budget and air conditioning" (Venturi et al 50). The practice of building big, low spaces
continues to this day with most of the big-box retailers, as suburban development is often
controlled by budget restraints. It is widely known that the cheapest building to construct
is the one story sprawling "big box."
The low horizontal practice of building along the suburban strip is so engrained in
our knowledge of suburbia that we rarely think twice about it. Architectural
monumentality is not necessary along the strip; in fact, it might even seem out of place.
However, increasing strains on the environment and demands placed on infrastructure
might somehow be lessened if a more vertical approach were taken along the strip. Two
and three story buildings are certainly not out of the question. The area known as
Buckhead, in suburban Atlanta, Georgia, is a good example of a suburban landscape
beginning to become more vertical.
Las Vegas and the Strip: Thirty Years Later
"Tom Wolfe wrote, 'Las Vegas is the only town in the world whose skyline is
made up of neither buildings, like New York, nor trees, like Wilbraham, Massachusetts,
but signs'" (Venturi 124). Indeed the strip in Las Vegas has changed. In 1968 it was the
archetype of the modern highway strip, designed for cars and speeds of thirty to forty
miles per hour. Venturi has compiled a list of ways the strip has changed (Table 3-1).
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Table 3-1.
From Las Vegas to Las Vegas
The Strip to the Boulevard
urban sprawl to urban density
parking lot to front yard
asphalt plain to romantic garden
the decorated shed to the duck
electric to electronic
neon to pixel
electrographic to scenographic
signs to scenes
iconography to scenography
Vaughan Cannon to Walt Disney
pop culture to gentrification
perception of the driver to perception of the walker
strip to mall
mall to edge city
folk art, vivid, vulgar, and vital, to unconvincing irony.
Source: Venturi, Robert. Iconography and Electronics Upon a Generic
Architecture. The MIT Press Cambridge, MA (1996): 127-128.
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Jean-Louis Cohen writes, "The Yale explorers saw in the implicit order of Las
Vegas the triumph of the principles conceived by Frank Lloyd Wright for the expanse of
Broadacre City, with one significant difference, the lack of any aesthetic control over the
buildings" (105). Signs, billboards, and decorated buildings were designed specifically to
entice the eye of the driver in order to lure him/her into the roadside establishments.
Today, more than thirty years after the Learning from Las Vegas studio took place, Las
Vegas is one of the fastest growing and most prosperous cities in the nation, and quite
possibly the world. Without the Vegas strip, the city might just be another stop on your
way from here to there. The strip is no longer dominated by an architecture of
communication; rather, it is dominated by the architecture itself. Signs have changed
from lavish and flashy to "squared off, flat-topped ladder signs," that rival the biggest and
best of strip shopping centers throughout the United States (Hess 103). The architecture
has evolved from the decorated shed of big, low spaces to big, monumental theme resorts
costing hundreds of millions of dollars to construct (Figure 3-4). The sign and building
have merged to form an entity even greater than the decorated shed. Cohen also writes,
"As for the mastodons of the new hotel-casinos…they function as mega-signs no longer
on the level of the automobiles moving along the Strip, but on that of airplanes coming to
land at McCarran Airport" (106).
As individual casinos and hotels have grown into vacation resorts those that were
once separated by large expanses of parking lots now "rub elbows and create unexpected
juxtapositions" (Hess 109). The south seas meet the Roman Empire in the middle of the
Nevada desert. Alan Hess relates the modern Las Vegas strip with foreground activity
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(shops and restaurants) and background (the casinos and hotels) to the ordinary strip
shopping center with fast food and flowers shops occupying the outlots (111).
Fig. 3-4. Casinos and hotels along the Las Vegas strip at night,
http://home.earthlink.net/~mjceditor/
Steven Izenour revisited the Las Vegas strip in 1990 and made observations about
the changes taking place. He noted that the two biggest changes "involved scale of
development and transportation" (46). All travel had been by car in 1968, and casinos
and gas stations shared frontage along the strip, in close proximity to one another. He
now says, "In a sense the strip is evolving from a purely auto driven thoroughfare to a
classic American Main Street, depending equally on cars and pedestrians…the Shell
station no longer lives cheek-by-jowl with Caesar’s" (49).
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The Las Vegas strip, though it was considered an archetype for the modern
suburban strip, is an exception to the rule, rather than the rule itself, with respect to
growth along American highways. The popularity of the casinos and the attractions
associated with the Las Vegas strip have allowed for the immense amount of
development that has changed this once suburban car dependent strip to a much more
pedestrian oriented experience. Patterns of development have changed and the number of
people inhabiting the strip has grown beyond anyone’s wildest dreams. The strip is still
not the suburban development that many such as the New Urbanists desire today, yet it is
a valid example of the potential of suburban strip development.
The history of the Las Vegas strip may seem an anomaly to most, but it can be
argued that most suburban strips across the United States have potential to prosper in
much the same way. Even in Athens, Georgia, the strip is a destination for many
thousands of people that live in and around the city. The suburban strip needs to
redevelop and increase in density in order to continue its role as a desirable destination.
Though Learning from Las Vegas is largely about the architecture and form of the
highway strip, the more important lesson to be learned is that the strip develops through
evolutionary processes. Physical evolution, deformation, and eradication all act upon the
strip over time, as was the case in Las Vegas, continually remaking the already made
landscape. Not every strip has all of the potential of Las Vegas, yet the model exists and
can be a guide from which to make decisions for future development.
Rem Koolhaas
The architect Rem Koolhaas has a more radical perspective on the form of
American cities and suburban sprawl than almost anyone in the field. Koolhaas describes
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the boom of sprawl in Atlanta, Georgia in a way that can be understood and applied to
most any American city:
Atlanta was the launching pad of the distributed downtown; downtown
had exploded. Once atomized, its autonomous particles could go
anywhere; they gravitated opportunistically toward points of freedom,
cheapness, easy access, diminished contextual nuisance. Millions of
fragments landed in primeval forests sometimes connected to highways,
sometimes to nothing at all. (843)
It’s quite the idyllic description of sprawl and the decentralization of the city. In
fact, Koolhaas says, "Atlanta is not a city; it is a landscape" (835). By detaching the
name from the place, Koolhaas destroys the common notion of the city. He says, "it is
not dense; it is a sparse thin carpet of habitation…its strongest contextual givens are
vegetal and infrastructural: forest and roads" (835). Indeed as Venturi described, the
highways are simply paths to guide the direction in which suburban development will
proceed. Venturi does maintain the distinction between the urban core of the city and the
suburban form of the periphery. Koolhaas, however, boldly contends that any distinction
between center and periphery is completely gone.
If the center no longer exists, it follows that there is no longer a periphery
either. The death of the first implies the evaporation of the second. Now
all is city, a new pervasiveness that includes landscape, park, industry, rust
belt, parking lot, housing tract, single family house, desert, airport, beach,
river, ski slope, even downtown. (852)
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Koolhaas is a rebel in the architectural world not only in his designs, but also in
his understanding and full acceptance of the landscape of sprawl. Koolhaas was one of a
number of panelists in a discussion held at the Harvard Graduate School of Design in
1996 to debate the merits of urban and suburban development patterns. New Urbanism
was the topic at large. Andres Duany, the leader of the New Urbanist movement at one
point proclaimed that his goal was to make suburbia "more palatable and to derail the
speeding train called sprawl" (Krieger 58). The rebuttal by Koolhaas was to "accept the
train and ride it in style" (Krieger 58).
Ellen Dunham-Jones further enlightens us to the way in which Koolhaas thinks.
She describes the development model by which Koolhaas is inspired as one of "surreal
artifice and congestion of the humming metropolis" (51). In an attempt to put this in
layman's terms, we can say Koolhaas is inspired by the unexpected juxtapositions, chance
effects, and ingenuity and inventiveness that can be found throughout the city, both in the
urban core and the suburban periphery. Dunham-Jones says that Koolhaas "celebrates
architecture and the personal freedom of peripheral growth" as he "endorses the speed,
movement, and ephemerality of modern life" (51). Rather than fight the current
movement in the development of cities Koolhaas is one of the few who proposes to
accept and work with the flow of ideas. Instead of troubling himself with program and
form, he detaches the two. He describes this detachment by saying, "Only through a
revolutionary process of erasure and the reestablishment of liberty zones, conceptual
Nevadas where all laws of architecture are suspended, will some of the inherent torture of
urban life-the friction between program and containment-be suspended" (201).
Koolhaas’ theories and ideas go much deeper than most people can comprehend, but at a
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certain level there is validity in his desire to “ride the speeding train of sprawl.”
American pop culture is driven by public desires typically realized in some suburban
form. Taking advantage of the situation just might be one viable solution to the problems
of suburban development. As opposed to fighting sprawl with architectural theories that
do not apply, new suburban solutions can be developed that will be accepted by pop
culture as valid means of change.
The New Urbanism: Against a Landscape of Sprawl
The New Urbanists are a group of architects and planners supporting a renewed
pattern of growth and development within our suburbs. Their primary objective seems to
be to rid the United States of sprawl, once and for all. Venturi’s and Koolhaas’s honest
look at the landscape of the suburban strip must read as blasphemy to anyone that is a
part of the Congress for the New Urbanism. Andres Duany, considered to be the leader
of the New Urbanists, thinks very differently from the aforementioned Rem Koolhaas.
Ellen Dunham-Jones points out that Duany is inspired by "town planning along civic art
principles" and that he "bemoans the asocial behavior imposed by car dependent
planning" (51). Though the New Urbanists can seem to be extremists in their defiance of
sprawl, they may now be heading in a direction that is more compatible with the
suburban landscape.
Up until now, most of the New Urbanist projects have been found at the far edges
of our cities, often at or beyond the edges of the existing suburban fabric. Some critics
have gone so far as to call it “New Suburbanism.” New Urbanist communities have in
the eyes of some, notably the planner, Alex Krieger, become the epitome of sprawl.
Many have been developed as entirely new towns and "communities" yet have shown
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little signs of life that are substantially better or different from that which they attempt to
replace. However, Duany constantly argues that time will prove that he and the New
Urbanists are correct in their quest to create a viable new form of suburban living. New
Urbanist communities are often built with mass-transit in mind but in the end they are
lucky if the development has bus stops. Very few New Urbanist developments have
actually occurred as infill: urban or suburban. New Urbanism has become a hybrid form
of sprawl, and until recently it has seemed to be nothing more than a novel idea. Alex
Krieger, a planner and harsh critic of New Urbanism, states that the most notable
achievement of the Congress for the New Urbanism is the “crafting of a text [the CNU
charter] that contains what many have advocated and making those beliefs appear
proprietary to a movement” (74). Krieger also says that, “the most difficult challenge
facing American urbanism may not be coming up with a better way to subdivide the land,
but to rescue, reinvigorate, reform, resettle, learn once again to love places already made”
(75). Innovative suburban infill can reform and reinvigorate the landscape of sprawl into
a place that is less environmentally degrading, less wasteful, less redundant, and more
attractive. Rather than starting over when faced with urban or suburban problems, we
should revisit failed or obsolete developments and make a second attempt.
It now appears that the New Urbanists are beginning to understand the value of
suburban infill. In a report released February 20, 2001, the CNU explains its findings of
a yearlong study of dying enclosed regional shopping malls. The CNU has coined the
term “greyfield” to define the areas comprised of the dead and dying regional malls.
Greyfield is to be interpreted much the same way “brownfield” is, as a descriptor for the
contaminated and often toxic former industrial sites. A greyfield is a developable site
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that is not toxic, but also is not free of constraints from previous development. A
greyfield is also ironically similar to the grey belts that Jane Jacobs describes. For the
purposes of this thesis we can take greyfield to mean any formerly developed suburban
site now in a state of decline or abandonment. Whether they are called greyfields or grey
belts, it is obvious that important people and groups are beginning to recognize these
areas of potential redevelopment in the suburbs.
New Urbanism has potential in many of its philosophies. Just as Jane Jacobs said,
“a lot of [suburban infill] will be makeshift and messy, and it won't measure up to New
Urbanists ideas of design–but it will measure up to a lot of their philosophy” (Kunstler).
If outward growth away from the city center is slowed and redevelopment takes place on
former sprawl sites, alternative connections can begin to be made. Koolhaas’ notion that
the city has become so diffuse, leaving little distinction between the classic urban core
and the suburban sprawl, leads to an understanding of a new suburban landscape fabric.
Tying this fabric together through a variety of ideas, both physical and fundamental, may
be the best compromise for the development of American cities.
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CHAPTER 4
INFILL AND REUSE
Infill
"Infill is the practice of erecting buildings on the gap sites in a city utilizing the
'wasted' space. The architectural challenge of infill is to make the new structure fit in
with the existing structures while still maintaining a style of their own" (Huls). Not only
is infill the utilization of wasted and leftover spaces, but it also the redevelopment of
abandoned sites amidst currently developed areas. Urban infill has been one tool by
which cities have attempted to reverse the effects of suburban sprawl. Some cities such as
Portland, Oregon have promoted urban infill through the use of a growth boundary.
Since 1979, Portland has been a "laboratory city for smart growth" (Lacayo and Cole).
Inside the growth boundary, building permits are readily granted while they are much
more difficult to obtain beyond the growth boundary (Lacayo and Cole). The effect is a
reduced land supply that results in an interest in infill development opportunities in the
urban core and suburban periphery. Between 1990 and 1996, Portland's growth boundary
resulted in just a thirteen percent spread of the city, the same percentage of population
growth seen by the city during that same timeframe (Lacayo and Cole). Often, cities
spread much more than their population increases. For example, metro Kansas City,
Missouri, spread seventy percent while its population only increased by five percent
between 1990 and 1996 (Lacayo and Cole). Infill development can be successful if the
piecemeal development of individual lots is avoided in exchange for a program of infill
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that "focuses on the completion of the existing community fabric," whether it be urban or
suburban (Report 38).
Infill has been closely associated with the historic preservation movement. In
order to revive older portions of cities, new development must occur at the same time as
redevelopment and reuse of existing infrastructure. The “architectural challenge” to
urban infill is often a result of a strong preservation commission that exists to protect the
integrity of the city’s historic resources. There is most certainly a challenge to producing
successful urban infill because so many people have such a vested interest in the cities in
which they work and live. Public reaction and commission regulations often push the
cost of a proposed project to exorbitant highs, resulting in the abandonment of good
projects. The suburbs, on the other hand, have faced few infill challenges – the biggest
challenge being the implementation of infill as a suburban development tool.
As we have learned thus far, the suburbs throw all established architectural theory
and practice out in exchange for a more straightforward practice of development for the
sake of the bottom line. The architecture of communication has dominated the suburban
strip, spatial patterns are not interrelated between sites, and the only cohesiveness in
architectural design amongst suburban development is the competition for one business
to out do the next with iconographic signage and buildings; few people ever mistake
McDonald's for Burger King! Suburban infill is rarely achieved as a successful form of
redevelopment. Of the locations in which infill would seem to attract the least amount of
opposition, it is practically unheard of as a viable alternative to suburban sprawl. Maybe
it seems a bit confusing to most to continue to build sprawl on top of already built sprawl,
but it seems to be the most logical option. In order to make the best use of a finite
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amount of land it only makes sense to redevelop and rethink existing sprawl. Urban sites
are difficult to infill because of cost restraints, typically increased by property value and
design requirements often imposed by preservation commissions and city ordinances.
Greenfield development is the cheapest, yet it seems that most of the American public
has tired of the lengthening commutes and the loss of farmlands and woodlands around
cities across the United States. So the question is why not develop via suburban infill?
"Infill development contributes to a more compact form of development which is less
consumptive of land use and resources" (Report 38). Whether it is in the city or in the
suburbs, infill is a good idea if our goal is to slow the outward sprawl of American cities.
Currently we are seeing an increase in the amount of abandoned big-box retailers,
automobile dealerships, strip malls, and the like, which leave greyfields prime for
redevelopment. Of course, many of these sites have not been left empty due to failed
enterprises; rather, businesses move to new locations short distances away for the
purposes of expansion and facilities upgrade. Because these abandoned sites are already
in the middle of the suburban melee, it makes sense to redevelop them into viable
suburban destinations. Housing communities and other neighborhoods exist nearby, and
major roads and other infrastructure are present. Developers should be capitalizing on
prime locations and land already prepared for construction. The existence of
infrastructure and proximity to existing amenities would seem to be a major draw for
developers, but economic forces tend to keep them away.
Suburban infill sites should follow in the footsteps of the Las Vegas strip in many
respects. Much of the original Las Vegas architecture and buildings are gone, but the
strip still exists with the same purpose as the original strip. It may have increased in
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vertical size and scale, yet for the most part it remains in the same location as it was thirty
years ago. This has been achieved through increasing density with each successive
redevelopment. The primary goal for greyfield redevelopment should be increased
density, through both innovative and neo-traditional design. An attempt should also be
made to link the suburban fabric together via a common thread, such as through a
fundamental process of environmental sensibility or a physical connectivity via roads and
alternative transportation routes. The most basic environmental concerns, such as water
conservation, should be explored in design of suburban sites, and solutions should be
represented in parking and site design, at the minimum. Nodes of suburban development
already exist. If, in the redevelopment process, the nodes can be further organized so that
functional alternative transportation linkages can be developed in between, the suburban
system can become a more enjoyable place to participate in. I am not recommending that
all suburban sites be linked to the central city. Though that would be a valuable asset in
some instances, it is more important to interlink the suburban sites before an attempt is
made to tie the whole of the city together.
Adaptive Reuse
Richard Austin writes, “What is so significant about the national mood today is
the acceptance that change does not require a total abandonment of the past” (vii). It is
by no means a stretch of the imagination when one suggests the rehabilitation of a former
warehouse into lofts or a new corporate headquarters, but when the suggestion of
adaptive use arises in regard to suburban buildings, visions become blurry. It has been
said that, “our older buildings have lasting value, not only aesthetic but also economic
and social, and that we are often much wiser to rehabilitate them than to tear them down”
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(Diamonstein 9). In this day and age of anti-sprawl sentiment, it can be very difficult to
convince almost anyone that there is lasting value in the buildings of the suburban strip.
It may not be lasting value in the sense that the building has redeeming architectural
qualities that should be preserved for future generations to appreciate. Rather, the
building may be reused in part or in whole and in doing so the value of reuse is, at the
most basic level, economic as well as environmental. Urban reuse projects are becoming
evermore popular, and cities across the United States are renewing historic districts
through a combination of adaptive use and urban infill. Suburban renewal may be
achieved in much the same fashion.
Kenneth Powell writes, “The greatest challenge, indeed, for the twenty first
century is the legacy of the twentieth century. The new architecture is about process
rather than product. It welcomes the dynamic of the future and addresses the lessons of
the past” (19). Suburban infill should meet the challenge of twentieth century
architecture by reusing “plain, ordinary, low value old buildings” in redevelopment along
the strip. Typically, the architecture of the suburban strip has little or no “high-style”
qualities for which one could create an argument in favor of preservation. Jane Jacobs
has said in the past that, “Cities need old buildings…by old buildings I mean not museum
piece old buildings, not old buildings in an excellent and expensive state of
rehabilitation…but also a good lot of plain, ordinary, low value old buildings” (187).
Though Ms. Jacobs was talking about the city, her statement is quite applicable to the
suburban strip. Ordinary low value buildings are already being used again and again by
second and third wave retailers. Often ethnic enclaves form in strips formerly housing
national chains and franchises. In examining the “Miracle Mile,” Timothy Davis stated
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that, “the ubiquitous strip is quietly evolving into a richly multi-cultural landscape that
reflects the changing ethnic and economic character of late-twentieth century American
society” (97). There is a need along the strip for the ordinary and cheap; no one should
pretend there is not. Ethnic enclaves rich in culture and economically viable on their own
level, are often viewed as suburban blight by middle and upper class America. Careful
attention should be paid to sites such as these so as not to confuse economic vitality with
suburban blight. We must be able to read the suburban landscape so as to be able to see
the difference. It can often be argued that a specific site has a much higher potential use
which allows for redevelopment and use on a grand scale. Yet there is a balance between
second-hand and new that needs to be met.
Richard Austin defines adaptive reuse as “a process by which structurally sound
older buildings are developed for economically viable new uses” (49). Adaptive reuse
can be as simple as a local businessman moving into an old gas station and turning the
property into an insurance office. It can also be as grand as turning a former cotton
warehouse into lofts and retail space. “Functionally obsolete buildings come in all types
and kinds of settings. The most endangered building types [are] those with the least
promising market potential for their intended uses” (Gause 6). Suburban office parks,
industrial properties, strip malls, auto dealerships and closed military bases are just a few
of the many types of properties that, once abandoned, can sit empty for years unless a
creative idea is put to work to adaptively reuse the site. The rapidly changing economy
and life styles of a vast majority of Americans is leading to a greater potential for
adaptive reuse than ever before. As more building types become available in an even
greater diversity of locations, opportunities for creative reuse abound.
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Single use zoning in the suburbs has led to a landscape “characterized by separate
residential communities, office and industrial parks, shopping malls, and commercial
zones located along major thoroughfares” (Gause 34). The buildings left empty in
suburban locations pose unique problems for those interested in adaptively reusing them.
Mixed use zoning in the suburbs has typically been hard to come by, as most New
Urbanists will attest. As suburban infill and reuse become more popular as a means to
curb sprawl, single use zoning will be a significant deterrent for those who wish to
redevelop greyfield sites. Much effort will need to be put forth by supporters of new
ideas in order to get the old regulations changed.
Advantages of Reuse
The time involved in the completion of a reuse project can be greatly reduced up
front due to existing structure and infrastructure of a given site. Not only does it take less
time to complete a reuse project, but also development costs can be significantly lower
than new construction. Money that would have normally been devoted to infrastructure
and the structural frame of the building can be used instead for a higher quality final
product. Often older buildings can have aesthetic qualities no longer common in modern
buildings. Though suburban buildings may not always have unique features, the ease
with which portions of the shell may be stripped away and replaced with new materials
and designs, more than makes up for the lack of unique aesthetics. Most importantly, the
reuse of a site within the existing suburban fabric saves open farmland and natural areas
from becoming paved over – a concern shared by most Americans.
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Case Studies
Much of the adaptive reuse of suburban sites has been in former regional malls
and strip malls that have been turned into offices, schools, and medical clinics. The
construction of these malls, with their large footprints, high ceilings, and open floor
plans, lends to flexibility and ease of change in reuse projects. In Galveston, Texas, for
example, the Port Holiday Mall was redeveloped into offices, classrooms, and outpatient
clinics for the University of Texas Medical Branch (Hay 44). In Phoenix, Arizona,
overcrowding in the Phoenix school district was relieved when the Maryvale Mall was
made into classrooms for the elementary and middle schools (Hay 44). Hay says, “the
malleability and impermanence of mall architecture may be [the malls’] salvation” (45).
The aesthetic atrocities that most malls have become, as a result of turning their backs to
the outside world with large windowless buildings, and further separating themselves
with acres of asphalt from neighboring businesses, is now lending itself to change.
Roofs, facades, exteriors and interiors can all be easily stripped from the steel frame and
replaced with materials and design appropriate to the building’s new use.
Many other suburban sites lend themselves to reuse, revitalization, and
redevelopment just as malls do. Hay begs the question, “will malls continue to be
America’s ultimate recyclable building?” (46). Malls may very well become the ultimate
in recyclable buildings. However, many more unique opportunities exist to redevelop
other suburban commercial sites. The suburban fabric is beginning to change, and
through adaptive reuse and infill, developers can mold suburbia into an environment that
is more favorable to both humans and nature.
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The following case studies represent projects of reuse along the suburban strip.
All of these projects include suburban strip architecture or automobile related structures.
Not included are projects involving greyfield mall redevelopment as defined by the New
Urbanists. The New Urbanist mall redevelopment projects, most notably the Eastgate
Mall redevelopment project in Chattanooga, Tennessee, are not reuse at all. These
projects ultimately eradicate the suburban buildings in exchange for neo-traditional town
planning and development. The emphasis of this thesis project is the adaptive reuse of
suburban strip architecture.
Blue Hen Corporate Center
In Dover, Delaware, the Blue Hen Mall fell into a state of decline in the 1980s
when a new regional mall was opened just three miles to the north. The new mall sapped
the life from the Blue Hen Mall by drawing the two major anchor tenants away (Gause
43). Aetna Health Plans was in need of new office space for its claims department and
chose to lease one of the anchor tenant buildings. Aetna renovated 68,000 of the
available 90,000 square foot, one story building (see Figures 4-1 and 4-2). The project
was completed in just six months, the first two of which were devoted to planning and
design (Hoyt 106). Aetna ended up with a sleek and professional looking building in
short order, and at a reduced cost. Costs for the project were substantially lower than
new construction would be, due to the existing structure and infrastructure. Aetna paid
just $5.7 million for the finished product versus the $7.1 million estimated to construct a
new building (Hoyt 107).
The Aetna move attracted other similar tenants, including Nations Bank who
renovated the other vacant department store turning 80,000 square feet into corporate
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offices (Gause 43). With the two new business anchors on either end of the former mall,
a revival of the site has taken place. The former Blue Hen Mall has evolved from a
greyfield site into the Blue Hen Corporate Center, with multiple professional offices and
support services. This project demonstrates the ability of an adaptive reuse project to
rejuvenate a suburban site through a completely new use. Within a short period of time
the image of this former mall was completely changed and the site became a viable
suburban destination.
River Village at Liberty Park
In Birmingham, Alabama, a 40,000 square foot strip shopping center was
converted to office space. The long, one story structure was gutted and a second story
was added to one portion of the building, thereby increasing the square footage of the
building by some 20,000 feet (Gause 33). Again, the existing building framework and
infrastructure, such as parking, allowed for a reduction in construction costs. The bleak
façade of the building was stripped away and replaced with brickwork, windows, and
doors readily visible to visitors (Figure 4-3). Once an eyesore, River Village at Liberty
Park became a viable professional office complex. The final cost of this project was
approximately $70.00 per square foot, comparatively less than new construction might
have cost. The physical change in the structures of this site demonstrate the ease with
which an image can be changed and additional stories can be added to a big, low space,
with a lower overall project cost.
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Fig. 4-1. Aetna offices after six months of redesign and construction, Hoyt. “Blue Hen
Corporate Center,” Architectural Record. 183.10 (1995): 106.
Fig. 4-2. Floor plan of the Aetna facilities, Hoyt. “Blue Hen Corporate Center,”
Architectural Record. 183.10 (1995): 107.
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Fig. 4-3. River Village at Liberty Park before and after, Gause, Jo Allen. New Uses for
Obsolete Buildings. The Urban Land Institute, Washington, D.C. (1996): 33.
Fig. 4-4. Togawa and Smith Architects before and after, Gause, Jo Allen. New Uses for
Obsolete Buildings. The Urban Land Institute, Washington, D.C. (1996): 57.
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Togawa and Smith Architects
In 1993, Togawa and Smith, Inc. of Pasadena, California renovated a 6,300
square foot auto-repair shop. The high ceilings of the garage allowed for the creation of
elevated office space, thereby leaving the floor open for studio space (Figure 4-4).
Unique architectural features of the garage were incorporated in to the new design. The
total development budget was a mere $30.00 per square foot (Gause 57). Though this
site was not a suburban site, it demonstrates how a former automobile related structure
can be converted for a new use.
Smith and Hawken Outlet
Smith and Hawken, Ltd. found the need to create a couple of outlet stores in order
to sell surplus inventory and factory seconds from their clothing line. The company did
so in both Berkeley and Mill Valley, California. Both stores were built into existing
structures on a budget of less than $40 per square foot (Wagner 54). The Mill Valley
store was opened in a former pre-fab style, suburban BMW dealership (Figure 4-5). The
show room and adjacent garage were turned into a large open floor sales area (Figure 4-
6) in a bare-bones design utilizing anything that could be salvaged to add to the effect
(Wagner 54). Some additions were made to the exterior to evoke the feeling of a
horticultural or agricultural setting, keeping in line with the company’s theme, yet the
former building maintained much of its original look (Wagner 54).
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Fig. 4-5. Smith and Hawken clothing outlet in former BMW showroom and garage, Mill
Valley, California, Wagner, Michael. “Creative Outlet,” Interiors. 151.2 (1992): 54.
Fig. 4-6. Floor Plan of the Smith and Hawken Outlet, Not To Scale, Wagner, Michael.
“Creative Outlet,” Interiors. 151.2 (1992): 54.
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Chelsea Piers, New York
The Chelsea piers infill and reuse project is unique. It is an urban infill project in
the heart of Manhattan, but some argue it is just one more step in the suburbanization of
New York. Located on the piers between 17th and 23rd Streets along the Hudson River
(Figure 4-7), it is New York City’s largest fitness complex (Cole and Howell). This infill
project is unlike most, which typically have housing as the main component. The
Chelsea Piers complex is examined here for its uniqueness and the inspiration it provided
for the design element of this thesis.
It has been said that the Chelsea Piers complex is quite possibly a result of “a new
post-industrial strategy of urban revitalization and economic redevelopment framed
around themed entertainment, fitness, and sports environments” (Cole and Howell). The
entire 1.7 million square foot complex is located on four piers that jut into the Hudson
River. Amenities include a four level, fifty-two stall, fully automated driving range, an
in-line skating facility, two roller rinks, two ice rinks, an Olympic-size swimming pool
and sundeck, a climbing wall, batting cages, a 23,000 square foot gymnastics facility,
indoor soccer and basketball, and a strength and conditioning facility. Also included is
indoor volleyball, an indoor quarter mile track, a bowling alley, pro-shops, and
restaurants. All types of exercise and recreation classes are also offered along with teams
and leagues for most recreational sports.
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Fig. 4-7. A bird’s eye view of the Chelsea Piers complex in Manhattan,
<http://www.chelseapiers.com>.
The Chelsea Piers complex is unique for its character and location. It is the
creative reuse of a site that was originally built for completely unrelated uses. Though
the complex evokes certain suburban qualities, such as big low spaces and single use
facilities, they are by no means detrimental to the livelihood of Manhattan. The piers
have some “suburban strip” qualities about them, such as major sponsors such as Reebok,
Nike, and Pepsi advertising and adding a commercial flare to the site, yet few would
mistake this place for one along the strip. The piers have a presence of their own place;
“Chelsea Piers is a place at once deeply connected to New York and utterly separated
from it” (Cole and Howell). Paul Goldberger has written, “there is a profound desire
almost everywhere now to combine the comforts of middle-class suburban life with at
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least some of the excitement and entertainment that cities have traditionally provided…”
and that, “the horrifying prospect is that the two will eventually meet–that the
suburbanizing city and the urbanizing suburbs will someday become indistinguishable,
one homogenous mass.” Apparently Mr. Goldberger is not a fan of Rem Koolhaas’
notion of the city and suburb becoming one as a landscape. Though the complaints have
been made that the piers are a continuation of the suburbanization of New York, the exact
opposite argument can be made. The creation of the Chelsea Piers is indeed “a seemingly
reasonable and ethical urbanism built around the technologies of health” (Cole and
Howell).
The American public is and always has been changing. What the future will hold
is often hard to predict, especially when it comes to the future of American cities.
However, one prediction may very well come true–that of Mr. Goldberger’s fear and
Koolhaas’s acceptance of the city and suburb becoming one homogenous mass. Projects
such as the Chelsea Piers will continue to be built, and at the same time draw fire from
critics, as will traditional suburban neighborhoods and New Urbanist developments.
Chelsea Piers is an excellent example of infill and reuse that reacts to the current
demands of society and does so in a responsible and creative manner. All of the case
studies presented represent viable site-specific solutions for suburban reuse and infill
projects. In order to compare the projects, I have created a table showing original uses
and square footage, as well as new uses, square footage and cost of construction. Most
notably you will find that the cost of construction for these sites is substantially lower
than the cost of new construction (Table 4-1). Though it is hard to generalize about new
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construction costs, a realistic figure for the types of projects discussed thus far is
approximately $120.00 per square foot (Gause 42).
Table 4-1. Comparison of Case StudiesSite Original Sq Ft Final Sq Ft Cost/sq ft Original Use New UseBlue Hen 90,000 68,000 $64 Anchor Dept.
StoreCorporate
OfficeRiver Village 40,000 60,000 $70 Strip Mall Professional
OfficeTogawa &Smith
6,300 6,300+ $30 AutomobileRepair Garage
ArchitectureFirm
Smith andHawken
5,000 5,000 $40 AutomobileDealership
Clothing Store
Chelsea Piers NA 1,700,000 NA Shipping Piers RecreationalComplex
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CHAPTER 5
SITE ANALYSIS
The chosen site for this suburban infill design application is the former University
Ford automobile dealership located at 2470 Atlanta Highway, in Athens, Georgia (Figure
5-1). A brief chronology of the Athens Ford dealership reveals that Trussell Ford moved
from 165 Pulaski Street, in downtown Athens, to the Atlanta highway location in 1973,
where it remained Trussell Ford until 1991. In 1991 ownership changed and the name
became University Ford, as part of the University Motors group. In 1999 University Ford
relocated further west of downtown Athens, to a site in Bogart, Georgia, at 4260 Atlanta
Highway, thus abandoning the 2740 Atlanta Highway site (Figure 5-1).
The actual site is some twenty-eight acres in total. Approximately nine of those
acres are paved in asphalt and contain the three structures that formerly housed the
dealership showroom and related services. The remaining nineteen acres are wooded
land leading down to the Middle Oconee River which flows along the northern edge of
the property. The developed portion of the site is relatively flat, and this flatness extends
into the wooded portion of the site, before significant elevation changes occur as the land
drops towards the river. There is a total elevation change of greater than 100 feet on the
site. To the west of the Ford site Tremont Parkway leads into an eighty-six acre single-
family, detached home subdivision that is currently in various stages of completion.
Future phases call for the development of a river park along the banks of the Middle
Oconee. Further to the west, more automobile dealerships are found lining the Atlanta
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Fig. 5-1. University Ford, Kmart, and Heyward Allen, 1996,
<http://terraserver.homeadvisor.msn.com/default.asp>
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Fig. 5-2.Graphic representation of existing site conditions.
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Highway. Directly to the east of the site is a Kmart department store that is
approximately twenty-five years old. Just to the east of Kmart is the Heyward Allen
automobile dealership, which will soon be relocating to Oconee County, just a few miles
to the south, along Epps Bridge Road. Both the Kmart and Heyward Allen have prime
river frontage on the northern boundary of their properties as well. To the south the
Atlanta Highway borders all three properties (Figure 5-2). Across the Atlanta Highway
various businesses may be found including another automobile dealership, a gas station, a
restaurant, a motel, as well as a few independent businesses. East and westbound traffic
on the Atlanta Highway is accessible with ease from the Kmart site via a traffic signal, at
the intersection of Old Epps Bridge Road and the highway. The former University Ford
site, however, has essentially been cut off from eastbound traffic along the highway.
With the recent completion of a limited access highway-style ramp that connects the
newly widened Epps Bridge Road with the Atlanta Highway, access to the site for
eastbound traffic has become a challenge, for traffic both entering and exiting the site
(Figure 5-3).
The three buildings on the site consist of Butler Building style garages and a
showroom and office space (Figure 5-4). The building nearest the highway was the
showroom and business office. The most significant architectural quality of the building
is its Modernist style accentuated by the expanse of large plate-glass windows and the
simple and otherwise featureless box-like design of the building. This building is
approximately 6,000 square feet. The structure directly behind the showroom is some
285 feet long and 60 feet deep (Figure 5-5). The majority of the building consists of
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Fig. 5-3. Access to and from eastbound Atlanta Highway traffic is restricted by the Epps
Bridge Road Ramp, photograph by author.
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Fig. 5-5. Looking east across the University Ford site. From L to R, a butler building garage, the main service garage, the
Rear of the showroom building, photograph by author
Figure 5-4. Full Panorama of existing butler building style garage, photograph by author.
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large glass garage doors, fifteen on both the front and back. The building is of simple
steel frame, “Butler Building” style construction. The remaining structure is also a Butler
Building and is approximately 8000 square feet. It has no significant architectural
features.
In order to obtain a better understanding of the overall landscape of the area I
composed two figure ground images to compare visually the amount of paved surfaces
versus built structures. Figures 5-6 and 5-7 show, in white, the amount of paved surfaces
and building footprints. As can be seen, paved surfaces significantly out-weigh building
footprints in square footage. Even if we accounted for the floor area of buildings with
more than one story paved areas would still be greater. There are only a few two-story
buildings in the vicinity, such as a motel and some apartment buildings.
In another comparison study I looked at downtown Athens (Figure 5-8) and the
actual developed area of the University Ford site (Figure 5-9) at the same scale.
Downtown Athens, from Pulaski Street east to Thomas, and from Broad Street north to
Dougherty is not all that much larger in total land area.
The character along the strip, just east and just west of the Ford site, is comprised
of a substantial number of signs and billboard advertisements. However, because the
road is six lanes wide with a median to the east and four lanes with a median to the west
of the site, the various advertisements have much less of a visual impact than one might
imagine. The “architecture of communication” is mainly billboards, smaller signs, and
one decorated shed in the form of Kmart. The only other architecture with any visual
character is the Chinese restaurant on the south side of the Atlanta Highway and the
Heyward Allen dealership that has been decorated with elements of the Colonial Revival.
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Fig. 5-6. Buildings
Fig. 5-7. Pavement
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Fig. 5-8. Downtown Athens, Georgia
Fig. 5-9. University Ford, Kmart, Heyward Allen
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This has been achieved via the addition of columns across the façade of the single story
typical strip building.
To once again look beyond the boundaries of the dealership site we can see and
predict the future availability of the land. We already know that the Heyward Allen
dealership is relocating to nearby Oconee County, thereby freeing up land for reuse.
With the Kmart Corporation having closed stores across the country in recent years,
coupled with the fact that this store is twenty-five years old, it is quite likely that it may
be closing its doors sometime in the near future. It will come as a move to either relocate
to a new location or permanently close as a loss to the company. Assuming this happens
of Kmart’s own will, the suburban infill site that I am examining suddenly becomes quite
a bit larger–nearly twenty more acres would be available. With area businesses reaching
their maximum capacities or profit abilities now looking to move to new locations, this
frees up land for redevelopment and reuse. Many people enter Athens from the west on
the Atlanta Highway and Route 316/Epps Bridge Road putting them precisely in this
location only minutes before reaching downtown. This entire area that is bisected by the
Middle Oconee River, the Atlanta Highway, and Route 316/Epps Bridge Road is prime
for suburban infill and reuse.
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CHAPTER 6
THE DESIGN APPLICATION
Denise Scott Brown posed the question: “What do we do having learned from Las
Vegas?” (45). Good question. Denise Scott Browns’ answer to her own question was:
“At a prosaic level you’ve learned some perceptual tricks of the trade, beyond this the
process of assimilation is unconscious at its most fruitful level…facing the implications
of Las Vegas in our work is proving much more difficult than describing Las Vegas”
(45). Learning From Las Vegas as well as the ideas put forth by J.B. Jackson, Rem
Koolhaas, the New Urbanists, and others provide designers with a mixed bag of ideas that
can be applied to the suburban landscape. Now that I have learned from Las Vegas and
taken an honest look at the landscape of sprawl, I must assimilate the information and
extract from it conclusions, from which to develop a suburban infill and redevelopment
design.
Jane Jacobs’ comments to James Kunstler during their September 2000 interview
became the driving force behind my design decisions. I found it interesting that Ms.
Jacobs is making important statements about suburbia, to an advocate of New Urbanism,
and the New Urbanist movement, which seems to adore her urban ideas, is not really
paying attention. The fact that she acknowledges suburban infill as necessary, and that
she recognizes the processes will be “makeshift and messy” and not necessarily
welcomed with open arms by the New Urbanists helps to validate my design project.
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I chose the former University Ford site because it possessed many qualities of the
suburban strip that are recognized by the Learning from Las Vegas thesis. The Ford
dealership was established on the Atlanta Highway site in 1973, merely a year after the
publication of Learning from Las Vegas. My examination of the University ford site in
the context of Learning from Las Vegas and the Las Vegas strip thirty years later allows
me, as a landscape architect, to create a program for one piece of the suburban landscape
that will become a catalyst for redevelopment and infill in Athens’ 1970s era grey belt.
The Learning from Las Vegas text does not necessarily teach us anything new
about the suburban highway strip of today. The real lesson learned in this thesis came
from combing Venturi’s Learning from Las Vegas with Las Vegas thirty years later, Rem
Koolhaas, Peter Rowe, J.B. Jackson, and Jane Jacobs. The result is that I have
developed, for myself, an honest analysis of the potential of suburban strip development.
The suburbs can be rethought and in most instances resettled while maintaining the
character of the suburban strip. The process is evolutionary, as shown by Las Vegas,
albeit at an accelerated rate.
In researching ideas for suburban infill, I have been able to identify a number of
areas or factors of contention, which I must address, as part of the design process. I find
it difficult, if not impossible, to prioritize the factors into a hierarchy of importance;
therefore, the sequence of their discussion in no way insinuates such an ordering.
As Venturi and the Learning from Las Vegas thesis suggested, spatial
relationships along the strip are lacking as compared to an urban business district, and as
has been noted, the ordering of the spaces is highly driven by the forces of automobiles
and roadway construction. As a highly “suburban nation” we move from space to space
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in our automobiles. Primarily those spaces, between which we move, are large parking
lots. The future development of the suburban strip relies greatly upon the future form of
suburban parking. The truth is until a terminal fuel crisis or something else of that
magnitude occurs, Americans are not getting out from behind the wheel of their cars. As
frustrating as it may be, the population of the United States is addicted to its vehicles.
Understanding the impact of the automobile, suburban spatial relationships can be better
developed to account for America’s car dependency.
Suburban destinations can and should still be designed, however, alternative
transportation networks should also be incorporated into the designs. As sites such as the
University Ford site are redeveloped into a higher use of the land, the spaces between
suburban destinations should become links to one another. As Lewis Mumford urged
many years ago, we must contend with the automobile as the primary mode of
transportation, but this does not mean that we must ignore the need for alternative
connections. The spaces between suburban sites that Peter Rowe is troubled by therefore
become positive space rather than negative space, alleys of connective fabric, so to speak.
These formerly ignored inhospitable spaces can become secondary means of connection
between suburban destinations.
As was demonstrated through the site analysis, the combined acreage of the
University Ford, Kmart, and Heyward Allen sites is less than that of downtown Athens,
Georgia. By beginning redevelopment and infill of the area with the University Ford site,
development on the surrounding areas can be responsive to the new site. As such, with
continued development the suburban destinations can start to become interlinked visually
and physically. The creation of alternative transportation corridors such as pedestrian
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and bicycle routes become linkages between the suburban strip sites and nearby
neighborhoods rather than, rather than the interstitial spaces being left as desolate
inhospitable spaces. Transportation between suburban destinations is perhaps the one
factor of contention that may be granted more weight than any other.
Much as Koolhaas and Venturi, I have accepted the free form of the suburban
highways. Making more roads will not solve suburban problems of congestion, nor will
connecting all places via mass transit (an impossible feat, I might add). However, vital
secondary connections within the suburban fabric, and at times between the urban core
and the suburban periphery, can prove to be more valuable than the oft preached about,
but unattainable goals of enough roads to reduce the intensity of highway traffic.
Another point of contention is the temporary architecture of the suburbs that Peter
Rowe spoke of. As infill begins to occur in the most recent of suburban sites and
development begins to fold in upon itself, as has already happened in the earlier suburban
rings, developers will find buildings often with little or no use to the purpose at hand.
These structures will either be replaced entirely, or, better yet, reused whenever possible.
Whether it is replacement or reuse, in part or in whole, the resulting development should
be of a higher use than the previous one and preferably be comprised of structures that
are more readily useful to future users, or as flexible to change as their predecessors.
Also, a certain percentage of temporary architecture should give way to new, more
permanent architecture, as well as give rise to a more vertical architecture. The big low
space of the suburbs is a hard habit to break, but it can be achieved.
The New Urbanists have made it widely known that single use zoning is another
issue with which to contend. The design application presented in this thesis was
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conceived without concern for zoning regulations, under the assumption that they can be
changed for the better. Zoning is often a major hindrance in getting a project off of the
ground. The suburbs have been so divided into individual uses by zoning regulations that
it can be difficult to develop an innovative project. I believe Jane Jacobs is correct; once
the old regulations begin to be gotten out of the way new standards of development will
emerge.
The American public is fascinated with the suburban highway strip. The strip has
become a significant part of most Americans lives. The highway strips are not only a
primary source of goods and services, but also a place for leisurely activity. However, as
suburban locations of leisure activity are developed on the fringes of existing suburbia,
and without relation to one another, the suburbs become less fascinating and more
frustrating. Without any sort of continuity between sites and the need to travel to
multiple destinations in order to accomplish all that one needs to, the suburban strip is
becoming much more difficult to navigate.
Communication of available goods and services is alive and well along the strip;
however, in some instances, “beautification commissions” have placed strict standards on
signs. Limitations on materials and heights have become another obstacle for retailers
and developers to overcome in the continual process of growth. The sign and symbol that
is part of the attraction of the strip should not be squashed for the aesthetic desires of a
small group. Learning from Las Vegas established the importance of the sign and
symbol in the suburban strip. Though their impact has lessened in part over the years,
there is no reason to reject sign and symbol as a valid design element in future suburban
projects.
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With this design, I aimed to create a new suburban destination via infill and reuse. After
conducting research into theories of suburban development and the landscape of sprawl, I
set out to design a site that would maintain a suburban character and become a catalyst
for redevelopment of one part of the Athens grey belt. As opposed to redeveloping this
site into another strip mall or office park, I made the choice to redevelop through a
program of recreation and leisure activity (Figure 6-1 and 6-3). Athens, Georgia is in
need of a number of recreational amenities separate from those provided by the
University and this site lent itself easily to such a program. The existing structures and
large asphalt clearing (Figure 6-4) can easily be reused and added on to, to create an
intensive recreational complex. Beyond the previously developed portion of the site, I
am recommending the creation of a multi-family residential development nestled among
the forest behind the recreational complex and overlooking the river (Figure 6-2). Along
the Middle Oconee River I am recommending a river park that would connect to one that
is proposed by an 86 acre single family housing development to the west of the site. I am
also recommending the continuation of the river park along the riverbanks on what is
currently the Kmart and Heyward Allen sites, both of which will eventually be
redeveloped as suburban infill projects.
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Fig. 6-1. Site plan of recreational facility proposed for the former University Ford automobile dealership site.
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Fig. 6-2. Compact suburban destinations along the Atlanta Highway tied to each other via alternative transportation routes.
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Fig. 6-3. Rendering of the University Ford site, representing the recreational program of the site.
Fig. 6-4. Panorama of the existing condition of the former University Ford site, photograph by author.
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The very specific focus of the design is the recreational complex (Table 6-1). By
reusing the former automobile showroom and garages in conjunction with additions of
new construction, I am greatly increasing the F.A.R. (floor area ratio) of the existing
developed site. The existing square footage of the buildings on the site is approximately
33,000 square feet with an F.A.R. of 0.09. I propose to increase the F.A.R. to 0.31 with
the addition of nearly 80,000 square feet of floor space. The site will also have more
surface are used beyond the buildings, in the form of outdoor basketball courts, a skate
park, and multi-use lawns. Amenities incorporated into the design include a NHL
regulation size ice rink, a state-of-the-art strength and conditioning facility, an outdoor
climbing wall, batting cages, an indoor lap pool, and a bowling alley (Figures 6-5, 6-6,
and 6-7). The long row of garage service bays has been programmed to become pro-
shops, cafes, and a health foods market. Parking on site is to be handled with both
surface lots and a parking deck. Close attention is being paid to the design of the site so
that alternative connections will have an equal importance to automobile traffic.
However, because this site is primarily a suburban destination, the main access to the
facilities will be via the automobile.
The site is to become a hybrid of open public space and membership based
amenities. In order to maintain the open feel of the site without establishing a perimeter
fence to “secure” the property, certain amenities will be openly accessible to the public,
while others are available with a fee or membership. The basketball courts and skate
park will be open to the public as well as have equipment rentals available on site. All
other activities will require a fee or
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Fig. 6-5. Rendering of ice rink building and central thoroughfare.
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Fig. 6-6. Rendering of bowling alley (left) and fitness complex (right).
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membership to acquire access. This program of open public space and membership
based amenities, as well as shops and restaurants should result in a viable complex during
all hours of operation. Though the mix of uses on the site is limited to recreation and
support services, the site does lend itself to being active throughout the entire day.
The nearby single-family residential and recommended multi-family development
should also provide a base of visitors to the site. The multi-family development on the
nineteen wooded acres of the site will consist of nearly 300 units, varying in size from
700 to 1200 square feet. One, two, and three bedroom units will be located in clusters of
two and three story buildings, nestled among the trees behind the recreational complex.
Even with 300 units nearly half of the wooded are can be left intact as a natural amenity
to the residential development. Also the multi-family complex should be intimately
connected to the river park and secondary transportation routes between the nearby
suburban destinations.
Fig. 6-7. Rendering of climbing wall and basketball courts
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The design of this site is an important first step in remaking the already
made landscape in Athens, Georgia. There are definite rings of development that
are noticeable when driving out of Athens along any of the many roads that pass
through the city. The greyfields, however, are most prominent along the Atlanta
Highway. This site is not the only site in Athens worth consideration for
rethinking. It is, however, one of the many pieces of the suburban fabric that may
be addressed individually in order to make better use of existing resources.
Table 6-1. Design Program
Program Amenities F.A.R. Square Feet
Infill and adaptively reuse the
former University Ford automobile
dealership with a program of
recreational and leisurely activity.
Increase the F.A.R. of the site while
maintaining the suburban character.
Associate access to the site
primarily with the Atlanta Highway,
but create alternative transportation
routes linking the site to other
nearby suburban destinations.
4 outdoor basketball courts
Inline skate and
skateboarding park
Outdoor climbing wall
Batting cages
Quarter mile running loop
NHL regulation ice rink
Bowling alley
Strength and conditioning
total fitness complex
Indoor Lap Pool
Pro shops, restaurants, cafe,
and health food market
Increase from
the current
Floor Area
Ratio value of
0.09 to 0.31.
Increase total
square footage of
buildings on the
site from 33,000
square feet to
112,000 plus,
square feet.
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Conclusion
Suburban infill design has its merits, and with a new, more honest approach to the
complex order of suburban design, design professionals such as landscape architects can
help to solve, at minimum, site specific problems within the suburban fabric. At issue, as
has previously been noted, are the lengthening commutes and horizontal spread of cities,
along with mass consumption of open land and natural resources. Though some cities
have grown so tremendously is size and circumference and even others have grown
together, there still is a tremendous amount of land on which we can build. The real issue
is that the American public has a deeply rooted desire for what I’ll call aesthetic-
efficiency. Primarily, Americans want efficiency. Once we have had a taste for the easy
life, we rarely want to go back to “doing it the hard way.” And now, to make matters
worse there is a tremendous desire nationwide to have everything built held to some
aesthetic standard. Some of the forms of aesthetic control have become laughable. Many
localities are requiring vast supercenters to apply faux facades that present the image of a
small town main street, yet we still park in giant parking lots, the building still sits many
yards back from the street and we still enter through one or two primary banks of doors!
Nothing has change, but the paint job. Even worse McDonald’s stores are forced to shed
their franchise image for clapboard siding and gabled roofs. The suburban highways do
not need to be dressed up in classical architectural elements and ridiculous nostalgic
innuendos. What needs to be done is a new awaking to the face of suburban America.
The momentum is swinging and designers now have the chance to develop creative
design solutions for suburban destinations without the embarrassment of faux facades and
forced nostalgia.
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