Quote of the Day, from Chloë Sevigny

Her first order of business upon move-in was to cover up much of the exposed brick with plaster painted pale pink, blue, and yellow, just like the colors of her childhood room. “Unless you’re in a loft or you’re a college student, exposed brick just doesn’t work,” she says.

— "Chloë Sevigny: 'It Just Felt Womblike.' The indie
legend’s memory-packed garden co-op," New York

ARCHITECTS frequently express disappointment that their fellow artists in movies, the theater and music don't believe you have to be Modern. (Were those architects cringing in the comments?) My guess is that Sevigny likes Modernism and traditional design, like most of us.

The Good, the Bad & the Ugly Update

AFTER CNU 20 I went to a game at the new Marlins Park in Miami. Coming soon, my review and reaction to Michael Kimmelman's review in the New York Times. (Hint, he liked it A LOT more than I did.)

AT THE END OF CNU 17, a group of New Urbanists went to a Sunday afternoon game at Coors Field. I'd been there once before, but my first thought on seeing it again was that it is simpler, and better, than the new Yankee Stadium.

The first impression comes as you walk through LoDo to Coors. Its brick and concrete exterior is better than the more expensive Yankee Stadium facade, for three reasons: it has better proportions; better details; and a more human scale in its details and construction.

As a whole, the stadium is less sprawling and from the seats feels more enclosed. The first makes it more urban, the second makes it a more comfortable place to watch a game.

Inside, the brick and painted metal construction is more pleasant to be around than the concrete and unpainted aluminum details at Yankee Stadium. It's too bad that when the Yankees built baseball's most expensive stadium they didn't get HOK's best work.

One thing that is similar is the large, open concourse level, an HOK trademark that works well. Less good is that it contributes to the the less expensive seats in the new HOK stadiums being farther from the field than the seats in old ballparks. Optimizing the view from the concourse is one of the reasons that the rake of the seating terraces above and below is flatter than in old parks, and that the levels above the concourse are farther from the field than in old parks.

 

THE NEW YANKEE STADIUM is a good place. That's the short answer after my first visit yesterday.* It's where the New York Yankees play. Thanks to its location in the Bronx, I can get there in 15 minutes by subway, and now there's a train station too. The new stadium has a good urban presence, and more architectural unity than the renovated stadium across the street. The facade is now limestone. The field has the dimensions of the previous stadium, and the views of the field from the broad concourses are beautiful. The players love the new clubhouses. These are all good things, and I look forward to watching games there.

Continue reading "The Good, the Bad & the Ugly Update"

The Real Yankee Stadium Redux

UPDATE: I went to the final game in the original Yankee Stadium and the opening pre-season game of the newest Stadium (to be reviewed).

THAT'S what the Stadium looked like when I was a kid. There was a lot more shock and awe than in the concrete remodeling Steinbrenner made in the 1970s. I went to a lot of games there, including the final game.

As you can see, not all the games were crowded. Even on Saturday afternoons, you could often easily get three seats to yourself in the upper deck. During rallies, the procedure was to hold the seats to each side of you and smash them up and down in unison with the rest of the crowd. A few hundred people doing that could make a lot of noise. My brother and I would catch double headers in the bleachers — 18 innings in the sun for $1.

The monuments were still on the field (during the renovation, the Yankees moved the center field fence in 50 feet, so that monuments were behind the wall). We once saw Bobby Murcer chase down a fly that bounced right behind them. He sped around the monuments and faced the center field wall, anticipating the rebound off the wall. But it bounced past him, and he wheeled around and dashed towards the ball. It bounced of the monuments and back to him, and ran around to the side to see where to throw the ball. I think it was an inside the park home run.

Supersize me

V&V: Supersize Me
V&V: The Good, the Bad & the Ugly (new Yankee Stadium update)
V&V: Making A Neighborhood Around Yankee Stadium — Designs By University of Miami Architecture Students

Urbanized: The Movie

PS: If, like me, you have Flash turned off in your browser, you will get an eternal "loading movie..." message until you turn Flash on.

The Second Semi-Annual Slouching Towards Alphaville Award Redux

OBG originally posted March 21, 2007

It's cold. It's winter. It's minus 20 degrees, an arctic wind is blowing in from the Russian steppes, and you're walking on the biggest street in Moscow. Above you in the swirling snow loom three towers that increase the wind chill factor to minus 100 degrees. All the vokda in Russia won't fix this picture.

Haha Hadid? No no Nanotchka! (more wind-blown photos here)

Like ants to the slaughter.

 

1st Annual Slouching Towards Alphaville Award

Audi's Urban Future Is A Lot Like Alphaville

V&V: 1st Annual Slouching Towards Alphaville Award

V&V: Second semi-annual Slouching Towards Alphaville Award

CNU 20 Redux

DID YOU MISS CNU 20? There's a good recap at My Big Fat New Urbanism Conference Rundown. I like to start with Part 2, then go to Part 1.

And from the floor of the conference:

UPDATE: There's a good series of posts here on different sessions at CNU 20. I'd start with this one. It's about a plenary debate between Dan Solomon and Andréa Duany that Dan called "My Dinner With Andrés."

The Best New Urban Retail Book

BOB GIBBS worked for the most profitable mall developer in the country, where he learned the many simple but effective principles that national retailers like the Gap and Apple use to beat the pants of local retailers. For example, he can tell you exactly how many cents per square foot a store's income will rise if they change thier store lighting from flourescent to a particular warm incandescent bulb the national retailers have identified. There are similar rules for exterior signs, window arrangement, store arrangement and the like - all tied quite precisely to how the affect sales per square foot. These figures are all known, because all the cash registers in malls are linked to the mall's computers, since the mall owenr gets a percentage of sales.

Buy it, you'll like it. And you'll learn a lot, about successful and unsuccessful retail, why Mom & Pop's usually don't compete very well with the chains, about retail rules in general and about how those rules relate to architectural design in general.

Hint: Follow the KISS Rule most of the time. KISS = Keep It Simple Stupid.

Example: Regarding all the fancy and expensive streetscapes that are in vogue now, Bob has the sakes figures to prove that you want Main Street customers to look at the shop windows, not the sidewalks. Obviosuly sales per square foot are not the point of urbanism, but most Main Street redos are about economic vitality, and it's nice to know that these rules support good, simple design.

Principles of Urban Retail, Planning and Development @ Amazon

St. Mo

The Sambola!