Posts tagged Public Spaces
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National Park Service announces Cherry Blossom Parkway
The following was posted as an April Fool’s joke. New road will increase public visibility of Cherry Blossom trees and key monuments WASHINGTON, April 1, 2008 - The National Park Service announced today that they have completed an EIS for the construction of a 4.5 mile Cherry Blossom Parkway along West and East Potomac Parks. “The cherry blossom trees are Washington’s… Keep reading…
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No, architecture is not (just) art
A building can be a beautiful object in its own right. A building is also a component of a larger whole. It fits in with the surrounding environment, whether other buildings in a series of row houses or the natural landscape in a more pastoral setting. It interacts with the humans who go in it and those who walk around it. Keep reading…
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NPS considers less traffic an “adverse effect”
The National Park Service’s mission is to “preserve the natural resources of America.” Apparently, they consider traffic to be a natural resource. Keep reading…
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Klingle: Even more cars in Rock Creek?
San Francisco has the Embarcadero Freeway. New York has the West Side Highway. In both cases, nature forced the city to close a road which it would never have had the political fortitude to do otherwise. In both cases, residents realized they didn’t really need the road after all. Keep reading…
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Feds v. Feds on AFRH
The Federal Government has an enormous impact on the shape of DC through the large number of Federal properties. It represents some of the worst planning and also the best planning at the same time, through different agencies and boards that have very different approaches to design. The proposed Armed Forces Retirement Home development shows off both the good and the bad. Founded… Keep reading…
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The un-urban Marriott Wardman Park
Woodley Park sits right atop a fault line between walkable urbanism and the dense sprawl-style architecture you get when architects and developers simply transplant suburban forms onto smaller city lots, like the Hilton in Dupont. Despite having a Metro station, most of the larger apartment towers follow the Le Corbusier-style form of large islands in a sea of parking set far back… Keep reading…
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Blank wall of the day
Just what the Penn Quarter needs: another blank wall building with no retail, right next to the MLK Library. The architects even drew in a relatively dead street, with only a few scattered pedestrians and more parked cars than people. At least they know what they are going to get. Via DC Metrocentric. Keep reading…
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Induced non-demand
Should we really convert freeways to boulevards? In my quick link Saturday about boulevardizing the Southeast-Southwest Freeway, TJ wrote, “the volume day and night is pretty heavy, so a street conversion would just make it a nightmare.” What’s the reality? We can’t know for sure about this case, but in other cases where cities have removed freeways… Keep reading…
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Boulevardize the SE/SW Freeway
Ballpark and Beyond brings up the on-again, off-again idea of replacing the Southeast-Southwest Freeway with a boulevard. Its hulking form makes people feel unsafe walking from the Capitol South Metro to the ballpark. A wide Virginia Avenue with timed lights wouldn’t be so much worse for drivers and much better for everyone else. Keep reading…
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DC versus New York
New York on baseball: Gave away the only park in a poor neighborhood so the Yankees could build a stadium next to their old one instead of replacing the old one. Spent $400 million in public money on the stadium, Keep reading…