Community Architect

The Architecture of Belonging - Why Cities Need it More Than Ever

2026-05-22T14:53:48.972-04:00

What Makes a Good Third Place?

In my brother’s hometown of historic Herrenberg, Germany (population 34,000), running for office—he serves on the city council—involves setting up a stand on the central market square. City hall, a church, and stately half-timbered medieval gabled buildings frame an irregular plaza in the center of town whose spatial quality rivals the Piazza del Campo in Siena, Italy.

Herrenberg Marktplatz (Photo Philipsen)

Every Saturday, people stream into the square from a web of connecting alleys to buy produce, bread, flowers, and cheese. They shop, but they also chat—with merchants and with one another. By the time the purchases are done, hands have been shaken, pamphlets distributed, and the latest news exchanged, whether it is summer or winter, rain or shine. Herrenberg’s market square is a perfect social place—a true “third place.”

In the suburban outskirts of my adopted hometown, Baltimore, candidates for office stand at the corner of two arterial roads waving placards at passing motorists. The landmark is a silver diner sitting behind a sea of parking. Each road leading to the intersection has two or three through-lanes and dedicated turn lanes in every direction.

A large “No Kings” rally with several hundred people recently took place there. Protesters lined the four corners of the intersection, waving signs into the roar of traffic while drivers honked in support. This is not a social place.

Baltimore does, in fact, have a slew of farmers markets. Neighbors meet there, pamphlets are distributed, and buskers occasionally perform music. In that sense, these are indeed third places—temporary places to shop, meet, and chat. However, as soon as the market stalls are removed, the spaces revert to parking lots in obscure corners where people have little reason to linger. In most cases, this is not merely a transitional condition; there is no plan to transform these spaces into enduring civic places.

By contrast, Herrenberg’s market square remains vibrant at all hours, day and night, with shops, restaurants, cobblestones, and spaces reserved for people rather than cars.

Farmers market on a parking lot, Baltimore (Photo: Philipsen)

For a good social place—or third place—to become a meaningful public space, the examples show that we need more than temporary activity. We also need design.

That function should inform design is familiar to architects and urban designers alike. It applies not only to buildings but also to the spaces between them. Just as a gymnasium does not function particularly well as a concert hall, a space designed primarily for parking cars is not ideal as a public gathering place.

I recently heard someone describe the relationship between buildings and urban space this way: In traditional cities, buildings define spaces; in modern suburbs spaces define buildings. In suburbia, buildings are usually low and surrounded by so much leftover space that the public realm remains undefined, bleeding outward in every direction.

Why does the quality of public urban space matter? And why is there so much discussion today about “third places”? What are they, anyway?

Third places are nothing more than informal public gathering places. The phrase 'third places' derives from considering our homes to be the 'first' places in our lives, and our work places the 'second. (Ray Oldenburg who coined the term in The Great Good Place (1989)

Third places are informal public gathering places. The phrase derives from considering our homes the “first” place in our lives and workplaces the “second.” The sociologist Ray Oldenburg coined the term in his 1989 book The Great Good Place.

I have addressed in numerous blog articles the profound transformations cities—and entire societies—are experiencing, transformations for which no final destination is yet visible. Even as third places evolve as part of these shifts, they remain fundamental building blocks of civic life. Their design continues to pose one of the most enduring challenges to the design professions.

When third places are deficient or missing altogether, social pathologies emerge. We understand these failures far better than we understand what consistently makes successful third places.

The Loneliness Crisis and the Decline of Third Places

Long before the onset of Covid and social media, growing loneliness had already been identified as a societal problem related to the fragmentation of public life and the disappearance of shared civic experiences.

After Oldenburg, it was Robert D. Putnam who, in his turn-of-the-century book Bowling Alone, argued that American social capital had declined significantly since the 1960s, producing a less connected and less civically engaged society.

Using extensive data, Putnam traced declining participation in community groups, bowling leagues, churches, and political organizations, arguing that these losses harmed both individual well-being and democratic health. He laid much of the blame at the feet of television and suburban sprawl.

One could add stagnant wages and economic pressure requiring two or more earners per household, with many people working multiple jobs simply to make ends meet. There is little time left for bowling leagues, church suppers, or neighborhood gatherings.

In 2023, U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy declared loneliness and isolation a national epidemic. He pointed to the health risks associated with social disconnection, arguing that they are more widespread than diabetes or obesity and potentially just as deadly. Loneliness, he noted, increases the risk of premature mortality by 26 percent and can be as harmful as smoking fifteen cigarettes a day (Surgeon Generals report).

The problem with third places can be physical—they may not exist or may be poorly designed—or behavioral. Watching movies at home, shopping online, or staring at phone screens instead of engaging with others can all deepen isolation.

People began to tell me they felt isolated, invisible, and insignificant. Even when they couldn’t put their finger on the word “lonely,” time and time again, people of all ages and socioeconomic backgrounds, from every corner of the country, would tell me, “I have to shoulder all of life’s burdens by myself,” or “if I disappear tomorrow, no one will even notice.[...] Designing cities for humans, not cars or business interests, is key to more community spaces where the public can interact and engage in real-life activities” (Surgeon General Murthy)

He also argued that designing cities for humans rather than solely for cars or business interests is essential for creating spaces where people can interact in real life.

Suburban shopping Baltimore County (Photo Philipsen)

For architects and planners, the physical side of third places is of particular interest. While Murthy mentions cities, perhaps the most widespread geography of loneliness is suburban America.

For decades, suburban planning prioritized the automobile. Suburbs were designed almost exclusively around “first places” (housing) and “second places” (workplaces), but rarely around shared community spaces where people could interact spontaneously.

In fact, the demise of the third place did not begin with online shopping, the internet, remote work, or AI. It began when public spaces were considered superfluous and were replaced by private yards in the modern suburb.

But Cities Are Not Automatically Better

Not all is well in cities either.

In the 1970s, I lived in a working-class neighborhood in central Stuttgart, Germany. Nearly every block had a corner pub where neighborhood residents gathered. Many had a reserved long table for regulars—the famous “Stammtisch.”

The Social Democratic Party was still strong and held large public meetings to debate local and national politics. Union members and their families spent weekends in the so-called “Waldheime” (“forest halls”), former villas set amid wooded hillsides overlooking Stuttgart. These places could accommodate dozens, even hundreds, of people. Children played while adults drank beer and debated politics outdoors beneath enormous trees.

Shopping on Market Street, Frederick, MD
(Photo: Philipsen)

The English pub is similarly famous as a neighborhood social institution.

Immigrants to the United States once recreated such communal places near their new homes. In 1899, some 500,000 Baltimoreans were served by more than 1,800 corner bars. Some doubled as Democratic clubs; others featured outdoor beer gardens. Ethnic communities—Lithuanian, Polish, Italian, and many others—built their own stately halls that served functions similar to Stuttgart’s Waldheime.

Little Italy became its own social world, where old men played bocce and neighbors gathered outdoors to watch Italian films projected onto the side of a building.

By the time I arrived in Baltimore, the decline of these establishments was already far advanced, fueled by urban flight, disinvestment, and racial tension—all forces that also contributed to loneliness.

Disinvestment left behind neighborhoods where liquor stores replaced corner bars. Alcohol became associated less with community than with isolation, sold through bulletproof plexiglass windows. There was little opportunity simply to walk in and encounter familiar faces.

Young people hanging around outside such establishments often do so because of the absence of work, opportunity, and better places to gather.

When Third Places Become Instruments of Division

The urban history of third places cannot be told without addressing race and class.

The French philosopher and sociologist Henri Lefebvre, especially in his influential book The Production of Space, explored how urban space is shaped not only physically but socially and politically.

Lefebvre described space as experienced, perceived, and imagined, emphasizing how access, appropriation, and domination shape public life.

In the United States, racial segregation deeply influenced who could occupy public space, who controlled it, and who was excluded from it. Even seating on public transit buses became subject to racial hierarchy. Parks, pools, restaurants, and entire neighborhoods were shaped by systems of exclusion.

Neglected public space in disinvested community
in Baltimore (Photo: Philipsen)

Through segregation, disinvestment, and neglect, third places can shift from civic assets into liabilities. The neglected Central Park of the 1970s and 1980s, or the abandoned pocket park filled with needles and illegal activity, illustrates how public space can deteriorate when social stewardship disappears.

High-poverty neighborhoods in New York City have 21 percent less park access than wealthier neighborhoods, reflecting a trend in unequal access to parks in low-income neighborhoods in US cities. Recognizing this disparity, NYCHA and NYC Parks are bridging the gap through initiatives like Walk to a Park and Connected Communities and spending $23 million to create open areas and playgrounds at six public housing developments. This investment aims to foster social connections, improve health outcomes, and provide the environmental benefits of parks to residents currently lacking them. (Urban Institute)

Public Markets and the Reinvention of Civic Space

Today, parks, playgrounds, and urban plazas once again receive serious attention, not only in New York and not only in affluent areas.

Older East Coast cities still retain traces of an earlier civic model in which municipalities operated bathhouses, public markets, swimming pools, recreation centers, and libraries—all effectively third places, even before the term existed.

Public Library San Diego (Photo Philipsen)

Baltimore still has five public market halls, four in neighborhoods that could be characterized as food deserts. Common in Europe, indoor markets still exist in many US cities such as Philadelphia, Cincinnati, Seattle or even Los Angeles as well. Similar indoor markets survive in cities such as Philadelphia, Seattle, Cincinnati, and Los Angeles.

These markets have proven more durable than the suburban shopping mall, which temporarily functioned as a privatized substitute for public civic life. Yet malls—with their piped-in music, chain stores, and tightly controlled environments—ultimately failed to satisfy deeper human desires for authenticity, nature, and social spontaneity.

As malls declined, suburbia struggled to invent meaningful replacements.

Architectural critic Alexandra Lange captured this tension in her book Meet Me by the Fountain, describing malls as both “temples of commerce” and the “agora of the suburbs.”

"Few places have been as nostalgized, or as maligned, as malls. Since their birth in the 1950s, they have loomed large as temples of commerce, the agora of the suburbs".(Alexandra Lange "Meet Me by the Fountain: An Inside History of the Mall")

Urban Renewal and the Destruction of Urban Life

Cities such as Baltimore and Philadelphia with their traditionally strong local pride and cohesion around local sports teams, brews and tightly knit ethnic enclaves offer particularly rich case studies in what went wrong during the era of urban renewal and urban flight and how it diminished teh public roam. A nostalgic British video describes in great detail how the overseas version of the decline of Main Street translated into a loss of community and more isolation.

High Street as a third place
Screenshot from British High Street video.

Long before others recognized the danger, Jane Jacobs warned that destroying lively public streets would destroy the soul of the city. Her seminal book The Death and Life of Great American Cities remains essential reading.

“Under the seeming disorder of the old city, wherever the old city is working successfully, is a marvelous order for maintaining the safety of the streets and the freedom of the city. It is a complex order. Its essence is intricacy of sidewalk use, bringing with it a constant succession of eyes. This order is all composed of movement and change, and although it is life, not art, we may fancifully call it the art form of the city and liken it to the dance (Jane Jacobs, The Death and Life of Great American Cities)

In the 1970s, Baltimore Mayor William Donald Schaefer launched an ambitious “renaissance” for the struggling city. Public spaces became central to his strategy: annual city fairs, Harborplace, tall ship festivals, plazas, skywalks, and entertainment districts.

Baltimore HarborPlace (Photo Philipsen)

Yet urban renewal often turned its back on traditional streets. Windswept plazas surrounded by modern office towers lacked the “eyes on the street” Jacobs considered essential. Despite programming, concerts, folding chairs, and maintenance crews, many spaces remained lifeless.

The Most Recent Challenges

In the post-Covid era of remote work, social media addiction, and gig-economy fragmentation, sustaining public life has become even more difficult. City street life and public transit ridership remain behind what they were before the pandemic in most cities in spite of continued global growth of urban conglomerations and the much discussed "creative class" supposedly infusing urban life and despite widespread conversion of older business buildings into apartments.

Urban malls, created in the futile attempt to compete with the suburbs, came late and died early, sharing the fate of their suburban original. The Pavilions in Denver face partial demolition after only 25 years, so does Horton Plaza in San Diego and many others, too. Denver's idea for the "Pavilions" A public open space as part of a "social district" in a radical expansion of the notion of "third place".

Similarly, Baltimore’s Harborplace pavilions, once symbolized urban revival, eventually followed the trajectory of bigger malls: decline, receivership, and now possible demolition.

Horton Plaza, a failing urban mall (Photo: Philipsen)

In his book The City of Tomorrow the British urbanist Peter Hall criticized what he called the “Rousification of America” in Cities of Tomorrow: the transformation of cities into entertainment stages managed by private corporations such as the The Rouse Company.

Ironically, Baltimore now seeks salvation for the harbor by privatizing even more space through residential tower development.

The Enduring Strength of Traditional Public Space

Yet traditional urban squares and parks endure remarkably well, whether they are baked into the urban fabric from the beginning as in the case of Savannah, Ga or Washington DC or were later additions such as Atlanta's Centennial Park.

Baltimore’s most successful public space may well be Mount Vernon Place surrounding the Washington Monument. Its symmetrical park quadrants and stately architecture create an urban composition that admirers compare to Paris.

All around the world and for centuries public parks have served as quintessential third places. Whether Boston Common, Central Park, Bryant Park, or Baltimore’s Patterson Park, a successful make-up requires that they are well maintained, safe, and defined by active, occupied buildings. around them.

New Forms of Third Places

Universities have long organized themselves around campus greens—classic third spaces designed to foster interaction. Contemporary expansion plans continue to emphasize informal mingling among students from different disciplines. Landscape architect Dorothy Faris notes that spontaneous conversations in third places are essential to student well-being and social connection.

“The third spaces we build in academic settings are so important to relieve students’ stress. ...Researchers found that nearly half of students have spontaneous conversations in third places at least once a day. Building spaces to encourage social networks is so necessary.” (Dorothy Faris, a partner and landscape architect with Mithun in Seattle as quoted by ULI).

As habits change, new forms of third places emerge.

Dog parks, reclaimed waterfronts, freeway caps, and reinvented public libraries all represent contemporary adaptations. Libraries in cities such as Seattle and San Diego continue to thrive by reinventing themselves architecturally and programmatically.

Waterfront redevelopment may represent America’s greatest success in creating new types of attractive public urban space in the form of parks, promenades or riverwalks. Cities large and small—from New York City and Chicago to Frederick and Norfolk—have rediscovered rivers, harbors, and creeks as civic assets.

Tampa Riverwalk

Even cities without major waterways sometimes create them. James Rouse famously built a lake in Columbia to anchor civic life around a newly created waterfront.

Finally the term "third space" has become inflationary and is now also used for spaces inside private offices, restaurants, museums and libraries designed for people to interact, sometimes by melting the line between inside and outside.

Art as a Third Place

Art, long discovered as a force that can revive or become a pioneer is another antidote to loneliness, often temporary in nature. As Daisy Fancourt argues in Arts in Health, the arts possess remarkable power to foster connection and well-being.

The other night I attended an art walk in Baltimore's in the Station North Arts and entertainment district preceded by a happy hour mingle with locally brewed beer brewed in a former industrial building . It was a beautiful spring evening and a good sized group enjoyed the guided tour of creative light installations next to a playground, on an otherwise banal parking garage across from an arthouse movie, on the facade of a night club to be redeveloped as an arts hub and a small gathering place on the footprint of a demolished modernist former concrete retail cube.

Art Cure: The Science of How the Arts Save Lives.
Daisy Fancourt

Baltimore urbanites always register it with relief that urban life is still there in spite of all challenges, especially when finding it in blocks that were considered sketchy not too long ago .

The combination of art with the physical analog company of fellow walkers awakes sensory impressions of happiness and discovery. In that instance all of Station North became a third space, united by art, imagination and the desire to be with others in the city.

Night markets, art festivals and street concerts similarly allow third places to appear on a temporary basis.

Lessons to Be Learned

Even the best physical third spaces won't work if they are devoid of people. A successful third space needs a good vessel but also the human interaction. The isolation resulting from TV, Internet, social media and AI cannot be solely overcome by offering good public spaces but a lack of public spaces certainly contributes to isolation.

The American commentator, journalist and book author Ezra Klein argues that technology has never been able to fulfill demands but just shifted it to higher levels. He argues that AI will likewise not eliminate the desire for human contact but rather elevate it, although he isn't sure. In a commentary in the New York Times he allows for the possibility that AI is different than previous technologies and could advance isolation further.

Third Place playground in Denver (Photo: Philipsen)

While the jury on this matter is still out, it is probably fair to say that no virtual reality or digital medium can replace the real life analogue experience of a crowded city plaza or the experience of urban art installations in the company of a group of people eager to learn with open minds on a warm spring evening; just as an online transmitted religious service is no substitute for the experience of community in a congregation assembled in a church nave for song and prayer. A virtual online "no kings" protest makes no sense.

Third Spaces stand for radical openness and changeability – and are therefore also seen as spaces of resistance. Zoe Krueger Weisel and Mila Miletić in Third Places and Why We Need Them).

Which is why Disney can capture some of the appearances of urban space in its amusement parks, but can't touch the experience of a real city that offers much more than amusement. In a city all humans become actors, whether they are on their way to work, are at work, shop, protest, visit, entertain or beg at a street corner. Precisely those third places that best accommodate the messy mix of human actions best provide the richest experience, the belonging we yearn for.

Klaus Philipsen, FAIA

Clean Streets, Empty Blocks: Converting the CBD to a CSD?

2026-04-28T14:36:00.005-04:00

The State of Downtown, according to its boosters, the various downtown BIDs, is always good. To many residents, however their downtown is a rather sad affair, at least since the pandemic. The BIDs continue to clean and sweep with their uniformed "ambassadors" which are a familiar site in many US cities, but the clean streets are largely empty. Retail sales are down, hotel and office occupancies are scary, and whole office towers can be bought for a lot less than a nice condo in New York costs.

The Baltimore SUN attributes the drastic decline in property values to a “Failure to adapt" which "prompts a shift in properties" and a"$1B commercial crash", meaning that more than $1 billion in commercial property value has been erased from Baltimore since 2020 (Baltimore SUN, 4/19/26)

Many cities all around the US are undergoing similar office tower real estate crashes in their downtown, see sinking occupancy rates for offices, hotels and much less foot traffic. Fewer people out and about also means fewer tourist exploring an area which they perceive as a dead zone, a typical death spiral. Is "failure to adapt” really the true cause of the common malaise?

The State of Downtown (Atlanta) 2025 cover

Similar to most cities, Baltimore has many plans and ideas, few that are implemented.

The Urban Land Institute "Advisory Panels" are frequently called in to come up with new ideas or concepts that worked elsewhere. Still most downtowns are riddled with key parcels that are surface parking lots, vacant lots or abandoned buildings. Baltimore's "Superblock" (actually an array of several city blocks in Baltimore's historic retail district) has not moved forward in early 20 years and recently burnt half way down in a giant five-alarm fire. Many other cities can point to similar land assemblies that failed to become the envisioned urban renewal. The CBD is is crisis.

As the global urban population skyrockets, with estimates suggesting 70% of the world’s people will live in cities by 2050, the traditional Central Business District (CBD) faces an existential crisis. Once seen as the epicenter of economic and professional life, CBDs—characterized by office towers and commercial real estate—are grappling with diminished relevance, a crisis accelerated by the pandemic. With the advent of remote and hybrid work, fluctuating office occupancy rates, and competition from emerging mixed-use districts, urban cores must evolve or risk becoming relics of a bygone era. Urban Design Lab

Meanwhile, most cities are actively trying to steer the ship in new directions.

Denver Pavilions

Denver has a downtown development authority and a 2025 downtown area plan. The authority just finished an idea competition and its third ULI Advisory Panel about downtown. Its once
famed Pavilions downtown mall a three-level, open-air shopping center with a movie theater, a bowling alley, 1,000 total parking spaces and a connection to the 16th Street shuttle and RTD. Only 28 years old, the complex is now considered "failing". Before it had to be fully shuttered, the City bought it and is now in the driver's seat. Instead of giving it to developer without any restrictions (like Baltimore did with its once famous HarborPlace), Denver's idea competition and ULI Advisory panel brainstormed a framework that will steer the redevelopment in a public-private partnership somewhat tailored around the concept of the very successful Denver Union Station TOD redevelopment. Maybe to the surprise of the Mayor, the ULI panel proposed a use that includes a large open space, i.e. something that doesn't create income in itself. The concepts presented in April centered around the creation of a "social district". In spite of the drastic reduction of leasable space Mayor Johnston found the proposals "incredibly compelling".

Denver Pavilions (Photo: Philipsen)

A new model is gaining traction: the Central Social District (CSD). Unlike CBDs, which primarily focus on commercial real estate, CSDs are designed as vibrant, multi-use hubs that blend work, leisure, culture, and social interaction. These districts cater not only to office workers but also to residents, tourists, and visitors, creating spaces that reflect the modern urban lifestyle’s demands(The Rise of the Social District, Urban Design Lab

Somewhere between the CBD and the CSD Denver just completed the rebuild of its 16th Street open air shopping mall, originally designed by Ian Pei. The pedestrian mall connects the government district and the tremendously successful Union Station TOD with two large transit nodes on the ends.

Denver refurbished 16th Street Mall

Atlanta, also a city with an ailing downtown, is also working hard on investments that aim to reconnect the isolated CBD. By covering a small portion of a sunken freeway with a park on top (the Stitch) Atlanta Downtown hopes for a surge of affordable housing along both sides stitching downtown to the disinvested neighborhoods to the northeast. So far, this project exists only on paper.

By contrast, the construction of the 6 million square foot, $5 bn mixed-use development Centennial Yards over 50 acres of already partially decked railroad tracks (the Gulch) to revive its ailing southern part of downtown is well underway. This new downtown adjacent area will create a connection to the State Farm Arena and Mercedes Benz stadium. Per investor CIM's managing director Brian McGowan there is no sense that the new development would take downtown's butter off the bread, a frequent notion of critics who see urban development as a zero sum game.

Next door to Centennial Yards a Tech Village is in the making which revives the oldest historic core (SoDo) with 25 projects going on all at once. Especially the South Downtown project, fueled by the wealthy patron David Cummings who wants to give local start-ups a home in village type of setting. His concept looks a bit like a "social district". Already the website claims that the Atlanta Tech Village is ...the 4th largest tech space in the U.S. with deep connections to Atlanta’s business and investment community."

Downtown Baltimore: No enough feet on the ground
(Photo: Philipsen)

Both, Denver and Atlanta are cities with a high growth rates in the core city and the region, both have huge land areas gained through annexation. A comparison to shrinking industrial legacy cities like St Louis, Cincinnati, Cleveland or Baltimore comparison is not fair.

Still, there are lessons for the transformations of a downtown. Many downtowns are choked and isolated by multi-lane high capacity streets that were the late result of Eisenhower's Interstate plans and overly destructive urban renewal plans. Dallas built a successful deck, Rochester filled a section of its inner beltway, Boston famously built the ditch and Seattle buried its elevated freeway.

To change the DNA of the old financial district from 9-5 office towers to a 24/7 "social district" neighborhood will take more than stitching across barriers to the surrounding areas, more than plans, more than adaptive reuse that brings tCIhousands residents into what used to be a sterile office district. There will still be too few feet on the ground. The new social district will even take more than bringing visitors to conventions, or events or tourists to see architectural attractions.

Centennial Yards masterplan (CIM)

More than anything, it takes that these various elements of revival work in synergy, that there are clear priorities set and investments are made in a strategic, intentional and systematic manner. The plans need to be outcome centered and result in key downtown routes to be free of large vacant dilapidated buildings or vacant lots that are dreadful or even scary to pass.

Baltimore's new Planning Director and now Housing Commissioner Tim Keane who came from leading the planning department of Atlanta likes to stress design and urban form as a driver for planning. He says, "a whole bunch of plans don't make a city", unless they all aim for the same well defined objective. (He applied those principles to Atlanta's comprehensive plan).

Downtown Rise plan is Baltimore’s case in point of a well-intentioned plan that lacks focus, clear priorities, or a well defined outcome. The plan is mostly focused on better streetscapes and more what planners came to call “walkability”. This is laudable, but the document not only treats all streets the same instead of delineating the most important pedestrian routes. Streetscaping will not make downtown less deserted or revert the giant tax losses. The former Mechanic Theater lot right at the heart of downtown and adjacent to a subway stop should be a high priority.

Not much left of the Superblock
(Photo Philipsen)

In Baltimore new financial incentives are available now with the close of the legislative session which gave downtown a tax credit option that is supposed to make investment more lucrative. Atlanta is reviewing the renewal of their downtown TIF District which Atlanta Downtown COO Jennifer Ball calls their most successful tool.

Nothing will bring the vitality back that downtowns used to have when the offices were filled and shopping happened here and not in malls or online. The idea of a "Social District" may provide an answer, serving new residents and visitors alike. Living, working, shopping, entertaining and visiting are needed. People in the street beget more people. So far, attractions bring people in for shows, games and events and leave right afterwards. For them to stay downtown needs more than electronic billboards. It needs viable, lively and attractive "third places". The privatization of Baltimore's existing HarborPlace "third space" is the opposite of making parts of the private Denver Pavilions public.

All improvements have to work seamlessly together. Baltimore has also a new CEO of the economic development agency BDC. He is revamping the agency to one that leads instead of reacts. this is a good goal. As the CEO of Baltimore's Downtown Partnership says in her 2025 report:

Change doesn’t happen all at once. It’s built block by block, partnership by partnership, piece by piece. This belief shapes the theme of this year's annual report — Downtown by Design (Shelonda Stokes)

Design anticipates a physical outcome, imagines what is possible and creates a path for getting there. It is, in short what downtowns need.

Klaus Philipsen, FAIA

Related articles on this blog:

Back to the Office—or Forward to Something Else?

Towards a New American Downtown

From Cubicles to Community: The City Beyond the Office (1of 2)

Why are so many US cities still so empty?

Apocalypse or Paradise - Where Are We Heading?

2026-04-03T22:12:00.005-04:00

The arc of history bends towards progress

Most people born after the age of Enlightenment take it for granted that progress is inevitable. Science, technology and medicine lead to ever more health, wealth and mobility. Productivity and education increase hand in hand, only the sky is the limit.

Democracy unfolded, social justice and civil and women's rights became goals including more people into production, education and decision making. Not only did more people grow old but the human body grew taller and athletes break ever new records. Human brains and senses attune remarkably well to new environmental challenges, from driving cars to exploring space, being able to handle complicated computer interfaces or understanding quantum physics. In spite of mind bending global population growth, global hunger was reduced and more and more people benefitted from some level of prosperity.

Apocalypse or Paradise. A custom image created by ChatGPT

This gave the nostalgic notion that "the good old times" were "better" little currency. Realizing how limited those old days were for people of color, women, children and people with disabilities sustained a widespread sentiment that the future will be better than the past. The teleological arc long held by religion with a promise of a better afterlife was replaced by the prospect of a better life right here on this earth, for us, our children and children's-children. Whatever losses in the environment and biodiversity seemed offset by the advance in prosperity. Cultural critics' suggestion that pressures in the natural environment would inevitably telegraph into the human condition, in as much as the human is just another animal and part of the natural systems surrounding us, were rarely taken seriously and washed over by consumerism and ever more materialism. The past seemed to prove that mankind can power through whatever challenges there are and come out better in the end.

The strong cohort of baby boomers rode on this wave of optimism through most of their post WWII lives, and, indeed, there were largely protected from catastrophes on the scale of WW II. This makes the current reckoning so much harder.

The current reckoning

Could it be that humanity's upward trajectory is not inevitable? This is a shocking question. Optimism is baked into the American DNA. Smile, believe, hope, work hard and things will turn out ok, or don't they?

Long periods of backtracking have happened before in history. After the Roman Empire sank into irrelevance came centuries of comparative stagnation during which there was not only not as much progress in science and technology, but some of what had already been achieved was actually forgotten. At least this is the lore. Some scholars now think that the term "dark age" for that period is an exaggeration and misconception created in the Renaissance. Regardless of how dark it really was, large swaths of Europe saw economic, political, and cultural infrastructure decline, manifesting itself in provincialism, lack of trade, decline of literacy, primitive cooking and feudal strive. The large underclass of peasants brought the 30-year war, a revolt against feudalistic oppression. Pestilence ravaged the continent and the power of the church combined with religious fervor fueled witch hunts and burnings on the stake. It wasn't a global darkness, though. In the same period the Islamic world leaped ahead in mathematics and the sciences, in part by building on the foundation of Greek and other ancient texts translated into Arabic. The German poet and polymath Johann Wolfgang Goethe (1749-1832) had thought that the human spirit goes through four "epochs", which the cultural pessimist Oswald Spengler applied to history as well: The four stages are the poetic (in sync with nature), the theological (god as an explanation), the philosophical (rational explntions) and the prosaic (materialism). In this rather pessimistic, or cyclical view, culture crashes and reverts to primitive stages.

The Gutenberg press was instrumental in access
to knowledge

Is the US the current day Rome or at the end of the prosaic phase? Stagnant incomes for large swaths of the populace, homelessness, social isolation, obesity and cancer rates grow, while life expectancy and literacy sinks. America seems to be tripping over itself when global collaboration, from which it had benefitted a long time, is dismantled. Ever more people see the nation going down the wrong path. It is easy to extrapolate this to the human race altogether having taken the wrong turn.

Many threats are, indeed, global: The health of the entire planet is in danger thanks to excessive CO2 emissions and unchecked resource depletion. The new journey to the moon once again illuminates the fragility of our planet with its relatively small size and thin layer of an atmosphere.

Technology has become a threat to many as well. Some say social media make us dumber. Artificial intelligence looms as a threat that could get the better of us while we push it forward in a wild race without any guardrails. AI could pose more immediate challenges like the bursting of the inflated investment bubble or data centers which use all the electric energy we need for CO2 reduction, but it is entirely possible that AI takes control from us. Already it appears that some AI controlled weapon systems operate in the heat of war entirely without human oversight.

Technology, a Trojan horse destroying humanity?

Success and failure often reside in close proximity. They often come in the shape of cascades or waves. In the case of failure these accelerating self propelling cascades are known as doom loops. We all have had the experience where success begets more success and things seem to be going smoothly almost by themselves. The things tip to the other side. A single mishap appears to initiate an entire chain of failures, a downward spiral from which it is hard to recover. What if societies have similar phases, only that they may last hundreds of years? Are we in a doom-loop where humanity not only stagnates but backslides? What if our falling behind on knowledge, and prosperity is not limited to the US but indicates a beginning global trend? If productivity slips, food, peace, mobility and access become scarce and the riches dwindle.

Religion holds that the forces that set off one loop or another (think the seven plagues) are fate and inevitable. Enlightenment says, no, we can shape our future, these things are not inevitable but the result of bad choices that generate particularly poor conditions. The US may be a good canary in the mineshaft. The country likes to see itself as a country with a destiny and as the most developed nation in the world. Indeed, we exerted a huge cultural and economic influence across all continents. If this powerhouse struggles, it will not go unnoticed.

Outside religion explanations for the causes are manyfold. Frequently a theory about the rise and fall of empires is used but even for the decline of the Romand Empire there are as many reasons given as there are papers written.

But in spite of ominous indicators, most behave like crew and passengers on the Titanic who thought they were on an unsinkable ship even after an ominous shudder just played the music louder. But just as on the Titanic this won't help. The problem is a lack of imagination and sufficient fantasy to consider scenarios where a different course would be better than full steam ahead.

In the same way we couldn't imagine that the World Trade Center towers could be felled in the manner they fell, nor could we imagine how Baltimore's Key Bridge could be brought down in seconds by a single ship. It is also a lack of imagination to consider Iran conquered through bombing or that the Strait of Hormuz would really be closed to world trade. In the matter of climate change the entire world is still moving full steam ahead on the wrong course, in front of all the US.

We also fail to imagine or prevent that AI could enslave us or that a cascade of climate tipping points could render the planet largely uninhabitable. The exception are artists, by definition the experts of imagination. Dystopian or apocalyptic novels, paintings often articulate widespread sentiments that were looking for a way of getting expressed. The British author Ian McEwan placed his latest novel "What We Can Know" 100 years from now in which his British characters post nuclear war and horrendous floods look back on today's time as a relative paradise. Travel in his future is impeded by ever present water, pirates and tribal strive, just as in medieval times. Dystopian artistic expressions appear to have increased in recent years as a prominent cultural aesthetic expressing anxieties over technology, political instability, and perceived social decay, spread across literature, visual arts, fashion, and media. A phenomenon one could also observe in the art of the so called "golden twenties". (Fritz Lang's film Metropolis, 1927)

Doomsday or Speed-bump?

So what is it? Are we only passing over a historic speed bump or are we condemned to doom? For most of history humans have oscillated between the "the end is near" and the hope for salvation. In fact, in human story telling and religion the end and salvation were always inseparably intertwined. They would happen in sequence, leaving salvation to the afterlife. Enlightenment moved this from an individual experience to the collective societal salvation through progress right here on earth. At the same time society began to lose sight of the individual death, the destruction and tragedies of the less fortunate cultures, classes and geographies and ignored these existential facts in favor of visions of a system of material opulence and abundance.

After centuries in which apocalyptic pessimism and idealistic optimism alternated in art, philosophy and beliefs the world still turns, the end never came. Humanity always came through and most were better off than before. Humans learned to split the atom but after one devastating dramatic lapse learned to keep the menace in check. Keeping hope alive became a model of thought not just of priests and ministers but became an engine for philosophy (Ernst Bloch, the Principle Hope) and politicians (Obama) as well. Hope appears to be the principle with which societies across the globe approach artificial intelligence with the promise that it will come to the rescue and solve climate change, the scrooge of war and disease, and whatever shortage of resources once and forever. Yet, the same technology has also the potential for doom on many levels. For example by becoming a menace that by "thinking" on levels humans can't achieve eventually taking control of them. We see a mad race of getting AI to higher levels before there is any concept for how a monster could be prevented from taking over; an apocalyptic outcome is seen as possible even by AI's creators.

Similarly, climate change runs its course without real effective CO2 reductions. Combined the world is racing towards ever new CO2 emission records. The US administration has traded any concern for emissions with dropping a billion dollars worth of bombs per day which are not only unleashing terror but also untold carbon emissions. The expressed desire to bomb a civilized nation "into the stone age" may very well be a harbinger of a world sliding back of destruction and tribal strife.

The challenges of climate change, AI and global aggression are different from past scenarios of human doom which were more local. Except for imagined natural catastrophies such as a collision with a giant meteor, a huge volcano eruption causing global winter. Unlike the course of the Titanic which could have been altered with a single decision, current threats require a level of international collaboration which is hard to achieve and which we are clearly not seeing. So apocalyptic outcomes appear quite possible.

We have insufficient data to know if we have already passed critical tipping points in climate or in AI to which would make reversal or control impossible.

This leaves the possibility for a change of course. It is possible that things can get worse before becoming irreversible so that large scale collaboration could still materialize. It is also possible that we have overlooked forces in the global or galactic natural systems that balance out some of the ill effects humans have created. It could be that geo-engineered interventions such effective large scale carbon-capture in the air or the oceans can be invented and managed, possibly with the help of AI. It is possible that AI hits some insurmountable threshold in which it doesn't get smarter than humans or that it collapses due to lack of electric power which, of course, would defang it in a very ironic way.

Ironically, the better technologies may become in capturing or creating clean energy, the quicker AI will evolve. The world of abundance, peace, happy life and natural diversity is still a possible outcome. This prospect should keep us motivated, right now, when the celebrations of Passover and resurrection are nearly drowned by the sound of sirens, and bombs. Crisis is always an opportunity to rethink, retool and correct course

Klaus Philipsen, FAIA

A Review of Bruno Carvalho"s Book "The Invention of the Future - A History of Cities"

2026-02-27T17:55:00.003-05:00

Well, the future for me is already a thing of the past"
Bob Dylan, Bye and Bye

Most of human history was static. It was the British physicist David Deutsch in his book "The Beginning of Infinity" who first made me understand that the idea one could invent the future would have been ridiculously foreign to people who repeated what their fathers had done, their grandfathers and so forth.

The Invention of the Future: A History of Cities
in the Modern World, by Bruno Carvalho.
(Princeton University Press)

That progress is both possible and desirable is perhaps the quintessential idea of the Enlightenment. (David Deutsch)

Bruno Carvalho, a Brazilian-American Harvard Professor of Romance Languages and Literatures, African and African American Studies and Co-Director of the Harvard Mellon Urban Initiative similarly picks the period of Enlightenment as the starting point for his history of the city and makes the concept of planning the future the central theme in recently published book. (The Invention of the Future - A History of Cities in the Modern World )

His observations begin in the middle of the 18th century, precisely the time when science, thinking and technology started to take off in what we now call the era of enlightenment. Unlike Deutsch, Carvalho is less interested in science than in art, architecture, planning, culture and their effects on cities as lived and imagined spaces. His particular angle is Portugal and its former colony, Brazil. His book originated with lectures and studies in which he explored his topic over several years. Talking about his studies in an interview seven years ago he said:

We can think of much of modernity in terms of competing visions of what the future ought to be like. In contrast, today, with the realities of climate change and labor precarity setting in, it often seems as if a dreadful future is inevitable. (Bruno Carvalho in the Harvard Gazette)

The author's broad educational background brings together perspectives from the social sciences, design, cultural materials such as art, literature, film. He says that combined with historical knowledge this allows to confront entrenched intuitions and stretch the limits of the thinkable. It is important to him that he undertakes these cross disciplinary journeys with a Brazilian lens instead of the Euro-centric one- he calls the Atlantic- view that prevailed in enlightenment and a long time after in urban research.

Bruno Carvalho (website)

He considers how social change such as the abolition of slavery and colonial rule enabled the rapid growth of cities in the global South, from Buenos Aires to Brasilia to Lagos and illustrates with graphs the global shifts in urban growth. As a child the later urbanist explored his native Rio de Janeiro in search of soccer, books, films, and music. When he married an architect, the observation of cities was enriched by watching buildings, the constituent elements of cities.

The question of whether we are objects in a predetermined world or whether we are subjects who can shape the future has been a longstanding debate among philosophers, psychologists and educators.

While Carvalho clearly sides with the belief that we can shape the future he is careful to emphasize the limits. He says right in the introduction that his book tells a story about how ever-changing modern cities defied predictions and remade the destinies of humanity. In other words, the future takes unexpected turns.

My research (shows) that reasonable predictions tend to underestimate the range of possible outcomes. In other words, we’re often really, really wrong in our forecasting. (Carvalho in an 2023 interview with the Harvard Crimson)

He cites the philosopher Walter Benjamin who mused about Klee’s angel painting how the angel facing backwards to the past is watching one "single catastrophe which keeps piling wreckage upon wreckage" while he is driven forward by a storm of progress. The angel can’t pause, to "make whole what has been smashed.” “Reasonable expectations underestimate the range of possible outcomes”, Carvalho admonishes. Indeed, a firm believe can move mountains as the English poet William Blake noted 40 years after what Carvalho makes the pivotal event of his book.

Then I asked: “does a firm perswasion that a thing is so, make it so?”
He replied: “All Poets believe that it does, & in ages of imagination this
firm perswasion removed mountains; but many are not capable of a firm
perswasion of any thing.”
William Blake, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell (ca. 1790)

Carvalho uses the destruction of Lisbon in 1755 when a giant earthquake leveled most of Lisbon center as the starting point of his observations on urban planning. This puts it 130 years before Peter Halls seminal history of urban planning visions "Cities of Tomorrow- An Intellectual History of Urban Planning and Design Since 1880", first published in 1988, another book investigating the history of the future, now widely used as seminal source in planning schools. Unlike Carvalho who starts with calamity, the late urban planner Peter Hall begins under the heading "Cities of Imagination" with comprehensive, often radical, utopian visions like the Garden City or Radiant City, which aimed to completely re-engineer urban life and often came out of anarchist ideas. Hall writes:

When, however, the time at last came for their ideals to be translated into bricks and mortar, the irony was that – more often than not – this happened through the agency of state bureaucracies, which they would have hated. How this came about, how far it was responsible for the subsequent disillusionment with the idea of planning, will be a central question that the book must address. (Hall)

Similarly, Carvalho recognizes that by far not every plan goes according to what was envisioned. He states:

Modernity was never absolute.It was characterized by an ongoing interplay between continuity and rupture, fixity and flux, limits and possibilities. [...]No totalizing theory of change could resist contact with empirical realities. (Carvalho)

Though the immediate response to the Lisbon catastrophe of 1755 was despair and a loss of optimism, rather than a roll up the sleeves and build a new city attitude Not surprising in a deeply religious populace trying to come to terms with the destruction of 85% of all structures and maybe about 10,000 dead in a city of then about 200,000 people. But the disaster proved to be an opportunity for a secretary of the king named Sebastião José de Carvalho e Melo, later known as the Marquis de Pombal. By forging a rational and modern path out of the destruction. the Marquis eventually became the de facto ruler of Portugal The author doesn't acknowledge that his last name is the same as Pombal's, but it is a fun fact, albeit not particularly meaningful, since Carvalho is a common Portuguese name.

Portugal at the time was seen as backwards by the standards of other European countries which were more advanced in enlightenment thinking, but it was also rich as a colonial power, especially through the gold from Brazil, the author's birthplace.

Facing Lisbon's destruction, Pombal in very modern fashion asked the same engineer who had successfully designed a massive aqueduct for Lisbon, which survived the quake, to develop five alternative scenarios for Lisbon's future. The resulting options ranged from rebuild as it was to relocating the city altogether. Pombal eventually adopted the second most radical plan which introduced an all new rectangular street grid for the lower and most destructed portion of the city, erasing all old property lines along tangled streets and alleys and rebuild from scratch. Three years of refinements ended in a plan approved by the king.

The street grid wasn't the only innovation, the new plan mandated more seismic resilient construction, featured cisterns and sewers and large apartment buildings replacing the small and crowded old tenements. The facades of the buildings were cleansed of baroque opulence in favor of more functionality. The plan even banned catholic cathedrals from the usual prominent locations and instead envisioned civic plazas instead.

I recall during my first visit to Lisbon some 50 years ago looking down on to the Baixa, i.e. Pombal's city of 1758, and its Praça do Comércio (Commerce Square). A tourist guide still called it the "new town" and explained how progressive it was at the time.

Of course, Pombal and his architects and engineers worked from precedents, including Cristopher Wren's reconstruction plans for London after the Great Fire of 1666 which remained largely unbuilt because London ultimately opted for a far less drastic approach. Turin in Italy had grid based expansion quarters, but they were built on open space, so was the new city of Petersburg in Russia. The author points out that the 1573 Law of the Indies, enacted by Spain, set forth planning rules for new settlements in the new South American colonies that mandated the grid as a system of order, rationality and control and imposed for each city a plaza mayor. The grid was also used in several Roman cities and was used in Aztec cities All this makes Lisbon as the starting point of the book a bit questionable, but then, the book is less about a particular physical form (the grid) but about the modern notion of planning as a tool of realizing a different future, a future that wasn't destined by prophesy or God. In the new Lisbon not churches but commerce occupied the most prominent spots.

The author uses Lisbon as his baseline case for how urban planning relates to rationalism, bureaucratic centralization, technical innovation and economic reform. This same mix can also be found in the Law of the Indies but in Lisbon it came with a new secular twist. Possibly Carvalho's emphasis on Lisbon is belated making up for the lacking foreign resonance regarding Pombal's modern rebuild plan at the time. Most international attention back then was on the still ongoing medieval practice of burning people on the stakes long a thing of the past in more enlightened countries. Even Pombal wasn't safe. He wasn't burned but his statue would be removed, like Haussman in Paris a century later, Pombal would deposed and fall out of favor for a while. Churches made a comeback in his modern Lisbon whereas in Paris after Haussman came the Commune.

Early on it was Paris, not Lisbon that attracted ideas about the future. The year 1771 produced the first literary utopia placed in a distant future. In it the novelist Mercier fathoms the Paris of the year 2440 with wide, rectilinear boulevards, large public plazas and buildings, all buildings of a consistent height, quite how it actually became after Haussmann, about half a century later. Mercier, of course didn't anticipate the automobile. His utopia included many societal changes such as the abolition of slavery or that the people of Beijing would speak French and a strong bent on the role of literary cultures.

Carvalho is less interested in a chronological development of cities or even the corresponding utopias and more in the inherent contradictions of urban settings and their planning. Urbanity is defined by diversity and flux while planning is trying to bring control, order and discipline. He also points to other dualities such as the romantic preoccupation with rural life and "the pastoral" juxtaposed to the decadent city as the healthier alternative, something he locates in the Jeffersonian model of the United States.The seeming contradiction between planning the future and the resulting unexpected outcomes is what seems to fascinate the author the most, though. Carvalho's frequent excursions to cultural and artistic sidebars extoll the uncontrollable side of urban life which time and again foils the ambitions of autocrats, planners or architects. This ambivalence of the author can frustrate the reader since the narrative arc of the book suffers when -just as in real life- heroes and villains are never neatly divided.

Cities are as diverse as the futures they can nurture. And the futures they can nurture are as diverse as the people that live in them. (Carvalho, pg. 15)

The book includes various period graphics such as William Heath's cartoons on "the march of Intellect" which poke fun of the urban life and the aspirations of an easy future at the same time.

"Poking fun at liberal ambitions for education reform, the rapid pace of industrialization,
and a fashionable interest in applied knowledge, William Heath’s March of Intellect series offered a satirical vision of the wonders and potential cost of progress. While extravagantly dressed ladies window-shop for pastel finery and forgo stairwells in favor of belt-driven slides, a child is moments away from being paved into the road by a carriage at full gallop. The automation of domestic labor — through a device called the “Grand Servant Superseding Apparatus for doing every kind of household work &c &c &c &c” — leaves women more time for recreation (or idle folly): smoking shisha in public, riding horsy hovercrafts, and traveling effortlessly to South America, Bengal, and Cape Town through the use of vacuum tubes, accelerator bridges, and pedestrian tunnels. Men gorge themselves on pineapples and guzzle bottles at the Champagne Depot. Postmen flit around with winged capes; a clocked-in shoeshiner has the time to read a newspaper in French, thanks to his boot-cleaning engine. Even convicts have it better: they embark for New South Wales on a gargoyle zeppelin, but still have panoramic views." (Source: Public Domaine Review)

Heath's cartoon also illustrates the ambiguity of progress. It reminds me of how we are trying to come to grips with the onset of AI. The anticipation of Elon Musk's Hyperloop tubes in the cartoon's vacuum tube to Bengal is eerie.

When Carvalho brings up the late German theorist of history Reinhart Kosseleck, and his book Futures Past in which Kosselek shows that in modernity past and future become 'relocated', not unlike Benjamin's angel who his pushed into a future while looking back. Kosseleck's distinction between prophecy and prognosis in their relation to time could be an ordering element for Carvalho's book. He mentions it but then drops the thought again.

Apocalyptic prophecy destroys time through its fixation on the end whereas prognosis produces time (Kosseleck)

Modernity with its promises of freedom, progress, and human improvement created an accelerating world toward an unknown future producing options and also the promise of utopian fulfillment. Koselleck points out that novel experiences require structures of repetition within the stream of history, resolving the tension between repetition and rupture (or as Carvalho likes to put it -"fixity and flux") in a dialectic manner. I was also reminded of a 2011 exhibit "The History of the City's Future" which illustrated how wrong many optimistic predictions or prognosis have been, mostly due to their fixation on technology which ignored social development. Carvalho alo pay tribute to some of those utopias depicting a number of corporate advertisements of the 1950s in which the sky is populated with all kinds of flying transportation. To his credit, Carvalho always keeps and eye on the social, political and artistic side of things.

Carvalho moves through the centuries and around the globe in a tour de force which swells the book to 342 pages of text. Much is only very loosely related to his title "the invention of the future" and not always adds new insights to the history of urban planning, for example when he describes the plans of north American cities such as New York's Manhattan plan of 1811, DC's L'Enfant plan, or William Penn's Philadelphia plan. In spite of ample quotes from Peter Marcuse to Max Weber to Rem Koolhaas, he hardly covers new ground, except when he adds to future categories of destiny and prognosis the category of chance which comes from capitalism's steamrolling acceleration of change.

Carvalho also deviates from the traditional narrative of a history of urban planning with his frequent references to the global south, to colonialism, slavery and native peoples, for example when he stresses the strong link between rural slavery (cotton) and thriving cities (textiles). He quotes Frederick Douglass' memory of his slaveholder telling him to have "complete thoughtlessness of the future", this illuminating the liberating aspect of laying out a future but immediately pointing to the ambivalence of cities, also illustrated by Douglass who arriving in Baltimore observed "a city slave is almost a freeman, compared with a slave on the plantation" but later, when working in Baltimore's shipyards suffered the foreclosure of possibilities. Urban planning, says Carvalho, would navigate between the transformative and liberating potentials and the restrictive powers seeking to limit those as well as some of unhealthy effects of crowded urban living.

It seems that the book exhausted its author as well. In his epilogue he asks "what will the cities of tomorrow be like" but offers no answers beyond the current conventional wisdom of mixed use, transit oriented development and the 15 minute city. He offers some truisms such as that "one constant in the history of urbanization is a degree of indeterminacy" or "that the appeal of cities has endured". He then seeks refuge with Dante and Italo Calvino. "Futures not achieved are dead branches" he quotes but then reminds us that dead branches feed the future plants. "The future can be a thing of the past, he it is never dead. Futures are closed for some and open for others" he says at the very end, once more emphasizing ambiguity.

None of this addresses the real challenges for which the current city needs to find a viable future: Remote work and automatization of work already decimating downtowns in many countries, climate change in its many facets from too much to no water, extreme temperatures, excessive wind speeds, the increasing isolation of individuals overwhelmed by change and the population decline that many developed countries face. Because he presents such a rich canvas of the urban past in its many facets and with plenty of cross references it is perfectly understandable that there is no room for detailed predictions, even though the past offers a splendid foundation, as the author himself points out.

This could be Carvalho's next book as we may find ourselves on the threshold of another breakpoint that could one day be seen as a rupture equal to enlightenment- the onset of artificial intelligence. In its most recent incarnation as "agentive AI" this tool is on the cusp of allowing planners to prognosticate and optimize various planning scenarios with previously impossible accuracy and detail. The author's careful distinction between prediction and prognosis may become obliterated, the risk of unintended consequences and unexpected results finally reduced. Not in the sense that the future is preordained but that it can be better planned than ever before.

Klaus Philipsen, FAIA

The author has taught the History of Planning and written the book, "Baltimore- Reinventing the Industrial Legacy City"

Related on this Blog: Can we Design a Desirable Future?

Architecture, Philosophy and AI

2026-01-30T21:02:00.016-05:00

To live is to leave traces (Walter Benjamin, German philosopher)

"If architecture is where most of human existence takes place it cannot fail to be a topic of philosophy" (Graham Harman, American philosopher)

Anxiety and Challenges

I recently participated in a luncheon with the local AIA Fellows. The prevailing topic was AI: how it will change architectural practice, if it will replace architects or whether it would make architecture better. The anxiety was palpable, and the prevailing view negative.

Principals of architecture firms worldwide have sleepless nights trying to figure out how they should position their firms for a future full of AI, climate change, global urbanization, and the prospect that new construction in the next 40 years will equal all construction in all of history before. It means, globally, a New York City-sized built area will be added every month. (Architecture 2030). Will American architects be part of this?

Vitruvian Man

This poses a number of challenges: the ethical challenge of how so much stuff can be built in an environmentally responsible manner and how it can be resilient in the face of a new climate reality, combined with the social question of growing isolation and alienation that urban residents experience and the esthetic challenge that much of what is currently built is trite, boring, and subpar, leading to widespread frustration with architecture in general.

Architecture, enslaved in turn by monumentality, consumerism, and the spectacle, has lost its vital essence, traded substance for appearance, depth for surface, aesthetic form for image; the apotheosis of this degradation can be found in the ersatz environments of Las Vegas and Disney World and the artwork of advertising; it is to architecture itself that this fall might be traced. (Neil Leach, The Anaesthetics of Architecture, 1999 via Harvard Design Magazine, 11 Design and Class, 2000)

At the same time, the architect may become an endangered species, potentially replaced by a combination of global multidisciplinary engineering firms, which have been gobbling up the small, local practice for some time, and now artificial intelligence, which promises to produce in seconds what takes architects months or years to do- from ideas to sketches, and from design concepts to construction details and specifications.

It is easy to see that these threats rob not only employers' sleep but also renders young people helpless, who would like to become architects but aren't convinced that the profession can remain relevant.

Why Philosophy?

Doomsday fears are nothing new, but the profession has survived major transformations before- from industrialization, after which architects were no longer also builders, to the increasing specialization that splintered the profession into dozens of fields of practice, the computerization of drafting and modeling, and specifications. The same qualifications that made the architect survive these challenges and remain the coveted profession would likely also provide a guide for the future, but the ever larger focus on technological tools has led many astray from the competencies that really matter.

The competencies that ultimately differentiate the architect not only from AI but also, in a certain way, from an engineer center more around the why than around the how. The how is covered by technology but the why touches on values, a human domain. Questions concerning values, purpose, and reason put things into a larger perspective. The bigger perspective- the questions of meaning and purpose- are the domaine of philosophy. This is how philosophy enters the debate. Philosophy offers critical insights into the relationship between humans and architecture, emphasizing dwelling, beauty, and ethical considerations.

Considering that architecture shapes our lives maybe more than anything else, it is surprising that it has hardly ever been the topic of philosophical inquiry. Equally surprisingly, architects are not known known for asking philosophy for answers to their challenges.

SF MoMa

Not that philosophy wouldn't address topics that are fundamental to what an architects do, namely through ontology (the study of objects) and phenomenology (how humans perceive objects), but also through ethics. Throughout history, philosophy has queried the relation of mind and object, mind and body, reality and perception. All this matters whether designing buildings or cities. When the technical aspects of architecture can be optimized, automated, and simulated, the existential issues become more central. They can't be easily covered by AI, plus they lie at the root of many of the troubles that plague the built environment today- from lacking sustainability and esthetics to serving mostly interests of power and less the common good.

Over the course of Western philosophy, including the history of aesthetics, architecture has largely failed to attract sustained, detailed attention—particularly as compared with other artforms. Neither philosophical issues prompted by architecture, nor the fit of architectural phenomena into larger philosophical debates, have captured the philosophical imagination as have, for example, literature or painting. (Stanford University, (Philosophy of Architecture)

Before dismissing philosophy as obsolete or just a matter of an intellectual fringe, consider that even the old Plato can still be so explosive that Texas A&M University issued an order to strike certain parts of his teachings from the philosophy curriculum. Philosophy can still provide direction, especially in times of tectonic shifts when the old compass has been lost, society is fractured, and seems to lack meaning. An International Society for the Philosophy of Architecture located in Newcastle, GB is devoted to this notion, but stopped publishing in 2019.

It helps architects that they have always found themselves at the intersection of art and science. Being neither artists nor scientists makes it easier to mine philosophy which historically is also located at the confluence of art, belief, and science. The ambiguity of this position is an incredible asset in the quest of finding the answers of how to manage the future. Less and less even science is mechanistic, absolute, 100% certain or consists of complete, closed systems. We know the uncertainty from quantum physics and climate change predications and the ethics from Oppenheimer's moral inquiries of nuclear science.

The philosophy, which strives to recognize the principles of moral action and in everything does not ask for the traditional, but for the good (Aristotle, Politics II 8, 1269a3-4), can thus be understood by society as undermining traditional morality, as has actually happened many times. This philosophical questioning of political and moral opinions was most concisely embodied in the history of philosophy in the person of Socrates, who saw the political-philosophical meaning of his life in waking up the city ... from its self-sufficiency and admonishing it to worry about virtue (Apologie 30e; 31b; see also Cicero, Tusculanae Disputationes V 10). (Till Kinzel, Philosophy as a Way of Life, 2002)

Being mired in the daily struggle of solving very practical problems of cost, schedule, and technology, whether one works as an architect in education, private practice, or government, keeps philosophy from coming into focus or being queried in an investigation. Yet, it is precisely this ultimately myopic focus on the nitty-gritty that has contributed to many of our current problems, such as traffic congestion, sick buildings, poor health outcomes, human isolation and a degraded natural environment. The bigger questions why we build and for what purpose are often left aside instead of being central when trying to achieve better results. How people's health is related to how they feel about the spaces architecture creates, whether inside a building or as part of city planning, requires a better understanding of people's perceptions, and the mind-object relationship. Even if we demand to simplify regulations to accelerate housing production or infrastructure, we better understand the ethical and moral implications of relaxing them- aspects philosophy has queried forever. It is upon the architect to create a wider horizon for clients to make better decisions or modify their metrics, steps that ultimately also improves their bottom line.

It is clear, that society isn't satisfied with the status quo and that what gets built doesn't work very well. In that clients, architects, engineers, and users will likely agree. The conditions are especially troublesome in the US: In any kind of “happiness “ or “quality of life” index the US ranks in the bottom half in spite of our superiority in GDP growth or productivity per capita. Life expectancy sinks. Philosophically speaking, the mere focus on the material object in isolation without considering the larger context in which the object sits or interacts with human perception falls short because it is essentially trying to eliminate values, especially those that are not easy to quantify.

Yes, even clients are demanding different and more complex solutions, and that will be even more so in the future. Since new technology can provide them, the expectations rise alongside. Clients won't be happy with a bunch of AI generated pretty sketches if they don't solve real problems, are not based on values, are not flexible to adjust in the future or do not enchant. In other words, increased technical sophistication, won't resolve questions of purpose, nor does it guarantee better results in terms of fitting into an urban setting, user satisfaction, or resiliency, arenas in which clients have to succeed, operate, and compete, even if talk about social impact is temporarily politically inopportune. Moving from how to why is like moving from mere knowledge to cognition, a sphere that includes experience, awareness and intuition.

When it comes to buildings which usually are around for some decades, social impacts are real, long lasting and the more important, the more we build. This moves value and culture to the center of the stage. Technology always carries in it a potential of uses that at the introduction of it were neither intended nor anticipated. The shift from fascination with technology to asking critical questions about values happens with all inventions, especially when they become abundant. Consider cars, nuclear power plants, smart phones, and social media, and AI. In each instance, the initial infatuation with the technology makes room for debate about purpose and hidden impacts.The more we can build with faster technology, the less we can avoid the debate about the why.

Humans do exist in a physical sphere, and architects create much of it. The physicality of a building, a street, or a city goes far beyond the visual. It includes touch, smell and what we hear. In stark contrast to virtual reality, architecture speaks to all our senses. The new popularity of mass timber isn’t just for its sustainability but for the fact that it replaces the skin deep shallowness of the ubiquitous framed drywall and plywood box with solid materiality exuding the warmth of the familiar wood plus durability. Architects in their traditional role as interdisciplinary coordinators are in an excellent position to take up the challenge of designing buildings and places that are satisfying beyond a spreadsheet and do it beyond the eye candy AI can readily produce.

Increasing specialization has infected much of society and resulted in incredible fragmentation. Its negative effect are widely recognized, in medicine, education, and even in science. As noted, architects, straddle engineering, science, sociology, psychology, art, and health, even if they are specialized in categories such as housing, offices, education, hospitality, or health care, to name just a few. Architects can't afford to be one-trick-ponies in any of those fields.

Urban development has turned away from neatly separating uses across cities. Mixed-use is the new formula for cities and even buildings, a return to the historic definition of city. Land use and transportation get connected, so do work and recreation, old and young, or home and entertainment. Interdisciplinary competency is in demand. There is no true sustainability, resilience, or happiness for any building, city, or community without applying knowledge across different uses and without placing buildings properly into a larger system and a lively urban fabric.

The End of Binary Traditional Thinking

This focus on mixed use interdisciplinary competence is not limited to architecture and is part of a tendency to overcome binaries of all kinds: Science or art, residential or commercial, engineering or design, form or function, theory or practice, knowing or doing, idealistic or materialistic, body or mind (Cartesian Dualism) are just a few examples of the binary either-or thinking that has been prevailing for too long in a largely materialistic society. We are quickly moving from either-or to uniting opposites, even if politics have certainly not yet caught up with that.

The binary approach overlooks that most of human history learning came from bridging dualities, sometimes in a dialectic manner. For example learning by doing something with the hands. Greek philosophers derived meaning from doing real experiments, not just thought experiments. Architects were not only designers but also builders that spent their days on construction sites to see their work come to fruition or try out new methods. Theory and practice were linked. Philosophy reflected this with Hegel (idealism) and Marx (materialism) who employed dialectic methods in their quest to resolve whether ideas shape the world or the world shapes ideas. A subset of this different way of interpreting the world is the question whether it leads to error if one views everything from the perspective of the human observer (anthropocentric view) or whether objects should be seen per se (materialism).

The matter of learning by doing, i.e. through physical practice is a central topic in the discussion about the capabilities of AI. Embodiment, the dependence of the human mind on the body is a key differentiator between any human and current AI. So far, AI mostly lacks a body and therefore also physical experience as a learning tool. The mind-body unity and all the senses of humans are not only good for learning but also key to how we process data and perceive reality. By contrast, AI sits in boxes that have no sensory equipment with the exception of a few robot farms where some entrepreneurs experiment with artificial intelligence being derived from physical activity.

In another area, though, AI has the edge. While humans learn as individuals, even if the sit together in a classroom, their minds are not truly networked. AI, however, operates with potentially a multitude of processors and data units when adding or processing data. The breakthrough of AI came when the processors did no longer work on a fixed program anchored in a series of binary yes/no processes but began mimicking neural loops of animal and human brains. This enables them to learn and break out of the constraints of a fixed binary human-made program. This makes what AI can do largely unpredictable. The fact that these neural loop processors can be linked en masse and work 24/7, makes their data base endless and their learning speed extremely fast.

The swarm capability of computers and AI is not entirely to biology or the human mind. Historically, philosophy and even science have looked at the human mostly as an individual who learned from parents, books, teachers and transferred some knowledge but otherwise took it with himself to the grave. This mindset is now shifting, in part because of technology that allows humans to receive and disseminate information rapidly and simultaneously.

Cognitive scientists and philosophers begin not seeing the human mind as singular or as an isolated "entity" that unfolds based on DNA coding, but instead seeing it as the product of "culture" achieved in the connection with others, even without being "wired" to the others. In that way of thinking the brain is constantly evolving in its interaction not only with the object world but also other minds and essentially may have no limits. The unlimited capacity and the ability to grow is an advantage of the brain over processors which so far have clear physical limits regarding how many data can be processed or stored. Computers and even AI are not seen as having a cultural understanding or something like intuition.

This excursion brings us back to the bigger picture and holistic thinking. Where we recently had likened brains to computers when we talked about bandwidth, we now model computers on brains not only through neural loops but also by an increased capacity of simultaneous processing and weighing data especially by employing quantum states in the still experimental quantum computers.

In summary: The plasticity of the brain may be the key to the question of how we will fare in the age of AI and the already ever more rapid changing environment.

Imagining and Shaping the Future with Philosophy

The topic of matter and mind is central to the philosophers who study ontology, the study of existence and how we determine if something exists or not. Is a building still there when it was demolished, even if only in archives, in the reused materials or in our memory? Is a building still preserved if almost all materials have been exchanged for new "look-alikes"? Does a building already exist when it is only an idea or a BIM model or "blueprints"? Or does it exist already in its potentiality, i.e. in the mere question whether it should exist?

Many architects see the essence of their design to tease out what a particular site or project program suggest or what "ought to be". In a similar way how artists see themselves simply as a medium for the creation of what is pressing into existence. In this sense architecture is not just about "making" but also about envisioning and then materialising the future. ("The future is not what will be but what we make it to be", my free interpretation of Ghandi's "The future depends on what we do in the present")

It is impossible to be engaged in architecture without becoming implicitly engaged in cosmology. (Titus Burckhardt, Swiss Philosopher)

Is a building defined by its function, by its architectural style, its materials or by the systems that constitute it? These questions already concerned Vitruvius 2000 years ago and could still come up in copyright disputes, in historic preservation boards or when it comes to decide which discipline should be in the lead to coordinate a project. More fields of philosophy come into focus if we widen the field to epistemology, the study of knowledge, how we acquire it and what we can know or not know. Buildings really make only sense in the conjunction with human perception and needs. The question whether a tree falling in the forest makes noise if nobody is around to hear it, is a object-mind relation question and whether things can be be objectively described (realism) or only subjectively (relativism). Phenomenology ("study of appearances") finally tries to understand our subjective and lived experiences, whether through direct perception, memory or emotions and maybe the philosophical field that is most relatable to architecture and urban design.

Philosophy also concerns itself with issues of power and how space can express power. This matter is exceptionally architectural, from classical temples to modern corporate headquarters. Just consider how Hitler or other dictators wanted to use architecture as a tool to express power, or how, in the opposite direction, Norman Foster tried to turn the imposing Reichstag building in Berlin into a democratic parliament. A similar approach is underway for the Parliament modification in Capstadt designed by Ntsika Architects' principal Nadia Tromp. The philosophers Foucault and Lefebvre have written extensively about the power of space.

The retrofitting of these two historic parliament buildings are good examples of how beliefs, and with them also buildings, can evolve. Updates based on new evidence is also an embraced scientific method. One way to describe this is the Bayesian mindset, a framework for decision-making under uncertainty that starts with a best guess (prior belief), followed by gathering new evidence, and then updating that belief based on the new data. In this view, the beliefs of "modern man" are no longer held absolutely in terms of dogmas. As we know since Einstein, even time and space (two constituent elements of architecture) are not constant or absolute. Old beliefs get constantly evaluated by being open to new evidence and old ideas get adjusted accordingly. Bayes' Theorem puts this on a mathematical base. Even though the theorem goes back to 1763, it has gained ever more relevance in modern times.

"The destructive character sees nothing permanent. But for this very reason he sees ways everywhere. Where others encounter walls or mountains, there, too, he sees a way. But because he sees a way everywhere, he has to clear things from it everywhere. Not always by brute force; sometimes by the most refined. Because he sees ways everywhere, he always stands at a crossroads. No moment can know what the next will bring. What exists he reduces to rubble – not for the sake of rubble, but for that of the way leading through it." (Walter Benjamin, The Destructive Character, 1931))

This manner of embracing uncertainty, updating views when evidence demands it, and systematically managing the balance between existing knowledge and new information for better-informed decisions and better understanding the world should be quite familiar to architects and teachers and just about anyone in a responsible position. It must be anyone's method who wants to master or shape the future. Of course, it is also exactly what machine learning does, just faster and without pause.

The absolute certainty of Vitruvius' Ten Books of Architecture has to cede to a much more flexible way of thinking about design in the same manner as the mechanistic "clockwerk" way of thinking of Newtonion physics was transformed through Einstein's relativity. For architects this means that we have to think in fluid systems instead of static objects, or at least of objects that are part of systems such as cities or nature. The architect Charles Jencks embraced this dynamic idea of architecture in his book The Architecture of the Jumping Universe (1995). The idea that everything is connected to everything lets some contemporary philosophers go as far as speaking about a sapient cosmos in which matter and mind are universally intertwined, an idea not too far removed from the religious belief of a universal god.

To integrate critical theory, metaphysics, and aesthetics directly into the architectural curriculum the always forward leaning California architecture school Sci-Arc employs its own philosopher, Graham Harmon. He appeared on my radar through the series of discussions about Architecture and Philosophy on the website "Digital Futures World" organized by writer and professor Neil Leach who during the most recent International AIA conference in Sri Lanka became personally known to me. The lectures and discussions in the series included Graham Harman of whom I will speak a bit more since he teaches as the architects' philosopher, but they also include many others. In their totality the dozen or so lectures about philosophers dead or alive are a revelation and a wonderful place to deepen the connection between architecture and philosophy.

His groundbreaking work on the specificity of objects, immaterialism, allure, and the posthuman condition resonates deeply with what we do as architects. I look forward to seeing how his leadership in our undergraduate program will change the way our students think about and engage reality. (SCI-Arc Undergraduate Program Chair Tom Wiscombe, 2019 about Harman)

Object Oriented Ontology

Harman specializes in "triple O", object oriented ontology, ("a new theory of everything") a philosophy standing in the tradition of analytical materialism which is oriented on scientific methods. (Another architecture/design/art oriented philosopher in this materialistic tradition is Manuel DeLanda. Harman argues that all objects, human or non-human, real or fictional are mutually autonomous and equally real. This seems to eliminate human specialness but by allowing fiction and abstraction to be called “real” objects the anthropocentric idea that human perception is the only thing that gives objects meaning enters through the backdoor.it does little to put to rest the philosophical question whether reality exists per se or only through our perception - or, if it exists per se, whether we can perceive it correctly.

Harman aims to move his materialism beyond that of science which, he says, can query objects only by asking "what is it made of" or "what does it do". Neither, he says describes the entirety of the object and its hidden layers based on experience. He frequently refers to Heidegger who would say “a hammer is not what we see but what we do with it”. But Harmon wonders if this fixation on function is "undermining", i.e. missing the essence of a hammer. Thus, physics cannot cover "everything" because it limits itself to the world of objects, it generates knowledge but not cognition, says Harmon and emphasizes that knowledge is only a subset of cognition. For him philosophy is not a branch of knowledge but a human cognitive activity that handles “incommensurabilities and asymmetries”. Science, he says, cannot speak about abstractions such as cartoon characters, jokes or the Dutch East India Company which the philosopher Leibniz called once a "pseudo-object" that is merely a collection of different people and ships.(Harmon's examples). For Harmon those abstractions are just as real as physical objects, a clearly not very materialistic view

This broader, philosophical sense of objects and their relation to ideas and perception is quite relevant to architecture. One can hope that the architect sees the building is not just as the design of an object but puts it in relation to the user, the observer and the context of its site. "Beyond object" lie also issues of style, history, culture and association to name just a few questions beyond what is it made of, and what does it do?) Style goes beyond a singular object and cannot be detected in a singular piece of work. Style creates an umbrella that connects various works, says Harmon. He refers to a philosopher who wrote extensively about style: Maurice Mereau-Ponty, who sees style as an essential, unifying, and open structure of perception, enabling individuals to recognize objects, gestures, and the world itself. (Realize that this definition is much broader than what architects usually associate with the term "style" when they see it as someone's "design handwriting").

As a Sci-Arc professor Harmon connects philosophy to architecture in many other ways, all leading away from a materialistic view when he includes art, metaphor and esthetics as a qualities of objects that go beyond formal object description. It is in this context he also mentions the use of AI but doesn’t really come to a clear conclusion.

Beyond seeing architecture as a static object is also the architect Peter Eisenmann’s view of architecture as a kinetic experience, something that requires movement (i.e. moving around). Beyond the static object or “form follows function” is also Aldo Rossi's writing "against simplistic functionalism" (Architecture of the City). Rossi observes that as buildings serve a city, the city also serves the buildings; this symbiotic functionality has to work over centuries in which specific original functions change on the scale , of the city and the building, however, at different speeds.

Conclusion

Asking more "why" than "how", whether like Harmon in his triple O approach or like any other one of the philosophies developed over millennia, may very well be what architects need to focus on if they want to master the future. The why questions lead into ethics (what is right), human experience (phenomenology), the philosophy of politics and power (who controls space and why?) and the question what something really is (ontology).

Having been detached from philosophy's higher aims and having thus to situate itself as best it could within the framework of disciplinary structures and expectations, there was a moment when architecture wanted nothing more than to give itself over to historicism, to the call of professionalism, to the scientific protocols of the rationalists, to the diagrams of the engineers, to the ambitions of corporate ideologies, to the formalism of art historians and even to the phenomenology of Heideggerians. And yet that which we call architecture seems to always leak out beyond these limitations leaving it in that strange state of having never been truly alive and yet not ever being quite dead. It is in this context that we should seek both a theory and practice of architecture. (Mark Jarzombek, "Architecture against Architecture, MIT Press, 2005)

Understanding some of these philosophical questions helps with relinquishing dogmas in favor of an open mind and begin inquisitive questioning of old beliefs. "If a client asks for 1+1 and we give him 2, we failed our job, we need to get to 3" is how BIG architects principal Daniel Sundlin puts it. While AI may optimize the solution of a design brief, the creative architect adds the unexpected. It helps architects to position themselves strategically as cultural navigators, influencers of policies and interpreters between all kinds of different disciplines. Doing so will allow them to shape the menu instead of being on it. It also requires that architects change their practice and designs to catch up with where science, technology and philosophy already is. Only very few architects have been willing to begin this journey of innovation in their projects.

If architects won't occupy this increasingly important space in a world that seems to teeter at the brink of a precipice, the technocrats and IT moguls will.

Klaus Philipsen, FAIA

Sources and further reading or listening:

International Society for the Philosophy of Architecture

Philosophy of Architecture (University of Western Australia)

Philosophy of Architecture (Stanford)

What is the relation between philosophy and architecture?

Andrew Benjamin, Architect & Philosopher :Lecture about Third Spaces based on Walter Benjamin)

Anthology edited by Neal Leach Rethinking Architecture.

MIT Journal, Mark Jarzombek, Architecture against Architecture -Disengaging the Metaphysical Alliance

Neil Leach has selected a useful and generally admirable group of texts written by philosophers and cultural critics over the last century, from the well-known “Metropolis and Mental Life,” written by the sociologist Georg Simmel in 1903, to more recent studies of the cultural condition of architecture by Jean Baudrillard, Paul Virilio, Gianni Vattimo, and Fredric Jameson. The writings of critical theorists such as Theodor Adorno, Siegfried Kracauer, Walter Benjamin, Ernst Bloch, and Jürgen Habermas are represented, as are the works of those who comprise the phenomenological and hermeneutic school now respected so much at Cambridge due to the influence of Dalibor Veseley—Martin Heidegger, Gaston Bachelard, and Hans-Georg Gadamer. Also included are the semiologists Roland Barthes and Umberto Eco, and the poststructuralists Michel Foucault, Gilles Deleuze, Jean-François Lyotard, and Jacques Derrida.

See also my related blog articles on Phenomenology, Ethics and Enlightenment.

How Cities Stay Young

2025-12-12T16:52:00.004-05:00

The Perception

In my hometown of Baltimore it is a widespread conviction that the redevelopment of former industrial sites adjacent to downtown such as Harbor East, Harborpoint and the further out Port Covington did nothing but suck the lifeblood out of downtown and even out of neighborhoods.

The new developments did not only draw residents and jobs out of the old downtown and its neighboring older neighborhoods, opponents say, they also absorbed all the available public subsidies, TIFs, tax credits and the attention of the mayor and the city council. Furthermore these gleaming new areas are not really Baltimore, they are artificial, antiseptic and elitist, the saying goes. The real Baltimore is gritty, authentic, historic and yes a bit dirty, popular opinion would have it, and people with this belief would rather stay home than setting foot into the new developments. Which makes these assessments a bit imprecise, at least not based on actual experience.

Baltimore's HarborPoint (Photo Philipsen)

The complaint about the focus on new shiny developments is not limited to Baltimore. Half a century ago Parisiens detested la Defense, a new city of high-rises built to absorb development pressures that jeopardized the historic core, similarly Londoners hated the new Docklands. Santiago de Chile got its Las Condes, Mexico City Polanco, both posh and seen as not representative of the city of which they are part. More recently Bostonians had to contend with the new, high-end Seaport Innovation District, sometimes described as the "Manhattan" of Boston, and Denver is booming in the RiNo district while downtown suffers from high vacancies rates. Rotterdam got Kop van Zuid, Hamburg the Hafenviertel as in house competitors to their historic cores. However, most economists, politicians and leaders would not regret today having developed those quarters.

Maybe it is presumptive to make a comparison between Baltimore and these other cities which are accepted a global metros. But lets not forget that Boston and also London had severe bouts of abandonment and decline in the 1970s and that new development was part of their turn-around story.

The Reality

Clearly the notion of unfair distribution of wealth is not only a Baltimore issue, it applies on the national level and also to many US cities. Analysis supports the popular opinion that investment and subsidies go predominantly to the already better off areas. Returning to the subject of my deeply unequal hometown of Baltimore: A report by MuniCap analyzed public subsidies in Baltimore City went and found that a disproportionate amount of money has gone to these new areas. Furthermore, subsidies and incentives are not always effective.

Mexico City: Nuevo Polanco - Museo Soumaya
(Photo Philipsen)

Existing research around TIFs suggests that most do not accomplish their stated goals of economic development, David Merriman, in Improving Tax Increment Financing, Lincoln Institute of Land Policy

Out of 10 tax increment financing (TIF) districts in Baltimore two cost the city more than they yield but all are expected to provide some net profit over the longer term. However, even where TIFs provide a return on investment from a fiscal perspective, the matter of economic development is more complicated.

We examine differences in the flow of community investment into Baltimore neighborhoods between 2004 and 2016. Tracing capital flow by race and poverty status, we find that predominantly white neighborhoods received more than three times the investments that majority-Black neighborhoods received during this 13-year period. (Neighborhood Investment Flows in Baltimore, 2020)

In Baltimore the list of companies that invested, rented or built in the newly developed areas, indeed, appears to have been mooched from older areas. Most companies have been in the area for decades occupying space in either the traditional financial district or in the surrounding counties before they moved to the new areas. This is to say, while some companies are not totally new to the region, some of them have at least been lured from the suburban office parks back into the city. Before COVID the trend of back to the city seemed unstoppable.

Baltimore HarborPoint central plaza (Photo Philipsen)

Demographic analysis shows that Baltimore did quite well in attracting young new talent to the city. It is less clear how much credit goes towards the brand-new developments and how much to upgraded historic buildings stock. Obviously the areas with the most new apartment buildings and conversions showed the biggest population growth while established older but underserved communities continue to lose residents. In many ways the new developments really kept the city young, to the point that the city's median age is about 3.8 lower than that of the surrounding county. It stands to reason that cities offering high end education and a certain coolness factor attract younger talent. Ultimately, cities are about people and the question of investment has to orient itself along what people want to see in their cities.

The concern that the new sucks the lifeblood out of the old is not new to Baltimore. It was already a concern in the time of urban renewal when Baltimore's downtown Charles Center was envisioned

Historic Baltimore: Washington Monument
(Photo: Philipsen)

initially and as far back as the 1950s. Even then a small band of business people were concerned that Baltimore had become stagnant in the post war years. An effort was made to offer in downtown Baltimore the type of offices, hotels and amenities that were not there at the time so that companies, investors and employees were looking for opportunities in the suburbs. Beginning in 1954, the "Committee for Downtown" addressed the commercial decline of central Baltimore with an over 40 acre masterplan developed by American urban planner and architect David A. Wallace. A $25 million bond issue put money to the promise abd delivered a modern mixed use site nearly two decades later. The success spawned an expansion to the Inner Harbor and gaining steam when developer and banker Jim Rouse and others discovered the long ailing waterfront as an area where he could place a "festival marketplace" that had already been tested in Boston.

The Cycles of Development

Today the best known building of Charles Center, an office tower by Mies van der Rohe stands nearly empty. At the base of the tower the local chapter of AIA maintains a design center. The urban renewal from back then shifted the center of gravity of Baltimore's traditional financial district south towards the water and further east along the shoreline.

Mies van der Rohe tower at Charles Center
Baltimore (Photo: Philipsen)

The shift continued when Harbor East was developed on fallow land and is now culminated with the near full build-out of the 28 acre HarborPoint peninsula, beautifully located in the Inner Harbor, which once housed the Allied Signal chromium plant. With the HarborPlace project, Harbor East and HarborPoint Baltimore fully capitalized on a worldwide trend that turned water into a locational advantage and asset. Many other cities, including San Francisco, Boston and Seattle, did it by removing expressways separating downtown from the water. Still, Baltimore kept losing population even before the trifecta of a pandemic, online work and shopping, and AI continues to bear down on downtowns globally. Even booming cities saw their downtowns decline and once again the search is on for the next best thing, which is often a brand-new development area.

Public subsidies are supposed to cure the ailments and provoke a renewed critique of investments in new development instead of shoring up the old. Once again, the logic of the critique is that the new development accelerates the decline of the older areas.

The historic office buildings predating the initial round of urban renewal are no longer a problem. They have long been renovated and transformed into apartments and hotels aided by the trend of "back to the cities" that made downtown living cool. In Baltimore's fastest growing "neighborhood" is the old downtown. But the trophies of the 1970s urban renewal with their large open floors and their curtain walls and glass facades are now unloved stranded assets, their conversion into something different much too difficult or expensive.

Hamburg Hafen City - Elbphilharmonie
(Photo: Philipsen)

If suburban flight, and malls preceded the first urban decline, it is now remote work and AI on the horizon that could equal in size and scope the decline of manufacturing half a century ago. Even recently booming cities like Boston or San Francisco are now facing large office vacancy rates, empty storefronts and bleak prospects for a reversal.

In ever faster changing trends, even the new developments with the latest in office trends, retail, restaurants and coffee shops are not immune from yje reduced demand. When the late John Paterakis who baked in Baltimore the rolls for all McDonald franchisees east of the Mississippi was browbeaten by the then Mayor Donald Schafer to buy and develop fallow industrial waterfront land with his money, he was lured with such a long-term tax abatement that the end of it coincides even this area showing signs of aging. While there can be no question that this Harbor East area injected new life into Baltimore, initial star tenants such as the Sylvan Learning Center, Whole Foods or T Rowe Price have already moved on, in some cases only for a few blocks into the next new place. In Baltimore this next door newest development area comes in shape of a peninsula which is jotting into Baltimore's Inner Harbor providing fantastic views of the old downtown skyline.

The peninsula development is a heroic act on land that used to be a hulking chromium plant that had left behind massive contamination with hexavalent chromium. But an original masterplan developed when Harbor East was still filling up grew in 30 years from 1.8 million sf of gross development to 3.8 million with way over 2 million sf of development already completed. HarborPoint's offices, mixed up with urban parks, hotels, restaurants, coffee shops and high end retail along very carefully designed streetscapes and a surrounded by a waterfront promenade is like a different world. Does it pay off for Baltimore?

Zero Sum or Growing the Pie?

Ideally economic development "grows the pie" instead of being a zero-sum game in which assets just move around like in a game of musical chairs. While Boston managed to attract many new companies, there aren't any big new newcomers at HarborPoint. But the pie still grew. Baltimore has stabilized its population and the companies moving here such as Morgan Stanley, T Rowe Price,

State of the art office building - T Rowe Price
at Baltimore, KPF Architects (Photo: Philipsen)

BGE/Constellation/Exelon grew and flourished in the new location attracting new and discerning employees. Again, it is about the people. Educated young talent can go anywhere in the US or even beyond. The new areas also follow good planning principles: Harbor East and HarborPoint seamlessly connect the Inner Harbor and Baltimore's old downtown to historic Fells Point, offering a perfect timeline of the various layers of history that make a city unique. Unfortunately viable transit is missing, because a long planned $3 bn east west rail line was killed out of political spite by a previous Governor.

Unlike old style urban renewal, none of these Baltimore examples displaced residents or viable businesses. Without development these brownfields would have remained urban wastelands where any planner or economist coming to town would asked: Why are you leaving so much potential lying fallow?

Would the areas have developed without subsidies? This is harder to tell. In the case of Baltimore, the lack of much outside demand would probably have made development too expensive to be competitive without any public seed money. Maybe the most important question is, would the old downtown be better off without the new developments? Or should Baltimore have sent whatever subsidies into the ailing disinvested neighborhoods instead, so there wouldn't be some 13,000 vacant city owned rowhouses sitting around?

New Development vs Equity

Indeed, Baltimore (and almost any other US city) has many needs and many areas not living up to the full potential. However I would argue that neither the old downtown or the inner neighborhoods would be any better off if Harbor Charles Center, Harbor East, HarborPoint or some other new brownfield areas would not have been developed or never seen a cent of subsidy.

Urban development relies on strength and anchors. Like it or not, a dollar spent in a disinvested and disadvantaged area doesn't yield the same economic results as one spent in an area of strength derived from locational advantages or close by anchors. In the examples the water is such a strength. As for anchors, Baltimore's large universities and medical campuses are anchors located adjacent to large

Change in Baltimore's old downtown with
former urban renewal in the background
(Photo: Philipsen)

swaths of disinvestment. The advantage of these anchors also has been leveraged for massive new developments in the underserved areas and these developments have received just as much, if not more criticism, mostly centered on displacement, condemnation and other heavy handed strategies. In addition, the positive economic effects are also in question. However, this would have to be the topic of another article. (I have written about EBDI here and here). In contrast to Philadelphia, the two Baltimore university anchored bio-parks and their stop and go neighborhood re-investment prove that throwing large amounts of money at areas of highest need doesn't necessarily yield large economic pay-backs.

Conclusion

Reinvestment in established neighborhoods and investment in new development areas don't have to be an either-or proposition; nor do new developments nothing for older neighborhoods. Keeping a city from calcifying, aging or shrinking its tax base benefits all residents. In the case of Baltimore, it could keep its tax base stable or grow it in spite of many years of shrinking population because the newcomers earned more and paid more taxes.

Investment can also be directly leveraged to assist disadvantaged communities. Increasingly new development subsidies are tied to community benefits agreements in favor of disinvested and underserved communities. Baltimore's latest waterfront development, Port Covington, supported by a large tax increment financing (TIF) deal is tied to such a community benefits agreement.

Yielding to the criticism of the TIF deals Baltimore also launched an innovative non-contiguous TIF approach for its disinvested neighborhoods with the many vacant rowhouses. This as of yet untested approach runs on the promise that Baltimore's tax base can grow if the vacant rowhouses could be filled again and that the future taxes could leverage the needed investment now.

Baltimore has also some large subsidized investments in underserved communities such as the redevelopment of the Perkins Homes public housing complex as a large mixed use, mixed income community or the Park Heights community with the renovation of the Pimlico race track area. Critics may call all of this crumbs for the poor from the table of the rich. That may be so, but the question of the overall tax base is certainly key to keeping a city young. Adding fuel for the engine works best where there will be ongoing yields.

Public housing redevelopment as mixed use - Baltimore
(Photo: Philipsen)

In a world where the rich get richer all the time and where the top 1% now hold nearly half of the global wealth and where the ultra rich can unsettle entire neighborhoods, just to build themselves a compound, it is easy to become jaded and cynical about urban development. The national housing crisis and the near universal inability to create sufficient and affordable housing add to the discomfort. The history of urban renewal is full of displacement, environmental injustice and destruction.

Still, constant renewal is not only what our bodies do with their cells, it is also what a city needs. As for the question of authenticity: It will come with time. Layers of different periods, styles, and demographic and economic conditions sitting on top or next to each other is what makes a city interesting. In the quest for building new its is urgent to ensure that tax breaks and TIFs don't undermine the future tax base and mortgage away the future of coming generations. It is equally as important to find the right balance between attracting new young, talented residents, and retaining the residents that have long made their city their home.

Klaus Philipsen, FAIA

Architecture - Nature and Culture in Sri Lanka

2025-11-05T17:30:00.009-05:00

Your work knows no borders—neither should your professional network. With an AIA membership, you gain access to the world’s largest, most influential network of architects and design professionals. And with more than 200 global chapters, you’ll find connections, opportunities, and support no matter where you are in the world. (American Institute of Architects website)

Sri Lanka Architecture Conference 2025

The Sri Lanka Conference 2025

"Design is where art and science break even" stated the slide of architect Fawad Abasi, Pakistan presented to an audience of international architects who had come together in Colombo, Sri Lanka's capital, for a conference titled “The Art within Architecture”. While the origin of this statement is dubious, the phrase accurately reflects the sentiment of many architects who possibly, more than most people, oscillate between their two sides of the brain, known as the "scientific" one processing information sequentially and the "artistic" one processing information holistically.

Thanks to the many connections of Country Representative of Sri Lanka for AIA International, Nela de Zoyosa, hon. FAIA, the conference could offer a stellar line-up of presentations from star architects such as Moshe Safdie, Billie Tsien (explaining the Barnes Museum and the Obama “library), Elizabeth

Opening ceremony, lighting of the oil lamp
With AIA Int. Pres Cheong (Photo: Philipsen)

Chu Richter & David Richter, Massimiliano Fuksas (The Line, a 175km long towering building agglomeration in the Arabian desert) and Ken Yeang interspersed with several architects on the way to international fame such as Nadia Tromp (Parliament Cape Town, SA) and Adrianta Aziz, Malaysia (University of Malaya). It tickles the vanity nerve to sit only a few feet from the luminaires who can so readily dole out stories about their encounters with Saudi Princes, Barack Obama or alter the path of architecture with structures such as The Line City or the Changi Airport in Singapore. But one wouldn't fly 8000 miles for that if there wasn't also the promise of discovering a new country, a new culture and a different local architecture.

I want to share those discoveries in this article.

Sri Lanka Architects

Following the tradition that the host country highlights its own talent, the conference featured local presenters such as Palinda Kannangara, Philip Weeraratne, Russell Dandeniya and Channa Daswatte, (follow the links to see their work); all are following more or less the late architect Bawa's footsteps (more about him see below) in what is sometimes called tropical modernism.

For American architects used to design buildings around the world it is always a good experience to see how much talent is locally available in the respective countries and how they use local culture to enrich architecture beyond the typical international styles and fads. Palinda Kannangara allowed interested participants a visit to his house and office as well as his guest house, a hands on demonstration of "experiential architecture that hinges on simplicity and connection with the natural environment" (Palinda's website).

“Sri Lanka’s contribution to world architecture lies in its ability to adapt modernity to suit our context — long before such thinking became fashionable” . Channa Daswatte.

Why is there AIA Membership Outside of North America?

Moshe Safdie addressing the conference

AIA International was created to support architects working on projects outside the U.S., offer benefits like continuing education and networking events, and advocate for the profession globally. It since has expanded its ambition. AIA international, is a “component” of the American Institute of Architects serves the purpose “to empower members and encourage global success through best practice, innovative thinking and design excellence”. One of the activities are international conferences which take place in AIA chapters which have the standing and resources to pull such a gathering off. The setting is much more intimate than the national conferences of AIA with their thousands of participants. I reported about last year's conference in Hong Kong here.

"The AIA International chapter was formed in 2012 and encompasses all areas outside the US. It is the broadest geographical AIA chapter, providing a collaborative leadership platform to empower members and encourage global success. AIA International includes seven chapters and five sections across the globe." (AIA website)

Nature in Architecture

Instead of "Art within Architecture" the Sri Lanka conference could have been titled Nature within Architecture or Architecture within Nature, accounting for the country and the region's bent to reflect the tropical climate and its greenery and biodiversity and meld it with architecture. Palinda Kannangara and Russell Dandeniya demonstrated this in contemporary buildings. The connection of nature and architecture is also obvious in the ruins of Anuradhapura, the ancient city and UNESCO World Heritage site which has been clawed back from the jungle after centuries of being forgotten and overgrown.

Palinada Kannangara explaining his house at the
edge of a nature preserve (with alligators)

Nature in architecture was also the topic of several of the international presenters. Moshe Safdie, Billie Tsien, Ken Yeang and Simon Yu of Zadid’s office all let nature be part of their designs in various ways.

The tropical climate dominant in much of Sri Lanka (there are also more arid regions I didn’t get to see), with its abundance of rain and year-round moist warmth, has made the symbiosis of nature and structure an obvious option. No worries about frost or snow, not even about very powerful winds; it is possible to open up the envelope and create a seamless transition between the inside and the outside; an example of this is a hotel reception out in the open (albeit under a roof, of course), bathrooms or showers open to the outside, and endless variations of the patios and open courtyards which can also be found in traditional South Indian homes.

Geoffrey Bawa

The patron saint of Sri Lankan architects and an avid believer in the integration of nature into architecture was Geoffrey Bawa. Even 22 years after his death he dominated the conference in spirit. Participants learned about him during various tours to his houses and hotels and his Lunuganga estate.

Bawa sculpture on the grounds of
Lunuganga

"Tucked away behind a steep dirt road in Bentota, Lunuganga—Geoffrey Bawa’s “garden within a larger garden”—is an oasis for Sri Lanka’s diverse wildlife and a haven for local and international visitors alike.
Lunuganga has always been a site of transformation. Bawa acquired the former rubber and cinnamon plantation in 1948, on the cusp of his thirtieth birthday and Sri Lanka’s independence from Britain. In doing so, he affirmed his intent to create “something that would be shaped by my present and future dreams and imaginary.” Converting the land from a plantation into a garden was a key step; replacing an extractive practice of colonial occupation, the garden blossomed into a rich ecosystem of mostly endemic flora and fauna." (website)

We visited several of his wonderful hotels (Bentota Beach, Heritance Kandalama, and Lighthouse), each uniquely defying the usual boredom of the standard-edition template of hotel architecture .

"Geoffrey Bawa, often hailed as the Father of Tropical Modernism, envisioned and executed Bentota Beach Resort as an exemplar of this architectural style. Tropical Modernism, characterized by a harmonious integration of the built environment with nature, is vividly manifested in the resort’s design. The use of open spaces, natural ventilation, and indigenous materials reflects Bawa’s commitment to creating architecture that coexists harmoniously with its surroundings".

As with many star architects, Bawa leaves little to chance, even though the tango with nature always leaves an uncontrollable element. His hotels are full of his custom designs, inside and out, including the room furniture and details.

Bawa House, living room

Bawa listens to nature as much as he imposes on it—lightly, though, he would have suggested. This can be quite literal, as when his remote resort hotel in Kandalama is built on a rock, its floor plan shaped by the outline of the geological formation. Imposing can also be scraping down a hill until the master could see a lake from his room. To the same end, he also created clearances and channeled breezes. Staying at the Kandalama hotel, I enjoyed the view over the lake, (offered from the shower as much as from the bedroom), the sunrise over the mountain, and the monkeys dancing around the hotel. Stepping at dawn onto the private balcony (no screen door, "nature is in such perfect balance here that we don't have many mosquitoes," Palinda Kannangara explained), there was the song of birds and no other noise other than the distant chimes of the bread truck. We had returned from an elephant safari the night before in one of those late monsoon evening downpours in which the open hotel seemed vulnerable. Men with large squeegees tried to keep the connecting hallways from becoming treacherously slippery. At the same time, hearing the rushing rain so close and still staying dry was also far more comforting than rushing down the usual carpeted hotel hallway. Clearly, this open architecture is in conflict with the invention of the air conditioner and with modernity's alienation from nature itself. Bawa followers are trying to avoid the energy footprint that comes from the separation of man from nature tat climate chnage has brought back into focus.

Sri Lanka and Nature

Sri Lanka rich biological diversity with its ecosystems, species and genes unfold in the island’s diverse array of forests, wetlands, coastal, marine and agricultural subsystems. (Lincoln Institute of Land Policy).

Elephants in the Minneriya National
Park

Sri Lanka is a bit larger than West Virgina and a bit smaller than Ireland. But with 22 million it has 19 times more residents than WVA and about 3 times more than Ireland. The density creates conflicts between man and nature. Forests have been heavily depleted between 1956 and 1992, with a depletion area of about 4,500 ha annually, a tenth of what it was but still a severe threat.

With 80% of its lands in the hands government and the desire to brand itself to global tourism as pristine and a heaven of biodiversity and sustainability, the small island struggles to accommodate its 22 million residents. Nevertheless, the country managed to protect at least 30% of its land area under the Fauna and Flora Protection Ordinance (FFPO) of 1937 which creates national reserves and sanctuaries and the Forest Conservation Ordinance initiated in 1907. The country also has eight(!) UNESCO World Heritage sites, four UNESCO Man and Biosphere Reserves, and six Ramsar Wetlands.

"Terrestrial protected areas are totally or partially protected areas of at least 1,000 hectares that are designated by national authorities as scientific reserves with limited public access, national parks, natural monuments, nature reserves or wildlife sanctuaries, protected landscapes, and areas managed mainly for sustainable use." (Trading Economics)

Still, the country wants to see more tourists. The tourist board had an emissary at the conference to entice foreign investment into hotels. A booklet with minute design guidelines was handed out, and the promise given that a local ombudsman would guide architects and developers through the maze of regulations.

I experienced one of the preserved lands in the quest to see elephants in the wild. A safari in the Minneriya National Park, a 8,800 hectares wildlife preserve with rock outcroppings, swamps and forest promises promise serenity and wildlife. This wasn't immediately obvious when we set off in a flock of diesel powered jeeps. However, our wildlife guide and jeep operator knew to separate from the others, and soon we saw elephants grazing quietly along the dirt path. Once the diesel was silenced the majesty of these large Asian elephants came into clear focus and it became obvious why these giants are so cherished that they are depicted in all of the temples. Of course, these safaris are problematic with the jeeps cutting trails this way and that. Allowed to dismount and climb up a large rock, silence enveloped me and a sweeping view of a vast green terrain opened up.

Minneriya, the view from a rock shortly before a monsoon downpour

The elephants are not only worshipped and protected, they also create conflict when they walk off the park lands and trample the farms in the vicinity of the preserve, indicative of the problem of bringing nature and a growing population into balance. I got a first hand impression when on our return trip some of the elephants had ventured out on the road at night break. An oncoming driver was so afraid that he fearfully drove backwards to avoid irritating the beasts that could crush his vehicle.

Tourists (especially from the Netherlands and Germany) already flock here to embrace Dutch colonial heritage or some holistic vacations which involve popular elements of Buddhism, such as yoga and Ayurveda protocols. However, the total number of just over 2 million visitors per year is relatively small. By comparison, Ireland has three times as many tourists. Tourists and locals live in two different worlds: The tourist world is all English, all dollars, and has prices that are similar to what I see in the US. Visit local eateries and shops, and prices are very affordable for someone buying Rupees from Dollars or Euros. Tourists are also well protected: Ever since the 2019 Easter Sunday attacks that targeted spots frequented by tourists and killed chores of people in 12 separate bombing sites, tourists hotels are gated and secured. So is the access to the airport.

Tourists still have to get to their destinations or to the attractions; road travel is arduous. Peering from the backseat over the shoulder of our tour guide, I see the street scenes unfurl in endless repetition. The slow crawling bus, truck or tuk-tuk, the spurt to pass. The oncoming passing vehicles which block the entire lane until they pull back in the last second.

The friendly kids offering us a seat after the car
broke down (Photo: Yew Kee Cheong)

The pedestrians, tuk-tuks and vans darting in and out from left and right. The whole thing seems like a well orchestrated ballet, skillfully executed without collisions. That I didn't see any crashes doesn't mean the roads are actually safe; the fatality rate per capita is more than 30% above the US, even though police keeps an ardent eye on folks. I had the opportunity to observe this in some detail after our car overheated unexpectedly and we had to wait for a replacement next to one of a mobile police checkpoints. A couple of young children from an adjacent store spoke enough English to communicate with us and brought us chairs for our comfort.

Temples

The pre-conference day-tour was designed to give interested participants a sense of Colombo. We piled into a midsize tour bus and set out into the capital of which I had seen only the route the taxi had taken on the way from the Bandaranaike airport to the hotel.

Modern Colombo

Now we passed modern office towers overlooking the Laccadive Sea. We caught glances of stately colonial buildings such as the post office, the President's house and the Chatham St clock tower. We saw towering portal cranes indicating an active port, and a lively city. Where we ultimately stopped was the Sri Ponnambalawaneswaran Devastanam Kovil, a Hindu temple (kovil is the Tamil word for temple) made entirely from granite. While not overly old, its origin dating back mid 1800s, it was designed in its current old style in 1907 through the initiative of Sir Ponnnambalam Ramanathana, a Tamil and revered public figure in his time who pleaded with the British for a more just rule. He ordered the temple to be designed in accordance to the Hindu Vedic scriptures which assume the human body being a microcosm of the universe. With the help of the most famous sculptors, brought in from South India, the temple which is dedicated to the Lord Shiva is designed in the ancient Dravidian style which I had also seen in Tamil Nadi at Thanjavur, built in 1009 AD.

For us it meant: Shoes off and running barefoot across the temple yard that was also a restoration construction site with various temple pieces sitting on the ground. It was stifling hot and the inside it was not any cooler, in spite of the promise which the dark stone structure held. But carefully placed slot-like openings allowed not only a breeze but, depending on the position of the sun, also daylight washing over certain columns and sculptures for a spectacular effect that even special electric lighting could not have done any better. In Colombo we also saw the Red Temple (from the outside) and the Gangaramaya Temple.

Our tour group in front of the
Ponnambalawaneswaran Devastanam Kovil

Very impressive and much, much older were the dome shaped temple structures (stupas) at Anuradhapura. We saw two of these ancient giant hemispherical brick structures that house Buddha relics in their center but are otherwise solid; one remained in its raw shape as it was wrestled from the jungle and the other restored with its splendidly white plaster covering. The stupas have four "entrances" which serve as shrines and places for the offerings of the worshippers.

Buddhists visit stupas to perform rituals that help them to achieve one of the most important goals of Buddhism: to understand the Buddha’s teachings, known as the Four Noble Truths (also known as the dharma and the law) so when they die they cease to be caught up in samsara, the endless cycle of birth and death.The Four Noble Truths:
1. Life is suffering (suffering=rebirth).
2. The cause of suffering is desire.
3. The cause of desire must be overcome.
4. When desire is overcome, there is no more suffering (suffering=rebirth).
Once individuals come to fully understand the Four Noble Truths, they are able to achieve Enlightenment, or the complete knowledge of the dharma.

Once again, we traipsed in socks on the burning hot stones around these domes, enlightenment out of reach and wondering in equal parts when we would be in the shade again and what it would have taken to build such massive structures in this accuracy without any machines. Naturally, the elephants came to mind.

Ruwanweli Maha Seya Stupa

We were once again fighting the clock, having packed too much into the day, and arrived at the World Heritage ruin city Polonnaruwa late in the afternoon. Harangued by a guy who absolutely wanted to sell us a tourist map of the entire island first for $25, and in the end for just $1 (we didn't bite) we rushed into the museum and out again because darkness began to descend and we wanted to see some of the larger ruins, such as what was left of an ancient library and the Royal Palace of King Parakramabahu, a once giant structure of many stories. When we wanted to go home, Nish, our well informed guide and driver gently pushed us to see Gal Vihara, one more Buddha site, entirely carved out of a single solid rock. It was almost entirely dark when we descended into a park were a lonely guard was still sitting in his shed, once again collecting our shoes. And there it was, a horizontal stone sculpture some 300' wide and 30' tall consisting of a sedentary, a standing and a wonderfully carved reclining Buddha. "A masterpiece of art of the ancient Sinhalese civilization", going back to the 11th century. In the center sits a carved out small cave-like place for worship and offerings. The entire scene sat there bathed in effective electric lighting waiting for us as the last visitors of the day.

The Gal Vihara stone sculptures
(with their industrial shed cover for protection)

I felt elated to have experienced this last exploration of the day but also guilty for giving all these almost a thousand year old testimonies of older civilizations so little time. Our pace reminded me of my earliest travels to Italy in 1977 when my girlfriend and I who were traveling at a leisurely speed laughed about the American tour buses with banners stating "Europe in seven days". Now I truly had become American myself. My fellow traveler, the President of AIA International Yew Kee Cheong hails from Singapore and followed the same, or an even more ardent pace, when he fielded numerous calls from Sri Lanka's representative Nela, advised about a Pritzker Prize application, and made a call to Mexico. The hectic schedule seemed out of place in Sri Lanka today as it was in the Italy of 50 years ago

As part of the three-day post-conference tour the three of us also visited the Sri Dalada Maligawa, another Unesco World Heritage site, and one of the most sacred pilgrimage sites due to the left canine tooth of Buddha that is enshrined here. The large temple is located in Kandy and sits inside the Royal Palace complex. At the time of our visit the temple with the shrine was mobbed by pilgrims who brought flowers and gifts and pushed hard to get a glimpse not of the tooth but the shrine in which the tooth is encased.

Bringing the infants to the temple of the tooth
for a blessing

Little babies were brought here for blessing, their urgent cries hovering over the packed mass of humanity. The temple became the victim of the varied history of Sri Lanka when first the Portuguese, then the Dutch destroyed it. The British left it alone, but it was also attacked by Tamil fighters in the civil war. every time it has been rebuilt. Its current incarnation dates to the 1800s.

In spite of recurring waves of interest in "eastern" religion that wash over "the west", knowledge and education about Muslim, Hindu (“May good thoughts come to us from all sides.”) , or Buddhist religion is sparse. Flying ETIHAB airlines via Abu Dhabi I din't know what to make of the screen notices announcing the next prayer times until I saw a seat neighbor moving his lips and bowing in his seat. Visiting many temples in India or Sri Lanka hasn't provided a lot of additional illumination. Maybe I should have read Siddharta by the German writer Herman Hesse, or begin reading the Veda.

Other Attractions

The tourist fascination with churches, temples and mosques during vacation is somewhat curious, especially for those who hardly ever set foot into those structures at home, no matter how famous they may be. I would have loved to also learn more about the port and was fascinated by the dense crowds pulsing through the narrow streets near the famous Pettah market; we slurped a coconut and got a few glimpses of the street life by walking towards where the bus could park. We also ascended to the viewing platform of Colombos Lotus tower, a 300m concrete landmark topped by a bulbous shape which contains a banquet hall and is reminiscent of a lotus flower. The bulb lights up in various colors at night and can be seen when entering the city from the airport.

The 300m Lotus Tower

We traveled by bus to Galle, a 16th century World Heritage place founded as a Portuguese fortification and later taken over by the Dutch and developed into a picturesque town near sandy beaches on the south of the Sri Lanka island. The old town is so tight that our bus had to release us outside the walls. The Dutch Christian reformed protestant church of 1752 stands a monument of that colonial period. Together with hundreds of what seemed to be Sri Lankan tourists I took in a fabulous sunset from the top of the ring wall.

The ruins of Anuradhapura presented the northern end of our various excursions. They cover a large area and encompass many structures that consist mainly of their stone columns. The ancient city which was founded in the 5th century BCE and was the Sinhalese capital of Sri Lanka from the 4th century BCE until the 11th century CE, when invasions from South India forced the shifting of the capital.

We also visited another former capital, Sri Lanka's second largest city, Kandy, still known as the "capital of culture". It was the capital of Sinhalese kingdom, the last standing bastion until it succumbed in 1818 to the British. Kandy is a bustling city located along a river and artificial lake surrounded by mountains. Kandy features some buildings from the time of Queen Victoria such as the Victoria Hotel and a downtown chock full of small stores as well as a central market arranged around an atrium but spilling out into the surrounding streets.

Vibrant street life in downtown Kandy

On this last day of our exclusive two person 3-day tour with its overly ambitious schedule we set off from Kandy to the Oak Ray tea factory, only 50 km, but tanks to mountainous terrain and the already mentioned arduous traffic, a journey of more than 1.5 hours. From the factory we could see the Ramboda falls and a spectacular views across the valley, the tea plantations, lakes and mountains. It was noticeably cooler here and it would have been lovely to see the falls from a bit closer up or visit the nearby village of Nuwara Elya, known as little England, but my travel partner had to be back at the airport by 9pm. We rushed through the tea factory and then had to take the route back down the mountain towards Kandy and then Colombo, not that far, but taking 5 hours, but getting us to the airport in time..

The Civil War

Criss crossing the island from the historic Portuguese fortification and tourists city of Galle in the south to the ancient ruins of Anuradhapura further north with Kandy and Colombo in between and seeing all the temples reveals little about the ardent civil war that has cost the lives of about one hundred-thousand people in brutal battles, air raids, massacres and terrorist bombings.

Light house in Galle, a Portuguese fortification
and old town

The root of the conflict was the strive between the Tamils in the north that originally came from India's Tamil Nadu region and the Sinhalese in the majority of the country. As soon as Sri Lanka became independent from the British in 1948 and the country morphed from being Ceylon to being Sri Lanka, the Sinhalese began to discriminate against the Tamils. The conflict simmered for decades and broke into the open in the 1980s when the Tamil Tigers began to organize an insurgency in which they tried to split from the country and create an independent nation. They used violence and terror attacks mostly against the Sinhalese military and police but also against Tamils who were critical of their approach. India sent 100,000 peacekeepers but what was soon forced to withdraw, unwanted by the majority and actively attacked by militant Tamils. Attacks, cease fires, massacres, counter attacks and attempted peace negotiations orchestrated by Norway continued until a final assault by the Sinhalese army squashed the Tamil resistance. The result was the 2009 peace accord which ended the bloody conflict after 26 years. The young German backpack tourists waiting at the gate in Abu Dhabi to board the plane to Colombo may have never heard of this conflict and would be hard pressed to find many traces of it.

Transportation, China and the Silk Road

The civil war, the Easter attacks and Covid in the rear view mirror, the country is moving forward. Transportation is a major focus, be it for goods or people, on land, by sea or in the air. There are very few freeways but the endless stream of cars, trucks, buses, tuk-tuks and motor bikes throughout the day and a good part of the night slows productivity and wastes precious fuel. Gas costs three dollars per gallon in spite of the far lower incomes, the mean household income in 2024 was only $254 per month).

The New "Silk Road" (Belt & Road Initiative)

That leaves many people depending on transit, bicycles and the tuk-tuk taxi. Transit is available everywhere, even in small towns and villages (by train or mostly by bus) with government transit buses (red) or private ones in blue or other colors. Made by Tata and Leland in India, the buses are more like rugged trucks and are not comfortable and often packed. The socialist country considers inner-urban and inter-urban transit an essential service. The Sri Lanka Transit Board reports that it provided over half a billion ticketed rides in 2022 traveling over 345 million kilometers with far over 5,000 buses. Faster travel would be good for transit, too.

More freeways are planned, and the Chinese are part of it. China is omnipresent here with Sri Lanka being central not only to the historic Silk Road but also to their new “Belt and Road”, an initiative investing in ports, roads and airports. Not all the Chinese money was spent fruitfully. The new Colombo Port City largely remains a 269 hectares field of dreams, empty land reclaimed from the Indian Ocean.

High rise ruin stuck in limbo

Several unfinished high rises stretch their rusty rebar towards the sky, the concrete stained from years of exposure to the elements. Maybe the most egregious failed investment is the second "international airport", Mattala which was built in a bird and elephant migration zone but is now sitting vacant, not served by a single commercial flight because the neraby new town Hambantota never materialized.

"Hambantota isn’t just a place in Sri Lanka, it's a lesson. Located 250 kilometers from Colombo, this was once a place best know for its nature preserves, jungle tours, and pristine beaches. Today, it’s a metaphor for opaque government dealings, poor planning, and rivalries between vying political factions. What started out as an ambitious endeavor to transform an undeveloped swath of Sri Lankan jungle into the country’s number two city soon descended into a parable of what happens when China presents its bags of money to corrupt, polarized democracies for massive development projects that are out of their league". (On the New Silk Road)

I experienced China's presence not at the conference but also when chatting at a beach bar. The women next to me was part of a Chinese software company residing in a nearby office tower and was here to check on the company's work.

The British left a functional railroad (as seen from
the Lotus Tower)

The nominally socialist Sri Lankan republic is now actually governed by the left leaning National People's Power (NPP) alliance and emphasizes education and free healthcare. The sentiment appears to be that the country is now less corrupt and on the road to recovery from the terrible blows of the Tsunami in 2004, the civil war which ended in 2009, the Easter Sunday attacks of 2019, in which suicide bombers targeted tourist hotels and Christian churches, the pandemic of 2020, and the bankruptcy of 2022 with its imposed austerity measures. A hellish sequence of events that had strangled tourism and investment.

The GDP is now growing at a high rate of 5% (2024). In spite of socialism, the benefits are not well distributed.with poverty being stuck at a 24.5% rate, suggesting that the poor continue to bear the brunt of the now relaxed austerity measures.

"A year after Anura Kumara Dissanayake (AKD) won the presidential election and his party, the National People’s Power (NPP), won a super-majority in the parliamentary elections, the country has made important strides in anti-corruption, building a foundation for future progress. Research has praised the economy’s recovery since the economic crisis of 2022, but poverty levels remain high and the government has failed to make gains on the promise of economic relief to the people". (The Diplomat, Oct 2025).

What a Tourist Doesn't Know

Whether as a tourist or as a conference participant, a brief visit of this small and populous island country provides only a very superficial and privileged perch of observation. My strongest impressions were the lush nature which impressed me from the first moment when I could glimpse it through the window of the landing plane as a startling contrast to the barren lands I had seen when flying out of Abu Dhabi. Wholesomeness, friendly people, excellent food, giant untamed Asian elephants, monkeys, and a capital city which looks far cleaner and more prosperous than what I had seen in Southern India were additional impressions along with some very impressive architecture by Geoffrey Bawa.

The transfer of Buddha's tooth to the temple

"The fact that television and tourism have made the whole world accessible has created the illusion that we enjoy intimate knowledge of other places, when we barely scratch their surface. For the vast majority, the knowledge of Thailand or Sri Lanka acquired through tourism consists of little more than the whereabouts of the beach." Martin Jacques, Sri Lankan journalist.

The official read is that Sri Lanka is a country where many cultures and ethnicities live peacefully together and wish each other a long life. (Ayubowan). The tour guides joked about how the many holidays of Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists and Christians had bankrupted the country. Indeed, were it not for the police checkpoints and the severe hotel security one would never know that a bloody civil war ended only 16 years ago or that IS bombings shook the country only six years ago..

At AIA International one does not only get to be exposed to internationally well known stars but, thanks to the small scale gathering, friendships get formed when almost everyone meets everyone else during the sessions, over a beer, or at the tours that introduce the host country to the visitors. It is exhilarating o meet people from 20 or so different countries across all continents connected only through architecture and the English language. Scott Golds quips and fabulous on site sketches, Olusu Ola's large Nigerian contingent of visitors, Nadia Tromp's invitation to her homeland South Africa, Simon Well tirelessly explaining cricket, Alex Chuang's camaraderie, John Backman and I realizing we both "don't do jetlag", Yew Kee Cheong's companionship and international outreach, Palindra Kannangara's hospitality, Nishantha Bogahawattage's expertise, and Nela de Zoyosa's customization of our post conference tour are only a few examples of how human bonds facilitated enjoying a foreign place.

A particular treat beyond architecture, nature and culture of Sri Lanka was being able to speak in depth with Neil Leach, a British architect-philosopher, teaching currently in Miami and an expert in artificial intelligence, one of the presenters. He built up a strong online presence via his Digital Futures channel to which I listen as often as I find the time. I met Neil first in Hong Kong but in Sri Lanka we could discuss AI in some depth when we went together on a tour.

One of the sketches drawn by conference participant
Scott Gold who attended a cricket game

Taxi transfer from airport: entry into Colombo

I enjoy attending the annual meetings for the friendships they foster, the places I get to see and the enlightenment that comes from leaving the bubble of our daily lives. The Unites States are large, but now more than ever inward looking and often ignoring that there is whole world out there. International travel is an excellent cure.

Klaus Philipsen, FAIA

All photos copyrighted by author unless otherwise noted.

Business Global

A few weeks after my journey to Sri Lanka the island has been hit by another disaster, island wide flooding in the wake of a cyclone which took hundreds of lives significantly damaged the country's fragile road infrastructure and is estimated to have caused damages in the billions of US $ that will require international support to be afforded. (Link)

Elizabeth Chu Richter, FAIA and Richter, FAIA

From left: AIA President Lee, AIA International President Yew Kee Cheong and Representative of Sri Lanka for AIA International Nela Zoyosa

Inside Palinda Kannangara"s house and office (large ventilation windows)

Courtyard in Bawa's former office, now a restaurant

Independence Square, Colombo

Buddha statue near Independence Square

Sri Lankas new Parliament building outside Colombo

Bawa client house (courtyard)

Bawa De Saram house (courtyard)

Bawa House #11 (three photos)

The Colombo Lotus Tower at night seen from the City of Dreams

Massilmiliano Fuksas

Colombo Municipal Council (the White House)

Palinda Kannangara's music library of LPs. Above his use of concrete block

Speaker Neil Leach

Modern Colombo

Safdie tower in Colombo

Gangaramaya Temple

Bawa estate Lunuganga

Bawa Hotel Bentota Beach

Southeast coast near Galle

Dutch Reformed Church (Groote Kerk) in Galle of 1755

Old town Galle

Dutch Reformed Church (Groote Kerk) in Galle of 1755

Galle Fortifications (Dutch and Portugese)

Bawa Hotel Lighthouse

Bawa Hotel Kandalama

Hotel Kandalama: Preparing food on the open terrace

Hotel Kandalama lobby with rock outcroppings

Hotel Kalamanga

Water cisterns and aqueducts, not only the Romans...

Brickwork in the heat at the historic Jethawanaramaya stupa/ temple

Monkeys on the temple site

Ruwanweli Maha Seya

Jethawanaramaya stupa

Ruwanweli Maha Seya

Gal Vihara

Kandy Temple of the Tooth

Kandy temple and palace district

Kandy central market

Ray Tea factory

Tea testing

Ray Tea Factory

Gale Face beach in Colombo at sunset

Old fashioned train announcement board at Colombo station

Colombo in the early morning darkness

Back to the Office—or Forward to Something Else?

2025-10-03T14:11:00.003-04:00

In a world where much seems to be going backward, it isn’t just the current federal government asking its workers to return to the office. Recent studies show that especially larger firms now require employees to come back.

The benefits of working from home (WFH Research*)

Fortune 100 employees may need to prepare their good-byes to hybrid work. For the first time since the onset of COVID, more than half of Fortune 100 desk workers have workplaces with fully in-office policies, according to new data from real estate company Jones Lang LaSalle Inc. In 2023, only 5% of those employees were completely RTO. While larger firms may be leading the RTO charge, most companies, particularly smaller ones, are likely to still favor flexible work options. (Forbes)

In Baltimore, just a half hour ride away, T Rowe Price and Under Armour both now demand employees to be on-site at least four out of five days a week. Nationally recognized corporations such as Microsoft and Novo Nordisk have made similar moves this fall, while smaller companies continue to allow flexible choices because they don't have the same leverage over the workforce, especially when the labor market is tight.

Under Armour's brandnew HQ building, the company requires
return to work on site (Photo: Philipsen)

Remember when people spoke of “telecommuting”—a time when just a phone, a dial-up connection, and a computer fueled futurists’ speculations about how technology would change work? The needle barely moved until the COVID pandemic pushed remote work into overdrive. Suddenly, every software company rushed to develop platforms for online conferencing, screen sharing, and features that supported side chats, recording, and even council meetings and town halls in virtual space. Skype, once the pioneer, was overtaken by Zoom, which became the default word for remote meetings—just as “Xeroxing” once meant copying, or “Ubering” means ride-hailing.

Remote work proved hugely popular among employees. Studies show it increases productivity while lowering employment costs. It also has some environmental benefits from driving less. So why the reversal? Forbes recently mused about this very question and concluded that these decisions are not necessarily rational, fact or data based.

Over two thirds of people who did it loved remote work (2023)

In the real world, however, corporate decisions about where employees work, like so many other decisions pertaining to talent management and culture, are not always based on reason, let alone data and evidence. In fact, most of the major motives underpinning organizational mandates to bring back workers to the office full-time are influenced by factors, including politics, culture, subjective opinions and bias, that are not positively linked to employee morale and productivity, or a logical objection to remote or hybrid working. I say most because there may well be organizations that base their decisions on hard facts and data, but they appear to be the exception rather than the norm. (Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic, Forbes)

Indeed, these decisions need to be understood in a broader societal context, one in which authority, command, control, and power have regained standing—at least in parts of society. They also carry emotional components not easily captured by data. Not feeling guilty about putting children in daycare all day may be one factor. The satisfaction of changing scenery, experiencing face-to-face communication, or participating in a dynamic in-person meeting where body language and facial expressions matter are others. During COVID or the initial excitement over remote work, such factors may have seemed less important. But over time, they resurface. The personal connections built in person may sustain virtual meetings for a while, but eventually wear thin and need to be refreshed—or, in the case of new employees, created in the first place.

Remote work has never been an option for everyone and has never been distributed equally. Four years after the pandemic, only about one-fifth of the workforce still works remotely, but those who have to be on site don't have a choice. Many jobs still inherently require physical presence, especially when manual labor is involved, a fact creating an inherent inequity.

Share of work arrangement for full time workers 2025
(WFH Research)

The debate isn’t only about productivity or personal preference. It has immense implications for office space, workplace design, the functions of entire downtowns and the tax base of cities. Cities and suburbs have long been shaped by commuting—first by streetcar, then by car, bus, or subway. Commutes determined where communities were built. Homes reflected the idea of women staying home, then adapted to women joining the commuting workforce, creating “latchkey kids.” Schools and daycare facilities expanded to offer aftercare, meals, and transportation.

When remote work peaked, transit vehicles emptied, downtown stores and eateries shuttered for lack of customers, and office vacancy rates soared. Suburban homes sprouted makeshift offices, while food deliveries clogged local streets. Now, with RTO mandates, transit ridership is creeping back, main streets are livelier, and lunch spots are filling up again even though office vacancy rates remain high.

The participation of women in the workforce has reshaped the entire economy. If remote work opportunities truly shrink, the ripple effects will be felt everywhere—with not always predictable consequences.

Yet the swings between RTO vs. WFH aren’t the only uncertain factor shaping the future of work. Automation and artificial intelligence are upending long-held assumptions. Not only has manual labor steadily declined, but the very office work that defined modern employment—and, later, remote work—is now about to decline as well, increasingly replaced by AI. In combination with robotics, AI threatens to take over much of the office work humans currently perform just as automation reduced the manufacturing workforce or machines slashed the agricultural one before.

Empty storefronts in Washington DC fall of 2023
(Photo: Philipsen)

The impacts on housing, towns, cities, transportation, and urban life are only beginning to be explored. To glimpse what may come, a look back is useful. Only about 150 years ago did mass salaried employment, the separation of work from home, and commuting become common. Before then, work and life often happened in the same place: farms, shops with living quarters above, or craft workshops with apprentices. Leaving aside indentured labor or slavery, many worked alongside family or trainees. Others belonged to a “leisure class,” free from work altogether. The rural elite entertained themselves with social events, hunting, and horseback riding. The urban idle life was epitomized by the French flâneur—someone who strolled the city, watched people, and lingered in cafés. None of these groups commuted, clocked timesheets, or worked in shifts.

Industrialization ended that way of life, replacing the flaneur's delights with modern offices, factories, and sprawl, in turn sparking movements like City Beautiful in a vain effort to reclaim a sense of livable urbanity.

A future city devoid of a large class of people working in factories or offices will not mean the end of the city. As for the entire history of cities, it would still remain to be a place of art, culture, education, entertainment and research. There would still be museums, concert halls, universities, laboratories, restaurants and parks and ways to get around.

The City as an attraction. Baltimore summer '25
Modern flaneurs (Photo: Philipsen

A future city without masses of office workers will not mean the end of the city. Cities have always been more than workplaces: they are places of art, culture, education, entertainment, and research. Museums, concert halls, universities, laboratories, restaurants, parks, and transit will still matter.

The real question is whether robots and AI could create a new, more inclusive leisure class—people living from the productivity of their avatars and machines, the optimistic scenario, or whether a much darker dystopian scenario with mass unemployment, widespread poverty, and a population controlled by a small elite owning production, communication, and transport would prevail. Such a dark future would hardly produce thriving cities.

As the saying goes, the future is what we make it. Which is why the question of what kind of work we want is important, but in a much bigger sense that that of remote or in person. must go far beyond remote vs. in-person. It must also include guardrails for artificial intelligence and a more inclusive, equitable way of governing our societies.

Klaus Philipsen, FAIA

* Barrero, Jose Maria, Nicholas Bloom, and Steven J. Davis, 2021. “Why working from home will stick,” National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper 28731. www.wfhresearch.com

Related on this blog:

From Cubicles to Community: The City Beyond the Office
(Part 1)

From Cubicles to Community: Opportunities for the City. (Part 2)

Too Loud to Live Well? Noise in Architecture and City Planning

2025-09-12T13:24:00.001-04:00

The traditional definition of noise is “unwanted or disturbing sound”. Sound becomes unwanted when it either interferes with normal activities such as sleeping, conversation, or disrupts or diminishes one’s quality of life. The fact that you can’t see, taste or smell it may help explain why it has not received as much attention as other types of pollution, such as air pollution, or water pollution. (EPA)

Perceiving Sound or Noise?

“What is that noise?” my my two-and-a-half-year-old granddaughter keeps asking whenever she hears something unfamiliar, her little pointer finger raised in curiosity. “It was too noisy,” she commented after a recent circus visit, “and my daddy forgot my headphones” (referring to her earmuffs). It was her strongest impression. For her, sound is an important part of learning but also a matter of interference.

Sound comes in many shapes. Bliss or bane? (Photo: Philipsen)

Auditory perception is our main gateway to communication with others via speech and music, and it also plays an important role in alerting and orienting us to new events.(NIH)

I wish more adults retained that same awareness of sound. Being somewhat sensitive to sound myself, noise has been on my mind for years. In a 2013 piece titled "Do We Really Like it Big, Fast and Noisy?" I wrote:

Background music in bars, restaurants, elevators, stores indoor malls and outdoor shopping centers seems to indicate a fear of quietness. TVs monitors blasting in airport lounges and hotel lobbies and breakfast rooms. Cars that honk and beep every time someone touches the remote, trucks that beep when they back up. Trash trucks and school buses that are so noisy that they shake everybody out of bed as soon as they enter one end of the neighborhood. Buses that talk when they turn, the door opens. Traffic signals that beep and talk so the blind can't hear the cars anymore, fire trucks with horns so powerful they can bust your ear drums. Baby toys that make incessant noise, Networking gatherings routinely get extremely loud in a self feeding loop until one has to yell to be heard at all. Neighbors or lawn workers trot out any number of machines that exceed any noise limits for commercial construction, from leaf blowers to chainsaws, from power washers to weed whackers.

Recognizing that the one's bliss is the others bane, this post is going beyond the general complaint and looks at the specifics of what sound is, where it originates and how it can be combatted or mitigated. We will leave out the obviously desired sounds of music.

The Physics of Sound

Sound waves are longitudinal waves that travel through air or water. When we think of sound, we typically consider its loudness (amplitude or intensity) and pitch (frequency). Noise cannot be seen or smelled — but it travels fast, about 767 mph in air, and across a wide frequency spectrum. Humans can hear only a small portion of this spectrum, which also varies by age and individual.

Decibel, a logarithmic scale, 3dB increase = 100%
louder

Noise is measured on a logarithmic decibel (dB) scale, meaning perceived loudness doubles with every 3 dB increase. A 10 dB increase represents a tenfold rise in sound energy. There are four decibel scales (A–D), with A and C being most commonly used to measure environmental noise in workplaces, schools, hospitals, and airports.

Noise rarely stays within property lines even though its intensity diminishes with distance according to the Inverse Square Law, dropping about 6 dB every time the distance from the source doubles. Managing sound that travels so easily is difficult, especially very loud noise that can travel quite far. If one neighbor wants to blow leaves while another wants to read quietly outdoors, whose right prevails? If one neighbor blows leaves but 200 others have to listen, does the majority count more than the individual?

The reduction of decibels (dB) of sound with distance is governed by the Inverse Square Law for point sources, meaning sound levels decrease by 6 decibels for every doubling of the distance from the source. This happens because the sound energy from a point source is spread over an increasingly larger spherical area, with the surface area of a sphere increasing by the square of the radius. (Source)

Few airline passengers realize that their entire trip from takeoff to landing lays down a “noise carpet” on the land below. Those who have experienced true silence in remote wilderness know how often this stillness is shattered by jet noise — even six miles overhead.

Noise in Architecture

As an architect, I know noise control often fails at the design and construction stages. Plastic plumbing pipes amplify flushing toilets, footsteps resound on squeaky joists, and budget hotels are legendary for their paper-thin walls. Even in higher-end hotels, through-wall AC units roar to life in the night. Household appliances rattle and hum; HVAC systems hiss; barking dogs are heard through closed windows.

US framed house, party wall with gypsum board
for sound and fire (Photo: Philipsen)

Yet in real estate, sound quality rarely plays a role in marketing — even though a comfortable sound environment is as essential as aesthetics or functionality. The International Building Code (IBC) requires sound transmission between dwelling units to achieve a Sound Transmission Class (STC) rating of 50 dB or better, but this is often undermined by construction shortcuts: poorly sealed outlets, misaligned pipes, or missing insulation create “sound bridges” that defeat the wall’s rating. If you can clearly hear conversation in a motel room next door, the STC rating is likely closer to 30 dB.

Impact sound — from footsteps, rolling toys, or high heels — is also supposed to be limited to 50 dB. With carpets falling out of fashion and hard-surface flooring trending, reducing impact noise often requires structural measures like floating floors or suspended ceilings.

By contrast, European homes are typically built with solid walls, floating concrete floors, and heavy doors that provide full acoustic privacy. European appliances are so quiet that Miele and Bosch dishwashers have become prized in American open kitchens. Yet even there, noise is not absent: Windows stay open for ventilation, and street sounds drift in and residents' noise floats out..

Noise in Cities

Environmental noise has caught the attention of the public. ArcDaily published a piece about Improving Urban Soundscapes for Well-Being and NIH published a study about Building a City with Low Noise Pollution. Science Direct published Effects of planning variables on urban traffic noise at different scales, identifying traffic as the biggest emitter of environmental noise. Proper planning as well as source control are needed to create a quieter and healthier city.

A look to Europe is helpful. Despite higher densities, European cities often seem quieter: garbage trucks and buses are nearly silent thanks to encapsulated engines; police helicopters are rare; loud car exhausts and boom boxes are illegal and enforced. Some countries mandate “quiet hours” during night, Sundays, or siesta time. In restaurants, people speak softly, without blaring TVs. Parks and pedestrian streets are deliberately designed to preserve quietude.

Airplane noise from start to finish

Of course, there are exceptions — corner bars may release drunken singers down the street, church bells ring hourly, and soccer hooligans can turn night to chaos. Still, the overall effect is more controlled than in most U.S. cities.

Dirt bikes, a common urban entertainment here, are much less popular there. Juveniles who jazzed up their car exhaust systems will be stopped and their cars confiscated; entertaining an entire block with one's choice of music playing at full blast over custom speakers and woofers until even adjacent cars begin to vibrate, is illegal and not tolerated. Near Italian hospitals you find routinely signs asking to avoid "rumore inutile (Useless noise). The Manhattan curse of noisy trash trucks pulling up in the middle of the night is unthinkable in most places in Europe. In restaurants there people talk with hushed voices, without TVs blaring from several walls. Closing streets for cars can make them so quiet that one can hear the clacking of shoes and the voices of children.

As the examples demonstrate, a quieter city requires interventions not only in the planning stage (avoiding mixing very loud activities and facilities in with residential use), but also on many levels in the ongoing operations ranging from regulating of activities, products and use times to enforcement and technical innovation. Most of all, though, it requires that people want it quieter.

Noise Doesn't Equal noise

Obviously people differ widely in noise sensitivity based on individual preferences, culture, age and lifestyle. Some are disturbed by high frequencies, others by low rumbles. Some find white noise soothing; others find it intolerable. Cultural differences also matter: Quebec may be quieter than New Orleans; Oslo quieter than Naples, reflecting Scandinavia’s more reserved lifestyle compared to southern Europe’s exuberance. Younger people often seek out loud music and clubs, whereas older adults crave peace and quiet. Geography matters: Rural areas may be perceived as too quiet, whereas cities are always louder.

In the crosshairs of regulation: Gas powered
leaf blowers (Photo:Metro West Daily News)

The same sound can be one person’s joy and another’s torment. What feels like “freedom” to one may feel like an intrusion to another.

Noise and health

Noise is not just a matter of subjective preference — it also has objective ramifications on our health which makes it a public health issue. Research links environmental noise, particularly nighttime exposure, to hypertension, heart failure, myocardial infarction, and stroke — even after adjusting for air pollution and socioeconomic status.

A 5-dB reduction in average noise exposure would cut the prevalence of high blood pressure by 1.5 percent and cut heart disease by 1.8 percent. Again, these are low numbers. But because of the high incidence of these conditions to begin with, an average 5-dB reduction would have an annual economic benefit of $3.9 billion. (Scientific American 4/16/24)

Yet noise is rising: by 2014, over 100 million Americans experienced average noise exposure above 70 dB — equivalent to standing next to a washing machine all day.

It was a rise of 15 dB in just a generation, which is the difference between normal conversation and a vacuum cleaner. (Scientific American)

Noise impacts on health are not limited to to heart failure and such but more subtle effects such as not perceiving the sounds of nature. The rustling of leaves, the song of birds or the chirping of grass hoppers. Humans are so accustomed to human sounds that many put headphones on while running or playing loud music in their golf carts, drowning out whatever nature would tell them. Alienation from nature exacts a health cost, too, even though it isn't easily measured.

Noise Mitigation Through Technology

Since enforcement of noise after it has been emitted can be difficult (measurement equipment, procedures, definitions etc.) the most promising method would be source control, i.e.making stuff that is quieter. We have, indeed, made much progress on that. Modern electric machines are less noisy than gas powered machinery. Airplanes, cars and some trucks have become much quieter thanks to encapsulation and attention to sound mitigation. Electric cars are so quiet that they now have to emit some noise by law. Appliances are getting quieter as well. Dishwashers are marketed as quiet with decibel ratings from 37-50 dB (A) but some are as loud as 60db (A). Further electrification of blowers, mowers, golf carts and cars will certainly make the environment quieter. It is conceivable that emergency vehicles could alert surrounding vehicles by radio waves. Some jurisdictions offer free window upgrades for residents near airports that can bring windows to the same reduction rate as a party wall between apartments.

Noise mitigation by law

Environmental noise was addressed along with with the Clean Air and the Clean Water Act with the Noise Control Act as early as 1972. But it withered in Reagan's early attempt of reducing federal government and moving enforcement to states and local government. EPA's website laconically states:

the Noise Control Act of 1972 and the Quiet Communities Act of 1978 were never rescinded by Congress and remain in effect today, although they are essentially unfunded.

Barnes & Noble marketing

Indeed, many local jurisdictions have noise limits on their books. An analysis of 491 U.S. noise ordinances in 2016 revealed most communities used multiple standards to regulate noise exposure, and nuisance through zoning and regulation of audible decibel levels depending on the time of day and distance. Yet, enforcement seems generally absent. Police has bigger fish to fry and generally stays away from enforcing those "quality of life" infractions. In Maryland, for example, any modification on factory installed car exhaust systems is prohibited. Yet, the roar of modified exhaust pipes is ubiquitous and unabated. It seems that on the political level the issue has yet "to arrive".

Conclusion

With all our wellness trends, yoga studios, and calls to “return to nature,” you would think quiet would be a public priority. With my granddaughter in mind and the health effect now investigated, noise should not remain the most overlooked pollutant. It is high time we start listening — quite literally — before the political din drowns out our ability to hear ourselves think.

Klaus Philipsen, FAIA

Related articles on this blog:

A Quieter City through Design and Architecture

https://archplanbaltimore.blogspot.com/2016/01/a-quieter-city-through-design-and.html

Do we really like it big, fast and noisy?

https://archplanbaltimore.blogspot.com/2013/09/do-we-really-like-it-big-fast-and-noisy.html

Beyond the Fences: the Hidden Costs of Privatized Nature and the Benefits of Access

2025-08-14T11:48:00.003-04:00

“By natural law, these things are the common property of all: the air, the running water, the sea, and with it, the shores of the sea.” (Institutes of Justinian, by the Byzantine Emperor, Justinian I, published anno 533)

Back to Nature - Not as Easy as it Seems

Temporary urban beach on a reclaimed industrial site in Baltimore
(Photo: Philipsen)

Ahh summer! Pack up the camper or the tents, enjoy the great outdoors! Oceans, lakes, mountains, deserts, prairies, there's hardly any type of landscape the US doesn't offer. Freedom is in the country's DNA, so what could possibly go wrong with setting out to roam?

Turns out, plenty.

I learned this early on after moving to Maryland from Europe decades ago. Living overseas, I had spent vacations roaming seashores and mountains in nearly a dozen countries. This could mean driving my VW camper bus to an especially gorgeous spot overlooking a Norwegian fjord and staying there for a couple of days. This wasn't a campground, nor was it a park; it was just nature.

Camping near a fjord in Norway (Photo: Philipsen)

Or sleeping on a Greek beach under the stars. Or hiking and biking from the edge of any German village or town right into the countryside, through fields and woods, using farm access roads or forest roads that were usually a public right of way. In this manner, one could go on for hundreds of miles all the way to Austria, Switzerland, or France and beyond without using any highway or encountering "no trespassing" signs, much like one can hike on the Appalachian Trail here. Taking the kids out let them ride their bikes or trikes on the farm or forest roads that were closed to general traffic, check out the crops, get close to cows, horses, or pigs, or observe the forest wildlife.

Back then I didn't know Justinian's principle, the "right to roam", property law, or any of the legal constructs that I will discuss here and which affect a lot of people:

Biking through the German countryside

According to the most recent National Survey on Recreation and the Environment, 122 million people go to the beach every year, 95 million people take to the water in some kind of boat, and 80 million go fishing. These millions of recreational users are competing with each other, with fishermen, and with multiple other users for space where land meets water. (NOAA Seagrant paper 2019)

The Privatized Waterfront

Arriving before there were electronic maps in a state that prides itself on being "America in miniature" for its lakes, seashores, and mountains, I found myself unfolding the latest edition of the official state highway map to scout for the best places along the Chesapeake Bay. So much shoreline, so many islands, peninsulas, and points jutting out into the water, all promising spectacular views, maybe beaches, maybe shoreline trails.

After a few trips to those promising points on the map, I sobered up. Wherever I went, I encountered fences, no trespassing signs, and miles of shoreline entirely walled off by private property—often without any gap.

Privatized Maryland waterfront: Cape St Claire (Google Earth)

My explorations by trial and error were very frustrating. I learned the hard way what most U.S. residents who are born here know from growing up here: The U.S. doesn't typically recognize a "right to roam"; private property is sacred and can include natural resources.

The small state of Maryland has a whopping 3,190 miles of shoreline. This exceeds the distance between Baltimore and L.A. by 550 miles!

Holly Beach Farm, owned by a foundation, but no public access
(Photo: Baltimore Banner)

Yet only 2% of the shoreline has public access or is public, usually because they are part of a municipal or state park—places that frequently limit access via fees, opening hours, and all types of restrictions that prohibit camping, the use of alcohol, or commercial activity. But not all states are equal! Even in the U.S., with its generally strong property rights, huge differences exist between states that don't fall neatly along the usual party lines of liberal and conservative.

The Legal Side: Riparian Rights, the Public Trust Doctrine and Rights for Nature

Waterfronts provide riparian rights or littoral rights to property owners, which leave a strip between the high and low water marks open to the public. For tidal waters, this could be a substantial area, but it proves useless where no access is provided, and private properties form a tight wall preventing access to the shore.

The State of Maryland—like all other states in the Union—owns the submerged lands beneath the navigable waters within its borders. In Maryland riparian landowners—whose privately owned land extends to the mean high water line—generally have a common-law right of reasonable access to navigable water and, by statute, the right to build a pier out over State-owned submerged lands to provide such access. Those riparian rights, however, have always been subject to the State’s obligation under the public trust doctrine to hold State-owned property for the use of all citizens. Many court cases have supported that the area between mean high water and mean low water, title to which is vested in the State of Maryland, is held for the benefit of the inhabitants of the State. (MDE)

Public rights are the subject of the Public Trust Doctrine, a concept dating back to the Roman Empire, specifically the year 533. As quoted above this article, it holds that natural resources including wildlife, rivers, and streams, are owned by everyone. The doctrine is one of the main underpinnings of environmental law in the United States, although it is a matter of debate whether federal law explicitly recognizes it. Justice Scalia’s called it in majority opinion in Lucas v. South Carolina Coastal Commission, a "background principle of property law". It is generally understood that the states are supposed to hold natural resources in trust for the good of their citizens. The specifics are more or less narrowly defined and vary widely between states.

The American approach [to the public trust doctrine] assigns states responsibility to manage natural resources for the benefit of the public, but the doctrine has evolved along multiple dimensions among the different U.S. states. Some extend doctrinal protection from waterways to other resources, some extend doctrinal protection from a limited set of navigation-related values to more fulsome environmental values, and some locate public trust principles in different areas of state law, including common law, statutory law, and constitutional law. (Environmental Rights for the 21st Century, Cardozo Law Review, 2021)

The doctrine typically limits itself to the right of access to "navigable" bodies of water; however, the definition of what that means varies quite a bit between states. Montana, Idaho, California, and, believe it or not, Texas and Florida have rather liberal public access rights, the latter two pertaining mostly to beaches. Texas anchored this in the Texas Open Beaches Act since 1959, and 50 years later it was anchored in a constitutional amendment. It guarantees the public's right to access public beaches up to the vegetation line and even allows for a changing coastline by defining a "rolling easement." New York State allows public access to all navigable waters up to the high water mark and has augmented this right with a massive “Public Fishing Rights Easement” program, creating more public space through easements along 1,300 miles of shore on 400 streams.

Enjoyment on the water's edge (Photo: Philipsen)

By contrast, even though an outdoor heaven, Colorado has some of the most restrictive laws when it comes to river access. Similarly, Maine, known for its rugged shorelines, allows for fully private waterfront property; no Public Trust access here. California, which has 840 miles of coastline (not counting all wrinkles), allows beach access based on the California Coastal Act. This law grants the public the right to access all beaches in California, even on private property, below the mean high tide line.

Another approach to regulating "water, the sea, and with it, the shores of the sea" is giving nature in general personhood status and rights. This is called the Rights of Nature, at this point more of a movement than a legal doctrine. However, with recent decisions of international courts declaring a healthy environment a human right, Rights of Nature got additional buoyancy. So far only Ecuador has enacted a law codifying rights of nature. A few US municipalities have tried to use such rights to protect nature, some of those are mired in litigation.

It is the recognition that our ecosystems – including trees, oceans, animals, mountains – have rights just as human beings have rights. Rights of Nature is about balancing what is good for human beings against what is good for other species, what is good for the planet as a world. It is the holistic recognition that all life, all ecosystems on our planet are deeply intertwined. Rather than treating Nature as property under the law, Rights of Nature acknowledges that Nature in all its life forms has the right to exist, persist, maintain and regenerate its vital cycles. (Rights of Nature website)

Where you Can and Where Not

Expanding my Maryland travel to other states, I found that laws don’t always match reality and that differences between states are significant. Pennsylvania put Justinian into their constitution, but that is not always obvious. In the agreements between states in the Chesapeake Bay watershed, Pennsylvania usually acts as the brake man, even though its mighty Susquehanna River feeds tons of sediments and pollutants right into the headwaters of the Bay. PA also allows fracking.

“The people have a right to clean air, pure water, and to the preservation of the natural, scenic, historic and esthetic values of the environment. Pennsylvania's public natural resources are the common property of all the people, including generations yet to come. As trustee of these resources, the Commonwealth shall conserve and maintain them for the benefit of all the people.” (PA. Const. Art. I, § 27)

California really ensures good access to the shore along most of the Pacific coast, even where very expensive private properties crowd it.

People assembling to watch the sun set over
the Pacific in San Diego (Photo: Philipsen)

Surfers and beach runners take advantage of this, as do sun lovers sitting on the beaches. Nevertheless, setting up a camper on top of a bluff, as I did in Norway, is out of the question, even here in the land of hippies. Other states' more liberal rules about water access don't do much for me in Maryland, though.

This isn't a trivial matter and has relevance far beyond my personal frustrations. Public access to water or other natural features has to do with those "third spaces" that everyone is talking about these days. Their importance was highlighted by the pandemic, where isolation was the mantra all week and where public parks overflowed as a powerful antidote to loneliness.

Pandemic or not, a beach is a communal experience, no matter how small it is. Water exerts an incredible attraction on us, from the smallest stream to lakes and oceans. It has motivated expeditions, discoveries, and the location of cities and factories.

Privatizing the powerful experience of water provides a very special privilege to a necessarily small group of people and brings to mind the even nefarious practice of limiting beach access by race that has happened on a large scale in Maryland. There were fewer than a handful of beaches where Black residents had access. One was Carr's Beach near Annapolis, which started as part of an 180-acre farm owned by a former slave whose daughter turned parts of the land into a "black Eden" resort. In the era of Jim Crow laws, the facility thrived not only as a regionally popular recreational beach but also as an event venue featuring Count Basie, Ray Charles, Sarah Vaughan, Wilson Pickett, and 'the Godfather of Soul,' James Brown. Development shrank the land to a measly five acres. It took 17 years of diligent work to preserve the legacy as a public beach, an important asset in a county about which the Baltimore Banner wrote an article titled: Anne Arundel County has 533 miles of shoreline. One mile is for public swimming. (0.18%).

That’s the outcome of centuries when owning the waterfront was either a key to wealth through the tobacco trade or a sign of it with waterfront homes and private beaches. The result is that the few public swimming beaches are crammed every summer and tightly regulated with fees and reservations.(Baltimore Banner)

Environmental, Health and Economic Challenges of a Privatized Waterfront

The privatization of nature—be it mountains, lakes, rivers, or the sea—goes far beyond deprivation or privilege. It affects human health and happiness through the relaxation that comes from being in nature and the experiences that come from swimming, playing with sand, seeing tides, waves, fish, or seashells; these should be part of anybody's childhood but are kept from most.

The increased popularity of incorporating the healing power of nature into health care, public health programs, architecture, and education has been inspired by a relatively new body of scientific evidence that associates improved wellness and lower mortality rates with access to green and biodiverse spaces. In the span of a decade, the number of studies indicating that time spent in natural surroundings–whether groomed urban parks or unruly wilderness landscapes–can improve people’s well-being has increased from dozens to hundreds. (Children and Nature Network, 2019)

Privatized off limits nature also affects our health by making the environment unhealthy.

An extreme case of privatizing the water's edge:
The abandoned 1968 "mushroom house" in La Jolla,
California with tram up the bluff (Photo: Phiipsen)

Sprawl along the water causes pollution, erosion, and flooding. More development along the waterways and shores means more sealed ground, more runoff, more erosion, and more sediment and pollution in streams, rivers, and estuaries—not good for ocean water quality. Almost all the plastics in the ocean are swept in by rivers and streams; a smaller part is discarded from ships or left on beaches. Excessive erosion, with the associated sediments at the mouth of streams and rivers, frequently suffocates grasses and aquatic life, in turn depleting water further of oxygen. The oceans are the planet's largest CO2 sink. Warmer, more polluted oceans now approach CO2 saturation, which would be a catastrophic tipping point in climate change.

Development on the water's edge has also economic consequences. Initial benefits, such as increased taxes and new residents, become liabilities through the ever-increasing losses stemming from destruction by floods, storms, and fires fueled by the very assets that attracted the development: water and forests. It becomes clearer with every disaster that it isn't prudent to have development crowding the oceans, the rivers, and the wilderness and that new ways are needed to create resiliency.

Resilience Through Naturalization and Access

On a cloudy day in May 2023 I climbed up to the platform of an observation tower to witness first hand how naturalized water edges may be a way of achieving resilience and public access at the same time. My eyes scanned a massive infrastructure construction site covering 700 acres, the Port Lands project which includes a realigned “naturalized” river, new roads, new bridges and lands set aside for a park and new development. The whole thing is part of Toronto’s Lake Ontario shoreline and a flood prevention project. A large park is getting finished now as the first piece of the $1.4 bn Port Lands project.

A new park in Toronto as part of a shoreline naturalization project
(Photo: Port Lands press kit

The 60 acre Biidaasige Park is part of the naturalization of the Don River and part of the Port Lands' flood protection. Before the realignment and naturalization the Don floodwaters would overwhelm portions of the southeastern area of downtown Toronto. The park and the realignment of the river are a very large landscape infrastructure and urban precedent for resiliency and climate adaptation, wonderfully combining naturalization, resilience and public access of a waterfront

Numerous other such projects are under way or in planning, from New York to San Francisco and from Toronto to Florida They include the Seal Beach National Wildlife Refuge, Surfers Point, San Francisco Bay, Hamilton Wetland, and Humboldt Coastal Dune, projects focused on restoring salt marsh, beaches, dunes, wetlands, and near shore habitats to improve coastal resilience.

Living shoreline Mahone Bay, Nova Scotia (Photo: G. Harding)

In Detroit, MI, projects at Maheras Gentry Park, Gabriel Richard Park, and Stroh River Place involved restoring shoreline, creating wetlands, and installing native plants to improve fish habitat and stabilize eroding areas. The Oak Point - McInnis Cement project in the South Bronx, NYC, restored wetlands at a former landfill to provide flood protection and ecological benefits. The Kilisut Harbor project in Washington State restored tidal connections and tidal marsh habitat for storm and sea level rise resilience.

In Naples Bay, FL, oyster reef restoration aims to protect a mangrove shoreline from storm surge and improve the habitat and water quality. In Nova Scotia a naturalized "living shoreline" already passed the test of a hurricane and saved three historic churches on Mahone Bay.

When Hurricane Fiona reached Mahone Bay on the southern coast of Nova Scotia in 2022 — packing powerful waves and 100-mph winds — the community’s historic, flood-prone waterfront churches were spared. Far from a miracle, residents credited a newly built 60-meter “living shoreline” made up of tidal wetlands, vegetated banks and other natural barriers for absorbing and diffusing potentially destructive storm surges. (CityLab 8-11-25).

Beach near Valencia Spain (Photo: Philipsen)

Away from False Binaries towards Integrated Solutions

We see that the issue of free roaming, water access, and riparian rights goes beyond the binary of private property rights versus public interest or liberal versus conservative or public use versus resilience. Neither international nor state-by-state comparisons fit such simplistic classifications. Where would that put conservative Florida and Texas with their emphasis on public rights in comparison to some "blue states" such as Colorado or Maryland with their emphasis on private property rights? Why would Ecuador and not Norway be the first country to recognize the right for nature?

The question of access to nature, and water in particular, no longer follows the left-right divide, no matter that the right in the U.S. currently shows the middle finger to any environmental protection. Many local and state politicians and legal experts have recognized that being conservative means conservation and, by extension, reining in the seemingly unstoppable destruction of our physical world. Furthermore, many of these dualities can be resolved with creative solutions that turn false choices between environmental protection, property protection, public access and resilience into all of the above solutions.

We have only one nature, and in the end, nature will have the last word. As astronaut Neil Armstrong put it:

"It suddenly struck me that that tiny pea, pretty and blue, was the Earth. I put up my thumb and shut one eye, and my thumb blotted out the planet Earth. I didn't feel like a giant. It felt very, very small."

Earth rising over the moon's horizon

We can't all fly to space to have this experience of earth. But access to nature and more freedom to roam can have the same effect and would make us better stewards of our planet.

If we can agree that access to the rest of nature is fundamental to our humanity, to our very being, it could open the way to a renewed ecological solidarity–an intertwining of human rights and the rights of all nature. In saving the earth, we save ourselves. (Richard Louv, Sierra Magazine May 2019)

Klaus Philipsen, FAIA

Leon Krier 1946-2025 - Not a Eulogy

2025-07-02T16:15:00.003-04:00

"The most important thing in life is to never make compromises (...) because accepting compromises means losing. I have seen it in all my friends who build." (Leon Krier per Architecture Viva)

The Back Story

Leon Krier who died in June this year at age 79 had admired his eight years older brother Rob who died in 2023 age 85. Both were architects and both derided modernist architecture and current urban design as an abomination.

Leon Krier image: Furiously determined, classical

Both were outsiders swimming upstream at a time when almost all architects were fervent modernists. In spite of this the elder brother stayed in architecture school long enough to receive a degree, while Leon fled Stuttgart's university after a year without a degree which didn't stop him from becoming an enfant terrible in the international architectural community, or as he would probably prefer, a prophet in the wilderness. In the end it was the younger Leon who got an obituary in the New York Times, not Rob.

The lack of a degree didn't stop the younger Leon to work in reputable architecture firms and even teach at universities. Eventually he landed a very high profile project with Poundbury, a British New Town designed in the style of traditional English village. Its master planning was commissioned to Krier by nobody less than Prince Charles, now the King of England. Krier designed buildings tend to be rather funny creatures that seem to have jumped off the pages of his cartoon style drawings.

"When I set out on this venture, I was determined that Poundbury would break the mould of conventional housing development in this country" (King Charles)

Poundbury is now a place of more than 4000 residents, very cute and so retro, that the garages are too small for contemporary cars. Leon wrote books and endlessly produced entertainingly polemic sketches illustrating the fallacies of modernism and modern planning. His missionary attitude fell on fertile ground not only with Prince Charles but also with with the architect pair of Andres Duany and Plater Zyberk who popularized Krier's beliefs under the term New Urbanism, originally materialized in the small towns of Seaside Florida and Kentlands, outside Washington DC. A friend and colleague of mine started working on the Kentland project in 1988 as the Town Architect. New Urbanism eventually influenced new suburbs across the country. The Congress of New Urbanism took place 33 times, three times as often than its nemesis, Congrès Internationaux d’Architecture Moderne, Duany proudly notes in his eulogy for Krier.

Our civilization has lost both a pillar and a buttress: one a brave, brilliant, and uncompromising architect, Krier; the other a warm, funny, and generous friend and mentor, Leo.(Andres Duany)

Both Kriers spent time at the Stuttgart University, my alma mater. Which brought them to my attention early in my life. during my time Rob Krier was teaching assistant to professor Johannes Uhl who taught design and interiors. When I started paying attention to Stuttgart's auto-centric post-war design, an analysis of Stuttgart's spaces before and after the war drawn up by Rob Krier in his book "The Theory and Practice of Urban Space" caught my attention, but also derision for its notions of classical order.

Rob Krier: Urban Space, Stuttgart analyzed

Now it looks to me like a very thoughtful analysis. My aversion to the classicist approach and anything the Krier brothers propagated did not subside easily. It was fueled again when Leon wrote a book about Albert Speer, Hitler's house architect, and undertook a book tour in 2009. It only confirmed for me that the Kriers were hung up on imperialist Roman patterns that were also the models for fascists. Even knowing New Urbanism and the Kentlands early on, I maintained my aversion. In a 2009 e-mail exchange with fellow architects who wanted to go to one of Leon's lectures, I wrote:

I agree with Krier (gasp!) in one point: Modernism has failed cities. Modernism has advanced building design, technology and style but it hasn't brought much in terms of plausible or desirable urban form.
But beyond that, I'd like to send Krier on a long journey to China, South America, Africa and India where the action is. The euro-centric debates emanating around the pre-senile Prince Charles are irrelevant.
The world's population is rapidly expanding with over 2/3 people now living in urbanized areas. No way that Poundbury can be the solution for Hongkong, Shanghai, Mumbai, Sao Paulo or Kinshasa. Rem Koolhaas (for example) has so infinitely much more to say about this than Krier, its not even funny.

Thus, the Krier brothers loomed as antagonists in my life as an architect, even though, I also devoted much of my time to fight sprawl, automobilism and propagating a different urbanism.

Leon Krier sketch commentary

I believe I even talked with Leon Krier after an AIA lecture in Baltimore a long time ago, later I did attended his guest lecture at the University of Maryland while teaching there for a stint. In the first case I was terrified because I wasn't sure I didn't confuse him with his brother. At the second time I found Leon's pontifications only mildly entertaining and eventually as grating as the current President's edict that government architecture has to be classical.

Professor Trüby, a faculty member of the University of Stuttgart, brought Krier's death to my attention through his Facebook post in which he expressed his own mixed feelings about Krier with whom he had stayed in contact:

I always valued him as an "agent provocateur" and illustrative polemicist, and even though I wrote a lot of critical things about him, his Speer book, and his reconstruction obsession, in recent years we have, while maintaining our differences, developed a lively, almost friendly correspondence. He was a great, broadly educated architect with a talent for elliptical and, moreover, sometimes mercilessly topical phrases like: "I don't build because I'm an architect." Ultimately, I believe he thrived primarily on friction. That has become a rare virtue among us perpetually offended people with a full "safe space" pension. Paradoxically, then, a longing for debate lay behind his seemingly consensus orientation in the form of classical and traditional architecture.(Professor Stephan Trüby on his Facebook page, translated from German)

Cayala, Guatemala (See also the NYT)

Recklessness had gotten Krier in trouble when he wrote a book about Albert Speer and justified his architecture with statements such as "the dictators die but the architecture survives", thus divorcing either power from architecture or ignoring the intimidating intent of Speer's and Hitler's architecture.

In an interview with Trüby he went even further out by connecting Bill Gates to Hitler with vague references to "corona terror" and a "Davos conspiracy".

"Hitler and Bill Gates will one day hang in the same gallery" (Leon Krier in a conversation with Stephan Trüby about Atlantis, a Krier design for intellectual elites on Teneriffa conceived by German gallery owners.)

My Question

Krier's death struck a nerve, though, and made me do some more research about the man to see whether he wasn't right in some ways, after all. Haven't I subscribed to some of the New Urbanist principles of buildings facing narrower streets, to human centric design, to resource and energy conservation, permanence over throw away architecture and walking over driving? Haven't I proposed historic preservation as early as 1975? Haven't I named my blog "Community Architect" around the same time Leon Krier published his book "Architecture of Community" (A book I only discovered now)? Haven't I long realized that what makes our cities isn't all rational and data-based and that people rightly expect from architects physical and emotional comfort? Wasn't my contention that modern buildings are good but modern urbanism isn't an untenable, even illogical and contradictory position? Couldn't be my entire antagonism to the Kriers be nothing but a misunderstanding?

Krier sketch: The car as the anti-urban weapon of the suburb

This article is an attempt to come to terms with my ambiguity. Not that anyone would care what I think about Rob and Leo Krier, they got glowing reviews and achieved immortality, regardless. But the question whether retro architecture and urbanism can be a response to the challenges we face today, transcends architecture and urbanism and goes to the heart of the challenges humanity faces today where "retro" is offered as a solution in so many circumstances way beyond the built environment.

In my search I found this astonishing 1-3/4 hr long virtual interview on Archifeed, a relatively obscure podcast, conducted by a young man only weeks before Krier's death. In this intimate setting at his kitchen, Krier is congenial but unfortunately reveals himself less as a provocateur and more as a real reactionary.

Leon Krier in May 18, 2025 interview on ArchiFeed

His ailment is unnoticeable in his lucidly pleasant conversation style; his stream of talking is interrupted several times by him cackling about something funny. He covers a broad swath of his world view, repeating his take on Speer's architecture going as as far as stating that Hitler himself designed the fortifications of the "west wall" which he called "very beautiful" and the inspiration for Corbusier's "beton brut". While this may be one of his provocations, no matter how unproven and of bad taste this assertion may be, a bit later he went on and called all modern music and art "complete decadence". This reveals a reactionary streak. He also repeated his outlandish notion that Covid was "propaganda".

But he also tells the young man that natural materials teach craftsmanship while concrete and steel do not; they not only depend on fossil fuel but also corrupt the designer, he says. He maintains that people love reconstructions such as the "Stadtschloss" in Berlin and that his views are gaining popularity. At the time of the interview he already knew that he was "in a treatment with uncertain outcome" for what was described after his death an untreatable type of colon cancer. In spite of his condition and in spite of his cultural pronouncements, he didn't come across as a cranky old man but seemed to be in a good mood and said as much:

Screenshot of the Atlantis interview with a rendering
of the town in the background

I am almost 80 and I draw every day and am a very happy person. My modernist friends, they are all frustrated, they know modernism has no future (Leon Krier in a June 2025 podcast)

Trüby's post also helped me find this ARCH+ video in which Trüby investigates the story of Atlantis on Tenerife from which I quoted above. And of course, I looked up the eulogies and obituaries after his death that for the most part followed the maxime: De mortuis nihil nisi bene (Of the dad speak only well).

My Take-Away

Even though the two interviews confirmed my suspicion that Krier was not limiting his "retro" views to architecture and planning, what he says is not just a matter of true or false or of progressive versus reactionary. Poundbury certainly can't be scaled up and anything like it wouldn't work in China, Africa or India just as I said in 2009, neither should Chandigarh, La Defense or Tysons Corner, even though the latter has been tried often enough. While many of Leon Krier's statements are indefensible, he still puts the finger on many sore points of current architecture and planning, even though his assumption that all mainstream architects are modernists has long become obsolete.

A graphic depicting parts of Atlantis

Anyone with open eyes can see that 90% of what architects and planners created since modernism set the world on edge is utterly forgettable. This may have been the case for individual buildings of any period, but with 9 billion people the built environment has become too big to be predominantly ugly, wasteful with energy, time, space, material and resources. The "Geography of Nowhere" at the periphery of any city, the clusters around Interstate exits, industrial parks, shopping centers or most subdivisions are not only a visual assault, but also dysfunctional, destructive and short lived.

Where New Urbanist principles reined in the chaos in new mixed-use town centers, redeveloped malls or transit station developments from Cherry Creek in Colorado to Reston in Virginia, or Silver Spring in Maryland, some of Krier's lessons have been applied, even though many who follow New Urbanism, Strong Towns or many other currently popular schools of place-making may not even know about Krier. These artificial town centers are not always convincing, but they are better than what they replaced for featuring places that are more than the distance between buildings or storage area for the automobile. Many of these new urbanist inspired developments also prove that using traditional concepts for ordering things doesn't have to mean classical style buildings that can't be taller than five stories.

Beauty, Krier says and science confirms it, isn't just in the eyes of the beholder; it follows certain perceptions that humans either carry in their DNA or learn early on in their respective culture. The specifics of the learned esthetics are not universal. Nobody should be entitled to export them globally, as modernists certainly did. The Greek-Roman western ethics of the Krier brothers can't be applied universally either, even though Leon Krier may somehow have believed that. In 1984 he was happy to design Atlantis, the town in Tenerife he envisioned as place where (western) intellectual elites would meet and somehow "reform Western civilization to ensure the survival of our societies beyond the coming millennium", a colonial sound, for sure.

Krier chapel and town hall in Windsor
Florida. (Architecture Viva, Dan Forer)

India, South America, Asia, and Africa have to find their own solutions,neither carbon copies of modernism nor of western classicism, both have governed former colonies long enough.

The Krier inspired enclave of Cayala in Guatemala can serve as an admonition. Krier, the master planner ultimately resigned.

“Skyscraping is, I think, an immoral act.” (Krier)

His resignation came not because this enclave has become a place for the elite (like Atlantis) in a poor, violent and deeply unequal country, but because commercial interest inserted itself with the desired to build taller buildings.

Rifle-grasping guards squint at each passerby, sizing up potential assailants. Smoke-belching buses barrel through stop signs. But tucked within the chaotic capital’s crazy-quilt sprawl, there is a dreamlike haven where none of that exists. In the City of Cayalá, a utopian domain created by one of Guatemala’s richest families, the streets are quiet and orderly, the stores are upscale and the homes attainable — if only to families from the country’s small, moneyed elite. (NYT)

Shanghai, Hong Kong, Mumbai, Dubai Dhaka and Mexico City and many other cities are, indeed, blazing pathways that are innovative and genuinely new. Generally more modernist than classicist these developments occur on a scale we can barely imagine. Neither Leon or Robert Krier's recipes work for that, nor do Frank Lloyd Wright or Corbusier's. Krier's notion that no building should be over five or six stories is or not be made of concrete and steel is not useful for a city of 10 million residents or more. The dichotomy between modernism and classicism has long ended. But some of the values which the Kriers embraced, such as “human centric design” the “15 minute city”, local materials, energy conservation, durability and resilience are universal, nevertheless.

Klaus Philipsen, FAIA

https://architecturehereandthere.com/2022/04/19/atlantis-kriers-ideal-village/

https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2025/6/20/a-tribute-to-leon-krier-the-thinker-who-changed-my-path

https://www.thetimes.com/uk/obituaries/article/leon-krier-obituary-architect-who-designed-poundbury-q0tz99d0k

https://youtu.be/Fxg65l62kkY?si=dzboYbDTk10ulmsp

https://www.google.com/search?q=leon+krier+masterplan+for+stuttgart&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&hl=en-us&client=safari#fpstate=ive&ip=1&vld=cid:03de965d,vid:kFiYL8AvvnY,st:0

https://youtu.be/kFiYL8AvvnY?si=HyH4O7G07mEQijXg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aq6HIxsJRis (UMiami Lecture) Sept 15, 2009

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/01/18/world/americas/cayala-guatemala.html

The Just City

2025-06-27T11:41:00.000-04:00

“Cities have the capability of providing something for everybody, only because, and only when, they are created by everybody.” (Jane Jacobs)

Why the Just City?

Our cities are ground zero for the tensions, fissures, shortcomings, and successes of our society. Before the pandemic struck, cities seemed to undergo an unstoppable renaissance. Then COVID-19 brought a sharp reversal from which cities across the world have still not fully recovered. Remote work, online shopping, and food delivery services persisted, leading to a glut of office and retail space paired with an ongoing lack of housing. These ailments plague not only U.S. cities but, in varying degrees, urban areas worldwide, from Berlin and Paris to Hong Kong. The urban halo is gone, revealing in stark light the long-festering lack of equity and justice.

Image courtesy of the Just City center in Memphis (website)

Nowhere is the growing inequity more manifest than in our large cities. Poverty, blight, and despair are displayed cheek to jowl with glitz, luxury, and opulence. The blatantly extreme disparities not only beg moral, ethical, and political questions but also threaten the political stability and prosperity of those who have so far benefited from these discrepancies. The question of the just city is critical, urgent, and timely.

Communities, particularly the most marginalized, are not only the recipients but also the driving force of social action. Empowering people to participate in decision-making processes that shape their lives is the crucial first step toward creating inclusive, just and equitable societies.(World Economic Forum)

As I write this, the U.S. city has once again become a political battleground, in which even the military is brought into position. Each political party accuses the other of creating the conditions under which inequity and dysfunction thrive. Cities serve as theaters for non-local disputes that draw valuable resources away from improving the lives of all their residents.

Urban protest has a long tradition, from the Boston Tea Party to the storming of the Bastille and the Civil Rights marches. It is not new that ideas about what makes a just city diverge. Historically, Sparta and Athens have duked it out, mostly not peacefully. Today, we tend to see Athens as the better model for a just city, but we must realize that neither was just by our standards. Athens proclaimed democracy yet permitted slavery; neither women, slaves, nor foreign-born individuals could vote.

Current research on the stability and advancement of societies tends to agree that greater equity and inclusion foster more stable and prosperous communities. A Baltimore community activist expressed it succinctly: "Your team can't win if half the players are not playing and stay on the bench." Rollbacks on DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) initiatives are, therefore, counterproductive, undermining both justice and prosperity. The hypothesis that inclusion and diversity promote incompetence is false because competence requires to look at a problem from various sides, even in science. Cities have traditionally served as melting pots, thus they became more liberal than their surrounding suburban or rural areas, which often uphold racially motivated homogeneity.

The incredible unequal wealth distribution in the US

Today, eighteen of the twenty largest cities in the U.S. are governed by Democratic mayors, while only two are Republican. Both of those—Dallas and Fort Worth—have a council-manager system that grants the mayor less power. Republicans blame Democrats for many urban failures, from underperforming schools to poverty, lack of housing, crime, drug use, and homelessness.

Cities lay the groundwork for pathways to success and failure through the physical and functional living environment they present. Including metro areas, about 80% of the U.S. population lives in urbanized regions. Divides occur within these metro areas between urban and suburban, Black and White, rich and poor, east and west, etc. Physical conditions differ greatly depending on "which side of the tracks" one observes. The rift between rich and poor has increased for most of the last 50 years. In Baltimore, two adjacent zip codes can exhibit a life expectancy difference of more than a decade. This is not just blatantly unjust but tears apart the sense of community and belonging by which a functional city thrives.

Cities serve as refuges for the destitute and playgrounds for those who need the urban marketplace to spend their money. We see people camping out on sidewalks in front of high-end stores; tent cities and million dollar villas; we see the jobless hanging out on street corners, begging affluent suburban commuters for handouts. There are neighborhoods dotted with liquor stores, where goods are sold from behind bulletproof glass, and there are grocery stores as large as a football field. More affluent residents manage to live in their city without ever setting foot in in the neighborhoods of marginal and boarded-up houses and businesses.. Conversely, many carless poor never venture into tree-lined streets lined with mansions, except for Latin lawn care workers or nannies; not even the juveniles on dirt bikes dare to venture there, perceiving the risk as too high. The affluent also don't use public transit except for a very few cities such as New York. It is seen as a last resort, used by the very poor to get to far flung jobs and shops or by the homeless seeking relief from weather. Increasingly, public schools are viewed in the same light. School choice is accelerating the flight of more affluent students to private institutions to avoid absenteeism, high teacher turnover, long bus trips and classmates arriving without breakfast or any parental support. Meanwhile, private schools boast all the amenities. The "helicopter parents," clog the streets with big SUVs when they drop their kids off.

Urban income inequality (2017 data)

The fault lines occur not only within cities but also between them. Cities such as St. Louis, Cleveland, or Baltimore shrink and struggle to maintain basic services in light of dwindling tax revenues and high poverty. Denver, Dallas, or Austin, by contrast, grow, enjoy ample revenue for extravagant parks, convention centers, and sports stadiums, yet, without resolving their internal chasms. Thus, both the rich and the poor cities remain unjust. The divide between those who do and those who don't benefit from the opportunities that cities offer with their density, large scale municipal systems for transport, education, recreation, culture and infrastructure appears to be almost universal.

What is "Just" Is Far From Being Obvious

The city is also the stage for opposing views of justice. The just city has been the topic of many books, publications and is the subject of various centers devoted to the cause, from non-profits to academia.

The notion of the Just City emerges from philosophical discussions about what justice is combined with the intellectual history of utopias and ideal cities (Searching for the Just City, Debates in Urban Theory and Practice, Rutledge 2009)

There is no consensus on the roots of injustice, nor is there an obvious silver bullet solution. It appears necessary to trace definitions of justice and efforts to achieve clarity. Especially the concept of diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) that seems so elemental to the question of the just city has recently been placed in the crosshairs of the debate, especially by those who do not benefit from it. It is not a new idea and only the latest stage in the American project going back to egalitarian concepts in the country's founding documents. It is a continuation of 20th-century efforts such as the 1964 Civil Rights Act, affirmative action and movements for gender equity, disability rights, veterans, and immigrants.

A seminal book titled "The Just City" (from which I took the title of my inquiry) by Harvard scholar Susan Fainstein was published in 2010. She, in turn, refers to a 1971 Harvard book titled "A Theory of Justice" by John Rawls. Rawls stresses impartiality and fairness. Far from blind to historic disadvantages though, he emphasizes the disadvantaged and rejects that societal utility can justify any individual injustice. Fainstein argues that since Rawls the city has become more utilitarian in that sense that competitiveness, transactionalism and deal-making have become far more important than fairness.

Fainstein sees top-down urban renewal in terms of this neoliberal quest for competitiveness on the national and international level, often on the backs of the disadvantaged. She distilled four topics:

I have therefore distilled the discussions in the philosophical literature and planning theory down to the four topics that seem most relevant to my concerns: (1) the relation of democratic processes to just outcomes; (2) the criterion of equity; (3) the criterion of recognition; and (4) the tensions among democracy,...Fainstein, Susan S. The Just City, Cornell University Press, 2010

She finds that the relation between public and private has a lot to do with all four topics and compares four capitalist cities and how well they serve their citizens. In her view then, Amsterdam compares favorably with New York thanks to the European social democracy which buffers capitalist impulse.

Today we seem to be in a different place than Fainstein, who formed her concepts during the Vietnam protest, the assassinations of the Kennedys and Martin Luther King, Johnson's Great Society concepts, Reagan's countermove of blaming government, and Clinton's attempts to find a middle ground buoyed by the end of the Cold War and his grand ideas of a "bridge to the 21st century". Since then the social democratic balance of Sweden, Holland and Austria etc. has unraveled in the light of international migration and the lingering shadows of European imperialism still fueling migration. Now justice has to be calibrated on a much larger scale. Still, some of Fainstein's metrics for justice may still prove viable.

Today we call the public space a "third space" but mean the same. Meanwhile privatization has progressed and further diminished the availability of those spaces in which community can unfold in not only in the US but also in Europe and Asia. Growing inequity may well be connected to the shrinkage of the public domain. Just consider how the decline of public housing coincides with the current housing crisis. The closure of public mental institutions, justified in the name of reducing government, has contributed to homelessness. The frequent privatization of formerly public services—such as electricity, gas, water, and transportation—has made them scarcer and less affordable. The increasingly intrusive technology, including ubiquitous cameras in public spaces with license plate readers and facial recognition technology, devalues public space by reducing urban anonymity. Sociologists such as George Simmel and Louis Wirth viewed anonymity as a proxy for freedom, where cities offer more of it, i.e. less social control than a village.

Fainstein also emphasizes choice as an element of a just city, arguing that choice is another proxy for freedom. The city used to be the locus for choices, but persistent urban problems after COVID have reduced them. Ever-larger chain stores, online shopping, and technology favoring the private over the public continue the trend. Information technologies were touted to increase choices, for example by allowing working from home. But they also enable watching movies from home, video chatting instead of in person meetings and altogether created digital homogeneity where there once was physical diversity. Just consider that the screens for Windows, Facebook, TikTok or smart phones look identical worldwide, notwithstanding all the cultural differences.

This privatization of the virtual and the physical world driven by profit motive, splits people with enough education and money to manage or buy access and from those who have neither. The ongoing massive concentration and monopolization in business, fuels additional reduction of choices. Privatization, profit, tightly controlled access, ubiquitous surveillance and reduced choice all make the city less just.

Planners are not innocent. In fact, many injustices are direct results of planning decisions. Fainstein's urban renewal examples may not represent the most current culprits, even though aspects of urban renewal still cause displacement. Often, the problem lies in how funds are allocated. In my hometown of Baltimore, the planning department conducted an equity analysis of several years of the city's capital budget, finding that two-thirds of investments were made in areas where less than one-third of residents were white, in a city where all residents pay twice the property taxes of their suburban counterparts. This finding led to a revamped capital budget planning process, directing public investments in street trees, parks, playgrounds, recreation centers, ADA accessibility, infrastructure repair, road paving, scooter sharing, and trash removal into burdened communities.

Market-driven private investment decisions continue to perpetuate practices akin to "redlining," where high-risk areas are flagged based on race. The result is ongoing difficulty in locating grocery stores in food deserts and attracting developers to invest in disinvested areas. Properties in these "redlined" areas are undervalued to the extent that homeowners cannot secure loans for upkeep, making decay a perpetuated cycle.

More widely understood segregation and stratification stem from how transportation projects have been planned in the context of America's shift toward making the automobile the primary mode of transport, even in large cities. The resulting freeways have created multiple injustices. The previous DOT Secretary, Buttigieg, funded urban countermeasures to address these historic injustices. However, current policies jeopardize several already awarded grants aimed at constructing measures for reconnection.

This diagnosis is startling right in the wake of all the fanfare about "the age of cities" and the many hymnals praising the city as the best thing invented ever, whose inhabitant would be the "creative class" according to Richard Florida. Instead, American cities have become less functional, a situation exacerbated by a federal administration that is anti-urban, anti-intellectual and openly hostile to "blue cities" and the entire notion of equity and inclusion.

Failure to Thrive

The 2020 murder of George Floyd and subsequent nationwide protests catalyzed a renewed reckoning around the systemic devaluation of communities of color. A diverse range of efforts—from neighborhood teach-ins, to regional rallies, to public commitments by businesses and other institutions—wrestled with complex issues including racially-biased policing, wealth gaps, and health disparities that threaten the country’s promise of equal opportunity, as well as its global standing. (Brookings)

Opponents of the focus on Diversity, equity and inclusion ( DEI) blame the entire complicated system designed to create a more just city as ineffective and counterproductive. Attention to vulnerable communities, minorities, affirmative action, community benefits agreements, reparations and inclusion are seen as wasteful, and a distraction from basic functionality. There is no simple proof that cities with those policies more success than those without them when it comes to outcomes. Displacement, housing shortage, unabated homelessness, petty crime, failing schools, transit in poor repair, the list of grievances is endless and cuts across large cities across the political spectrum with essentially nothing that makes liberal or progressive cities stand out as successes in contrast to smaller cities (pop. 50,000-500,000) that Brookings found to be far more successful in their aim to reduce inequalities.

The just city must go beyond the surface of banner style DEI manifestations such as high affirmative action quota, large pride parades, sanctuary status, diversity festivals or arts districts in minority communities. What matters most is still that the basic services function well across all neighborhoods, including quality schools in all zip codes, clean playgrounds in each district, grocery stores that are not all concentrated in affluent areas and health care that is accessible to all. This is more challenging in larger cities than in those that are small enough for residents to be heard when they claim accountability.

Clearly, the binary choice between DEI and functionality is false, the two are not mutually exclusive. While it may obvious that it may be easier to maintain cohesion and function in smaller cities, size can't be a deciding factor, either. Occasionally there is inherent tension between various goals. The lack of enforcement around nuisance crimes, littering, drug and traffic offenses in the quest to avoid unjust incarceration is an example. Not incarcerating even more people is a worthy goal, but so is enforcment of laws that prohibit shoplifting, dirt bike riding, hold-ups, car-jacking, traffic violations and littering. Those infractions disenfranchise residents across all parts of the city by robbing them the essential sense of security. Disadvantaged communities are hit hardest and demand enforcement of the rules because the sum of those violations makes their life miserable. Democrats lost urban votes because of this. These conflicting goals blur traditional lines between the parties not only in the US.

Dutch tractor demonstration

The Netherlands provide an example: Near Amsterdam which Fainstein rated so highly as a just city the university of Delft maintains a "Center for the Just City". With an international team of architects, urbanists, and international collaborators the center tirelessly investigates pathways to more urban justice in a place that most visitors from the US would describe as quite inclusive.

Social justice is undeniably one of the most pressing challenges facing the world today, as rampant inequality erodes the fabric of our societies everywhere, undermining trust in governments and institutions, leading to violence and extremism and eating at the very core of democracy.(From the Center for the Just City, Mission Statement)

The people of the Netherlands, though, including in Amsterdam, got increasingly disenchanted with this inclusivity. The flood cannabis dispensaries, tourists, and prostitutes and other aspects of being a liberal city fueled discontent that merged with the discontent of farmers against rules against certain fertilizing practices. In 2023 thee majority of Netherlanders made the right leaning Farmers Party (BBB) the largest party in the Dutch Senate in a provincial election. Germany and France also saw the unholy fusion of urban and rural frustration, with farmers driving their tractors into capital cities as if they were tanks.

Explanations for the rise of populism are plentiful; one stands out: The aversion against inclusion, a welcome culture and the focus on minorities. Often in the guise of a fight against bureaucracy, regulations, and "wokeness" anti-equity and anti-inclusion sentiments burst into the open, sometimes in clearly racist terms. Racism and the hate of "the other" is an old phenomenon in times of economic difficulty and intentionally applied in the quest to divide the disenfranchised so they fight each other. As a result fake and real culture clashes blur the lines between left and right further.

Confusingly, left and right pursue similar objectives at times; for instance, when it comes to the goal of streamlining bureaucracy. Progressive Baltimore city council members join colleagues from around the country on bills aimed at rolling back certain housing regulations viewed as originating in privilege, which today restrict housing production. Developers, seeing additional business opportunities, agree. At times, the roles of left and right seem reversed, as seen when proponents of solar installations collide with farm preservationists, or in energy generation, where the desire for affordable energy conflicts with decarbonization efforts.

Even immigration creates confusion, as liberal urbanists protest against the deportation of neighbors alongside farmers or restaurant owners who fear losing valuable workers. Even more perplexing is when immigration hawks argue for deportation under the premise that a labor shortage will help raise wages. In all these examples, the constituents for justice reside on both sides of the issue.

Maryland's Governor Moore, the only black governor in the US, recently confused his supporters when he vetoed a bill to study reparations. Maybe to compensate he announced a few days later focused state investments in "Just Communities" that resulted from a complicated set of metrics indicating past injustices such as low homeownership, low property values, vacancies, past redlining, state imprisonment rate, proximity to superfund sites, exposure to lead paint, and asthma rates. His opponents a moment ago delighted about the veto describe the Just Communities policy as "pure socialism".

Overall though, it is safe to say that the fault lines are no longer merely urban-rural, left-right, or capitalist versus environmental protector.

What would a future Just City look like?

It becomes evident, that Jacobs' and Fainstein's rather bourgeois metrics of approaching the just city are no longer broad enough to capture the current moment; nor do they provide appropriate pathways towards a future just city. Beyond neo-liberalism, privatization and the reduction of choices technology, social media and climate change present additional challenges adding to existing national and international inequities. Populist nationalism and autocracy may be the result of inequities but they exacerbate them. Climate change, and political and economic hardships enlarge migration waves which, in turn, have destabilized previously more homogenous populations and fueled cultural identity conflicts. In many ways a self propelling sequence of cause and effect.

None of the underlying causes for injustice, conflict and tension can be solved with isolationist denial of commerce, migration, or climate change or on a national level. Certainly not on the city level. Yet, solutions on the very local level are the foundation for more trust in institutions and "the system" at large. The precise outline how a future just city could look like is still emerging. However, one assert with some confidence, that it will be more Athens than Sparta, more Jane Jacobs than Robert Moses, more Thomas Jefferson than Elon Musk, more science than myth, more human than technology. The equity challenge will not go away. As the incoming new CEO of the semi-public Baltimore Development Corporation puts it:

Under [the Mayor's] leadership, the Baltimore Together initiative has helped shift from traditional economic development practices that have historically prioritized places over people toward an approach that puts equity at the center of everything we do. His focus on public safety, education, recreation and economic opportunity reminds us that these goals rise or fall together because you can’t build a thriving economy on a foundation of inequality. (Otis Rolley).

What does it mean on the ground? The future just city remains foremost a functional one. It has to deliver its core services in a reliable manner across all zip codes. It has to efficiently discard of waste, provide transportation, mobility, housing, energy, water, food, health care, access to jobs and public safety. This is no small feat. Some of this can be done through private companies, but as Fainstein reminds us, privatization usually means less public control. Public oversight has to guarantee fairness, equal distribution and effective delivery.

Naturally, the future just city is more than core services.

Climate change adds resilience and sustainability to the list of "must haves" -from stormwater management to measures against urban heat islands, shelter against storms or floods.
The pressures of global migration will require a city that can integrate newcomers and their various cultures.
Rapidly changing technology has to be balanced with the human needs for stability and community. Preservation and change have to be carefully calibrated. The human scale has to be the guide.
The future just city is not one of flying cars and ever taller skyscrapers. It will have to recognize that technology, despite its promises to the contrary, has caused widespread isolation and loneliness.
A just city must foster community, offer joy, entertainment, choices in sports and culture. No place is better suited for this better than the city, which is why cities have thrived through the ages.
Thriving places of knowledge will be needed more than ever, ranging from quantum computers to astrophysics, from neuro- to climate science, from biology to medicine. Science and research will continue to shatter long-held believes in rapid succession. Only those willing to discard old truths, and embrace experimentation, failure and retrying will be able to cope. To fortify residents in this manner, education is a must have, not so much in the form of a degree once obtained in life, as more in the shape of a continual learning process;
A more equitable distribution of knowledge is needed but thriving centers of research will be needed more than ever whether to deal with quantum computers, astrophysics, neuro-science, climate science or biology and medicine. Science and research will continue to shatter long-held believes in rapid succession. Only those willing to discard old truths, and embrace experimentation, failure and retrying will be able to cope. To fortify residents in this manner, education is key, less in the form of a degree obtained once in life, more as continual learning; there is no better place for that a city.
Finally AI: It is the big unknown. It is not yet clear how AI will upset those urban balances but it certainly will challenge the concept of the city further. After automation and productivity eliminated much manual labor, it seems almost certain that AI will eliminate many white collar jobs possibly further driving up inequality.

For the required flexibility and openness to happen the just city must instill trust, a sense of community, safety and security and yes, also some stability. To counterbalance the whirlwind of change, the physical setting of the city must embrace nature and provide a sense of permanence, authenticity, recognition and identity. This is the domaine of architects and planners. Relearning towards equity remains a task.

Buildings and neighborhoods should not be designed to challenge their users, and not for the short-term profits of the investors but to provide comfort, resilience and sustainability. They should be designed for adaptation instead obsolescence and demolition. In that architects can provide a contribution to justice.

Klaus Philipsen, FAIA

Related on this blog:

Architecture between money making and equity (2018)

How to avoid displacement in revitalizing neighborhoods (2018)

High Stakes: Can Single-Exit Buildings Tackle the Housing Shortage?

2025-05-30T15:17:00.003-04:00

Is Housing Overregulated?

First, we make the building codes, then they shape our cities, which then shape us.

Occasionally, when the codes become too thick and the cost too high, we fight back, as in the quest to lower the cost for multi-family housing by allowing the cheaper wood construction we know from single family homes. Model codes now permit up to six floors in what is aptly called, "stick-built" fashion. This new construction type has quickly taken over coast to coast.

Stick-built five plus one building San Diego
(Photo Philipsen)

However, the housing shortage persists and code watchers have identified the next frontier: The dual exit stair requirement. Across the country building codes are being modified to allow six story buildings with a single exit stair instead of the maximal three stories allowed under the International Building Code (IBC).

If this sounds alarming to you, especially in the combination wood and single exit, you should read on. The matter is more complicated than one might think. In the century since the dual exit stair became the standard, a lot has happened in fire protection and safety. The extent to which fire codes have shaped urban design is usually underestimated: The two exit requirement and the "five plus one" height formula have homogenized our cities from sea to shining sea while the size of fire trucks has shaped our suburbs. Let's unpack the issues one by one, safety, fire protection and urban design.

Fire, Floors and Exits

Section 1006 of the International Building Code (IBC) demands two separate means of egress for every larger building over three floors and more than four dwelling units; commercial buildings with one exit are limited to only two floors. In addition, a host of additional codes such as the International Residential Codes IRC), the National Fire Protection and Prevention Association Life Safety Code (NFPA 101) put the fine points on the matter and provide some variation. (NFPA currently allows four floors for single exit buildings).

The popular full block sized wrap multi family housing around
a parking garage

Fire has shaped cities throughout US history. Entire downtowns were wiped out by fire in several cities (Chicago, Baltimore and others) owed to the then common wood construction. Those catastrophic events resulted in more stringent requirements for materials and egress, including demanding two exits that are fire and smoke separated from the rest of the building, built from non combustible materials and lead directly to a public space. Both exit stairs must be accessible form each door leading into a protected egress-way. Thus, should one stair be blocked or smoke-filled, a second route is available within a maximum distance of 250 feet. Dead-end corridors are limited to 25 feet of length. Fire ravaged cities often prohibited combustible construction materials the central areas that hadbeen devastated. But today expanded downtowns have made those old restrictive boundaries obsolete while housing has taken over many previously commercial buildings.

Small er, European style single exit buildings

Fire codes made a big leap when sprinklers became mandatory in almost all new buildings and open atriums or open stairs were only allowed with smoke evacuation .Flimsy, narrow and steep external fire escapes no longer count as a secondary exit. Wood and steel must be wrapped with fire-resistant materials. Sprinklers, in particular, had a dramatic effect; fire deaths in sprinklered buildings are almost unheard of. Proponents of the single exit point to the improved safety records and point to other countries that continued to build single exit buildings of considerable size with fewer fire deaths than we experience.

As a result, fire safety codes are rapidly crumbling under the onslaught. Politicians in State and local governments feeling the need to act began to create their own rules allowing taller single exit structures threatening the long-standing practice of science-based national model codes which are shaped by experts and subsequently adopted by local government. The Colorado Governor recently signed a bill allowing five story buildings with single exits. Baltimore City is currently considering a bill allowing six stories. This shift worries fire professionals.

Wood Construction

The relatively low cost of lumber compared to the the rising prices for steel and concrete drive the wood construction renaissance, further fueled by sustainability and climate concerns. In contrast to carbon spewing concrete and energy intensive steel, wood captures carbon; plus it is abundant and renewable. With the concrete "plinth" of retail, parking or amenities, a stud building can now have a total of six stories. Combine the two exit stair requirement with the height limit 5+1 and those long rectangular boxes that are 60' tall and sometimes span entire blocks are the result, almost by necessity.

Comparison of allowable building heights with a single
exit (international)

The Center for Building was created to promote the change of building codes.

Our apartment buildings are inefficient, both in terms of energy and layouts. Family-friendly apartments are unaffordable to families, and the United States has a higher rate of building fire deaths than almost any other country in the developed world. North America takes a unique approach to regulating construction, and it’s not working. It’s time to learn from the rest of the world, and find out what works.

Its spokesperson is the Seattle based single exit building advocate and architect Michael Eliason summarizes his position this way:

After looking at this further, I realized that our struggles around housing quality and livability in the U.S. and Canada are very different from Japan or South America or Europe. And that’s when I started connecting the dots to it’s not just how we build, but what we build that is incredibly different. The U.S. is a complete outlier in how housing is built.” (Michael Eliason),

The latest frontier is a wooden high-rise made from "mass timber", once again promoted because of carbon capture and sustainability. In this case, the IBC moved rather promptly: With mass timber for columns, beams and floors, 18 stories are now allowed. So far mass timber buildings are expensive and relatively rare, so we will ignore them for this story. (See my 2019 article about CLT)

Can One Exit be Safe?

Naturally, answers to the single exit question differ. Confusingly, the US have higher fire death rates than many countries in Europe, spite of our strict two exit requirement.

The US has six times as many fire deaths as Switzerland but less than
Finland in 2007. Since then US fire safety has much improved.

As someone who has practiced overseas and in the US, and has conducted a forensic apartment fire study and renovated countless old buildings, I would say that our fire death rate is caused by a combination of factors, including the prevailing wood construction, sloppy construction of older affordable three story walk-up apartment buildings and rowhomes without sprinklers, attics lacking proper firestopping, as well as social issues. Many fire deaths occur in abandoned buildings occupied by squatters or dysfunctional, disabled or missing smoke alarms.

In contrast, older buildings in Europe are usually constructed using masonry, concrete and sometimes heavy logs , i.e. lower fire-loads. Most European cities also experience less abandonment than we do. Five and six story apartment buildings in Paris or Berlin frequently have balconies or "French Doors" allowing rescue from the street via ladder while the typical US apartment has no outdoor space. Double-hung window with screens complicate rescue, especially when painted shut. In other words, it is easy to point to the beauty of European cities with their single exit buildings, but it is hard to see that their construction would offer cost savings. Finally, fire safety is not just driven by the way we build but also by how well fire departments are funded, how many hydrants are placed where, how much water pressure do they have how far away is the nearest fire house.

Fire professionals organized in the NFPA are cautious; in their Journal under the title "Single Stair, Many Questions" they diplomatically state:

The push to increase the allowable height of residential buildings with a single exit stairwell illuminates the tangled intersection between safety, housing affordability, building codes, and politics.

As a neutral code developer, NFPA has not taken an official stance on the merits of the single-exit issue, other than to stress that any proposed changes should go through the normal consensus code revision process. Many fire service organizations, however, have spoken out. The International Association of Fire Fighters (IAFF), the Metro Chiefs (a member section of NFPA), the National Association of State Fire Marshals, the National Fire Chiefs Council, the National Fallen Firefighters Foundation, the International Association of Fire Chiefs, and others have come out strongly against increasing the heights of buildings with single exit stairs and have launched a full-throated defense of the existing codes. (NFPA Journal 8/24)

The NFPA hosted an international symposium focused on the single exit stair issue in September 2024 at their Headquarters in Quincy, Massachusetts. Representatives from the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, and Australia included proponents and opponents. A detailed report highlights the various viewpoints. In spite of the open minded symposium it appears unlikely that the model codes will be changed this year. New York and Seattle have long allowed taller single exit buildings if certain criteria are met, but they have excellent fire departments. Meanwhile, politicians who find the model code update process too slow continue to take the matter into their own hands by modifying the codes for their own jurisdiction.

Floorplan comparison dual stair building (left) and single stair (right)

Conclusion

What is the bottom line? With fire professionals themselves unsure how to respond the path forward will likely include some trade offs for eliminating the second egress requirement. Conditions could include short maximum distances to the stairway, maintaining limits on the the number of units per floor, pressurization of the exit stair and maybe a 2hr fire separation from adjacent apartments, even when sprinklered (currently 1 hr separation is enough), possibly applying the commercial sprinkler code instead of the residential code. The use of wood for structural members above four floors should be carefully reviewed for single exit buildings, unless there is a very rigorous inspection program in place that ensures that the required fire protection of structural members and the separation between units is not compromised by sloppy construction. Chases, ducts, pipes and electrical outlets all too often weaken the ULI tested assemblies and are easily overlooked by inspectors.

NFPA graphic showing the "life safety eco system"

State and local governments will continue to set their own relaxed standards while the slower process of model code modification is taking on steam. This has happened before for sustainability requirements and the rehabilitation code, will be temporary and not prevent an update of the model code that will eventually unify things again.

Single exit buildings won't solve the housing crisis by offering large cost benefits. Still, new permissible building types will open up more infill opportunities help and enrich the impoverished urban design that the two exit building boxes have imposed on our cities.

Klaus Philipsen, FAIA

Related on this Blog:

Why 2,400 people die in house fires every year (2017)

Lessons from the London Fire (2017)

How Codes Influence Architecture: The Case of Stairs (2014)

Foreign in the US: Placemaking in Puerto Rico's Ciudades Viejas

2025-05-02T21:35:00.008-04:00

History

There is no older architecture anywhere in the Americas and the old towns are quainter even than Quebec City or Montreal. The style is decidedly Hispanic, the people mostly speak Spanish among each other, there is a strong local identity, a blend of native, African, British, Spanish and American cultures. You can get here from the US without a passport, the currency is the US dollar, US law applies but distances are given in kilometers, gasoline is sold by the liter, traffic sign are Spanish, and local residents have US citizenship but no voting rights after the US took it from Spain in 1898 in one of the few US colonial acquisitions by force (Treaty of Paris). Obviously, we are talking about Puerto Rico, a place where US citizens live among more history than anywhere on the mainland.

From fighting invading English and Dutch
Castillo San Cristobal, San Juan has gone to welcoming
the giant cruise ships in its port. (Castillo Cristobal, author)

But the protectorate has been a stepchild ever since. It has gone bankrupt, the poverty rate is twice that of Mississippi, the significant debt relief under Obama was eaten up by calamities which struck in quick succession: Two hurricanes, an earthquake, a financial crisis, the pandemic and now a federal government that sees the island as a lost cause.

Next door the Dominican Republic which gained full independence from the Spanish in 1865 seems to fare better, whereas Haiti and Cuba, also long under US influence, are far worse off since independence. Puerto Rico, thus, is not the shining beacon of what US “protection” can deliver nor does it prove convincingly that capitalism delivers much better results than communism. There are many parallels between Cuba and Puerto Rico, more than either side would like. One commonality are certainly the indigenous Taínas people that populated the Caribbean before Columbus when PR was still Boriquén.

Early migrations of indigenous peoples in the
Caribien Sea (Tableau Centro Ceremonial Indígena
de Tibes author)

Both places came to the US as part of the Treaty of Paris. More recently, young people in both places are leaving in droves so that more of each people live in the mainland US than on their native island. The exodus leaves behind vacant houses, shuttered businesses and a struggling economy. Both countries replaced a flourishing commodity industry (mostly sugar but also manufacturing) with tourism that eventually began to falter, in Cuba thanks to sanctions, in PR thanks to the natural disasters and instability.

To be clear, San Juan is far better off than Havanna, but go outside the capital to smaller towns in the hinterland and a starker reality sets in. In Ponce, still PR’s second largest city, which likes to be called the "Pearl of the South", one can find the beautiful historic center pockmarked by ruins from the earthquake five years ago that are still not repaired for lack of resources. In Cuba and Puerto Rico heroic gestures to achieve modernity via enormous freeways and modern hotels yielded some overblown stuff that sits incomplete, poorly maintained or fully abandoned. Both countries have more expats than residents and in both the relatives working in the US mainland support their relatives on the island. Go to a mountain town like Utuado and there, on the town square you find a lunch place, a barber shop or an appliance store that could just as well sit in Cienfuegos, Cuba. The same holds true for the sad rows of public housing in Utuado. True, there is no food shortage in PR, there are no lines at the gas stations and there are many more cars, certainly not only vintage models. The outskirts of San Juan could be anywhere in the US. Yet, the differences between Cuba and PR are not as big as one would expect.

Two rusting container cranes stand as idle witnesses to the decline
of the Port of Ponce, formerly the Port of the Americas, a story
of a glorious past and failed aspirations (author)

Thus, economically PR is not a show piece of capitalism's superiority. Without national (US) voting rights, a stagnant economy, but a beautiful setting and unmatched historic architecture, the island sends mixed signals; accordingly the opinions about the best path towards a promising future are divided. Would full US statehood be best, full independence and nationhood or the continuation of the current state as a protectorate?

Residents have weighed in on Puerto Rico’s status in seven plebiscites since 1967. In the latest non-binding referendum in November 2024, close to 57 percent of voters favored statehood, while nearly 31 percent favored independence. The previous three votes saw statehood prevail, while support for full independence was in the single digits in every vote prior to 2024.(CFR)

At the moment these questions are not on the radar of the US. Gaza, Ukraine, tariffs and Greenland take all the oxygen and Puerto Rico muddles through, from one national power outage to the next, while luring tourists with its natural beauty and Spanish colonial history.

Architecture

On this blog about architecture and planning I will focus on some of those aspects and the resiliency issues associated with historical buildings in areas exposed to earthquake, flood and hurricanes.

Plaza de Armas, San Juan (author)

Puerto Rico's architectural styles are a mix of Spanish Colonial, Gothic, Neoclassical and Baroque churches. One has to wonder whether the Old World heritage architecture derived from predominantly a dry and hot places without hurricanes and earthquakes with its brick, clay tiles plaster and painted stucco as the main materials is really appropriate for the Caribbean, as attractive as it is. Brick walls crumble in earthquakes and the humidity does a number on the stucco and paint so it needs constant maintenance. The thick walls and roof tiles retain the heat like ovens and can’t cool out at night when the humidity keeps temperatures way up. Air conditioning has changed architecture. The vents, shutters and louvers that historically perforated the solid walls to allow a breeze through the building are now undesirable leaks for the electrically chilled air. Where they are now covered up they make the humid heat even more unbearable in one of the frequent power failures. Ponce’s beautiful old town high school has no AC yet, shaded by big trees in the front court, the giant windows stood wide open and allowed the passersby to listen to the instructions given through a big video screen flickering inside, closing the arc between the past and the present.

Tall room and double doors to a balcony for
ventilation (Author)

Conservation and preservation are key to the economy of the PR and their colonial old towns, so the dilemma handed down in shape of the Hispanic architecture suffering under the humidity requires constant toiling, painting and costly fixes.

The new developments outside the old towns offer little in terms of an alternative. Earlier ones often feature the one story Criolla cottages. Even new houses at times evoke the Spanish colonial style also popular in parts of California, Texas and Arizona. Others are low flung junk architecture or the branded fast food joints and drugstores known all over America. New condos, office and hotel towers are frequently modernist white concrete boxes, no better adapted to this climate, or to earthquakes except the very new ones with their seismic fortifications.

The western canon with its origin stories of Mesopotamia, Greece and Rome gives the Hispanic styles as well as modern Bauhaus adaptations of North African vernacular their meaning if not justification. Cultural preference as the result of decades of brainwashing? Maybe. Plus, in my case, my first formative foreign country journeys to Italy, Greece, Spain. PR’s old towns just as those of Cuba feel like old friends to me and can only assume that many others feel the same way, which is why they travel here in spite of bigger, brighter beaches back home on the mainland, be it on the Atlantic or tge pacific. As a younger architect I frowned about Leon Krier’s contention that a real city would have to be built according to Athenian or Roman rules, not least since for their expression of power the Fascists aspired to them as well. But Italy also has the unplanned urbanism of their southern hill towns, Greece the island architecture without a grand axis or symmetry, and the mix of order and seemingly chaos is very satisfying, without any academic analysis.

San Juan

San Juan, the capital, is a vibrant and very clean city. It has now the biggest port, the international airport and a well maintained famous old town. Viejo San Juan is hardly bigger than a handful of American malls but accommodates thousands of residents, hundreds of stores and restaurants, two castles, an art school, several notable churches, a promenade and a handful of beautiful plazas with fountains and statues. The constricted space between the Atlantic on one side and the Port on the other brought about the very thoughtful allocation of space that today attracts millions of visitors from all over the world who don’t mind the congestion of the narrow calles or the lack of parking. People walk, sit down in front of cafes or meet in the rear patios of restaurants to enjoy the company of other people.

An odd angle between some small streets, a large tree, a cathedral
as background and a memorable public space is made.
(San Juan, Plaza de la Cathedral, author)

This simple method of creating urbanity and happiness has been known to many cultures and continents all over the world until it somehow became forgotten when the automobile took over and the American style suburbanization of the land around cities took a victory leap around the world. Puerto Rico is no exception. In spite of several cities and towns setting the perfect example for good urbanism they let go of all rhyme and reason on the arterials leading to the centers where fast food joints, gas stations, strip malls and car repair shops create the unsightly jumble we all know all too well and which have become the leading US export article.

Coming out of the very well stocked supermarket next to the Plaza des Armas to sit down on one of the benches to watch young and old or listen to the singer who took up a spot to beautifully intone local songs is a joy that we consider a luxury we want to give ourselves only on vacation while we could have it every day if we just would build our places again in the traditional dense manner.

Ponce

Ponce is a different story. After a period of exuberance some 50 - 60 years ago the problems of PR are more visible here, even though this second largest city of 135,000 or so residents is clean, safe and also features a very attractive old town. but hurricanes, earthquakes, the financial crisis and the pandemic have taken a toll.

Ponce's showpiece is its central square and fountain.
With an antique car show the resemblance to Cuba
was striking. (Plaza Las Delicias, author)

Five years after the 6.4 earthquake striking the southwest of PR I saw several large or tall concrete apartment buildings condemned and abandoned due to cracks, structurally too compromised to live in, yet standing precariously close to the people walking by. Up on the hill near the cross shaped observation tower one finds the former Intercontinental luxury hotel standing as a naked concrete shell its former white nearly fully washed off. It is described as the political, social, cultural, and artistic epicenter of Ponce from 1960 to 1975, a time when Ponce grew, flourished and drew tourists from far and wide. It stood vacant for half a century, abandoned, not due to natural disasters but the altering economy. It displays past dreams and the permanence of concrete that allows current planners to envision a $40 million rebirth as early as 2026. (The beginning of this project has been expected for at least five years already).

Even when grants for reconstruction have approved, implementation is still another matter. Plus some of the ideas of the 1970's are a burdensome legacy.

Maybe there is no better project than the la Guancha boardwalk project near Ponce (Paseo Tablado La Guancha) and the grandiose plans for a Port of the Americas on the Carribean coast, to illustrate the intertwined problems of misguided planning, lack of resilience, poor governance and bureaucracy. Both are located just south of downtown Ponce.

I won’t pretend to understand the full complexity of the undertaking. Rafael Hernandez Colón, the populist Governor at the time of first thoughts about this project, for example, saw it as one of the many good deeds he bestowed on his people following his motto that progress means to see the presence with the eyes of the future. The future did not come to pass in quite the way he imagined it, though, neither for the port nor for the entertainment beach.

Overview plan showing Ponce Playa, the Port and
Guancha with suggested improved connections (APA)

I kind of stumbled on this in my search of a nice beachfront that initially led me to what is called Ponce Playa, clearly misleading me. There is more desolation, abandonment and poverty than beach. The Enrique Gonzales square offering the only public water access is a sad affair with a plaque commemorating eight slaves the Spaniards landed and sold here. It didn’t look anything was recently done, even though refurbishing funds had been approved five years ago. In my search of the beach I followed the coast and came across the equally sad looking working port with two rusting idle container cranes and stacked up unloaded cars.

On a truly torturous circuitous path around inlets I reached a six plus lane highway with access to two east west highways via vast interchanges. This is another highway to nowhere, heading straight for the coast where it dead ends in a circle; testimony of the past and vast aspirations that manifested themselves first and foremost in expensive and over the top roadway construction. There are also vast and underutilized parking lots plus many as of yet undeveloped land parcels. True, the road also accesses the port with its occasional cruise ship and some bulk cargo, but it has long lost its luster to St Juan’s much larger facilities. An oversized star shaped park with radiating paths and various structures in different states of use, incompleteness or abandonment aim for an organizing geometry and scale which would have made Albert Speer proud.

The destoyed boardwalk and abandoned kioskos
(author)

On this sunny Sunday afternoon in April there were, indeed, local people here, enjoying the lawns at the edge of the sea while vendors hawked food, trinkets and drink on a makeshift gravel path defying the star geometry.

The reason why those vendors are arranged in such a temporary fashion in the otherwise so geometric setup reveals itself only upon closer inspection through chainlink fences and concrete barriers. Those are erected to seal off what had been constructed as a boardwalk with sturdy concrete "kiosks" from the where food, drinks and beachwear were sold. The dream took nine years to construct and one hurricane to destroy it. An earthquake and a second hurricane finished the boardwalk off to a point that repairs were abandoned. It still sits there as it was after the last disaster.

The desire to rebuild, though, exists. An APA Assistance team report doesn't question the reconstruction either; an architect was just been hired to do the redesign. APA suggest a larger vision in which old Ponce Playa, the Port and Guancha would be tied together through more direct connections.

Abandoned for 50 years: The former luxury hotel Intercontinental
(author)

This report summarizes the findings of a Community Planning Assistance Team (CPAT) requested by the Municipality of Ponce in January 2020. The Municipality asked the CPAT to suggest strategic planning visions for La Playa de Ponce that could help guide recovery investments so as to maximize long-lasting benefits. La Playa is Ponce’s historic port, and because it is located three miles from the city center, it has a sense of identity as a unique and separate place, with its own cultural traditions and history.

La Playa faces longstanding economic and environmental problems. As the island economy has declined over the past 15 years, so has port activity. La Playa, in a low-lying coastal location, also is subject to both coastal storms and flooding from much of the city’s urban stormwater runoff. La Playa was affected by the wind, rain, and infrastructure disruptions from Hurricane Maria in September 2017, and the M 6.4 earthquake on January 7, 2020 damaged highways, historic buildings, and the La Guancha boardwalk. Hope for La Playa’s future lies in the large amount of disaster recovery money that is yet unspent. (APA Report)

The first hurdle for everything: FEMA bureaucracy. Whether any of the boardwalk kiosks can be salvaged remains unanswered as of yet. FEMA will allow and pay for repair only if it entails less than 50% of the full reconstruction cost which probably means total demolition after the five years of abandonment. Meanwhile the vendors operating from pop-up carts and stands produced the most lively aspect of the area and suggest that more impromptu nature might be more appropriate than any new fortified multi-million structure. In the next hurricane, the carts, trailers and trucks could be moved out of harms way, their improvised nature an expression of beach culture one can also see in the popularity of The Kioskos de Luquillo east of San Juan. The assorted surviving concrete structures that dot the open spaces of today's Guancha area all look sad, austere and badly kept.

The Guancha boardwalk when it was completed and before it
washed away (APA report)

The successful place-making of Ponce Vieja or San Juan could have been a model for the layout of the reconstructed La Guancha project by reducing scale and cost. Not by clustering dense mixed uses right at the endangered oceans edge, but by laying out the spaces respect the human scale.

Nostalgia can’t be the guide for the future and different scales for different things are appropriate. But the human scale has not changed as much, no matter what technology we use. What makes us feel comfortable is more related to our bodies than we have admitted in modern urban design.

As a protectorate Puerto Rico can be a US model for placemaking with its history that predates the mainland by quite a bit.

Klaus Philipsen, FAIA

(now also on Substack)

Materials and sources:

https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/puerto-rico-us-territory-crisis

Other travelers articles on this blog:

We are all Americans: An attempt to understand Cuba

Impressions from Port au Prince, Haiti

Southern India Behind the Scenes (Part A), (Part B)

Photo gallery San Juan (all photos by author unless otherwise noted):

San Juan, Port area

University Carlos Albizu Miranda, with the 2005 restored Plaza se la Barandilla

Calle Tetuan, Viejo San Juan, curved and creating a wider outdoor area

Calle de Donenell (the grid is not entirely regular and some vistas are beautifully terminated)

Plaza Colon, a major square in old San Juan

Calle de la Forteleza, San Juan

Callejon de la Capilla, San Juan

San Juan Nuevo as seen on the approach to the airport

La Perla neighborhood between the two castles

City Hall Alcaldia, Plaza de Armas

Caleta de San Juan

Caribe Ferry on its way to the Dominican Republic

Courtyard of the Art School San Juan

Mercado de Santurce

Mercado de Santurce (San Juan)

Photo gallery Ponce:

Courthouse Ponce

The Ponciana is one of 23 condominium buildings in Ponce that have sustained structural damage along with 404 houses (Earthquake 2020)

Preservation and earthquake resilience, not always easy to reconcile

(Musea de la Musica)

Historic Casino of Ponce

Serrallés Castle Museum (top of hill)

Panteon Nacional Roman Baldorioty de Castro

Torre de observacion El Vigia (1984)

Plaza Delicias, Ponce, the central gathering place par excellence

Music at Plaza Delicias Ponce with historic fire-house in background

Ponce art museum (under renovation)

Ponce with cross-shaped observation tower in background

view of the Ponce Cathedral from above

Calle Cacillo, Ponce, Modernist and colonial

Photo gallery Utuado

Town square Adjuntas

Utuado central plaza and parroquia San Miguel

Utuado central plaza,
The church and the plaza are representative of the traditional urban layout of historic Puerto Rican towns.

Lago Coinillas

Rio Grande de Arecibo

Mountains about 1150 ft

Cities without transit?

2025-04-18T15:41:00.002-04:00

Transit in Crisis

Mass transit has always been an afterthought in the US. Sprawling, low-density American land use patterns which replaced the old streetcar villages never allowed it to be efficient. With some short exceptions, such as the development of streetcar villages at the in the early 20th century or the brief period following the Urban Mass Transportation Act of 1964, as well as the 1991 ISTEA legislation, policies have set on the automobile as the American way of getting around.

U.S commuter transit in 2025: Slow and
antiquated (Photo: Philipsen)

In a 2021 study, Texas A&M found that congestion in our 15 biggest cities costs close to $7 billion. Meanwhile, over the past 65 years, the US has spent nearly $10 trillion of taxpayer dollars on highways and roads. Just a quarter of that was spent on public transportation. (Sustainable America)

In contrast to this pattern, many economists and urban planners believe that cities with good transit are more likely to thrive than those without, partly because owning and maintaining a car in a large city is less convenient and more expensive. (Politico, APTA). Transit is essential for those who can’t drive because they are too young, too old, too frail, or too poor to drive a car. Excluding large parts of the population from mobility is not only unjust, cruel, and asocial, but it also impedes economic prosperity and sustainability. Metro areas without transit become hotbeds of congestion, wasted time and pollution. Rural areas without transit become unattractive for a new generation that doesn't regard the car as a status symbol and is unwilling to spend a significant portion of their income on a device that sits idle 90% of the time.

However, right now, as cities with and without transit are facing economic trouble the death of transit
has has become a real possibility not only for rural parts of the U.S. Post-pandemic and in the current political climate, transit agencies suffer from the multi-pronged pressures of deferred maintenance, lack of funding and operators, and structural changes in mobility and technology, all at once:

Morning rush-hour Baltimore beltway: Always congested
(Photo Philipsen)

Ridership never recovered after COVID.
Remote work won't go away.
Local governments are out of money in many places while transit construction costs are skyrocketing.
Federal funding is focused on the renaissance of combustion engine-driven cars.
Crime on buses and trains has become more visible with sparse ridership.
Better computing power finally makes transit on demand a real option.
The simplicity of online ridesharing platforms such as Uber and Lyft has taken riders off transit.
Ridesharing with autonomous vehicles has already become a reality in several cities.

Public transit is essential to America’s transportation network, with residents taking 34 million trips each weekday in 2023. However, ongoing and unexpected circumstances have positioned transit for a hard-to-predict future. The pandemic caused steep declines in ridership, as much as 80% in April 2020. By 2023, transit ridership only increased to 73% of pre-pandemic levels. (Infrastructure Report Card)

If stagnation is a harbinger of a new age to dawn, the slow pace of expansion of rail service would indicate that a new future isn't far off. Cities throughout the United States opened very little transit in 2024, adding just 29 kilometers (18 miles) of light rail and no new metro rail service (The Transport Politic).

Investment in transit pays off for cities

The special role of the U.S.

Public transit in the U.S. trails behind other wealthy countries. .Even the often-evoked glory days of urban streetcars were much less glorious than nostalgia suggests. Mostly privately run, these streetcars were initially tools of the real estate industry to reach developable lands outside core cities. While ubiquitous, the streetcars were neglected as soon as the automobile made the suburbs even more accessible, finally withering away in the 1950s. Since then, even large cities without any real transit have become a a reality in the U.S. Arlington,Texas, is America's largest city without any mass transit. The New York Times titled a recent article "Life Without Transit?". Arlington and about a dozen other cities with a population over 100,000 are astounding examples of cities without a network of buses, trams, or metro, and without a viable alternative to driving. Nationwide 48% of all US residents have no access to transit at all (CNBC). This is unimaginable in Italy, France, Germany, Great Britain or even Canada. Could it become even worse?

In most parts of the world, public transport is seen as a right and a public service, on par with schools, libraries, post offices, parks, or train stations. Intercity rail in the U.S. is even worse than transit. Many cities without a passenger rail station are numerous, even if they have a population of more than a million residents. There are six such cities in the U.S., which is unthinkable in Europe, China, or Japan, where a dense network of high-speed trains connects all major cities.

High speed intercity train Frankfurt, (Philipsen)

Transit unfriendly policies, poor land use patterns, and an auto-centric culture have resulted in only a tiny minority of trips being taken by transit, except in traditional transit cities such as New York, Chicago, and Philadelphia. The fewer people use transit the less attention politicians pay. The lack of excellence, performance, and funding creates poor expectations, that, in turn, reduce ridership, interest, and funding - an endless feed-back loop of self-fulfilling prophecies. Constituents having been forced to rely on the mighty automobile, complain about congestion and want wider roadways. (Why do cars get a free ride? The social-ecological roots of motonormativity). This vicious cycle has made transportation the largest sector of US greenhouse gas emissions and the second largest household expenditure, and, as an unintended consequence, a perpetuator of inequity.

So, are the days of buses, light rail, and metros really numbered? Will they go the way of public bathhouses, streetcars and public housing, where privatization has stigmatized and marginalized this form of living to the point that it is almost extinct, despite a national housing crisis? Can innovation point to a way out?

Fixed-Route, Fixed-Schedule Transit

Who hasn't watched an empty bus go by and wondered if there was a better way? Since the 1662 invention of the omnibus in Paris, the basic principle of running a multi-seat vehicle down a street on a published schedule with people waiting at marked stops hasn’t changed. It doesn’t materially matter that these vehicles are no longer pulled by horses, that they are now air-conditioned, accessible, or share their location on a smartphone. The system is still based on estimations of need, overcrowded at times, and empty at others. Its efficiency is so low that, even in the best of circumstances, it covers only about 30% of its cost, and it is usually only slightly faster than walking. If you are a bit too late to catch the ride, you have to wait—depending on the city and the time of day—for 5 minutes, an hour, or even two days if the service is suspended on weekends. Arrival always carries a fairly high level of uncertainty; even real-time arrival systems are no guarantee (the average wait time in the U.S. is 17 minutes, per CNBC).

Transit omnibus Paris 19th century (Musee Carnavalet -
Roger Viollet)

These noted pressures have made things worse. In spite of fewer riders, service quality has frequently suffered, with even lower schedule adherence, trains or buses that don't show up at all due to missing operators or failing vehicles, or shutdowns because of tracks, overhead wires, or signal failing as a result of poor maintenance.

In order to accommodate growth and support business and commerce, urban transportation will need to get smarter. New public and private transportation services including autonomous ones can play an important role in enabling smarter mobility but getting there will require more investment in urban transit, not less. In addition to reducing congestion, the ITU found that a combined shared AV/high-capacity public transport network can reduce off-street parking needs by 80%, “generating new opportunities for alternative uses of this valuable space.” If cities are to serve as an app store for new mobility services, they will need the support of corresponding technology platforms that enable public and private operators to work together. (Infrajourrnal)

Change is necessary, and it it is coming.

Emerging transportation technologies such as ridesourcing services (i.e. Uber, Lyft, and Via) are disrupting the transportation sector and transforming public transit. Some transit observers envision future public transit to be integrated systems with fixed-route services running along major corridors and ridesourcing servicing lower-density areas. (MOD study per Science Direct)

How Innovation can Blaze a Path for Future Transit

Baltimore Transit Bus 2024 (Philipsen)

Change is attainable and will not come from flying taxis or Elon Musk's "Hyperloop" which won't scale or close the mobility gap, but from policy and priority changes with just a sprinkle of technology:

Better governance, land use and regulation
Shifted priorities and funding
Technological innovation in operations and hardware

Fortunately, there is movement on all these fronts, both here and internationally. Let's unpack these one by one to see if they contain the possible salvation of transit. Each topic includes its own innovation component and is closely connected with the others.

Better governance, land use and regulation

Better governance would primarily mean better land use planning to be more efficient. Running transit through sprawl is not affordable. Instead, density needs to be created that is commensurate with various forms of transit, from van shuttles to subways. Driving to stations and stops in areas that are too sparsely populated is not a solution. The resulting parking needs waste land, are costly to maintain, and are inefficient since they still rely on the car that sits idle 90% of the time or more.

Transit stops and stations must sit in densely developed areas, and if they are located in a donut hole, they represent and excellent opportunity for investment. The goal must be that one can walk to transit, a notion which gave rise to the idea of the "15 -minute city", a model that historically applied to streetcar villages and can be used for suburbs and cities alike.

Intermodal train station Berlin, Germany (Philipsen)

Tactical urbanism and new approaches to developing “15-minute” cities can also be defined as innovative policy measures to reallocate space from cars and encourage sustainable mobility. A recent example of a pioneering policy measure comes from Paris. Paris residents recently voted to introduce higher parking fees for SUVs, aiming to reduce the number of SUVs circulating in the city and their adverse impacts on energy demand, road safety and the urban realm. (Factual)

Proper Transit-Oriented Development (TOD) solves several problems at once: it can address the housing crisis, the scarcity of developable land, improve the local tax base, and reduce the oversupply of commercially zoned land. Most importantly, it promotes better transit usage. TOD isn't always welcome, and land use authority is local, fragmented, and driven by NIMBYs. States and transit agencies can break through the logjam by mandating density at stations via legislation that makes transit investment contingent upon best land use practices. California, Oregon, Washington, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Maryland, and Utah already have or are considering such legislation.

What is TOD (Trimet, OR)

High-density mixed-use near transit allows living without a car and can bring affordability and mobility to those priced out of traditional subdivisions and those who can't drive. It can provide attractive centers with the urban amenities often hard to find in low-density neighborhoods, such as high-quality playgrounds, parks, dog parks, good sit-down restaurants, quality shopping, and libraries. In short, every step away from the dismal mono-use low-density environment often found around transit stops is also a significant step toward placemaking, local authenticity, and quality of life.

On a smaller scale, the streets leading to stations, with their competing uses, need to be rethought with priority given to "last mile uses," such as buses, bikes, and pedestrian pathways. The "complete streets" movement has already shifted priorities. Technology can orchestrate the management of the limited space through smarter operation of lane assignments, signals, parking spaces, and potentially demand-based access management for cars (congestion management).

Better governance would also include streamlining transit approval procedures, from environmental and construction permits to vehicle testing requirements. Current cumbersome and time-consuming procedures contribute to the fact that the U.S. has the highest per-mile cost for subway and rail construction worldwide.

Finally, it is even conceivable to do drastically different land use and drastic reduction of car use without large transit investments. The CuldeSac communities are an example. (Video of the Tempe community).

Shifted Priorities and Funding

Funding and spending priorities play such a central role that I will give them their own heading, even though they are certainly part of governance. Metrics for highway performance are nationally regulated and include intersection grading from A to F. For transit, by contrast, performance metrics such as on-time service, speed, and service frequency are spotty and dismal. Investments are rarely guided by the highest needs.

Maryland's Governor announcing the reinstatement of the Red
Line in Baltimore, canceled by his predecessor at 95% design
(Philipsen)

Transportation capital budgets always favor wider roads, turn lanes, signals, roundabouts, and improvements for traffic flow and congestion reduction. Flashy new construction wins over better asset management, both for roads and transit. Adequate Public Facility Ordinances (APFO) sometimes force wider roads and prevent additional development. Road capacity improvements typically induce additional demand, which quickly fills up the added capacity. Transit improvements would similarly add riders, but since most systems don't run at capacity to begin with, this would be welcome.

Poor transit is usually not captured by APFO metrics, thus better transit, better operational tools, or better land use remain elusive. Transit is also the stepchild of both capital and operational investments, regardless that transit users pay fares and cars usually don't. As a result, transit runs on tired tracks, in worn vehicles, outdated signal and communication systems, and has few amenities. Much of the poor performance stems from deferred maintenance.

All transportation investments should be equally vetted for their cost, returns, social benefits and environmental implications. If done properly. i.e. including external effects, transit would outperform roads in most urban areas.

Sources for Capital and Operating funding 2021 (APTA)

With funding always in short supply, additional transit funding sources need to be tapped, and investment should be distributed to favor desired outcomes (cleaner air, more equity, fewer fatalities, etc.). A shift away from the inefficient individually driven gas-powered car is not popular but is unavoidable if lowest negative impacts and overall mobility are the goals. Manhattan's congestion pricing is an example of innovative funding for transit, as are service vehicle taxation, delivery taxes, parking surcharges, gas taxes, and similar measures that aim extract the true cost of driving. All would increase mobility by decreasing congestion and generating funds for better transit simultaneously. Those who label this “social engineering” need to realize that the current practices favoring the dominance of the single-family home and the automobile have been active social engineering for decades.

NY MTA fare revenue sources 2022

Technological innovation in operations and hardware

Flying taxis and Hyperloops always ignite the imagination, but neither scales well or could be used to move larger crowds. The same is true for robo-taxis, which just add more congestion to the streets given all the dead runs they need to be in the right place at the right time. This leaves us with transit for future urban mobility. Incremental improvements in current buses and trains have been slow but have reached a critical mass in time to potentially save transit from extinction.

Modern low floor streetcar in Cincinnati (Philipsen)

Examples include:

Electric buses which are faster, healthier, quieter and more comfortable.
Cashless payment with smart phones or universal cards reduces, delays at boarding and eliminates costly equipment.
Real time GPS via smart phone that can locate the next bus or train in real time and shorten wait times at stops.
Electronic onboard maps showing progress on the route, the current location and the destination lower rider's anxiety about transit.
Better bus stops with shelters and seats funded through advertisements make waiting more comfortable.
Applying the American for Disabilities Act (ADA) to fix barriers on sidewalks leading up to stops makes transit more accessible for all.
Real time data based control centers for transit operations and general traffic management that can optimize flow, prioritize transit and reduce trip times.
Low floor vehicles allow level boarding without steps, ramps or devices that take time to deploy.
Modern light rail and subway trains are multi-articulated (ie. have a continuous walk isle across several connected vehicle segments), allowing one operator to see through the full length of the train.
Some subways already operate in automated mode.
Driverless buses are still in the experimental stage in most places, although they are quite conceivably ready for prime time.
A technology merger of bus and train is underway that could culminate in a "trackless trains" which are powered by batteries and guided by paint markings or signal wires embedded in the pavement.

The sum of modern technology can translate into a quantum leap in the user experience and the

Trackless tram in China (Video)

operation of transit. Train-like buses already run successfully on some of China's arterial streets. They dramatically reduce construction costs by running on existing pavement without needing track construction and catenary while eliminating the higher operating costs that traditional buses incur due to their low capacity and, therefore, high need for operators. U.S. cities have long flirted with "bus rapid transit" (BRT), which was first employed in South America. The new type of guided, automated electric buses combined with cash-free and level boarding, along with larger spacing of stops, could finally give the "R" in BRT some meaning by making this mode truly faster than a regular bus while keeping it affordable enough for application in most metropolitan areas.

Mobility as a Service (MaaS)

MaaS represents the biggest step away from traditional fixed-route, fixed-schedule service. It looks at trip times door-to-door rather than just on one transit line at a time. MaaS responds flexibly to varying rider needs by using modern information and communication technology that dispatches transit more like a rideshare. Depending on the size of a city and system, the concept can be applied across all modes, from subways all the way to vans or cars. Traditional mass transit modes like subways and trains would still run on fixed schedules on fixed routes, but they would be linked to and complemented by coordinated buses, taxi services, scooters, and bicycles. Intercity train riders upon arrival have long hopped on a subway bus or taxi to reach their destination, but in MaaS secondary services are time properly, they can all booked and payed in one app, and thus make the door to door travel much more predictable, convenient, and faster.

Mobility as a Service (Bee Smart City)

Mobility as a Service (MaaS) integrates various forms of transport and transport-related services into a single, comprehensive, and on-demand mobility service. MaaS offers end-users the added value of accessing mobility through a single application and a single payment channel (instead of multiple ticketing and payment operations). To meet a customer’s request, a MaaS operator hosts a diverse menu of transport options, including (but not limited to) public transport, active modes such as walking and cycling, ride/ car/bike-sharing, taxi, and car rental or lease, or a combination thereof. MaaS aims to be the best value proposition for users, societies, and the environment. (MaaS website)

MaaS is technologically feasible, but in reality, it is complicated by the fact that much of mass transit is run by public agencies while taxis, rideshares, scooters, and bikes are almost always operated by private corporations. Organized labor is no fan of such integration, fearing that lower paying private services would bite into the public service. In metro areas MaaS networks would conceivably span several jurisdictions, potentially each with its own transit agency, payment, and network. Europe has long proven that those must not be insurmountable obstacles. Most metro areas have regional fare integration with local transit that can be accessed with a long-distance train ticket, in the Netherlands such a system includes the entire country. For political reasons it remains still rare and elusive in the U.S.

While the advantages of for riders seem obvious, there is not much information whether the transition to transit on demand modes for last mile or currently less traveled fixed route maps will save transit agencies operational cost. But with ever less predictable travel behavior a demand based repose may well be a necessity.

In short, the death of transit is not unavoidable. The tools to save it are in place. What is lacking is the political will.

Klaus Philipsen, FAIA

Resources:

National Transit Report Card 2025

How Mobility as a Service (MaaS) is transforming the future of transportation

10 trends shaping North American Transit

https://www.uitp.org/news/10-trends-reshaping-north-american-public-transport-in-2024/

AI shaping transit (Urban Institute)

https://www.urban.org/urban-wire/ai-and-machine-learning-are-shaping-future-public-transit

The Future of Public Transit (Sustainable America)

https://sustainableamerica.org/blog/the-future-of-public-transit/

CNBC Future of Public Transit

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0k1iWaTIy1E

The Future of Public Transit Amid Post-Election Uncertainty Railway News

https://railway-news.com/the-future-of-public-transit-amid-post-election-uncertainty/

https://www.weforum.org/stories/2025/03/cities-urban-transport-mobility-technology/

How Technology is shaping the Future of Public Transportation (Mondo)

Innovation in Mobility: Understanding the What, Why and How (Factual)

https://www.infrajournal.com/en/w/autonomous-vehicles-and-future-public-transport

Wird KI Architekten ersetzen und für digitale Unsterblichkeit sorgen?

2025-03-31T14:47:00.003-04:00

NOTE: The English version of this article can be found here.

KI wird Menschen nicht ersetzen, sondern Menschen mit KI werden diejenigen ohne ersetzen (Karim Lakhani, Harvard Business School)

Der Tod des Architekten wurde bereits mehrfach angekündigt, verdrängt von Ingenieuren, von CAD, von parametrischem Design und jetzt durch Künstliche Intelligenz. Gleichzeitig können wir als unser virtueller Zwilling Unsterblichkeit erlangen.

Sitzungen, die sich mit KI befassten überfüllt sind bei Architekturkonferenzen überfuellt; Angst und Hoffnung hängen zu gleichen Teilen in der Luft. Der Satz "Wenn Sie sich nicht an den Tisch setzen, dann werden Sie wahrscheinlich auf der Speisekarte stehen" erzeugt Schrecken. Die etwas mildere Version des Todes durch KI besagt, dass KI Menschen nicht ersetzen wird, sondern nur die Menschen keine KI benutzen.

Architekt alter Schule (Life on Sunday)

Die Anwendung von KI in der Bauindustrie braucht dringend eine Einschätzung, da KI immer schneller in unsere Berufe vordringt.

Eher avantgardistische Firmen wie Coop-Himmelblau, MVRDV und BIG experimentieren seit einigen Jahren mit KI, und viele etablierte Firmen ziehen nach. Frage MidJourney, ein Gebäude von Zaha Hadid zu entwerfen, und es wird eine Struktur hervorzaubern, die aussieht, als wäre die verstorbene Architektin von den Toten auferstanden.

Mittlerweile produzieren KI-Design-Tools weit mehr als nur Renderings. Sie sind in Google Earth (Delve) eingebettet und auf vielen Plattformen verfügbar, die es Architekten ermöglichen, standortspezifische frühe Massenmodelle, Flächenberechnungen und Zahl von Wohneinheiten viel schneller zu erstellen als mit SketchUp oder ähnlicher Baukörper-Software. Später im Designprozess kann KI den eingebauten Kohlenstoff ermitteln, die Einhaltung von Vorschriften sicherstellen und konsistente, praktikable Details garantieren.

Menschen, die von all dem Gerede über KI und digitale Zwillinge eingeschüchtert sind, können sich damit trösten dass die meisten von uns längst mit diesen Werkzeugen ausgestattet sind, ohne viel darüber nachzudenken, und wir dabei besser informiert sind als unsere Vorfahren es je waren. Jeder mit einem Smartphone hat das gesamte Universum des Wissens in der Tasche. Das Gerät hat bereits mehr Wissen als jeder einzelne Mensch auf der ganzen Welt haben kann, bevor der Begriff "künstliche Intelligenz" überhaupt benötigt wird, um es zu erklären, und bevor jemand ChatGPT oder Apples neuen Image Playground genutzt hat. Vieles davon hat mit "digitalen Zwillingen" zu tun.

Der digitale Zwilling der Welt

Zunehmend wird die physische Welt durch digitale Zwillingen simuliert. Wettervorhersagen basieren auf einer Vielzahl von Daten und sind über eine ganze Woche ziemlich genau. Realistische und dynamische digitale Modelle der Realität sind keineswegs Science-Fiction, sondern tägliche Realität. Wie so oft scheinen die Gamer am weitesten fortgeschritten zu sein mit digitalen Welten, die zum Beispiel in Unreal geschaffen erstehen.

Architekten haben lange Zeit Gebäude in analogen Modellen und Zeichnungen antizipiert, von denen Bauarbeiter das echte Produkt schufen. Dann wurden die Zeichnungen digital über CAD erstellt, und ein Modell potenziell von einem 3D-Drucker erstellt. Im Building Information Modeling (BIM)

BIM model (STW Architects UK via WSP)

wurden die Zeichnungen mit Wissen über Materialien, Kosten, Energie und allerlei anderen Daten angereichert. Parametrische Architektur verband Materialien (Frank Gehry, Tim Fu). Um ein digitaler Zwilling des erwarteten Produkts zu werden, müssen die statischen Modelle der Vergangenheit so mit Daten angefüllt werden, dass sie dynamisch werden. Zukünftiges Verhalten kann mit großer Genauigkeit simuliert werden, nicht nur in Bezug auf Kosten, Menschenbewegungen, Funktion oder Energieverbrauch, sondern auch in Bezug auf extreme Belastungen durch Sturm, Überschwemmung und Brand. Am wichtigsten ist, dass der digitale Zwilling seine Optimierung durchmacht lange bevor ein tatsächliches Gebäude die Trial-and-Error-Phase der realen Bedingungen durchläuft. Der Zwilling kann aber auch parallel zum physischen Gebäude verwendet werden kann, um Ausfälle, Wartungsbedarf oder Leistungsoptimierung zu berechnen.

Digitale Zwillinge sind nur ein Teil eines umfassenden Wandels in der Weltwirtschaft. Sie bevölkern das, was David Gelernter von der Yale University vor langer Zeit als "Spiegelwelten" voraussagte: eine neue Dimension des menschlichen Lebens, die auf Daten basiert und von ihnen gespeist wird. Jahr für Jahr werden immer mehr Teile des physischen Bereichs im virtuellen Raum dargestellt und simuliert – eine Umkehrung von Platons Theorie, dass reale Objekte nur unvollkommene Kopien ihres wahren Seins im spirituellen Bereich sind. Das Aufkommen dieser Spiegelwelten wird eine neue Wirtschaft hervorrufen. Diese Entwicklung wird neue Märkte, Institutionen, Infrastrukturen, Unternehmen und sogar geopolitische Arrangements erfordern. (The Economist)

Unser persönlicher digitaler Zwilling

Digitale Zwillinge sind natürlich nicht auf Materie und Gebäude beschränkt, sie können auch Natur und Menschen darstellen. So fügte das Computerzeitalter der Sigmund Freud's Troika von aus Ich, Über-Ich und Es den digitalen Zwilling hinzu. Unsere virtuellen Alter Egos agieren da draußen als unsere Vertreter entweder in Echtzeit (digitaler Zwilling) oder für Simulationen (virtueller Zwilling). Unsere virtuellen Alter Egos sind Teil einer neuen Ausgebeutung in der unentgeltliche Arbeit für die neue Datenwirtschaft verrichtet wird. Da dies meistenteils unfreiwillig geschieht, ist es etlichen unwohl dabei, insbesondere nachdem die digitalen Grosskonzerne, wie Twitter, Facebook, Google oder Amazon, unberechenbar geworden sind.

Digital twin surprise (via Philippe Morel presentation)

Die eindimensionale und unvollständige digitale Repräsentation unserer Person speist endlose Datenströme. Als der Käufer, über den der Laden wenig weiß, aausser alle unsere Kaufgewohnheiten. Als Fahrer in einem Fahrzeug, über den Google oder Waze Standort, Geschwindigkeit, Ursprung und Ziel genau kennen. Als Patient, dessen Daten nicht nur unser Gesundheitsportal bevölkern, sondern auch das von Labors, anderen Ärzten, die wir besuchen, und was auch immer das Gesetz erlaubt. Unsere täglichen Aktivitäten setzen eine ganze Armee von virtuellen Alter Egos in Gang, die Wissen über die Vergangenheit und gute Kenntnisse über eine wahrscheinliche Zukunft ermöglichen. Unser Alter Ego, das einen Bus fährt, informiert mehrere Dutzend andere Alter Egos, die entlang seiner Route auf denselben Bus warten, in Echtzeit darüber, wo es sich befindet und wer sonst noch im Bus ist.

Dies sind kaum mehr als Fußabdrücke im Schnee, doch wenn Datenpunkte über einen bestimmten Zeitraum kontinuierlich überlagert werden, ergibt sich eine Darstellung, die uns zunehmend in atemberaubenden Totalität in allen physischen, Verhaltens- und emotionalen Zuständen ähnelt. Es ist leicht vorstellbar, dass unser Alter Ego soviel Komplexität gewinnen kann, dass es kaum noch von unserem realen Selbst zu unterscheiden ist, wenn auch ein wenig an Spontaneität mangelt. Möglicherweise weiß jedoch unser virtueller Zwilling besser, als wir selbst was wir als Nächstes tun werden, während wir noch eine Illusion von freiem Willen hegen. Es ist bisher noch Science-Fiction, aber diese digitalen Zwillinge könnten eines Tages in unserem Namen handeln, und auf diese Weise könnten sie auch nach unserem eigenen Tod weiterleben und uns unsterblich machen.

KI-Illustration in Antwort auf die Aufforderung
KI in unserem täglichen Leben zu zeigen (Autor)

Offensichtlich erreicht effektives dynamisches Modellieren ein höheres Leistungsniveau, wenn die materiellen Zwillinge und die Menschen-Zwillinge zusammengeführt werden. Anfangs werden diese digitalen Paralleluniversen durch traditionelle Rechenleistung angetrieben.

Mit erheblich erhöhter Leistungskapazität ist ein Sprung in die künstliche Intelligenz möglich; indem KI zur Datenverarbeitung und Vernetzung der digitalen Zwillinge verwendet wird. Durch die in Echtzeit ständig erweiterte Daten Rückkopplung wird Lernen, Schlussfolgern und Problemlösen möglich, mit der Aussicht, dass generative KI die dynamischen Modelle immer intelligenter machen kann. Die Grenze zwischen gespeicherten Daten und KI liegt in der Dynamik. Das Smartphone, das Aktivitäten und Reisevorschläge auf der Basis dessen optimiert, was zuvor unternommen wurde, hat nicht nur von anderen gelernt, die Navis verwenden oder Reisen machen, sondern auch direkt vom einzelnen was schliesslich maßgeschneiderte Vorschläge erlaubt.

Wir leben bereits in einer KI-Welt

Wie gesagt, wir leben also schon jetzt in der KI Welt, auch wenn unsere menschlichen und weltlichen digitalen Zwillinge noch nicht häufig kombiniert werden, übertreffen aktuelle digitale Modelle bei weitem die Qualität derjenigen, die ausschließlich auf menschlicher Intelligenz, Kreativität und Erfahrung basieren. Die meisten von uns haben sich schon an die Geschwindigkeit und den Komfort von KI-unterstützten Modellen gewöhnt, von der Wettervorhersage bis zur Bestellung eines Ubers, von Wegbeschreibungen durch Waze, dem Passieren von Flughafenkontrollen durch Gesichtserkennung oder der Lösung eines Bestellproblems mit Amazon. Schon jetzt teilt sich die Welt in die, die Zugang zu diesen Ressourcen haben, und denen, die es nicht haben. Die Erwartungen steigen ständig. Verbraucher, die es mit Verwaltungen und Institutionen zu tun haben, die noch in der alten, langsamen analogen Welt agieren, werden zunehmend frustriert, schimpfen auf den Amtsschimmel oder wechseln von Taxis zu Uber oder vom örtlichen Einzelhandel zum optimierten Online-Einkauf.

Die Daten-, Informations-, Wissens-, Weisheitspyramide (DIKW)

Das erschreckt viele, deren Lebensunterhalt darin besteht, die Zukunft zu gestalten, darunter Architekten, Stadtplaner, Designer und Ingenieure, deren Projektzeiträume in Jahren gemessen werden, in denen menschliche Entwurfsfähigkeiten von entscheidender Bedeutung sind. Was wir dabei übersehen, ist, dass es nicht das gestalterische Entwerfen ist, das die meiste Zeit verbraucht. Vielmehr wird der Zeitrahmen durch die nicht-kreative Bearbeitung von Regeln, Vorschriften, Genehmigungsanträgen, Wiederholung und Präsentationen für Kunden bestimmt. Wenn jeder der nicht-kreativen Schritte durch KI beschleunigt würde, könnten unsere Intelligenz, Kreativität und Erfahrung fokussierter, effizienter und auf einem viel höheren Niveau eingesetzt werden. Unsere Gehirne sin eigentlich schon auf das digitale Zeitalter eingestellt.

Man stelle sich vor, wie hoffnungslos einer wäre, der aus dem Mittelalter in die moderne Welt teleportiert würde, in der wir ohne viel Problematik agieren. Es ist nicht nur die Technologie, die jemanden aus der Vergangenheit verwirren würde. Selbst wenn diese Person alle Gebrauchsanweisungen gelesen hätte, es würde nicht helfen. Das Gehirn wäre nicht in der Lage, die Geschwindigkeit der Welt, die mit 70 mph vorbeizieht, zu verarbeiten, würde nicht die Reisen über Zeitzonen und Klimazonen verdauen können, von unserer Sprache, Kunst, Musik und Vorstellung des Universums überfordert sein. Dass unsere 2-Jährigen unsere Smartphones sinnvoll bedienen können, liegt nicht daran, dass sie das Handbuch gelesen haben, sondern dass diese Erfahrung von Anfang an geliefert wurde.

KI - Gelegenheit oder Bedrohung?

Angst ist kein guter Leitfaden für das Management der Zukunft. Da es absolut sicher ist, dass verfeinerte KI enorme Auswirkungen auf fast alle Aspekte des Lebens haben wird, sollten wir besser verstehen, vorbereiten und kontrollieren, was geschehen wird. Das bedeutet weniger Kontrolle über KI an sich und mehr Kontrolle über die Unternehmen, die sie entwickeln und einsetzen, damit KI nicht so leicht für böse Zwecke verwendet werden kann.

AI at an architecture conference in Hongkong (author)

Die Meinungen zu KI sind gespalten. Auf der einen Seite die, die glauben, dass das Modellieren mit KI eine bessere Welt schaffen wird und den menschlichen Bedienern ermöglicht, ihre Entwürfe weit über das hinaus zu verbessern, was in der Vergangenheit möglich war. Auf der anderen Seite und jene, die glauben, dass KI das Ende von Jobs, und Kreativität bedeutet und dass generl AI (AGI) eine unmittelbare Gefahr für die Menschheit darstellt. Überraschenderweise gehören einige der Entwickler von KI zu den letzteren. Die Warnungen können keinesfalls als uninformiert abgetan werden.

Viel Diskussion dreht sich um die Frage ob KI intelligenter als Menschen sein kann, ob sie Bewusstsein haben kann und ob eine solche selbstlernende KI letztlich nicht mehr von Menschen kontrolliert werden kann und stattdessen uns kontrolliert. Die Rechenleistung ist bereits leistungsfähiger als das menschliche Gehirn, wenn es um Schach und Mathematik geht. Quantencomputing verspricht weitere Lesitungsspruenge. Künstlicher allgemeiner Intelligenz (AGI), d.h. selbstlernender KI, ist nicht mehr fern und die Frage ist, ob wir es einhegen können. Bewusstheit ist weniger offensichtlich, zum Teil weil wir keinen Konsens über darüber haben, was der Begriff genau bedeutet.

Das Konzept der künstlichen allgemeinen Intelligenz – eines ultra-leistungsfähigen KI-Systems, das wir noch nicht haben – kann als ein Ballon betrachtet werden, der während Höhen des Optimismus (oder der Angst) über sein potenzielles Impact ständig mit Hype aufgeblasen und dann entleert wird, wenn die Realität nicht den Erwartungen entspricht. (James O'Donnell, MIT Technology Review 25.03.)

Was Architekten können und KI nicht

Architekten diskutieren gerne, ob KI jemals für "Emotionen" entwerfen kann, d.h. in einer Weise, dass menschliche Gefühle antizipiert und durch Räume stimuliert werden, die in Entwürfe integriert sind, so wie es kreative Architekten tun. Die Diskussion über das Potenzial von KI, Architekten zu ersetzen, hängt von der eigenen Sicht auf Architektur ab. Der Architekt und Theologe Terrence Curry modifiziert Sullivans "Form folgt Funktion" in seiner Veröffentlichung "Form folgt Gefühl":

... wenn man den Dualismus von Geist und Körper nicht akzeptiert, sondern vielmehr eine verkörperte Sicht auf menschliches Dasein annimmt, bei der der Geist nichts anderes bedeutet als menschliche Kognition, und der Körper nicht nur als eine Möglichkeit der Interaktion mit der Welt verstanden wird, sondern als eine Möglichkeit, vielleicht die primäre Möglichkeit, die Welt zu erkennen, dann geht es beim Architekturd design darum, Orte für menschliches Wohnen zu schaffen, die den Körper einbeziehen und die fleischlichen, riechenden, sinnlichen, romantischen, zärtlichen, genialen, verletzlichen Wesen, die Menschen sind, Rechnung tragen. Daher argumentiere ich, dass die Form dem Gefühl folgt. (Terrence Curry)

Im Gegensatz dazu sieht der strukturalistische Architekt Peter Eisenmann Architektur als einen Prozess der kritischen Auseinandersetzung mit der Syntax von Systemen, Sprache, die zu einer Form führt. Auch er modifiziert Sullivan und sagt:

Man kann nicht mehr von Funktion oder Bedeutung in der Architektur sprechen. Es ist nicht die Frage, dass die Form der Bedeutung folgt, sondern dass die Form sich selbst folgt." (Peter Eisenmann, Blurred Zones)

Futuristic AI imaging (from ArchiVinci website)

KI kann auf unterschiedliche Weise eingesetzt werden. Zum Beispiel kann Mid-Journey von einem Architekten verwendet werden, der möglicherweise nicht in der Lage ist, Ideen oder Intuitionen in Skizzen umzusetzen, aber gut mit Worten ist. Die Software kann solche Wortbefehle umsetzen, ob es nun Ziele oder Emotionen sind, die eingegeben werden und entsprechende Bilder oder Modelle erzeugen. Diese können mit zusätzlichen Befehlen verfeinert oder die Ergebnisse können kombiniert werden. Schließlich verwandelt sich ein Ziel oder sogar ein Gefühl in etwas, das einer Struktur ähnelt. Was diese Art der Bildgenerierung normalerweise fehlt, ist das analytische Denken, das im traditionellen Prozess die anfänglichen Designkonzepte informiert. Gute Architekten schaffen Wert, indem sie auf bestimmte Standort- und Programmbedingungen mit einem einzigartigen Design reagieren, das aus diesen abgeleitet wird. Mid Journey kann dies potenziell tun, aber nur mit dem entsprechenden menschlichen Input, da die Software nicht in der Lage ist, auf die Baustelle zu gehen, die Ausblicke, das Terrain zu sehen, den Lärm zu hören oder die Stile der umliegenden Gebäude zu bestimmen.

"Menschen sind viel bessere Diskriminatoren als Generatoren" (Neil Leach über die Fähigkeit der Menschen, zu identifizieren vs. zu schaffen)

Midjourney image creation (via Philippe Morel)

Die aktuelle mangelnde physische Erfahrung von KI ist schwer mit den aktuellen Eingabemethoden von Worten, Plänen, Karten, Bildern, Sonnenwinkeln usw. zu kompensieren. Tatsächlich befeuern diese Limitationen eine lebhafte Diskussion über die Beziehungen zwischen verkörperter Intelligenz und Kognition, eine Frage, die Philosophen und Kognitionswissenschaftler schon lange beschäftigt und im Zeitalter der KI neue Relevanz hat. Im Augenblick hat KI ohne physische Verkörperung einen deutlichen Nachteil im Vergleich zu einem lebenden und atmenden Architekten, der während der entscheidenden Phasen eines Projekts die Erfahrungen eines tatsächlichen Standorts mit Designideen im Kopf verbindet. Und selbst eine KI mit Körper würde viel Training benötigen, um das zu erreichen, was die meisten Menschen ohne allzu große Mühe tun: Aus dem Datenstrom das Relevante herauszufiltern um das Gehirn vor "Überhitzung" zu schützen (kognitive Selbstverteidigung).

Nutzen und Risiko sind miteinander verknüpft

Die Geschichte der Technologie zeigt, dass steigender Nutzen mit einem steigenden Risiko und potenzieller Gefahr verbunden ist. Kernspaltung hat hohe Energiepotenziale und die Atombombe hervorgebracht. Die Energie bringt die unbeabsichtigte Folge von Abfall mit sich, der für Jahrtausende gefährlich bleibt. Mit KI wird es nicht anders sein. Die Versprechen umfassen besseres Design, bessere Produkte, bessere Voraussicht und viele Energie- und Kostenersparnisse durch virtuelle Simulationen

Increasing complexity and narrow expertise can bundle up to
achieve "super-intelligence" (Graphic: Philippe Morel)

Die Risiken und unbeabsichtigten Folgen umfassen Kontrollverlust, Massenarbeitslosigkeit, bösartige Anwendungen und einen enormen Energieverbrauch durch die notwendigen Computer und Chips bis hin zum totalen Kontrollverlust.

Für Entwerfer mag es beruhigend sein, dass das Risiko eines bösartigen Missbrauchs in unserer Sparte nicht sehr hoch zu sein scheint und dass KI, die tatsächlich besser darin ist, qualitativ hochwertige Räume zu schaffen als die kreativsten Köpfe, zumindest so schwierig ist, wie eine KI, die bessere Poesie schafft als ein sehr guter Dichter. In beiden Fällen sind wir noch nicht an diesem Punkt, und einige sagen, wir werden es nie sein, da KI niemals Empathie, Emotionen oder Bewusstsein haben wird. Angesichts der Unterschiede in der Verschaltung von Gehirnen im Vergleich zu Computernetzwerken mag das wahr sein.

Ich glaube jedoch, dass Maschinen in einem Prozess, der als computational illusion bezeichnet wird, letztendlich eine Simulation von Emotionen perfektionieren werden, die uns täuschen könnte. Es bleibt abzuwarten, ob der Nachteil unkörplicher KI mit KI-gesteuerten Robotern überwunden werden kann, die wie Menschen aus Erfahrungen in der physischen Umgebung lernen.

KI und der Architekt - Praktische Anwendungen

Im Augenblick kann eine Vielzahl von alternativen Modellen für ein Bauprogramm in Sekunden generiert werden. Man definiert ein Baugrundstück im Kontext einer GIS Karte und einiger Babauungsplandaten und erhält die Flächennutzungszahl, die Bebauungsfläche, Stellplatzzahlen und die Nutzungsflächen, Zahl der Wohneinheiten usw. Die resultierenden Baumassen und deren Anordnungen können auch Sonnenwinkel, Verschattung usw zeigen und aus allen Blickwinkeln betrachtet werden.

Was herauskommt ist so generisch, dass es wahrscheinlich keine Anordnung und Komposition enthalten wird, die ein Designer als vollständig zufriedenstellend akzeptieren würde, aber es könnte doch einige Variationen geben, die der Entwerfer zunächst nicht bedacht hat. Die Tabelle mit den notwendigen Zahlen schafft eine hervorragende Grundlage für die weitere Verfeinerung der

AI generated massing model embedded in Google Earth with
unit count and floor areas (author)

Eingabemetriken (des Programms) und der Komposition. Dies kann durch Drüber erfolgen, durch Importieren des KI-Modells in CAD- oder BIM-Software oder durch Manipulation der Volumina mit der urspruenglichen KI-Software.

Diese ersten KI-generierte Massenmodelle ersetzten die zeitaufwändigen Ton, Pappe oder SketchUp Modelle, die bisher visualisierten, wie ein gegebenes Programm unter bestimmten Regeln aussehen würde. Bisher mussten Annahmen über Grundrisse und Einheitlayouts getroffen werden, die kombiniert mit Berechnungen zur Ermittlung der Geschosshöhen, Gebäudetiefen und Abmessungen in einem Try und Error Prozess optimiert wurden. Mit KI gehts erheblich schneller. Für gemischte oder Mehrfamiliennutzungen verwenden KI-basierte Programme Standard-Wohnungslayouts, um die Abmessungen der vorgeschlagenen Blöcke zu ermitteln. Natürlich kann dies auch für Büros, Fabriken oder Sporteinrichtungen erfolgen, solange es genügend Präzedenzfälle gibt, auf denen die KI-Software "trainiert" wurde.

AI applications in architecture and urban design (via Eda Erol)

Mit Hilfe von KI kann eine gute Komposition, gute Stadtgestaltung und eine angemessene Anpassung an die umliegende Bebauung schnell erreicht werden. Zugegeben, Geschwindigkeit bedeutet nicht immer Qualität, und die Zeit, die benötigt wird, um ein Geländemodell Pappmodell zu erstellen kann dem Architekten helfen, ein Gefühl für einen Ort und sozusagen zu ertasten und beim Schneiden und Kleben von Pappe kreativ zu denken. In der Realität werden diese banalen Schritte jedoch meist von einem Praktikanten getätigt nicht vom verantwortlichen Entwurfsarchitekten. Im Gegensatz dazu wird der Einsatz von KI den tatsächlichen Entwerfer von Anfang an einbeziehen unter Ausnutzung aller Erfahrung und Kreativität.

Was für diese frühen Schritte des Vorentwurfs gilt, gilt für jeden Schritt danach. KI kann dabei helfen, die Einhaltung von Vorschriften zu erreichen, Material- und Oberflächendesign zu gestalten und während des gesamten Prozesses eingebetteten Kohlenstoff und den voraussichtlichen Energieverbrauch bemessen sowie sicherstellen, dass nur die besten Details für Mauerwerk, Vorhangfassaden, Fenster, Dächer usw. verwendet werden, wobei ein wesentlich größeres Repertoire an Details zur Verfügung steht, als selbst die best-organisierten Firmen in ihrer Detail Bibliothek haben. Sobald das Design definiert ist, kann es in traditioneller Render-Software oder AIA-Render-Modellen veranschaulicht werden.

Ausblick

Der aktuelle Markt hat eine Reihe von Softwaremodellen für jede Phase, was etwas verwirrend ist, da bei jedem Schritt das vorherige Ergebnis importiert werden muss (was oft nicht möglich ist), und das neue Modell auf dieser Basis trainiert werden muss. Bisher ist die Grundlage größerer Architekturprojekte immer noch BIM, das alle Bauelemente katalogisiert und die Integration von Architektur, Struktur, MEP und Innenarchitektur in dasselbe Modell ermöglicht.

Neil Leach predictions AI and Architecture

Offensichtlich ist das Ziel die "intermodale Integration" der KI Komponenten in ein umfassendes Modell das für jeden Schritt des Entwirfs und Ausfuehrungsablaufs benutzt werden kann. Dann kann das fertiggestellte Design auf die gleiche Weise auf die Einhaltung von Vorschriften getestet werden, wie dieser Text bei ChatGPT zur Korrektur von Rechtschreibfehlern und Interpunktion eingegeben werden kann. (Ich habe das KI auch zur Uebrsetzung eingesetzt, war aber mit dem Ergebnis so unzufrieden, dass es stundenlanger Korrekturen bedurfte).

KI erledigt viele mühsame Schritte, und Wiederholungen und das Klicken von Menüs. Zu jedem Zeitpunkt kann das virtuelle Modell leicht in Renderings umgewandelt werden, die Kunden oder der Öffentlichkeit präsentiert werden können, einschließlich mit VR-Brillen "begehbare" Modelle.

Architektur ist ein Kulturprodukt das vorherrschenden Einflüssen unterliegt. KI würde reflektieren, auf welchen Präzedenzfällen und Informationen das Training erfolgte. Während diese Einschränkungen auf lange Sicht überwunden werden können, stellen sie derzeit immer noch ein Problem dar. Aktuelle KI-Designmodelle schlagen wahrscheinlich einige geschwungene, futuristische, kurvige Formen vor, die an die verstorbene Zaha Hadid erinnern, anstatt Lösungen vorzuschlagen, die den jüngsten Kreationen der RIBA-Goldmedaillengewinnerin Yasmeen Lari ähneln. Ki wird kaum etwas kreieren wie das Frauenzentrum in Darya Khan, Pakistan, ein zylindrischen Bambusgebäude, das auf Stelzen errichtet wurde, um Überschwemmungen zu vermeiden. Lari beschreibt es als ein Schlüsselbeispiel ihrer "zweiten Lebensphase" als Architektin - als sie ihre Aufmerksamkeit auf humanitäre Arbeit richtete. (Dezeen).

Yasmeen Lari Women Center Darya Khan, Pakistan

"Der Planet ist viel größer und viel wichtiger als jeder von uns. Wenn wir entwerfen, müssen wir wirklich die Erde auf irgendeine Weise fühlen, wir können nicht weiterhin Schaden anrichten." (Yasmeen Lari)

KI neigt dazu, aktuelle kulturelle Vorurteile zu verstärken, bis sie trainiert wird, es anders zu tun. Aber selbst wenn das kulturelle Vorurteil überwunden werden könnte, deutet die aktuelle KI darauf hin, dass das Training auf Präzedenzfällen zu einer Reproduktion von Präzedenzfällen führt, selbst wenn es Variationen gibt. Während man argumentieren könnte, dass menschliche Kreativität auch auf der Grundlage von Präzedenzfällen funktioniert, kann man sicherlich geniale Köpfe benennen, die völlig neue Konzepte geschaffen haben. Könnte KI das auch tun? Viele nehmen an, ja.

Seit Vitruvius "10 Bücher über Architektur" ist bekannt dass der architektonische Entwurf nicht nur eine Frage von Funktion, struktureller Integrität und Material ist, sondern auch eine hoch emotionale Angelegenheit, sogar Glück beinhaltet. (Walter Gropius: "Architektur beginnt dort, wo das Ingenieurwesen endet"). Gutes Design wirkt sich auf Menschen innerhalb und außerhalb von Gebäuden auf viele Art aus, soweit so, dass Architektur das Wohlbefinden direkt beeinflussen kann. Die besten Architekten vereinen Intuition, Empathie, Kreativität und Präzedenzfälle in ihren Entwürfen.

Corbusier sketch of Ronchamp (Museum)

Einige Architekten sind sich sicher, dass KI niemals die emotionale Synchronität erreichen wird, die ein talentierter Architekt erzielen kann. (Siehe diese Reddit-Diskussion). Momentan scheint KI am nützlichsten zu sein, um effizient Variationen von prinzipiell möglichen Designlösungen zu erzielen, Visualisierungen und Renderings zu erstellen und Pläne auf offensichtliche Vorschriften oder Ingenieursfehler zu überprüfen. Aber KI nur als ein weiteres Werkzeug zu betrachten, das den Designprozess beschleunigt, ist fehlerhaft, so Bill Gates.

Jeder, der dies (KI) mit Elektrizität, Traktoren, Mikrocomputern vergleicht, hat es nicht verstanden. Dies ist kein Produktivitätshelfer für Menschen. Dies ist etwas, das die menschliche Fähigkeit übersteigt. (Bill Gates, Wired März 2025)

Theoretisch erlaubt dies dem talentierten Designer, die Verfeinerung früher und auf einem höheren Niveau zu beginnen, als es der traditionelle Ansatz erlaubt hätte. Aber könnte der menschliche Designer vollständig ersetzt werden? Es ist unklar, wohin uns KI führen könnte. BIGs Design-Technologie-Manager Oliver Thomas spekuliert sogar über eine Art Wiederaufleben von "handwerklichen Architekten" als Gegenbewegung zu KI.

Hand sketch of the unbuilt monument to the
Third International by V. Tatlin

Ein KI-Ökosystem aus generativ lernenden KI-Agenten und Robotern könnte Phasenübergänge, Quantenprünge oder die Art von Emergenz hervorbringen, die von Schwärmen bekannt ist. Bei der Emergenz hat nicht der individuelle Agent Intelligenz, sondern das Kollektiv der Agenten schafft emergente Intelligenz. Wir haben bereits solche Sprünge gesehen, als Sprachmodelle wie ChatGPT plötzlich in der Lage waren, von einer Sprache in eine andere zu übersetzen, ein Aspekt, für den das KI nicht trainiert worden waren, der aber "aus dem Training" in mehreren Sprachen hervorging. Es ist durchaus vorstellbar, dass ein generatives, d.h. selbstlernendes KI-Design-Tool, das in verschiedenen Spezialgebieten der Architektur und vielen Präzedenzfällen trainiert wurde, seinen eigenen Phasenübergang erzeugen könnte, bei dem etwas völlig Neues, Funktionales, Vorschriftsmäßiges und Ansprechendes entstehen könnte, das alle Kästchen des vitruvianischen Katalogs abhaken würde.

So könnten wir eines Tages unsere Jobs verlieren, während unser digitaler Zwilling lange nach unserem Tod weiterlebt, bis ihn jemand tötet.

Wenn, wie und was KI ersetzen wird, liegt in unseren Händen. Solange wir Menschen noch Kontrolle haben, tun wir besser daran sie zu nutzen.

Klaus Philipsen, FAIA

Sie können diesen Blog abonnieren indem sie auf die Schaltfläche "subscribe" auf der rechten Seite klicken.

**Ressourcen, die im Artikel erwähnt werden:**

How MVRDV uses AI (Video)

AI and the future of architecture, Neil Leach (Video) "AI is not about form it is about data"

Opinion Piece in Dezeen (2023)

DigitalFuturesWorld

Machine Hallucinations (Co-op Himmelblau)(AD)

Refic Anadol Machine Hallucinations

LookX

The Digital Twin: Immortality Through Virtual Existence

AGI and Design Video

Philippe Morel (video) (video)

(the formal basis of architecture)

Embodiment intelligence and cognition

fei fei li spatial (Andi Lyn)

Enscape: AI in Architecture: 7 Benefits and Examples

Autodesk: Digital TwinsThe Guardian: It’s already way beyond what humans can do’: will AI wipe out architects?

Architizer: 15 Top AI Tools for Architects and Designers

Reddit Architects: Case Study: Can AI Architecture Design Replace Architects' Work?

ArchiStar: Building Permit Compliance Assessment

Tim Fu: Building our Future with AI

Max Tegmark (“We need a kind of FDA for AI”)

Wir haben festgestellt, dass es Menschen erfordert, die in fünf bis zehn verschiedenen Bereichen arbeiten, um eines dieser Projekte zum Leben zu erwecken, Menschen, die in der Vergangenheit normalerweise nicht zusammengearbeitet hätten. In einer Welt, in der viele Menschen hybrid sind, wo, um Ihr bestes Team aufzubauen, die Mitglieder möglicherweise im ganzen Land oder anderswo sind, benötigen Sie eine Plattform, eine Strategie, um die reale Welt darzustellen und all diese Menschen zur Zusammenarbeit zu bringen. Die Entwicklung digitaler Zwillinge ist der Weg, dies zu tun.“ (Andi Lyn)

KI in der Bauindustrie muss schnell und etwas entpackt werden, da die KI in unseren Berufen schnell voranschreitet.

Weitere avantgardistische Unternehmen wie Coop-Himmelblau, MVRDV und BIG experimentieren seit einigen Jahren mit KI, und viele Mainstream-Unternehmen folgen diesem Beispiel. Bitten Sie MidJourney, ein Gebäude von Zaha Hadid zu entwerfen, und es wird eine Struktur kommen, die aussieht, als wäre der verstorbene Architekt von den Toten zurückgekehrt.

Jetzt produzieren KI-Design-Tools viel mehr als nur Renderings. Sie sind in Google Earth (Delve) eingebettet und auf vielen Plattformen verfügbar, die es Architekten ermöglichen, standortspezifische frühe Massenmodelle, Grundrissberechnungen und Einheitenzahlen viel schneller als mit SketchUp oder einer ähnlichen Massensoftware zu erstellen. Später im Designprozess kann die KI auf eingebetteten Kohlenstoff, die Einhaltung von Codes und konsistente umsetzbare Details überprüfen.

Menschen, die von all dem Gerede über KI und digitale Zwillinge eingeschüchtert sind, sollten Mut machen. Die meisten von uns haben sich lange Zeit mit diesen Werkzeugen ohne große Überlegung ausgestattet und uns dabei schlauer gemacht, intelligenter als jeder unserer Vorfahren. Jeder, der ein Smartphone hat, hat das gesamte Wissensuniversum in der Tasche oder Handtasche. Das Gerät verfügt also bereits über mehr Wissen als jeder Mensch auf der ganzen Welt, bevor der Begriff "künstliche Intelligenz" überhaupt benötigt wird, um es zu erklären, und bevor jemand ChatGPT oder Apples neuen Image Playground verwendet hat. Vieles davon hat mit "digitalen Zwillingen" zu tun.

Der digitale Zwilling der Welt

Zunehmend wird die physische Welt in digitalen Zwillingen simuliert. Wettervorhersagen, die auf einer Vielzahl von Daten basieren, modellieren eine meteorologische Realität für eine ganze Woche ziemlich genau. Tatsächlich sind realistische und dynamische digitale Modelle der Realität keine Science-Fiction, sondern die tägliche Realität. Wie so oft sind die Spieler vielleicht am weitesten entfernt von digitalen Welten, zum Beispiel in Unreal.

Architekten haben sich schon lange auf Gebäude in analogen Modellen und Zeichnungen gefreut, aus denen Bauherren das echte Produkt geschaffen haben. Dann wurden die Zeichnungen digital per CAD erstellt und das Modell möglicherweise von einem 3D-Drucker erstellt. In der Gebäudeinformationsmodellierung (BIM),

BIM-Modell (STW Architects UK über WSP)

Die Zeichnungen wurden mit Wissen über Materialien, Kosten, Energie und alle Daten, die man anwenden wollte, erweitert. Parametrische Architektur verbundene Materialien (Frank Gehry, Tim Fu). Um ein digitaler Zwilling des erwarteten Produkts zu werden, werden die statischen Modelle der Vergangenheit so mit Daten durchdrungen, dass sie dynamisch werden. Zukünftige Leistungen können mit großer Genauigkeit simuliert werden, nicht nur in Bezug auf Kosten, Personenbewegungen, Funktion oder Energieverbrauch, sondern auch in Bezug auf das Verhalten unter widrigen Bedingungen wie Stürmen, Überschwemmungen und Bränden. Am wichtigsten ist, dass der digitale Zwilling eine Optimierung ermöglicht, lange bevor ein tatsächliches Gebäude den Versuch und Irrtum realer Bedingungen durchlaufen muss, aber er kann auch parallel zum physischen Gebäude verwendet werden, um Ausfälle und Wartungsbedarf zu antizipieren oder die Leistung zu verbessern.

Digitale Zwillinge sind nur ein Teil eines enormen Wandels in der Weltwirtschaft. Sie bevölkern das, was David Gelernter von der Yale University vor langer Zeit als "Spiegelwelten" vorhergesagt hat: eine neue Dimension des menschlichen Lebens, die auf Daten basiert und von ihnen angetrieben wird. Jahr für Jahr werden immer mehr Teile des physischen Bereichs in der virtuellen Welt dargestellt und simuliert - eine Umkehrung von Platons Theorie, dass reale Weltobjekte nur unvollkommene Kopien ihres wahren Wesens im spirituellen Bereich sind. Die Entstehung dieser Spiegelwelten wird zu einer eigenständigen Wirtschaft führen. Diese Entwicklung erfordert neue Märkte, Institutionen, Infrastruktur, Unternehmen und sogar geopolitische Vereinbarungen. (Der Ökonom)

Der digitale Zwilling von uns

Digitale Zwillinge sind nicht auf Materie beschränkt, natürlich können sie die Natur und auch den Menschen einschließen. So fügte das Computerzeitalter den digitalen Zwilling zu Sigmund Freuds Troika aus Ego, Super-Ego und Id hinzu. Unsere virtuellen Alter Egos sind da draußen als Vertreter dessen, wer wir im wirklichen Leben sind, entweder in Echtzeit (digitaler Zwilling) oder für Simulationen (virtueller Zwilling). Unsere virtuellen Alter Egos sind Teil einer neuen ausgebeuteten Arbeitskräfte, die die Arbeit für die neue datengesteuerte Wirtschaft erledigt, ohne dass wir oder unser virtueller Zwilling bezahlt werden. Letzteres, und dass es unfreiwillig geschieht, hat einigen von uns Unbehagen bereitet, insbesondere nachdem die digitalen Giganten, die die Daten sammeln, wie Twitter, Facebook, Google oder Amazon, abtrünnig geworden sind.

Digitale Zwillingsüberraschung (über Philippe Morel Präsentation)

Die eindimensionalen und unvollständigen digitalen Vereinfachungen unserer Person speisen endlose Datenströme. Als Käufer, über den der Laden im Allgemeinen wenig weiß, aber alles in Bezug auf Kaufgewohnheiten. Als Fahrer in einem Fahrzeug, über den Google oder Waze außer Standort, Geschwindigkeit, Herkunft und Ziel wenig wissen. Als Patient, dessen Daten nicht nur unser Gesundheitsportal, sondern auch das von Labors, anderen Ärzten, die wir besuchen, und alles, was HIPAA zulässt, bevölkern. Unsere täglichen Aktivitäten entfesseln eine ganze Armee virtueller Alter Egos, die Arbeit bieten, indem sie präzises Wissen über die Vergangenheit und gutes Wissen über eine wahrscheinliche Zukunft ermöglichen. Unser Alter Ego, das einen Bus fährt, informiert mehrere Dutzend andere Alter Egos, die auf denselben Bus entlang seiner Route warten, mit Echtzeitinformationen darüber, wo er sich befindet und mit "it", wo sich der Bus befindet.

Diese vereinfachenden Formen von uns sind kaum mehr als unsere Fußabdrücke im Schnee, aber wenn sie überlagen werden, wenn Datenpunkte über einige Zeit hinweg ständig überlagendet werden, ermöglichen sie eine vollständigere Darstellung von uns selbst, die uns in einer potenziell atemberaubenden Totalität zunehmend ähnelt, mit einem umfassenden Blick auf die physischen, Verhaltens- und emotionalen Zustände einer Person. Es ist leicht vorstellbar, wie unser Alter Ego an Komplexität gewinnen kann, bis es fast nicht von unserem wahren Selbst zu unterscheiden ist, außer dass es an Spontaneität mangelt. Möglicherweise weiß unser virtueller Zwilling jedoch besser, was wir als nächstes tun werden, während wir die Illusion des freien Willens fördern. In der bisher Science-Fiction könnten diese digitalen Zwillinge schließlich in unserem Namen handeln, und auf diese Weise könnten sie auch nach unserem eigenen Tod weiterleben und uns unsterblich machen.

KI-Bild, das bei der Aufforderung generiert wurde, um KI zu zeigen

In unserem täglichen Leben (Autor)

Es ist klar, dass eine effektive dynamische Modellierung ein höheres Maß an Leistung erreicht, wenn die materiellen Zwillinge und die Menschenzwillinge zusammengeführt werden. Ursprünglich wurden diese digitalen Paralleluniversen von traditioneller Rechenleistung angetrieben. Mit einer stark erhöhten Kapazität zur Ausführung von Daten ist ein Sprung in die künstliche Intelligenz möglich, zumindest kann KI für die Datenverarbeitung und Bewertung digitaler Zwillinge eingesetzt werden. Im Wesentlichen fügt dies der regelmäßigen Datenverarbeitung Lernen, Argumentation und Problemlösung hinzu, mit der Aussicht, dass generative KI die dynamischen Modelle trainieren kann, um immer intelligenter zu werden. Die Grenze zwischen gespeichertem Wissen und KI ist fließend. Ihr Smartphone, das Aktivitäten vorschlägt und Reisevorschläge optimiert, basierend darauf, wie Sie zuvor gefahren sind, hat nicht nur von allen anderen Fahrern, die GPS im Allgemeinen verwenden, gelernt, sondern auch direkt von Ihnen und erstellt benutzerdefinierte Vorschläge.

Wir leben bereits in einer KI-Welt

Noch bevor wir digitale Zwillinge der Welt und von uns selbst kombinieren, übertreffen die aktuellen digitalen Modelle bei weitem die Qualität derjenigen, die sich ausschließlich auf menschliche Intelligenz, Kreativität und Erfahrung verlassen. Die Realität ist, dass wir bereits täglich mit KI leben. Die meisten von uns sind an die Geschwindigkeit und den Komfort von KI-erweiterten Modellen gewöhnt, von der Wettervorhersage über die Bestellung eines Uber, das Einholen von Wegbeschreibungen von Waze, das Passieren von Flughafenkontrollen über Gesichtserkennung oder die Lösung eines Bestellproblems mit Amazon. Die Welt ist aufgeteilt zwischen denen, die Zugang zu diesen Ressourcen haben, und denen, die keinen haben. Die Erwartungen steigen ständig. Verbraucher, die mit Agenturen und Institutionen zu tun haben, die immer noch in der alten, langsamen analogen Welt tätig sind, werden zunehmend frustriert und strömen von Taxis zu Uber oder vom stationären Einzelhandel zum optimierten Online-Verkauf.

Die Daten-, Informations-, Wissens- und Weisheitspyramide (DIKW)

Dies erschreckt viele, deren Lebensunterhalt die Zukunft gestaltet, darunter Architekten, Stadtplaner, Planer und Ingenieure, deren Projekthorizonte in Jahren gezählt werden, in denen menschliche Designfähigkeiten von entscheidender Bedeutung sind. Was wir oft übersehen, ist, dass die langsame Geschwindigkeit nicht darauf zurückzuführen ist, dass das Design so lange dauert. Stattdessen wird der Zeitrahmen durch die nicht-kreative Verarbeitung von Regeln, Vorschriften, die Einreichung von Genehmigungen und Demonstrationen an Kunden bestimmt. Wenn jeder der "dummen" oder nicht-kreativen Schritte durch KI beschleunigt würde, könnten unsere Intelligenz, Kreativität und Erfahrung effizienter und auf einem viel höheren Niveau interagieren. Unser Gehirn funktioniert bereits auf einem Niveau, das an das digitale Zeitalter angepasst ist.

Stellen Sie sich vor, wie hoffnungslos eine mittelalterliche Figur überwältigt wäre, wenn sie in die moderne Welt eintauchen würde, in der wir ohne große Probleme handeln können. Dies ist nicht nur eine Frage der Technologien, die jemanden verwirren würden, der aus der Vergangenheit springt. Stellen Sie sich vor, die Handbücher dieser Welt wären vor ihrer Zeitreise irgendwie in diese Person heruntergeladen worden; es würde nicht helfen. Ihr Gehirn wäre nicht in der Lage, die Geschwindigkeit der Welt zu verarbeiten, die mit 70 Meilen pro Stunde vorbeifliegt, würde Reisen durch Zeitzonen und Klimazonen nicht verdauen, unsere Sprachen, unsere Kunst, unsere Musik oder unsere Vorstellungen von der…

Will AI Replace Architects and Provide Digital Immortality?

2025-03-28T13:00:00.022-04:00

AI will not replace humans but humans with AI will replace those without (Karim Lakhani, Harvard Business School)

The death of the architect has been predicted before, killed by engineers, by CAD, by parametric design, and now by AI. At the same time we may achieve immortality as our virtual twin. At architecture conferences sessions addressing AI were packed by people seemingly motivated by equal parts of fear and hope. The phrase "If You Are Not at the Table Then You’re Probably on the Menu" is frequently used. The somewhat milder version of death by AI states that AI will not replace humans but humans with AI will replace those without it.
Old school architectural drafting (Life on Sundays)

AI in the building industry needs some unpacking, and fast, since AI is progressing rapidly into our professions.

More avantgarde firms like Coop-Himmelblau, MVRDV and BIG have been experimenting with AI for a few years by now, and many mainstream firms are following suit. Ask MidJourney to design a Zaha Hadid building and it will come up with a structure that looks like the late architect would have come back from the dead.

By now AI design tools produce much more than just renderings. They are embedded in Google Earth (Delve) and available on many platforms that allow architects to generate site-specific early massing models, floor area calculations, and unit counts much faster than with SketchUp or similar massing software. Later on in the design process AI can check for embodied carbon, compliance with codes and ensure consistent workable details.

Folks intimidated by all the talk of AI and digital twins should take heart. Most of us have long empowered ourselves with these tools without much consideration, making ourselves smarter in the process, smarter than any of our forebears. Anyone with a smartphone has the entire universe of knowledge in their pocket or purse. The device, thus, has already more knowledge than any human in the entire world, before the term "artificial intelligence" is even needed to explain it and before anyone has used ChatGPT or Apple's new Image Playground. Much of this has to do with "digital twins."

The Digital Twin of the World

Increasingly, the physical world is simulated in digital twins. Weather forecasts based on a multitude of data project quite accurately model a meteorological reality for an entire week. In fact, realistic and dynamic digital models of reality are not science fiction but daily reality. As is often the case, the gamers may be the furthest along with digital worlds, for example, created in Unreal.

Architects have long anticipated buildings in analog models and drawings from which builders created the real product. Then, the drawings were created digitally via CAD, and the model potentially built by a 3D printer. In building information modeling (BIM),

BIM model (STW Architects UK via WSP)

the drawings were enhanced with knowledge about materials, costs, energy, and any data one wanted to apply. Parametric architecture connected materials to form (Frank Gehry, Tim Fu). To become a digital twin of the anticipated product the static models of the past become so infused with data that they become dynamic. Future performance can be simulated with great accuracy, not only in terms of cost, people movements, function, or energy usage but also in terms of behavior in adverse conditions such as storms, floods, and fires. Most importantly, the digital twin allows optimization long before an actual building has to go through the trial and error of real-life conditions but it can also be used in parallel to the physical building to anticipate failures, maintenance needs or to improve performance.

Digital twins are just one part of a vast shift in the world’s economy. They populate what David Gelernter of Yale University long ago forecast as “mirror worlds”: a new dimension of human life based on and fueled by data. Year by year, ever more parts of the physical realm are coming to be represented and simulated in the virtual world—an inversion of Plato’s theory that real-world objects are just imperfect copies of their true being in the spiritual realm. The emergence of these mirror worlds will bring about a distinct economy. This development will require new markets, institutions, infrastructure, businesses and even geopolitical arrangements. (The Economist)

The Digital Twin of Us

Digital twins are not limited to matter, of course, the can include nature and also humans. Thus the computer age added the digital twin to Sigmund Freud's Troika of ego, super-ego, and id. Our virtual alter egos are out there as representatives of who we are in real life, either in real time (digital twin) or for simulations (virtual twin). Our virtual alter egos are part of a new exploited labor force that does the work for the new data-driven economy without either we or our virtual twin getting paid. The latter, and that it happens involuntarily, has made some of us uncomfortable, especially after those digital giants who collect the data, such as Twitter, Facebook, Google, or Amazon, have gone rogue.

Digital twin surprise (via Philippe Morel presentation)

The one-dimensional and incomplete digital simplifications of our person feed endless data streams. As the shopper about whom the store knows little in general but everything in terms of purchasing habits. As a driver in a vehicle about whom Google or Waze knows little except location, speed, origin, and destination. As a patient whose data populate not only our health portal, but also that of labs, other doctors we visit, and whatever HIPPA allows. Our daily activities unleash an entire army of virtual alter egos that provide work by allowing precise knowledge about the past and good knowledge about a likely future. Our alter ego riding a bus informs several dozen other alter egos waiting for the same bus along its route with real-time information about where it is and, with "it," where the bus is.

These simplistic forms of us are barely more than our footprints in the snow, yet when overlaid, when data points are continually overlaid over some time, they allow a more complete representation of ourselves that increasingly resembles us in a potentially breathtaking totality with a comprehensive view of an individual’s physical, behavioral, and emotional states. It is easy to imagine how our alter ego can gain complexity until it is almost indistinguishable from our real self, except it may lack spontaneity. Possibly, though, our virtual twin knows better what we will do next while we foster an illusion of free will. In what is, so far, is science fiction, those digital twins could eventually act on our behalf, and in this way, they could also live on after our own death, making us immortal.

AI image generated upon the prompt to show AI
in our daily life (author)

Clearly, effective dynamic modeling achieves a higher level of power when the the material twins and people twins are merged. Initially, these digital parallel universes were powered by traditional computing power. With vastly increased capacity to run data, a leap into artificial intelligence is possible, at the very least AI can be used for data processing and evaluation of digital twins. Essentially, this adds learning, reasoning, and problem-solving to the regular data processing, with the prospect that generative AI can train the dynamic models to become ever smarter. The border between stored knowledge and AI is fluid. Your smartphone that suggests activities and optimizes trip suggestions based on how you drove previously has learned not only from all other drivers using GPS in general, but also directly from you and produces custom suggestions.

We Already Live in an AI World

Even before combining digital twins of the world and of ourselves, current digital models far exceed the quality of those which rely solely on human intelligence, creativity, and experience. The reality is that we live already with AI on a daily basis. Most of us are well used to the speed and convenience of AI enhanced models, from the weather forecast to ordering an Uber, getting directions from Waze, passing airport controls via face recognition, or resolving an order problem with Amazon. The world is bifurcated between those who have access to those resources and those who don't. Expectations continually rise. Consumers dealing with agencies and institutions that still operate in the old slow analog world become increasingly frustrated and flock from taxis to Uber or from brick and mortar retail to streamlined online selling.

The Data, Information, Knowledge, Wisdom (DIKW) pyramid

This frightens many whose livelihood is designing the future, including architects, urban designers, planners, and engineers, whose project horizons are counted in years during which human design skills are critically important. What we often overlook is that the slow speed is not because it takes so long to design. Instead, the time-frame is determined by the non-creative processing of rules, regulations, submission of permits, and demonstrations to clients. If each of the "dumb" or non-creative steps were accelerated by AI, our intelligence, creativity, and experience could engage more efficiently and at a much higher level. Our brains already function on a level that is adjusted to the digital age.

Imagine how hopelessly overpowered a medieval figure would be if immersed in the modern world, in which we can act without much of a problem. This is not just a matter of the technologies that would baffle someone jumping in from the past. Imagine the manuals of this world had been somehow downloaded into this person before her time travel; it wouldn't help. Her brain would not be able to process the speed of the world flying by at 70 mph, would not digest travel across time zones and climates, comprehend our languages, our art, our music, or our ideas of the universe. That our 2-year-olds can swipe our smartphones in a meaningful way is not because they read the manual.

AI- Opportunity or Threat?

Fear is not a guide for managing the future. Since it is absolutely certain that refined AI will have enormous impacts on almost all aspects of life, we better understand, prepare, and control what is going to happen. This means aligning, and training AI with human values, and controlling the companies that develop and deploy it, so that AI won’t be so easily usable for nefarious purposes.

AI at AIA International conference in Hong Kong (Screenshot)

Opinions about AI are divided between those who believe that modeling with AI will make for a better world and allow the human operators to push their designs far beyond the realm of what was possible in the past, and those who believe that AI will be the end of jobs, creativity, and presents an imminent danger to mankind. Surprisingly, some of the developers of AI belong to the second group. The warnings can't easily be dismissed as uninformed.

Much brainpower is spent on the question of whether AI can be smarter than humans, be conscious, and whether such self-learning AI could ultimately no longer be controlled by humans and instead control us. Computing power has already been more powerful than the human brain when it comes to chess and math, with ever more power in sight through quantum computing. Link this power with artificial general intelligence (AGI), i.e., self-learning AI that is closer to human intelligence; it is clear that AI will be smarter than we are. The issue with consciousness is less obvious, in part because we have no consensus on a good definition for what the term exactly means.

The concept of artificial general intelligence—an ultra-powerful AI system we don’t have yet—can be thought of as a balloon, repeatedly inflated with hype during peaks of optimism (or fear) about its potential impact and then deflated as reality fails to meet expectations. (James O'Donnell, MIT Technology Review 3/25)

What Architects Can Do and AI Can't

Architects like to debate whether AI will ever be able to design for "emotion," i.e., in such a manner that human feelings can be anticipated and stimulated by spaces built into designs the way creative architects do. The discussion about AI's potential of replacing architects depends on one's view of architecture. The architect and theologian Terrence Curry modifies Sullivan's "form follows Function" in his publication Form Follows Feeling:

... if one does not accept mind/body dualism, but rather embraces an embodied view of human existence, where mind means nothing more than human cognition, and the body is understood as not only a way of interaction with the world, but as a way, perhaps the primary way of knowing the world, then architecture design is about making places for human dwelling that engages the body and takes into account fleshy, smelly, sensuous, romantic, tender, ingenious, vulnerable beings that humans are. Thus I argue, form follows feeling.(Terrence Curry)

By contrast the structuralist architect Peter Eisenmann sees architecture as a process of critical engagement with the syntax of systems, language resulting in a form. He, too modifies Sullivan and says:

One can no longer speak of function or meaning in architecture. It is not a question of form following meaning, but for following itself" (Peter Eisenmann, Blurred Zones)

Futuristic AI imaging (from ArchiVinci website)

AI can be used either way. For example, Mid-Journey can be used by an architect who may not be skilled in turning ideas or intuitions into sketches but is good with words. The software can turn such word commands, for example, whether objectives or emotions via text into a video, emotive images or models. Those can be refined with additional commands, or the results can be blended. Eventually, an objective or even a feeling turns into something that resembles a structure. What this type of image generation usually lacks is the analytical thinking that in the traditional process informs initial design concepts. Good architects create value by responding to particular site and program conditions with a unique design that is derived from those. Mid Journey can potentially do this, but only with the appropriate human input, since the software is unable to go out to the site, see the views, the terrain, hear the noise, or determine the styles of surrounding buildings.

"Humans are far better discriminators than generators" (Neil Leach about the humans ability to identify vs to create)

Midjourney image creation (via Philippe Morel)

AI's current lack of physical experience is hard to compensate with the current input methods of words, plats, maps, images, sun angles, etc. In fact, these limitations fuel a rich discussion about the relationships between embodiment intelligence and cognition, a question that moved philosophers and cognitive science for a long time and has renewed relevance in the age of AI. For the time being AI without physical embodiment has a distinct disadvantage compared to a living and breathing architect connecting the experience of an actual site with design ideas in the mind during the defining phases of a project. And even an embodied AI would need lots of training to achieve what most humans do without too much difficulty: Filter the flood of data for what is relevant and protect the brain from overflow (cognitive self defense).

Benefit and Risk are Intertwined

The history of technology shows that rising utility and benefit bring with them a rising risk of unintended consequences and potential dangers. Nuclear fission has brought high energy potentials and the atomic bomb. The energy comes with the unintended consequence of waste that will remain dangerous for millennia. It won't be different with AI. The promises include better design, better products, better foresight, and lots of energy and expense saved from running simulations in the virtual realm.

Increasing complexity and narrow expertise can bundle up to
achieve "super-intelligence" (Graphic: Philippe Morel)

The risks and unintended consequences include loss of control, mass unemployment, rogue uses, and vast energy consumption from running the necessary computers and chips all to the total loss of control. For design professionals, it may be comforting that the risk of rogue abuse seems not very high in our field and that AI being truly better at creating quality spaces than the most creative minds is at least as difficult as it for AI to create better poetry than a very good Poet. In both cases, we are not yet at that point, and some say we never will since AI will never have empathy, emotion, or sentience. Given how different brain wiring is from computer networks, this may be true. However, I believe that in a process called computational illusion machines will eventually perfect a simulation of emotion that could fool us just the same. It remains to be seen if the disadvantage of unembodied AI can be overcome with AI powered robots that learn from experience in the physical environment.

AI and the Architect - Practical Uses

For now, a variety of alternative models of a proposed building program can be generated in seconds by defining a building parcel, placing it in the context of a map, entering a floor area ratio, lot coverage, setbacks, parking requirements, and proposed uses. The resulting building blocks and their arrangements can also show sun angles, shadows, and be seen from all angles.

What is created is so generic that it probably won't include an arrangement and composition that a designer would accept as fully satisfactory, but it may already have some versions that the designer may not have imagined. The representation of the basic input metrics translated into workable volumes with a readout for square footages, unit counts, and basic sustainability metrics creates an excellent foundation for further refinement of either the input metrics (the program) or the composition. This can be done by sketching by hand over the top, importing the AI model into CAD or BIM software, or by manipulating the volumes

AI generated massing model embedded in Google Earth with
unit count and floor areas (author)

with the AI software.

The AI-generated first cast replaces the time-consuming steps of traditional design with clay, cardboard, or SketchUp, all of which visualize what a given program under certain rules would look like. To get it right, assumptions about floor plans and unit layouts had to be made, combined with calculations to arrive at floor heights, building depths, and dimensions. For mixed-use or multi-family uses, AI-based programs use standard apartment layouts to arrive at the dimensions of the proposed blocks. Of course, it can also be done for offices, factories, or sports facilities as long as there are sufficient precedents on which the AI software has been "trained."

With the help of AI, arriving at a pleasant composition, good placemaking, and an appropriate response to the surrounding areas would occur much faster. Admittedly, speed is not quality, and the time needed to build a terrain model and place cardboard volumes in it via the traditional method could assist the architect in getting a better feeling for a place, a haptic sense for the massing, and thinking about creative arrangements while performing rather basic activities like cardboard cutting and gluing. In reality, though, these banal steps towards a design were frequently performed by an intern and not by the design architect in charge. The use of AI, by contrast, will bring the actual designer into play from the beginning and allow the utilization of experience and creativity at an earlier stage, applying it to more variations because these can be created quickly and efficiently.

AI applications in architecture and urban design (via Eda Erol)

What applies to these early steps of schematic site design applies to every step of the architectural process. AI can assist in achieving code compliance, material and finish design while gauging embedded carbon and projected energy use every step of the way, as well as ensuring that only best practice details are applied for masonry, curtain walls, windows, roofs, etc., using a vastly larger repertoire of details than even the best-organized firms could ever have at hand in their detail library. Once the design is defined, it can be rendered in traditional rendering software or AIA rendering models.

Outlook

The current market has an array of software models for each phase, which is a bit confusing since at each step the previous result needs to be imported, and the new model must be trained on this base. So far, the underpinning of larger architectural projects is still BIM, which catalogs all building elements and allows the integration of architecture, structural, MEP, and interior design into the same model.

Neil Leach predictions AI and Architecture

Clearly, the goal is the "intermodal agent" integration into a comprehensive model along every step of the design process. Then the completed design can be tested for code compliance in the same way that this text can be submitted to ChatGPT for fixing spelling errors and punctuation. AI eliminates tedious steps, such as repetitive changes based on some analysis, in such a way that AI can recognize where a certain change applies without clicking through a bunch of menus. At any step along the way, virtual models can easily be turned into renderings that can be presented to clients or the public, including "walk-through" models using VR glasses.

Architecture is a product of culture and prevailing influences within a given culture. AI would reflect on what precedents and information it has been trained on. While those limitations can be overcome in the long run, they are still a problem. Current AI design models are likely to suggest some swooping, futuristic, curvy massing reminiscent of the late Zaha Hadid, rather than solutions that resemble RIBA Gold Medal winner Yasmeen Lari's recent creations, such as the Women Center in Darya Khan, Pakistan, a cylindrical bamboo building raised on stilts to avoid flooding. Lari described it as a key example of her "second phase of life" as an architect—when she focused her attention on humanitarian work. (Dezeen).

Yasmeen Lari Women Center Darya Khan, Pakistan

"The planet is far bigger and far more important than any one of us. When we design, we really have to be feeling the Earth in some way, we cannot continue to inflict damage on it." (Yasmeen Lari)

AI is prone to amplify current cultural biases until it has been trained to do otherwise. But even if the cultural bias could be overcome, current AI suggests that training on precedent results in a reproduction of precedent, even if it is with variations. While one could argue that human creativity also operates on the basis of precedence, one can certainly name genial minds that created entirely new concepts. Could AI do that, too? Many assume yes.

As it has been known since Vitruvius wrote his "10 Books on Architecture," the matter of architectural design is not just a matter of function, structural integrity, and materials, but is also a highly emotional matter, even happiness (Walter Gropius: "Architecture begins where engineering ends"). Good design affects people inside and outside buildings in many ways to the point that architecture can directly influence well-being. The best architects merge intuition, empathy, creativity, and precedents into their designs.

Corbusier sketch of Ronchamp (Museum)

Some architects are sure that AI will never achieve the emotional synchronicity that a talented architect can accomplish. (See this Reddit discussion). For now, AI seems to be most useful in efficiently achieving variations of principally possible design solutions, creating visualizations and renderings and screening plans for obvious code or engineering defects. But to see AI as just another tool that accelerates the design process is flawed, per Bill Gates.

Anybody who analogizes this (AI) to electricity, tractors, microcomputers, they don't get it. This is not a productivity aid for humans. This is something that exceeds human capability (Bill Gates, Wired March 2025)

In theory, this allows the talented designer to begin the refinement earlier and at a higher level than the traditional approach would have allowed. But could the human designer be entirely replaced at every step of the way? It is unclear where AI could take us. BIG's design technology manager Oliver Thomas even speculates about some re-emergence of "artisanal architects" as a countermovement to AI.

Hand sketch of the unbuilt monument to the
Third International by V. Tatlin

An AI ecosystem of generatively learning AI agents and robots could produce phase transitions, quantum leaps, or the type of emergence known from swarms. In emergence, it isn't the individual agent that has intelligence, but the interconnection of agents creates emerging intelligence. We have already seen such leaps when language models such as ChatGPT were suddenly able to translate between languages, an aspect they had not been trained for but that "emerged" from having been trained on several languages. It is entirely conceivable that a generative, i.e., self-learning AI design tool that has been trained in various specialties of architecture and many precedents could generate its own phase transition in which something entirely new, functional, code-compliant, and appealing could emerge that would check off all the boxes of the Vitruvian catalogue.

Thus, one day we could lose our jobs while our digital twin lives on long after our death until somebody kills it, too. If, how and when AI would replace lies in our hands as long as we humans still have control we better use it.

Klaus Philipsen, FAIA

You can subscribe to this blog by clicking the "subscribe" button the right toolbar

For this article in German see here

Resources mentioned in the article:

How MVRDV uses AI (Video)

AI and the future of architecture, Neil Leach (Video) "AI is not about form it is about data"

Opinion Piece in Dezeen (2023)

DigitalFuturesWorld

Machine Hallucinations (Co-op Himmelblau)(AD)

Refic Anadol Machine Hallucinations

LookX

The Digital Twin: Immortality Through Virtual Existence

AGI and Design Video

Philippe Morel (video) (video)

(the formal basis of architecture)

Embodiment intelligence and cognition

fei fei li spatial intelligence

“We found that it requires people working in anywhere between five to 10 different domains to make one of these come to life, people who would not have ordinarily worked together in the past. In a world where many people are hybrid, where, in order to build your best team, members may be across the country or somewhere else, you need a platform, a strategy to be able to represent the real world and allow all those people to collaborate. Developing digital twins is the way to do it.” (Andi Lyn)

Enscape: AI in Architecture: 7 Benefits and Examples

Autodesk: Digital TwinsThe Guardian: It’s already way beyond what humans can do’: will AI wipe out architects?

Architizer: 15 Top AI Tools for Architects and Designers

Reddit Architects: Case Study: Can AI Architecture Design Replace Architects' Work?

ArchiStar: Building Permit Compliance Assessment

Tim Fu: Building our Future with AI

Max Tegmark (“We need a kind of FDA for AI”)

How Design Professionals Can Find the North Star in the Fog of Upheaval

2025-02-28T15:38:00.002-05:00

Missing Guardrails and Signposts

There has been a lot of talk about the missing guardrails that would keep government in check and democracy intact. However, there is less discussion about the suddenly missing guideposts and milestones that disappeared overnight. Professionals who are guided not only by rules, codes, and regulations but also by societal values.

Firm in the center of turmoil: The North Star (Image: NASA)

Developers rely on these frameworks to prioritize and direct their projects. Uncertainty, confusion, and ambiguity caused by the current blitzkrieg on the status quo are the enemies of a safe environment for investment.

The tectonic shifts in Washington have removed many markers that design professionals also use to ensure they are on the right path. If objectives such as sustainability, carbon footprint, diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) are suddenly declared undesirable and obsolete, it is as disorienting as disappearing highway signs, malfunctioning GPS. Withdrawing funding for certain work is like the gas stations along a planned journey have been removed.

Just soldiering on isn't an option. The last time climate change and "woke" policies appeared in the crosshairs of the federal administration, local and state governments doubled down on implementing these policies. This time, with the funding sledgehammer and edicts that reach down to the local level and even to private projects which are dependent on grants, subsidies it will be more difficult. Regardless of where we operate, a wide range of our projects will be deeply affected, from transportation to school construction, healthcare, and housing. From "reconnecting communities grants" to "green infrastructure" projects, "alternative transportation" and resilience programs aimed at fortifying buildings against storms, floods, or fire. Even projects without public funding at all will be influenced by tariffs and trade policies. Universities will be affected. Hardly anybody will espace the need to reposition, recalibrate and find new orientation. There is risk and opportunity in that.

Societal Values and the big schism

Missing signs: When sustainability becomes
a bad word

It took our professions half a century or so to recognize that hidden undercurrents of our society were not always aligned with the country's proclaimed ideals. Realizing that our professions have, intentionally or not, assisted or enabled exclusion, and an environment that frequently is inequitable, unhealthy, unsustainable and not contributing to our well-being disorienting for contributors and shapers of the built environment who had too often seen themselves as the good guys. It may be tempting for some to go back to the old ways.

Thus, the realization that the system is in many ways "broken" has not universally fostered long-term global thinking or openness to diversity, equity, and inclusion or to relating projects to their societal and natural settings Easier to put the blame of all diagnosed ills at the foot of the messengers and attribute the failings to political correctness which supposedly bloated regulations and blame woke-ism, "a green new deal" and DEI for that has gone wrong.

The real issues aren't woke-ism and DEI

For anyone admitting that the state of the built environment isn't all that glorious, an analysis of the problems has to go deeper than those trigger words swimming on the surface. Unhappiness with the status quo is not limited to griping older white males who lost influence over boards and leadership roles. For many younger people of diverse background the status quo had left behind far too many in disinvested inner city neighborhoods or in equally forgotten countryside hollers, too much of the infrastructure is crumbling and too high has climbed the cost of housing.

Left behind in crumbling neighborhoods (Photo: Philipsen)

Anyone dealing with the complex thicket of regulations with have to admit that even the environmental landmark laws of the 1960s mandating clean air, clean water, and environmental protection have degenerated into a dance of large teams of specialists needed to navigate and produce environmental impact statements (EIS) that are thicker than old-style big city phone books, without significantly improving the projects. Even local zoning has become so byzantine that specialty zoning lawyers and expediters are needed maneuver a project through the labyrinth of permitting and still finding it at times mired in lengthy litigation.

Complaints about insufficiently skilled graduates from architecture, planning and engineering schools are common sometimes accompanied by musings whether political correctness has replaced creativity and basic skills.

Stuck in between such findings and dictatorial edicts which seem to make things rather worse, the path forward is so shrouded in fog that many are torn between withdrawal, turning with the prevailing winds or even emigrating with some celebrating that finally the status quo is being broken. But blowing up the entire existing system without any idea what should come next doesn't seem a prudent option, either.

In the chaos a consideration of the foundational values of our professions might help.

History and the foundational values of the design professions

When the wayfinders are removed, a compass, a North Star and the long view provide direction. The long view back to antiquity and philosophy is one source of guidance. Architects have learned about Vitruvius and his "Ten Books on Architecture", typically summarized in just one sentence: A building must be useful, solid, and beautiful. Vitruvius expresses this in a list of nouns:

Ethics, Natural Law and a North Star

Architecture depends on order, arrangement, eurythmy, symmetry, propriety, and economy (Vitruvius, *de architectura*).

In Vitruvius' elaboration of these terms, it becomes clear that that architecture has never been a strictly technical or transactional affair, nor has it ever been pure art. Expressed in more modern terms: Design is more than "form follows function" and more than a data-driven derivative that can just as easily be produced by AI; it isn't l'art pour l'art (art for art's sake) as the product of an isolated and "absolute" creative individual either.

Nor are Vitruvius' metrics just a matter that is in the eye of the beholder which would be pure relativism. Aristotle's ethics state that all action is futile without moral virtue. Thomas of Aquinas a philosopher and foundational figure of modern thought, took ethics further by proposing that humans possess an innate understanding of basic, invariable moral principles independent of the current powers in charge.

These historical guideposts are not as far removed from our time as it may seem. Natural law, as concept is included in the US Constitution as inalienable rights. Natural law applied to the built environment lead to the 2024 European Court of Human Rights decision that a safe climate is a human right.

Before and during WWII, Hannah Arendt saw the dissolution of ethics and human rights in the grip of totalitarianism and wrote extensivley about how this became possible. She identified a vital link between an authoritarian figure and the actions of regular people. The two cannot be considered separately—a link Plato already explained in his dialogue The Republic. Real autocracy can't happen without people enabling it.

Experience as a guide

Experience is another guide. Cognitive bias shows that facts do not change minds but feelings (and experiences) do. Which explains why society is so divided in spite of unrefutable facts. We tend to act based on the values we were brought up with plus our experiences as adults. Using this paradigm I want to share a few of my own experiences as a design professional that refined my professional ethics over 50 years of practice.

Diversity: Starting in the 1970s, I practiced for ten years in Germany and England before coming to the U.S. Once here and working in a larger multidisciplinary team I noticed right away how many more women were participating in leading roles in meetings and decision-making, how many colleagues and clients came from different cultures and races, and how this diverse makeup enriched the approach to our project. I saw that differing opinions were welcomed, in contrast to the "I am right, therefore you are wrong" approach I had often encountered in German discussions surrounding historic preservation, urban renewal, or transportation. I do not want to go back to the binary adversarial thinking.

Ayn Rand's Howard Roark in the movies: Lone hero

What is the role of an architect? In the U.S., many people upon hearing that I am an architect, brought up Ayn Rand's "Fountainhead", of which I had never heard. I then read the book which glorifies the image of the architect as a lone hero imposing personal convictions against societal objections. I engaged in the American Institute of Architects (AIA) and worked hard on shifting this public perception towards an understanding that architecture is more than just aesthetically pleasing buildings, just as Vitruvius had said. As "a community architect" I advanced projects on the notion that architecture is not only a team sport but also requires consideration of the community beyond the building and its lot. Architects shape the built environment in many ways, they have to be consensus builder not only among the many disciplines of a design team but also between the community and the developer.

Professional organizations: In the old world I had been a local council member trying to implement preservation, revitalization and traffic calming. Here professional organizations helped me to expand those notions. I became a member of the American Institute of Architects (AIA), later of the Urban Land Institute (ULI), and Lambda Alpha International (LAI). These organizations represent hundreds of thousands of architects, engineers, developers, and land-use professionals. I attended local, national, and international conferences, not only to obtain their continued education credits but also to sharpen my ability to place projects in a larger societal context. As noted, guidance from these organizations shifted over time. It isn't as precise as "exit for downtown DC in 1/2 mile"; instead, it functions as a travel guide that provides information for selecting one’s destination in the first place. I am looking to these organizations now for guidance and having the backs of professionals in the middle of turmoil.

Intentional development: Short-term project-based profit focus gave developers a bad name in the public eye. But many developers have a longer-term view that considers operational costs, potential barriers for users, and their environmental footprint. Arriving in Baltimore, I had the good fortune of working for such a concerned developer who didn't just "do" a project because he could. Instead he embedded his projects in the larger transformation of this post-industrial legacy city, mostly through adaptive re-use of industrial buildings which turned out to be also excellent place-making strategies. He was not alone. Enlightened developers planners and architects could be found across America, reviving the once desolate downtown of LA, repositioning Portland, Oregon, and revitalizing Detroit. As a participant in ULI's roving Advisory Service Panels I worked side by side with developers, marketing experts and design professionals in places across America. Participation, inclusion, sustainability, fair housing, adaptive reuse, resilience, and transit-oriented development was the North Star for those consultations.

Inequality: Working with Enterprise Foundation which was founded by Jim Rouse, a well known socially conscious developer, I saw firsthand how disinvested and neglected some of Baltimore's inner city neighborhoods are. For 30 some years I have continued to work on rehabilitation, infill and better housing in areas that many call ghettos . In that work I see not only the homeless, behaviorally challenged, addicted, traumatized, jobless or school drop-outs in the streets but also civil rights activists and organizers fighting the astonishing discrepancies in income, health and education we can find between two adjacent zip-codes.

AIA forum 2023: "Designing for a World in Flux" (Photo: Philipsen)

Smart Growth: Coming to the US from densely populated and strictly planned Europe, I was struck by how wasteful land use here often is and how little attention was paid to making comfortable, human-scaled places. As a subcommittee member of Maryland's Growth Commission I learned that smart growth could curtail sprawl and its many unintended consequences. Diverse mobility is a must for better growth. Participating in a few annual meetings of the National Transportation Research Board I saw the connections between land use and transportation, carbon emissions, public participation, mobility, inclusion, equity and healthy communities. Fixing our older mixed use, diverse communities creates far better outcomes than continued outward sprawl of bedroom suburbs.

Teaching: As on and off adjunct faculty at local universities, I have seen how architecture and urban design interacted with the community and how these departments began to attract more women and minorities. I saw how new drafting, modeling, and GIS technologies changed the approach to design by allowing consideration of more options and scenarios and a better inclusion of the societal context into study projects. Traveling with students abroad fostered the insight how many issues we share around the world. Teaching young people prevents the common retro-orientation of older age with its bias that things were better in the past. It is the younger generations and their that design professionals need to consider.

What is the personal North Star?

In this quest for lifelong learning a foundation of undeniable truths emerged. As I wrote in a previous article, information, reason, and knowledge are the pillars of enlightenment. Still, facts will not change minds. Even in science facts are rarely absolute, less so in the design of the built environment. We have erred in the past and we will err again in the future. Practicing design, engineering, construction, development, or even transportation cannot occur entirely free of prejudice, opinion, emotion, or ideology. Retreat into an "ivory tower" is not an option. In the current fog the recognition that much has to change is as important as maintaining one's core values.

Nevertheless, the distinction between fact and fiction is not trivial for buildings, transportation, and land planning. Gender-neutral bathrooms, paper versus plastic, filament bulbs versus LED, gas-fired furnaces versus heat pumps are only flotsam in the bigger current of history where the built environment will last longer than cultural trends, technologies or fashions. What we build today will affect generations to come, far beyond the four-year election cycle and the momentary trends. Our projects shouldn't be simply fashionable throw-away packaging but must provide lasting value without mortgaging the future at the same time. No matter how much reform is needed, the future does not reside in the past. Our North Star will not point us backwards.

Global temperatures from 1940to 2024
That's a measurable fact.

In the journey forward we have to take into account a few things that appear to be pretty certain:

Earth's natural resources are finite except renewable energies such as wind, solar and geothermal
The changes in climate are already severe enough to require modifications to typical building designs.
The global population will increase by another 1–2 billion before it shrinks.
Global migration will rather increase than decrease, unless livability is increased globally
More people will need more energy, more mobility, more homes, and more food.
The diversity of flora and fauna is on a perilous low.
Technological advance will continue and accelerate even further
Good things come from collaboration, consensus and inclusion

Since buildings and transportation are the biggest emitters of carbon, how we design our buildings, towns, and cities is critical for the livability of the world in which our children and grandchildren will live. Responsible action requires not only reducing emissions but also developing structures that can withstand increased weather and climate adversities, thus forming a viable environment for decades to come. Sustainability, therefore, cannot be a metric we toss aside. Only sustainable products will make us competitive, from HVAC systems, elevators, glazing systems, to vehicles, to trains, planes and ships.

Floods like the one in Ashville become more frequent requiring
different design approaches (Webpage)

Building something may take a long time, but breaking it can occur in seconds. No matter how many reforms and adjustments we need, we should respect the efforts of others and in reforming regulations work with what generations before us refined over time.

Knowledge cannot be undone. Once it is known that the earth is round, there is no going back—at least not for long. Some things are simply not a matter of opinion. This is especially true in our professions.

Authoritarian rule cannot succeed without followers, nobody should follow with critical reflection and applying values. Certainly not our professional organizations. They will be more important than ever to provide guidance. Our professions are not powerless. We will still design the future. We still possess the creative power to imagine and design functional, beautiful, healthy and sustainable places. Building and construction will remain vital pillars of the economy and are a large part of a plausible narrative of the world of tomorrow.

The North Star

Urban wind-power: Antwerp, Belgium (Photo: Philipsen)

No ideology or party affiliation can change the basic facts. The responsibility of professionals for creating an environment designed to last for decades requires acknowledgment of reality.

Professionals active in the built environment—whether we teach about it, finance it, develop it, build it, or regulate it—must continue to gather information, apply the facts, develop perspective, be creative, take risk and use our values as a North Star. It will take courage, and persistence.

This way, we can still chart a responsible course on the right side of history, regardless of the surrounding confusion.

Klaus Philipsen, FAIA

Beyond the Mall: Creating Authentic Town-Centers and Transit Hubs

2025-01-29T13:47:00.002-05:00

Invited by ULI to speak about the potential of a failing mall in Baltimore County to become a successful Transit Oriented Development (TOD), and appointed to a Redevelopment Authority which includes a 100 acre failing Mall, motivated me to outline what it takes to transform a mall into an attractive mixed-use, a town-center, or a TOD.

A label is no substitute for substance

Traditional town center: Frederick Maryland
(Photo: Philipsen)

Popular labels for the efforts of transforming failing malls include "Mixed use" "town center" and "transit oriented development" (TOD). All too often these terms are simply lipstick applied to pretty much the same old pig. Some clarification is in order.

The US is severely "over-retailed", especially in metro areas, resulting in wasting huge amounts of commercially zoned land to underperforming or defunct, auto oriented retail, while housing is in short supply and open space is dwindling. This makes the proper redevelopment of the vast malls important for taxes, jobs, services, access and the quality of life in communities.

Adding a few non-retail uses around the usual mall boxes or opening up a formerly enclosed mall by turning a few shops to face the outside, therefore doesn't address the core issues, nor does it create mixed-use, let alone a town-center. Nearby transit alone doesn't turn a refurbished mall into a TOD.

What is a mixed use center?

After decades of strict use separation, planners now love "mixed-use". The bar for becoming a mixed-use center seems low, but achieving it isn't as easy as adding a another use next to shopping, even if under zoning that may be considered mixed-use.

The traditional main street would be instructive to really understand the term: It often has offices or apartments above stores and buildings of various sizes, styles and materials. The mix of uses is part of the DNA and clearly visible from any vantage point and part of the experience at any place. There may be restaurants, movie houses, schools, churches, libraries, post offices, plazas, doctor's offices, local government services and green spaces. Traditional town centers are diverse in many respects while everything is tied together by public streets and plazas.

Refurbished Hunt Valley Mall: Adjacency of uses and transit is not
the same as mixed use, a town center or a TOD
(Google Earth 2024)

Public uses such as schools, libraries and post offices that are not devoted to sales and profit are a key ingredient of "mixed use". A sense of artificiality remains as in National Harbor, no matter all the new urbanist design, the trees, sculptures and carefully designed streetscapes. The piped in music from speakers embedded in tree planters in National Harbor as well as at many refurbished shopping areas is a homogenizing ingredient of the old mall that adds to the sense that a place is not authentic. Not everything is a matter of physical design.

The element that is most frequently missed in those new-towns and so called mixed-use mall replacements is mixed-income. A true mixed-use center needs to cater to people of all walks of life, not just one income strata. Retail needs to be more than fashion stores and restaurants and must include items of daily needs such as grocery stores, hardware stores fresh food markets. Housing needs to include middle and low income offerings and places for the elderly.

In other words, just like eggs sitting next to sugar and flower are not (yet) a cake, so does a mall with a couple of apartment buildings next to it not make a mixed-use center.

What makes a town center?

Redeveloped Mall: Pike and Rose,
Rockville, MD (Photo: Philipsen)

A town center needs all of the above and more. The added ingredient is that there is a town around it with neighborhoods that are connected to the center. All it takes is a stroll through the center of historic towns like Annapolis, Easton, or Frederick in my home state of Maryland or through Boulder, Co, Berkeley, California or San Antonio, Texas to realize that a town center isn't an isolated place but that its streets continue seamlessly into surrounding neighborhoods.

Even newer town centers like Towson, Bethesda or Silver Spring in Maryland or Cherry Creek, Co may have some big box type retailers and chain stores, not only gain an urban feel from a street network and block pattern and buildings that face streets with sidewalks instead of vast surface parking lots, they are also embedded into a larger setting.

New towns like Reston, Va or National Harbor, Md understood this while the new town of Columbia with its still vibrant mall is still struggling to convert their mall focused central area into a real connected town center.

Streets with wide sidewalks lined by buildings with active first floor uses create meaningful public spaces are important to give a town a public component where people can be observers and experience the classic interaction between the building and the void, the indoor and the outdoor, movement and rest which in combination are the ingredients of placemaking. A successful center is supposed to be the commons for those coming from the surrounding areas. Successful town centers cater to a shared interest by providing things one cannot find in neighborhoods from commercial spaces like restaurants shops to services like s post office, a library, and places of worship. The inward oriented malls with their homogenizing climate control, background music and design lack the tensions of real placemaking. Food courts and fountains are poor substitutes for public spaces under the open sky.

When malls are placed in the middle of nowhere and are surrounded by service lanes and highways for easy auto access their chance of becoming a town center in the true meaning of the word is almost zero.

Transit Oriented Development

The definition of TOD is probably the most demanding. Most development near transit can, at best, be called "transit adjacent development".

Comprehensive TOD corridor planning around transit nodes, Rosslyn-
Ballston, VA with WAMTA metro stations

Again, an excursion into history may be useful. Historically all development was centered around transportation, whether it was roads, rail or water. When urban public transportation became more than a horse drawn cart, transit villages along electric street car lines became popular, in Baltimore, Chicago and around all the older US cities. Their characteristic was that everything was located within a 1/4 or maximally 1/2 mile transit stop via a street grid equipped with sidewalks. Everything was TOD before the automobile. In Europe where the old development patterns have been kept to a much larger extent than in the US, the term TOD is not common, because planners continued to place all major development near transit, i.e. transit remained the building principle of placing stuff and not the exception.

Good walk connectivity to a rail transit mode remains a key characteristic of TOD as well as a dense multitude of uses that are "transit-supportive". The large scale retail where people buy large quantities or heavy items became known as "big box" retail and is common found in malls or in mall conversions. Those are typically not transit-supportive. By contrast, the traditional office building with its 9-5 cubicles in which many people work in close proximity, coming and leaving at fixed times are very transit supportive because they fill whole trains at "rush-hour" when the transit is dispatched with high frequency. Unfortunately, this type of use is dying along with the malls and is not a good future oriented mall replacement either. This leaves residential use that produces less riders per square foot than an office but possibly more trips a day than mere rush hour traffic. As in the discussion about mixed use, diversity in building types, uses and demographics is most likely to be transit supportive. But it isn't enough.

Transit adjacent to shopping isn't TOD: Hunt Valley LRT station
(Photo: Philipsen)

Real TOD must make transit an integral part of the development and allow direct, safe and enjoyable walk connections to the station for arrival and departure. Whatever kiss and ride and park and ride facilities should not create a barrier around the station, whether in the shape of surface lots or parking structures. Modern electric rail transit is quiet and far less intrusive than a busy roadway, so there is little reason not to place housing, offices, shops, restaurants or terraces close to the tracks. The proper integration of transit means that the public agencies that control roads and transit and the private developers need to work hand in hand and plan together.

Finally, TOD requires not only good land use but also frequent and reliable transit. A light rail station that runs only every half hour and doesn't connect to a transit network is hardly the "value added" one excepts from transit in a TOD.

The example of Hunt Valley Mall in Maryland

Hunt Valley Mall with nearly around 90 acres of land area circumscribed by a circular service drive had been developed in the 1970s using a typical mall formula with a clunky non descriptor mass of structure in the center surrounded by seas of parking. Services are concentrated in the back. The mall was opposed by county planners because Hunt Valley was not located in one of three designated "town center" growth areas and its proximity to the rural urban demarcation line put undue pressure to lands that were to be protected. The mall opened with just two anchor stores and never fully succeeded as a traditional mall.

Even after refurbishment, big boxes and a sea of parking remain
Hunt Valley Towne Center (Photo: Philipsen)

Predictably, the addition of a light rail station placed on the front parking lot did little to prevent the demise of the mall only 19years after the opening, a first exhibit to the dead mall syndrome. In 2002 it was bought by the developer Greenberg Gibbons and redeveloped as "Towne Center" using some token "New Urbanism" elements by creating a U-shaped plaza faced by smaller retail and featuring a small green space and gazebo. This nice touch left the bulk of the mall area untouched but together with a set of new tenants was enough to create the impression that something entirely new was happening here. This set the area on to a path of economic success which continued when the developer began to add apartments and elderly housing on the underutilized fringes of the mall. The Baltimore Business Journal gushed about it in a recent article:

Ninety acres in leafy, hilly Baltimore County have reset retail standards as Hunt Valley Towne Centre continues to morph into a monument to second acts.

Instead of Sears and Macy's the place is now anchored by the popular grocery chain Wegmans and includes national brands for a total of almost 60 stores. On the north side a new Brightview Senior Living building that will open this year sits on what used to be part of Sears flanked by an old mall structure on one side and a giant parking garage on the other. On the east side the Avalon luxury apartments connect seamlessly to the shops with their first floor dedicated to retail and amenities.

Hunt Valley "New Towne" is neither truly mixed use, nor a town center nor TOD

As successful and popular as the new Towne Center may be, as of now it is neither a town center nor is it a model TOD development.

Not truly mixed use because there is no integration between the various building forms, scale and uses, they all are more or less separate from each other and do not follow any recognizable urban design or "place-making" principles or create the "third places" that are so essential.

Stores opened up to a courtyard simulating a traditional main street.
A move that put Hunt Valley Towne Center on a path towards
commercial success (Photo: Philipsen)

Not a town center because there is no town around it, let alone connected neighborhoods. Every use, the rail station and the parking are removed from the adjacent arteries of Shawan Road and York Road by the remaining circular mall road that acts like a moat. The distance to the arteries is further increased by occasional additional service drives inside the moat road and McCormick road that creates a third ring on the entire west and north side. It's hard to imagine a more auto oriented arrangement and one that is more separated from whatever is surrounding it, namely office parks and other commercial uses.

Lastly, in spite of the rail service, the redeveloped mall isn't true transit oriented development: The new elderly housing complex is indicative: It faces the loading backside of the mall complex and is the located as far as possible from the light rail station which is really ironic since the elderly there are the most likely transit users in the entire complex. The station is burdened by the legacy of the old mall where it was pushed off to the side. It has no meaningful walk connections in any direction not has it seen any upgrades to make it a more central feature. Instead, the station has its own P&R lot as if there wasn't enough parking already. Unfortunately it remains typical that transit is rather tolerated than integrated even though in a true TOD transit would be creating massive additional value and save developers a lot of money by reducing the demand for expensive parking spaces. To add insult to injury, transit service on the existing light rail line is spotty.

Lutherville, MD: A failed mall adjacent to transit. Waiting for
redevelopment since 1990 (Photo: Philipsen)

The schedule promises 20 minutes intervals for trains starting their southbound journey here on a ride that takes nearly 53 minutes to get the approximately 19 miles to Camden Yards and another 30 minutes to get to the airport. However, problems with the fleet cars lead currently to headways that are about twice the scheduled time.

Government the rescue?

Transit and land use respond to market forces. In areas of high demand and high investment, transit adds value to land and highly developed land adds value to transit, a win-win condition, at least in theory. In practice zoning can prevent development.

Examples of successful TOD include mall re-developments around the country. However, if zoning prevents development or the market is weak, government has to intervene. In Maryland and in other legacy cities, rail transit stations are often located in disinvested areas. As a result they are not surrounded by dense development but form the center of a hole in the donut instead. In those situations a market has to be created through a comprehensive approach with incentives for both, transit and intense land use.

To counter weak markets and NIMBYism against the development as well as inaction by local governments, the State of Maryland has sprung into action with bills that override local zoning by automatically providing mixed-use entitlements and incentives for land near rail stations. A split tax that enable jurisdictions to create a tax structure that would punish low density land use around rail stations is in the legislature for discussion right now.

As this article tried to show, development is not just a matter of quantity but foremost of quality. Designed properly redeveloped malls can create the kind of places that are sustainable, attractive and functional enough that they deserve to be called mixed use, town center or TOD.

Klaus Philipsen, FAIA

Resources:

WMATA Station Area Planning Guidelines

WMATA Date Driven TOD, BBJ Hunt Valley revival

https://ggwash.org/collections/putting-the-e-in-transit-oriented-development

Also on this blog:

How the failed Security Square Mall could become a thriving town center

Owings Mills Mall: Doubling down on mono-culture

Towards a New American Downtown (2024)

It Takes an Entire Village to Create True Transit Oriented Development

The Transit and Development Tango - The Next Level (2014)

Towards a New American Downtown

2025-01-10T17:04:00.008-05:00

Amazon's requirement to work from the office will not solve the problems of the American downtown that blew up with Covid, the need for cities as places of interaction and innovation notwithstanding.

“Amazon is reinforcing the importance of its headquarters’ location in Seattle and signaling that its mission to embrace and foster innovation is not a spatially distributed endeavor but a socially dependent activity tied to a place” (Uwe Brandes, Director Urban and Regional Planning Georgetown University).

The issue isn't "the city" but the American Downtown

Brandes is right, innovation is a socially dependent activity but misses the issue at hand. The future of cities is not in question but the future of the American downtown is. As it is explained in Downtown: A Short History of American Urban Exceptionalism, the American downtown is not the same as centre-ville, Innenstadt or centro historico in France, Germany or Italy respectively. It didn't start of ancient ruins, had no protective walls and no particularly high density. It eventually morphed into what became a term for cities core areas worldwide, namely a bunch of office towers forming a "financial district" or the "central Business District". Even US cities that have lots of space or are not particularly big adopted this "Manhattan model" in rather generic versions of towers which deprive the streets of sunlight and empty out after five pm.

Manhattan skyline: A model for downtown? (Photo Philipsen)

The American downtown entered the 20th century as a stronghold of commerce. Steeples, spires, and smokestacks had given way to theater marquees and skyscrapers. The turn-of-the century transit lines dispersed residences — but not offices. The high-rise office building – accommodating the new legions of administrators and managers — became downtown’s archetype. Nowhere in the world had the center of a city ever become so identified with a single building type and, for that matter, a brand new type — created only in the closing decades of the 19th century. (Mitchell Schwarzer in "Downtown: A Short History of American Exceptionalism)

The towers make an impressive skyline from afar. This American invention originated in New York and Chicago who first dueled for the world's tallest tower and then had to concede the record to Shanghai and Dubai. This version of a city center needed the invention of the elevator and steel construction, but it wasn't inevitable and is far from universal, even though cities have adopted it in distant places such as Hong Kong, Saudi Arabia and Malaysia and even Russia.

Downtown Boston: 85% office use

The American downtown became progressively more a monoculture. Initially a walkable hub of many functions the onset of the automobile made it ceded first residents and then shopping to the suburbs. Even the office made an appearance in the suburbs as an office park

The modern downtown business districts of many large American cities were created through subtraction: First residents left the center city, then the craftsmen and wholesalers, then the museums, theaters and smaller retailers, and — the final blow — the department stores.
What remained at the heart of many cities in the 20th century were blocks and blocks of office buildings filled perhaps 10 hours a day, five days a week — a precarious urban monoculture.(NYT, 07/21)

This hasn't stopped the proliferation of the downtown office in most US cities until Covid hit. The shape of the tower, its conglomeration in downtown, and the continued growth were never the result of reason but the product of vanity, power, foreign investment and speculation.

A failure in form and function

It is noteworthy that under many common sense metrics the office tower is a failure a a building type and made the downtown dominated by it a failure of urban planning as well. The taller buildings are, the more expensive to build they become. In most cases the height is not justified by the scarcity or cost of land. In fact there was so much land available that many early downtowns featured towers standing surrounded by low parking garages or even surface lots. Ironically, towers have a large energy footprint, whether we look at embedded or operational energy. They are socially and physically isolating. Their vertical elevator transportation is far less interactive than walking on a sidewalk. Conceived as monocultures, office towers are economically vulnerable.

Empty windswept plazas among mono-functional office towers
(Photo Philipsen)

Office towers make a good skyline but not a good city. The spaces around them are windswept, inhospitable plazas that usually lack the qualities of good place-making. The sum total of the towers is incoherent assortment of sculptural elements trying to outdo each other. There are exceptions that compensate the tower problem with six-story plinths that create a streetscape reminiscent of Paris with the towers sitting set back on top of this urban base. Vancouver has tried this with some success for residential towers. The separation of uses into separate far-flung segments of the city has long been identified as the chief destructor of urbanity and chief culprit for a very high demand on mobility taxing any transportation system, especially one relying on the automobile and on urban streets that usually can't be widened. This hampers again hampers the regeneration of the American style downtown as the debate around New York's congestion pricing shows and generates a vicious cycle in which sprawl disabled transit and lengthened commutes forcing downtown to become car friendly, in turn deadening it further.

American downtowns and their surrounding districts are noteworthy for their desolation — the lack of shops, restaurants, people. (Mitchell Schwarzer in "Downtown...")

Covid brought the reckoning. The American style downtown has mutated from international copied model to sick patient. The climate crisis will compound the problems.

Dark streets, devoid of green: Manhattan street
(Photo Philipsen)

The national vacancy rate reached 19.4% at the end of October, an increase of 160 basis points year-over-year
High vacancies persist in most office markets, with San Francisco and Austin recording the highest rate nationally at 27.7%, followed by the Bay Area (26.4%), Seattle (25.8%) and Denver (24.6%)
Under-construction office space totaled 60.8 million square feet nationwide, with 8.5 million square feet breaking ground in 2024 and 43.9 million square feet being completed through October (Commercial Edge Report Nov 2024)

The downtown doom loop

New office construction amounted to about 68 million sq ft in 2019 and has shrunk since then by an estimated 37%. Whatever new offices are built in the weaker markets are high end class A offices that reflect many of the amenities folks now consider necessary to attract tenants and their employees. While there will be probably always a need for offices, they have to look different than they did in the age of the cubicle. Especially office towers of the 1960s, 70s vintage have lost their appeal.

It isn't just the remote work option that makes a return to the cubicle unattractive, technological advance reduced the space need per worker, just consider the demise of all the paper filing cabinets, the demise of main-frame computers and the mobility of electronic user interfaces. The use of robots and artificial intelligence will sweep through the remaining office workforce like an iron broom and reduce the need for office space further. In short, the office tower with its cubicles spread out across vast floorplates has become a dinosaur that defies necessary adaptation.

To what degree the once modern towers became stranded assets is illustrated by a 28 story Baltimore office tower that is only slightly more than half occupied. In November 2024 it sold at auction for a tenth of the price that was paid for it 10 years ago.

Today, many cities are confronting the prospect of an urban doom loop, with a massive oversupply of office and retail space, fewer commuters and a looming urban fiscal crisis.(NYT)

The doom loop of these office dinosaurs engulfs the entire concept of downtown. Empty offices beget empty coffee shops, drycleaners, flower shops, lunch counters and after work bars. Taxes dry up, the streets become first empty, then gritty and eventually dangerous.

Mixed Use

If cities have a bright future as centers of innovation, culture and commerce where ever larger percentages of the population live, globally and nationally, the metro regions overall should have the means and the need of having hospitable, sustainable and attractive centers that provide identity and a commons for the region. But this has to be wanted, planned and implemented. Let's review a few popular solutions most commonly offered.

Tall, taller, tallest. The record went abroad

For an answer to the office glut and the resulting doom loop most planners look to the past and suggest a return to the shape and mix of uses of central cities that were common before the tower studded financial districts took over. The suggestion to create more "mixed use" is certainly not new and downtowns have for decades added residences back in with the objective of being lively after regular work hours. However, where office towers cover 80-90% of downtown real estate, residential use relies on office conversion. That is not only costly and challenging but results in fewer people since many more office workers used to be on the same area that a single apartment will occupy. Thus, apartments alone will not revive retail, restaurants and bars.

Unfortunately a mixed use downtown wouldn't even solve a transportation problem. Shortening the long commute to work or the travel needed to cover life's needs looks like a solution. In practice, though, America overall is far too car dependent for a life without a car except where there is really good transit which is rare. As a result even mixed use requires lots of parking. Downtowns which are clogged with parked or moving cars defy most efforts of downtown boosters and business improvement districts (BIDs).Alleviating the dullness of financial district streets through streetscaping amounts to not much more than putting lipstick on a pig.

The misery of a downtown dominated by parking (Photo: Philipsen)

Office conversion faces many regulatory hurdles. Building codes, zoning codes, daylighting, ventilation, energy codes present sizeable challenges when we don't more of the older office buildings with smaller floor plates, solid walls and punched out windows. The high cost of conversion can be offset by the ongoing nationwide demand for housing across all market segments that continues to make developing housing lucrative for developers, while it makes it unaffordable for buyers and renters. Nationwide the housing vacancy is less than 1/3 of the office vacancy. But with the low hanging conversion fruits pretty much gone, office conversion may still not practical. Gensler Architects has developed a conversion tool to show investors, owners and developers whether a building is suitable for conversion. It turns out that the office buildings that are the least leasable are also the hardest to convert. They become Stranded assets and a burden not only to their owners but also to their downtown unless they get demolished or the rare opportunity for a different use than housing or office opens up. As in the case of obsolete industrial buildings, artists and start up experimenters come to mind, even though those old offices are far less flexible and attractive than former lofts and mills.

A complete reorientation

There is no silver bullet. The solutions for the American downtown monoculture lie in a comprehensive reversal of the underlying causes for the current problems:

Office buildings need to become more economical, resilient and ecological to construct and maintain
Monocultures of one dominant use (office) need to be replaced with a multitude of uses
The work experience need to be much improved over seventies style cubicle offices on large floors and include entertainment, services and the flexibility to adjust for developing technology
New offices need to offer less space per person and also allow for hybrid work models with work stations used by several different people over the course of a week or month
New downtowns need to allow for better integration of family and private life
New downtown planning needs to prepare for further reductions of office work due to AI
Downtown planning needs to include social interaction, third places and the accessory uses for live and work and offer safety in to the threats of climate change.
Torre Reforma, CDMC (via Schindler)
The new downtowns need to accommodate other types of workplaces than offices or traditional services.
The new downtowns need to be multi-modal and far less car dependent even if the new cars will be electric, shared and self driving.

Good solutions have to include all or most of these aspects by finding better building types and better urban design solutions with mixed uses, experiential work spaces with less floor area per person (potentially undesignated spaces), family support services at or near the work space and catering to industries that will have a future after AI has reduced the service work force. Adding more housing to downtowns will remain a viable solution as long as it is understood that true mixed use includes also full integration of education, entertainment, sports, shopping, making things, and simply hanging out in a way that doesn't relegate each of those functions to different campuses or islands.

There are examples of new style office that offer the experience young office workers are looking for. The new Apple campus by Foster & Partners shows that a modern office building doesn't have to be tall and can be resilient and sustainable.

Parkroyal on Pickering, Singapore (Photo: WOHA)

But this design is suburban, insular and inward looking. The best sustainable office towers are located abroad: The Edge in Amsterdam, barely a real tower and also not located downtown, the RB12 in Rio de Janeiro, sustainable, a small tower and in downtown, the literally green buildings by WOHA in Singapore, or the Torre Reforma in Mexico City, tall, urban and centrally located.

The area where Torre Reforma is located would represent pretty well the idea of a new downtown in which all the aspects of urbanity are united, it is mixed use, sustainable, sits on a beautiful boulevard, has good public transportation, respects its surroundings and even integrates a historic structure that stood on this site for a long time. The area has open spaces, parks, monuments, museums, restaurants and a vital street life and represents one of several public commons this vast city features. There are a few additional towers in that section but they are not the dominating and overpowering feature they are in Manhattan.

Torre Reforma, Mexico City (Photo via Schindler)

The rejiggering of American downtowns so they will address all the current problems may use Mexico City, Rotterdam or Frankfurt as examples. All of those cities have embraced office towers but have so far integrated them fairly successfully into their urban fabric that never descended to being simply a monoculture of offices.

The reinvention of the American downtown, however, must be more than a copy. Once again it must be something new reshaping the physical form of buildings and cities alike and it needs to different for each city.

This should be a welcome challenge to the profession of architects and planners. It is an exciting prospect to envision a new American downtown that is no longer just the result of deal making and speculation. One that is neither frozen in the past, nor a replica of it, but an expression of a future in which one use and one type of work no longer dominates and which is an expression of a specific local culture and history.

The new downtown needs to be beautiful not only from afar as a skyline but also close up. Placemaking requires centers. The center of a city needs to be the true commons of the city in which the full diversity of people, work and culture will be represented.

Klaus Philipsen, FAIA

Also on this blog: The Future of Cities - Back to Basics?

Related materials:

https://www.brookings.edu/articles/myths-about-converting-offices-into-housing-and-what-can-really-revitalize-downtowns/

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/07/01/upshot/american-cities-office-conversion.html

https://www.lincolninst.edu/publications/articles/2023-05-office-residential-conversions-are-on-the-rise/

https://www.bizjournals.com/baltimore/news/2024/11/20/201-n-charles-office-downtown-auction-sale.html

https://www.smartcitiesdive.com/news/large-office-conversions-across-the-us-arlington-cleveland/708197/

Is Enlightenment Passé? How Knowledge Can Survive Fear, Irrationality and Rumor

2024-12-19T11:56:00.018-05:00

This article explores whether the quest for knowledge is the motor of civilization and if knowledge depends on growth. It addresses current cultural pessimism vs the value of rationalism and the scientific method and culminates in some optimistic vision for the future.

“The future is open. It is not predetermined and thus cannot be predicted – except by accident. The possibilities that lie in the future are infinite. When I say 'It is our duty to remain optimists”, this includes not only the openness of the future but also that which all of us contribute to it by everything we do: we are all responsible for what the future holds in store. Thus it is our duty, not to prophesy evil, but, rather, to fight for a better world.” Karl Popper, The Myth of the Framework: In Defence of Science and Rationality

Is enlightenment passé?

Over long periods of history, there was very little growth of any kind, including growth of knowledge. Whatever knowledge there was, it was cloistered, literally, in the libraries of monasteries. What the father and grandfather had learned from their fathers was still useful to their children because nothing had changed. The transition from hunting and gathering to agriculture to manufacturing (by hand) was very slow. Book printing, colonialism, international trade, steam and electricity changed all that. Depending whether following a more idealistic or a materialistic view, enlightenment enabled the

The Hockey Stick curves of prosperity
and doom (Socioeconomic and
earth system trends 1750 to 2010)
via Phenomenal World.com

inventions or it followed them. Either way, once much broader segments of the global population were connected, knowledge skyrocketed, and with it productivity, economic output, and population. The graphic for this is the famous "hockey stick curve" which, unfortunately not only depicts knowledge but also energy use, resource consumption, CO2 output and population growth. Would the reverse also hold true? Would stagnating productivity, economic output and population mean knowledge would also stagnate? The answer depends on whether there exists a clear causality and if so, what is the chicken and what is the egg? How do technology, economic output, population growth and knowledge depend on each other, which one is cause, which effect?

This is not a futile question in the current scene in which growing parts of the population struggle to keep up with this rapid pace of change. As the German philosopher Peter Slotterdijk observed in a recent interview. People react in two ways to this unprecedented challenge of rapid change. They either subvert, avert, oppose or ignore it, or they try to get ahead of it.

A growing segment of the populations of developed countries are taking the first route. Many begun to question rationality science, and the resulting knowledge altogether in what can be called relativism. Others critique growth in general as unsustainable. A cultural critique is flourishing which suspects technology to enslave us rather than having brought liberation and emancipation. This line of thought also nourishes aversions against the well educated "elite" which benefits from and drives technological change.

The very rationalism that propelled science and progress in the last 300 or so years is in question. As the argument goes, this type progress has led us further away from awareness of ourselves and awareness of the world around us. In the wake of this skepticism religious ideology, superstition, conspiracy, and fear are gaining ground. Some use the confusing new insights of quantum mechanics as proof that the world is not nearly as rational and orderly as enlightenment originally thought. The prospect of artificial intelligence adds more fuel. Now that AI already knows more than the most knowledgeable person on the planet and generative AI will soon outsmart the collective wisdom of all of mankind, fear and misgivings about the information technologies have reached a fever pitch that casts its shadow across elections in democracies around the world.

In many respects our world is out of balance. The gaps are widening between technological advancements and social progress, between economic success and environmental degradation, and between research-based insights and political decision-making. They are complemented by a rapid loss of biodiversity, a growing trend towards privatization and commercialization of common goods, and last but not least by growing inequality, uncertainty, and complexity involved in meeting the challenges ahead of us (Towards a New Enlightenment, Markus Gabriel et al)

The mélange of science skepticism and environmentalism challenging growth creates a volatile mix in many democracies. The environmental challenge goes far beyond the "carrying capacity" of the earth and limited resources. Doubts about the scientific method, modern medicine and modern agriculture frequently come from environmentalists as well, often with good reason. Technological leaders such as the "father of AI" Geoffrey Hinton suddenly are found on the side of the doubters with warnings about AI that could get out of hand. Scores of economists and environmentalists are trying to figure out prosperity after growth, beyond neo-liberalism and without globalism. Those movements are based on data that show that the benefits of a global liberal economy have reached limits and led to ever larger inequalities between countries and within countries. The longstanding critique of relentless growth and its effects on resource consumption and the resulting pollution and degradation of the natural environment is now elevated by the fact that devastating climate change is no longer just a future event but a daily threat.

With all that the foundation of the modern age becomes challenged. Could enlightenment be temporary and not the pinnacle as Auguste Comte (1798-1857) the father of Positivism, had assumed? He and Positivist philosopher Karl Popper (1902-1994) would turn in their graves.

Positivism is a philosophical approach asserting that authentic knowledge is derived from sensory experience, preferably through scientific methods. In its essence, positivism advocates that our knowledge of reality is firmly rooted in observable and measurable phenomena rather than abstract theorization or metaphysical speculation.(How Positivism shaped our Understanding of Reality)

Many contemporary thinkers are alarmed. The physicist David Deutsch wrote a book declaring "The beginning of Infinity" in which he essentially postulates that knowledge and science knows no limits; the psychologist Steven Pinker publishes a book with the imperative "Enlightenment Now!". The futurist Florence Gaub very recently wrote

Futurist Florence Gaub

an essay titled "Ewig gruesst der Untergang" (And Forever Greets the Downfall) in which she invites her readers like Popper to dare more future by shaping it. What unites these and other thinkers is the conviction that only rational thinking, only science and only a continued quest for knowledge can solve the existential problems. But aren't they falling short of solving the larger questions of complexity, meaning and purpose?

These big questions beg a deeper look and what better time to do it than the end of 2024?

What is the motor of enlightenment?

Any attempt of trying to describe the course of civilization is as audacious as it is treacherous. Too much is depending on cultural heritage and perspective to allow the unbiased view that some extraterrestrial observer might have; it remains an open question if there must be any rhyme or reason at all.
Historically mankind has created many narratives to explain civilization, purpose and objectives, some teleological (steady progress), some cyclical. Some focus on fate, some on faith, and the divine, others are secular. Epistemology has described many ways of gaining knowledge, some idealistic some into materialistic some relativistic, claiming that there is no sole truth and that even science is influenced by the culture of the observer, by technology, resources and even threats, whether of competing nations, nature or the universe itself. Each school of thought provides a different angle from which to analyze civilization. In many ways enlightenment settled the debates in favor of reason, logic, science and materialism which henceforth took up a large space previously occupied by philosophy and religion.

Enlightenment is man's emergence from his self-imposed immaturity. Immaturity is
the inability to use one’s understanding without guidance from another. This immaturity is self-imposed when its cause lies not in lack of understanding, but in lack of resolve and courage to use it without guidance from another. Sapere Aude! (Immanuel Kant).

The dramatic success of the new science in explaining the natural world promotes philosophy from a handmaiden of theology, constrained by its purposes and methods, to an independent force with the power and authority to challenge the old and construct the new, in the realms both of theory and practice, on the basis of its own principles. [...] Enlightenment philosophers from across the geographical and temporal spectrum tend to have a great deal of confidence in humanity’s intellectual powers, both to achieve systematic knowledge of nature and to serve as an authoritative guide in practical life. (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)

Enlightenment sees the human as a free subject with inalienable rights as this quote from Thomas Jefferson shows:

All eyes are opened, or opening, to the rights of man. The general spread of the light of science has already laid open to every view the palpable truth, that the mass of mankind has not been born with saddles on their backs, nor a favored few booted and spurred, ready to ride them legitimately, by the grace of God. These are grounds of hope for others. Thomas Jefferson's last letter 1826

Will and Ariel Durant tried in 11 volumes a still incomplete History of Civilization. They concluded:

"A great civilization is not conquered from without until it has destroyed itself within" (Ariel Durant, volume 3, History of Civilization)

My interest here is seemingly simple. Is enlightenment destroyed from within? Can the concerns of of current skeptics be incorporated into an enlightened shaping of our future that doesn't go back on the great promise of enlightenment and the subsequent scientific progress, innovation and knowledge but also doesn't return to the simplifications and materialist shortcuts that enlightenment and science has produced as well?

Every small child, when it is done eating and sleeping, is energetically discovering things. Adults get up in the morning for more than just survival. Song, play, art and romance are also expressions of curiosity and inquiry. How to maintain all those fundamentally human aspects and rational, scientific inquiry in spite of all the doubts, all the fear and all the resentment? The extraterrestrial observer might see us humans like we see the ants on an ant hill: Chaotic and without a decipherable purpose.

Durant: The history of Civilization

We and the ants, both produce material outcomes, but only human insights cumulate and progress over generations. materially and intellectually. Can that cumulative aspect of knowledge be reconciled with the fact that the earth is limited in size and resources?

The history of knowledge

Modern man is so used to the daily cacophony unfolding each morning that he/she may have given up on trying to make sense of the daily toil. Still, the search for purpose and meaning is as old as mankind and distinguishes us from the rest of nature. Naturally there have been early on inquiries into what constitutes knowledge. The study of knowledge, epistemology, is considered one of the primary branches of philosophy which found many more kinds of knowledge than we can discuss here.

In the quest of purpose, meaning and knowledge the ancient philosopher Diogenes of Sinope is said to have lived in a barrel so he could limit his life to contemplation. He defied all the norms and didn't even refrain from insulting Alexander the Great when he asked him coolly to get out of the sun. Baruch Spinoza's (1632-1677) contemplated the "perspective of the eternal" as a viewpoint, in essence the viewpoint of an all knowing God as a base for ethics.

Diogenes: Wisdom through contemplation

Christian belief puts curiosity and knowledge right to the beginning of time when the serpent is challenging Eve to eat from the tree of knowledge of good and evil.

“Of every tree of the garden you may freely eat; but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat” Genesis 2:16–17

It didn't end well. A rift between belief and knowledge seemed to appear. The expulsion from paradise ripped humans from the pre-ordained cycle of nature and can be seen as humans' fate to fight for knowledge to keep domaine over nature and to make fateful choices. Unlike choices of our fellow animals, our decisions could be be good or evil, a distinction that became the field of ethics. We acquire knowledge to make better decisions. In the Quran, the forbidden tree in the Garden of Eden is referred to as the "tree of immortality", this, possibly the ultimate quest. Religion's ambivalent attitude towards knowledge remains to this day and so remains the battle between materialism and idealism in which some current day philosphers enlist quantum physics to arrive at something like object based ontology or analytical idealism, schools of thinking who put the traditional enlightenment thinking into the trash bin of history.

In the following I will explore a sidebar that is exploring how knowledge is tied to growth and how the a critical discussion of growth could be tied to the gains in knowledge or, conversely, if natural limitations exist for growth and potentially for knowledge as well.

The role of growth

Today, knowledge is said to be doubling every year, maybe faster. Whether we agree that mankind has made actual progress or not, we have to agree that there is more knowledge today than there was yesterday, at least in a strictly quantitative way. The prevailing western explanation puts progress at the feet of science, technology and productivity that were freed from religious cages during enlightenment and the age of reason. Flights deep into the universe, a vast reduction of diseases, lower mortality, less hunger, almost universal literacy, an expansion of freedom, the declaration of human rights, the Internet and unprecedented insights into matter and the workings of nature are the fruits of reason.

Doubting the achievements is not a matter of "left" and "right" politics. Marxism and capitalism share the belief in growth and both systems are guilty of ransacking nature. What Marxists call growing "production forces" market economists call Gross Domestic Product (GDP). Even if we allow that the true trajectory of human development is less smooth than the hockey stick curve suggests and that there were places of significant knowledge in periods long before the age of enlightenment and in places outside the traditional Eurocentric perspective, the question of the interconnectedness of growth and knowledge remains:

The history of GDP and a critique of its effects
(Dirk Philipsen, PhD, Duke University)

Did we experience growth when population grew because there we simply more people conducted scientific experiments or did population grow because technology brought increased productivity which allowed to sustain a larger population? Much speaks for the latter, even though the two factors also reinforce each other in a dialectic and initially mutually beneficial way. Cities were always the locus of scientific and technological progress because here people rubbed shoulders, exchanged information and cultivated education and arts.

This would suggest that knowledge wouldn't have to stagnate only because population stops growing, as demographers predict will happen in a few decades, as long as there are places of interaction and exchange. Some countries with very high productivity have already reached a point in which population stopped growing or even began to shrink.

The United Nations Population Division projects that numbers will swell to more than 11 billion by the end of this century, almost 4 billion more than are alive today. Where will they live? How will we feed them? How many more of us can our fragile planet withstand?
But a growing body of opinion believes the UN is wrong. We will not reach 11 billion by 2100. Instead, the human population will top out at somewhere between 8 and 9 billion around the middle of the century, and then begin to decline. The Guardian: What goes up: are predictions of a population crisis wrong?

Would knowledge stagnate if vital commodities became exhausted or the natural environment would collapse? Material growth could very well collapse under its own weight. This prospect should alarm pro-growthers and growth critics alike, it requires an exploration of the dependencies between growth and knowledge.

Is economic growth dependent on population growth?

Economists rarely consider non-growth as an option and frequently assert that a growing economic output depends on a growing population. Indeed, more people need more output. But could science, technology, and knowledge continue to grow when population stagnates? Nations with shrinking or stagnating populations such as Japan and some countries in Europe managed to keep their economy vital but with mixed results. On the other hand, unchecked population growth has not yet led to the predicted mass starvation but it certainly contributed to the depletion of the environment. It is frequently postulated that entire civilizations collapsed because of overpopulation and the associated degradation of eco systems, as it is said about the Maya. However, research on this is also divided.

It is probably safe to say, though, that thriving knowledge during the Greek and Roman empires followed by counter revolutions, famine repression and stagnation during the "Middle Ages" has little to do with population size. Today we see countries experiencing rapidly growing populations with simultaneously shrinking GDP, including Pakistan and several nations in sub-Saharan Africa like Nigeria, Ethiopia, Democratic Republic of Congo, Uganda, and Angola where high birth rates contribute to population surges and economic instability.

The link between prosperity and population growth remains in dispute though. Some scholars maintain that inverse correlation between population growth and a thriving economy exist only locally and for relatively short periods of time. In Spinoza's global view over eternity, though, the positive correlation between population growth and GDP appears to hold. At least that is what Angus Maddison maintained when he compiled data for population and GDP for all countries in the world from year 1 to 2008 CE and graphed the resulting GDP per capita over time.

Diminishing returns of growth

A closer look at the Maddison data confirms the hockey-stick curve for economic output. Fluctuations in GDP per capita in the flat period are explained by what economists call the Malthusian trap which assumes a zero sum economy in which static metrics such as the amount of fertile soil in a geographic area or a certain climate define production as essentially static. When the population drops thanks to calamity, such as the plague, it results in a higher per capita income for the rest. This type of zero sum economy may describe the entire flatlining period of history but is changed with the Renaissance and the industrial revolution where output increased more than population did avoiding starvation and allowing for a relative increase in wealth.

Academicians remain cautious about a causal link between population growth on one side and productivity and knowledge growth on the other. Peterson notes in an article that provides an overview of research on productivity and population growth:

The relationship between population growth and economic growth is controversial. [...] The relationship between population growth and growth of economic output has been studied extensively (Heady & Hodge, 2009). Many analysts believe that economic growth in high-income countries is likely to be relatively slow in coming years in part because population growth in these countries is predicted to slow considerably (Baker, Delong, & Krugman, 2005). Others argue that population growth has been and will continue to be problematic as more people inevitably use more of the finite resources available on earth, thereby reducing long-term potential growth (Linden, 2017). Population growth affects many phenomena such as the age structure of a country’s population, international migration, economic inequality, and the size of a country’s work force. These factors both affect and are affected by overall economic growth. [...]

Some authors offer theoretical arguments and empirical evidence to show that robust population growth enhances economic growth while others find evidence to support the opposite conclusion. Still others find that the effects vary with the level of a country’s development, the source or nature of the population growth, or other factors that lead to nonuniform impacts. "The Role of Population in Economic Growth E. Wesley F. Peterson"

Do we need new different metrics?

We see, under the hood the population /economic output machine it is much more complicated than the argument that population growth fuels productivity. The inconclusive picture begs a closer look at the metrics of economic output. Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is today the most common measure. It was only introduced in the 1920s as a presumably "value free" metric for economic success. GDP can't distinguish between "bad" growth from calamity and "good" growth from productivity and thus misses the critical distinction between good and evil that was so central in the story of the tree of knowledge. The definition of GDP accrues social strife, war, economic collapse and break-throughs in productivity equally as long as they mean output. It is a system in which wars accrue growth.

If we replaced GDP with more qualitative metrics, such as productivity (output per capita),

Beyond GDP (Federal Reserve, St Louis)

unemployment, income per capita, income equality, pollution, sustainable energy share, life expectancy and such, one could certainly imagine a system that strives for prosperity without environmental degradation and the one-dimensional transactional relations that we see under global neoliberalism. A better metric would include consideration of externalities (impacts on things that don't show up on a particular balance sheet) which current production doesn't count.

The confusion about the interdependencies between population, productivity, science, technology, knowledge and prosperity needs new definitions not only for economic output(GDP) but also for what we call knowledge.

There are plenty of ideas on how economic output or productivity could be measured in better ways but redefining knowledge is more difficult. Gaining knowledge through insight by sitting in a barrel (Diogenes) or trough thought experiments (Einstein) is an essentially immaterial activity. A different story is knowledge through experimentation such as smashing of protons in the large Hadron collider, flying to Venus, launching elaborate space telescopes or blasting off giant rockets to ship people to the space station. We see the difference between knowledge gained by thought and knowledge gained by doing stuff with large material implications. Gaining knowledge about the essence of matter and the universe has required some of the costliest contraptions ever built. The cultural critics would say that the prevailing culture has erred too far into building huge gizmos at the cost of better self awareness and knowledge gained through contemplation.

Artificial intelligence will introduce yet another type of knowledge. If quantum computers and generative AI could think better and faster than the human brain, the material side of experiments could potentially be reduced in favor of virtual experiments, scenario formation and modelling, even though AI itself currently still uses huge amounts of energy.

Artificial Intelligence (Forbes Magazine)

AI could potentially accelerate the unification of physics on the very large scale (the universe) and the very small scale (Quantum Mechanics) and overcome the problem of physical boundaries we have often reached in our experiments. It is an open debate if AI can help in solving current conundrums in physics and create a unified field theory or accurately model climate change so that it becomes far more actionable and targeted. AI could open up a new age of knowledge in which shooting off gigantic rockets like Space X would become obsolete methods of discovery. Of course it could also unleash nuclear war, mirror bacteria or other accidental calamities if it would get out of control.

The limited benefits of unqualified growth

"Better" knowledge vis a vis of just "more" knowledge could potentially help us to resolve the current growth is good conundrum. Technology frequently has diminishing benefits when it comes to productivity defined as total time spent for a certain output. Again we speak about externalities. Huge parts of efficiencies gained through technological advance are used up for acquiring, maintaining and operating the complex systems that are needed to gain the technological advance in the first place but are usually not counted in the productivity equation.

Diminishing benefits: The increase in communication
between 1970 and 2010 due to new tools
(Bain and Co)

A six-share plow gets a field done much faster but requires a $100k tractor and lots of Diesel to pull it compared to a one share plow pulled by an oxen. Plus this highly efficient modern way of agricultural plowing proved actually detrimental to the soil in the long run so that no-till is now recommended. Sometimes the purchase of the tractor is seen as an externality, almost always environmental degradation has been handled as an externality.

Complexity reigns all around from health care systems to education, to mobility and even entertainment. We have to acquire, operate and maintain systems that require computers, smart devices, apps and much time, money and knowledge. For every invention that makes things faster or easier we need more resources to acquire it, do the same faster but more often so the time advantage disappears, whether it is cooking, washing laundry, traveling, growing food or building stuff. Quicker shopping on Amazon? Let's shop more! Efficiency of e-mail or texting? Multiply the communication events! Easier to keep up with friends: Just have more of them.

“The ‘tempo of life’ has increased, and with it stress, hecticness, and lack of time … In almost every sphere of social life there are enormous gains in time by means of technology, [but] we don’t have any time.” Hartmut Rosa Social Acceleration: A New Theory of Modernity,

Often this quantitative growth is combined with a qualitative decline. The giant plows deplete the soils, the large number of virtual Facebook friends rather create isolation than overcome it in the manner a few true real friends do. The quantitative fixation also averts the gaze from the limits of knowledge that we still have, some of which can probably not be overcome. For example, The fact the 90% of matter needed to make our model of the universe work hasn't even been identified should teach science some modesty.

There are also social consequences: The widening gap between those who have the resources and education to acquire, maintain and operate current information systems and those who don't greatly contributes to rising inequity and to the discontent with current affairs.

In summary, the modern economy grew output (GDP) exponentially, but benefits are frequently elusive if we include externalities and even more so if we consider qualitative measures, such as "free time", fulfilment or satisfaction.

Human existence is fundamentally value-laden so that a value-driven approach in the humanities and social sciences cannot be circumvented.(Markus Gabriel et al Towards a New Enlightenment)

Is that rather unsatisfactory outcome of progress as we know it just the result of bad habits or is it a "natural law" in which quantity and quality have an inverse relationship, neutralizing large parts of the benefits? The writer Robert Pirsig investigated these questions already in 1974 in his popular book Zen or the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. Is it the fate of civilization that "the ants" keep toiling towards better only to achieve more instead? The global population of around 8 billion in itself requires complicated and time consuming processes to keep so many people fed, clothed housed and connected. This to say that current complexity is not simply reversible in a quest for a simpler life. Even individual de-coupling, as Diogenes did it, is hard to achieve today without running afoul of the law.

Can the future be bright?

These findings seem pessimistic, a happy ending unlikely, especially considering climate change. But hasn't history often looked bleak? Haven't pessimists predicted the near end throughout the ages? It is worth looking at David Deutsche's brash book "The Beginning of Infinity" again for its unbridled optimism and its belief in the capacity of the human mind and the validity of the scientific method? He is refuting the standard notion of the finite amount of resources by pointing out that nothing is a resource (for humans) until we use it as such. In that way humanity has moved through many resources and we don't know which one we will use in the future. Already we are no longer worrying about the finite amount of coal or oil, but lithium. Science may well tap the almost unlimited sources of energy as we already do with solar energy. We have managed to produce food for 8 billion (were it not for distribution issues) and we may well be able to learn doing it without harming the environment.

There is no reason why we as a species couldn't refine the metrics of productivity and knowledge along with a better understanding of complexities and unintended consequences. With modern data computation and processing we could include externalities and long-term views that earlier economic systems couldn't digest. We should be able to refine or replace neo-liberal globalism with a system that reigns in the global players by refining the system of nation states and their democratic governance which dates back to the Treaty of Westphalia in 1648 with the addition of democracy in incremental steps fueled by thoughts of the enlightenment. It is probably the field of governance, participation, distribution and equity within nation states and among them which has benefited the least from technological and scientific progress and that needs the biggest push forward. (Just consider the rather archaic US election system).

Human ingenuity combined with AI could finally find a way to consistently require less effort to satisfy the basic needs of a global populace without the inefficiencies of waste, unnecessary complexity and foolishness. The roam of the virtual has the potential of substantially reducing the waste of matter. The issue of foolishness points to education as another field that remains rather static (excluding higher education) and may not have benefitted sufficiently from progress and technology with startlingly deficient outcomes.

There is no objective reason why we couldn't finally achieve a state in which we can really focus on gaining knowledge for everyone instead instead for a few? In this scenario productivity would continue to grow but people would need to work ever less to sustain themselves and the systems that make life possible. We would, indeed, look at a society beyond work, one in which people no longer derive their sense of self from the things they make or own but from their knowledge and understanding. This reversal from material quantity to quality would be far less matter intensive, far less wasteful and may overcome many of the lamented ailments of isolation and lack of awareness of ourselves and the world.

History has many examples in which privileged people did not derive their sense of self from work on sustenance. In ancient Greece or Rome the upper class had the luxury of a life of leisure and contemplation thanks to slaves and servants. With robots, automation and AI this model may be less repulsive if the gains of knowledge and productivity benefits would be spread across all segments of the global population. Life defined by pursuit of choice activities rather than activities of necessity would be worth pursuing since it opens up the path for wise decisions and a proper distinction between good and evil. Automation, robots and artificial generative intelligence have already triggered the onsets of the potential wealth of such a scenario. Current day highly developed aging and shrinking nations or potentially also some developing nations are perfect petri dishes in which to explore how to tap into this wealth in fair and just ways. Again, better governance, better education and better distribution are key to achieve conditions that would be far more equitable than today's conditions which exclude far too many from pursuing curiosity, creativity and knowledge.

EU brochure

A world in which efficiency gains are used for much broader participation, much less waste, destruction, depletion would overcome any current shortcomings but still leave open the issue of purpose, meaning, compassion and happiness and the quality of life for humans and the entire eco-system.

For these aspects to be included in our future philosophy and theology need to catch up with science and rationalism to provide a proper complement. This is a tall order to achieve but it also a great promise. We have to believe that such a future is not only thinkable and desirable but also achievable. In the words of Popper, we are responsible for what the future holds. Most importantly, perhaps, this vision would prove the choice between (material) growth or stagnation as a false binary. In this vision knowledge would not come to an end and curiosity would continue as a force to move us forward.

Nature can teach us a lot, even though, expelled from the paradise, we will never be fully integral to it ever again. Some of nature's processes are glacially slow, some are accelerating, possibly exponentially, some are sudden changes of state. In nature most processes are not endless, except maybe the expansion of the universe. Nature knows gradual evolution but also tipping points, phase transitions and other sudden events in which a linear process reverses, ends or transforms. Time is real. The universe, instead of steady endlessness, is a history of discontinuities, eruptions and the collapse of entire galaxies, black holes that swallow everything in their reach and possibly there are subsystems, even multiverses.

Seen through Spinoza's eternal lens, current disruptions in the course of civilization become mere bumps in the road rather than the end of human reason or science.

In all cases the class of transformations that could happen spontaneously, in the absence of knowledge, is negligibly small compared with the class that could be effected artificially by intelligent beings who wanted those transformations to happen. So the explanations of almost all physically possible phenomena are about how knowledge would be applied to bring those phenomena about.” (David Deutsch, The Beginning of Infinity)

For unpacking the potential of knowledge one has to carefully include the ethical and moral questions into the specter of the scientific method. In all, another phase of civilization could be on the horizon, one that shifts material quantity into qualitative values. A revolution which would finally relieve "man" from the toil of survival and allow the pursuit of happiness and knowledge instead.

Even if dystopia is equally possible, a Herculean effort to achieve a reconciliation of paradise and knowledge must be made. "It is our duty to remain optimists” as Popper says.

Klaus Philipsen, FAIA

You can subscribe to this blog by clicking the subscribe button the right toolbar

Steven Pinker: Enlightenment Now! (Video)

Impressions of Hong Kong

2024-11-07T16:23:00.011-05:00

The international chapter of AIA had its annual conference this year in Hong Kong. The conference included presenters from around the world as well as many tours to experience the city and the Territory. I spent a week there. The below impressions are necessarily limited.

Towers, mountains and the sea

Whether seen form the water, the street or above, Hong Kong is foremost the experience of the vertical: A packed men-made space surrounded by green and jagged mountains. Two physical verticalities, the one attention seeking at day and night, the other serene and seemingly eternal.

Towers, the harbor and jagged mountains are the
characteristics of Hong Kong (Photo: Philipsen)

Nature provides a silent frame which stands witness to human ambition and vanity. In Fung Shui, the woods are protectors and providers to be respected and protected in turn. Hard to know if the woods surrounding the metropolis are preserved by this traditional respect, by zoning or the forbidding grades, likely a combination of all. The famous silhouettes of Hong Kong perfectly illustrate the yin and yang of city and nature.

Tree felling is a fung shui taboo. Old trees are believed to be closely linked to the fortune and development of a village, so they should not be chopped down casually. It is for this reason that fung shui woods behind rural villages are carefully preserved. To ensure sustainable good fung shui, all unfavourable activities that might cause damage are forbidden.(Hong Kong Herbarium)

The Montmartre is a favorite vantage point to take in Paris. In Hong Kong the perfect vantage point is Victoria Peak. It is topped by a daring gravity defying commercial shell that is the upper terminus of the cable car but doubles as a commercial mall cum terrace that tries to divert the view aspiring tourist with a maze of shopping.

Still, next to the noisy clutter of commerce is the forest. The Peak Circle Path provides peace and quiet alternating breathtaking views with the serenity of the tropical vegetation. The Peak tram dates back to 1888.

Cable car ride to the Peak
(Photo: Philipsen)

The journey covers 1190 vertical feet and is a joyride of sorts (Hong Kong also has its own Disney World) with the level train cars angling precipitously up hill (there are no downhill facing seats).

An even more spectacular Peak view is offered by the residence of the US Consulate. Some conference participants had the benefit of a special reception there. "Do not judge the architecture" cautioned the deputy consul addressing the architects in his perch and touting the value that architectural design has brought to this city. The actual consulate itself sits at the foot of the hill. Like many US embassies it is less a testament of US design capabilities and more one of fear with its fortification. This provides quite a contrast to the general openness of the downtown towers which share their lobbies as public access spaces.

From the Peak it becomes clear how Hong Kong is defined by Victoria Harbor which is separating Hong Kong Island from Kowloon. By surface area this is China's largest harbor, and the third in the world. The harbor is the reason why the British established their colony here. The wide rift of water is the essential counterpoint to the verticality of the buildings and ridges, the breathing space that literally provides air, coolness and the distance that is needed for all these towers to stand out.

The harbor provided much of the land area through infill. More than 14,000 acres of development area have been gained from the water in the gradual transformation of Hong Kong from vital port to financial service center. The manmade new edge condition along

Victoria Harbor and the convention center (Photo: Philipsen)

Victoria Harbor allows the urban biotope of low-slung architectural landmarks to thrive such as the Harbor Pier pavilions, the convention center, (designed by SOM, it opened 1997, the year of the British handover), a ferris wheel, an extensive promenade and occasional green spaces. But the waterfront is also separated from downtown by highways, bus terminals, parking lots and non descript low rise superblocks of malls, exhibit halls and the like. Greedy for more land, developers who work with 99 year ground leases replaced the gradual transition from water to mountain with fill and mega structures which inelegantly block the view of the traditional north south roads of downtown.

The architecture of towers

The visiting architect studies with interest this who is who of competing architectural monuments that pile up here, one more daring than the other, a petting zoo of vanity. Collectively forming a skyline that made Hong Kong famous and which achieved the status of fetish.

Norman Foster HSCB bank tower (Photo Philipsen)

Unlike in most US cities where ample land and proliferating surface parking rob the typical towers their justification, Hongkong is short of space, a limited territory, fueled by finance, and low taxes, guided by economic prosperity, for a long time growing at a rapid clip.

Height became imperative, not just for prestigious office towers but also for residences. In spite of their smallness, apartments here have been globally among the most expensive in relation to the income of tenants.

A first day morning walking tour of the central area of Hong Kong island provided a useful overview of history, governance and the sequence of development with almost every building sitting on public ground with a 99 year ground lease.

Catholic Church (photo: Philipsen)

Only the Catholic Church was said to own the ground under the church. The Hongkong Park which I had already discovered as a green oasis next to my hotel was formerly a garrison and still features a number of smaller historic structures. The tour also shed light on small details such as ubiquitous very clean public bathrooms and a series of small parks tucked into the dense downtown. The tour also led us through the Central Market and up the world’s longest escalator to a plaza surrounded by what once was a prison and police facility and is now a hub for art studios and galleries.

The towers do generally not create a cohesive street scape and the hilly terrain of Hong Kong Island and the resulting sometimes curvy streets add to what looks like disorder to the American eye used to rigidly gridded cities.

Apartment towers nestled in the hillside are a
special Hong Kong feature

High rises nestled at odd angles into hillsides are a unique feature here. In that Hongkong is also the antithesis to Paris or Barcelona where the buildings effortlessly melt into a gridded street wall in which the individual building calls little attention to itself except for a few landmarks and where even the deliberate, iconoclastic otherness of the Beaubourg is hard to make out when looking over the city from Sacre Coeur.

Architects tend to identify the towers by the names of the architects who designed them, the investor or main tenant name them for themselves. Thus, the towers can make the architect famous, or, at times, the developer. Norman Foster's HSBC bank tower turned his firm into a global brand. Designed in 1979, its exoskeleton structure made it an instant icon. A local British tour guide told us that the owner wanted it designed so it could be disassembled in light of the looming transition of the territory from British rule to Chinese dominion. The truth is that the building consists of components that came from overseas, ready for assembly, since Hong Kong then and now has very little manufacturing.

Zaha Hadid Henderson Tower (Photo: Philipsen)

At times architecture is supposed to make the city famous, as Gehry's Guggenheim did in Bilbao. Zaha Hadid's Henderson Tower in Hong Kong, a posthumous reference to her design DNA, finished eight years after her death. It will probably do neither, in spite of the fact that all restraint was shed for it. Neither Hadid nor Hong Kong need additional fame. But these days fame based merely on design is fickle. It may well be that the Henderson is the last hurrah of this phase of iconic individualism, bragging and unlimited optimism, especially in Hong Kong which, like Berlin before, has lost its status a capitalist bridge head.

Zaha Hadid's The Henderson

The local AIA landed a coup by placing the conference in the Henderson, since the building was barely finished. The conference, cleverly named Architectural Intelligence (AI!) was aiming to define the future for architects. In some ways the venue rather illustrated their past.

The architects convening from around the world heard many presentations about mixed use, green terraces, green facades, biophilia, built-in parks, sustainability, net zero energy, transit oriented development carbon neutral materials, and, of course, AI. Most examples conveyed more purpose than just being pretty. The most advanced architectural examples came from Singapore.

The Henderson is sitting on a small plot of land that reportedly cost $3 billion for the 99 land lease that is typical here and is constructed on top of a subway tunnel and a subterrain 5-story parking garage.

With its bulbous shape it is already become a peer to its famous neighboring towers by Pei, Foster and Rudolph. It is hardly an icon of sustainability, though and rather a cathedral of "we do it because we can" as one participating local architect suspected. Its biophilia is rather abstract, the building's shape is supposedly inspired by the forms of a budding Bauhinia flower, the orchid of the flag of Hong Kong.

Hong Kong-Kowloon land use map

The Henderson Land Company's HQ gives the assembled architects an express ride to the top in moody elevator cabs, an opulent light filled gathering space, complete with fully marble clad bathrooms, touch free stall doors and the last urinal placed in front of one of 4000 curved floor to ceiling glass facade panels. Ah, the glass panels: the largest of them are the 21 foot long double curved 7 ton glass panels in the lobby sitting on single pivots. The curved glass is shipped in from Germany because closer sources were either incapable of doing the precision, or too small for this scale of production. The conference venue on floor 39 (the top floor) is glass all around as well, requiring a very powerful LED screen an even more powerful AC to outcompete the sun. Thanks to the energy intensive heroics, the space with its plenty of daylight and stunning views in all directions is a comfortable and welcome relief from the dank standard ballroom style conference space.

West Kowloon and the M+

With being heavy on commerce Honkong also wanted to set a mark on culture. No better opportunity than a filled port where space is still plenty: In West Kowloon across Victory Harbor, the brand new arts and culture district also features a large mall and three sprawling train stations, for the airport express train, the local subway and the national Chinese high speed rail network.

The M+ Museum by Herzog de Meuron (Photo: Philipsen)

Still in large part under construction, the district is a stark contrast to the densely packed Hong Kong peninsula, its sprawling nature making it tough to navigate as a pedestrian as I realized walking from the subway stop in the open instead of through the mall.

Under the power delegated by the then Governor, the then Secretary for Planning, Environment and Lands, directed the Board on 17 June 1992, under section 3(1)(1) of the Town Planning Ordinance (the Ordinance), to prepare an Outline Zoning Plan (OZP) for West Kowloon Reclamation in the south-western part of Kowloon Peninsula. The piece of land where WKCD now locates was originally covered under the OZP for various uses. (From the Development Plan)

Based on the Foster and Partners generated masterplan, the M+ museum designed by Swiss architect Herzog de Meuron received a large waterfront parcel in the 100 acre area arts and culture district built on an artificial landscape created from Kowloon’s former seaport. According to Foster it is the world's largest such district.

The seventeen new cultural venues include a Great Opera House; ‘M+’ museum of modern art; concert halls; and a 15,000-seat Arena with an Expo Centre below and will support everything from traditional Chinese theatre to pop concerts and opera. Equally important are 30,000 square metres of arts education facilities that will encourage home-grown artistic talent and ensure that the district provides long lasting benefits for the people of Hong Kong. (Foster website)

West Kowloon arts district masterplan

Verticality and we do it because we can also be detected at Herzog de Meuron’s M+ museum. Plus probably stands for the size of the monumental box which is channeling the Tate Modern former turbine hall in London, designed by the same architects in 1994. (For plenty of photogenic shots see here). With 700,000 sf the museum is so big that it feels out of place in a city of 800sf apartments. An individual might feel lost in the vastness of it. For a bit of human scale the building is clad with custom made ceramic tubes which diffuse the light and continue as wall cladding inside the lobby. The Herzog architect who guides a tour for the assembled architects explains that it was hard "to anchor" the project in the largely unbuilt area. So the designers took anchoring literally and dug down, all the way to the AirPort Express tunnel under the building and made it visible through an atrium in the museum. The lower M+ level thus acquires a sense of giant excavated catacombs. The anchor explanation is at least as flowery has Henderson’s blooming flag-flower. But even this horizontal structure gets verticality through a 14 story ultra slender vertical spine on top which acts as a giant billboard at night, benefiting from the nearly unobstructed view Victoria Harbor guarantees. The tower adds visibility but is too small for galleries and too large for the museum’s administrative needs and is largely rented out to non-museum users. (The + for “museum and more”). Rerouting an originally planned shoreline roadway under the building allows for a beautiful new park from where to look out across the water. Another gesture for the public benefit is an open air gathering space and a green roof terrace. As Asia's first global museum of modern and contemporary visual culture the project certainly furthered the city’s cultural identity.

The planning intention of this zone is to develop the area into an integrated arts, cultural, entertainment and commercial district with distinguished identity, capable of achieving a critical mass for the respective uses and supported by a range of mixed commercial, office, retail, residential, and hotel uses as well as other essential Government, institution or community (GIC) facilities together with not less than 23 hectares of public open spaces. (From the Development Plan)

Transportation and urban design

The tension of Hongkongs yin and yang physicality isn't the whole story, of course, not without the steady stream of the 8 million residents piled into their skinny apartment towers, always on the move, on foot, in cars, buses, boats and trains.

Ample space for cars, pedestrians on bridges above
(Photo: Philipsen)

The veins of Hongkong's blood weave through the maze of buildings and natural obstructions with surprising ease as if everyone followed a secret script. There is none of New York's gridlock, none of the cacophony of frustrated drivers blowing their horn, rarely any emergency vehicle sirens, nor is there the incessant din of helicopters overhead. Here people seem to drive with British discipline on the left side of the road, stop for pedestrians which, in turn stop for red lights, even if no car is coming and, of course, riders queue neatly to board the buses.

Less visible are the crowds that swiftly move around in Hongkong's subway operated by MTR, a public agency that funds transit through owning land and its intense transit oriented developments on a scale that anybody in the US can only dream of as MTR's chief architect showed in his presentation to the assembled AIA architects. The AirPort Express train is extremely conveniently located almost directly next to the luggage pick up. Like the regular subway its platforms are separated from the tracks by glass walls and are boarded through platform side doors Americans know from airport terminal trains.

One of the key success factors of Hong Kong’s TOD model is its innovative approach to value capture. Hong Kong’s approach to Value Capture involves the government’s active role in land acquisition and development. By leveraging the increase in land value due to public investments, Hong Kong has been able to finance its extensive public transport system and urban infrastructure. (Rethinking the future)

The MTR’s rail system carries about 5.52 million commuters on average per weekday (2023) and has maintained service reliability at 99.9 per cent since 2008 with its 179 stations, consisting of 99 heavy rail stations, 68 trolley stops, and also high-speed rail station.

The MTR model of TOD: Partnership and value capture
funds more transit.

Through over 1400 shops, advertising, fares and especially through land development MTR is hugely profitable and made over $1 bn net profit in 2023. Following the British tradition, almost all buses are double deckers, so is the historic tram which plies east west following the line that the harbor had before the fill. The tram is liked by tourists but is also used by shoppers and commuters for the convenience of the essentially single line and one of the vehicles coming every two minutes or so. The buses are not run by MTR but by three private companies with a lot of public oversight. All public transport including the cable car and the ferries can be paid with the Octopus card or the Octopus app loaded on a smart phone which can be read by the ubiquitous readers, installed also on vending machines and the like. Except for the Airport Express, transit depends on distance but is really cheap, often below one US dollar per trip.

Clearly traffic engineers had their way and proved their art with a network of weaves, ramps, tunnels, viaducts and layered connections so generously laid out that the dance rarely seems to freeze.

Historic double decker trolleys and double decker
buses provide reliable surface transport, complemented
by an extensive modern subway
(Photo: Philipsen)

For a city where 70% of households don't own a car and travel by transit or walking, the amount of effort towards smooth travel by vehicle seems perplexing; until it becomes clear that the fluidity of buses, taxis and deliveries is the essential blood stream of this dense megalopolis. Hongkong defies the current planner mantra of walkability via street-level vitality, wide sidewalks and complete streets. There are no bike lanes, not always curb-cuts, and in many places the ground plane is entirely devoted to car parks and services. Given the sheer volume of people out and about on foot, this city still subscribes in its modern districts to the 1970's model of pedestrian and car separation. There the pedestrian experience is defined by a network of elevated walkways, bridges, escalators and elevators. Developers trade a lobby that is open to the public at all times and the cost of building bridges and elevated walkways for more floor area and the efficiency that the stacked verticality provides. In older parts, where the streets form the traditional grid and are lined by at-grade sidewalks the crowds are so thick and the pedestrian jams waiting for the walk signal so massive that only good behavior can prevent utter chaos.

The commercial streets vary from brightly lit avenues with all the glitzy brand branches found in New York, Paris and Barcelona to streets packed with tiny stores that sell dried fish, nick nacks, street food or convenience items. Those who have known Hong Kong over the decades say that Covid has changed the city by forcing many of the small independent vendors out of business.

People and politics

Hong Kong has long been a landing spot of foreign powers. The British occupied the island in 1841 and created a colony. The Japanese invaded Hong Kong around 100 years later. America imprinted its culture and architecture with McDonalds, a Hong Kong Disneyland, and by America's large corporate architecture firms designing landmarks. The big names are all represented here with field offices and the towers they designed, sometimes manifestations of the various fashions of design, some aging well, others less so. Now with Hong Kong being a special territory in China with an eroding "one country- two systems" agreement, the cycle of foreign intervention seems to come to a close.

What the port used to be is now the Hong Kong Airport;
a Gateway to the world. (Photo: Philipsen)

Many Americans have lived here for years and have no plans to leave, although a cloud of uncertainty hovers over all decisions. Nobody can say if Hongkong will stay an attractive place to invest. Without the foreign capital, growth here will likely come to an end and with it the bonanza of design and construction. The feeling that comes from now being more or less subjected to what the leader in China determine as the best future of the repatriated former British Territory hovers as a subtle barely noticeable repression over everything. Open repression is invisible can hit anytime, especially those who loudly and publicly express discontent which can result in prison terms under the new judicial rules. They eliminated the independence of the justice system.

According to data 200,000 residents left the city between mid-2019 and mid-2022, presumably leaving after the political unrest in 2019 around the National Security Law that ended Hong Kong's judicial independence. However, over 100,000 people have moved in, mostly from Mainland China.

In spite of the high housing cost, unlike in San Francisco or San Diego, the visitor is not overwhelmed by the homeless. A former resident sitting next to me in plane assured me that there are homeless people in HongKong, just not in plain sight. There seem to be controls, a lot of public housing (30% of all housing is public housing) and incredibly dense living conditions with an average living space of only 64.6 square feet per person. The many people hanging out in underpasses and on the skybridges on weekends turn out to be not homeless. They are all women and mostly Filipinas and some from Indonesia. They are domestic workers who like to spend the weekend days off not in their small rooms in the homes of their often exploitive employers but with their peers.

Older dense apartment buildings are home to
tiny apartments which are often subdivided
(Photo Philipsen)

Their count is in the hundred thousands, their impact massive in an otherwise very orderly city.

Many Hong Kong households rely on these helpers to do everything from cooking and cleaning to childcare and laundry. The work is tough and all domestic helpers live in their employers’ apartments, often in very cramped spaces in an already densely populated and incredibly expensive city. (BBC)

Today's Hong Kong, 17 years after the British handover, has lost some of its status as capitalism's bridge head in Asia and its future is shrouded in the uncertainty about what role China wants it to play. The new financial center seems to be Shanghai. As a result, there is now vacant office space, the rate is with 13% low by US post-Covid standards but twice what it was in here 2019. Hong Kong's new role seems to be defined as a twin city with Shenzhen within the rapidly growing mega region known as the Bay Area, a dynamic regional metropolis spanning 11 cities and 86 million people, more than the population of Germany on less than 1/6th of the land area. Nevertheless, even this area still boasts 52% forest cover.

The countryside

Luckily the Hong Kong chapter of AIA provided participants of the conference also with the option of doing excursions to the countryside. I participated on a trip to Stanley to the south and to Sha Tau Kok to the north, located in the "closed area" adjacent to the Chinese border where visitors need a special permit from Police to enter.

The Chinese border in Sha Tau Kok
(Photo: Philipsen)

The trip to the seaside town of Stanley showed a more affluent beach town where we visited a youth center on the water that was designed for resilience and good architecture with contributions from the Hong Kong Jockey Club. It plays an outsized role in funding non-profit endeavors with more than $1.3bn (US $!) in 2023 and about $500m on average over the past decade. The trip illustrated well that density allows 75% of the territory to remain undeveloped. Even while Stanley is rather picturesque with many low structures, it also features large apartment building absorbing the demand vertically instead of sprawling horizontally all over the hills.

It was interesting to see how horse racing feeds the charity sector of the economy. We saw this also through the non-profit Design Trust organization which works with communities in many ways including the

Pocket park designed through
Design Trust under a freeway near
Kennedy Street, Hong Kong
(Photo:Philipsen)

enhancement of small parks and pocket places. Design Trust has a strong community focus and, at the same time, a focus on design combined with the intent of providing a pipeline for young aspiring start up architects. The organization has achieved international recognition through its mentor/mentee program which engaged, for example, the New York architect Elisabeth Diller.

Design Trust creates active long-term, intelligent and meaningful platforms to fund and advocate for the positive value of the process of design, debate and creative sharing. We support innovative, thought-provoking investigations in various design disciplines from graphics, media, wearable technologies, architecture to the environment to actively accelerate creative research, design and development of meaningful projects that advocate for the positive role of design. (Mission)

On the way to Sha Tau Kok and the villages of Lai Chi Wo and Kuk Po we had a view of the massive housing developments currently being erected on the land of the former airport directly adjacent to Victoria Harbor. The small town of Sha Tau Kok site at the very edge of the Hong Kong territory with a pedestrian border crossing in the town that can only be used by the local residents. On the other side of the border lies the new town of Yantian, a large Chinese container port and part of the mega city of Shenzhen. Our destination was a boat-ride away, two Hakka villages surrounded by the Lai Chi Wo Plover Cove country park, part of a UNESCO Global Geopark.

Lai Chi Wo is one of the oldest, largest and best-preserved Hakka walled villages in the northeast New Territories. The over 300-year-old rural settlement saw its heyday in the 1950s, when nearly a thousand villagers lived in more than 200 houses and terraces among the surrounding hills. For centuries, the natural environs of Lai Chi Wo have been well looked after. It is a scenic area with a diverse ecological environment and rich biodiversity.

The village of Lai Chi Wo (Photo: Philipsen)

These villages were both almost entirely deserted after all the residents had moved away to areas of better opportunities. Current efforts to preserve and repopulate them were part of our investigation. These efforts, too are largely driven by non-profit organizations. Some structures were restored, many are populated again, either part or full time. In one house the "mayor" of the town served us an opulent family style lunch and introduced us to her 104 year old father who had some years ago, driven by homesickness, returned to his native village from London. Many houses, however, remain vacant in various stages of decay. The view of the open to the elements ruins and the smell of mildew from rotting would and soaked plaster with trees growing inside the houses reminded me of abandoned rowhouses, in Baltimore, in spite of the totally different setting.

The villages provided a small insight into the simple life in the Chinese countryside, which I imagined would have been somewhat typical for the time before Mao's revolution, even though these particular several centuries old villages were temporarily British.

The Conference

Architects descending from all continents easily blend into the melting pot of this city where the host committee mirrors the internationality of the guests. Friendships are made and renewed among the well traveled cosmopolitans who formed the international chapter of the American Institute of Architects only 12 years ago

[The Hong Kong Chapter] was established in 1997 to serve the professional interests of the growing number of AIA member architects practicing in Hong Kong, China and the Asia Pacific region.(website)

Obviously it is impossible to meaningfully report about the 18 sessions and programs with 48 speakers of this three day conference with two additional days for a total of 21 tours. At least not as part of my impressions Hong Kong.

The main conference room at the Henderson: Bright daylight

The full program can be seen here. About 450 architects from 27 countries attended, including architects from Nigeria, Australia, Brazil, Mexico and the US.

HK AIA is a member of the International Chapter of the American Institute of Architects.

AIA International, formed in 2012 as AIA International Region, is a component of the Institute. It encompasses all areas outside the US and is the broadest geographical component of the American Institute of Architects, providing a collaborative leadership platform to empower members and encourage global success through best practice, innovative thinking and design excellence.

WOHA metrics of project evaluation (form the
presentation)

From the many thought inspiring presentations under the title "Architectural Intelligence" (which of course spells AI which also was a topic) I will note the Singapore based architecture firm WOHA for its work that goes far beyond esthetics. The firm has become known in the region for its efforts to integrate biodiversity into its buildings in Singapore. There the effort of literally greening buildings is greatly aided by the tropical climate.

WOHA has developed its own rating system to try to measure the things it values as opposed to the indices that are commonly used by developers to measure how well a building performs. ... WOHA’s system [measures] five key ratios: Green Plot Ratio, Community Plot Ratio, Civic Generosity Index, Ecosystem Contribution Index and the Self-Sufficiency Index.

The firm has refined metrics especially for biodiversity and is regularly trying to make a building perform better than an undisturbed site would. Their range of metrics seem to be more comprehensive than LEED or similar common sustainability standards. Taken together they could address climate change, resilience, sustainability and equity all at once.

Traveling abroad is always a healthy experience to the American who tends to see the homeland as the navel of the world. AIA International provides wonderful opportunities for getting weaned of this perspective and discover that much advanced innovation and practice can now be found outside of the

The Murray hotel remodeled by Foster
& Partners. (Photo Philipsen)

US, for example in the quality of the four star hotels booked for the conference. The Murray hotel in which I stayed is not only an architectural landmark for its conversion from government offices to hotel designed by Foster and Partners. Next to the beautifully designed guest rooms it also offered unmatched services and amenities that exceeded anything I had seen before, especially in the US. The enormous range of the breakfast buffet spanning all possible expectations of its global guests ensured a happy start of each day.

In spite of all the "America first" rhetoric, cities such as Barcelona, Mexico City, Dubai, Singapore, Shanghai or Hong Kong outperform US counterparts in many ways.

Klaus Philipsen, FAIA

The article has been updated and expanded (downtown walking tour, Design Trust, the Murray) after its original publication

Hong Kong guide prepared by AIAHK.

Does Smart Technology Make Us Less Resilient?

2024-10-04T15:12:00.002-04:00

“We’re often easily distracted by the idea of something new and flashy, but then we learn it’s quite hard to deliver on those promises, and while we’re chasing something flashy, the problems become more entrenched and it becomes harder to deal with them.” (Shoshanna Saxe, Civil Engineer University of Toronto)

The idea that technology will make life not only easier but will also increase efficiency and fortify us against adversity is deeply entrenched but also shaken by the many daily undesirable, unplanned and unintended outcomes and the giant failures in recent disasters.

The oops moments of smart technology

A neighbor has a NEST thermostat installed for his home with the result that his heat pump is working at all times all year long while mine remains often comfortably shut off. Why: In spring or fall when it is crisp in the morning the smart device heats his home while have the windows open to cool the house down.
Google Nest learning thermostat

Then, when it heats up at noon,his machine cools his house while I have close the windows and enjoy the retained coo air. My system is in the off position so it can't run at all. By tolerating a wider range of indoor temps and using old style "dumb" methods of moderating the indoor temps I saved a lot of energy plus honed a method that also works in a power outage. This may not work for everyone, the point is, though, that either the smart device or the owner isn't smart enough to achieve the desired outcome. The NEST could probably be programmed differently, but which user actually can optimize the program?
The condo building in which I have an apartment has all common area doors controlled by the smart Butterfly access system that allows to open them with a smart phone app, each lock with a different slider or operate the front door remotely. When downtown experienced at conduit fire over a mile away the building lost its cable access, the Internet and with it all its smartness. The phone access and remote building interface didn't work for days. (There is a backup PIN pad to get through the front door).
No charging without internet
Recently I wanted to charge my EV in an underground parking garage. For some reason the charging stations had lost their internet connection and couldn't communicate with my phone, regardless that I had the right app installed and money in the account. Even the parking attendant couldn't help, the result was no charge in this garage.
In my workplace a sensor switches the lights on when people enter the room, even if the ambient daylight is bright and sufficient. This could easily be corrected by using a different sensor that responds to ambient lighting and movement. Those installation errors are widespread and points to the common problem that a sensing system doesn't consider the complexity of the setting and reacts to one simple trigger only. Just consider the added complexity for HVAC and lighting management in an office operating under the hybrid work model. It requires a much more individualized approach than the binary of work and non-work hours. The old fashioned ventilation via opened windows allowed a very localized individual approach. Combined with an automated HVAC system, open windows usually throw those "smart" systems for a loop.
My car can steer, accelerate and break itself if I utilize these assist functions. It also reboots its computer system at times in a random unexpected fashion. It continues to operate just fine in manual mode while that happens but I wonder what such a reboot would mean in a critical moment of reliance on the auto-break or self steering features.

These examples are randomly collected from my own recent experiences. They hint on smart technology's drawbacks and weaknesses.Recent events revealed bigger more systemic issues that have caught media attention and led to widely shared frustrations and trepidations about smart technology:

Many of us have experienced dwindling smart phone capability in large crowds when thousands of people are flooding one particular "cell" of the mobile phone system. In those events even texting can vanish for lack of bandwidth.
Smart technology: Useless without internet
This summer a failed update of Microsoft software via its vendor Cloudstrike brought down business around the globe to varying degrees, including banking, airline scheduling, health communication, FedEx parcel delivery and some grocery stores. Some called it the biggest IT cyber incident ever. A cyber security expert zeroed in on the few cyber-security vendors and EDR software (Endpoint Detection and Response) that in the name of ransomware prevention have access to almost all systems worldwide. He wrote:

The whole situation feels like handing the keys to the kingdom — basically the global economy, such is Microsoft Windows reach —to a small group of private cybersecurity companies with no external governance or assurance. It has always felt sketchy, and today feels very sketchy.

It is widely known that your car's smart key's can be intercepted by nearby criminals who can use the detected code later to steal the car. The same is true for many smart devices people increasingly stick into their homes, from keyless front door access to app operated lights. Hackers could not only access your home, control your smart appliances but also take over your computer network.
Your smart key may also lock you out should its battery die, unless you have the little mechanical emergency key handy that will still not start the car. (there are complicated work arounds which nobody can remember at the moment of need). Every smart device dies with an empty battery. Most people don't know that their computers and laptops still have a separate CMOS battery for the operating system which would eventually die and make a computer inoperable if not replaced in time.
Information loss. The idea that in 30 years you could open an old laptop like a book, and, voila, there would be all your old files is mistaken, because of the CMOS battery and many other reasons as well. What happens to all the cloud storage once a company goes bust or shifts the software? Gone are the days when data on paper can be good for hundreds of years or more.
Misled by GPS?
Everyone has experienced GPS sending us astray, some have experienced the panic that can set in when there is no signal and the route map doesn't update and no paper map is in the car to go back to the resilient old system. The concern with autos as moving computers is big enough that the US is now banning Chinese hardware in cars to avoid that the state could get illicit access to the data. While this isn't an architectural issue, cars highlight for the broad public the issues users can have with smart buildings.

All of the noted problems are avoidable with a few additional tweaks of the technology, preparedness, back-ups and better user training.

When disaster strikes

Hurricane Helene has shown once more that the matter is different for large scale disasters.

After the most recent Gulf of Mexico hurricane with its devastating inland floods all the way into North Carolina, cellphone and WiFi service became spotty or non-existent in the hardest hit areas putting all communication to a standstill. Not for overload but for felled cell towers and cut electric power. In many situations of life and death the phone couldn't call for help and not even receive warnings, let alone control any smart devices.

Mobile phone company struggling to provide temporary service
after a hurricane (GovTechnology)

Obviously, this storm along with all the previous hurricanes, tornadoes and floods makes resiliency questions a top priority. Telephones using landlines would have been out just the same, some may argue. True, still the problem has become much larger since the smart phones are so much more than a means to call someone. We have become extremely reliant on them. All our contacts may be stored in them, our prescriptions and health records, our bank access and so much more. Much of this is vital information in a disaster. In the past we would have had much of that information stored on paper and still available after a loss of power or signal. We will get back to the issue of analogue back-ups a bit further down.

The propagators of smart technology are only slightly flustered by the failures which more and more people have experienced. The pandemic induced increased emphasis on equity and sustainability simply lead the IT industry to rebrand their products in the name of equity the environment and even resilience. Artificial Intelligence has put new public eagerness for smart technology. I lift here a lengthy quote from a promotional article:

The integration of smart technologies in building design and operations has proven instrumental in disaster resilience. These technologies offer numerous benefits, including real-time monitoring, early warning systems, and efficient response mechanisms. Examples of smart technologies used in disaster response and recovery include sensor networks, smart grids, and automated emergency systems.
Data analytics and monitoring systems play a crucial role in early warning and response. By analyzing data, these systems can predict and assess risks, enabling proactive measures to be taken. [...]
Advancements in the Internet of Things (IoT) have revolutionized smart buildings. IoT enables seamless connectivity between devices and systems, allowing for real-time data exchange and intelligent decision-making. This technological advancement enhances the operational efficiency and disaster resilience of smart buildings.

To be fair, the above is stated in the context of seismic resilience. Still, the article doesn't get around to discussing how all these systems can be rendered inoperable in a disaster, including by the very earthquake that is supposed to trigger the smart responses. This is not to deny that technology has made incredible progress in seismic resilience to a point that was unimaginable just several decades ago.

Smart City components (Frost&Sullivan Smart City)

Smart systems beckon not only for use in buildings but also in entire cities enlarging the scale of possible failure dramatically:

[City as a machine] what if the machine of a city could work in a more efficient way that reduces transportation congestion and environmental pollution, while enhancing public safety and social inclusion. Those are exactly the aims of the leadersof smart cities, where they invest in information and communication technologies, data analytics,and intelligent infrastructure to improve the quality of life for all residents. (How Big Data can keep Smart Cities moving)

Covid and climate change made the "smart everything" fad fade some. It is telling that Google's Smart "Sidewalk" City in Toronto was abandoned in favor of equity and sustainability Here a description by the Guardian:

When a Google-backed company first considered 12 acres of industrial land along Toronto’s waterfront, it saw a blank slate that would let it design a hi-tech, futuristic city. Algorithms would ease congestion on heated roads. Autonomous vehicles would shuttle residents past towering wooden skyscrapers. And by closely studying millions of residents, computers could learn how to make the city more livable.Sidewalk Labs pledged to make Toronto one of the world’s first “smart” cities. [....] Now, Canada’s largest city is moving towards a new vision of the future, in which affordability, sustainability and environmentally friendly design are prioritized over the trappings of new and often untested technologies. [...] a move experts say reflects growing skepticism over technology’s role in urban planning decisions.(The Guardian)

Understanding the failures is step towards resilience

Even though there can be little question that modern civilization has become incredibly vulnerable, the systemic failures of smart technology should not be used to dismiss its use of smart technology altogether. How important Knowledge and consideration in this area becomes apparent in an AIA "strategy paper". Architects are frequently motivated by innovation and LEED credits but leave the specifics to their MEP or security specialty subconsultants.

Today, a growing number of architects recognize the advantage of winning more work through smart building design. According to the 2021 Hinge Report,* nearly half of architects surveyed cited smart buildings as a topic they plan to research in the coming year. Smart buildings use automation to optimize processes inside a building, such as heating and cooling, security, lighting, ventilation, water usage, and more. This can benefit the environment, the building tenants, and the businesses that own the facilities. (AIA)

Instead one must learn from the failures and understand the different causes. Vulnerabilities of smart systems stems either from a lack of complexity or too much complexity and from a lack of alternative solutions. All that can lead to user error, hacking or failure from lack of power and signal. It is obvious that the possibility of complete failure of smart systems results in a lack of resilience.

To make systems resilient against failure it is helpful to distinguish between unexpected consequences for which the systems were not prepared, programmed or planned and unintended consequences in which systems operate exactly as designed, but create undesirable outcomes due to human fallibility, social conditions, inequity and the like. Two examples for how unintended consequences changed the attitude towards smart technology are described below:

Initially the Internet was heralded as the great equalizer that would give everyone access to information in previously unimaginable ways. Now we are talking about the "digital divide", about "broadband deserts".
Initially the Internet was seen as an excellent learning tool and schools hurried to provide a laptop to each student. Now we are banning smart phones from schools because students have become way too distracted.

The "smart" technology industry tells us next to nothing about failure or unintended consequences. Unintended consequences long colloquially known as "the road to hell is paved with good intentions" thus have become now a field of research. One research paper maintains that "for our social, financial, and ethical responsibilities to keep up with the introduction of novel products and services, we need a new approach to manage unintended consequences."

Many smart systems are installed for convenience but there is no avoiding the fact that convenience and resilience don't always go together. Convenience also lends itself to concentrations of information in one or just a few places, such as huge cloud storage systems, information satellites or operating systems. Concentration usually means less redundancy and thus less resiliency.

The problem of centralized access is well illustrated by the botched security upgrade of the globally dominant Windows operating system. It illustrates in great urgency the problem of unintended consequences and the problem of overwhelming concentration in the IT space. This operating system reaches deep into the smart city and smart building space as well acting like a gigantic master-key in a world that still uses mostly analogue keys. A master-key provides access to all rooms in a facility. Windows may affect millions of facilities. The most centralized master keys with the deepest "godlike" access right into the kernel of the operating system are in the hands of anti malware systems such as CloudStrike. What can architects and building professionals learn from the Microsoft/CloudStrike debacle?

Traffic management and signal operations area good example of smart technology. It illustrates well how smart technology works and where it tends to fail. Traffic lights are widely understood and lessons from them can also be applied to other city management or building operations. An old style traffic signal system (in use since the 1950s) may have been networked but would have run on timers with possibly two or three preset times for anticipated traffic flows, one for the morning, one for the afternoon rush hour and one for all other times.

Old fashioned analog traffic control

By contrast, a modern variable system can measure and process real time traffic volumes and optimize between signals along a route and even include programming for emergency vehicles that approach a signal. Such a system can adjust to endlessly many conditions. At quiet night hours (where they exist) such a system would only change the lights when traffic on a side road is detected. Even such a complex system, though, may fail after an event (such 80,000 football fans driving home after a game) or in an emergency where on an evacuation route all lanes are one directional). If these extreme conditions are foreseeable, they, too, could be programed at a cost or the system could be overridden by police. In a power outages, though the smart system would fail just as much as the old dumb system. In that case only a person such as a police officer can manage the traffic.

Disaster resilience, therefore, appears to be neither be higher nor lower with or without smart technology. However, this is not the case, because design of the physical analogue world changed dramatically, in part because of the smart technology. In the case of roads and signals, the smart system failure will still keep the roads usable but the old style traffic management with police officers has frequently become almost impossible with today's giant suburban intersections with double turn lanes and all the rest of it. this is even more so in the case of buildings. Failing HVAC renders many commercial buildings unusable because the presence of HVAC changed building design from smaller floor plates with daylight and operable windows to large floors that need artificial lighting and ventilation. Hospitals have become entirely unusable without power.

Solutions

It isn't a solution to be a Luddite. Nobody wants to return to the times when airline booking was done by hand with paper files. Building automation or smart city management will eventually be irreversible. But following the craze blindly isn't advisable. Not everything that says it is smart deserves this moniker. Unintended and unforeseen consequences must be considered at all stages of design. This gets us to the point that digital "smart" technology should have an analogue backup. For this to consider it's worth remembering that analogue has to remain smart as well.

Remember "smart growth"? Its mantra wasn't technology but common sense, namely to put development into suitable areas. Last week two single family homes on the shore of the Outer Banks succumbed to the ocean waves even though they were built on stilts high above expected water levels. But wave action weakened the stilt foundations (Video). It just wasn't smart to build so close to an ocean with rising levels and increased storms. Any number of sensors in the building or on shore would not have prevented the collapse.

The fire in Baltimore's conduits likely wouldn't have been prevented by sensors either. They lacked the smart investments to keep leaking water, stormwater, district heating and sewer pipes from seeping into the conduits short circuiting the electric cables.

Smart technology applications and technological components

Smart technology can't prevent atmospheric rivers or hurricanes but predict them. It can contribute a lot to being prepared. Analogue stormwater management practices can reduce run-off, erosion and potentially flooding in urbanized areas. Copenhagen is investing in a multi-billion stormwater management system of retention and absorption totally free of electronics but effective in pretty much any circumstance. Smart technology can model future water volumes and help design for resilience.

Baltimore's old grand rowhouses were built long before air conditioning and included operable clearstory windows above the doors to allow a cross breeze through the deep buildings. Some had vent shafts in the center of the building. Windows featured exterior shutters that could be tilted out to keep the sun out but let the air through, at a minimum they had interior shutters. With air conditioning all these features were abandoned in favor of technology that requires electricity to function. With smart sensors and maintained analogue features in combination, those houses would be resilient.

Conclusion

The lesson is that digital smart technology should not be thought of as an alternative to common sense and analogue smartness but as an adjunct. To hedge against catastrophic failure are analogue back-ups that must exist for resilience.

In an emergency of life and death hospitals need to be able to operate, banks should be able to hand out cash, shops should be prepared to sell essential goods without electronic cash registers, gas stations should be able to dispense gas. Hotel rooms should have operable windows and their bathrooms should have a clearstory window so they get some daylight in a power outage. Intersections should have signs that indicate which side has to yield in the case of a dark signal.

All this would make the aftermath of a disaster more tolerable.

The following questions should be considered and discussed between the architect/planner and the specialty consultants before employing smart systems:

HVAC Control panel

What happens in adverse conditions such as power outages or loss of internet signal?
Is the programming too simple to foresee all likely user configurations so it could lead to waste in excess of what was used as energy before a smart system was deployed?
How is the system fortified against hacking or unauthorized access leading to abuse and vulnerability?
What internal and external energy demand does the system itself generate, for example for the processing power of data centers
What is the loss of privacy for users coming from data collection 0r poor protection of the data
What are the chances of user error from excessive complexity and what training could be reducing that risk?

These are only a few examples how resilience can be increased. Especially the last item of training users and maintenance personal is frequently neglected with the result that systems don't run optimally.

Generally it is true that unintended consequences grow with the complexity of systems. Playing all possible variables and outcomes through is costly and sometimes impossible. AI may make accounting for many more variables and for unintended consequences feasible during programing and also help assisting maintenance personnel to master complex systems.

Does smart technology make cities and buildings less resilient? Current practice suggests: Yes. But it doesn't have to be that way if smart digital and smart analogue go hand in hand. The consideration of robust analogue back-ups will become the more important the more frequent natural disasters become.

Klaus Philipsen, FAIA

Fighting the Air Conditioning Doom Loop with Innovation & Common Sense

2024-09-07T11:39:00.011-04:00

A quantum leap in cooling technology is needed

The International Energy Agency (IEA) says that cooling is the fastest-growing single source of energy use in buildings. Without massive change, the IEA projects that global energy demand for cooling will more than triple by 2050. This increase alone is about how much energy the entire U.S. uses currently uses per year. An additional problem is that the ubiquitous hydrofluorocarbons used for refrigeration everything (buildings, cars, trains, buses, trucks, food and medications) are much more potent greenhouse gases than CO2 when they escape their sealed systems through leakage, unwise disposal, sloppy manufacturing or lots of other occasions in the lifetime of their existence.

For a few thousand years putting some light into the darkness required fire. For a hundred or so years it required electricity to make a filament glow. Then came the diode and heat was gone from lighting. What if cooling could evolve like this as well?

What could follow the trajectory of cooling from placing ice blocks in a deep cellar and hoping it would somehow last through the summer, to wet reefs in windows, to swamp coolers, to freon, all utilizing the physics of evaporative cooling to make refrigerators and air conditioners first in houses then in trains and automobiles? The search is on, since the world is getting hotter and electricity is a commodity in too much demand. Heat pumps and air conditioners are power hungry, especially in the version that uses compressors according to the invention of Mr Carrier in 1902 which pretty much was the end of innovation with evaporative cooling towers and compressed coolants still being the dominant methods for cooling anything.

Air conditioner: Pretty much the same
for a 100 years (Photo: Philipsen)

The matter is not just an idle itch for innovation but a deciding factor in our energy and climate future since it represents one of those doom loops and at the same time seems ever more indispensable. As CityLab observes:

Office work in the US today is deeply intertwined with the all-American invention of artificially cooled air.Regardless of region or climate, the vast majority of indoor workplaces are built around air conditioning. As of 2020, about 90% of US homes have access to some kind of AC, too, but that still varies considerably by geography, and the share has shot up dramatically since the 1970s.

In 1980 the U.S. with 5% of the world’s population consumed more energy for air-conditioning than all other countries combined. (Time)

Cooling's vicious cycles

Cooling sets off several vicious cycles:

Cooling buildings, cars and trucks heats up the environment even further which can add several degrees in city streets
Cooling refrigerants have an exponential impact on greenhouse gas emissions due to their ubiquity and unavoidable failures
The hotter it gets, the more we need to cool, an obviously devilish feedback loop.

Already cooling consumes 19% of US residential electricity demand and 14% of the commercial demand (US Energy Administration). The International Energy Agency estimates that 10% of the total global energy demand goes to cooling.

Cooling more and more: Exponential demand

What advances can be expected?

Is a quantum leap in cooling in sight that avoids those vicious cycles? Every year that is hotter than the one before makes these questions more urgent. Advance in cooling technology has become a hot topic. For example in the Scientific American. So let's review what progress is likely:

One track of improvement is making the current systems even more efficient by decoupling dehumidification from cooling by using chemicals for dehumidification instead of overcooling air until it condensates. If such a decoupled system works it could eliminate compression of a refrigerant and just work with standard pressure evaporation cycles, much like a swamp cooler minus the added humidity. No such system is on the market yet.
Solar powered thermal AC addresses the source of the energy needed for cooling: Solar heat to power air conditioning system is another innovative approach. A solar system creates heat by focusing light onto a pipe carrying water or oil which then heats up.
Solar as shading device and local energy source
(Brooklyn affordable housing, photo Philipsen)

Normally, chillers create cool air either by using a building's boiler to make steam or, more commonly, by using electricity to power a compressor. The solar concentrator could replace a boiler's heat with solar energy and feed it to existing air conditioning systems. Obviously, such a cooling system would need a back-up if the sun isn't out during hot and humid days. Possibly ice could act as a cooling battery where sun is usually abundant and photovoltaic electricity could make the ice.
Also addressing the source of energy more than the cooling system itself is geothermal energy. Possibly the biggest promise comes from the use of geothermal heating and cooling. Geo-thermal systems use the stable temperature of soil or water to eliminate the extremes of heat or frost and thus making the differential between outside temps and indoor design temperatures much smaller. Geothermal still uses traditional heat pumps but at much higher efficiency. Since boring the necessary holes is usually cost prohibitive for individual homes, it makes the most sense as a neighborhood facility that pumps water at the ground temperature towards heat exchangers and provides and new type of district heating that is much more efficient than traditional steam powered district heating. If geo-thermal facilities are combined with utilizing waste heat from factories or trash incineration, it could be far more energy efficient than current split air systems. (These forms of district heating are called 4th generation district heating).
Other tweaks deal with the demand side for cooling. People tolerate about 5-7 degree F higher temperatures when the air is moving and not stagnant. This can be achieved with low energy fans. The refrigeration of goods also represents a large component of cooling demand. For example refrigerators that don't release heat into the surrounding space and therefore reduce the cooling need. This would require ducting them to the outside similar to a vented dryer. Refrigerators could also use cold outside air in the winter instead of cooling the heated room air, once again it would require a connecting vent. Commercial walk in fridges and freezers do this already but for residential use it hasn't been worthwhile.
Fifth generation energy management: On a larger scale mixed use buildings with simultaneous very different heating and cooling demands for different areas can exchange surplus heat and supply it to areas in need of heating, including hot water by utilizing a heating-cooling network.

Wall solar for shading and energy. Low income
housing LA. Photo Philipsen)

A whole category in itself is cooling of data processors and data centers. Awareness of the huge energy demand mostly for cooling these centers is rising. They are predicted to use 8% of the overall US electricity demand by 2030, about half of it for cooling. In 2022 global data centers combined used nearly as much energy as all of France. Demand is rising exponentially. Obviously it would make sense to either place those centers in cold places or combine them with direct photovoltaic. Microsoft got in the news for trying to power up a dormant nuclear plant in PA.
But there are other innovations such as immersion liquid cooling, which involves submerging IT equipment in non-conductive liquid to dissipate heat or direct chip cooling. I won't get into this here since it is less relevant for architects.

Another line of investigation would ask if quite as many goods need refrigeration and if refrigeration can be more targeted to the actual need of the product. Judging from how much in the shelves of grocery stores is cooled or frozen, it seems that along with easier refrigeration the demand for frozen or cooled food has exploded. At a minimum methods of cooling these goods more efficiently should be investigated fas well as the time and distance needed for transport. Fresh local food isn't just a health concern, but also an energy solution.

Green Energy and Climate Change

The green energy conversion wouldn't be all that hard were it not for the doom loops such as described for cooling. Converting dirty energy from fossils such as coal, oil and gas to clean (carbon emission free) electricity made from solar, wind, hydro, nuclear and geothermal, finding a clean substitute for every dirty kilowatt generated, saving energy, solving the transmission and stability problems that come the intermittency is hard enough.

A south facade like this will result in huge cooling
loads (Offices in DC, photo Philipsen)

Cooling is just one vicious cycle Another is devastating forest fires causes by climate change which not only emit more carbon than entire countries emit in an entire year but also reduce the carbon absorption capacity of forests. Melting glaciers that increase solar heat absorption and melting tundras releasing carbon that had been held in the frozen ground for millenia are others. In other words, much of the progress we make with technology and awareness won't show up at the global balance for the year because they are done by the ill effects we have already unleashed. Still, we have to act.

Even if a quantum leap for cooling technology is not in sight, at least not one that would be comparable to going from incandescent lighting to light emitting diodes, we have to do better with what we have, notably by wasting less. Especially for cooling waste is a huge factor. The wide open doors of fully air conditioned stores and bars along the boardwalks of America is just one example. Running cars in idle to keep the AC running while we shop for groceries is another. Cooling a whole house for one cool bedroom is waste, so is using ice on millions of cups of water in restaurants that often remain untouched or cooling offices and houses to anything lower than 75F.

The conventional approaches for reducing the demand for cooling still have vast potential. Not building cities in the desert on the larger scale and not placing outdoor vending machines in the sun on the small scale.

Trees can reduce the temps by 4-6 degrees F.
(sidewalk neighborhood in NW DC.
Photo Philipsen)

Designing buildings smartly with "passive" improvements such as added insulation, shading, green or reflective roofs, less glass on sides with high solar gains and building walls with additional thermal mass to name just a few well known but frequently ignored techniques. Target cooling to the spaces and times where and when it is needed by using multi-zone systems and non-centralized smart controls. Allow natural ventilation and keep the air moving to provide comfort at higher temperatures. Plant shade trees to avoid heat island effects. The list of traditional best practices to reduce heat or lessen the need for cooling is endless.

To break the cooling doom loop we have to change a lot of dear habits while researching and inventing new and innovative ways to get things to the temps we not only crave but increasingly need for survival.

Klaus Philipsen, FAIA

The article has been updated since initial publication

Chakrabarti's Joyous Architecture in the Time of Solitude - A Book Review

2024-08-08T17:37:00.005-04:00

Vishaan Chakrabarti, The Architecture of Urbanity: Designing for Nature, Culture, and Joy (September 24, 2024), Princeton Press.

Vishan Chakrabarti wrote this book in the time of the pandemic which he describes as "space and time ruptured". He diagnoses humanity as "uprooted" and attributes the "fractious condition" to climate change, the pandemic and the ever increasing divide between rural and urban. With this he hits a nerve. His remedy is connectedness and joy which he calls a basic human need.

Chakrabarti's latest book will be available in
bookstore in September 2024

The title of popular architect Vishaan Chakrabarti's new book points to one particular connection, the one between Architecture and Urbanity as a tool to address the treacherous human condition. On the face of it, the nexus seems obvious, cities are an agglomeration of buildings. "We believe architecture and urbanism are inextricably linked [...]buildings intensify cities and cities permeate buildings" he confirms.

However, the professional reality exists in two different spheres. In the early decades of the last century urban design and planning separated from architecture and increasingly the design of buildings became one specialty and the design of cities another. I considered this particular aspect of specialization a mistake and I tried to overcome it in my own practice, by naming it ArchPlan. In the same vein Vishaan Chakrabarti calls his practice PAU, Practice for Architecture & Urbanism. His new book sheds a lot more light on why separating architecture from urban design is a big problem and less light on how connecting these two professions could be a solution to many of the world's current problems.

Speaking to the world's problems has already made him a media darling with regular appearances on NPR, Architectural Digest, the Wall Street Journal and network TV. His credentials are stellar, he has a masters degree in architecture and urban design, was New York City's planning director under mayor Bloomberg, was partner at SHoP Architects and is successful with PAU. This year he spoke at the Aspen Ideas Festival and conducted a keynote interview at New Yorks Regional Plan Association's annual "assembly". Chakrabarti is not just known for talk and theory but also for his creative architecture, for example the Domino Sugar building adaptive reuse in Brooklyn, NY. A short video of a talk he gave under the book's title is succinct and promising. His book less so. It follows a pattern popularized by Rem Koolhaas (S, M, L, XL), with large graphics, typographically and linguistically provocative chapter titles and a somewhat random collection of illustrations and photos assembled from many sources.

PAU's Domino Sugar adaptive reuse, Brooklyn (ArchDaily)

But Chakrabarti doesn't stop with connecting buildings back to their surrounding places. In his book he rides a wave that ties the built environment not only to energy consumption, traffic and missing beauty but also to climate change, health, and happiness. The topic of happiness brought architects to their feet when another media star with Indian roots, Sanjay Gupta, gave a keynote talk at this year's AIA conference. Happiness, indeed has firmly entered the roam of architecture which let me to ask "Can architecture make happy?" on this blog last year.

But even that range of topics is not enough for Chakrabarti. In this book he goes even further and swings for the fences by tying just about everything to architecture.

"I am unabashed about weaving together seemingly disparate topics such as architecture, global warming, social and racial division, human happiness, the geography of rising fascism, neoliberal economics, the history and culture of urbanism and the land use battles taking place across cities".

Casting the net that far certainly carries danger. Not that one can't make many of these connections with some plausibility, but it becomes a challenge to distill any meaningful conclusions or instructions for action. Chakrabarti is not intimidated and forges forward by admitting that most of the built environment is "soul crushing" and then coins the term of connective design as a remedy that he describes "as an intentional effort" of "forging deeper physical bonds across society" in the face of "the fractious human condition we must together reknit". Chakrabarti calls "space and time ruptured" and observes that we "quest more than ever about the nature of our existence", asserting that science has no answer.

The human left adrift in the sea of existence has been the essence of philosophy for a long time, especially in the face of modernity. Famously Nietzsche's madmen exclaims that we humans killed God and then bemoans:

Who gave us the sponge to wipe away the entire horizon? What did we do when we unchained the earth from its sun? Whither is it moving now? Whither are we moving now? Away from all suns? Are we not perpetually falling? (Nietzsche, The Gay Science)

Positioning architecture as a bulwark against the onslaught of a hostile world has deep roots in religion and philosophy. In the old testament there was Abel's town Enoch in the land of Nod, Babel and in the New Testament the promise of a New Jerusalem as a city of redemption. Immanuel Kant wrote that "Human reason is by nature architectonic" and elaborated extensively about aesthetics in the context of art and architecture. The philosopher Heidegger famously ruminated about the house as a refuge in an article titled "What it means to dwell". This connection between architecture and the most basic human condition is wonderfully described by Yale architect and theorist Kyle Dugdale in his article "Architecture after the death of God" and his essay "They too were silent" in which he flirted with the notion of the architect as "second god" that can help to ground the adrift humanity again.

Alas, Chakrabarti, doesn't go there to what he would call the "dominant cultures". He pursues a more progressive but not necessarily more pragmatic path. He is most engaged with current day politics. Though that lens he serves up a tour de force of urban history identifying a number of culprits along the way, ranging from imperialism, colonialism, capitalism and modernism to building codes. In a small nod to philosophy he ends his chapter on history with a reference to Walter Benjamin and "history as an angel blown backwards into the future". But while Benjamin saw history as a cycle of despair, Chakrabarti is mining the pre-automobile city for positive aspects.

Even though he came to the US as a two year old, he establishes his Indian heritage as the viewing point of his observations. Indeed, the non "dominant culture" perspective is urgently needed in the architectural community. Chakrabarti offers many unexpected angles. In a daring analogy he explains city and suburb as colonizers separating themselves from the colonized. In a passage in which he defines "urban" he quickly expands to the anti-urban sentiments of current populists who talk about "urban elites" and list the "urban carnage" quote as evidence. This puts this book, which will be available in September, right into the context of the upcoming elections.

His definition of urban is "a community inhabited by people of different cultures who spatially interact". This is more timeless than the current US political rifts and clearly informed by his diversity viewpoint. In this he mentions the Ekistiks concept of the modern Greek city planner C.A. Doxiades who studied and described the level of connections of people in cities.

Chakrabarti allows that all functional improvements wouldn't matter if humanity would find the built environment "experientially repugnant" and rallies "architecture and its allied fields" around his credo that "great design centers on lived experience". He concedes that neither cities nor suburbs typically perform well under that metric and illustrates it with a series of photos under the rubrum "is that all there is"[to the city]?

For his panacea, the "connected design" Chakrabarti doesn't find a solution in technology which "has never neutrally promoted cultural exchange and must be held accountable to larger humanist goals." He lists a full page manifesto of eight necessary action words. Neither "starchitecture, retrograde historicism or tabula rasa urban renewal nor New Urbanism" are the way to go. Chakrabarti seems to have an exe to grind with many of his peers. There is a full blown rant against architects who live off "gentrifying luxury condominium developments, budget busting public monuments" or "shrug when indentured servants die on building sites, who sexually harass or don't pay employees, blithely work for dictators and recklessly fiddle while Rome burns" he evokes the adage "of the architect as the second oldest profession in the world". It is abundantly clear what Chakrabarti doesn't want, not the "architecture of the star and the the city of the car", nor does he like "the anti-growth liberal" ("Exclusionary regulations are the hammer and sickle of the anti-housings liberals"). Less colorful remains the path forward which the author illustrates with examples, including his own projects. At one point he returns to joy in under-title of his book when he distills the triad of "jobs justice and joy" as a promise of architecture for the near term and "planetary justice for the far term", the latter will come about if and when we respect "the kaleidoscope of humanity".

The pragmatist in the author addresses matters such as adaptive reuse, road diets and above all sprawl. The latter again sparks the interest of this reviewer who as a European immigrant is used to better stewardship of the land. Sprawl, indeed, is a major force of environmental degradation. Chakrabarti repeats several times that neither the city, nor the rural village deplete the available resources and pollute the atmosphere as much as the low density, sprawling and auto-dependent suburb that the US invented and subsequently exported all over the world.

Example of a chapter title

Overall the book is exhausting for its many strands, battlefields and excursions.True to his promise in the introduction, Chakrabarti jets around the world, across history and across disciplines to explain why the world is as it is, especially the world of the US. From sprawl to the housing crisis to the urban rural divide and failing infrastructure ("Public infrastructure is the connective tissue of urbanity") to less physical things such as widespread anti-government sentiment, the problems with social media, Covid, neoliberal economics, the electoral college and the fossil fuel industry, no topic seems to be spared the wrath of the writer. No doubt, this breath is influenced by the wide range of the authors experiences as an immigrant, as a public employee, as teacher, as an art historian and understanding of engineering, and lately his own projects that range from adapting industrial buildings (Domino Sugar), redesigning Penn Station to advising Manhattan about road diets.

Chakrabarti believes in the power of the example and advocacy in fixing the world. "One must understand what successes design professionals had in the past but also the luminaires who are blazing a path toward an architecture of urbanity" he writes. "If you are a decision maker, support these kinds of practitioners and projects while remaining wary of the many architects who claim to care about social impact but who portfolios reveal otherwise." A curious and idealistic appeal to the powers to choose a proper path. This makes his graphics recipes for mayors and decision makers who will, nevertheless, continue to struggle with the distinction the author wants them to make.

"Great talent is a precious commodity" he says and turns his gaze back to architectural "practice" which claims to be different from that of other professions. Chakrabarti returns to the grievances he has with the profession and its exclusionary approach that leads to so few women and African Americans being licensed architects. Far from solving the world's problems he now sees "architecture practice as currently conceived, particularly in the United States, .. hurtling towards disastrous irrelevance" only to assert a little later"that practicing architects and urbanists can be indispensable partners in the fight against global warming and social segregation, and can gain societal relevance in doing so. But only, he writes, "if we use our disciplinary expertise to help envision and, yes, build a different, connective urbane world- again, because our collective future depends on it."

The reader wishes the author would offer a bit more than hope. How would architectural education have to change to overcome the disciplinary silos between architects, planners, landscape architects and structural engineers that he correctly determines persist even in the face of campus collocation? How would the architectural practice, and even more the planning of cities have to be organized to become less dependent on developer's profit motive, less "co-opted by the neoliberal agenda"? How to pursue, instead, the connected design he promotes? He suggests to "embrace the world's messiness", points to architects who create "racially progressive work" and offers a full page display of a "kind of Hippocratic Oath for the design community" in which he juxtaposes what looks like false alternatives.

Once again he resorts to appeals: "With democracy and our planet in peril", he states, "it is our minimal duty as urban architects to advance the physical agora because we believe that collective life is the last and best hope for humanity".

Maybe seeing the weakness of the appeals the author frequently turns to full page graphics and photos. On page 118 he abandons words for a long stretch and devotes many pages to examples, first an assortment of good architecture all around the world, followed by specific examples of housing and infrastructure, especially in the global south, and then his own work ("The TAU of PAU"). The latter he describes as "our attempts at building an infrastructure of opportunity through connective design" and "buildings that reinforce, extend, and celebrate urban streets and public spaces." He sees as the connective tissue the "utopian pragmatist ethos" that eschews " the tired fights between the epistemological, centered on the intellectual theories of knowledge, and the ontological, centered on the nature of existence, with the understanding that any attempt at connective design must oscillate between and beyond both," a position he calls a "meta-modern, rearguard perspective".

Exuberant illustrations: "Cheery defiance"

More telling than this high flying terminology are the examples of PAU's advocacy around Penn Station in NYC and his techniques of innovative collaborations, for example with the New York Times. His collaborations with German engineers Happold and Schlaich resonate with this reviewer and his practice many years back in Stuttgart, Germany. Chacrabarti's Domino Sugar conversion hits home with any Baltimorean, where a Domino plant is still an active plant and landmark. When writing about this own projects, Chakrabarti is outright optimistic: "The world is finally moving away from the object-based architecture of the late twentieth century and toward practices and processes that fully engage the communities, climates, and constraints in which an architecture of urbanity is by definition situated." He adds, "we view every project as a community center, and increasingly this is what our clients want, too." Following this exuberance he includes a joyous set of 20 colorful, full-page graphics which his publisher says are drawn by a designer at Pentagram and inspired by plans created by PAU and Chacrabarti's words are to "inspire cheery defiance".

"We have taken a journey together" the author exclaims in the last chapter of the book cutely titled "The Garden of Urban" and returns to the original question how 10 billion people could live in harmony with our planet. He again identifies suburban sprawl as a key culprit and wonders himself "what the small glimmers of sun" he has spread out across his book could "possibly mean for our vast "tempest tossed planet". So he adds larger glimmers in the form of examples of large-scale urban development such as bus rapid transit in Bogota, social housing in Vienna, and London's congestion charging. Still, he wonders if even those seeds of hope can create "shared prosperity". As before he returns to idealistic imperatives: "An architecture of urbanity forged by connective design must channel and be a platform for interaction and desegregation", he exclaims and uses once more the power of the word for persuasion: "Strangers from differing walks of life becoming cognizant of one another in physical space is much like the pulsing of blood cells through the body; it is paramount to what gives our society color and cadence", juxtaposing this dream with the "the polluted, unequal, segregated, gentrified, infrastructure-impoverished heat islands we called cities prior to 2020".

He proposes "technology and nature inseparable and co-dependant", a "but-and dialectic" in which "the machine is the garden and the garden is the machine." But he dismisses that this could be a big global vision because it would be too much in line with the maligned "PRarchitecture".

Chakrabarti explaining the work of PAU (Image by PAU)

Still searching he tends to movies, novels and poems "to free us from the constraining exigencies of architecture and urbanism" and mentions Wakanda Forever in a combination of "Afrofuturism and Zahaphilia". But he withdraws from that as well. "Let’s maintain this spirit of utopian pragmatism but leave Wakanda, returning our focus to the troubled world we actually inhabit" he demands and describes the challenge of building 2.4 trillion square feet of new space to accommodate the global population.

In the spirit of "connective design" he sees social mobility as our best hope to break the vicious cycle of unsustainable growth along with "new housing that is both carbon neutral and socially positive". This new housing should not happen in "electrified transit-oriented towers" but the "Goldilocks zone" of 3-story urban homes allowing densities of up to 50 units per acre. At three stories roof solar can provide the energy needed for the building, he calculates. Chakrabarti tested out this urban model on the needed New York housing together with the New York Times and found it plausible as an "archaeological approach to the future". The 5 story models of Parisien apartment buildings won't work anymore, he contends, due to the International Building Code.

As much as the benefits of the rowhouse resonate with me (I wrote about it in The Anatomy of the Baltimore Rowhouse), it is hard to accept this as the last solution he offers to address the 2.4 trillion square foot challenge, even if he means to address only housing and remains mum about the other buildings needed.

In the past the lectures and books of even the most prolific professors were limited by the range of their travel, by their slide collection and the libraries they had access to. This produced the narratives of the dominant culture but also forced some simplicity on even encyclopedic minds. Chakrabarti's all encompassing elaborations, though, are no longer tethered to those limitations. He has the entire internet. an=nd freely uses illustrations from Wikimedia, Flickr, Alamo stock photos and the like.

As the architectural theorist Mario Carlo observes in a treatise about Big Data, "when an infinite of facts are equally available for anyone's perusal, search and retrieval, we may no longer need theories, stories, histories, narratives to condense or distill data and to present them in a linear, clean, and memorable array."

Yet, Chakrabarti reminds us via Yuval Noah Hariri that it is the art of narrative what distinguishes us as a species. His narrative of "architecture of urbanity", though, remains disjointed and the rowhouse as the answer to how 10 billion can live sustainably leaves the reader unsatisfied. Nevertheless, there is hardly anything the author says this reviewer would disagree with. Chakrabarti asks the right questions and provides and vast array of fragments that could be woven together to become answers, not by one person, not by one profession and not in one moment of time. This must suffice for now.

Klaus Philipsen, FAIA

Community Architect

The Architecture of Belonging - Why Cities Need it More Than Ever

The Loneliness Crisis and the Decline of Third Places

But Cities Are Not Automatically Better

When Third Places Become Instruments of Division

Public Markets and the Reinvention of Civic Space

Urban Renewal and the Destruction of Urban Life

The Most Recent Challenges

The Enduring Strength of Traditional Public Space

New Forms of Third Places

Art as a Third Place

Lessons to Be Learned

Clean Streets, Empty Blocks: Converting the CBD to a CSD?

Apocalypse or Paradise - Where Are We Heading?

A Review of Bruno Carvalho"s Book "The Invention of the Future - A History of Cities"

Architecture, Philosophy and AI

How Cities Stay Young

Architecture - Nature and Culture in Sri Lanka

Ruwanweli Maha Seya Stupa

Back to the Office—or Forward to Something Else?

Too Loud to Live Well? Noise in Architecture and City Planning

Beyond the Fences: the Hidden Costs of Privatized Nature and the Benefits of Access

Leon Krier 1946-2025 - Not a Eulogy

The Just City

Architecture between money making and equity (2018)

How to avoid displacement in revitalizing neighborhoods (2018)

High Stakes: Can Single-Exit Buildings Tackle the Housing Shortage?

Why 2,400 people die in house fires every year (2017)Lessons from the London Fire (2017)

How Codes Influence Architecture: The Case of Stairs (2014)

Foreign in the US: Placemaking in Puerto Rico's Ciudades Viejas

Cities without transit?

Wird KI Architekten ersetzen und für digitale Unsterblichkeit sorgen?

Will AI Replace Architects and Provide Digital Immortality?

How Design Professionals Can Find the North Star in the Fog of Upheaval

Beyond the Mall: Creating Authentic Town-Centers and Transit Hubs

Towards a New American Downtown (2024)

The Transit and Development Tango - The Next Level (2014)

Towards a New American Downtown

Is Enlightenment Passé? How Knowledge Can Survive Fear, Irrationality and Rumor

Impressions of Hong Kong

Does Smart Technology Make Us Less Resilient?

Fighting the Air Conditioning Doom Loop with Innovation & Common Sense

Chakrabarti's Joyous Architecture in the Time of Solitude - A Book Review

Why 2,400 people die in house fires every year (2017)

Lessons from the London Fire (2017)