reCities

Against High-Rises

2018-11-19T20:27:00.000+01:00

Nowhere in the modern city is the absence of beauty more poignant than with high-rise buildings. What started as an exciting symbol of technological progress very quickly deteriorated into a generic mass of glass and steel symbolic of globalization and the triumph of modernism. Visible for miles in all directions, they are inescapable. High-rises are a relatively recent invention, and yet many people would have a hard time imagining a city without tall buildings (sometimes also called towers or skyscrapers). Indeed, in many parts of the world it’s difficult to find even a medium sized city without at least several of them (in the US, Canada, and Asia, for example). This is all very unfortunate. Europe is perhaps the only region where high-rises do not dominate most city centers, though developers and misguided density advocates are eager to change this. High-rises, especially modern high-rises, are almost universally terrible, and some of the faults are irredeemable, as I will argue in the points below.

You will never be Manhattan (and shouldn't try to be)
An obsession with New York City, or more specifically Manhattan, is understandable. It’s a very unique city, unlike any other in the world, so it’s not entirely surprising that many cities would like to copy some of its magic. Consequently, you see a lot of articles touting Manhattanization: the Manhattanization of Toronto, the Manhattanization of Seattle, the Manhattanization of London, and on and on. Ignoring how bizarre it is that cities want to lose their own identity and replace it with another, the crux is that you can’t become Manhattan by building generic 21st century glass boxes. The whole character of Manhattan, the buildings that make it special and define its streets, were almost all built before WWII. Pre-war Manhattan, “Gotham” if you will, comprised of industrial mid-rise loft buildings, elegant townhouses, and limestone-clad office and apartment buildings, is the Manhattan everyone falls in love with. That’s the side of the city that draws millions of visitors every year, not the generic modern skyscrapers which look exactly the same as plenty of other modern skyscrapers throughout the world. Manhattan is Manhattan despite all the modern glass towers, not because of them. The frustrating part is that it’s not even that difficult to make a good high-rise. The best skyscrapers of New York’s past, such as the Chrysler, Empire State, Flatiron, and Woolworth Buildings, are deceptively simple in form, relying instead on real windows, natural materials, and impressive cornices rather than the odd forms or blank walls often employed in modern high-rises.

Even New York risks losing a lot of its own appeal if they continue allowing the demolition of historical buildings to make way for generic condo and hotel towers. Bottom line: cities need to stop trying to be Manhattan, because it will never happen with generic architecture. Instead, they should embrace and amplify the aspects which already make their cities unique. For most cities that means preserving and restoring old buildings, and vastly higher design standards for new buildings with a lot less glass and more local, natural materials.

Do we really need towers?
It’s common to see the argument that high-rises are necessary in big cities because of the lack of space. This argument is valid for islands like Manhattan and city-states like Hong Kong or Singapore, but it absolutely does not fly anywhere else in North America, where cities are surrounded by surface parking lots and ultra low density strip malls. Even San Francisco has its fair share of parking lots in close proximity to the downtown. If you have surface parking lots anywhere near your downtown, you do not need to build high-rises.

I believe the whole purpose of urbanism, indeed of a city, is to spread the life-filled, walkable parts over a larger area, not just concentrate it in a small core of individual towers surrounded by a sea of car dependent suburbs. A good example is Toronto, which has a surprising amount of large surface parking lots just a few blocks outside of the downtown core, and yet there are dozens of new condo towers under construction, to the delight of developers. These parking lots are dead zones, making it more difficult to make a coherent high quality urban fabric, a condition further worsened when the city allows high-rises to be built, rather than first spread development onto land which is currently parking lots, one-story buildings, or random brownfield land. Yet you still have architectural pundits in Toronto advocating for upzoning streets of single family homes so that developers can build overlooking towers next door to their homes, as is the case in Yonge-Eglinton. We forget that for most people a home is not just a property, and there are very real emotional connections attached to it. It’s little wonder you get NIMBY movements in such situations. I wouldn’t want a 30+ story tower built next to me either.

If, however, density was introduced incrementally (as had always been the case throughout history), it wouldn’t feel like such an assault on existing residents. For example, by building British style terraced housing on the the existing parking lots, maxing out at 6 stories, with beautiful architecture to match. Imagine, a process whereby a North American city is slowly beautified instead of continually made more ugly by new and bigger towers! These parking lots, in prime locations, represent a once in a generation opportunity to build beautiful new mid-rise neighborhoods so that Torontonians can finally stop saying "Toronto is ugly," as I have heard many times. Surely that should be the aim of the city's leaders?

Large surface parking lots in downtown Toronto. They are a blight on the urban fabric, but are an excellent opportunity to develop beautiful new mid-rise neighborhoods rather than relying on generic glass condo towers.

The same complaint can be leveled against Indianapolis, near where I grew up. The downtown has its fair share of towers, too, yet it’s surrounded by parking lots, blighted properties, and even completely empty plots of land less than a half mile from Monument Circle, the center of the downtown. By foregoing the towers, the urban fabric of downtown Indy could spread over a larger area, replacing the dead zones with vitality, making it a more pleasant place for everyone, including neighboring communities. Really it boggles the mind, to build towers in the name of density, only to then have parking lots next door which take up more land than the towers themselves! All the more painful to think that many beautiful historical buildings have been sacrificed on the altar of this madness. A twisted sense of corporate ego (with a dash of minimum parking requirements) is the only viable explanation.

Surface parking lots take up entire blocks in downtown Indianapolis, including across the street from the 1888 State Capitol building. In fact, outside of the 8-block downtown core, parking seems to take up more space than actual buildings. This is a serious dereliction of priorities.

This might be a good time to discuss centralization. The US used to be a lot more decentralized economically, with cities throughout the country, like Cleveland and Buffalo, benefiting from the country’s economic growth. Today, many medium sized cities are suffering, while New York, San Francisco, and Seattle are booming, resulting in insane housing costs. You see the same thing in the UK, where London is disproportionately important to the country, with little happening outside of its influence, resulting in large disparities in housing costs between London and other cities. In Germany, however, you don’t see quite such an extreme, with Berlin, Munich, Hamburg, Köln, Frankfurt, Stuttgart, and dozens of other cities all sharing economic duties in a country with a far smaller population than the US. None of them dominates the economy, partially because the German economy relies on manufacturing rather than financial manipulation. What you find as a result are housing costs much more reasonable and in line with salaries, and you don’t see such huge cost differences between these larger cities and medium sized cities. Therefore many cities benefit from the country’s success, not just a select few. Consequently, high-rises are a rarity in German cities. The strategy of spreading the load doesn’t overwhelm any one city, so they don’t need high-rises to help relieve pressure. The same strategy is seen on the local level. German cities have excellent public transit systems, allowing businesses to be spread throughout the city, not just in a central core, resulting in a large yet gentle, walkable urban fabric, where people eagerly enjoy spending time in. Compare this to the decentralized, suburban model of most North American cities, where almost no one can walk or take public transport to work, but must instead commute great distances to work, for shopping, to school, etc. and where a lot of land is wasted on parking lots or nothing at all. It’s a blah model that results in blah cities that nobody loves.

Setbacks and light
Setbacks have historically been used in buildings to reduce a building’s load, thereby enabling taller structures, with the added benefit that a tower which gets thinner towards the top is more interesting aesthetically. Not long after skyscrapers started to rise (in height and popularity), there was an understandable concern that they would block the sunlight of neighboring streets and buildings. Some cities, like New York, mandated stepped setbacks as a result, the effect of which can easily be seen with buildings like the Empire State Building and the Chrysler Building. In 1961, these setback requirements were eliminated. Consequently, newer skyscrapers in New York and other cities are designed to maximize floor space, at the expense of daylight reaching the street below. More often than not they’re generic bland boxes, and terminate at the top abruptly without anything resembling a roof.

The reason setback requirements were eliminated is easy enough to understand (pressure from developers), but what I can’t understand is why I’ve often seen the argument that blocking the sun isn’t an issue. Do we need the sun less now than we did 100 years ago? My own experience in New York and other cities suggests otherwise. North/south running streets are usually fine, but east/west running streets surrounded by tall buildings are dark and little used, feeling more like big alleys than dignified city streets. It must be even more unpleasant to have a north facing apartment on a street like this, dark at every hour of the day.

Vancouver is often held up as a model city for how to do density, and they get many things right, but the obsession with towers is unfortunate, something made abundantly clear when I recently watched a driving tour of downtown Vancouver. It was a sunny day, but rather than be bathed in light, many of the streets were dark and hidden in shadows from the towers, not helped by the fact that the city's new buildings are not particularly attractive architecturally. You can see the video here.

The shadows cast by tall buildings are a particular problem in winter and early spring, when the sun is low. In places where towers abut a park, the south side of the park often never sees sunlight, like the southern edge of Central Park in New York. In winter, this no-sunlight zone can reach far into the park. In early spring, sunny spots can already be quite warm and pleasant, whereas shady areas are still bitterly cold. This can mean the difference between a park used by residents, and one avoided by residents. To see the effect of shadows in New York, The New York Times created an excellent shadow map. During the winter, most east-west streets are in shadow 100% of the day, as are many north-south streets in areas with a lot of high-rises. This is particularly a problem in colder cities like Toronto and Ottawa, especially during an unusually cold winter like this year. Even on sunny days it's difficult to find refuge from the cold on the sunny side of a street, when there is no sunny side as a result of shadows from high-rises.

The New York Time's shadow map of New York. Dark blue represents areas which never see the sun during the winter.

The lack of sunlight reaching the street below is a real problem in high-rise cities, not something to simply cast aside as irrelevant. It’s less a problem for the often wealthier residents of the towers themselves who live on the upper levels, but it is a problem for those who live on the lower levels, and those who live close to the high-rises. High-rises are inherently selfish dwellings, rewarding inhabitants with great views… at the expense of those in the streets below.

I dislike the term “access to daylight” that is often used in planning and development circles, as if it was some sort of optional luxury. Before high-rises came along, daylight was just always there, right outside your window! It wasn’t a privilege, or something that needed to be protected. The importance of natural daylight to our mental health is well documented, and just common sense. Reinstating height limits and setback requirements would be a good first step to making high-rise cities more pleasant places to spend time in.

No escape
Unlike other buildings, if a tower is ugly, you’re forced to see it for miles around. You can’t just walk past it or turn a corner to escape it. It’s visible throughout the city and far into the countryside. This makes the low quality of design of most tall buildings all the more despairing, and the need for improved design standards all the more important.

Buildings kill billions of birds
Every year, billions (yes, billions!) of birds are killed when they fly into buildings (by some estimates, 750 million in the US alone). At night, all-glass buildings are difficult to see with their disorientating reflections, and birds just don’t expect them because they’re not programmed into their instinctive flight patterns. The problem is particularly stark because many cities are built next to bodies of water along many species’ migratory paths. To anyone with empathy, this fact alone should be a black mark against high-rises, and an immediate moratorium should be imposed on all high-rise approvals until an effective solution is developed (if such a solution is even possible). Until such time, as a society we are essentially saying that our fetish for tall buildings takes precedence over the lives of scores of other living beings.

High-rises are not environmentally friendly
Contrary to what some believe, high-rises are not energy efficient. They are built in the same manner the world over, with no accommodations made for the local climate. Whether London, Dubai, or Bangkok, the same glass curtain walls are used. The large expanses of glass let in a lot of heat in the summer, and cold in the winter, requiring powerful air conditioners and heaters to regulate the temperature. Furthermore, almost all skyscrapers have inoperable windows (for safety reasons), completely isolating inhabitants from the natural environment. Instead, they rely on power-hungry mechanical ventilation.

Another rarely discussed issue is the tremendous material requirements of towers, exponentially more per square foot of floor space than low-rise and mid-rise buildings. They require very robust foundations made from huge amounts of concrete, often with dozens of large piles going deep underground. The most egregious use of materials, however, is a result of the concrete core. You see, towers are not actually that efficient space-wise. A very large portion of the floor plate is not usable, as it’s occupied by a concrete core which contains dozens of elevators, emergency stairwells, services, ducts, etc. In skyscrapers which taper towards the top, the core can even take up more space than the habitable rooms. Tall buildings also require powerful pumps to deliver water to the upper levels.

Most skyscrapers, such as 1 WTC shown here, have less usable floor space than that occupied by the concrete core.

In stark contrast, traditional mid-rise buildings require none of that, just your usual stairs and a few elevators, and systems and services which differ little from standard domestic standards. They can be built from a variety of materials, even wood, since they don’t have to support such extreme loads. They are also infinitely more adaptable, and can easily be converted between residential or commercial use, depending on cultural or economic swings.

What’s the alternative?
The answer can be found in the same place as most answers to present-day urban design dilemmas: in the past. That was a time before our age of arrogance and ignorance, when architects and designers built upon the lessons of their ancestors, a learning cycle spanning thousands of years. That answer is to eliminate minimum parking requirements (as some cities are finally doing) and build mid-rise buildings, historically maxing out at around 8 stories, which is plenty for a dense yet still livable city. Such maximum heights are seen throughout Europe and in American buildings from the 19th century, a height mandated not so much by construction technology, but by the presumed limit someone would want to climb the stairs, this being before the invention of the elevator. Acclaimed urbanist Jan Gehl recommends an even more constrained limit of 5 stories, as he says this is a height from which it is still possible to participate with the life of the street and recognize a human face. The higher you go, the more isolated you are from the city. A tower is a world unto itself, a vertical gated community separate from the street below. This is a psychophysiological limitation, not something that can be fixed by throwing more technology at the "problem". To be part of your street, you have to live in it, not up several dozen meters above it.

It needs to be stressed that most North American and European cities really don’t need towers. It's certainly not due to density, as the densest neighborhoods in Europe are in Paris and Barcelona, in exclusively mid-rise areas. These are areas where it's possible, even desirable, to live a walkable life without ever needing a car or even public transport for most daily tasks. Cities like London and Oslo show that a walkable city is possible with significantly lower levels of density, and it doesn't require any sacrifices. Low-rise American cities in the 19th century were walkable, too, long before cars or high-rises arrived. It's a complete myth that you need high-rises to support walkable densities, and for many people such as myself, the overbearing nature and lack of sun caused by high-rises makes walking less enjoyable.

In many ways, skyscrapers represent our increasingly artificial world, a physical manifestation of societal and corporate detachment and inequality. Like distant watchtowers of a foreign enemy, they make a mockery of the world below, oblivious of their damage. They are symbols of the abuse of technological progress and environmental recklessness, and party to a system of urban development where land is disposable, nothing more than a resource to be exploited, and beauty not even a consideration.

Which is why the answer is the same as it has always been, and as it always will be: build human-scaled cities full of beautiful buildings that delight the senses in all seasons of the year and that work with the local climate. Build in such a way as to enhance the urban fabric, not sabotage it, and build buildings that people will love and that will last, because that's the only way for true sustainability. Build not for investors, but for the people who will live and work and pass by the building every day. It's really not difficult.

Sources:

http://www.mdpi.com/2075-5309/8/1/7

https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/stop-blaming-cats...

https://www.smartcitiesdive.com/ex/sustainablecitiescollective/7-reasons-why-high-rises-kill-livability/561536/

Beauty, Love, and Architecture

2018-08-08T21:37:00.000+02:00

Beauty is a common topic on this blog. It is in fact the very purpose of this blog. It’s a word that should evoke only the most positive emotions, and yet this is rarely the case today. Just as often one feels sadness, because beauty is becoming increasingly rare in our society. It’s bittersweet. It should be one of the main aims of humanity to preserve and create beauty, but every year we create more and more ugliness. A beautiful new building is one in a million, and not a single beautiful new city has been built anywhere in the world since before World War II. For everyone, this should be a source of great sorrow, but also a call to arms.

At a time when many words don't mean what they used to mean, I think it's important to be precise about what "beauty" is and isn't. Beauty is never selfish or garish, and doesn't shout for attention. It is humble. Beauty, like love, can only ever be a force for good. Beauty is respect, peace, and harmony. It goes beyond mere worldly existence. It's a transcendent force which makes life worth living. Beauty transports us to a better place and helps us believe that we are part of a greater whole.

Beauty as a word has been hijacked, however, used to describe everything and anything. Beautiful this and beautiful that. I can’t count the number of times I’ve seen a piece of concrete described as “beautiful”. Therefore, perhaps it would be good to substitute a word popular in the 19th century when thinking of beauty: picturesque. It was often used to describe a beautiful streetscape, for example. It's not a popular word today, but it's more visually descriptive about what we are trying to get at. It evokes what beauty really is: ancient country lanes, flowers in an English garden, stunning natural landscapes, and the majesty of an unspoiled coastline. That is true beauty.

Turner's painting of Tours, c. 1796, a Romantic era painting from a time when even a city was expected to be picturesque. Source: Tate Britain

I believe that beauty is a physical manifestation of love, the most powerful and highest of all emotions, just as beauty is the highest form of creation. The two are as equals. Like love, beauty is selfless, and when one is selfless, driven by love, negative tendencies fall aside. An architect who feels love for a place, for example, will not be thinking how a project is viewed by critics and other architects, how boldly it calls attention to itself, or whether it follows the latest fads. When love of place is the overriding driving force, beauty is a natural result. Fear of stepping out of line would be replaced by courage to uphold an architect's duty to create beauty. When love of place is the foremost motive, the individual building takes a back row seat to the composition of the streetscape. An architect then asks themselves not "which design will most benefit my career?" but rather "what is the most beautiful building I can design to enhance this street and this city?" Gone would be purposefully ugly buildings designed with the express intent of shocking just for the sake of shocking.

Beautiful buildings represent the best of what we as humans can create, hence the paramount importance of beauty-minded architects to our society. We can be grateful for those outliers who have not abandoned beauty, even at the cost of ridicule from the architectural establishment and the "beauty is in the eye of the beholder" crowd. This tiny minority of architects and their supporters, people who still have the ability to recognize beauty when they see it (who possess a sense of beauty as I like to call it), can give one hope that eventually the tide will turn.

Architecture has never existed in a bubble. It's always been a reflection of society's values and aspirations, so the current state of architecture comes as little surprise. It's no mystery why architecture as a profession has lost its status in society, when the very architects tasked with designing our buildings and cities not only do not create beauty, but instead create ugliness. So much so that even the word "beauty" is all but taboo in the building industry.

Unfortunately, we live in an increasingly cynical world where a selfless pursuit of beauty is absent not only in architecture but in almost all areas of culture. Today it is more important to call attention to oneself by any means possible than to uphold any kind of standards. The individual is prioritized over the whole, a consequence of our hyper-individualistic "look at me!" culture. Also evident, for example, in the way people dress and behave. Modesty and humility are out, and what we get instead is attention seeking, everyone vying for personal gain and fame. Crassness has replaced elegance, collective beauty replaced by collective ugliness. Technologies such as television, the internet, and smartphones have only accelerated this trend.

It is also evident that atheism is failing us. The growth of a secular, materialist culture parallels the rise of ugliness. Where once humans built beautiful buildings because to do otherwise would be an affront to God and his creation, we now have nothing that obligates society to... anything, let alone beauty. Love for God has been replaced with love for money, resulting in a culture which adores the wealthy, regardless of their character or the means they used to obtain it. We need a cultural transformation, one obsessed not with wealth, but rather love and beauty.

It would be easy to trivialize the importance of beauty, or treat it as secondary to a host of other issues facing humanity, but that would be ignoring the very essence of what makes us human. We are intensely visual beings. Our vision is our strongest sense, and overall is among the best of any species. We are formed by what we see. Whether we spend time in a beautiful or ugly environment has a significant psychological influence on our wellbeing. To suggest that beauty is a luxury, far less important than the basic needs of food and shelter, is to suggest that the mental wellbeing of the poor is secondary to the rich, who can afford to live and vacation in beautiful environments, something further amplified by the economic segregation that is the hallmark of suburbia.

Speaking for myself, I see ugliness as an attack against all living beings. I cannot emphasize enough how pessimistic and depressed I become when I witness an ugly environment full of concrete, asphalt, and steel. It has a profound impact on my state of mind. I'm not the only one, as more and more studies are showing a link between modern built environments and increased levels of stress and depression. We are shaped by where we live.

We can control a lot of things about our lives, such as a healthy diet and exercise, but the external built environment is very difficult to control. Even if you can build a beautiful home for yourself, any kind of travel will very quickly cast you into a land of concrete and asphalt (yes, even in Switzerland, where I live). Ugliness is almost impossible to escape from. It has ensnared all of modern civilization, but why should we be forced to witness it?

Zurich. Even Switzerland is not safe from the scourge of ugliness.

At a time when accusations of rights infringements are the name of the day, maybe we should have a discussion about a right to beauty, about the freedom to live our day to day lives without the stress of an ugly built environment. With countries like India and China urbanizing at a very rapid pace, there's no time to lose. The lives of hundreds of millions of people could be forever altered for the better if beauty was a cornerstone of all new development.

Even if life is tough, living in a beautiful town or city, or even on a beautiful street, can make the difference between a bearable and unbearable day. Being surrounded by Georgian and Victorian architecture in London, and plentiful parks, had a substantial effect on my overall wellbeing during the years I lived there. Seeing the kind of beauty created by past generations also helped uphold my faith in humanity and prevented pessimism and cynicism about the future from creeping in.

Long after today's crop of developers and investors are cold in the ground, their legacy will live on. Their money will no longer be of any use to them, but what they can leave behind is a world more beautiful than the one they entered, somewhere their children and descendants can be proud of, where they and all humanity can fulfill the journey of life in paradise. They hold the key to make this dream a reality. All it takes is love for their fellow men and women.

We must do better. We must be better stewards of our cities and our planet. For Plato, beauty was a universal quality, objective, an idea above all other ideas. Beauty was a central tenet of Ancient Greek culture, and more recently it figured strongly during the 18th century Romantic era. It is time to elevate beauty once again to its rightful place, to enter a new age of beauty.

Modernist ideology is not an excuse to ignore beauty. Developer profits are not an excuse to sideline beauty. It is time to end the cycle of exploitation and destruction of our planet. We're already witnessing a societal implosion as a result of growing resentment and bitterness. The need to prioritize beauty has never been more pressing than today. For the love of all mankind, it is time to once again build beauty.

The Absence of Restraint

2018-08-01T21:58:00.001+02:00

It has often been noted by architects and designers that great design is born out of constraints, and the more challenging the constraints, the greater the chance of a better design. We see a parallel in the natural world, where plants grown in challenging conditions produce more abundant flowers and tastier fruits. The extra stress forces designers to work harder and come up with more creative solutions. Think of the beauty of Tuscan hill towns or Fallingwater, buildings which could not have been anywhere else.

Today, technology has allowed us to sweep aside constraints. We no longer have to work with the environment. We can level the building site, use whatever materials we want, and ignore climatic challenges thanks to HVAC systems. Who cares if something as simple as louvers or awnings could drastically lower the AC load in the summer? Fossil fuel energy is cheap, and tenants pay the bill anyway. We choose the easy way and show no restraint.

Restraint has been a necessity throughout most of human history. Architects and builders have had to work with a limited pallet of natural materials, difficult terrain, and rely on their own muscles or simple machines to construct buildings. Yet the results were beautiful.

Today, the sky is the limit. We have access to advanced materials, powerful machines, and can level the earth however we please. We're also "free" of the constraints of traditional design. We can build whatever we want! Yet our buildings have never been uglier. Humanity could have taken advantage of the advances in technology to build more beautiful buildings than we ever have before, buildings more integrated with nature, and more humane than ever. Instead, we're putting up glass and steel monstrosities, paving our cities with concrete and asphalt, and defacing our cities and our planet.

We have let the worst tendencies of our imagination run wild, with catastrophic results. The natural goal of humans should be to create a paradise on Earth, but we seem to be bumbling towards a dystopia. Among many modern architects, where even discussion of beauty is taboo, and ugliness something of a fetish (just look at the obsession with brutalism), it's less bumbling, more conscious aiming.

Toronto's Yonge-Dundas Square. Image credit: Evan Goldenberg on flickr

If anything is a cautionary tale about the perils of a lack of restraints, our built environment is close to the top of the list, affecting the lives of nearly every person alive, especially in urban areas. Newly sprouting cities in Southeast Asia are the scariest examples of what happens when there is a development free-for-all, with old neighborhoods destroyed and social cohesion obliterated by shiny new districts. Devon Zuegel made some excellent posts about her travels through some of these cities (such as this one about Jakarta), highlighting what alien and dehumanizing landscapes they can be. Unfortunately, rather than seeing these cities as examples of what not to do, more and more cities are building large, out of scale and disharmonious developments (Toronto's Yonge-Dundas Square comes to mind).

As I've pointed out many times before, architecture is a product of its culture, and again we see parallels in our everyday lives, with restraint less and less evident every year. Where once civility in speech was the order of the day, curse words now feature prominently in everyday conversations. Whereas at one time the goal in dress was to show as little skin as possible, today it seems to be as much skin as possible without breaking the law. At one time, before mass manufacturing, the focus was on buying a few things of high quality, and so clothes were high quality, toys were solid, and everything meant to last a long time. Today we have fast food and fast fashion, phones we replace every two years, and gadgets we play with for 5 minutes before chucking them in the closet forever. Quantity has replaced quality.

So we come to buildings, where the same cultural transformation is evident. Many architects couldn't care less about a design integrating with its surroundings, and most developers only care how cheap a building they can get away with, at a time of record profits. Where once buildings were designed to stand for hundreds of years, today it's a miracle many buildings stand at all. Throwaway culture leaves no stone unturned.

As children we're taught to leave a place better than we found it. Lamentably, that lesson hasn't carried over to how we treat our planet and expand our built environment. In fact quite the opposite, as every year we do more and more damage to both, much of it irreparable in our lifetimes.

Was all this inevitable? No! Technological advances (with the help of the advent of advertising and consumer culture) tapped into our base instincts, and we showed no restraint to resist. We thought we were breaking free of the shackles of restraint, only to step into a new swamp of the opposite extreme. How do we get back on track? The environmental movement could be the answer.

Another hallmark of our time is materialism, so only rational arguments hold sway in public discourse. It may be difficult to convince a materialist of the importance of beauty for beauty's sake, but the importance of preserving the environment is a logical enough argument for most. Therefore, as individuals, we can support walkable towns and cities, where the car and all that goes with it (strip malls, surface parking lots, etc.) doesn't dominate our built environment. We can choose smaller, yet higher quality homes.

Architects must design human-scaled developments made from natural materials and built in harmony with the natural landscape and climate. The health and well-being of end-users must always take precedence over making grand gestures. Controlling that urge takes a lot of restraint, as would breaking free from modernist ideology and once again prioritizing beauty. As for developers, they are both the most responsible for what is being done to our cities, as well as the most able to save them. They must see their role as more than just manufacturers of "units", but rather of homes and communities. A city is not an oil well which can be sucked dry for the sake of profits, and then abandoned. It is home to real people and must be cultivated, like a garden, over the long term.

Just because we can do whatever we please, doesn't mean we should. The greater our powers become, and the lesser our constraints, the greater our restraint must be. Just as architects abandoned restraint over the course of many decades, it will easily take a generation or more to reverse the trend, assuming wider cultural changes. Buildings not designed to be beautiful are merely construction, not architecture. It will have to start among practicing architects before trickling down into education, but first architects will have to understand their role in spreading beauty. When beauty becomes the priority, everything else falls into place.

A difference of perspective

2017-12-13T17:17:00.000+01:00

Recently on Twitter, Steve Mouzon (@stevemouzon) asked his followers how many daily activities they could complete by walking. It's an innocent enough question, but being the internet in 2017, it yielded quite a few aggressive responses from suburbanites horrified of the prospect of giving up their cars.

Thing is, I think a lot of the animosity has to do with differences of perspective. My guess is that a lot of the commentators, when they think of a walkable, urban city, immediately envision Times Square rather than Park Slope or a traditional small town. It's not ignorance, it's just that most suburban Americans have so little experience with walkable neighborhoods that it's difficult even to imagine what it might look like or what it's like to live there. Sure there are fantastic examples of traditional urbanism in North America, but it's so rare that most Americans have never seen it (and even those that do rarely spend enough time or thought to empathize what living there might be like). Walkable urbanism is so far removed from the average American existence that it might as well be the moon.

I used to be one of those people, in a way. While I disliked the suburbs intensely, it was more because of the low quality architecture and hideous strip malls, and while I admired beautiful European cities on photos, I had no idea what it was actually like to be a resident. That all changed when I lived in London and finally got to experience how liberating it could be to live without being dependent on a car for everything. And that's a completely different perspective.

If we want to see more walkable communities being built, we need to show suburbanites that being without a car is not a nightmare, but rather extremely liberating. It requires some adjustments, obviously, but most of them are for the better, in my opinion.

Responding to some of the comments
Amidst the baseless accusations of smugness, F* you's, and other insults, it was clear that many commentators didn't seem to understand that this was a comparison between traditional urbanism and sprawl (where the vast majority of Americans live). It doesn't apply to farmers and others living in truly rural locations. Still, although it's true that in most of the US farmers live miles away from town, this hasn't been the model throughout most of human history. Farmers used to live in rural villages, with their land surrounding the villages. Being a farmer and living in a vibrant social community was therefore not mutually exclusive.

There are a couple of replies regarding how is one to do the weekly grocery trip without a car. In walkable communities, rather than a weekly shopping trip, you stop in at the corner grocery on your way back from work or when you're coming back from errands, buying only what you need for a day or two. It's easy when walking is part of your daily routine, and you get the benefit of always eating fresh food.

Another common argument I saw was along the lines of "no thanks, I don't want to be assaulted" or "I like my peace and quiet". It's certainly very regrettable that many inner city areas, especially in the US, have high levels of crime, but that's a whole different discussion and not related to the inherent values of urban living. Furthermore, there are plenty of residential urban neighborhoods throughout the US where crime is not commonplace. The latter comment is in a similar vein. Both these commentators have clearly never been somewhere like Park Slope, or the many neighborhoods in cities throughout Europe, which are often just as peaceful and quiet as the suburbs. I lived on a terraced street in North London for a few months which had almost no cars driving through, and as a result was more quiet than the suburban street I grew up on in Indiana.

Some people will always need a car occasionally (plenty of people in London have a car), but the point is that it's not needed every day. The car is there for the occasional larger shopping trip, or excursions out of town on weekends, but you're not tied to it for your daily commute and could easily go without it thanks to taxis, public transit, and car sharing.

To all those accusing pro-urbanists of trying to inflict our views on them, don't forget that since the 1960's almost all new development in North America has been car-centric, and in most cities it's very difficult if not impossible to live without a car. So if anything, those who would prefer to walk have for years been forced to live with a car, even if they don't want to!

Making urban living more appealing
If we turn the discussion towards how to better promote urban living for those who are skeptical, another very important missing factor in most debates is beauty. Quite the opposite, in fact, with city officials these days going out of their way to avoid discussing design and beauty, such as when former NYC Planning Director Amanda Burden said: "We never talk about design. We have never talked about design."

For centuries cities cared about architecture and promoted beauty with various regulations ranging from setbacks to the kind of brick used, but in the second half of the 20th century it became taboo. And we're to be surprised that cities look more and more ugly by the day, or that people then don't want to live in them? Urbanists and planners can talk for hours about the benefits of walkable communities (health, stronger local economies, stronger social connections, etc.) but if they're not appealing places to live, they'll never gain traction. Making more beautiful neighborhoods would also lower the barrier of entry. Right now beautiful historic neighborhoods are prohibitively expensive precisely because they're so rare, but if we built more beautiful new urban neighborhoods, there would likely be less people wanting to move to one of the few historic neighborhoods left and housing prices wouldn't be so extreme (supply and demand and all).

Only a very small fraction of the population (those without a sense of beauty) tolerate living somewhere full of sterile glass boxes. Unfortunately those are the sort of places being built around the world, and it really pains me. Lovable communities must be beautiful, period. Ignoring beauty is a losing game.

Government is detrimental to good development

2016-09-28T18:57:00.000+02:00

Software companies tend to release regular updates which add just a few features yet still cost an arm and a leg. With most software, though, there comes a time when the code becomes bloated and messy, to the point where iterative updates are no longer efficient and it's better to start from scratch. Government laws and regulations are much the same, and it's pretty plain to see that in most countries they've become so bloated that we're long past the due date for a reset.

How is this related to cities and architecture? When we consider the efforts of urbanists and planners to turn our cities around and reclaim them from the automobile's dominance, it's very relevant. A myriad of ballooning laws and regulations are making it all but impossible to build the fine-grained mixed-use city districts which are paramount for high quality urbanism and walkability. Regulations are making it more and more difficult for small developers who actually care to compete with large developers (you know, the guys who lobbied for added complexity in the system in the first place). It's quite ironic that the government is always talking about boosting the economy, but when it comes down to it, their involvement is, more than anything else, a hindrance.

To build anything now, you need an army of consultants to get though the permitting process. You need environmental reports, sustainability reports, traffic studies, etc etc. And has this resulted in higher quality cities? No! On the contrary, it's resulting in the further erosion of neighborhoods, the destruction of historical properties, and increasingly oversized new buildings.

The building process is becoming so complex and expensive that no small developer can afford it, which means more and more of all building is done by large developers, who in turn build grossly oversized buildings to recoup the expenses of the ridiculously over complex bureaucratic process. You see it throughout cities in North America: giant buildings encroaching on neighborhoods where they're entirely inappropriate, yet there's a complete lack of the kind of mid-rise buildings which would fit into and contribute to the existing context. Worse, the kind of historic neighborhoods most beloved by residents would be largely illegal to build today due to restrictive codes.

King Street, Charleston, around 1915. Beautiful and beloved, it would be all but impossible to build today, as it would not meet building codes. Among its illegal qualities are no setbacks, no parking, elements protruding over the sidewalk, apartments over shops, and the road itself is too narrow for fire departments' liking.

With so many regulations restricting what you can't build, everything ends up looking the same while also being far more expensive. Cookie-cutter developments have become the norm, severely limiting choice.

Whereas in the not too distant past our villages and towns grew organically, planned and built locally with knowledge that had been accumulated over thousands of years, today the most simple of tasks, even a new sidewalk, requires an expensive and extremely time-consuming process of permits, studies, and the involvement of dozens of consultants and government departments. The result is that the regular citizen is hardly involved, and the final product insanely expensive and vastly inferior in both logic and beauty to what laypeople once built.

In fact, the most beloved neighborhoods of the 19th century were largely built with very little government involvement. Not only very little government, but very little so-called experts in general. In the 19th century, you didn't have specialists separated into architects, planners, builders, surveyors, and dozens of consultants. How do I know? One of the greatest resources available to anyone interested in London development is the archive of the Survey of London. It's an invaluable asset, with detailed information about the history of major developments such as the Grosvenor Estate, Ladbroke Estate, Portman Estate, and a host of other developments (called estates because they used to be, and some still are, private land owned by the landed gentry). Besides a huge amount of text, there are plans and sketches of the developments, and drawings of the buildings.

What stands out reading the histories is that apart from needing permission to build sewers (likely because it was part of a larger system), developers were largely free to do as they pleased. Surveyors designed the street pattern along aesthetic desires, and architects and builders started work as soon as money was available. Often a surveyor was also an architect and/or a builder, or all three combined. None of them would be considered an "expert" by today's standards, as they rarely had formal training and the professions were not legally protected the way they are now. You were an architect because you designed buildings and called yourself one, not because you went through seven years of training and passed any sort of exam.

And yet, the neighborhoods these non-experts designed were beautiful, superior to anything built since. Their work is proof of the power of common sense and talent. In fact, I would argue that it is precisely because of a lack of formal training that these men were as good as they were. Unencumbered by ingrained methods, they could follow their intuition. There was no one to tell them what was right or wrong, no "best practices" or government bureaucrats demanding that this or that code be adhered to.

The simplicity of the process meant that anyone could be a developer, and in fact with the Ladbroke Estate (today known as Notting Hill), among the developers were carpenters, a doctor, a clergyman, and even a cheesemonger. The neighborhood they built is a marvel and the homes beautiful. Standing for over 160 years, they are now among the most expensive in the world.

Kensington Park Gardens, Notting Hill, around 1900. Again, much of what makes this street special is no longer legal.

Today, with laws dictating so much of what you can and can't build, suggesting that our housing development is "market-driven" is a complete sham. On the other hand, those 19th century developments we love so much were truly market driven. Developers built what they believed customers wanted, and everything was paid for by the developers, and in turn by customers. Unlike today, the streets, streetlights, sewers, and plumbing were not subsidized by the government. There were no tax abatements, no zoning telling them where they were allowed to build what, no minimum set back requirements, no parking requirements, and no standards of minimum or maximum units per acre. There was none of that. They simply built what they thought would sell, and the majority of the costs were covered by private investors, so neither were there banks demanding that the development conform to standard forms they could bundle into mortgage backed securities.

This just barely scratches the surface. The simple fact is this: if we want our future towns and cities to be as beautiful and walkable as in the past, we must design neighborhoods that don't prioritize the automobile, and the government needs to get out of the way. We need to start trusting ourselves a little more. We know intuitively what's good and what isn't. You don't need a PhD to know a great neighborhood when you see it, and armies of consultants, big money, and government are all a hindrance to creating beautiful, local places. Especially the government and local and national codes, and the Department of Transportation, who are all only too happy to tell you what you can't do (for a fee, of course).

I would highly recommend watching any of urbanist Andres Duany's speeches on lean urbanism for a dose of reality on these topics, what he calls "the hurdle of bureaucracy". Here's a good intro. Duany speaks with the kind of common sense sorely lacking these days, and he's also one of the greatest orators around. As one of the most prominent New Urbanist planners, he knows better than most the tremendous amount of effort required to get non-standard developments approved.

City building is a task for generalists, for a jack of all trades, someone unbiased who can weigh everyone's needs equally, not letting any one group or entranced interest dictate the process. Beautiful developments require the triumph of common sense, something in short supply nowadays. And though it may be controversial to admit, and difficult to see happen, bureaucracy must be swept aside. Of course that's not an easy thing to do as governments never voluntarily relinquish their powers, but we are long overdue for a reset if we truly care about improving our built environment.

A sense of the temporary

2016-09-18T02:57:00.000+02:00

There is a troubling, permanent sense of the temporary in London, something you can feel in neighborhoods across the social strata, from Hackney to Kensington. This is unhealthy both for the city and its individuals because it prevents residents from putting down roots, and feeling at "home" in their city. Regular readers know that I love London more than any other city, but this fault threatens the long term vitality and character of this amazing metropolis.

As beautiful as Knightsbridge is, a sense of the temporary is not dependent on how wealthy an area is. Even in the exclusive borough of Kensington & Chelsea, over half of residents rent, and those that are owned are not necessarily lived in, with many homes owned by wealthy foreigners who are rarely in town, with no interest in the community.

This stems, of course, from extremely high housing costs, far above what students and workers can afford, putting pressure even on high-wage earning workers such as doctors and lawyers. Of course this is something London shares with most other large cities, and this post could probably apply to them as well, but more specifically this is based on my personal experiences in London.

High housing costs make life in a city more difficult, or even impossible for those earning a minimum wage. In London this is especially acute as there is no specific minimum wage, a strategy often used in large American cities such as New York and San Francisco. A bartender in London makes the same wage as a bartender in the countryside, with obvious consequences for their quality of life. Everyone knows that high housing costs lead to uncomfortable compromises, but they also lead to less obvious problems.

Walking around most of London, you seldom have a sense that you're in a true neighborhood, that residents care about the long term future of their immediate area and are part of a community. Barely able to afford the rent for their apartment, let alone buy their own home, most residents are simply passing through, waiting for their opportunity to move somewhere slightly better or maybe further out to get more space. It's a double edged sword: with housing prices going up faster than wages, many find themselves trapped between wanting to move somewhere better but not being able to afford it. They end up in a limbo, in a constant waiting game, with the end result being that they feel no ownership or connection with their existing community.

When locals can't afford to buy their own homes, the majority of ownership rests in the hands of landlords, large and small. What both have in common is indifference. Except at the extreme luxury end, buildings owned by landlords are rarely as well looked after as owner-occupied homes. They're less likely to be renovated, and far less likely to have gardens out front. All of which further contributes to a sense of the temporary, walking along streets in far worse condition than they could be.

The street in Islington, North London that I lived on my last two months in London. The terrace buildings are decent Victorian stock, but are pretty much all renter-occupied, with landlords who invest little in their upkeep. Most residents, young people like myself, are simply passing through, and the street has no sense of community. Islington, coincidentally, has among the highest percent of renter-occupied homes in the UK at over 70%

Something too rarely mentioned in articles about the housing affordability crisis is the effect it has on starting families. The decision on when to get married or have children should be a personal decision, but in large cities it has become held hostage by not being able to afford a decent place to live. Many who want to have children can't. Contrast this with my friends who still live in Indiana (like me, in their late 20's). They're not wealthy, just your usual college-educated middle-class working professionals, yet most have already bought 3+ bedroom homes in decent locations, and a few already have children. With my friends in London, however, none can afford to buy even a small apartment, even those in their mid 30's. Most still live with flatmates, something my Indiana friends haven't had to do since their college days. Just to be clear, these are people with good jobs.

Ignoring cultural differences, my London friends for the most part can't have kids even if they wanted to. Their life circumstances just wouldn't allow it without serious financial consequences and it'd be a tight squeeze as 2+ bed apartments don't come cheap. They're being forced to delay important life milestones, unable to begin a truly "adult" life. The longer this situation stretches, the greater effect it will have on residents into old age as well. Don't take this as me advocating for large suburban homes. Far from it. I'm simply talking about decent 2-bed apartments in reasonably family-friendly locations.

Waterlow Park, North London

You'd be hard pressed to find someone more enamored with London than me, but if the city continues on its current trajectory, pretty soon it'll be little more than a playground for young singles and the international elite. If home prices don't come down to levels a mid-30's working professional can afford, London will find itself bereft of the middle class which has always been every city's economic engine, which equally impacts local businesses like shops. That's not a sustainable trajectory for a "lived in" city and just further contributes to the city lacking a sense of permanence.

There's no easy fix. Either homes prices have to fall, or wages go up... drastically. Neither of these is likely to happen anytime soon to the degree necessary for a true and long lasting shift. Eventually, though, I think it will, once society starts suffering from the effects and has had enough. A city like London is perfectly positioned for the shift, with a large stock of resilient historical buildings which have survived the test of time and are always ready to serve owners dependably with a little love and care.

Housing statistics: Housing in London 2015 report

An alternative perception of cars

2016-09-12T21:34:00.000+02:00

Kentlands, MD. Photo from flickr: kaibates/Creative Commons

So much of our reality is based on perception. Take cars. When I was a teenager, like most boys my age I was obsessed with cars. Owning a Ferrari, Lamborghini, or Porsche seemed like one of the greatest achievements one could reach in life.

Today, nothing could be further from the truth for me. As much of a car guy as I used to be (and I still appreciate some cars as impressive mechanical achievements), when I see a $100k+ car, the first thing I think is "dang, you could go on a lot of nice vacations for that kind of money." Now I'm not saying anyone is wrong to buy an expensive car. I'm not one to tell others how to spend their money. It's just not something I understand anymore.

That's a lot of nice vacations...

Most Americans live in a built environment where the daily use of a car is all but required, so it's unsurprising that the car has become an integral part of the culture. Actually, this is increasingly true in a lot of countries. I live in a middle-class kind of area in Switzerland, with an apartment building, rowhouses, and single family homes on my street. It's not suburban sprawl in the American sense, that doesn't really exist here, but it's suburban in the sense that it's removed from the city and a car is required for daily activities, with the nearest supermarket 2km away. A two car household is pretty standard. Just like in the US, with the car occupying such an important place in daily life, for many it naturally becomes a status symbol. Keeping up with the Joneses is almost a ritual for many car-owning suburbanites, something that signals how successful one is in life.

The lower portion of my street in Switzerland, with a four-story apartment building on one side, parking on the other

Further down the street are semi-detached/duplex houses (with a shared garage wall), with the front mainly given over to parking

Being removed from a car dependent existence for three years while living in London, I was able to experience the alternative: a life on two legs. Car owners love to play up the "freedom" they get from their car, but for me true freedom is not being dependent on a 2-ton machine, but rather the ability to walk when and where I please, not just where someone at some time decided to plunk down a strip of asphalt. I don't want to be worried about speed cameras, parking, traffic, and whether or not I've had a drink. To me, life has become about experiences, not things, and in that context the car is more of a burden than a treasure, another loan that keeps one tied to the system.

The car culture is deeply entrenched into modern life, and it will remain that way for decades to come, especially if we see EV's and autonomous cars as some kind of panacea. But I think it's paramount to acknowledge that not everyone agrees with or wants to be part of the car culture, and make sure that alternative, walkable communities are available. Of course, the problem with entrenched cultures is that people tend to reject what's different, and in most cities it's not even legal to build traditional walkable communities. That has to change.

I've always believed the best way to convince a skeptic is to lead by example, so my sincere hope is that once the walkable alternative is easy for all to experience, even those who can't imagine a life without cars will lower their defenses, at the very least making it easier to build more such communities. Maybe some of them will even convert over once they see how gratifying it can be to have schools, shopping, work, and play all within walking distance. Or a bakery steps away so you can get fresh bread for breakfast: priceless. A healthy, holistic neighborhood is one that doesn't require residents to leave for daily needs. Cars have their place, but should not be required for basic daily needs.

Once people see how pleasant the alternative can be, my hope is they'd be less resistant to walkable communities being built in their own cities. Photo from flickr: ugardener/Creative Commons

Small parks like this one in Kentlands are used much more often than most front lawns and help build a sense of a shared community. Photo from flickr: Dan Reed/Creative Commons

Person by person, the change will come, and maybe one day soon an elegant pair of walking shoes will be just as much a status symbol as cars are today.

London walking guide Pt. 2: West

2016-02-29T19:29:00.000+01:00

Click here for Part 1

To me, the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea (or what I think of as West London) is the most beautiful urban residential area in the world. Unlike most European cities, it is largely composed of houses rather than apartment blocks. Even though many have now been converted into apartments, that more human and domestic scale remains. West London is also the greenest part of Central London, with dozens of garden squares interspersed among the elegant terraces and Hyde and Holland Parks never far away. The level of greenery is evident just by looking at a satellite image. The difference with other large European cities is staggering.

This is an area I have photographed more than any other, as this is where I spent most of my free time (when I could spare a break from studying architecture). There are few things I would rather do than take a walk through these neighborhoods. As charming as I find a North West area like Hampstead, West London stretches for miles, a huge cluster of unique streets. It's the closest thing to an amusement park I've ever found. It's the first place I go to every time I visit London, and I'll be going back regularly for as long as I live.

To me these areas represent the true London, where London is at its best and most unique. You'll have noticed I specifically avoid featuring Piccadilly Circus, Oxford Street, the City, and other popular areas. They may be fine places to work and shop, but today are far too busy and modern. Especially for someone like me, in love with Georgian and Victorian architecture, there is no better place in the world than West London.

If you already read the first part, you'll know that red represents my favorite streets, blue my recommend walking route. I highly suggest you click on the map for the full size, which you can then save on your phone for reference during your walk.

Click for full size

I recommend starting the walk at Royal Oak station, which is on the Circle and Hammersmith & City lines. That's what I have drawn on the map. It's also possible to start at Bayswater station (Circle and District lines) or Queensway station (Central line) but the route will not be perfectly in tune with my recommendation.

Westbourne, Bayswater, and Notting Hill

These three areas sort of blend together, especially in the border area where our walk starts. Neighborhood boundaries in London tend to be less defined than in many other cities
and here is no exception. The Westbourne name in particular is not too well known, and many residents identify themselves as living in Notting Hill, though to me Notting Hill proper will always be the group of crescents along Ladbroke Grove, which is my favorite area of this bunch (and perhaps my favorite area in London generally).

Only Belgravia (featured later in this guide) can rival Notting Hill for pure elegance. There's something about that stark whiteness that harmonizes the streetscape. It's hard to believe not too long ago it was regarded as a run-down area. Today it's one of the city's most expensive. Just goes to show that a true gem never truly loses its shine. It's always there, even if under a layer of grime.

What really sets it apart are the large, private communal gardens to which many of the terraces back up onto, and the sweeping crescent road layout, unusually regular for London. This makes it very pleasant to walk, as your view is constantly changing.

After you've had your share of white and colorful houses, head south towards Holland Park.

Holland Park

Holland Park is both the name of a park and the surrounding neighborhoods. This part of the walk takes us down the most iconic streets, a group of elegant Victorian mansions not unlike those we saw earlier in Pembridge Square. Don't miss the dramatic Holland Park Mews, which runs between the two main roads.

Next in the walk is Campden Hill Square, which exemplifies a London trait I have always cherished, that of a peaceful oasis just off a busy street (in this case Holland Park Ave).

We now start entering Kensington, the namesake of the borough, and probably the most eclectic area of the walk, both economically and architecturally.

This next photo is again in the Holland Park area, more specifically Phillimore Estate, though again this is a name rarely used outside of property agents. The Phillimore Estate is characterized by well ordered streets and large detached homes, many of which back onto Holland Park.

Kensington

Crossing Kensington High Street, we are back in Kensington. Walk along Earls Terrace and then head inwards toward Edwardes Square, one of the largest garden squares in the city. Like most it's private, but the late-Georgian terraces surrounding it are modest and charming, and are Grade II listed.

Next on the walk is Pembroke Square, a little less regular. Beyond walk east along Scarsdale Villas, where the homes are again firmly Victorian, built between 1850-1864.

Once you reach Lexham Gardens, be sure to take the secret passage called Cornwall Gardens Walk to pass through to Cornwall Gardens. Next on the walk is a very expensive group of streets, Eldon Road and Cottesmore Gardens. That's because they are not only handsome homes, but also have quite large back gardens by London standards.

You could take a shortcut here and go straight through Kynance Mews to Launceston Place, but then you'd be missing Kensington Court and Square.

If you took the longer loop, step out on Kensington High Street briefly until you once again reach Victoria Road, and walk all the way down to Kynance Mews. Beyond is Launceston Place and Victoria Grove, one of the most charming streets in Kensington, in my opinion. I'd love to own one of these little homes, completed around 1846.

Gunter Estate

This next neighborhood is sometimes included with Kensington, especially among property agents, but sometimes also as Earl's Court or even Chelsea (the southern bit). To me it's neither, as the character is quite different from any of those. The reason is because this area was developed together as part of the Gunter Estate. These terraces have a unique style, even by London standards, with red brick contrasting sharply with light stone. Built between the 1860s-1880's, so quite late compared to many other terraces in London.

It's difficult to recommend how best to go from here, as my favorite streets are all over and it would require a lot of zig-zagging to see them all. I tended to go through The Boltons, a large oval garden square surrounded by large semi-detached mansions. Though be warned, I cannot recall a single occasion I came through here without getting a Godfather vibe. There were always black Mercedes S-classes and security on at least one doorstep. Don't let that detract from the architecture, however.

Chelsea

While today Chelsea is a popular neighborhood, in the Victorian age it was not as upscale as it is today, and therefore somewhat retains more of a village feel than many of these other neighborhoods. It's what once drew artists and writers to the area. In general the buildings are much shorter, with far fewer terraces.

The next image shows Glebe Place, once the heart of artistic activity in Chelsea starting in the 19th century.

And now you reach the Thames. Cheyne Walk was once home to Henry James, T.S. Eliot, Ian Fleming, Ralph Vaughan Williams, J.M.W. Turner and many other notable artists and writers.

Generally the further east you walk, the more urban and formal Chelsea becomes. It's fun to seek out the exceptions, however.

Knightsbridge

Many avoid glitzy Knightsbridge because of the Harrods crowd (and who can blame them), but that's a shame, because away from the crowds, this area has some of the most beautiful architecture in London.

At this point is a long walk down Walton Street.

South Kensington

We'll be back in Knightsbridge soon, but first a detour into South Kensington. Popular among tourists for the many museums along Exhibition Road, to me it will always hold a special place, because this was my first experience of West London during my first week in London all those years ago. Suffice to say, that first walk among the white stucco terraces and garden squares was one of constant amazement. I couldn't believe what I was seeing. I didn't know an urban residential area could be so beautiful. The myth of suburbia that had been a cornerstone of my American upbringing came crashing down in an instant.

We cross busy Brompton Road now to see Brompton Square, and then take the pedestrian passageway called Cottage Place to visit one of my favorite mews: Ennismore Garden Mews.

Once you reach Rutland Mews, there's a hard to spot doorway through to Rutland Street, and now you'll be back briefly in Knightsbridge. Below, Montpelier Square.

Belgravia

Even by West London standards Belgravia can be quite shocking. With few exceptions, white stucco is the order of the day here, and the terraces are palatial in scale and style. Developed from the 1820's and largely still owned by the Grosvenor Estate, this has always been a very upscale neighborhood. It was once a popular second-home location for England's aristocratic families. It's an impressive area, no doubt, but more urban than the others you will have seen today. As imposing as it is, however, I've always felt it's a shame there isn't more greenery, with many of the squares divided from homes by traffic, and in general one has a sense they are little used by residents.

Fans of mews are in for a treat. Belgravia is full of fine examples so be sure to keep your eyes out.

Well, that's it. If, as I suspect, you finish around Chester Square, the nearest tube station is Victoria, a few minutes walk east.

I certainly kept my promise to make photos more of a feature in this one. It has been a pleasure to show you my favorite streets in London, and if it goes a little way towards encouraging more people to see these areas of London in a different light, and appreciate the architecture as much as I do, I'll feel I have done my job. These are not just bedroom communities for the wealthy. They're beautiful homes and beautiful streets, each with a unique character.

Enjoy your walks.

All photos my own. See more here.

London walking guide Pt. 1: North West

2016-02-18T23:45:00.000+01:00

A London walking guide of my favorite areas is something I'd thought about for years, but never quite got around to completing. Recently I was in London, however, and was encouraged by a friend to finally make it. So here we are.

I have split the guide into two parts. Today's part focuses on North West London, perhaps London's most pastoral area, especially in the case of Hampstead and Highgate. London Metropolitan University is based on Holloway Road in North London, so for over a year I lived just down the hill from Highgate in Archway. Just 10 minutes away, Highgate was a popular walking destination for me and I'd often continue west to Hampstead.

This guide also includes Belsize Park, Primrose Hill, St John's Wood, and Maida Vale. I cannot say with certainty that I have completed the entirety of this trip in one day, but certainly similar or even greater distances on other walks. Using Google Earth to measure the trip, it is only about 10 miles/16km, add perhaps a mile or two depending how thoroughly you want to explore the suggested streets. While certainly doable in one day, I would not recommend it for someone not used to walking longer distances, though for Londoners this shouldn't be a concern. In general something these walks will show you is just how compact London really is. Even in nearly suburban Northwest London, you're still only a few miles from Central London. You could go to and from the Thames in the span of a morning run!

First up is the map, and be sure to click on it to open the original size otherwise it'll be difficult to follow. You can then save it onto your phone for reference.

The guide is accompanied by my photos, in this part all several years old as I did not have time to visit these areas on my recent visit. One thing making this guide has shown me is that I need to complete this walk again myself in the near future, and take many more photos, because I don't have nearly as many as I do of West London, and certainly not up to my recent standard.

Red are my favorite streets
Blue is the recommended walking route between areas

Although for whatever reason I tended to do my walks North to South, there's no reason this walk couldn't be completed starting in Maida Vale. For the sake of clarity, though, we will start in Highgate.

Highgate

Highgate is relatively easy to reach, being on the Northern line. I recommend either exiting at Archway and walking up the hill, or from Highgate station walk south along Southwood Lane until you reach Highgate High Street and the village.

Highgate is very charming, the kind of place that even a country dweller might feel at home. Although a wealthy area, it's thankfully free of the ritz and glamour prevalent in a lot of other areas in the city. The most attractive homes, in my opinion, are along the west side of the Grove, some even dating from the 17th century. A particularly nice feature is the gravel which has been retained in front of the homes, heightening the village atmosphere.

Another attraction in Highgate, just down Swain's Lane, is Highgate Cemetery, easily the most dramatic cemetery I have ever visited.

After having thoroughly explored the back lanes of the village, I recommend heading west along Hampstead Lane until you reach Hampstead Heath, perhaps my favorite park in London. It's a lot more wild than Hyde or Regent's Parks. On a clear day you'll be greeted by a dramatic view of the city, and be sure to check out Kenwood House.

My suggested route through the Heath takes you right by Parliament Hill, another great vantage point from which to see the city.

Hampstead

Hampstead is another of London's great villages. Much larger than Highgate, there are many more narrow lanes to explore, and a great variety of architecture. I've always said it's the only place in the city I'd like to live if I couldn't afford somewhere in West London. It just oozes charm with cottages, homes, and terraces all arranged in a hodge-podge manner.

Because of the sheer variety, and each street being completely different from another, I recommend exploring Hampstead more thoroughly than the other areas. You won't regret it! Particular favorites of mine include Devonshire Hill, Flask and Well Walk, Church Row and Windmill Hill. 17th Century Fenton House on Hampstead Grove, open to the public, is a worthwhile visit, as is Burgh House on New End Square, though neither is open daily.

These next areas I discovered late into my time in London, and therefore don't have too many photos, unfortunately. Belsize Park in particular I have only visited twice, but on both occasions did not bring my camera. Another reason to get a smaller camera when I upgrade.

Belsize Park

This is probably the smallest area of the ones featured today, and quite often is thrown in with Hampstead. Nonetheless there are some distinct streets which don't resemble too many others in London. Both of the ones I recommend walking through, Belsize Park Gardens and Eton Avenue, have a unique character.

If you're already familiar with Primrose Hill, feel free to take a substantial shortcut by going directly to Avenue Road from Elsworthy Road.

Primrose Hill

Primrose Hill is the name of both the park and neighborhood. The park, like seemingly all the parks you'll walk through on this walk, has a great view of London stretching before you. Here London looks especially compact, with the London Eye so close you'll think you could get there in minutes.

It's an eclectic area, known to be popular with artists and actors, and full of colorful Victorian terraces. Chalcot Square, in the photo below, is a highlight.

I now offer two routes. If you'd like to take a break from the urbanity, the southerly route offers a nice stroll along Regent's Canal but avoids much of St John's Wood. The northern route, on the other hand, goes via Avenue Road and Acacia Road, some of the most expensive homes in the city, and through the heart of St John's Wood.

St John's Wood

St John's Wood was developed quite late by London standards, and much of it at lower densities than was common. Many streets are shockingly suburban considering that one is only a few minutes from Regent's Park. There are however quite a few attractive red and white mansion blocks, and the high street is architecturally very uniform, contributing to the exclusive air. Even though there are no red streets on the map here, it's still a nice area, just not spectacular unless you're a fan of detached villas.

Maida Vale and Little Venice

We end on a high. Maida Vale is the first area today with the typical West London white terrace housing typology, and it's very elegant for it. Along the canal is Blomfield Road, an area known as Little Venice. This is the most unique part of Maida Vale, and particularly beautiful with the trees along the canal.

I hope you've enjoyed this guide, and more so I hope you will attempt to undertake it in the near future. My recommendation would be to wait for a sunny day: few cities are as transformed by the sun as London. The white terraces glow in an indescribable ethereal way and the contrast against the blue sky is striking.

Part 2 picks up just south of Maida Vale in Notting Hill, my off and on favorite area of London. Much better photos will be a feature of that guide.

London: a tribute to a great city

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To a lot of people London is just like any other big city: loud, busy, overcrowded, and overpriced, while to others it's all wealth, bling, and supercars. While much of that is true, it's an assessment that has never resonated with me. To me it has always been so much more than that.

From the moment I arrived on the train from Gatwick Airport, as the train crossed the bridge before pulling into Blackfriars Station on a beautiful September afternoon, I was awestruck. I'd never seen such buildings before, and such mesmerizing soft light which is so complementary to the city's best Victorian architecture. That first glance over eight years ago was the start of a love affair which didn't diminish over the three years I studied and lived in that great city, and it lasts to this day.

Notting Hill, Kensington, Belgravia, Chelsea: these are not just names of movies or posh areas. To me they conjure images of the greatest urban residential neighborhoods in the world, neighborhoods of a quality which have never been built since and which are still full of lessons for how we should be living and building today. They're full of charm and variety, offer a selection of different building types, and are full of parks, canals, or near to the river. There’s something for everyone. No wonder they command premium prices.

Oddly enough, for the most part they're not built on the 500 year old foundations of medieval villages. Rather, like modern day large-scale subdivisions, they were largely developed on former farmland by a single landowner and put up very quickly. It was not unusual for builders to erect dozens of new houses per year with sometimes thousands of workers on site. This is heartening information, because it shows clearly that large-scale development done quickly can yield fantastic results. It's a commitment to basic tenets of design that matters most. Like I've said many times on this blog, these basics have been abandoned in the past century, but really they're incredibly easy to reintroduce because they're based on common sense.

All of them boil down to one single holy truth: build around people. When you do that, everything else falls into place. You get a mix of densities based on how far most people are willing to walk, whether that be for shopping, dining, or to public transport. You get more beautiful buildings because they have to be detailed to look good to those walking at 5 mph rather than zooming by in a car at 40. You get the occasional meandering path in between blocks, and little parks tucked away in corners. You give people an alternative to corporate jobs by fostering a need for small business and as a result have a robust local economy. The benefits are endless, because when you do things the right way, everything just clicks into place. Things are just natural without alot of effort. Living in London made this abundantly clear to me. Because the city was built for pedestrians, moving around by foot is still the most efficient way of getting around and therefore everything still works as it should.

I’d wanted to be an architect for years, and I’d visited nice places around Europe before, but it wasn’t until I went to London that I really fell in love with buildings, and understood fully that the composition of buildings along a street matters a whole lot more than the individual trophy building. And to me, the compositions in London are as good as it gets. Modern architects could learn a lot about creating beauty by following the simple lessons this city has to offer. It doesn't take as much effort as architectural education would leave us to believe, only a thorough understanding of proportions and respect for materials and context.

I love British Georgian and Victorian architecture, that unique combination of simplicity with whimsy that only they can pull off. Historical British architecture always borrowed from the French and Italians, but by making it their own British architects built some of the most delightful and unique buildings the world had ever seen.

In London, especially the best areas of North and West London, all these concepts come together on a grander scale than anywhere else in the country. The British preference for single family homes (“a man’s home is his castle”) resulted in the ubiquitous terrace housing seen throughout the city, further aided by the unique garden squares which make London the greenest major city in Europe. Ubiquitous, yet full of variety. Some are like grand palaces, others modest two-story brick buildings with little decoration. Every landowner hired his own architects and surveyors, so the terraces of South Kensington do not look the same as those in Notting Hill or Mayfair. No two districts look exactly the same.

No city before, nor any city since, has built as much terrace housing as London. More than any other major city, London is a city of houses, not apartments. Even areas where many of the homes have been converted into apartments still retain that character, as they still look like single family homes from the outside.

Unlike, say, New York, which has a similar atmosphere throughout due to the strong street grid, the various areas of London are often so dissimilar to each other you’d hardly guess it’s the same city, which makes visiting the various corners of the city such an enjoyable, varying experience. On any given weekend I’d take 15-20km walks across the city, often crossing several districts. Hampstead and Highgate are almost like a village in the countryside, Marylebone more urban, Chelsea a quaint hamlet, Notting Hill like living in a park, and Belgravia a bastion of elegance with all that white stucco. My favorite would constantly revolve, dependant basically on which one I’d been to most recently. I could see myself living happily in any one of them.

The great Victorian city of London may be showing some cracks in its seams with recent development. Corrupt politicians are only too happy to let developers put up cartoonish towers completely out of character and detrimental to what the city has been for hundreds of years. Speculative investors don't help by driving up home prices and leaving many sitting empty. I hope these trends will die off soon.

But luckily, for the most part, the city is doing an admirable job of resisting the onslaught of modernity where it really counts. This is further aided by something the British do better than anyone else: restoration. Whereas in countries like Germany a building after restoration usually looks brand new, all signs of its unique history erased, the British treat restoration as an art, doing what needs to be done to extend the lifespan of a building, but leaving untouched signs of age. Thus preserving what makes it unique in the first place. London messes with itself at its own peril. Thank goodness there are many people dedicating their lives to preserving the best of this special and historical city.

Something else I really love about London is how easy it is to escape the hustle and bustle. One minute you may be on a busy shopping street like Brompton or King’s Road, but turn off into a leafy residential side street and within a few seconds you can find yourself in an entirely different world, away from the noise and traffic. The London residential street is a world of it’s own, each possessing an identity all its own. Within that very specific London archetype one finds multitudes of variations. Harmony among chaos. Boy do I miss those Victorian terraces just thinking about them.

I guess that's what really draws me to London, the fact that this is a city defined by its homes and remarkable residential areas that are distinct both in design and spatially from the city's commercial areas. These were the early suburbs, but suburbs done right. Separate, but not so much that residents lose sight of the city or lose the ability to walk. And unlike many European cities, which with my American sensibility I find somewhat claustrophobic, in London the scale is comfortable, the street widths are relaxed. One can still breathe, and you are never far from a park. For all its big city credentials, London is a city in which it is easy to wander and escape reality, no matter who you are.

Maybe London isn’t for everybody. My brother was never anywhere near as fond as I am, for example. But it is for me, if I could afford to live in one of the beautiful areas I enjoy so much. It’s the one place I’ve ever lived that I felt at home. I could walk those streets among the glories of Victorian architecture all day, every day. There's no other place like it. It’s my favorite city in the world, and probably always will be.

All photos my own. See more of my London photos here.