San Francisco Bike Blog

[I've been trying to get to this one forever -- it's important.]

While at the Rainbow, I picked up the latest edition of the Utne Reader — its cover story was called, ‘50 Visionaries Who Are Changing Your World.’

Nikos Salingaros (wiki), one of those ‘Visionaries,’ is a mathematician. He’s also a bit of an architect. He uses some of his math background to talk about and critique and actually do urban planning. He talks a lot about ‘geometry’ and ‘human scale’ and how a lot of our world has been built to respect neither.

Like James Howard Kunstler (what’s up with that mustache?), he’s got some very strong opinions - I like that. Nikos doesn’t hate all tall buildings, just bad ones.

In the talk below, he critiques tall buildings with what I think is a great quote:

We are not against tall buildings, but tall buildings seem to be against us.

I’ve copied the text of his slides below, for reference. The video presentation is well worth your time.

I got interested in ‘the height limit debate’ when I heard some Washington, DC blogs talking about it - DC, of course, has a building height limit. I used to live in DC and one of the best things about it, if not the best thing, was that you could see the sun any time of year. You could walk, run, or ride - and the sun would always be there. It was almost like someone had designed DC to be…livable.

Debate about height limits are only going to get more fervent. Nobody can afford to drive anymore. The auto industry is going away. Mass transit is in utter collapse. People want more development, closer-in - that is, they want to go higher. Or, developers who stand to make a lot of money from building higher want to go higher. The rest of us would probably be happy with buildings that are 4 to 6 storeys tall - where we get the most benefits of sustainability, and I would argue, livability — good density, good use of space, good building efficiency, etc.

Of course, some of our urban planning betters told us we were crazy to pay attention to such petty concerns like ‘aesthetics,’ but I knew better. It was common sense. People like the sun. I’m not sure why. I don’t have a degree in sociology or psychology or ’sunology’, but I have common sense - and that’s been a pretty good barometer over the years.

I hear there’s going to be a 600′-tall building on Treasure Island. Can you say, Le Corbusier?

Slides:

Tall Buildings:

• Skyscrapers are usually designed according to a template (a rectangular slab)
• Ignore context and environment
• Imposition of architect’s will
• Can never arise from step-by-step adaptation

Unsustainable:

• Skyscrapers can never be made sustainable
• Using the latest technology does not alter their intrusive character
• They introduce urban singularity

From a colleague (Michael Imber):

• Claim that tall buildings are sustainable is a cruel fraud
• Excessive heat gain and loss from unshaded exposures and typical glazing systems
• “Heat island” effects
• Require materials with very high embedded energy
• Skyscraper floor plates are inefficient — excessive space requirements for lifts and for emergency exit stairs (more floors==more waste)
• They block the sun and view (view is aesthetic - maybe not a big deal; sun builds Vitamin D in the skin and to avoid depression)
• Create wind effects at the ground level (urban tunnels, downgusts, etc.)
• Carbon benefits of urban density level-off at 4 to 6 storey building envelope

Social Problems

• Ground floor usually disconnected
• Christopher Alexander’s pattern: children living more than 4 storeys from the ground feel disconnected (leads to child pathologies)
• Leon Krier proposed tall buildings that are monuments, not residences

Religious icons

• Le Corbusier’s “Towers in the Park” has become a religious symbol
• Worshiped by modernist urbanists
• Despite repeated disasters, still used as “modern” typology the world over
• …with towers of ever increasing height! People never learn…

Good tall buildings

• Must be very few in any city
• Always in the high-density center
• Ground floor helps urban fabric
• Examples from late 19th Century, early 20th Century
• Thin, not too tall, hierarchy of scales
• No setbacks (from the street)

Conclusion

• There are several branches of New Urbanism practiced today
• All of them are far better than zones car-dependent sprawl, or skyscrapers in the park — a monstrous idea
• Communities the world over are building neo-traditional developments

We might need to start thinking about the future.

How many people will the world have by 2050? 9 Billion?

And how many people will the U.S. have? 400 million?

We have to put all these people somewhere. And we have to get a lot more sustainable a lot more quickly. It might already be too late, but I figure, if we’re gonna go down, we should go down fighting - and riding.

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