Most new urban practitioners know that pattern books are a useful tool for determining and guiding a desired architectural character for a residential neighborhood composed of primarily single-family homes. But how might they fare as tools for designing high-density, mixed-use phases of development?
That was the question at hand for a sizable group of developers, architects, and other panel members (see below) during this Friday council session, a talk show-format that was facilitated by Ray Gindroz of Urban Design Associates (UDA).
UDA is arguably the leader in the pattern book field, having begun developing them roughly 25 years ago. Gindroz says UDA's source of inspiration was Mr. Potato Head, the child's toy that comes with removable and interchangeable body parts that are fastened to a plastic potato.
"American traditional home building is like Mr. Potato Head," said Gindroz. You begin with the head, the basic box of a home, and add to that box a series of parts, such as windows, porches, etc., until you get an assembled result. When all the homes are assembled together correctly, a neighborhood is created. You wind up with a set of essential qualities, with the pattern book coordinating the individual efforts of several different home builders. You get multiple houses with equal quality, yet no two houses are alike.
The pattern book UDA created for the Gentilly charrette in Louisiana includes an urban assembly kit that explains how patterns of streets, landscape and open spaces, blocks, and housing placement creates community character. It's an attempt to create houses that fit the region.
For large-scale buildings, the same system applies: Ideas, details, components, and composition are assembled to create whatever character is desired. A Spanish Revival look. Modernist architecture. You name it; the logic of the pattern book will deliver it.
That pattern book logic has already been applied. In Cooper's Crossing in Camden, N.J., UDA analyzed local historic precedents for buildings of the same scale they wanted to create: townhouses, mercantile lofts, traditional high-rise loft buildings, and residential towers. The codified the qualities of style, the basic elements of windows and doors, broke down the pieces and then re-assembled them into separate inventories of parts for each new building to be constructed in the project. All components can then come together to create an urban whole. It's an effort to communicate all the parts and pieces to people so they can come up with built results that resemble the original precedents.
The speakers had high praise for the pattern books they had commissioned. Benefits of targeted pattern books included:
Facilitated swift redevelopment in blighted areas
Encouraged a variety of architectural styles; provided distinct character for the neighborhood
Contributed to additional housing opportunities in the area
Contributed to exponential tax-base and land-value increases: In East Beach (Norfolk, Va.), for example, land values in the surrounding developments have tripled and quadrupled
Created a desire for a pattern book that would govern commercial and retail development
Educational: helped to convince NIMBYs of the validity of the project (village vs. sprawl)
Described and displayed a town center character
Saved time during the design process
Helped to fine-tune housing product after design guidelines were drafted
Allows architects to be subjective and creative, while designing regionally appropriate buildings
Helps to define neighborhood streets, civic buildings
Maintains a cohesive vision for the desired character of a place
Shows financial entities what will be built
A Q&A session posed a series of questions, which were answered by the panelists:
What works best using the pattern book method?
A pattern book helps several developers, builders, and architects build something distinct, something different than what would have come had they built strictly by code.
The pattern book helped achieve a great array of different styles and appearances, built to a consistent standard. The absence of a pattern book would have been catastrophic.
The pattern book helped implement a vision six years after the initial charrette, and helped to create lease rates that are six to seven times the market rate.
One unintended outcome: It intimidated builders, but it also drove them to hire architects to get it right.
What does not work so well?
Since higher-density, mixed-use buildings are more prototypical, clients are reluctant to pin down the architecture; the pattern books should be more flexible.
It's difficult to have a pattern book done at the front end of a development and have it last throughout the development process. One solution: implement an amendment process, so if something doesn't turn out as well as it was intended, it can be addressed, as well as adding ideas
What changes to methods are needed to change scale and work with larger buildings?
More focus on typologies, because when you change scale, you change typologies
What is the most important aspect of the pattern book method?
Early collaboration with developers and other key players
Flexibility: Can be used in a rural or urban context, can be used by a variety of clients (corporations, states, CDCs)
Can work for large or small sites
Facilitates early buy-in, consensus-building
Helps to document and record the consensus
For Leon Krier, pattern books are much more than all of the above. They are tools for regaining design knowledge that has been lost and is still not being taught in architecture schools. Pattern books are not that alone, though; they are crucial tools for creating truly sustainable environments that help to lessen our dependence on fossil fuels. Our current unsustainable development model is starting to be reproduced in other countries, such as China. If this continues, civilization will come to an apocalyptic situation.
“We are used to a system that creates extreme hyperdevelopment. We need pattern books to break it down into discernible blocks,” said Krier, lamenting that this is even an issue. “Why is this necessary, when everyone knows the right thing to do?”
The Pattern Books Council included the following panelists:
Ray Gindroz, FAIA, Urban Design Associates
Nancy Crown, Bank of America, representing the First Ward project in Charlotte, North Carolina
Bart Frye, Frye Properties, representing East Beach in Norfolk, Virginia
Keith McCoy and Ian Gillis, Urban Community Partners, LLC, representing East Garrison in Monterey County, California
Stephen James, Kennecott Land Company, representing Daybreak in Salt Lake Valley, Utah
Mike Brunetti, Celebration Associates, Inc., representing Village of Baxter in Fort Mill, South Carolina
Yaromir Steiner, Steiner + Associates, Inc., representing Coopers Crossing in Camden, New Jersey
Paul B. Ostergaard, AIA and Barry J. Long, Jr., AIA, Urban Design Associates
Most new urban practitioners know that pattern books are a useful tool for determining and guiding a desired architectural character for a residential neighborhood composed of primarily single-family homes. But how might they fare as tools for designing high-density, mixed-use phases of development?
