{"id":919,"date":"2009-11-04T12:44:07","date_gmt":"2009-11-04T18:44:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/urbanthoreau.com\/blog\/?p=919"},"modified":"2009-11-04T12:59:39","modified_gmt":"2009-11-04T18:59:39","slug":"piazza-piazze-piazzissimo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.urbanthoreau.com\/blog\/piazza-piazze-piazzissimo\/","title":{"rendered":"Piazza, Piazze, Piazzissimo!"},"content":{"rendered":"

Here’s a mid-life crisis that went <\/a>good.<\/a> <\/em><\/p>\n

<\/em>Wow. A developer who actually understands how to embrace history in the urban landscape, create a cool place and<\/em> make money. Too bad we can’t get the yokel developers around here to understand how badly people want interactive, community-oriented spaces integrated with their abodes.<\/p>\n

Then, even when the rare developer does try to do the right thing, they get stymied by bureaucrats who enforce militant landscapes upon all of us. Back when I was on Madison’s Urban Design Commission, we embraced\u00a0piazza<\/em> concepts proposed at several new developments. \u00a0In each case, we were stymied. What we got was either Design by Cop, or Architecture by Fireman, or Urban Planning by Engineer.<\/p>\n

Exhibit A: The developer of a mixed-use apartment building at the corner of Charter & W. Dayton wanted to have a cozy outdoor seating area alongside the building. UW’s Sicherheitsdienst <\/a>vetoed it. Why? Because it was alleged to that such a space would harbor criminals. Or fun. Or both. (For the cops, the most offensive aspect was probably the terrifying potential for fun.)<\/p>\n

Exhibit B: University Square<\/a> redevelopment. Let’s be clear, this was a monstrous, bloated project, but a major, major improvement over the bunker-like thing that preceded it. It intensified and enlivened the space right at the intersection of Town & Gown. The net result: A pretty good thing.<\/p>\n

But all good things can be made better, great even. And in the hometown of a world-class university, you’d think we’d be aiming for great. Unfortunately, great design is being held hostage by retrograde planners, fascistic cops, blockheaded engineers or a fire marshal living in a box.<\/p>\n

Here’s the scenario: The huge courtyard area of the University Square developement, set two stories (+\/-) above ground level, and encircled by very tall towers, called out for connectivity to the pedestrian mall below. We suggested a “Spanish Steps<\/a>” treatment connecting piazza<\/em> above with piazza<\/em> below (see photo here<\/a>, look at the area immediately to the left of at the protruding cube: that’s where the steps were envisioned). The idea was to animate & integrate the upstairs\/downstairs spaces with human-scaled connectivity, replete with more hanging out space, a see & be seen space. A Fun Place.<\/p>\n

When I suggested this, not only did I get agreeing nods amongst the architects and landscape architects around the UDC table, the design team and developer positively beamed. <\/em>It was one of those great-minds-think-alike moments (ok, that even a mediocre mind such as mine can partake of once in a while!).<\/p>\n

Alas, their beaming turned to crestfallen-ness when they went on to explain that, indeed, they had proposed just such a Spanish Steps-style treatment, only to have the UW’s Sicherheitsdienst nix the idea. Once again, they conjured up criminals hiding behind potted plants. Worse, from their perspective, was the prospect of fun.<\/p>\n

The result was an less-animated, Blade Runner-esque<\/a>, sealed-up coldness to the building, and a much less socially permeable feel between the structure and its surrounding space.<\/p>\n

Until we get better thinking — and leadership — at the political level (and it ain’t happening here<\/a>), we will continue to have good, people-oriented design vetoed by the narrow & narrow-minded interests of small town cops, fire people, unimaginative planners, speed obsessed engineers and pliant\/unprincipled &\/or bought & paid for politicians.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Philadelphia developer embraces history, industrial heritage, cool living places and makes a profit along the way. Madison’s architecture continues to be held hostage by retrograde thinking.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[175,18,5,20,12,354,11,8,13,452],"tags":[533,538,531,532,184,29,165,536,535,528,1323,1321,530,537,534,529],"class_list":["post-919","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-architecture","category-creative-business","category-environment","category-greenwashers-greenwashing","category-madison-politics","category-national-insecurity-heimatssicherheitsdienst-staatssicherheit","category-places-that-dont-suck","category-places-that-suck","category-politics","category-urban-designplanninggeography","tag-architecture-by-fireman","tag-bart-blatstein","tag-bladerunner-esque-architecture","tag-design-by-cop","tag-madison-wisconsin","tag-mayor-pave","tag-new-york-times","tag-northern-liberties-neighborhood","tag-philadelphia","tag-piazza","tag-places-that-dont-suck","tag-places-that-suck","tag-spanish-steps","tag-terry-pristin","tag-urban-planning-by-engineer","tag-uw-police-department"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.urbanthoreau.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/919","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.urbanthoreau.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.urbanthoreau.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.urbanthoreau.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.urbanthoreau.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=919"}],"version-history":[{"count":24,"href":"https:\/\/www.urbanthoreau.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/919\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":941,"href":"https:\/\/www.urbanthoreau.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/919\/revisions\/941"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.urbanthoreau.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=919"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.urbanthoreau.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=919"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.urbanthoreau.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=919"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}