New Urbanism Now: Catching up with Andrés Duany

[M II A II R II K]

New Urbanism Now: Catching up with Andrés Duany


Oct. 29, 2010

By Cody Winchester

Read More: http://www.nationalpost.com/homes/Ur...198/story.html

If you’ve heard about New Urbanism, the anti-sprawl philosophy practised in many planning circles, chances are it’s because of Andrés Duany, the Miami-based architect, urban planner and evangelist-in-chief for the popular design movement. Mr. Duany, born in America but raised in Cuba and Spain, has for three decades boosted the ideals of New Urbanism in forums from Rome to Sydney to Harvard Square.

In the interim, New Urbanism has become quite popular — DPZ has designed more than 300 projects worldwide, including eight in Canada. We spoke with Mr. Duany about smart growth, why Canada produces an excellent bureaucrat, and why human happiness is the best measure of a development’s success.

Q. How has New Urbanism been received in Canada, compared with the U.S.?

A. Well, it’s always easier in Canada, because the New Urbanism is closer to the British planning tradition of the garden city, the small-town tradition. And it’s closer to the Canadian planning system. I’ve verified this because we have since done six projects in Scotland. There is an Anglo-Canadian connection.

Q. How is development done differently?

A. There tends to be more use of guidelines rather than codes, and Canada’s guideline system attracts a very high-grade bureaucrat, because they are allowed more discretion. I noticed this also in Scotland. When a bureaucrat is just given a checklist, like they do in the United States, it’s not really challenging.

Q. You’ve talked before about this kind of typically American sense of totalizing democracy, you know, individual freedoms to the hilt, and the poor city planning that frequently results. How does New Urbanism address the tension between individual rights and collective responsibility?

A. Good question. It does it through subsidiarity. What that means is, decisions are made at the appropriate level. For example, where the big highways go, what the density is, that’s done at the level of the provincial government. At the level of what a house looks like, or mix of uses, that’s made at the level of the neighbourhood. And then further on, at the level of the house, there is greater diversity, and then, of course, ultimately there is the level of the bedroom — the interiors, the family’s individual style.

You start seeing a theory of subsidiarity, in which, at a certain point, the individual kicks in. And I would say that the individual kicks in at a lot higher level in the United States than in Canada. In Canada the government really has a huge say.

Q. You cut your teeth in modernism.

A. We were originally modernist, yeah. But the market really wanted traditional houses. There are different kinds of traditions anywhere you are, of course. In the U.S., no one really likes Victorians. But they seem very popular in Canada.

I think the next generation coming up — perhaps they’re not buying real estate yet — but they like a lot more glass, they have no problem with a flat roof, they really like open plans. We’ve incorporated that into the work. But we don’t impose it. That’s one of the things we get off-kilter with, with architects who want to impose modernism, who think it’s the right thing to do. But we refuse to impose things on people. If your dream is to live in a little Victorian house, I’m not going to tell you otherwise. I’m not a priest. And that’s one of the things, by the way, that I’ve become more and more convinced of.

[Krases]

I just read "Suburban Nation" which I think deals a lot with New Urbanism.

Really amazing book, not sure if this guy had any connection to the new urbanest community of Seaside Florida.

[Centropolis]

Originally Posted by Krases

I just read "Suburban Nation" which I think deals a lot with New Urbanism.

Really amazing book, not sure if this guy had any connection to the new urbanest community of Seaside Florida.

Ah, screw SuburbanNation.

[Krases]

Originally Posted by Centropolis

Ah, screw SuburbanNation.

Why don't you like it?

[strongbad635]

Originally Posted by Krases

I just read "Suburban Nation" which I think deals a lot with New Urbanism.

Really amazing book, not sure if this guy had any connection to the new urbanest community of Seaside Florida.

Duany and his wife were the primary planners of Seaside, FL. His book is the bible of what we should be doing with the places we live/work/shop.

[M II A II R II K]

Duany vs Harvard GSD


November 3, 2010

By Andres Duany



Read More: http://www.metropolismag.com/pov/201...vs-harvard-gsd

Without a doubt, architect Andres Duany is a pivotal figure in creating a less car-dependent, more walking-oriented American landscape—the kind of human-scale, personally navigable, tight developments that seem to have sturdy green roots and point, generally, toward a more urban lifestyle. Certainly, densely-settled cities have what Duany and his cohorts have been advocating for 30 years. But now as these cities begin to re-engage with nature, to create their own, healthy and life-affirming environments, surprisingly (at least to me) Duany is not cheering, he’s jeering. He seems to equate the new “dogma of environmentalism” (my quotes) with the recent changes at the Harvard GSD, where the old Urban Planning and Design department is giving way to Landscape Urbanism. And so I must ask this, is he just looking for a fight, or is there a constructive dialogue to be had here?

Last April, upon attending a remarkable conference at the Harvard GSD, I predicted that it would be taken over in a coup. I recognized a classic Latin American-style operation. It was clear that the venerable Urban Design program would be eliminated or replaced by Landscape Urbanism. Today, it is possible to confirm that the coup was completed in September—and that it was a strategic masterpiece.

To summarize: The first step was the hiring of Charles Waldheim, who, after long and patient preparation, had circled in from the academic hinterland acquiring “famous victories” at Illinois and Toronto. The second step was the “general strike” of the huge Ecological Urbanism Conference—the one that I attended last April. With some thirty speakers, it was both a remarkable show of force, and simultaneously the casting call for the next faculty.

The conference began with a shock: Rem Koolhaas’ keynote address destabilized the then-current GSD regime. It was most unexpected to see the grand, aging revolutionary, distancing himself from all starchitect work (including his own) and aligning anew with his origins in the “humble, local and climatically responsive” work of his 60s teacher, Jane Drew (I made a note at the time “Jane Drew is the New Leonidov!”). To my fevered imagination, it was quite a frisson to witness a real show trial.

Then another shock: Midway though the conference there was suddenly a very unusual performance for a university president. Drew Faust transcended the expected insipid greeting, baring quite some fang when stating forcibly that the GSD was going to change to the ecological line—and to get used to it. Dean Mohsen Mostafavi followed with an interpretation of what was meant by that change: an unalterable commitment to the ecological basis but also, soothingly, assurances that the GSD would not neglect the high-design filter.

The third step was the publication of a red brick-like summa of the proceedings, Ecological Urbanism—the first official guide of the new regime. In size and weight and format it is clearly a replacement to Rem’s silver SMLXL testament.