Rockville, MD – what Andres Duany calls ‘America’s best new town center’

[marc1969]

Whatever your opinion of the architecture, it is a tremendous improvement over what was there before! I worked there for 5 years and it was primarily a large shopping center surrounded by parking lots. It's so much more vibrant now with a variety of restaurants, shops and housing. With the new residential units built and more office buildings planned, it should bring the needed pedestrians. The fact that there is also a metro stop within walking distance is a tremendous asset. That gives it an advantage over other "urban entertainment areas" such as the RIO and the Kentlands. There is so much competition in the Washingtion area for retail and entertainment!

If you don't mind that our area was just rated in the top 5 worst areas to live for air quality and the traffic is absolutely brutally, mind numbingly bad, the metro area is a pretty great place to live!

[Evergrey]

it's obviously leagues better than anything than the sprawl that has suffocated this country in the past 60 years... but there's just something... missing...

[the pope]

i used to work here:


beyonddc's pic

nice to finally see something happen with all that land.

[Rusty van Reddick]

I think this is completely amazing. Very impressive!

[skylife]

Originally Posted by J. Will

The best part of it appears to be how they broke up the facades to make it look like they were built at different times. They could have broke up the height more.

I don't get that. I'm not trying to be mean, but they're not built at different times and I don't think that was the vision. Rockville is not an ancient or even historic place. These are built now, rather wisely and connected to local urban centers in the region via mass transit, it's relatively dense and (while not groundbreaking) it's something that will age gracefully and not be embarrassing later.

Do you guys think it's phony historic?

[Gordo]

I like it. I think in a couple years, with residents and shops completely moved in, it will become quite a nice place.

[Tymel]

I like it to, but I hope they spice it up a little bit. Try to mimic some old architecture since it looks so manufactured. But its a nice alternative to cookie cutter sprawl.

[FerrariEnzo]

I think I just vomited in my own mouth, gross. Andres Duany, you are a tool.

[PhillyRising]

It's looks perfectly fine to me. I'm assuming it's still under construction. I think people are ripping on it because the lack of people on the streetscape. Give it some time and I bet in a few years this will be quite a nice spot to be in to live and to shop.

[fleonzo]

I lived in Rockville before moving to NYC and here's what I think of it now:

zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz......................

[Top Of The Park]

....in the way of street level improvement.....wide sidewalks, restaurants, trees, artwork, koisks and on and on

[Cirrus]

Restaurants and kiosks? No seriously. These pictures are when it was STILL UNDER CONSTRUCTION. And it's winter. The trees are there.

Anyway, as to the difference between buildings, it's an important part of urbanism. It's very difficult to get really good pedestrian urbanism out of buildings with such large bases. To be really pedestrian friendly, a building cannot be too wide, and if it is, then steps need be taken to minimize the appearance of its width.

This picture and this picture are similar angles of two blocks in the same neighborhood. They both show buildings that greet the street and have ground floor retail, but the first is a much more enjoyable pedestrian experience because the constantly changing storefronts present pedestrians with a continually changing (and therefore interesting) view. The second block very quickly becomes boring if you’re walking along it, despite retail.

Good urbanism - good pedestrianism - is messy at the ground level. The cleaner you make it, the less interesting it is. That Rockville attempts to break up the width of its buildings is a major part of why it's superior to most other new urbanist town centers.

[Chelsea Spy]

I can see that this is a decent attempt to build a more humane and pedestrian friendly town-center, and it looks credible enough, even if the architecture seems devoid of any real sense of style, vernacular or anything particularly memorable...

[J. Will]

Originally Posted by FerrariEnzo

I think I just vomited in my own mouth, gross. Andres Duany, you are a tool.

Well, I would have stated it a bit more diplomatically, but yes.

[Jonas]

That just looks so "Europe"

[kznyc2k]

Do I see EIFS being used at all? on those buildings with the bright colors? God I hope not.

Like Bna said before, I think with a few decades worth of grime they'll be just fine (and all of this rhymes!). I particularly like that the library is there, front and center.