Edited Transcript of City Design Lecture by Clare Cooper Marcus
As Oregon cities search for alternatives to single-family housing at the metropolitan edge, the needs of children cannot be overlooked. In this lecture, Clare Cooper Marcus will discuss how to make housing in the city appropriate for families. She is Professor Emerita in the Departments of Architecture and Landscape Architecture at the University of California, Berkeley. She lectures widely on urban design issues and is the author of numerous books, including Housing as if People Mattered, People Places: Design Guidelines for Urban Open Spaces, and House as a Mirror of Self. This lecture was presented on November 16, 2006.
Thank you all for coming out this evening. It is a great pleasure to be back in Eugene, Oregon. It has been years since I was here last. I want to share with you tonight some thoughts about medium density housing, sense of community and needs of children. I am going to be talking about some case studies, some of them I have done, and talk about guidelines for how this kind of housing can be designed better to fulfill the needs of users and particularly the needs of children. So, I am going to start with, lets see, yes, definitions. So we are all on the same page to speak. This maybe pretty obvious but I just want you to understand what it is I am talking about. There are four kinds of outdoor space: Private outdoor space, which is obvious to all, might be attached to a home, definitely private; Public outdoor space, the parks of the city and the plazas; the third category is not so obvious. Privately owned accessible open space: most campuses are actually private owned but accessible, such as many corner plazas are. Finally the last category is what I am largely going to be talking about. Space owned by a group, generally accessible to members of that group, but often the public has access. I will show you some examples. This is what we are talking about: [image] those common areas of co-housing, clusters housing and condominium apartments. I will not be talking about country clubs and golf clubs that are in that category.
So the idea of shared outdoor space is neither private nor totally public. It is not a new idea. The court of, courtyard often came with college. For example, [image] a beautiful example from hundreds of years ago, if you wandered the street you could walk to one of these courtyards, but you will have a feeling that this is not really public space. Yet, there is nothing present to prevent you from entering.
Another more recent example is the very beautiful bungalow courts we find in parts of Pasadena, California. There are some beautiful ones in Berkeley, CA. They are much sought out and perfect for student apartments because the houses are quite small with shared open space. So again, [image] here is a cluster of dwellings looking on to some shared space, if you walked on by the street, if you walked up these steps you will have a feeling you were in a space which is not quite public and yet, it is accessible.
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Here is an example from London [image] I came across recently because one of my relative lived here. The dwellings on the right, probably built in 1920s, are three story apartment buildings, looks like other, not so great housing in London from that area. However, when you look out the back windows, this is what you see: [image] a large city block with the centre of the block full of trees. There is a tennis court, play area, rose garden, terraces, and a very nice accessible green space. Accessible in terms of people being able to get in and out of the space and being visible from the windows. This is a more historic example.
So I am going to take you through a number of case studies, actual places and how they seem to work for people. This is one example in San Francisco built during a period of urban renew, three story garden apartments, built around three courtyards. This is a remarkably successful piece of design. This is what it looks like now. It was built forty-some years ago, it still looks great, and there is still a waiting list for people to move in. It has been and still is successful. [Describing an image] Here is an access point. Here is a design based on a pattern such as San Francisco. While designing the streets, the non-designers could not build over a specific area, so you see a long line going through the middle which is parking and a walkway bisecting it, another parking lot and then three courtyards looking into the woods, parking on periphery dwelling units looking in the woods towards the landscape courtyards. This [image] is looking towards to the courtyards. Back in the 1960s, the area was unionized (the I. L. W. U.). The union surmised that members of public, not just members of the union but low to middle income people who would like to raise their children in the city and who did not want to go to suburbs, where most housing for families would be offered. So, the designers were mandated to create a green, quiet and safe environment in the city that would be appealing to families that they would find as appealing (even though it's a higher density) than living out in the suburbs. Longman C (name), a very famous landscape architect designed the courtyards very carefully. He insisted from the beginning that a large proportion of the budget should go into the landscaping. This was a very wise decision. Those of you in the design fields know that the landscape budget
continuously cut and becomes the smallest portion of the budget. The place fails most often because poor stuff is put in and trees are snapped. Landscaping is not well thought of or
budgeted. Therefore, this was very thoughtfully done and all three courtyards are highly used by children and families. The union was correct in thinking that people did want to live in the city and not move out to the suburbs.
This [image] shows behavior mapping completed some years ago, but I think is still relevant. The observations were done over a week between is 8a.m. and 8p.m. and shows people use of outdoor spaces. [Description of map] The solid black areas are adults, children the open circles. I do not think you can see them but this area is in a parking lot and getting into their cars or
leaving or coming back and all the rest of adults and children are clustered around a specified play area. The one to the left over here, the blank space with north arrow is an elementary school. There is a school within walking distance of all of these courtyards. Children could walk to school, walk or be fetched from Saint Francis square even if they did not live there. Moreover, you can see they use the whole site for play because it was so carefully thought out to be usable. Some of the other reasons that this place worked and works so very well in terms of just the human environment are the size of the courtyards. The squares are approximately150 sq. ft. and
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more importantly, the height to width ratio, something that when I was in planning school I did not know about until someone mentioned the idea. The importance of the width of the space between buildings and their height is the ratio, in this case about 1:6. This is fairly a human scale. If the green space was much bigger, I will show you some later, it completely loses human scale and it is not an attractive environment. Of course, if it were a much smaller ratio it would not feel very pleasant either.
Just to emphasis, some of the ways in which why this space has worked very well here is another example. There are narrow entries into the courtyards from the adjacent streets. None of them had a gate and yet when you walk through those entries you have the sense you enter a space that is not quite public and there is nothing to stop you walk through. One clue it gives you is that there is a very strong sense of community. A clue that you have entered a place with a strong sense of community is if you wander through and there is nothing to stop you. A place where someone can wander up and say, “Can help you” or someone helps you find an address you are unfamiliar with, but he or she are not making you feel uncomfortable about walking through or being a stranger. Therefore, the narrow entries gave you a sense that this is not pubic space and there was this huge attention to the quality of landscaping. Therefore, the whole site was usable by children. [Description of plan] In this site plan the green is grass and the white is concrete pathways. Research shows that the majority of children’s play actually takes place on hard surfaces. So, if I was recount the adults on that early plan I showed you the majority of them would be on the pathways because a lot of children’s play consists of a using a ball, roll skating, tri-cycling, and playing hopscotch. All of these activities require hard surfaces that should pave over the green spaces in between; it means that there should be many pathways for children to do that as well as plenty of grass areas. What is important here is that almost every square inch of this space is usable? [Description of plan] The yellow shows the private balconies; the purple shows three play areas; and the few areas where you see brown up here and is what I called keep off landscaping. So this is pronto ivy here because people parking are very close to people’s front doors other than that, this whole area is usable now. The reason I emphasizes this so much is that if providing medium density housing for families with children research shows that probably 80% or more of the use of outdoors will be by children so it’s better to be designing for children's use. If it is not, if it’s covered, if it is created in a way which would be lovely let’s see senior housing projects with rose beds, and some flower beds you can be sure that kids are soon gone to tare up not in a malicious way, but only because they want to be outside. They want to play. So we have to remember that they are going to be the chief user and making the place hardscape would work for them.
Another important way in which Saint Francis square works is that the building is three stories high and the size of the courtyard is that you see down into it. This picture was taken a very long time ago when I actually live there for a year and sublet. One of these tiny figures was done while there by my son who is now 34, 33 and I am astonished when I look at that picture I felt secure enough as a mother in a third floor apartment, letting him play down there alone. Now the reason I felt secure is three stories is close enough, I could hear him he could call, hear me if there is a problem. I could be down there shortly other parents will be out there. It was so very safe and when we are thinking about designing housing for families and let’s say maybe it's a single parent family or maybe two parents they worked, they came home, they were tired, the fact the child could play outdoor safely alone, very close to home within calling distance from
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home is very critical. It is not enough to say there is a park, three blocks away and in the half hour between dinner and homework, dinner or something we would be go down. Kids want be going out and you want to encourage them to be out because there it is good for their health and exercises and it just doesn't work to say we have a neighborhood park that might be wonderful on Saturday or when you have time to walk your child there without anything going wrong. Of course, we want parks. But the whole theme I am going to present to you today is to say there is no alternatives, there is additions we need in the cities, not alternative. That is these kinds of spaces, close to home, right outside your home. Another important aspect to the design and made it work very well is making a very clear distinction between private outdoor space and shared space. This may seem obvious but I will show you some examples later while this was sort of overlooked.
So you don't have a private space, you do not really have a shared space. This is not separated and what is also wonderfully done here was the actual detail of this fence. I just want to emphasize to you students that you have to think everything from the site plan, where the cars go, where the people work down, to the details you may not get to in your studios. But you will be someday as a professional details of the fence, why was such a wonderful fence while you noticed the wooden slats, I do not know, there is about an inch wide and an inch gap so you know slat gap. This is such that John, someone I know still lives there, raise all his children there. They all left home and he lives there. He is working in his little patio, as someone walked by, you could see him or her in those afflicted ways and they could see you in an afflicted way. However, in no way could they look into your face, if you were sitting in a patio having a cup of tea, you would not feel exposed. If that fencewas solid, it is about six feet high you will feel your patio much more like you in a pit. In addition, you would not have a sense of community passing by outside. So that is a very important detail.
All right, I am moving on to case study No.2 which is a co-housing community in Sacramento, CA. How many people know, have heard the term of co-housing? Oh, nearly everybody, should I define it? I just define it into two sentences. Co-housing is clustered housing, usually medium density, could be apartments, could be single family housing, could be town houses where a group of people got together decide they'd like to live in a slightly more communal way. They have many meetings, they hired architect, they found a site, and they got a bank loan, and again lots meetings. Moreover, the principal of co-housing is that people have their own complete dwelling unit. This is not a commune. Everybody has a complete dwelling. In addition, there is a common house which is designed where people have a commercial sized kitchen and dining rooms so you could choose whether to have meals together, the group decides maybe one day a week, maybe three days a week, might be once a month. Often-common houses have other things that people would like to have communally: like a photo dark room; a teenage musical room and things like that. Anyway, this is Sacramento. This is a gridded street system, close to downtown; there are alleys with parking off the alley. There is an original, refinished two-story Victorian house along with newly built houses and a shared outdoor space. [Image] Here is a large one and a smaller one on this side. Here is the housing looking into the shared outdoor space. Now here is the definition between private and shared. It is not nearly the same as St. Francis Square. I presumed that was the choice of residences since they worked closely with the architect is to what they want. I have visiting this recently, I noticed for instance, these people had put up some lines and blinds and made them more private. However, people can do what
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they want in terms of creating more privacy. At St. Francis Square they share space
predominantly used by children and because its children then adult meets each other through that interaction. Children are coming out and bringing the adults to meet their neighbors.
Interestingly, here is the house facing a street and for those of you who know something about new urbanism, I think you had several people speak about new urbanism. One of the things new urbanism does is put porches on houses. New Urbanists argue that this is a great way to promote community because people sit there, they chat to people passing by. Well, if this is one example the reverse is actually true. The interior of the block is so social and people love it. That is why they chose to live there. They use the porches when they feel they want more privacy. They do not meet people passing by, they do not meet the neighbor, and they sit there and read on the porch.
Ok, Cherry Hill is in Petaluma which is a small town north San Francisco. This is moderate income housing, again, purposely built for families. Here we have yet again a different kind of site plan: a narrow entrance where cars driving very slowly around this loop or into one of four courtyards and there are things that they would, I think they would build second phase but it did not happen so it is fenced off. So, the traffic is calmed by the short span. A shared community space is in the middle and dwellings that are townhomes around. Here is one of courtyards with shared parking, people work and this was behavior mapping study I had a housing seminar in 1993 where we did a lot of observations of people, who is outdoors, then we did interviews with the residents. So you can see here the children, red dots, are all over the place, they are sharing the courtyards where parking is because people coming in there are their parents. So you can see the driving is very slowly. Normally, I say you do not want to mix cars and children, in this case it worked because they were really very few cars parking here so they won’t come in very often. When no car was there, it was a good place to throw baseballs, cycling. They played on green space and a little community center. In the interviews, people liked the site plan very much they felt they encouraged community. It is an amazing fact that 15% of the parents said the children