Category: placemaking

placemaking with soundscapes, then and now

On By Chuck WolfeIn everyday urbanism, placemaking, sustainability9 Comments

As I’ve recently written, visual urban nostalgia has a place in today’s dialogue about cities. Historical photos, videos and reconstructions of a pre-car era, including imagery of more walkable places are all sources of inspiration for a more sustainable urban future. And they are brought to us, by and large, by the internet.

Click on a link, and the romanticized past appears as a visual analogue to a sound byte about “then and now”. But what about the sound byte itself? For example, as I asked last year–amid “street scenes and carriage jams”— what did the social nature of traffic interactions actually sound like in the late nineteenth century?

The problem is that sound is amorphous, and not easily reconstructed, however important a role it may play in the quality of the urban past, present and future. Consider the “phonautogram” efforts of Thomas Edison colleague Charles Batchelor in 1872 in an urban setting. Click here for a barely audible recording of New York City’s Metropolitan Elevated Railroad, 40 feet away.

Nonetheless, study of “soundscapes“—particularly in the urban environment—has grown from its academic foundation in Vancouver by R. Murray Schafer in the 1960’s. The urban soundscape is an increasing focal point worldwide. Sound-based urban initiatives appear both as prospective planning tools and as historical, documentary exercises to inform an urban past.

Prospectively, soundscapes are an element of the urban environment. Soundscape proponents argue for assistance from the aural as well as the visual, in order to facilitate the identity of a place through careful, qualitative attention to how it sounds.

For instance, one click, here, provides background on the “acoustic landscapes” in Cologne, Germany, and the evolution of Schafer’s thinking when applied to modern Berlin. The Goethe Institute provides perspective from American American Yukio King, who worked on Berlin sound issues:

As at Helmholtzplatz in the East Berlin borough of Prenzlauer Berg. All you could hear there a few years ago were barking dogs and clinking beer bottles. Now that many young families have moved into the neighbourhood, the cries of children drown out these sounds: which King feels has enhanced the area in acoustic terms.

In addition, King attempted a dialogue in another Berlin neighborhood which emphasized the benefits of classic :

In his 2007 project Urban Soundmarks, he not only documented the soundscape of a neighbourhood in Neukölln, a disadvantaged area in the south of Berlin, but drew up an urban planning concept that incorporated sound design and presented it to the borough council. His suggestion was that open-air cafes or a market could acoustically improve this relatively quiet neighbourhood.

Historic attention to soundscapes literally echo the visual and focus on hearing as well as seeing the qualities of cities over time.

Scholars have focused on the recreation of urban sounds to aid in the understanding of historic urban experiences, sometimes at an IMAX-like level. Berlin’s National Museums provide a good, ongoing example in this year’s dramatic exhibition about the ancient. classical city of Pergamon. Sounds accompany a panoramic reconstruction, as “[a]udio impressions including day and night simulations, complete with sunrise and sunset, and ambient sound effects that recreate life in an ancient city, allow the visitor to experience a whole day in Pergamon.”

Similarly, Pittsburgh-based non-profit Public VR‘s website offers an in-process reconstruction of ancient Pompeii’s theater district, which is silent for now, but will soon contain ambient sounds composed with simulated ancient Roman musical instruments.

In another effort, funded research has allowed multinational work on reconstruction of urban soundscapes in renaissance Spain through the study of “musicians, performers, institutions, composers, instrument makers, copyists, printers, consumers, blind balladeers and many others across a broad social spectrum”.

Whether directed to shaping the future soundscape or understanding past examples, one thing is clear. Sight and sound both play roles in understanding cities, and the role of sound is ripe for further exploration.

Pergamon graphic courtesy of Berlin National Museums. All other images composed by the author. Click on each image for more detail.

A similar version of this post first appeared in The Atlantic Cities.

the evolving nature of the urban curbside

On By Chuck WolfeIn everyday urbanism, infill development, placemaking, sustainability, urban views5 Comments

In the images above, the historic American yard and parking strip reappear as balcony and roof garden in an urban condominium setting on the left. Meanwhile, as shown on the right, nearby conventional neighborhoods show exposed yard and curbside space beyond mere front lawns.

In the end, what do the images show about American cities, private residential property and the curbside next door?

Today’s post continues as an exclusive entry at Sustainable Cities Collective, “Reading the Eclectic Urban Curbside”, and includes additional text and images. For the remainder, click here.

should cities embrace ‘sandwich board urbanism’?

On By Chuck WolfeIn everyday urbanism, pedestrianism, placemaking, urban views9 Comments

Rethinking allowed uses in city rights-of-way can change the look and feel of streets in unexpected fashion—especially when the focus is on more than the ambiance of sidewalk cafes, benches or clocks. One example is the impact of sandwich board signs, something I first noticed last year when researching the key role of corners in reconsidering neighborhood spaces.

Sandwich board signage, also known as “A-frames”, can be easily traced to nineteenth century urban roots. Local businesses rely on them for advertising and wayfinding, although they often impede the pedestrian traffic around them, block sight lines, or distract the vehicular traffic passing by.

Like sidewalk cafes, sandwich boards are making a comeback. Often prohibited in the past, they are now permitted, but regulated in scope. In many cities, such as Aspen, Colorado, the approach replaces the outright prohibition with specific conditions in certain parts of the city:

Sandwich board signs are intended for special sales, the advertisement of unique menus or offerings at restaurant establishments, and for businesses that are difficult to locate. Only one (1) sandwich board sign is permitted per business and a permit must be obtained. The size is not to exceed six (6) square feet per side. These signs are only permitted for retail and restaurant businesses within the CC and C-1 zone districts. Restaurants may use one (1) sandwich board sign if it is located on adjacent private property. Additionally, sandwich board signs may be used continuously by those locations identified on the City of Aspen Sandwich Board Sign Location Map. Amendments to the map may be made administratively by the Community Development Director.

Elsewhere, such as Seattle, sign dimensions and locations are similarly prescribed, subject to street use permit application processes, location criteria and fees ($146 for the first year) largely administered by the City’s Department of Transportation.  Generally speaking, businesses are entitled to use them, but questions inevitably arise when the signs are placed at some distance from the business, or in a way that constricts safe passage.

As a lawyer interested in the “on the ground impact” of policy and regulation, in this case I find the picture of implementation more interesting and dynamic than the actual permit criteria.  With a return to a neighborhood base built around multi-modal street life, the images here show sandwich boards as both fascinating symptoms and emblems of the changing city.

Perhaps because of business necessity and the the simple, homespun nature of sandwich boards, users assume flexible placement of such signage is appropriate.  Recently, one Seattle blogger took to moving sandwich boards to the side of sidewalks, reporting those he suspected as illegal. He also expressed ironic concern over potential city liability for any case of trip and fall.

Whether compliant or not (see my earlier essay on the role of “shapes of avoidance” on the landscape), I think the real question is how more random, simple signage such as sandwich boards typifies the popular essence of today’s urbanism. When a sidewalk is “occupied” in a more minimal fashion, is a fee really appropriate? Other than standards assuring public safety, are there aesthetic risks which cities should manage?  In summary is this a market that should largely go unregulated?

If public safety can be assured by simple criteria governing location, timing, size and shape, I offer five criteria for why sandwich boards should stay:

1. Homespun simplicity sells.

2. Artisans need work and small businesses need affordable ways to shine.

3. Well done signs bring character to neighborhood.

4. Sandwich boards can supplement permitted façade signage and increase the prominence of a small business.

5. Perhaps most important, like other forms of pop-up urbanism, removal is an option.

In summary, we should foster and encourage quick fixes that innovate. If done right, aren’t sandwich boards one example that can literally show the way?

All images composed by the author.  Click on each image for more detail.

A similar version of this post first appeared in The Atlantic Cities.

considering rules of evidence for urbanism

On By Chuck WolfeIn everyday urbanism, placemaking3 Comments

Consider the images below of a north Seattle arterial, one from Google Street View, and the other from a personal, street-level photograph. Both images suggest a former residential area now used for small businesses. But are they equally reliable depictions?

Today’s post continues as an exclusive entry at Sustainable Cities Collective, “Writing About Cities: Courtroom Rules or Virtual Frontier?”. For the remainder, click here.

First image courtesy Google Street View. Second image composed by the author.

learning from the ‘High Line’ next door

On By Chuck WolfeIn everyday urbanism, infrastructure, pedestrianism, placemaking, sustainability6 Comments

An abandoned cable car bridge in Seattle (pictured here in multiple views) could carry the same message of reinvention as New York City’s celebrated High Line, the notable elevated railway-turned-park.

In “The Necessity for Ruins” (1980), landscape essayist J.B. Jackson explained that such leftover edifices often inspire us “to restore the world around us to something like its former beauty”.  I’ve often written of Jackson’s advocacy for the use of ruins—not for what we now call “urban exploration” of abandoned places—but to reclaim what worked before.

With Jackson in mind, I often look for walkable, bikeable and transit-oriented places, reminiscent of times gone by. Such places are already inherent in the evolving city around us—remnants of earlier land uses and infrastructure eerily similar to what pundits call for today. These leftovers merge with changing lifestyles, and illustrate firsthand Jackson’s championing of accessible, nostalgic vestiges of an urban past.

In Seattle’s Leschi neighborhood (as illustrated by these photos), the city of 2012 overlays the city of 1930.  As the use of automobiles increased, infrastructure, such as the former cable car bridge, went out of service. In 1940, the cable car line was abandoned and replaced by a bus line.

These images of Frink Park (a portion of the 1903 Olmsted park plan), are consistent with today’s urbanist ideals, and show the juxtaposition of the bridge, bicyclist and pedestrian.  On the old track-bed, a piece of the park now continues, and becomes a trail through the hillside woods above.

How would Jackson interpret the cable car remains? Have they been lost to time, or are they an example of the inspirational reminder which Jackson describes? 

I choose the Jackson view.

Nearby, today’s light rail is assuming the former role of the cable car.  The Sound Transit tracks proceed northward, as the buildout of the region’s light rail system continues. In the next decade, light rail will turn east as well, and cross Lake Washington, not far south of the cable car’s former terminus—a dock for a long discontinued trans-lake ferry.

As Jackson noted, “Ruins provide the incentive for restoration, and for a return to origins”.  So too, they give incentive for finding your own “High Line”, often just next door.

Initial image courtesy of Seattle Municipal Archives. Remainder of images composed by the author. Click on each image for detail.

A similar version of this post first appeared in The Atlantic Cities.