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Hudson Yards is a major new highrise development planned for the west
side of Manhattan, New York. The site was once a railyard. Once both
phases are completed, a total of more than 17 million square feet of
commercial and residential space will be built.
http://www.hudsonyardsnewyork.com/the-story
Well, let's take a look.
The problem with hirise architecture, over the past century or so as I
see it, is generally not the height of the building itself. There's
nothing particularly unpleasant that I find from living or working on
the 48th floor (I once had an office on the 42nd floor in Lower
Manhattan), with some tradeoffs of course, such as generally not being
able to open the windows (although I think the windows do open in the
Empire State Building). Against this, we get some impressive views. In
general, TradCity neighborhoods and hirises don't play well together --
it would be best not to build any more hirises in central Paris -- but
if there is any place that a hirise is more than appropriate, certainly
it is Manhattan, and certainly on the site of an unused railyard in a
prime location.
Thus, this is not really a discussion about whether the
six-stories-or-less pattern of central Paris is superior to the hirises
of Manhattan. In general, I prefer the TradCity in its traditional
form, typically of six stories or less. This pattern is capable of
densities of 100,000 per square mile or greater -- more than Manhattan
-- so there is no particular need for hirises. But, in this case, I
don't think anyone is going to get anywhere with the argument that this
particular site should be built out at six stories instead of ninety,
the height of the tallest building.
So, the question is: how to get the best result possible, for this
particular site, with hirise architecture and 17 million square feet,
or more. I assume more square feet is better, if we can find a good way
to do it.
The basic problem with hirise architecture is at ground level. First,
there is the interaction of the building itself with the street. Often,
hirises meet the street with featureless blank walls of stone or glass,
rather than the storefronts of the Traditional City. But, this is
relatively easy to remedy with a little attention, as demonstrated by
the "pedestal" form of the Empire State Building, and is also fairly
well recognized by architects today.
A more important problem is: what is outside the building. Here we have
two common outcomes:
1) 19th century hypertrophism with
hirises. This
is the present form of Manhattan. Tall buildings are combined with the
original 19th century street pattern, typically a grid, and typically
of very wide "arterial" streets of perhaps 100 feet from building to
building, with sidewalks on either side, perhaps street parking, and
two to four, or more, lanes of automobile traffic.
This is not the worst thing. Since things are still pretty close
together, it is usually easy to get from place to place by walking and
subway. But, the result is typically harsh and ugly, dominated by
several lanes of roaring traffic in the middle, with people huddled
along sidewalks on either side of a "concrete canyon." It is tolerable
for the working day, but people want somewhere more pleasant to relax
and raise their families.
2) 20th century hypertrophism. This
is a combination of hirise buildings with what amounts to a suburban
street pattern. It emerged in the early days of hirise architecture and
also widespread use of the automobile, in the 1920s, and is often
associated with Le Corbusier. The streets get even bigger. Then, to
relieve the unpleasantness of the giant roadways, "green space" buffers
are introduced, thus spreading things out in the form of the suburban
office park. Often, bizarrely, outdoor parking lots become common, a
total contradiction of a very low-value use (outdoor parking) combined
with a very high-value use (hirise building). This form is common in
places like Dubai or Las Vegas. This result is typically very difficult
to walk in, much like lowrise Suburbia, which of course means more cars
and more parking, thus spreading things out still further and making
things yet more unwalkable in the Suburban pattern.
The problem with both of these solutions is that, in either case, the
area outside the building is harsh and inhospitable to people. We
discussed all these topics earlier here:
September 23, 2012: Corbusier Nouveau 3: Really Narrow Streets With
High-Rises
August 26, 2012: Corbusier Nouveau 2: More Place and Less Non-Place
August
19, 2012: Corbusier Nouveau
Recognizing these defects, architects today are striving to combine
hirises with something a little more human-friendly at ground level.
You can see this urge in the design for Hudson Yards. Here's what it
looks like:
Here's an artists' conception of the Eastern Yard Phase I:
My first impression is: not bad. There's something sort of like a park
there. The glass dome marked #9 is actually the entrance to a subway
station, which sure beats a big parking lot. The funny
greenhouse-sort-of-thing marked #7 is a "culture shed." The project
actually connects directly with the popular High Line park, which was
originally an elevated railway leading, naturally, to the railyard.
But, my second impression was: this could be so much better.
How?
Some of my TradCity principles, which we can use here, were that you
should make Places. Places are destinations, where you do something.
October
10,
2009: Place and Non-Place
Streets can be Places, especially Narrow Streets for People which are
dominated by walkers. Arterial streets are hybrids at best: the center
automobile lanes are, of course, totally inhospitable to humans, and
are essentially transportation infrastructure. However, the sidewalks
can be lively Places of a sort, especially if there are a lot of shops
and so forth. On the other hand, a blank and barren street with nothing
to interact with, like a Suburban Hell "stroad", are Non-Places. Other
common non-places are parking lots and Green Space landscaping buffers,
used to break up the endless pavement of automobile roadways and
parking lots.
One problem of Suburbia, and also 20th Century Hypertrophism of the
Courbusier hirise variety, is that nearly all of the outside area is
consumed by Non-Place. It is not a Place for People.
What do we see here?
The parklike areas are certainly better than most Green Space buffers
that you typically see in 20th Century Hypertrophism. This is from
Florida:
In this example, we clearly have some landscaping buffers, along auto
roadways, that can't be considered a "park" in any way. (Actually,
there are something like real parks in behind, on top of what appear to
be multilevel parking garages. So, this example is better than most.)
Here too, we see hirise buildings combined with large roadways, parking
lots and Green Space buffers (they certainly aren't parks), in the
typical 20th Century Hypertrophism format. Like a typical suburban
office park, there's really nothing to do once you step out of the
building except get in a car.
The Hudson Yards example is certainly better than this. I can imagine
going down to that parklike area, sitting down, and enjoying a cup of
coffee during my workday lunch break. I can almost imagine taking my
kids there to play, although I could probably think of some much better
places to go.
But ... is it a park?
Some of the defining characteristics of a park are that:
1) It has a name.
2) The name includes the word "park".
3) It has clear borders.
October
11, 2015: Parks and Squares 4: Smaller Squares
August
16, 2015: Parks and Squares 3: Squares
August
2, 2015: Parks and Squares 2: Smaller and Closer
July
26, 2015: Parks and Squares
And, I would have to say that these parklike areas are not parks. They
are just "parklike."
In other words, they are filler.
There is one small part that is labeled "Hudson park and boulevard."
That is a name (rather uncreative alas), and it does include the word
"park." However, I would say that it falls a little short of a real
park, just from its appearance and form. The architects themselves
probably sensed this, which is why they couldn't quite call it a "park"
with a straight face, and instead called it a "park and boulevard."
The second odd thing here is the big street (actually two streets,
crossing). The plan seems to include an extension of Hudson Boulevard
East.
A better solution, in my opinion, would be to eliminate 33rd street and
Hudson Boulevard south of 34th street. I bet they could get the city to
agree to that. Why do we have an automobile roadway here? All of the
buildings have
access to existing streets around the perimeter. Nobody needs to drive
through the middle.
Is the sole purpose for "33rd street" so that someone can drive from
10th Avenue to 11th Avenue without having to go all the way to 34th
street?
Why bother to extend Hudson Boulevard to the south? The answer, I
think, is that the street is filler. The architects just
had this blank between the buildings, and so they started filling it up
with doodles, a sort-of-park and a street-nobody-needs. It is,
actually, just a little different than the Florida example above.
If you can't think of anything better, I say: make more buildings. Make
another ten million square feet of space where people can live and
work. Ten million square feet is enough for ten thousand 1000sf
apartments. Let ten thousand more families walk to work via High Line
Park instead of commuting from New Jersey. Let the developers make
oodles and boodles more money. Don't waste the space on a
street-nobody-needs.
But, here's another proposal:
First, get rid of the streets.
Now, take essentially all of the area between the buildings (except for
the narrow corridor-like places), and make
a real park.
Give it a name. I suggest the name of the developer's wife. Call it the
Mariann Williamson Park.
Then, give it clear boundaries.
Now, take this park, and make it the
best park in New York City.
New York City has some pretty nice parks. Think of your ten favorite
parks in New York. So, just like that, but better of course.
Make it the kind of place that is on the Top Ten Places To Visit In New
York in a French tourist's guidebook.
Make it the kind of place that, if some architect suggested you call it
the "Mariann Williamson Park and Boulevard," you would burst out
laughing, just before you fired them.
Of course, it might not actually be the best park in New York City.
But, if you tried, it would still probably be pretty good. And, I think
you can tell the difference between the
best park in New York City,
whatever image that phrase generates in your imagination, and this
filler-greenery that we can't quite manage to call a "park."
Now, try to imagine what that would be like. Instead of this
sort-of-park and a street-nobody-needs, you can take the elevator down
from your apartment or office on the 57th floor, and step out the door
into the best park in New York City.
Can you imagine how wonderful that would be?
Look again at the second picture above, the concept of the existing
plan. In your imagination, erase eveything in between the buildings and
replace it with the best park in New
York City.
Pretty different, isn't it.
Now, I could go down the elevator with my six-year old, and without
even having to cross one street, step directly into the best park in New York City,
where she can play all day with all the other kids with similarly lucky
families, and I can be so happy that I chose this place to live, this
one place so obviously superior to all other places, where I can go to
the park without even having to cross Fifth Avenue.
And ... that's it. It is really just a matter of getting architects to
stop this filler-doodling and instead make some Real Places for People.
In the end, these are minor tweaks. But, I think my version is much
better. And, we got there by applying our Traditional City design
principles.
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